Day After Yesterday

So rebecca’s dad wanted to convert some vinyl to CDs for group of friends….. he was using a turntable plugged into the mac, but since the turntable wasn’t line level, it wasn’t working… I initially told him to find a cheap receiver at a garage sale and use that as a preamp… A bit later in the day, I was at costco with rebecca and her mom, and they had this usb turntable, so we grabbed it for him.

It was easy enough for rebecca’s dad to use right away, included audio software (both simple and advanced), both mac and PC, and USB and line level outputs. It isn’t amazing or anything, but it works. I am going to borrow it and rip a bunch of my vinyl that I have been missing. Should be fun to have all that old chicago punk from my high school years readily available.

One thing that is cool about owning vs. renting is that you actually get to make decisions on stuff and then make changes.

We recently decided that we were going to spend a little money upgrading our master bathroom. I say master, because it is connected to the master bedroom, but there is little MASTER about it. It is relatively tiny and just not that awesome. It is fine for us, but it could be way nicer. So we decided that we were going to give it an overhaul. Nothing insane, no moving walls around or anything, just some new coverings. We are going to replace the vinyl flooring with tile, the fiberglass shower surround in tile, the too large vanity with a better sized one. We will also replace all the accessories, etc.

The biggest thing is the tub (no pun intended). The issue is we have a space of 60×30 for the tub, which is a standard size, but we want a deeper tub. Rebecca actually TAKES baths, so having a deeper tub would be a great improvement. BUT alot of the nicer tubs are 60×32 and that 2 inches would involve moving a door AND putting the tub REALLY close to the toilet. So we are stuck with 60×30. And finding that 60×30 tub is proving a bit of a pain. But I think I can make it all work.

In observance of earth day (and the fact that the weather was perfect) I redid the backyard yesterday. I pulled up all the old grass, tilled up the dirt, removed the 2 bushes on the side, installed the in ground sprinkler system, and laid new sod. It was hard work, but nothing too complex. And I am really happy with the result. The line for the sprinkler is under the grass, but it is not buried in the garden box. I figure we will likely redo the garden soon, and we can bury it then. And by we, I most likely mean rebecca and her mom. Or somehow involving her mom.

I really like the sprinkler system. I know, it is lame, because we don’t have the much grass. But they rule. They pop up, cover all the grass and the garden, with virtually 100% coverage and nearly zero overspray onto the patio. If is weren’t windy, you could sit there and have the sprinklers on with out worry of getting wet. One of the heads isn’t perfectly straight, and it is pissing me off. Provided it isn’t raining at the end of today, I will be out there cleaning up the yard waste, and I will try to fix it.

But yeah, owning your own place rules. Once the garden and sod are all good, I will take some pics. It will be a great yard for mason too.

the holidays are over, and so it is. Everything went well, but we ran around like idiots visiting family, etc and I would have preferred more time to be lazy and work on projects, etc. But such is life.

We did christmas eve at my parents. It went fine, we were there for 7.5 hours, which is kind of long, but it was nice. Christmas day was at Rebecca’s parents, and we were there for 11.5 hours, also a bit long, but it was nice.

Even though I was annoyed by my change of plans, even though it was never to be, I went to work on wednesday. And sure enough, one of the staff’s hard drives died in the AM, forcing me to quick rebuild the machine. So even if I HAD gotten the time off, I would have been in the office anyway. So it worked out…

On new years we went to the party at kieran’s and it was super nice and chill. I had a great time. Rebecca drove and dropped D and Sarah off and went home. Yesterday we chilled out until we had to go pick up mason, who spent the night at the dugan’s. We got to sleep in until about 12:30. it ruled.

So back to work tomorrow.

So perhaps you chicagoans may have heard in the news the story about an 80 year old man on the south side that was murdered in a home robbery gone wrong… well that was Rebecca’s Dad’s cousin, Bob (Robert Winter if you want to google news him). Apparently, Bob was in the basement, and this dude (Darius Bailey, 20) was walking by and noticed the back door was open… so he went in and started ransacking the place… well, then Bob came up from he basement and was all wtf and they got into a struggle. Supposedly Darius grabbed an electrical cord, strangled Bob, then tied him up, and finished going through the house. He took Bob’s checkbook and car.

