Merry Ho Ho Ho!

Here's hoping everyone had a happy and fruitful holiday. I certainly did. Highlights:

  • My darling mother got me a solar powered atomic watch, so not only does it never need its battery changed, it never needs to be set either. This is timekeeping heaven for me. Now I just need to read the manual to figure out how to use its other functions. And of course, I need to get it sized waaay down for my girlish wrists.
  • The moms made out well: Mine got a cobalt blue Kitchen Aid mixer (she'd been eyeballing ours lately) and The Wife's got an iPod Nano (which is ridiculously small).
  • I got The Wife a Bella Umbrella. Without her realizing it, I noticed that she'd been talking about getting a parasol for the past year or so, so this was a home run for me. ;)
  • I also got my better half a Mac Mini, as her old iBook was having a hard time keeping up. That means I get to play with the iBook: So far I've reinstalled OS X 3 times and I plan to install Ubuntu as well (the third round with OS X was to get a partition for the linux).
  • As for me, I got some woodworking and home improvement accessories, some DVDs (namely two big time personal faves: Pete & Pete and The Greatest American Hero, and a CBC history of hockey that looks awesome) and lots of other stuff.

So yeah, materialistically, we all did pretty well. Better yet, though, we had some nice time off at home thanks to the blizzard, and yet we were mobile in time to make it down to my mom's house on Christmas Eve.

God bless us, every one, eh?

Let's Get This Pahty Stahted. Right?

Last Saturday, the Wife, Mother-in-Law, and I hosted a holiday dinner soiree at the Sutton abode. Good times were had by all. A few notes/highlights:

  • The slate tile was a big hit. It even survived a couple drunken games of darts.
  • The menu was primarily Italian-style fare. We did have crab rolls in split-top hot dog rolls that we'd had shipped from Boston -- they were a big hit.
  • We made waaaaaaaaay too much food. Should have forced people to take doggie bags.
  • I doubt anyone else even noticed, but I felt the music mix was spot on.
  • We had, at one point, three Asians in our house. In Colorado, this is actually worth pointing out. Sadly, though, that was the (almost) full extent of our ethnic diversity.
  • I'm actually impressed with how long it took the crowd to get into "Hey! What's this?!" mode at our bar/liquor collection. Absinthe and Japanese Whiskey were the most exotic samples that were poured.

If you didn't get invited and think you should have been, I apologize deeply.

Don't take it personally, though, OK? Good. ;)

Updates & Stuff

First a floor update: After taking yesterday off completely thanks to the chill I caught on the motorbike and general laziness (it is a vacation, after all), I came out firing today. First, I scooted around on the subfloor removing the remaining staples from the carpet pad. After that bag o' fun, I scooted around on the subfloor some more, this time sanding the seams of the OSB to flatten them out enough for the mortar bed not to mind. After a bunch of sweeping and vacuuming and choking on the dust (I'm positively covered...), I finally got around to measuring out a standard centerline by centerline layout and giving it a bit of a dry fit test, as demonstrated below (see also: my Flickr set for this project): Office Slate Project: Testing the Layout SW Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.

Car update: The mechanic tells me "there's definitely something wrong in the clutch area" of my Rodeo. So he's going to drop the tranny and see what's what. His initial guess (which covers a new clutch and clutch fork) is about $1400. Sadly, this is almost exactly the number I was expecting. Here's hoping it doesn't grow much.

One from teh intarweb: Seriously? People worry about this crap? Myself, I don't sign off personal emails at all. If it's someone I don't know that well or haven't been in touch with recently I might end with "- Jake". On rare occasions, I'll toss in a "Cheers" or "Ta". Work emails generally just get the hyphen-space-name treatment.

Frozen Thighs

As I mentioned, I had to have my Rodeo towed to a mechanic this past Saturday. Well, today I needed to get the keys to said mechanic so that they could actually work on the thing. (I didn't see any key drop box at the shop on Saturday.) The Wife is working, so that left me with my second vehicle: the Bonneville.

I wasn't that worried because the last forecast I saw said it would get up to 50 degrees. Sadly as it neared noon, my thermometer still read in the twenties...

The good news: my riding jacket is awesome with its liner in.

The bad news: I don't have cold weather-appropriate gloves or pants. Wearing jeans on a motorcycle in sub-freezing temps is very much like wearing jeans to go skiing/snowboarding -- Many of us have done it, but few of us would want to ever do it again (in fact, most of us went out and bought proper gear right after the experience). Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

The Holiday Project: Slate Tile in the Office

Keep an eye on my Flickr photos for updates on my latest home improvement project: tiling the office with slate tile. Office Slate Project: Subfloor NE Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.

This is only somewhat hampered by the fact that my car broke yesterday (on the way back from fetching the remainder of my slate purchase, in fact) -- clutch went bye-bye. We'll see that that going to do to me tomorrow, hopefully.

Good times.

