Ah, carpet

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you because we have moved all the furniture around and my PC isn't plugged in. However, our family room is really coming together now.

Back in March just before Easter we finished putting the lights up and I think around Memorial day we put the drywall up for the ceiling and the "new" wall that we closed in. Then we hired a mudding and taping drywall guy to finish it up so it looked nice. Then we hired a wallpaper person to put the wallpaper on the ceiling. During all of this I managed to paint the entire room (four different colors) and put up wallpaper on the lower sections of the wall and we actually got shades for the windows. Oh the humanity.

We had to order the carpet and then after it came in we scheduled the install which ended up being today. Yeah! So now that we have carpet all that's left is the drapes and the cornices. I'll be making the cornices myself so the only thing we have to get done is having the drapes made. Surprisingly this is proving to be a difficult task. Where does one find a person that will work with velvet? We want to have red velvet drapes in here to make it look like a theater and then cornices above that for more color and contrast.

I'll get some pictures up of the family room in the next few days. Gotta go as my laptop battery is dying.

Please add your signature to this petition

Please read the story on the Daily Herald website and if you feel the same as I do, add your name to the petition.

Wow, forgot how to write...

Apparently I have completely forgotten how to write in my blog. Sorry about that. In my defense things have been quite hectic around here.

Since I last wrote a lot of things have happened and I'll get to that but first I want to share something I read in the newspaper today. As a hybrid vehicle owner I find it an odd request. My intention here is not to offend anyone who happens to be blind because I certainly respect what you have to deal with on a daily basis, but again this seems like a strange request...here goes:

Advocates for the blind have asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to set minimum sound standards for new cars and trucks, pointing to potential safety hazards for blind pedestrians who can't hear silent hybrids. The National Federation of the Blind says hybrids don't register among traffic sounds the blind use to determine when it's safe to cross the street. In one experiment, blindfolded listeners couldn't hear a 2006 Toyota Prius until it was about 11 feet away, compared with a 2004 Honda Accord, detected from about 36 feet.

I like that my hybrid is nearly silent at times and quite honestly I don't know of a way, barring putting a speaker on the car with engine sounds being played, of "creating" a sound that the blind can hear. Again, no offense to the blind, but it just seems like another thing we've found to complain about in our society. Usually it's noise producing things that get complaints though, not nearly silent vehicles that help the environment and my wallet.

Wednesday

We were surprisingly running a little late for dance class this morning and stopped at the McDonald's on the way for some breakfast. The drive-thru lane was anemically slow and then after we finally get our food I pull away to the Wal-Mart parking lot and stop to put jelly on Grace's biscuit. But there is no jelly in the bag. So we turned around and went back, ran inside to get our jelly and then came back to the car and I got the jelly on the biscuit so Grace could eat. Then we pulled out of the parking lot and got stopped by a freight train. So apparently we were supposed to be late to dance class because everything was working against us this morning.

We finally did make it and it's quite the coincidence that I decided to bring the camera today because they got their costumes for recital today. So they tried them on and did their two dances in them to try them out and see how they worked. They looked SO cute. Here's the picture:



After dance class one of Julie's sister's called and we had lunch with her and some of her kids since they didn't have school today (testing.) Grace was really excited about that. But since she had really just eaten breakfast she didn't hardly eat anything. Then Julie called and said she was taking a half day, so not long after we got home she did too. Grace was REALLY excited to see her Mom come home so early. So when she got home and had lunch and Grace had a snack, the two of them went for a bike ride and not long after that it was time to go to gymnastics.

At gymnastics I was starting to read my next book about Mark Felt who was Deep Throat but this one is penned by him mostly. This is all a result from having read Bob Woodward's book about Deep Throat so now I'm interested in Watergate and such. I wasn't so thrilled by what I've read so far from the LONG introduction where the author of the introduction says that basically he didn't trust Bob Woodward and that he wasn't a very good person. If you read his book about Mark Felt, I think you might feel differently as I do, but I guess to each his own.

