stone on new front porch

watermelon in the bathtub!

paint colors

The light was bad, but this is the trim color.

fun and the house

We really can't wait to get back into the house. Apartment living makes us want to go anywhere but the apartment to have fun. Yesterday we went to the opening of the new RDU terminal. I'm not sure we'd have done that otherwise, but it was really fun, esp. since Cate and PIC met us there.. Then we went to chick-fil-a for lunch.

The house picture is the new front porch with it's columns in place. Once again, it's a new feature that looks like it should have been there all along.

new color!

this kid has style

Thanks to the Dianaverse for the shoes.

stone for the front steps

more pictures on a thursday

Pink stuff everywhere and bricks going in to raise up our front porch. The bricks will get covered with stone. I can't wait! I want my house back!

house looks good

Siding and roof done...

saturday photos

New front porch...

Siding looks good...

View from inside the new living room...

before and after

Ok, not really before or after. A before shot would really show the nice deck that used to be there, and we aren’t at after yet, but at least with the windows in you can see where it’s going. (This post was sent by email).

what I doing?

Well, I guess that's enough not blogging for a while. I guess I can use the excuse that I'm not currently in the woods. We're having an addition put on our house along with a few more improvements we've wanted to do since we bought the place. We aren't living in the house through all of it, we've moved into an apartment until it all gets done. Not being there has really helped Alan the Builder to work fast, so he'll be done sooner than expected. That's a very good thing- I want my house back.

If you've been looking at the only part of this site that has changed in a few months, Jim's very nice cell phone pic gizmo, you've probably already noticed our little construction project at the house. I need to add bigger photos to this site as the house changes, there must be some way to do that for lazy people like me that can't be bothered to log into blogger. Time to learn to email a blog... or get Jim to write me a bigger gizmo?

i came back

I guess I've been away awhile. But, as eBaby would say, "I came back."

This time with another project, or a project for a project. Many years ago, we built ourselves some wooden kayaks. When we moved to Mayberry, the best place we had to store them was under our deck. I built a platform with 4 wheels to roll the boats under the deck to keep them protected and out of the sun. When we moved to the current house, we finally had a garage, but the boats stayed under the deck because of the way the garage door was installed (or, actually, the way the garage itself was installed).

Somewhat connected to the next big thing, we are planning an addition to the house. But to build this addition, we have to demolish the deck. This left the boat furniture with no place to live. However, that's not bad news because I've had my eye on a new fancy garage door opener (geeks only) for a while now just hoping the old one would break. Installation of the Rolls-Royce of garage door openers freed up the entire garage ceiling to hang the boats. We should've done this a long time ago.

I won't give any details on the home addition yet, I'll need something else to blog about in a few months. Perhaps I'll attract more fiscal analysts by then.

I’m not even supposed to be here!

[I wrote this while sitting on the plane yesterday. I was supposed to be in San Antonio to celebrate my 13th anniversary on the Riverwalk with Alpha. Bummer.]

10:49am Central time
We can't land because of tornados in the DFW area. Good to know. I don't mind the delay; take your time- thanks. At least it explains why we're climbing. I guess my connecting flight will be late too. I hope nobody on the other end is concerned and I hope there's no reason to be.

Well. We don't have enough fuel to continue to circle DFW. So, on to Longview, TX for fuel. Yuck.

Yay! It looks like a bumpy landing. Couldn't we have gone *away* from the weather?

Very bumpy landing. There aren't thunderstorms here, just 30mph winds. There were t-torms, 60mph winds and tornados @DFW.

The people who work at the Longview airport will have stories to tell about the day that all the jets from the big city done shown' up.

We're only here b/c there was no place to park in Shreveport. What the hell? We're not even good enough for Shreveport?

The runway here isn't even totally flat. There's a bit of a dip in the middle. I don't think they're really equipped for big jets here.

I know they're not going to let us off the plane. Even if they did I don't think there's enough room in the "airport" to hold one S-80 full of people, much less us and the 6 other diverted jets (6 confirmed).
There’s a "ground stop" @ DFW. I guess that means the weather is really rotten. Maybe it’ll also mean that my connecting flight gets delayed enough that I can be on it.

I looked online to see the status of my other flight. It had taken off from Colorado Springs and also has not made it to DFW. It's listed as "arrival city changed" or some other low-information status. It's probably somewhere west of DFW, or maybe even Shreveport. At least that means there could be a chance I can still be on it when/if it leaves for San Antonio.

I can see a handful of people walking across the tarmac rolling suitcases. I hope that doesn't mean AA is giving up on getting some of these flights to DFW. Maybe those are scheduled Longview flights? Do they have those?

Scratch that. They're taking us back to RDU. I wonder if a tornado actually hit the airport? [No, but they did have 70-100mph winds and evacuated the control tower when they saw a funnel cloud.]

Now sadness sets in. I haven't seen my wife and daughter in a week. It's our anniversary, and I’m on my way back to RDU at so... This really sucks.

