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Summertime

It's summertime and free time is at a premium. Jane still isn't unemployed as scheduled, but CPA cramming has begun. The pool is open and we've been fighting over the AC. The power has been out six times in the last 24 hours (accompanied by transformer booms and other wild electrical sounds) and I haven't made much progress on the basement.

I was able to get the front gutters cleaned, the back gutters fixed, the upstairs faucet fixed and the bathroom door now can close (an increasingly important thing around here). We went to Scott's birthday cookout, dropped in on Chris' birthday at El Vaquero, had a Father's day brunch and finished the day with a picnic at the pool.

Bobby's glad that he doesn't know what day it is, Joey is memorizing jokes, Ellie has to be throttled back on her summer workbook, and Fin walked halfway down the street all by herself without telling anyone she'd left ("I didn't cross the street." she said through tears).

Ahh, summertime.

Good news is that Comfest is coming, and the music schedule is posted.

Weekend

More money is spent. Framing has begun. I've got one and 3/4 walls done at the moment, as I've hit the complex framing around the gas and water meters. It is entirely within reason that the stud walls will be finished next weekend, and then roughing in electric, insulation and finally drywall. 105" diagonal screen here we come.

Dandelion Season

This was from before the rain.

Long, busy, fun but not restful weekend. Soccer is over. A party was had. Mother's day came and went. I got Jane laundry baskets. We had a tornado warning.

Weekend Wrapup

Progress

Here's what we accomplished last evening. Yesterday morning was spent removing the shelves which were on the left.

The saws and WorkMate are in the driveway and Ellie's bugging me to start hammering pieces together.

Basement

Subfloor. It's the beginning.

Blizzard Sledding

I can't believe it's only 2PM. This is the most we've gotten done on a Saturday in a long time. Here's Ellie after an hour of sledding and tunneling and general rolling around in the snow. A ton more pictures are here, and I'll have some video up later today. All of our clothes are in the dryer now and we're thinking about naps and movies and such.

The snow on the other hand, is still coming.

Blizzard

Joey somehow managed to get some clothes on while tumbling down the stairs to run out the snow. We had to keep pulling him back into the house to put on a hat and gloves, and boots and other unnecessary things. He headed out with the yardstick to measure points of 10 and 15 inches. This was at 8AM. The snow is still pouring out of the sky, and is expected to keep going on all day.

I sense a great disturbance in the Force

One of the great, immutable Laws of the Universe, upon which I've based much of my sanity, was shattered on Sunday evening. At Colleen and Big Adam's (and Jonas') Superbowl party, my cousin Colleen presented Jane with not one, but two staple guns.

You see, there is a Law of the Universe that I am not allowed to posess a staple gun. (Brian just hit the comment button that his mouse broke). I've owned somewhere in the vacinity of 500 staple guns in my life, but don't have a single one in my house (except the one I borrowed from Brian). They just seem to wander out into the world of their own accord. Over the years, I've come to peace with this, and have neither mourned the loss of staple guns, nor sought for their return.

The return of one of my staple guns, along with the contribution of an additional staple gun has turned the world upside-down. I am now a man rich with staple guns (including those borrowed from others) and deeply tempted to brazenly display my riches.

Good thing that Lent is coming early. Perhaps I'll give up staple guns and return to my state of peace with the world. That, and that Brian should get over here and get his staple gun before the world collapses on itself.

Food

I wants it, but I can'ts have it, at least not a lot of it. Jane and I stopped at Aladdin's for take out after going out for a movie. She had a splitting headache from taking the dog for a huge walk and waiting till 9PM for dinner, but we got out for a bit which was nice.

It is amazing what the simple act of logging what you eat does to your habits. This is the brilliant part of the Weight Watcher's "Points" system. This is the third time I've put myself back on a system (using an amazing, but hugely illegal piece of software) and each time the "Boy, I would have just eaten that without thinking" moments have blown me away. Now to start exercising....