Root Canal: Take 2

Sometime between a year and two years ago, I had one of my molars crumble to bits, necessitating a root canal and crown. That was fun times. Starting a month or two ago, that very same tooth started acting tetchy.  Then one day a few weeks ago it went so thermonuclear that I couldn't see straight. Unfortunately, my pain tolerance allows me to let things get this out of hand before I do something about it.

Long story short, the original root canal - though it was a fine job - got "re-infected" and required "retreatment". Said retreatment was completed roughly an hour ago. I went to a new guy who specializes in endodontics, and I have to say I'm impressed. The whole thing took about an hour and I was falling asleep through half of it (which I attribute to a total lack of odontophobia and perhaps a very low-grade case of narcolepsy -- stress makes me drowsy ;) ).

I'm Not Dead Yet!

It's been an interesting week in some respects, and it's bound to get even more interesting tomorrow. The radio silence is unintentional, but not too surprising.

One thing worth mentioning: Thanks to all kinds of peer pressure from the dorks at work, I downloaded the 10-day trial for World Of Warcraft and got it installed last Thursday. I never played Evercrack, but boy is this game dangerous. My Tauren hunter is now level 13 14, and I'm very afraid. I'd do myself a favor if I just let the trial expire...

Music To Be Disgruntled To

And all-time favorite track of mine, "Ship Of Fool (Save Me From Tomorrow)" by World Party, came on the iPod today, and the lyrics just kind of hit me:

Avarice and greed are gonna drive you over the endless sea They will leave you drifting in the shallows Drowning in the oceans of history Traveling the world, you're in search of no good But I'm sure you'll build your Sodom like you knew you would Using all the good people for your galley slaves As your little boat struggles through the warning waves But you don't, pay

You will pay tomorrow You're gonna pay tomorrow You're gonna pay tomorrow

Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow I don't want to sail with this Ship of Fools, no, no Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow I don't want to sail with this Ship of Fools, no, no

I'm guessing Brozo might get the connection.

Hey! Look at little Derwin!

One of my proudest achievements in life has been finding a girl as wonderful as Heather to sign on for the role of The Wife. Two years ago, after a nine year "test drive" that had us crossing such milestones as moving across the country, putting her through grad school, and buying a house together, we finally made things official.

Smile big in the gazebo

I'm not really sure what we were waiting for, but hey, it's not the destination but rather the journey, right?

Vacación

As was mentioned previously, tomorrow I hop in the trusty Honda with The Wife for a road trip to Los Angeles to see her brother, Chris. We'll be stopping in Sin City for a visit with Auntie Kate and some shut eye at the Imperial Palace. (Heather and I don't "do" Vegas, so we just go for cheap & convenient. Quiet, you!)

Saturday, we'll arrive in Los Feliz to hang out with The Boy.

Obviously, posting should be light, but keep an eye on the Flickr for the occasional shot. Don't expect celebs, though. I've only spotted one famous person in my handful of trips to LA, and that was only because Chris pointed out Zach del la Rocha as he went by (in his BMW 7-Series -- where's the RAGE in that?!).

Good/Bad

Good News: I'm on vacation for two weeks starting today. The Wife and I will be doing our annual road trip to LA to see her brother Chris. On the way, we will hook up with his S.O., Kate, who is in Vegas working on Ocean's 13. We'll be hanging out in Los Feliz for a week with no specific plans - just maxin' and relaxin'.

Bad News: It seems like work always has some kind of upheaval when I go on vacation. Last time we were acquired by a major corporation and the deal was finalized and announced just as I was leaving. This time we (just our office, not the major corporation) had a "10% workforce reduction" yesterday. It's a major hit to the psyche of the remaining workforce, I'll tell you that much. On a personal (and professional) level, I'm super bummed they decided to eliminate Matt's position in particular. I'm not worried about Brozo - he'll land on his feet without a doubt, but I'm gonna miss having him around day to day for sure.

Homework Motivation

I have a shit-ton of projects I would like to do around the house. This is a (probably partial -- I'm a little crazy...) list, which I am posting now to maybe force myself to get moving on at least one.

  • Sand & stain the deck (This is must this year!).
  • Fiddle with the new front door handle so that it's "right".
    • Re-key the new garage door handle so that it matches the front door.
  • Tile office floor (slate or something similar).
  • Tile the mudroom (slate or something similar) -- perhaps extend this to the kitchen door way and the top of the stairs.
    • Build cabinets, etc. for the mud room.
  • Replace master bath carpet (Carpet in a bathroom is icky!) with cork tiles.
    • Reconfigure the walk-in closet.
  • Build a console/cabinet/printer stand to go between the new desks in the office.
  • Build a dresser/chest of drawers for The Wife.
    • Finish my dresser.
  • Replace the kitchen "desk" with actual cabinets.
    • Replace counter tops.
  • Get wood flooring installed in the living room and dining room.
  • Do a bunch of stuff in the guest bath.
    • Tile floor.
    • Build storage.
    • Replace counter top.

Obviously a few of these involve large amounts of cash and hiring professionals, but 90% of it is stuff I can/want to do myself. I just need to get to work is all...