Exterior complete!

I originally built my back porch in stages, so it was a hodgepodge of construction.  The walls, which started out simply as a railing, were right at ground level, so I had water coming under it.  They weren’t insulated and because they did help buffer my bedroom from the cold I decided to rebuild them this summer.

I put a footer down  to keep the water out, and built it with normal 2x4 construction so I can insulate the walls.  I also put in 3 actual windows, before they were just screens that I would cover with plastic to help keep out the cold.

I just finished the exterior today, put the shingles on the roof of the little end piece I just closed in.  Here are some before & after pictures.

It may look very similar, but that’s because I reused all the cedar I could salvage from the destruction phase.  Next summer I’m going to re do the roof, put a real one on it, and then I’ll also cover up that really nice linoleum that is showing.

The good part is that the rest of the work I need to do is inside the porch which, with a swamp cooler, stays nice and cool.

Where’s Waldo?

Sittin’ here looking around on the internet and I notice flashing red lights outside the front window.

Two ambulances and a fire truck out in front of the apartment complex next door.

Six or so EMTs and firemen are walking around the front of the apartment building with flashlights out, looking in the bushes, and carrying a stretcher. 

They walked around the side of the building, right into my side yard.  They were back there for about 5 minutes, came out with an empty stretcher and left.

I desperately wanted to go back there and ask what was going on.  Not because I was concerned about them walking around on my property, but because I’m curious.

If it had been a bunch of cops I probably would have felt differently.  Probably would have gone in the house, locked the doors, hid under the bed and waited for the gun fire to start when they cornered the dangerous fugitive they were looking for. (Gotta stop watching Flashpoint).

Either way, I didn’t think it was a good idea to confront them in a dark side yard while they are doing their job.  So I sat on the neighbor’s front lawn talking to him as we watched it all unfold.

I’d like to know what it was all about…

Little floatie in my garage.

Yesterday I started finishing up the back porch.  I insulated it last summer, but never got around to enclosing the insulation.

This was ok for a while, but it started to sag, and even worse, the cats have been scratching at it.  Not good.

So I headed off to my home-away-from-home, Home Depot, and got a bunch of cedar planks.

Of course, the cats had to help.

Alan tried to get me the tools I needed.

Denny was the supervisor.

When I was cleaning up in the garage I looked up and saw this piece of foam just floating there in mid air.

I looked all around it and couldn’t see what was holding it there.

Ruling out any supernatural event or the odd anomaly in the Earth’s magnetic field, I figured it had to be on the end of a spider web, but for the life of me I couldn’t see it.

Until I went to pick up something from the floor and looked up at it from below.

Viola, finally the thin piece of, what I assume is, web showed itself. (Click on picture to enlarge so you can see it.)

‘Far as I know, it’s still out there floating over Old Blue.

Happiness is…

The family I grew up in,

and what it’s grown into.
(No picture for this one, I couldn’t find one that includes everyone).

My house.

Teaching (80% of the time).

And all of the great people I have worked with in the schools I’ve been at, a lot of whom I still get together with.  (Again, no picture, don’t have one that includes everyone)

My cars.

The two new cats. “The Ranch”, as we call it.

And all the people in my life who have, and continue to make me laugh.

Construction; Continued.

Whew, what a night.  So incredibly glad that it is spring break right now.

The pounding continued for another 45 minutes, until right around midnight.  I couldn’t hear anything back in my bedroom, other than the fan going that I sleep with anyways.  White noise.  But I could feel it all the way back there.  Nothing enough to rattle things off the walls or anything, but just enough, and just irregular enough, to be annoying.  Fortunately I had my CSI DVDs to keep me from getting too frustrated with it.

Shortly after the pounding stopped I fell asleep.  But I kept waking up every half hour or so, expecting the pounding to start again, and would go out to the front window to see if they were still there.  They finally left around 2:00 in the morning and I finally got to sleep.

Again, for me it was really no big deal.  Didn’t have to get up early in the morning and I often stay up late watching DVDs when I have the next day off.  But I can imagine how I would have felt if that 5:00 AM alarm was looming and I knew I had to go to work.  Which is why I could just picture my neighbors furiously pacing their homes wondering who they could freak out at over this.

Construction at 10:00 PM

Yeah, right in front of the house next door to mine.  Damn good thing I don’t have to go to work in the morning, but what about all my neighbors who do?

I can understand that they want to do it at a time that will have the least impact on traffic.  I live on a pretty busy street, it’s a main route for commuters downtown and to the University of Utah.  But at 10 O’clock at night?  And without any warning?  Though, in my ever-eternal quest to assume the best, I am going with the belief that it is an unpredicted, emergency repair they just had to do.  At least I hope so, or they will probably have a slew of irate citizens.

