Thanksgiving Airport Travel Without the Hassle

We just took Tara and the kids to the airport this morning to send them on their way to Florida and we had worked out a plan to maneuver them through the airport with the least amount of hassle.  All for naught.  We practically had the airport to ourselves--Ian dropped us off at the curb and then went to park the car, and Tara, the kids and I walked directly up to the ticketing counter and were helped immediately.  From there we went to security and since there was no line at all, I didn't even have a chance to point out to the kids what the procedure would be.  By the time Ian had parked the car, Tara and the kids were collecting up their shoes and jackets on the other side of security.  Amazing.

Completely unrelated...here's a couple pictures of Attila.

Enquiring Minds Have Requested an Update on Attila-the-Honey

Attila continues to get acclimated to his new environs - he no longer jumps and runs at EVERY noise; and instead has developing a condition Ian calls "falling over" whereby he walks up to either Ian or me, falls over rather unceremoniously, and rolls sort of half on his back.  He languishes on the floor until we give in and scratch his head.

The other morning as I was preparing to leave the house, I heard a very loud, "bang, bang, bang" and considered momentarily that the workmen had arrived early to finish up the house.  Alas, that was NOT the case.  As I got to the main floor the sound seemed to be coming from the basement, but when I was in the basement, it seemed to be coming from the main floor.  When a plaintive, moaning "meeeooooooow" was added to the cacophony, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened.

A couple days earlier, the flooring guy had removed the wooden grate over an old heat register that was in the dining room floor so he could spray-coat it in his shop which meant the vent was open.  Attila hadn't shown a great deal of interest in it but on this particular morning, he decided to check it out.  Unfortunately for dear old Attila, there is a pivoting flap which enabled him to go one way quite easily but returning was trickier.  The banging sound came from Attila pounding his head into the flap.

In a joint effort of Ian trying to lure Attila with treats and me trying to get a grip on the behemoth, we managed to get him out and upon being rescued he casually walked away as if nothing untoward had happened.

Dave's Floor Sanding to the rescue!

I guess Jon must really want to get paid this week because he was able to get Dave's Floor Sanding to come in this week to finish up the floor.  I feel good about this - Dave's' probably the biggest hardwooding flooring company in the metro area, and while I am sure he has a few incompetents on the payroll, the company has too good a reputation for there to be too many.  Yeah.  They will either start tomorrow or Wednesday!

My idiot general contractor is on a mission to make me insane.

Or maybe this is just a twist on "suicide-by-cop"--instead, "suicide-by-homeowner".  Maybe that's it.  Maybe Jon Bartelt is, besides being an idiot, suicidal but too much of a chicken-sh*! to do the job himself but figures if he really works at it, then I'll kill him for him.  He really, truly is working hard to make me murderous.

Today's bit of news was that he wanted to move my furniture into my soaking wet, mouse-ridden garage for an indeterminant period of time...since he just found out that the flooring guy cannot work on the floor until after Thanksgiving.  Of course, the bulk of the work necessary on the floor is to repair the 10-foot-long gouge in the middle of the living room made by Jon's guy dragging the stove across it.

The floor will be done--and done well--this week.  I've had enough of this.

I LOVE the counters!

The countertop installers were at the house this morning - they said they would arrive between 8-10am and they were there at 8:18am :)   They proceeded to very efficiently install the counters and they look great.  The material is sort of like quartz but is made from recycled glass and mirro,r and the tiny bits of mirror pick of the light and it sparkles just a little bit.

The only slightly down side, and it isn't really a downside since I had been warned three times in advance, is that the seams are slightly visible.  The woman at Home Depot had warned me that with the white materials the seams showed a little more, then the guy who came out to measure warned me that the "Polar Cap" color was the hardest one to hide the seams and suggested that if that was going to bother me I should pick another color before we went any farther.  Then before the installers started installing, they warned me one more time. 

I was starting to get a little paranoid, thinking that the seams must wind up being like blaring beacons, but you can hardly see them...  And I love the color so much more than I notice the seams.

Here are photos.

Note the lovely line of plaster near the top of the wall.  That is where my idiot contractor installed the picture rail moulding---unfortunately, what he installed wasn't actually picture rail moulding but instead cheap, crappy trim moulding, and I had told him I wanted only real picture rail moulding installed just a 1/2" below the ceiling.  Just one of the many things he has had to rip out and do over.

The Countertop is Here! The Countertop is Here!

They are still in the process of installing it but it looks fantastic thus far!!  It sparkles!

Wow, that's amazing!

I've been working away in my basement office for the past couple hours and I thought I would take a little break to see the results of all the sewer work.  They were just finishing up leveling everything when I headed down to the basement and so I expected to see raked sand...

