Mother of All Projects (3)

Here's a quick update on the bathroom renovation. It's finally coming together and there is light at the end of the tunnel. If it's not a train, we might be in luck!

Hardibacker around tub with drywall done and painted. Lights are up.

Next, Kerdi applied to tub wall with modified thinset.

Ready for tile.

Floor heat mat thinset to floor and then Ditra over that. Ready for floor tile.

Everything is an awesome orange!

Stay tuned for more progress.

I'm Back!!!

....for 2012, after a much needed blogging sabbatical!

It seems like my inspirational droughts often occur when I should have the most to blog about. Maybe it's because I'm so busy with other things, that I lose interest in cyber expression.

The last 2 weeks of 2011 were a delicious brew of events. And the memories have simmered and fermented in my head and are are almost ready for the barrel tasting!

I will blog no event before it's time!

And it's high time for a post about my son Ben's marriage to Emily on December 28th. Emily, we are so happy to have you officially join the family! Their photographer had a "Photo-booth" at the wedding. Plenty of opportunity for embarrassing Facebook posts, but I selected some of my favorites to post here.

The Happy Couple! All smiles!

Irma and I

I was totally sober, honest.

Hold for the flash....your daguerreotype will be ready to pick up 2 weeks from Monday.

What does this mean?

Stay tuned for upcoming posts on "The Mother of all Projects", All things Bicycle and "The General"

There's no time for blogging!

Well, apparently there is..a little. December is always too busy. Holiday preparations, house projects and the annual leaf removal all occur between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Add to that a few doggie incidents......

This is General Patton. Isn't he adorable? 

After being sprayed by a skunk......not so much.

So Friday night, by the ambient glow of car headlights, I was scrubbing "The General" in the back yard with a mixture of peroxide, baking soda and dish-washing detergent. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and apply fo-fo dog  shampoo, the tropical botanical one that makes your pet smell like a French whore. Not that I know what a French whore smells like, it's just a fitting descriptive. After a thorough rinsing...he just smelled like wet dog. I knew then that the skunk stink was vanquished! Meh.....not entirely....Saturday morning I was laying in bed before getting up, and he came in and laid on the floor for his morning petting...I rolled over on my stomach and put my head over the side of the bed, reached an arm out to provide some morning love, and Pheeww!

Still a little stinky he was. Nothing like a little skunk to get your feet on the cold floor in the morning. Patton, I said, you'll just have to air out today. We've got lots of leaves to blow off the yard.

That was our main project for the weekend, we have about 2 full acres of grass (read weeds) that we have to clear of leaves generated by 15 or 90 really large oak trees. This used to be a fall project extraordinaire, a memory that our kids will never forgive us for, as they were involved in the annual slow torture by leaf rake every year. Until I discovered "Big Windy"....400 mph of Honda driven breeziness! Rent this thing for 60 bucks a day and get the yard cleared in so much time. Sorry guys, I honestly didn't know "Big Windy" existed until a few years ago.

Irma loves it. Once she starts, she won't let it go. She won't even stop for water or to go to the bathroom. She asked for one for Christmas. I'm relegated to shoveling leaves into the tarp and dragging them into the woods. Which is admittedly something I should be doing, not her.

Sunday we completed more projects, some of them Christmas related.

The General had another animal adventure. I didn't get any pictures but he was barking like crazy and I looked out the window to see him chasing a fat raccoon around my car. The raccoon would turn and hiss and snarl at him and he would back off and then go after it again. I quickly called him in before he got bit, raccoons wandering across the yard in the middle of the day are not normal.

But the tree is up, the lights are on, and the view in from the front yard is festive!

Merry Christmas!

The making of a holiday tradition

Who can resist a really good holiday tradition.

The wonderful Christmas Sweater Picture
(what is that thing in her lap? A weasel?)

The annual torturing of the department store Santa.

A heart warming movie...

Who can resist a tug on the heart strings by a ZuZu Petal?

And the one kids love and mother's loathe:

A Christmas Story!

So you can imagine my joy to find out that my town...Chestertown, MD.....made the news, national news....even world news....with a new annual holiday tradition...wait for it......

Frosty gets arrested!

Apparently Frosty the Snowman, or human costumed likeness there-of, has been appearing at the annual Chestertown Christmas parade for 10 years now. Only this year he was not his same jovial self.

And Santa will tell you, harassing the local authorities police K-9 will land you in a serious greenhouse of melting pain.

Let's hope there's some jail break magic left in that old silk hat!

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

I'm thankful for my family and the great time we all had together. The only thing that would have made it better is if Ben and Emily were here. And of course, aren't we all thankful for the freedom's we have here in the US, like the ability to eat gargantuan quantities of tryptophan laced foods and then pass out in front of a football game. Ah...the holiday traditions!

A beautiful day was a good opportunity for a group picture.
L-R Jared, Lisa, Cathy, Clare, Irma, Carl (Me)

Front row Patton and Reilly

Anticipation of a good chuckering.

The ever hopeful Reilly, always ready for exercise 24-7.

And what better way to work off some of the holiday excess than to take a good ride. 7:00 AM Friday.
It was cold out! Sometimes the best time to ride is first thing in the morning.

Mother of all projects (2)

If your came here looking for my latest cycling post amusing goodness, you can find it here. Otherwise read on for update #2 on the Mother of all Projects!

If I ever needed an alternate career, home remodeling would not be it. I'm too much of a perfectionist and thusly, too slow. The drywall guy is done and I found myself adding additional drywall screws because I considered him to have been a wee bit skimpy with the fasteners. Just around the bottom close to the floor, but it still added some extra time to the project.

Over-all, he did a good job and completed my most loathed home renovation task at minimal cost.

He butted the drywall to the Hardibacker cement board I installed as tub walls and feathered the joint compound into the hardibacker. The idea is that after the Kerdi membrane and tile is installed, the difference in the planes of the 2 surfaces won't be noticeable. For those of you used to remodeling, you know that what you buy aint always what you get. A 2X4 is not 2X4. ½" drywall is ½" but ½" Hardibacker is .42". Now go figure.

The Hardibacker should be brought down to rest on the tub wall flange, not lapped over it. Then when the tile is installed make sure to spread the thinset down over the flange and bring the tile to the tub deck.

Next up: prime and paint the drywall.

Stay tuned for further updates....

Protest Ride!

Political gridlock has been a way of life in Washington for some time. We have come to expect total inaction, and our elected legislators certainly don't disappoint. Even the the self imposed sword of Damocles can't move the super committee's collective, do nothing asses off the seat of political stagnation. So how am I going to support the protesters on Wall Street?

Occupy the Bike!

What better way to show my solidarity with the occupy movement from little old Chestertown! I thought about camping out in the town square with a sign that says "Occupy Chestertown" or maybe "Rage against The Man". But then I remembered that I work for "The Man". So maybe that's not the best idea considering I have a mortgage, bills and lots of bike gear on my wish list.

But heading out for a good head clearing ride certainly made me feel better physically and emotionally.

Biking down a country road in the late day light and gazing across the farm fields helps me keep my perspective.

With twilight closing in, it's time to pump hard towards home.

After all, I have to catch a bus for Washington, DC in the morning.