Ellie's Library Card

Like most families of the 21st century, we have rules for our children based on random Arthur episodes. Today's example is that our kids can't get library cards until they can write their names on the card. Ellie, was struck with a schme today and while jumping up and down asked Jane "Mom, can you write my last name down on a piece of paper so I can copy it and get my library card?" As you can see, she was allowed to get away with Ellie O'S, written left to right, for those noticing such things.

ecto says I'm listening to California Über Alles from the album "Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables" by Dead Kennedys

Transformers

Saw it tonight with the boys. I was about two weeks late, but we got to see it at Studio 35, with pizza, a couple pints of draft Arrogant Bastard, micro-brew rootbeer, and pizza.

Boy rating: Awesome!! We'll see it again.

Joey giggled maniacally after each inappropriate joke, and I got to teach them the history of the rocket hop.

All in all a good night out.

Paintshaver update

Jane and I took out most of the lower half of the weathered side of the house yesterday. The contrast between the failing paint and the relatively thin coat of primer is pretty amazing. We haven't gotten the pump jacks yet, but I did buy an 8' expandable scaffolding stage, which we propped between two sawhorses and two ladders to work on some areas more easily than on a ladder alone. Just to give you an idea of how well this thing is doing, I emptied my 12-gal shopvac three times yesterday (when it was ~3/4 full). There was still a mess to clean up, but I'm guessing that ~90% of what I cut went into the vacuum.

We also tested an area of the shingles on the top of the house. There's much less paint up there, so it cut the paint right away. The shingles are much easier to gouge though.

Much more work in three weeks, when we'll have the ladder jacks and the sprayer.

Four important points about the PaintShaver:

• Don't mess with the Phillips-head screws inside the body. These are to set the depth of the blades at the lead edge of the tool body, and adjust the top-bottom bias of the cut. The blades should be below the body of the tool at the lead edge and cut a backwards-C shape in a piece of scrap wood when properly adjusted. The hex-head adjusting screw adjusts the depth of cut in the C. The vacuum fitting is designed so that the cutter should throw the majority of the waste into the vacuum. Once I got this re-adjusted the tool is noticeably easier to use. (reference photo coming)
• This thing eats blades. If you are buying one for any substantial use, get the extra blades.
• Forget the vacuum hose that comes with the Pro kit, it is too short to be useful. Buy a 1 1/4" ID hose for a pool vacuum. I got a 30' one for ~$35 shipped.
• BE CAREFUL!! I stupidly didn't wait for the blades to spin down all the way before placing my hand over the business-end of the tool to check to see that the vacuum was still sucking and tore the hell out of the meaty part of my thumb. I'm extremely lucky that I didn't have to get stitches or cut through anything important.

ecto says I'm listening to All Neon Like from the album "Bjork & Brodsky Quartet" by Björk

Alia iacta est.

Money has been spent. Equipment has been specified.

I'm going to strip the house down to wood and paint it.

Actually, nature and a new furnace have done some of the work for me. The house probably never had a humidifier inside before, and moisture migrating though the empty wall cavities has been causing the paint to simply fall off in chunks. The foam insulation that we had put in earlier this year now acts as a vapor barrier, preventing the moisture from moving though the walls, but the damage is done.

The plan so far is to use the Paint Shaver to remove, and vacuum up all of the paint. Then we finish sand out the gouges from the paint shaver, then spray oil-based primer, then two coats of gloss latex topcoat.

Piece of cake, right?

ecto says I'm listening to Southern Band from the album "SXSW 2007 Showcasing Artists" by Bang Bang Bang

Ohio's "Civil Registry" of sex offenders, an answer for the naked photographer?

Tim, at peoplehavethepower.org is miffed that the Ohio Legisature's Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review approved the rules for Ohio's first-in-the-nation "Civil Registry" of sex offenders, and I think that he's missing a key point.

The registry allows prosecutors, judges, and in some cases victims to have an offender placed on the Registry, and effectively treated like a registered sex offender.  This concept came out of the Ohio Legislature's unprecedented capitulation to the Catholic Church earlier this year when they refused to lift the statute of limitations on sexual molestation lawsuits, so that victims intimidated into silence by the Church could sue. 