Meanwhile, the Dolton police put out an area bulletin thing to be on the lookout for this Darius guy for an unrelated robbery, and a detective happened to notice Darius walking down the street. So he pulls up to Darius, talks to him, and finds Bob’s checkbook on his person. Bob’s car is also like 50 feet away. So the officer starts to take Darius in and sends another officer over to Bob’s house, just to check on him. The other officer finds Bob dead in the front room, cords still around his neck, under a blanket.

So Darius confesses on videotape for the crime and bail has been denied.

Kinda nuts really. This is the first person I have ever personally known that was murdered. And over something so dumb. Bob lived in a modest home and drove an older Chevy Cavalier. He wasn’t flashy or anything. It was just a fluke that this dude chose the house. And wtf why would you KILL an old man? You think you would just run when confronted like that. Now Darius, 20 years old) is going to go to prison for quite a while, over what? He didn’t GET anything, a crappy car and a checkbook?

Stupid decisions abound. It is crazy. We were just there a few months ago for his 80th birthday. Messed up. His memorial service is this afternoon. I could have SWORN I had a picture from his birthday somewhere, but I can’t seem to find them.

So this weekend is over… Friday night we walked over to Pacific Cafe and had sushi, it was nice… saturday was the ACCCC autox at maywood, which went quite well. I drive, just ran the event. Just under 50 cars, 14 runs each, done by 3:45pm. Not bad. Although there was this annoying kid that was both creeping me out AND driving me nuts. It was awesome. He just kept talking. I won’t bother writing the whole thing out…

After the autox, I got home, washed the car (it was filthy). I like it clean. And it is so easy to do… it just looks so much better. Mental note: wash the car more than once every 6 weeks.

Then I drove over to meet Rebecca and Caroline at Yitca’s house. Yitca’s baby Ellie (sp?) is 3 weeks older than Mason, but she is like little super developed baby. She started walking last week (so at 8.5 months). She talks (mommy, daddy, shoe, etc). She waves, etc. Crazy. But good for her. It is weird cause you can’t help but to compare your own kid to other kids… and it is such a weird macro view of time at this point. You need to relax, and let some kids walk before others. In 2 years, you won’t care what month your kid walked. In 10 years, you won’t even remember how long it took. But now, in the 6-12 month range, it seems to be SO important. It is not indicative of anything in the future. Got to remember to leave the charts and graphs alone, and focus on the baby. He’ll figure it out on his own in due time.

Sunday got up, picked up dylan, and we met scott and kieran at the old shop. Loaded up a ten foot uhaul box truck (that had NO brakes, likely due to the fact that it had no brake FLUID. We filled it up and it improved. A little) and moved a bunch of stuff to the new garage. Then we swapped the old truck for a slightly better truck and made another trip. The new shop is nice. We cleared out the little room in the basement and loaded a bunch of our stuff in it. Having storage in the basement rules. Once we get everything cleaned up, organized, put away, etc, the new shop is gonna rule. RULE. ROOL. I am excited, but since I am still sick of moving, I don’t care about it. For now. Also big plus: MUCH closer to Mr. Salsa, so I will get to eat there more often.

Cali is still at the old shop, and I am hoping we can get her running soon so I can drive her to the new shop. We still have some stuff there, but it is all small stuff that can either fit in a car, or is required to finish Cali up.

Rebecca’s brother was over when I got home and we hung out and chatted and shit… when I first started dating Rebecca, we didn’t get along SUPER well, but I think we have both figured it out and now we can chat about this and that tech shit, it is pretty nice. So we hung out a bit, then I drove him to the metra station to catch the last train to glen ellyn… and man, was it pouring. I forgot how the tires on the camry aren’t awesome in the rain (Bridgestone Potenza RE92)… but they were better then taking Audrey, which is on Rs still. That would have been hydoplane city.

