Yay! the girls are home

The girls just got back home after spending all of August with their father. It's good to have them back.

Here's Johney!!!

We've begun the downstairs bathroom (today is day 2). The first day they discovered that the ceiling was too low. The original plan was to put the toilet and tub on a pedestal so there was room to drain into the pump that takes the waste and pumps it up so can drain out of the house. That made the tub too tall. So it was either tile around the tub (more time and money) or blast though the floor. HARVEY'S CONTRUCTION recommended the second because it would look a lot better without the step ups. Check out the flickr pictures.

lost and found

I found a bayonet from 1878 in the garage today. It's in pretty rough shape so it's not worth much.

it appears to be one of these.

Thanks to Derek for finding this data base and getting us dialed in.

Wow

Sunday AM I walked past the back door and did a double take. I was about eye to eye with a bird in the back yard. OK I was taller, but not by a lot. A great blue heron was in the middle of the yard! It took off as soon as I moved, so I have no pictures, but the size was very impressive. We did a head count and we have all the frogs and at still lots of fish. We actually have seen a dark fist we had never noticed before. Do herons deliver like storks do?

I've been faced

Tera's brother talked her into joining facebook. Tera talked me into it. There is a game you can play against friends called word twist (think boggle on the computer). Tera and I have played quite a bit. She usually wins. We played against a friend Bill. He didn't beat both of our scores added together. But he came close.

Any one know how to delete a friend in facebook? ;)

Spike was a good boy

This is the best picture I could find of Spike (he's the cockatiel sitting with Rachel).

He'd been fine, no sign of any problems. He was sitting on the eggs at breakfast, and later in the day he was gone.

We bought him as a boy to keep our first (female) company. We later bought another boy who sang more. Then we bought another girl to keep Spike company. That girl (Buffy) ended up singing a lot more than girls normally do. It wasn't until Spike started laying eggs that we realized we had been mis-imformed about the sex of the birds. But we didn't want to confuse the birds, so Spike was a good boy who laid eggs.

He was our best bird. Very friendly, even with strangers. We will miss him a lot.

Red is the new yellow

Tera and I were driving yesterday. Twice we saw a car go through a light that must have been red when they got to it, because our light had already turned green! We got to talking about the fact that you see that pretty often now days. It used to be that if you came to a light just as it turned yellow you'd hit the gas and maybe see a flash of red as you were passing under the light. It seems that it more and more people are deciding to hit the gas when the light turns red! I'm heard that in Florida they are encouraging people to count to five AFTER their light turns green before hitting the gas.

I now understand why they are installing the red light cameras to issue tickets.

The microwave saga ends

My first attempt at installing the microwave was a strike. At some point while installing the support bracket, it got crooked and no longer had room under the shelf. I took it down and Tera decided it would be better if I had non-pregnant help. A week goes by and I finally get my dad over (My folks are moving now). I figure 20 minutes tops. After trying to mount the microwave, it turns out that when I leveled the bracket even with the high side, I should have leveled it with the low side. Microwave back down. Strike 2. I moved the board up 1/2 in inch. Microwave goes back up. The cut out for the cord is on the wrong side (I still have the template - I followed it!!!) I'm going to call that a foul ball. microwave back up. The third support bolt is off center. Also on the wrong side. Bad template - another foul. No longer trusting the template, I measured over from the other hole on that side of the microwave and drilled another hole in the board. Did I mention that there was already a hole in the board from the old microwave? Yep, I measured over from the wrong one. Sigh. That should be a strike out, but rather than take the microwave down, I used a drill bit by hand to make a new hole (no room to use the drill. TADA

Only an hour

Check out the picture from 8/14 on flickr - it's pretty

Stuck in first gear

Tera and I were both under the weather last Friday. We've had trouble getting back into unpack mode. We are still doing unpacking, just at a slower pace. I got the old microwave out. I've been taking my time with putting the new one in because I don't want to screw it up.

Which means all meals need to be either stove, oven or grill. How do people live like this?

There's a wave in our future

We finally found a microwave we liked at a price we were willing to pay. It has all the features of the one we bought for the old house 2 years ago from Olums, for only $200 more. About $100 more than the next best we liked. It does more, but the main thing we wanted was a rectangular tray that slides back and forth so you can do 2 plates or a rectangular dish. We had no idea what a great deal that was.