While I agree that the registry's no-conviction standard is wrong (and probably unconstitutional), it does give victims a chance to correct wrongs visited on them by weasel prosecutors who make backroom deals to keep undeserving criminals off of the sex offendor rolls.

Free Lustron houses

Here's just a little window into my particular insanity:
This Treehugger entry set the whole thing off. It seems that the Department of the Navy is giving away 58 of the 60 Lustron homes on Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia.

Sane people, if they even know what a Lustron house is, think "Ah. Interesting." and move on.

Not me. First, after sizing up my backyard, I start to think of people I know who have lots of land. Maybe it would make a nice guest house for someone. The link haunts me. I look up the Wikipedia entry. I look at enthusiast sites.

Nevermind that each Lustron house was delivered from the factory in a custom-designed semi trailer.

I put in a reservation at the library for the Lustron documentary. I plot out a trip to see the Lustron homes in my neighborhood. I look up Lustron tagged pictures on Flickr.

There are many reasons I'm not allowed to carry the checkbook. This is only one.....

Good news, and bad news

As you can see, the bath tub is done. Proper cement backerboard has been installed and tiles have been re-attached with proper thinset mortar. The whole thing has been re-grouted and all is well. Maybe now the plaster ceiling in our dining room will stop dropping chunks of paint. As you can also see, Jane wrecked her car today. Thankfully, everyone is okay. Joey got a bit knocked around by the impact, but was given a clean bill of health by the paramedics. He's been burping as loud as he can all afternoon, so we figure he's okay.

Oh Crap!

As I told Molly earlier tonight: If I find any of you attaching tile, especially tile in a bathroom, directly to plaster, I'll kill you where you stand.

This project started out, as a plan to re-grout the shower. I figured that there was a chance that some tiles would pop off, but I didn't figure that it would be this bad. The plaster, in some places was the consistency of cake frosting, and the oak lathe boards under the plaster are rotten, but it looks much worse than it actually is.

Hopefully, with some carefully applied bracing and cement backerboard, we'll be up and going in a day or two.

Well, at least neither of us paid for an MCSE

Scott seems to have gotten some good out of the whole experience, though...

Thought I was gone, didn't you?

Nope, just flipping busy. Four kids, demanding end-of-fiscal at work, Jane in class four nights a week, and coaching soccer two of those.

Just a little busy.

Soccer is over, as the year at work so, we can breathe a bit now, at least for a few minutes before we host Thanksgiving two days after Ellie's birthday.

More, with pictures after the fold.

No Soccer today

It's too damn wet and cold. The fields are flooded and they've called of the games.

Here's to the potential of a productive Saturday:

Post a ton of stuff on eBay
Play with my new film scanner.
Spend some kid-free time with Jane.

ecto says I'm listening to Black HOney from the album "SXSW 2005 Showcasing Artist" by Mainline (IRE)

Not tonight

Might have posted tonight, but I replaced my neighbor's sump pump instead.

ecto says I'm listening to No Myth from the album "March" by Michael Penn

Ohio, November 2 7:44PM

Wait times in polling places close to me are in the 3+ hour range, but spirits are high and things are friendly. Rumors have lines in minority/poor areas of Columbus (notably Linden) at 5 hours.

At 7:30, Ohio law states that no voters may get in line. Everyone in line at 7:30 votes. At 3-5 hours, some key precincts are not going to be reporting until very late.

The DNC filed at 5:50PM to keep the polls open.

The above story has been updated to show that the court has ordered Franklin and Knox counties to provide paper ballots to anyone in line who wants them to speed up the voting. This doesn't extend the hours, but helps get people done faster.

Be sure to read the last paragraph of the above article.

Ohio, November 2 Whetstone Rec. Center, before the polls

Line of over 400 people waiting outside the Whetstone Rec. Center before the polls opened at 6:30AM today.

Photo by Jay LaPrete of the Associated Press.

Clintonville! F*#@ Yeah!!

