Some Good Progress

This is the first weekend I have been around for a month so there were lots of projects that needed some time. Saturday morning we went for a run in the heat.

I got the frame for the desk installed in the second bedroom. The garage is project central. Sam has been working on painting the bed.
The slate got sealed and is ready for grout.

I got the backyard cleaned up so we could grill out on sunday. After all of the recent rains I had to shovel the mud off of the patio.

The garden is getting big. We should have some peppers this week.

Gifts from WI

My mom and one of my best friends from back home were going to come visit this weekend, but due to schedules and logistics, the trip was postponed. However, my friend AM, sent me this wonderful care package instead.

Inside the cow-print bag (I grew up on a dairy farm) was 6 beers from my favorite Wisconsin microbrewery New Glarus: 2 Organic Revolution and 4 Spotted Cow. There were also two Wisconsin Badgers pillows. Ah, the taste of home. I may have to return the favor with BBQ sauce and Boulevard.

It has been a busy day. We started off with a ten mile run and sweated through our clothes. We've been taking care of some small items around the house and picked up trim. John has been working on the desk for the guest bedroom/office and I worked on some small painting items. We also bought a Bissel Little Green to clean up Portland's puke on the new carpet. That thing works awesome! More pictures to come tomorrow.

Boise Ironman 70.3 Results

Last weekend we were in Boise for Sam's Ironman 70.3 race. It is a half Ironman distance triathlon which consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run. We came out last wednesday to have a little time to relax before Saturday's race.

Boise is the high desert so there aren't many trees. I went for a couple trail runs up the mountain and brought my phone for pictures.

After a 2000+ climb looking back towards Boise. That climb makes for a long way up and a very fast down.

Sam found a very good breakfast place.

Overall Boise is a nice, clean, and friendly place. We had some good beer and good food. I found it funny that some people had "Boise or Bust" on their vehicles. It seems like a good idea until you actually bust.

Just us and the cows.

Sam getting ready. Right after this she got stung by a bee on her ass.

Getting suited up.

And they're off! While we were waiting for Sam's wave to go off it went from 70's and sunny to windy with ominous clouds. She started the bike in dry weather but a majority of the bike and run was raining and cold.

Leaving transition 2, the view from inside a plastic bag.

The course was setup great, I could see her a bunch of times.

Finishing too fast for the camera.

Very happy to be done.

Today is the Day

Oh, it's so nice to have carpet. Today is the day we had the carpet installed. Nera helped pack everything into the dining room.

A putting green.
We had Mohawk Smart Strand carpet installed. It is a plastic produced from corn starch without harsh chemicals.

I think they like it better than the exposed subfloor.

Today we had some pretty big rains. The creek was as high as it has been since we moved in, but still well below the channel wall.
Also, an airstream moved into the yard next door. Mark is getting close to putting the house next door back together.

Yep, the patio turned into a swimming pool.

The current view of the red house. There currently is only one standing wall. They dropped off all of the wood for framing today before the rain, ooops. We currently have two houses on the circle under construction. This place will be pretty nice when everything's finished.

If It Wasn't for a Deadline

Nothing would get accomplished. Yesterday Sam reminded me about calling to see if the carpet was in yet. It was and they only had one day in the next couple weeks to install it, next Tuesday. I say OK and as soon as I hung up the phone realized how much work still needed to be done. All of the old carpet and pad had to be ripped out, the fireplace tiling needed to be finished, and all of the doors and closets had to be removed. Oh yeah, I am in DC through this weekend and we leave next Wednesday for Sam's Iron Man 70.3 race in Boise. So she has more important things to worry about this weekend other than tiling. Well I came home from work and really got to work.

The carpet coming out. If I don't get sick today I will be surprised. The amount of dust that came up with the carpet was amazing.

Holy over spray batman, that is partially why we can't have polished concrete floors. There is way too much work required to get back to the concrete.
The fireplace gets a strip of tile and a small landing next to the door out to the deck off of the living room. We ended up getting natural slate at an open box discount from the tile shop.

Jared saw the light on and stopped over to help tile. At least there wasn't any complicated cuts.

Big thanks to Jared who made an emergency run to Lowe's for more thinset when it turned out that the big container I had wasn't enough. I need to seal the tile and grout them on Monday and we are ready for carpet.

An Anniversary Shag

A few months ago I was at a very boring conference stealing lobby internet and surfing the net to keep my mind off of the droning at the front of the room. The topic was probably something interesting like "Effect of Yield Stress Modifiers on the Rheology of Self-Consolidating Concrete." I stumbled across the Shag, aka Josh Agle, website and started looking through. I found an interesting show he put on in 2005 called LA by Day/by Night. Shag releases a dozen or so of the prints each year in very limited numbers at the Shagmart, 150-250 only.Turns out that The Secret Cul-de-Sac was released the morning I was at the conference, coincidence I think not. Anyway I picked it up and gave it to Sam for for our two year anniversary. It will probably go in the hallway.

It hasn't been released yet, but here is the night version of the print. I haven't heard the plan for this one and will have to pick it up whenever it goes on sale.
These houses don't have much wall space and I think we have maxed out the unhung artwork. I need to stop buying and get a few hung.

Road Trip

Well another weekend passed without any work getting done on the house. This weekend we were in Northern Illinois for a wedding. 9 hours of driving on Friday and again on Sunday means our brains are mush today.

The other good new is that the truck drama is over. On Memorial Day Sam and I were doing some shopping and stopped by the dealership. Turns out they wanted to buy a car and didn't mind taking a trade on a truck that barely started and had the check engine light on. Here is a picture of me and the new Element at the World's Largest Truck Stop on I-80 in Iowa.
See every bug between hear and Illinois was standing in line to fowl the brand new vehicle. Even my grandma was impressed with that big one in the middle.