It appears that the concrete guy was here to work up the quote for the sidewalks and put down the temporary asphalt surface...

When I talked to the concrete guy at 9am, he had told me that they had shut down concrete sidewalk work for the winter but that he could come out soon to put in a little blacktop to tide us over til spring.  I didn't know he meant he would do it today...this morning!  Cool.

It's hard to believe that just a few hours ago, this was an enormous pit and a mountain of sandy dirt!

A So-So Night's Sleep Makes it All Seem Better

As Mary Jo predicted, crying did not help but a night's sleep, even if it wasn't a great night's sleep, has made the whole thing seem better.

Here's how my front yard looked as of about 9am this morning:

Now it has all been inspected and they are well on their way to filling in the huge, gaping hole.  I called the concrete people but they said they have shut down concrete work for the winter but they will come over to give me a quote and put a temporary blacktop surface on it so we will have some sort of sidewalk instead of a mud pit.

Attila is napping under the bed and I think he thinks he's hidden...nobody ever said he was bright...

OMG!

This whole homeownership thing is just depressing.  Here's my front yard:

I got the phone call mid afternoon saying that the "best case scenario" just wasn't meant to be.  At least it isn't the worst case scenario which would have meant that they had to dig up the street as well.  It's bad enough...that's a lot of concrete which will need to be replaced.  On the upside, a good chunk of the sidewalk was already crumbling and in desparate need of repair.

I might need to place another call to my friendly banker.

I think I'm going go crawl into bed and have a good cry.

Kitchen Update

Here are some photos of the kitchen as of today, Halloween:

Baby Attila

Attila is starting to settle in--everyday he gets more comfortable and snuggly...and he definitely looks comfortable and snuggly here:

When It Rains It Pours

I'm beginning to feel like everything that could go wrong with our house, is going wrong with our house.

Of course, we completely opted in for the kitchen remodel mess (although we hadn't anticipated that James-the-Builder would fall through the floor and on through the ceiling in the finished part of the basement, thus neccessitating additional work to be done in the basement), but after one month it is getting pretty old.

Add to that, though, the sewer issue.  Thankfully, after getting a couple quotes and a referral, we were able to find "Gene's Water & Sewer" which seems like a professional, reasonably priced group.  They were planning on starting work yesterday, trenching up a section of our front yard, but the rainy weather complete with gale force winds, has delayed them and now they won't be able to start until Monday.

As if that wasn't enough, yesterday's gale force winds caused our fence to blow over.  This morning Ian and I were preparing to leave the house and I glanced out the window and said, "Oh look, the wind blew over a couple of the lawn chairs."  It took me a second to realize that the lawn chairs were the least of our problems, that three 5-foot sections of the fence were missing.

Ya gotta laugh...what else can you do?

Photos

Here is the kitche as of early last week.  I would love to say that it looks a lot different now but that just isn't true.  The wall are now painted gray and there is hardwood in about 3/4s of the kitchen area but that is all that's happened.

Here's Attila at the vet's office.  He's trying to hide but there just weren't any good cubby holes to crawl into and at almost 20 pounds, he would need a pretty big cubby to fit him.

Attila, Sewers, Kitchen Update, and Sad News

ATTILA

Attila is settling in and doing well.  He went to the vet the other day and got a clean bill of health although it was a traumatic experience for him.  He did not enjoy the car ride to the vet's (thankfully it is under a mile so I did not have to listen to his keening and moaning too long), then a big black dog charged him in the waiting room.  He was, of course, in his carrier and quite safe but it really scared him (and kind of scared me, too!) and the vet had a hard time calming him down.  The vet was fantastic, though, and in the end was able to check him out pretty thoroughly.  He weighs just under 20 pounds.

Everyday he gets a little more comfortable with us but he doesn't show much interest in leaving the laundry room just yet.  I think he's bored though and wants us to stay in the laundry room with him.  We tried to bring him into the den with us last night but the instant he had the opportunity he darted back down to the laundry room.

SEWERS

It appears that our clay sewer pick which goes from the house to the city line at the street has collapsed in a couple places and the the only way to fix it is to trench the front yard, dig up the old line and replace it with a nice new plastic one.  This whole procedure is going to start at $7,900 and will go up if they have to dig up the city sidewalk.  Criminy!  I probably am more interested in sewer systems than the next guy (I am the person who opted to visit the Paris sewer system over the impressionis art museum), but this is not what I want to spend $8,000 on.  We have been advised not to run the washer or dishwasher until we get it fix.  No problem with the dishwasher since we currently don't have a kitchen, much less a dishwasher, and it looks like we will be using the laundromat this week. 

