Caulk and coffee
Tonight is going to be our first night to spend the night in the new house. I am taking a break from caulking the ceiling and chair rail before we paint it. Sitting here having some hazelnut flavored coffee and updating my blog, that is what we call a dork’s break.
We are having a painting / work party this weekend. Jennifer, Courtney (the furthest right in this picture), Shelley (in the middle in the last picture) and Mandy (Courtney’s older sister) are all coming over to help. Mitch (and family), and Gary might come help too, they are too friends from work.
Speaking of work, I have still been in talks with Bank of America about going to work with them. They said things have been on hold since they interviewed me and are now looking to fill two positions quickly. Gary started at AMA after I did and submitted his letter of resignation on Monday after only one month of working there. The company just has it’s head too far up it’s a$$ to realize who screwed up they are. Gary will be the 5th or so person to quit from this team in around 6 months time… yet they still are not getting the picture that things are messed up and keep saying that it is “people problems” and that people are lazy and should be happy to have a job. We will see…
Greg’s birthday is on the 10th.
Ok… need to get back to caulking.
Lee and Andy
Just got an email from Lee (Spuhler) Berner, seems that her and Andy might be getting stationed in Norfolk in around 15 months! Nothing is final but it would be great to have them around. He would be stationed on the USS Kearsarge for a non-flying tour… which I think means that he basically gets to sit on the boat and drink a lot, but not to sure, will get back to you on that one.
Hampton Roads GT Club
I went to the local GT club the other night to see about meeting some local Tech grads… this picture is featured on their website… guess I am a stud:)
More pictures can be found here
Update from Jason
My friend Jason just sent me an email so I thought I would tell the world (or the 4 people that read this) what is up with him. Here is a picture of him and his new “puppy” Nershi, and no… that ring is not a wedding ring, just looks like one.
He is still in Montana, living in a log cabin and working his way up the wilderness ladder. Having fun, but refers to the dating pool as a dating puddle due to population density issues. He has 25 acres at his back door and loves his dog, well he doesn’t love his dog, he just really likes him.
He misses Sherry and I, and we miss him.
Pictures are up!!!
I have posted some pictures of the house on pbase.com! Check them out. So the reoccurring comment that people seem to be making about our house is that it is “deceptively large.” It doesn’t seem that it could be 2541 square feet when you first drive up to it… but two additions in the rear of the house adds a lot of footage.
I have finished almost all of the tack strip in the master bedroom except for two closets and I hope to tackle it all tomorrow after work. Blisters have popped and I am entering the realm of true manhood if I can get these “computer hands” past this first stage of toughing up.
I want to spend the night here so bad but don’t want to jinx the house by sleeping here without my lovely wife, who (rightfully so) doesn’t want to leave our cat with Pearl.
So off I go, back to Chesapeake for hopefully the last night.
Living Room almost done…
The bottom half (below the chair rail) has been completed and the top part has been rolled, but the details still need to be flushed out. I have a second favorite tool of the day…. the Shur-Line trim edger… it saved me about 3 hours of work already. I am pretty sure that tools will be the desired christmas / birthday / easter / st patrick’s day presents.
I have taken lots of pictures and will get them up soon now that I have my computer set up.
Going home and going to sleep well tonight.
Painting and Tack Strips… ugggg
Welcome to happy home ownership!!! My back hurts, and I have the constant sweat thing going on. I woke up at 6:15 this morning and started packing and then drove over to the new house to meet the cable guy… so we know have high speed Internet again… plus music (digital cable) to motivate us while we work.
Once I got to the house, I pulled all the carpet out of the garage (that we have pulled up, since we want the hardwood floors that are underneath them). We are moving tomorrow, with the help of Shawn and Franklin (Sherry’s cousin) and Mike (Shelley’s boyfriend’s trailer)… but the house is not really livable in right now so we are shooting to make it so in one week, and have everything else completed by Thanksgiving.
Nest I met my next neighbor who is super nice, and has already let me borrow two of his tools… one of which I used to clean up the trees and bushes that were rubbing our house. He informed me that it had been rented be two other families for the last 3 years (read: neglect) and he is a good friend with the previous owner. Most of the people in our neighborhood are in the Navy.
After I clipped the trees I started taking up the tack strips which SUCKS… especially since I didn’t have the right tool… but when I went to help Shawn put on his toilet flange and place it in the right place, and help lift the HEAVIEST air conditioning window units down three flights of stairs, I was lent my best friend of the day… the “wonder bar”!
So I then came home and primed some more ceilings with Kilz 2 and continued to pry up tack strips and pulling up staples used to secure the old carpet. Then at 6:30 pm we stated painting and that is where we are right now. Top half of living room has been painted and going to go do the bottom half now.
We are going to sand and refinish our hard wood floors… we found a reasonable priced guy and he did Shawn’s floors, and was also the guy that lent me the wonder bar (after I told him I wanted to hire him)… he is going to do it the week before thanksgiving.
That’s all for now… time to paint… did I mention that I have not showered today… YUMMMY!!!
Kilz and the lady accross the skreet
Apparently we live accross the street from the Asst. City Manager. So I guess that means that we get stuff taken care of pretty quickly 🙂 She told us that there had been some water damage to the house and it had to be fixed, but that it stunk like mildew for a while and that is why it was on the market for so long. It doesn’t stink now, and we used Kilz 2 Latex last night to cover up the few stain marks on the ceailing that had been there.
I took pictures yesterday and will get them up soon. We got a quote from the hardwood floor guy for $2500 for the whole house (around 2300 sq ft which is like $1.10 a sq ft which is not too shabby.
Kids hit with ‘Hogwarts headaches’
I think I must of had one of these when I first got the new Harry Potter book, it was a monster (but I finished it in 5 days, and will do the same with the next one).






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