We found it at Sears. The salesman in that area was tied up on the phone for at least 15 minutes after we found the one we wanted. We were fine, we just checked out the stoves (ours is 4-5 years old, doesn't do convection or a warming/second oven like the one at the old house. Another Olums special we didn't appreciate at the time. It was about $700. Stoves with those features are over $1,000!. Sears had one for about $1,150. No thank you.

The sales guy apologized about the long wait, we told him it was fine. After answering our questions, he started to ring us out. He asked is we were interested in the stove. We said it was out of our price range. He said well, there is a one day after the store closes, friends and family sale coming up. if you buy it then it would only be... does some math... $750! Awesome! So we are getting a new stove too.

Last Friday wasn't a great day.

The guy came to install the internet. That would be good, but he wasn't done before I had to leave to take the girls to a hair appointment. I waited until he was done inside and then took off. He had to finish up outside and then I would have to call the office. I got to the hair appointment and the time was wrong. Tera was supposed to be before the girls, not after and they couldn't switch.

So I came back to the house and did some unpacking and then remembered to call about the internet. The guy was busy, so he would call back in 5 minutes and I went back to work.

15 minutes later I realized it's time to leave for the hair appt. The girls aren't quite ready, so I rushed back downstairs and dragged some boxes back into the garage in case of rain. I closed the garage door as the girls came down the stairs. They were quite proud they had remembered to lock the door as I requested.

As I walked to the blazer I put my hand in my pocket - no keys. I checked all the doors to the house. Twice. From the back door I can see my keys on the hook where they belong - UNLESS I LEAVE THE HOUSE. As I peer thought the window, disgusted with myself I hear the phone ring. I tried the keypad entry even though the code given to us hasn't worked. Tera has the only other key and the only remote for the garage door. In Cortland, about 45 minutes away.

That's why I now have 3 ways besides my key to get into the house.

So I called home. Mom wasn't doing anything (just packing for her own move, yeah I feel bad)
so she came and gave us a ride to the haircut place. Of course, by then we were pretty late, so she took a walk-in.

Mom gave us a ride back to their house and I borrowed my brother's truck, because my Dad was using mine.

My ran over to the mall and did walk-in's there. The girls looked cute.

And then they left to spend a month with their father.

:(

another light day

Sunday was long and fun due to the reunion, but we didn't get much done around the house.

After a long day at work I picked up a new deadbolt and lock for the front door because we didn't have a key for the deadbolt.

I went with a keypad model (with key backup) and a keyed alike knob. Kwikset has this new feature where you can re-key a lock yourself. Pretty slick, takes about 10 seconds. The keypad allows you to lock the door from the outside with one touch, but you need a code to get in. The first time I tried it I had it jumpered wrong and it unlocked with one touch, but you needed the code to lock it :)

I also programmed a new garage remote, as only one came with the house, and figured out how to program a new number pad for the garage door opener (no code for the one that came with the house). Tomorrow I will install that and the hide a key.

Hmmm, I don't think I posted about why I'm concerned about ways into the house, That will have to be my next post.

I can't find my cordless drill (black and decker 18v). While getting new keys made, I noticed that Lowes had a combo set for only $130!!!! The drill alone would be $90. My old drill works great, but sometimes it's hard to get the battery in and out, stemming from a 2 story drop. and I can't find it. and it has a flashlight and car vacuum and a small circular saw. I already have one of those, so this will go to a friend who has the same drill.

Happy house warming to me :)

Reunion

I know where I've been the first Sunday in August my whole life. Family reunion. It's been that day for over 70 years at one of 2 state parks on Lake Ontario. As a kid it was a lot of fun. Eating and playing in the sand and the lake. Now it's a lot of fun catching up with family, eating and yes playing in the sand (I was helping my nieces and nephew so it's cool). No swimming because I can't find a suit or even another pair of shorts.

In fact I almost wish I didn't have to play at the beach so I could talk more. OK, playing with the kids isn't a "have to", but I'm an uncle.

Great day

We got internet!

We are trying plexicomm. It's supposed to be faster than Time Warner Cable, and cheaper. It uses radio from a dish. Seems to be pretty good so far, but I haven't tried video downloads yet.

We "survived" the last couple days borrowing wireless from a neighbor. It worked pretty good from one side of the deck, spotty every place else. Almost non-existent from inside. At least the weather has been good. The only table we have readily available is the outside one, so the weather has been great for us.

I started moving halloween stuff from the garage to the shed. That should help free up space in the garage. Well, my break is over back to work.

Dan

We have plates!

It took a couple days to find plates. We still haven't found the cable box.
We found (most of) our clothes the second day.

Love the house!
Out on the deck checking email.
Ahhh.