This week Chaz is having the pool replastered - I have to agree that it's in bad shape. It got drained in about 15 hours, and this morning the guys are already cutting around the tile and sharpening a chisel to get after it.
Here's a quick runthrough of the house all decked out for the holiday party we had last night, December 10th. It was the first really big party, and we counted 105 people through the door - lots of neighbors, tons of friends, and a few coworkers made it. We had food in the great room, and a couple of cocktails back in the back. So far, the responses have been great, but Chaz and I are exhausted today.
Bud spent most of last night working on a backdrop for photos for our party this weekend. It's pretty amazing watching him work.
I got lights on the backyard as well as the front. We see the backyard more, the way this house is laid out. I kind of like it all lit up - we added some 'motion lights' on the palm tree today before the weather turns bad. Hopefully we'll have a few more nice days so I can get the camera higher to get the reflection in the water.
We got the fan in there last night - trusty Dewalt driver by the ready, and 4 inch screws to go right into the beam. That sucker's not going anywhere, but there remains a slight problem.. the hole from the prior fan box. That's going to be a bit of an eyesore for a bit. Probably next year if we get to do the master bathroom, we'll patch it with some drywall. For this week's visitors, this will do.
While things mostly look good around the house, there's a lot of things that are not done. And not all of them have to be finished completely, but we're making progress on them bit by bit. In this video, a lot of work went into the trim for the steps. And a lot went into unpacking things. And a lot of things left to do are turning out to be pains in the asses, like installing a ceiling fan in the middle bedroom. The original junction box wound up shredded, and there's not enough room to get a traditional brace (16-inch on center) up there, so today we're totally baffled. My vote was to get a 'saddle' box and put a medallion on the ceiling to cover up the hole left by the other box.. Chaz outvoted me though.
Speaking of him, he's starting a new job tomorrow with a company in Austin. As good as IBM was, his 'work location' was still Lansing, and he was 'long-term supplemental' which meant after 3 years, he was out the door in any case. Having a real tangible position in Austin is a good thing. The fact that it came with a raise was even better. It's been kind of strange, as in the past 3 months, his phone has been ringing off the wall with java positions in Austin; that hadn't happened since early 2000's. My suspicion is that a lot of the java programmers that kept their skills up went ahead and started moving on to php/app/mobile web centric companies and startups, so there is some backfilling going on.
My family comes down for a visit for the turkey day meal - Chaz is really excited about having so much of his family down her at this house. I'm not quite sure how it'll work with this tiny kitchen, but between him and his mother, they'll figure something out.
My 2 year anniversary with the Samsung Moment was done at the beginning of the month, so I was eligible for an upgrade discount. With Sprint getting the iPhone 4s, I was considering it for a bit, but opted instead for the Galaxy S II. Faster processor than the 4s, more memory, exchangeable sdram, and I'm kinda cheap: Sprint charges $120/yr more for smart phones since they turned on their 4g network, whether the phone could access it or not. The android has 4g, iphone, nope. Maybe next generation - until then, I'll just ask someone standing next to me to ask siri silly stuff.
Chaz and I saw this critter running down Mopac this weekend. Austin's been funny like that lately. There seems to be a profusion of Smart cars running around north Austin where we live, and more than one Leaf in the hood. Don't get me wrong, there's still tons of Hummers in the parking lot of Costco with little adhesive stick-figures representing the entire brood, but there are signs of change. Makes me feel a little less guilty about putting off the repair to my car's exhaust that is probably offsetting something small and electric.
So it's to a point now where things are livable, and enjoyable, but there's a bit of construction going on in corners here and there. I have a bathroom fan that needs doing, some dimmers here and there, spray painting some light fixtures. Odds & ends. My Dad made it down for a visit a while back, and Mom's going to be by here sooner or later. She just finished a trek through the Cinque Terre, so hopefully once recovered, she'll bring some stories down here.
The lazy cow claims more victims.
We've had a busy August laying down floors, laying down tiles, trying to keep on top of our regular paying jobs, and occasionally going out or to a baseball game. Tonight starts the last homestand for the Express, and I think I'll be heading out there for it.