After that we stopped at a new (to us) restaurant near Grace's gymnastics for dinner but it wasn't all that. We probably won't be going back. But by bribing Grace with ice cream we were at least able to get her to finish her grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. Then we ran and got her some ice cream at Dairy Queen because that's what she wanted and she sat right down and ate the whole ice cream cone without hardly saying a single word for like 20-30 minutes. It was kind of peaceful.

Then we came home and I forgot to stop at the library for a CD I had put on hold, so while Julie put Grace to bed I ran down there (unfortunately I had to drive or I wouldn't have made it before they closed) and picked it up. It's the music to Seussical the Musical. It's for Grace because she enjoyed the play when we saw it so much I thought she'd enjoy the music. I think she will.

Alright, I've got to clear an area in the basement so my Uncle and I can do electrical work tomorrow. Gotta go...

Happy Earth Day

I've got such exciting news. We have some friends that moved to Zimbabwe (which you may remember) and we wanted to send them some Christmas presents but true to our style we got them sent out a bit late near the end of January. They just got it TODAY. We had given up hope of them ever receiving it and ironically our friends emailed us just a few hours before getting the package and said that they thought that they would never receive it which is exactly the sad conclusion we had come to. Lo and behold they got it today. Julie and I are SO relieved that they got it. I'm super surprised that it took three months for it to get to them, but nonetheless happy they finally got it.

So today was Earth Day and all I really did to celebrate was ride my bike to the village board meeting tonight instead of driving. I slept late this morning which also says that Grace did too because she didn't wake me up. She's supposed to be to school at 9 am and I woke up at 8:30. So she was about 10 minutes late, but we made it. While she was at school I ran to get a few things from Lowe's and I went to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients we needed for dinner. Julie got her favorite meal tonight which is an italian sausage, mushroom and tomato pasta dish.

So I'm wondering what exactly would explain the gasoline prices right now. Does anyone really know? Are you as appalled as I am? I don't want to drive anywhere anymore and I'm driving a hybrid vehicle. And the way the prices are changing just astounds me; you go to bed and the price is $3.44/gal for regular unleaded. You wake up the next morning and it's $3.67/gallon? And then two days later it goes up to $3.74/gal. I don't understand and I don't know who is raking in all these millions of dollars, but it's at the point now where it is affecting the way I live my life. You do realize that the gas companies have had (brace yourself) record profits into the hundreds of millions of dollars since prices started to rise last year. I can only imagine what their profits are now. Just incredible and disgusting.

I really wish we'd stop relying on foreign oil for our gasoline consumption and use the oil we have but aren't using. And I wish the government would remove the restrictions stopping the gas companies in our own country from building more refineries that would reduce supply and demand issues. If the government really wanted to turn around the economy this would be a great first step.

You may have noticed my new "feature" in the column to the left which lists the book I'm currently reading, but the book I just finished is called "Real Change" by Newt Gingrich. If you're tired of bureaucracy and the current state of "politics" in our country, you need to read this book. I highly recommend it; it's amazing. Also see the website where they have created the red, white & blue platform - The Platform for the American People. Please read it - it's great for our country and it's something we all need to read and be a part of to make a difference.

It's definitely spring

This last week has been fairly normal. Monday was preschool story time at the library and Grace had a great time as usual. She just loves going there. I found out that there is another session after this one is over so I signed her up for that session in May so she'll have a week off and then start over for more story times. She was starting to get sick over the weekend and wasn't much better on Monday coughing a lot and just not feeling good. But of course if you ask her she felt fine.

Tuesday was preschool and she added sneezing to her repertoire of sickness symptoms. One of the hardest decisions I've found that as a parent you have to make is whether to take your child to the doctor. Not to say that sometimes it's obvious that you have to, but when it's a borderline sickness like this where it's basically a cold or maybe allergies, what good is a doctor visit except wasting money on your insurance deductible? Tuesday I chose to not go but rather to try and slow her down a little especially since on Wednesday she has dance class and gymnastics and she needs to be well rested for that.