So, why aren't they taking us to another city in Texas? Austin? San Antonio? Houston? Hell, New Orleans. Really, isn't it a waste to take us back to Raleigh?

Too late now. We're back in the air. Very rough air. I'm pretty sick of this. I hope if I can get on another flight later that the weather will be less bumpy. I know this is safe, in relative and statistical terms, but my lizard brain tells me that being thrown around in an airplane thousands of feet off the ground is a bad thing.

[Well, we made it back to RDU without any additional problems. Then, I stood in a long line and got a new ticket. I leave for Austin tonight. Of course, they’re predicting thunderstorms on this end tonight, so keep your fingers crossed.]

When Alpha is out of town, I usually end up answering phone calls that come up as “unknown number” on caller ID. No, I’m not so bored for conversation that I’ll answer the phone just to talk to somebody. I just never know when it will be her calling from a hotel or borrowed phone.

So, last night I answered the phone for one of these “unknown” callers. They said they were a research firm doing a survey. It’s well known that I enjoy giving my opinion. Of course, I haven’t been sleeping enough so I must have forgotten that we’re in the middle of political campaign season. Oops. But still, I wouldn’t have minded if it hadn’t turned out to be a push-poll from the Clinton campaign. I guess my leaning towards the Obama camp has fallen the whole way now.

It wasn’t a full-on Atwater or Rove negative push poll. It may even have come off as subtle to some people. It simply asked me how certain statements might affect my vote. The statements about Obama were negative about his readiness, experience, lack of policy, etc. The statements about Clinton were positive statements about her readiness, experience, strong policy, etc. I’m married to a PhD social psychologist; but I didn’t need her to tell me what was going on.

The funny thing is, if the situation were different, I’d be happy to vote for Hillary Clinton. In many ways I admire her. The right-wing really did seem to start attacking her from the very beginning of Bill’s first term. (Fear strong women much?) And, if she ends up with the nomination, I’ll be happy to vote for her.

The thing is we need us some change in this country. Not the generic campaigning politician, “change.” What we need even more than that is a change of names on the Whitehouse china. Our last 3 presidents have been named Bush or Clinton. In five presidential elections, we the people pulled the lever more for Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush*, Bush. Before that, the first Bush was VP for two terms. If we the people go: Bush**, Bush**, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton… The last time there wasn’t one of those names in the Whitehouse was pre-1980. Do you think some people might think that US President is more of a birth right?*** Will the elections in 2016 be a compulsory showdown between Not-Jena Bush and Chelsea Clinton?



*Or, Gore depending on the maths you use.
**Vice President, duh.
***Yes, I know about John Adams and son John Quincy Adams. The four terms between them and the vastly smaller pool of citizens makes that excusable. Besides, they’re Alpha’s family.

from an enclave called dovetail?

These videos were emailed to my mom by my aunt, and were forwarded to me. I was just about to forward them to everyone I know, but realized that big attachments like that really aren't much fun to get for everybody.

I've never added video with blogger, so I hope this works well enough.

I'm sure I could find a use for the walking table, but I'm not sure I need it. If you had that expanding table, part of every dinner party would have to be expanding the table and setting the table while your guests watched.

happy birthday to me

I'll have a hunka-hunka birthday cake tonight, or more specifically- PIE! I'm old, but who cares.

As far as I could tell, nothing of great interest happened on this day in 1969 other than my birth. In 1968 Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon. 1970 Elvis Presley met with President Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office to discuss fighting drugs. Hunka-hunka creepy dudes.

better than duct tape

I was going to just post this photo to my cell phone pics gizmo, but it was to genius to be missed. I had to put the picture here. I can only assume it must be the work of a clever electrician, but I don't know for sure since it was just parked on the street downtown. Apparently, the Honda Element has a utilitarian bolt-on roof rack system- probably at least $399.99 from the dealer. This ingenious owner probably spent less than $30 for 4 junction boxes, several feet of conduit, some bolts and a few cotter pins. Good jorb.

happy thanksgiving!

Here is it, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I'm at work. But, unlike any pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday in recent memory I am not frantically trying to finish a dozen different things so that I can avoid the guilt of taking a vacation day on Friday to have a nice 4-day weekend. I even worked on the Friday after Thanksgiving a few times. This is the first place I've worked where I get the Friday after as a holiday.

That's a nice example of my career shift from over-worked engineer to underworked. I like it better this way. I'm probably also a funner person to be around. It's certainly more fun to be me.

So, have a Happy Thanksgiving. Be thankful. Eat too much with your family. Watch the Cowboys win on Thursday and watch the Longhorns beat up on texas a&m on Friday.

p.s.- did anyone notice the cell phone pic thingy?

does anybody remember this?

It may be a little strange, but I found myself singing this song to eBaby during her bath a few nights ago. I hope she enjoyed it, even though I couldn’t remember all the words. Then, this morning my brain wanted me to sing the hamster dance song. I managed to irritate myself with that one.