Lots happening: I have been trying to tie up loose ends with stuff that needs to be done around the house. Ryan B. and I (anyone else want to help?) will be roofing the enclosed porch next week. I just mowed and created an extension in the yard to the natural channel we have for water...I took down (removed soil from) the center of the hill in one spot to connect the low part of our yard near the house to the low part of that channel. I hope it works because it looks "canal-like." Our cellphones keep being flaky, so we finally bought a new phone (an SDA) on ebay (t-mobile's offers are horrible considering that they lock you in for 2 years--t-mobile is nowhere near as over-the-top about customer service and giving breaks as they used to be). We are also getting the basement done (steel beams to reinforce the walls before there are any major issues (it is cheap insurance, considering the stories I have heard about other basements in this neighborhood) and a drain tile extension to take care of a minor amount of dampness before enclosing a wall).

After all of that, I am also planning on putting glass block windows into the basement to replace the rusted out original casement windows that are leaky and all-around lousy. There is near-house soil grading to do too. Man, it makes me wish we were renting. I am moving on the dissertation too.

Work was almost nice today. People were asking real questions and we were very productive. The team at Maritz also picked up on an idea I threw out and they are wanting me to work on it to deliver it to the client. It ain't much, but anything that makes my work there seem noticed or worthwhile goes a long way.

I did the "ATF trick" to clean the engine this weekend. I was blowing smoke--James Bond style--for about 20 minues in the garage and then about 100 miles beyond that. It was crazy and really annoying to those driving behind me. I guess that is why it is important to not have oily stuff in your exhaust manifold. Speaking of Civic fun, today is Casey's bday--I hope it was a good one, eh!

Papercuts

Wow. What a cool artform! Give it 2 minutes and you will be amazed.
http://www.oncotton.co.uk/peter/index/A4PAPERCUT_000.htm


In other news, Mo was over yesterday on the last day of his trip to his old grad school territory (he was doing research here, of course). We all had a good get together (or first meeting, in the case of Joel). I miss Mo a lot...he is in Portland now.

This is from LAST weekend, when I decided to let the grass grow so we could go the the orchard. It was a good decision, and the grass didn't mind. Joel loved the "off the tree" peaches and apples. We walked around with him in a state of feeding/fructose overload for quite a while. We went up to an orchard in Erie, MI, and I think we may go back. The apples were plentiful, delicious, and cheap. They also had plums, peaches, blueberries, and some tomatoes and misc vegetables. The coolest thing was the peaches. They were awesome fresh. The blueberries were too picked-over to get enough to buy, but the handful we picked were fantastic.

This past week or two has been fantastically busy. I really don't have any spare time for much of anything, but the house will be ready for winter. I edged back the sidewalk for the first time in probably 10 years--it had lost about half of its width in some places. Sealed some roof stuff, did some electrical stuff, organization, added a basement window well around the crawlvent, graded that area well and then graded the area near the dinette (which had a horrible slope toward the house). I understand now why breaking soil by hand was such hard work.

I really wish we would have bought a house that needed less work. I took a dissertation day on Wednesday and came up with what I hope will be the "homerun" proper diagram for describing the mechanisms, assumptions, and models that take place in my study. Now it is just a matter of integrating all of that information into the paper. Time. I really need time.

I also just got an offer to do some contract work (on the side). It pays well, but it is hard to throw anything else on the plate. I looked through everything we were given by the previous owners. We have nothing about the roofing that was done! Next week, Ryan (B., from across the street) and I are going to be replacing about half of the roof over the screened-in porch...I think. On top of everything else, this week is going to be super-busy at work. I haven't had a high-profile job for a few weeks, and now I have 2 important "they JUST came up" jobs in the course of 2 days, with "regular" work due shortly after those.

On the good side, Anne made some really good hommus and everything else is good (nothing new breaking, besides the roof). I am a happy guy for that.

It has been a while. We were all sick last week. I got it from work, then Joel got it, and Anne is just now getting over it. It was a really bad time, especially for being just a cold. Anne's parents and brother were in town over the weekend and it was wonderful to catch up on sleep, be sick and not busy, and to do some house stuff. This picture shows 3 of the projects: Anne's dad taught me some wiring stuff and we added a switch to the wall of the basement and 4 florescent lights to the ceiling. No more wondering in and fishing around blindly for a pull chain! I also made that new door on the crawl space (it even has foamboard insulation). The old one was disintegrating so much that it no longer covered the hole well--and was messy too. Just to the left of the cover handle is the box I added to control whether speaker input goes upstairs or downstairs...in other words, we can listen to whatever is on the stereo from the basement now too. I also tore up a poorly-landscaped part of land and graded the soil from it (by doing so, I discovered a crawlspace vent that was covered with many inches of dirt and leaked like crazy because it was not well graded). I am almost glad I was sick so I could excuse my tired head from dissertationing and get this house work done.

Joel is saying "la" (pretty much) and "da" (almost definitely). He claps. He giggles. He drools like he belongs in Yellowstone. Man, I love that kid.