Not only did I have an out-of-town union canvasser say that this was the easiest street he'd ever worked, but I got to entertain him with our local bozo's sign display. He's the third person I've sent up the street to get their photographic souvenir from Ohio, the edjumacashon state. This guy has had this sign up for most of the year, and still seems proud of his lack of spelling skills. He's got to have figured out by now, as he has four or five other signs in his yard that are spelled correctly. Of course, this is the same guy who didn't get his letter to the editor published in the local paper, so he hand delivered it to everyone on the street.

Just on counting signs, the street leans 5-1 Kerry.

The real reason I decided to regale you with reasons that I love my neighborhood, is that the skaterats who live over by our old house have decided to apply their well-honed carpentry skills to seige machines!

I'm tellin' ya. There's nothing more comforting than finding a working catapult in a neighbor's driveway. I'm going to have to see if they take pumpkin donations.

ecto says I'm listening to Straight To Hell from the album "Combat Rock" by The Clash

DAMMIT!!

Why does my asshat neighbor have to FUCKING BLOW DRY HIS LAWN WITH A TWO STROKE MOTOR (think a chainsaw, but louder, and constant) every damn time he mows his lawn. You know if he was primping his lawn to move, I'd have no problem, but this weird sort of vanity is normal for him.

Oh, well, more slugs and dead mice over the fence to him......

ecto says I'm listening to Round Song from the album Luxor by Robyn Hitchcock

Our Tree

Before:

After:

This is our new Saucer Magnolia from Oakland Nursery here in Columbus. It is the only tree on our property, hopefully the first of many.

Sadly, planting the tree did nothing to alleviate the current placenta glut in our chest freezer. Jane suggests that we have a midnight ceremony with the garden out back...

Quickies

Lots of ground to cover:

The spoiled little hoodlum that used to live behind us and down a few houses is going to grown-up jail for 18 years. Now, the real question will be if anyone will investigate his rumored history of sweetheart deals for juvenile offenses.....

Ellie is feeling much better, thank you. Barfing is not fun for little adventure princesses.

Joey's last day of UU SYC pre-school was today. He is quite proud of his "membry" book. Let the summer of playdates begin.

Soccer is over until fall. I'll be coaching again for Whetstone Rec. league, as Bobby's school season is really short. I might be coaching for Bobby's school too. We had a nice party at our house after our last game on Saturday (our first rain game, BTW) with maybe 37 kids all over the place. We also got the kids trophies with their names on them, much to the shock of some of our parents. The ones with kids that will go on to Pee-Wee division with Bobby and Adam mounted a concerted effort to get me to coach again, and are now working with Jane to keep as much of the team together as possible.

Baby Finn is keeping up her/his efforts to completely exhaust Jane. Finn is also apparently quite sensitive to being spoken about, as he/she nearly jumped out of Jane (think Aliens) after one of our midwives got a 130bpm pulse and commented that the baby must be asleep. Ellie also showed some interest during tonight's visit, standing next to Jane during the exam and patting her gently.

Ellie may have been trying to make up for breaking Jane's iBook. Thank god for AppleCare. We'll take a trip to the Apple Store tomorrow night.

Okay, enough for now. Gotta get some sleep before the kids start waking up at 2am....

ecto says I'm listening to Just Like U Said It Would B from the album The Lion And The Cobra by Sinead O'Connor

Our Neighbors Love Us

That is if by love you mean that our unmowed backyard, littered with kids toys and now featuring a wonderful redwood fort/swingset, meshes beautifully with their bamboo, raked gravel, arched bridge, fountains, concrete Michaelangelo's David and meditation gong that they decided this morning to extend the seven foot high privacy fence all the way to the back of the yard without saying a word to us. Interestingly, this comes a mere two weeks since I re-assembled the fort right next to the non-privacy section of their fence.

To provide a contrast, the fort came from the best neighbor in the whole damned world, who lives on the other side of our house.

Priorities

At our new Giant Eagle, Ramen Noodles rate aisle signage.

ecto says I'm listening to O'Donnell's Lament - Reel With The Beryle from the album Long Journey Home by Eileen Ivers

Quickies

In the grand scheme of things, the blog is rather low priority. Don't have time for this but, hey.