Well with Grace, trying to slow her down is like trying to get your grass to grow during a drought without watering it. If you get her to slow down it isn't usually for long. She fights it -- which is actually good, she needs to be active but not when she's sick. So obviously she didn't rest much but she made it through the day. On Wednesday she was about the same but again made it through. So when Thursday came and she wasn't really any better I'm starting to think, take her to the doctor. So I ask Julie what she thinks and neither of us are sure whether to or not to take her there so again I don't take her.

Instead, I take her to school. Now just so you know I'm not a negligent parent, her symptoms aren't any worse, just not better. And she isn't exactly lying around not doing anything because she feels terrible, no she's up running around and complaining that she wants to play more is mad at me for trying to hold her back as I try to get her to rest since she has these symptoms. So anyway I take her to school and again she seems to be doing just fine except she's still coughing a lot and has a runny nose; the sneezing has pretty much gone away by now.

While she's in school, I run over to the in-laws house because my BIL has gotten a new (used) set-top box for DirecTV that needs to be installed since the box they had stopped working. I'm not sure if I mentioned this last week, but their old box died and so my BIL got a used box off of eBay and I went over to get it working for them. I called DirecTV and had them activate this box with the card we had ordered from them for $20 and had been using in the box that died. They didn't complain one bit and did exactly that, but this "new" box didn't work. So he ordered another one and had called me on either Tuesday or Wednesday to say the new one had come in and needed me to get this one activated.

So after I dropped Grace off at school on Thursday, I run over there and get everything ready and call DirecTV and the lady I got was completely the opposite of the person I had talked to the previous week. She can't activate this box with an old card, I need to order a new one. I'm saying that this is a card that I ordered from you for $20 and was just using a week ago AND that another representative had activated with another box just a few days ago. "I'm not supposed to do that sir," was the response I got. Well then why did this other representative do it? "I'm don't know why they would do that." Are you freaking kidding me? I'm just going crazy trying to comprehend why I'm being told this now and not last week. Why would different customer service rep's tell me completely different things only days apart? I know they don't like us buying used boxes on eBay because they want everyone to pay a monthly "rental" fee for leasing new boxes from them. They apparently don't want anyone to own equipment anymore.

So as I'm going crazy about this situation she says she's "noticed" that I qualify for a free upgrade to the new HD receiver and that she could also have it installed for free. And then I could use my old HD receiver (that I have currently disabled somehow with my whole wiring issue) that we're currently using on this TV and then we wouldn't have to order anything or pay for anything. So I agree to this and everything is OK now, but I don't get why talking to a different customer service rep provides different results. So we'll see what this install brings as far as getting the cable I couldn't get to work to start working. They are coming on Monday morning.

So after I cool off I go to get Grace and we had a pretty good day and we were finally able to go to bible study for a change this Thursday. The babysitter came over and since there were no cancellations for bible study we got to go. It was really good and as usual, it's always nice to get away without Grace for a little bit. It's nice to feel like an adult every once in a while. As far as bible study goes, it was very enlightening and enjoyable. We're studying the book of Peter or at least we're starting to now.

So on Friday I took our HD receiver to the in-laws house and got it set up and it worked just fine. I didn't need to wait until Monday because it doesn't work at our house anyway. So that made them happy. But since Grace still wasn't feeling much better, we canceled going back to their house Friday night for dinner because we don't want them getting sick. Today was my biggest day for feeling I "should" take her to the doctor mostly because she's not really any better and the weekend is coming up and if she ends up getting worse over the weekend our options will be limited as far as taking her to the doctor.

But again we decide not to take her as she hasn't gotten worse and she's really not "acting" sick at all, she just sounds sick. So we make it through Friday and then on Saturday Julie goes to yoga in the morning and Grace didn't really sleep in so the morning wasn't so good because she's never happy when it's the weekend and Mom isn't around. I actually think her coughing is a little better on Saturday, but she's now whining and complaining about everything, but of course still doesn't want to just sit around.

We had this painting company come over Saturday morning to give us an estimate for painting the outside of our house. The estimate was great and their references seemed really good and I've never heard anything bad about this company, so I'm 95% sure we'll go with them, but they aren't calling us to see what our decision is until Wednesday so we have a few days to decide still. Then Grace had a birthday party to go to; her friend from around the corner turned six so she went over there for several hours.

