Memorial Day - Drywall started.

I was a little surprised today when Eagle Drywall showed up to work on our kitchen and Nate's bedroom ceiling. They did say they would show up on Monday but I had thought they had forgot it was Memorial day.

It only took them a half day to tape up both rooms, scrape the ceilings and put one coat on. Hopefully tomorrow they will finish up and then we can start painting Nate's room.

The summer heat has finally arrived

This week I learned that the saying "When it rains it pours" applies to heat as well. In less than a couple of days the temperature jumped from 85 to 99! It was definitly a challenge to mow the lawn Saturday. Hopefully it won't get much hotter this summer but I'm not holding my breath.

I had to replace our mailbox this morning. Earlier this week I think someone parked too close to it and hit it with their vehicle and dented the mailbox. I don't think it was vandalism because if someone used a bat they would have completely taken off the mailbox (this was just a two inch dent). Next time I get another mailbox I will probably get a lighter color. Combined with the heat the mailbox became blisteringly hot before I could get it completely screwed on!

Hopefully we will get the powered vents on top of the house hooked up this week and that will help cool the house some. Every little bit helps.

Nate and I got haircuts this morning. I will try and get the before and after pics of Nate posted later this week.

One thing I learned is that Primer definitly helps paint stick! I was trying to peel off the latex paint off the aluminum paint shield I used when spraying the house and on the back side it peeled right off but on the front side where there was some primer on it I could not peel it off that easily. I will probably end up scraping it off with a razor blade.

Painting the house - Part 3

Well I got a coat of paint over everything that needed paint, and a few things that didn't. Jim (my neighbor - professional painter) loaned me his power painter and I was able to knock out the rest of the painting in no time!

Hopefully the gutters will be installed today and then we can focus on the next task - getting Nate's room done.

Painting the house - Part 2

Well I borrowed a power sprayer from my neighbor (see poor plumber post) and got out my old paint sprayer out and cleaned up and painted the garage and workshop. I still need to put in one more coat and then paint under the areas that the gutters are going back in but I should be able to finish that up this weekend if it does not rain.

The poor plumber

There is an old saying that an poor plumber blames his tools. Well today I learned a corollary of that - With the right tools even a poor plumber can do a good job.

Today I was painting the trim on the house (where the gutters are going to be - read prior postings) and I took Friday off - which was good because it took me the whole day to chip the loose old paint off. This morning I used a big roller brush to apply the primer and it did a horrid job. So for the real paint I decided to use a rush. About two hours later I was not even halfway done when my neighbor Jim drives up. Jim paints houses on the side when he has some free time and wants to generate some extra cash) and he brings over a small diameter roller (about a half inch compared to the to inch diameter roller I was using earlier and mannnn I got the rest of the house done in a half hour flat.

I promised Jim next time I will knock on is door before I start any more painting projects.

The Roof, favorite pictures, an arguement for the dark side

The insurance adjustors were over Wednesday and they totalled the roof - which is good because now we only have to pay for the deductable and upgrades. That is very good because it was going to cost way more to replace our roof than I imagined (we are talking somewhere around the $13k range).

For upgrades we are getting powered ridge vents to replace the three turbines. The roof contractor did the math and said for the size roof we had we would need seven turbines! I wished we could have gotten non powered vents but we don't have enough ridgeline over the main portion of the house. Also while they are working on the roof we are getting the gutters replaced - the front is barely holding on and we are extending the ones in the back.

As far as our website goes I have just went through the pics from 2005 and 2004 and put my favorites in the photogallery. When I get a chance I will go through the prior years and perhaps cull down the pictures some.

Today I had my one-on-one with my new manager. He's new because its the first time I am a direct report to him. I have worked with him for about four years, half of that time he was a developer. Its sad to me when developers (good ones anyway) go into management, its a waste of a good programmer, even if they become good or better managers its still sad to me. I all but said that to him during the one-on-one and his theory was that as management he has a better chance of getting his voice heard higher up in the chain of command - any of you who have told your boss something needed to be done a certain way and they go off to a meeting with other managers and come back and decide to do it completely different can relate. Plus you get to run things your way (from loose to micromanagement - as long as you don't raise the ire of HR they give you a free hand). I had to admit that the arguements made logical sense though for now I will stick with programming and let the managers have their headaches.