So overall, things I learned. I hate moving. I forget that sometimes. I also didn’t get to spend enough time with Mason, which sucked, I want to hangout with him more. Having a clean car is nice, wash it more often. Kids develop at different paces, and that is not a problem, no need to compare yourself to every kid on the block. Rebecca’s brother is cooler than I had realized.

I need to have more time that I focus on updating this blog…

over the weekend we worked on house stuff. We touched up some walls, put up shelves, put in a the hardwood stair nose, did yard work and some gardening. Rebecca’s parents came down and helped. We got stuff done.

Laundry room… cleaned cosby’s box and the washer/dryer, put down primer and then vinyl tiles. I still need to put up some more shelves, find a plumber to install a laundry sink, and I would like to put in some baseboards. Then that room would be done and I could get some more stuff put away in there.

Den… I managed to break some furniture while hanging up the screen for the projector. I also hung some more of the shelves and got the pottery put up. I need to get my mom to sew some velcro to my rung from india so I can hang that. Then hang up the elephants and clean up some more. Put in the last of the quarter round and see if that rug will work and that room will be done. I MAY want to add a small coffee table and I WOULD like a bigger screen… we’ll see.

Main floor… Rebecca’s folks worked on the touchup of the yellow paint. I installed that stair nose on the steps and hooked up the icemaker in the refrigerator. I also secured the dishwasher and put in that piece of trim there. We got more red paint, so we still need to touch up the red around there. We are looking at new drawer pulls for the kitchen, I think that would be a nice touch.

Upstairs… we trimmed the doors in mason’s room and the bathroom, touched up some of the trim.

So we still need to finish the basement bathroom, put up the light in the basement hall way, fix the ceiling fan in the bedroom, find some artwork hanging thing for the hall VW ads, etc.

The list goes on. BUT it was a VERY productive weekend, and I am feeling very good about it all. Oh, and we cleaned and took pics of the appliances, so I need to get those listed. I am eager to get that stuff out and perhaps get a car IN. That would be nice.

So we drove to and back from detroit this weekend… it makes for a long weekend… We left saturday AM, picked up kevin, and headed out…

Traffic was fine aside from a crazy white trash mustache wearing guy in a nascar sticker adorned red lumina who decided that he didn’t want me to go faster than he. So as I merge on to the express way, he speeds up to match my speed…. then when I floor it and get in front of him, he gets all mad. At the next opportunity he floors it, passes me on right, and, puts his POS chevy into a gap about 4 feet wide, cause me to brake. So I back off since this guys is clearly nuts. We pass all the traffic, and he sets his cruise at 71 in a 70 and goes back to the right lane. WTF? ALL of that drama, all that speeding, just so he can go 71 mph again? I don’t get it. Why would you get all mad that someone would pass you when their cruising speed is CLEARLY more than you are planning on driving ANYWAY? I see it all the time-people drive all dumb and pass on the right or the shoulder but have no intent of going fast. They always pass on in the crazy way, then when the traffic is open and clear, they drive the speed limit, which is less than you were driving when they initiated their crazy maneuvers. WHY? It makes no sense? All I can assume is people are just giant dickheads? Fools? I have no idea… The other nice thing would have been had we been in the audi, I could have walked away from him in the first place, and I would have never had to deal with any of that BS. Faster cars can be nicer. But we got like 28mpg in the Camry, and me in the Audi would have never pulled that off. And it would have been much more cramped for those in the back seat.

So we got to detroit and went to the xmas party. It was fine. The pics are here. Nothing amazing. Mason was pretty well behaved and most people were excited to see him and hold him. He is a good baby. It is odd to think next year he is going to be moving around and what not. It is gonna rule.