Cool new Bluetooth Update from Apple. Now I can use my Sony Ericsson Bluetooth headsets with the iMac and iChat. Must begin campaign to move my sisters to iChat/AIM, that way Molly and I can be equal to the other kids.

Jane is borderline sick, which she hates. School is eating her up, and she isn't sleeping well. So I kicked her out of the house! Well, I convinced her to pack up some schoolwork, some tea and a book and go camp out at her mothers for Friday night and most of Saturday. Wish I could give her more, but I think that the rest will help.

In the meantime, the kids and I are going to have Pizza, Beer and Movie night. Joey is already making a list of Batman movies, and insisting that he gets to drink his root beer from the bottle!

Meeting at work on Monday turned out to be nothing. I had bad intel.

This blog isn't about my work, but damn sometimes I wish I had one of those anonymous blogs so it could be.

If I have to spend another week averaging 4 hours a day in the car, I'm getting the damn iPod. I had to listen the Christian financial investment radio show earlier this week.

eBay progress goes slowly. Damn scammer ruined an auction for me and put me another week from getting the cash for my old cell phone.

Snowball has an airport question hanging out there that I can't answer. Mark? Chris? It sounds simple, but I've never played with an Airport.

Anne's story of what her inlaws did to her family takes me back to a certain incident with surprise ear piercings.

Ooops! The North Broadway and High project just tanked. Looks like nothing is going to happen. Maybe Colleen and Adam's neighbors and everyone else who wants the 'Ville to be much more swanky can just move their SUV-driving asses to Grandview which, BTW, they can't afford.

Going to Arizona week after next for training. Better not be 50 degrees and raining.

Aparently, our draconian "Defense" of Marriage Act, is okay with the citizens of Ohio because Fox News is so popular. No, really, that's what one of our moron state senators actually said to Ohio Public Radio.

Heading to bed, talk amongst yourselves....

ecto says I'm listening to They Don't Call Them Chihuahuas Anymore from the album Sport Fishin’ by Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet

Ug

Still alive. We've had a rough week. Ellie's been sick and not sleeping, thus destroying everyone else's sleep cycle. She's better now.

Gotta pack it in, early meeting at work that may have major surprises. Can't get my hopes up, but I should be there.

More stories tomorrow, including my mom Google stalking the person with the MUSCLGRL license plate...

ecto says I'm listening to The Family And The Fishing Net from the album Peter Gabriel by Peter Gabriel

Love my neighborhood

Because nobody blinks at a sports car with a vanity plate "MUSCLGRL" a rainbow sticker and another sticker that proclaims "A hard woman is good to find."

I am not this creepy....

Okay, Mark proves again why I should be properly located behind the camera rather than in front of it. For the record, Ellie was exhausted and I was trying to talk her into putting her head on my shoulder and sleeping.

More updates later. Hopefully with pictures of the army of Batman figures and some raving about my new JBL Creatures.

Merry Christmas everyone! Visit the card!

Issue 78, in which Molly talks smack and Jane and Dave Barry find a link for Snowball

Rather than waste my time reading Dave Barry's weblog, I let Jane read it. It helps keep up my reputation as a ruthlessly efficient person who doesn't spend time diddling around on the compu.......... oh, wait a minute.

Either how, Jane just jumped on my computer and brought up this page. It reminded me instantly of Snowballs's post about ugly Christmas light displays. I think that we should all contribute to both Santa and Snowball's quest for the ugliest display.

In related Christmas light news, Molly, who is not flying in from Oakland this year to set up my parents' lights at 279 decided to talk a little smack about both my weblog and my house:

From: Molly O'Shaughnessy
Subject: lights
Date: December 12, 2003 12:41:54 AM EST
To: bob

and you talk trash about my lights. put these up on your blog and let your 2 readers vote. tie-breaker: we made our own wreath. did you make your own wreath? HA!