KITCHEN UPDATE

The hardwood flooring guys are ever-so-slowly installing the flooring and if they ever finish the installation, then they will sand and coat them, then cabinets will go in and things should move along quickly.  This week should be a big week.  The cabinets should go in, the appliances are being delivered, the counter guys will be out to measure, and we should be able to start moving some stuff back.  Once the cabinets are out of the living room, we should be able to regain some semblance of normalcy.

I primed and painted the ceiling yesterday and primed and put on the first coat of color on the walls - it's a lovely color (a blue-ish gray) but I might have to go one shade lighter...we'll see...

SAD NEWS

A friend of mine from high school, Stacey Chase, died last night from Creutzfelt-Jakob Disease (CJD).  It's a horrible, hopeless disease and the only good news is that from the time she first showed symptoms to the time she died was only about 2 months so at least she did not suffer long.  CJD is a prion disease and is basically the human form of Mad Cow Disease.  It is always fatal.  Stacey was a lovely person and while I did not keep in touch with her over the years, we were quite good friends in high school and she was a fun, funny, optimistic, smart, and kind person.  I feel very sorry for her husband, 11-year-old son, and family.

Attila the Honey

As everyone knows, Ian and I have been missing poor, departed Schnuffy, and we've been waiting for some cat that nobody else wanted to find us, and yesterday it happened!  We are now the proud adoptive parents of a MASSIVE cat who we have dubbed Attila.  He had been abandoned almost a year ago when his old owner died and he's been living outside since.  While his living conditions may have been sketchy, clearly his food source has been steady because this is no petite little kitty.  It turns out that several people in the neighborhood had been feeding him but nobody could commit to taking him in.

He seems quite sweet in a demanding, guarded sort of way.

Unfortunately, since the house is in turmoil since the kitchen is under construction he's locked in the laundry room and today, Mr Rooter is here to clear out the roots which have grown into the drains causing out drains to back up (yuck).  It is so loud here today, what with the hardwood flooring guy installing 3/4 inch hardwood up in the kitchen and the rooter-guy snaking the pipes here in the basement...poor Attila is probably thinking it was calmer out in the wild.

This is my boss!

Recently, the University of Minnesota started it's new advertising campaign, "Because", which builds upon the previous campaign, "Driven to Discover" which was my favorite but I digress.

One of the first researchers to be highlighted in the "Because" campaign is my boss, Massoud Amin, and his work in "Smart Grid" technologies. Here's the commercial with Massoud.

As a side note, the building where the commercial is shot is not actually the building which houses our offices - rather, it is the new Science Teaching and Student Services (STSS) building which happens to be where I teach my class.

Waiting for a Revolution

I just found this photo on my phone and I thought I would share.  Here's Ken and Mary Jo on a very hot (~100F) afternoon in historic Williamsburg, waiting for the revolutionary activities to begin.  Mock me if you must but I had a fantastic time in Williamsburg!

Playing with my new video camera - the truly beautiful view from my office

Ok...I've been doing research for a paper I'm writing for a conference and I feel like my brain is supersaturated so I'm taking a short break.  Here's the view from my office in the WBOB.  I've been telling everyone who will listen about what a strange place the WBOB is - I like to describe it as the "Land of Misfit Toys" since it is a random collection of University groups - and despite it's name, "West Bank Office Building," it is not actually on the West Bank--it is not actually on campus at all. 

Despite the general oddness of the building, my office is really quite nice and the view is AMAZING. 

Report on Day 2 of the Barker/Surprenant kitchen remodel

I am obsessed with the kitchen and it is all I have to talk about.  Here's where we were at about noon yesterday:

If you can, you'll need to rotate the film to see it upright - I haven't mastered the camera yet.  Since this was taken James has closed up the window...and of course, whatever he's done today.

At long last...kitchen renovation

To know me is to know that I am very skittish about spending big chunks of money (smaller amounts have never been a problems for me) so for years I have been wanting to renovate our kitchen but I just haven't been able to agree to forking over the money necessary.  Finally, this fall Ian was able to persuade me to go ahead and they started demo yesterday.

I am amazed at how much he was able to do in one day.  Gone is the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, gone are the cabinets, sink, range...everything!  Today he (James) is putting in the patio door in the dining room where there used to be a window.  He's got the opening cut out for it and I think it will be nice - the scale seems to fit the space. 

Everyone who has walked through post demo last night has commented on how small it seems.  I've been trying to remind myself that it will always be a small space - with or without the dining room wall - but, still, I was holding out hope that it would all miraculously expand.  I think it will be fine once things are put in place.  It is a little worrisome to consider how everything will come together.  In my mind, all the different components come together perfectly and the room looks fantastic...but what if, in reality, the different parts don't all fit/match/work together.  I guess we'll find out within the next couple weeks.

Ok...breaks over.  Back to work.