This is the first time I have seen uncle kenny since he got in a bad car accident and had had a seizure (I think he had a seizure). (He had the accident in my old subaru). As a result of the ordeal, he had to relearn a bunch of things, walking, talking, writing, etc. Motor skill stuff IIRC. The other negative thing is that he has trouble linking words in his head, basically vocab lookup internally. Like he will be like “hey, I need a couch”. He really needs a pen. But when he does the mental lookup for pen, it returns couch. And he doesn’t necessarily realize it is wrong until you go to get him the wrong item, or you are like “what are you talking about?”. It must be SO frustrating. But I talked to him a bit, or rather hung out with him. He has been living in an assisted living/rehab kinda house that I guess has been really good for him. He has lost a LOT of weight. I am not sure I have before and after pics, but I will check. He is diabetic and he has been keeping better track of that too, which is good. But he was laughing and seemed to be having a good time. I hope so, since he has had it rough.

Aunt Bev brought all these old pictures she had laying around, which is funny cause half of them were from weddings or of people that have since gotten divorced and remarried and were there with their new spouses. Awesome.

We hit the hotel, kevin took the car and got some coney islands from national, and we set up all the babies stuff, watched some TV, and went to sleep. I was damn tired. We got up the next AM, drove a bit, grabbed einstein’s bagels, and hit the highway. We eventually caught up with my parents, had lunch with them, and drove into chicago. We dropped kevin off at his house, and we drove to winfield for rebecca’s grandfather’s 94th birthday. It was chill and nice. I fell asleep on the couch. TIRED. They decorated the tree a bit. Getting old is tough though.

Rebecca drove home, which was nice, since I wasn’t driving.

I must be getting old, as I was totally tired, but I used to drive way more. I mean this was a 315 mile trip each way. And we made good time, but I was tired. I have done 1,000 mile days in the past and sure I was tired, but still. I dunno. Maybe I am out of practice at the distance driving. Maybe it was the baby adding stress, or the party, or the fact that I slept poorly in the hotel, who knows.

Back at work, busy busy busy. I am looking forward to a nice 4 day weekend.

So I was driving out to the burbs on saturday afternoon to go visit Rebecca’s family… rebecca was already out there… and the motor mount on the jetta broke. I think it broke a bit before that, but it was just sagging (it kept pulling the wires tight) and it finally gave out… I got the her towed to our garage, and I will need to start working on it sooner rather than later. I am excited. I have big plans…. I would eventually like individual throttle bodies….

The wood flooring is supposed to be delivered to the shop today… perhaps I can leave work early to check it out… the entire deal seems too good to be true, but I think it will work out. I stopped by the shop this AM to check on it, as I haven’t been given a full total yet, but I am still pretty confident it will work out.

My steering wheel also came in the mail, so I will have that… But assuming the wood comes in today, I will be prepping the floor and pulling up the linoluim instead of playing video games. Which is both good and bad.

Mom and baby are home sick today. We had dinner with Rebecca’s cousins Jeff and Shannon last night as well as with her brother Jon, who should be beginning his drive to seattle today. Shannon and Jeff have 2 little ones… It is gonna be fun.

since friday, I have been painting. Every wall, ceiling, closet, trim, bathroom, etc has been painted. Empire installed carpet today. We found an craigslist ad for a dishwasher, stove, fridge, and microwave for $600. All GE Profile. All 4 years old. All nicer than our 12 year old stuff. Actually, our dishwasher is nicer than theirs. So I got those upstairs with the help of Kevin. So I have extra appliances. Hopefully I can sell them for $300 and upgrade for a net of $300.

I think I also found some hardwood at a good price. I will know more this weekend. It will be nice. Good price. From the people we bought the paint from. It should rule.

But I am so sick of painting that I am thrilled to be going to work. Sure, I need to pull up carpet. And lay some plywood in the downstairs. And pull off trim. And put up trim. And shave the doors. And and and and. This house stuff is hardcore. But it rules. I’ll have more pics soon. Night and day.

I also met my neighbors. They seem nice.

Big thanks to the parents.

I am tired. Working is hard.