Right now (10:45) they are pounding at the street hard enough that I can feel it in my house.  It’s like a mini-earthquake.  Fortunately, with the new windows I put in about four years ago, the sound isn’t that bad.  My computer room is in the front of the house, I’m figuring that when I finally do make it to bed, it shouldn’t be too bad back there.  This video kind of shows the difference in sound with the front door closed and then opened.

As you can see, I didn’t even move the camera, the only difference was that I opened the front door for the second piece.  It’s quarter past eleven right now, they’re still pounding away out there.  I’m going to try to go to sleep.  Wish me luck.
If I find out what it’s all about, you’ll be sure to hear.

Cardiac

Just imagine coming out of your home office, into the kitchen/living/dining area to the smell of burning wood.  A little disconcerting, no?

That happened to me just last night.  I grabbed the fire extinguisher and sniffed around the house.  No smell in the bedroom area.  Not out on the back porch or in the basement.  Just in the main part of the house, and especially strong in the kitchen.  Especially worrisome since I did all the wiring in there myself.  There I am feeling all the walls, the cabinets and the ceiling to see if they are hot.  Nothing.  I sniff under the stove, the cabinets and finally under the dishwasher.  Nothing obvious.

I open up the dishwasher, get hit in the face with a blast of hot steam and a really strong smell of burning wood.   I pulled the racks out and down at the bottom, sitting on the heating element I found this wooden spoon.

I guess I going to have to reconsider washing them by hand from now on.

Corner of 4th & Main

Don’t ask me what 4th & Main have to do with it, but this is the corner of my property, taken from a cherry picker I rented to remove some trees in my back yard.  Before we were done I had to take it up as high as I dared and take a few pictures.  I only had the guts to extend it about ¾ of what it is capable of, and that put me eye-to-eye with the top of the power pole in the corner there.  I like this picture because it gives you an idea of how high up I got. 

I'm gonna bore you with old photos.

I'm still going through my old photo CD's, dating back to '97 (with pictures even further back), and I'm getting close to done. So, expect to see a few of them up. First up; the house. I found a great old cache of pictures of my house dating back to the mid 90's, showing pretty much the way it looked when I bought it. (If I ever find the original appraisal papers, you'll see it exactly that way). So, here's my house through the years:

The only change I had made before taking these first two was to cut down the bush in the middle of the lawn. You can see the stump in the picture, and it it still there now, just with a wagon wheel in front of it. You can, sort of, see the front porch is still just cement, you can't see how badly in need of repair it is. Because of the bush you can't tell, but there was no railing around it. These were taken sometime before 1997.

Here is the first iteration of the front porch. Instead of repairing the concrete, I just covered it with a wood porch, kind of like a redwood deck over it, and added the wood steps over the concrete ones. I also added a railing around it. This one was taken on April 24th, 1997.

Here the porch is the same, but you also can see the yard without the fence around it. I originally added the fence because people from the apartment next door liked using my front yard as a shortcut to the bus stop.

By 2003 I had addded the fence to the yard, and sort of a boardwalk over the front path, which you can't see because of the snow. I had also, by request of the post office, moved the mail box from the front porch to the fence right by the sidewalk. (They paid for the new mailbox and it's installation).

The big change happened in the summer of 2004. The boardwalk came out, the wood porch came off and the lawn got covered over with woodchips. My older brother helped me fix the cement on the porch and cover it with slate tiles. I also extended the front porch out, and between it and the wood chips, completely covered the old walkway. I also removed the bush blocking the front porch and most of the abundance of overgrown bushes in the corner of the yard. Oh, and in case you didn't notice, I painted the house a different color also. I took some redrock from the Moab area and had Home Depot scan the color and make paint for me. The color of the house didn't change between the two pictures, it's just the lighting.

Choices, choices, choices.

I've been coveting this car since it first showed up on ksl.com about a month ago. It looks a lot like Old Blue, and in fact it is. Same year, same body style, same engine and drivetrain. The only difference is that Old Blue is an LTD and this is a Galaxie. What does that mean? Well, the LTD is just an upscale version of the Galaxie, it's the exact same car except for trim - LTD's have hidden headlights, fake wood inside and usually a vinyl top. That's it. Well, today I officially decided against buying the car. See, it was a choice - add another car to my collection or get new windows for my bedroom and a new back door. Home Depot won this round. I just spent $603.43 on three 24" x 24" windows, a solid wood door and a heavy duty storm door, all for the back of the house. Another car or the house? I think I made the prudent choice. Demmit!