After that I finally got started on staining the new bookcase/toy box we bought Grace back in December when one of our favorite furniture stores was closing. They used to be called "Naked Furniture" and then they changed their name to "At Home Furniture." They sell unfinished furniture directly from the manufacturers. We bought a lot of Grace's bedroom furniture from there before she was born and we bought this piece to kind of go with that. It's not from the same collection as her dressers and night stand, but it is the same wood; ponderosa pine which we love. So anyway I was able to get the first coat finished and then Julie and Grace had gone to pick up dinner and they got back as I was finishing up. So then we had family movie night with dinner downstairs in the family room while watching "Air Bud: Spikes Back." Grace loved this movie. I think with this whole family movie night thing that Grace might finally be re-embracing movies again; we'll see.

So on Sunday we had church obviously and then later we went to a friends house for dinner. Julie was helping them make announcements for a family member whom had just had twins and Grace was playing with their kids and their Dad and I were hanging out watching sports and cooking, talking, etc. Everyone had a great time and hopefully we can continue to do things like that together.

So now it's Monday and this morning the DirecTV guys came over to install the new HD receiver down here in the family room. First thing, they were told they were upgrading, ie: replacing, an older box which they weren't. They were just installing the new box where the old one used to be. Once they figured that out they were pretty excited that all the wiring was already done. Except there was the little problem of it not working right, but I'll get to that in a minute. So they're scoping everything out and they start installing everything and they're wondering about all the wiring I've done but the guy that "got" to go up on the roof isn't having a great time because our roof is quite steep and he's not wanting to be left alone for fear of falling off the roof. He says if he falls he at least want someone to see him falling. I'm telling you these guys were really having fun and they made me laugh a lot.

So once the roof work was done; the new HD receivers provide more HD stations because they're accessing 2 additional satellites, so instead of "only" three satellites being brought in, it's now bringing in five satellite signals on the one "large" dish; they moved inside to determine how well everything inside the house was working. Not so well was the determination. Even the box up in our bedroom was not finding any signal so they started to work diagnosing the problem. I had already told them about how I had brought the line in to the attic from having been previously wrapped around the house and that ever since then the HD feed hadn't worked. It took them some time, but it was a couple of things. Something with a switch they installed and then the culprit for why the HD didn't work after I brought it into the attic. I feel like such an incapable coax cable installer after this one. It was completely my fault that this didn't work because when I brought that line that had been wrapped around the house into the attic and attached it to the cable that had been run down to the family room as the HD feed, I made a sloppy mistake/oversight on attaching the connector to the end of the cable.

How RG6 coax cabling works is it's got a central copper wire and then insulation and shielding around the outside where there is the stranded wire. When you use the stripping tool, it cuts the insulation off the very outside revealing the stranded wires and also trims the interior insulation to reveal the central copper wire. Once you put the connector on the end it covers the stranded wire so the only exposed wire remaining to the eye is the central copper wire. Well, there was one stray stranded wire that somehow got dislodged/disconnected from the rest of the stranded wires and was askew and when I put the connector on the end it was exposed on the outside of the connector and was touching (wrapped around even) the central copper wire which is obviously a BIG no-no. So it was this tiny little stray wire that caused all these problems. I've run how many hundred feet of this wire in my house and made many many of these connections and this had never happened to me before. So I can chalk this up to a learning experience because I certainly won't let that happen again.

Here is a picture of the culprit:


They were VERY impressed with all the wiring I had done and were especially excited at how easy everything was for them (except the whole connector issue.) So it took them some time, but they figured out my problem and everything works wonderfully. So for now everything is good in DirecTV-land and we're satisfied customers again. After this I told Grace that maybe we could ride our bikes to the library today since we needed to go to story time and it was such a nice day and gas prices are just out of control. But she ended up watching some show about organizing or something and wasn't ready to go until too late really because we drove and were still about 4 minutes late getting there. Next time we'll ride there...