Okay, here is Molly's house (and wreath), it is a little blurry because of an earthquake out there in Oakland, or maybe she's shivering in the 60 degree weather, or maybe she's shaking after braving the steep heights of her roof......

Christmas Lights

Not bad for ~$10 of lights from Home Depot. The key, you see, is to buy them from the clearance rack in early January.

I wonder how things look in Oakland?

Take that Kroger!

Good news for us 'Villebillies! The evil Kroger grocery empire has been beaten out by the (maybe) not quite so evil Giant Eagle grocery empire in the bankruptcy court auction for a number of Columbus Big Bear stores, including our south Clintonville store. They also got the German Village store, but interestingly, there is no mention of the Graceland mega-store. More bad news for Graceland.

For those of you who can log into the utterly worthless Columbus Dispatch site (motto: Certainly not worth $4.95/mo) they have a story here. For those of you who can't log in, don't feel left out.

Also, via CalPundit, I've found another reason to hate Kroger: It seems that since their Ralph's chain isn't being picketed in southern California, they are sharing proffits with the grocery chains that are being picketed, in a mutual-aid agreement. According to The Cincinnati Business Courier and The Merc California's attorney general is looking into the matter.

Too busy to blog

Quickly:

It is nice out, therefore I must rake leaves, wash the cars and clean out my car.

Ellie is one, as of yesterday. Pictures soon. Can't believe it's been a year.

Only one trip to the ER since last entry. I'm never allowed to leave town again.

Details of airport experience coming.

Howto on iTunes playlist -> TypeList coming soon.

Found an RSS aggregator for my Clié. Post coming.

Thanksgiving dinner at 279 is no longer going to be soup and pizza. Darn.

Bobby has been playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater4. He's walking around singing AC/DC's "TNT" all day now.

Trick or Treat!!!

Obi-Wan, Batman and padawan learner Zimba-Ki hit Piedmont and Dunedin for trick or treat on Thursday. Batman set the tone for the night by shaking his pumpkin bucket at the first person who gave him candy (only one piece) and saying "it isn't full yet!"
One block later, Joey could barely carry his bucket.
Only two trick-or-treat events of note in the neighborhood: The people down the street where Fredonia ends left their dogs out in their front yard and left while the kids were out. They got lucky and came home right when the Animal Control trucks pulled up. I hope that they got the message. The other thing that happened was that one of Bobby's schoolmates at Immaculate Conception got handed a Chick Tract. Yeesh!

Bat Update

Found at least one.

UPDATE: I'm a dumbass (not news to most of you). Link fixed.

Where the hell are my bats?

Confirming what everyone in the area already knows, local health officials report that the mosquito population is 50 to 100 times what it should be.
For all the care we take to keep unneeded chemicals away from members of this family, I'm ready to bomb the neighborhood with pesticides. The kids got eaten alive over the weekend, and we haven't let them out since. I had to kill five mosquitos in my car before driving to work, and looking out over the yard at 8:30am, with dew still on the windshield, I could see tons of 'em flying around.
As soon as they are gone, my bat box project goes into full swing. In the mean time, I might take up smoking.

Crime in the 'Ville

While this doesn't touch the Ninja murder of former Miss Gay Ohio, Brazon up the street last year, here's another gruesome crime close to home. The little hoodlum who lives behind us between stints in Juvie and boot camp, is probably going to face adult murder charges.
Truth is, I really had no idea what kind of mess this kid was. All I knew was that he felt free wandering through my back yard and my neighbors' as well. I caught him once and yelled at him about it. It inconvenienced him so much he actually had to put his cell phone down.
It should be interesting to see if the string of garage and car break-ins in the neighborhood stops. Between the Triplett kid being in the can, and the Riverside homeless crew being afraid of Piedmont, we should be in good shape.
UPDATE: I'm a dumbass (not acutual news to many of you) and the Dispatch requires a username and password to get into their worthless site. If you unmunge the following email address dispatch at fideaux dot dyndns dot org and use the password 'nikon' you can get in.
I'll save the rant on the depths of worthlessness of their site for another entry.