When we got home from the library we had lunch and then were going to go for a bike ride, but I had mentioned to her that maybe we could take her training wheels off and see if she couldn't learn to ride her bike without the training wheels and she seems pretty excited about that. So we tried and she worked at it a bit, but I don't know all the right things to say and she wasn't really getting it I guess, so finally she just wanted her training wheels back on so that we could go for a bike ride. So we did that and she wanted to ride for like - ever. She wanted to go like 3 miles down the road to the new forest preserve but I stopped her from going that far and diverted her to the next subdivision and then surprisingly (not) and just as I predicted she was suddenly "so tired" and couldn't hardly go on, but we made it back home. I don't remember exactly, but I think we went close to 2 and a 1/4 miles in addition to the riding she had done earlier trying to ride without training wheels.

Then not long after we got back Julie was home and I hadn't prepared anything for dinner so we ended up going out for dinner which actually turned out to be a pretty enjoyable time. Grace is coughing considerably less now than she was and seems to be getting better. Unfortunately Julie isn't feeling very good now. She said when she got home that she should have called in sick today.

I've also been walking the dog each night now so that I can get some exercise and so that he can too, but mostly it really is for me. We've worked our way up to about 20-25 minutes now and I think we might have gone a little too much tonight because he got up to go to bed a looked REALLY stiff; poor guy. I'll see how he is in the morning. He seems so willing when we're actually walking...

Notre Dame Frozen Four

I can't say I'm a huge college hockey fan but my BIL is and Notre Dame made it to the frozen four this year but lost in the finals yesterday. I have to say Notre Dame did really well with most of their sports teams this year (except football.)

Anyway, Friday was a normal day with Grace going to school again. I was starting to clean up the house because my Mom was coming on Saturday for a few days visit on the way to a conference in Ohio. So I got the spare room pretty much all cleaned up and the only thing left for that room was cleaning the sheets so my Mom had a place to sleep. A short time later she called and said that she was affected by the American Airlines MD-80 maintenance issue and that she had verified with the airlines that there was a 99% probability that she wouldn't be flying on Saturday.

So that ended my cleaning spree and so Grace and I just hung out for the rest of the afternoon. Then I started completing some of my around-the-house wiring tasks. I finished running the cable line from the TV in the family room down to the basement. So now we can watch things recorded on TIVO on our television in the exercise area of the basement. I tried to connect the network cable to the area where we're moving the server in the basement, but the cable I pulled down there was too short to reach over to that area. I thought I could just tape additional wire onto the wire I had already pulled and use that to pull the new wire down there, but it doesn't let me pull it for some reason.

I even tried to pull it back towards the router and distribution box and the line wasn't budging that way either. So I suppose I'm stuck trying to run an additional line down to the basement for the server. That really stinks because I thought I was done pulling wires. Then there's the problem with the HDTV cable that doesn't work for some reason. It was part of the large bundle of wires I pulled originally from the distribution box to the TV in the Family Room and then pulled up from the distribution box up to the attic. All the other wires work fine but for some reason that one doesn't.

On Saturday I worked on the wiring going out to the garage. I'm taking everything out there just in case I ever need it. I got the wires all out there and an outlet in place. The cable is hooked up although I haven't tested it yet. I still need to hook up the phone and network lines and then test them. I also still haven't set up the other router I got yet which I'll be basically using as a switch. I'll need to move the new washing machine to install that now because I'll have to move a network cable from an outlet to this new router so the two routers are connected to allow more physical connections throughout the house.

Today was church and then we had a birthday party for our nephew who turned 16 today. That was pretty much our day and tomorrow Grace has her preschool story time at the library. She so looks forward to this each week. Julie actually asked at breakfast this morning when the story time program was over and Grace just about cried. She obviously won't be happy when this is over. I actually think next week is the last week. I guess we'll have to prepare her for that. She gets emotional about most everything. I've been told it's because she's a girl and that boys aren't like that. From what I've observed of other peoples children that are this age, I'd say that's about as accurate as you can be.

I've also got to finish our taxes as they're due on Tuesday. The sad part is we're expecting a return so we're allowing the government to keep our money for all this time without earning interest. So that will be my day tomorrow I suppose; taxes and the library.