November 30, 2005

Range Notes.

The range we bought was different from the one we originally chose, for several reasons. We thought the Kenmore 79363 was dual-fuel (electric oven, gas range) like the one in the store, but they offer a gas-only model as well. This range has five different burners, a cooktop that makes it easy to move pots around, and several different burner sizes for simmering, hardcore cooking, and regular heating. It came with a cast-iron grilling rack that reverses to a frying surface, something we haven't played with yet. The difference between electric elements is huge—water boils much quicker, and the heat it puts off is immediate.

The oven has a convection option, soething that came in handy for browning the turkey on Thanksgiving. It's 5 cubic feet of space, which means we were able to fit a 20 lb. bird and two casserole dishes of stuffing in at the same time. The user's manual is huge, and there are several features we haven't figured out yet. It also features a warming drawer on the bottom, which we tried using for the rolls on Thanksgiving.

Overall, I'd say we're thrilled with the range. It's everything we wanted without a $3,000 "Viking" badge stamped on the front.

Posted on November 30, 2005 4:23 PM | link to this entry

Refrigerator Notes.

The fridge was the one appliance we didn't change our minds on. We bought the Kenmore 76233 21.7 model in stainless steel. Consumer Reports gave it a good review, and it has a stellar EnergyStar rating, so I was sold. It's been very good so far. The freezer is ice-cold (it doesn't play around, be warned) and the fridge is absolutely huge—two gallons of milk fit comfortably in the door, something I've never seen before. There's a built-in water dispenser on the left side, and the filter produces cold, fresh water that tastes pure. However, because it's set up with the thin plastic water hose used for most ice-cube makers, the water comes out slow, which means the door is open for a long time. Consider the next higher model with the dispenser built in on the outside, or another model with a true water dispenser.

Other than that small quibble, there's nothing else to complain about. It's quiet, huge, and worlds better than our old fridge.

Posted on November 30, 2005 4:03 PM | link to this entry

Dishwasher Notes.

So we went with the Kenmore 16279, in black. (The other model we'd picked out was unavailable.) So far, it's working well; we've found that there are problems with spotting and haze on the glasses, and had to increase the water softener setting higher from the factory default to prevent etching. As with any appliance, we're still learning its peculiarities, but overall, we like it. We're also going to stick with the black front—after being told we could order a custom cabinet front mount, I called Kenmore and couldn't get anyone on the phone to find the part. So be warned, folks-the Sears salesmen will advise you to go through Kenmore directly to save money, but Kenmore might not be able to help you.

If you have children, I'd recommend this one. The controls are on the top, which hides them under the granite of the countertop, away from little fingers. It has several different washing options (Turbo Wash being one of them) and when it's operating, it's very quiet.

Posted on November 30, 2005 3:04 PM | link to this entry

Purple Is Back Online.

I took a break this morning, and chased down the wire in the basement marked "PINK/DATA" amid the spaghetti hanging from the ceiling. Five minutes later (after having to refer back to the wiring diagram to refresh the noggin) and one click, and I had the purple iMac plugged into the network, automatically sharing 46GB of music. It's good to have my music back.

Posted on November 30, 2005 12:26 PM | link to this entry

HA!

From the Baltimore Business Journal this morning:

BreakAway launches affiliate to push 'serious games'

"It was unclear Tuesday if BreakAway was planning a hiring push to staff its federal systems affiliate.

In July 2004, executives said they planned to add up to 40 new employees, nearly doubling in size, to handle growth on the "serious games" side of the business and also re-establish its brand in the gaming industry."

Um, no, I don't think they're hiring anybody else.

Posted on November 30, 2005 10:16 AM | link to this entry

November 29, 2005

My Father And Some Trains.

Posted on November 29, 2005 6:40 PM | link to this entry

Disappointed.

I find this story so sad, on so many levels. When I was a kid, I used to love to read about fighter aces, and I looked up to them as heroes. I'm saddened by the fact that this man, who (I thought) stood for honor and courage, sold himself out for a fucking Rolls Royce, a house, and some antiques.

Posted on November 29, 2005 11:01 AM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

November 28, 2005

Turkey Day Wrapup.

Thanksgiving 2005 at the Lockardugan house went over exceptionally well. With the aid of a New And Improved! kitchen, preparation of the bird went much easier. Along with my family, we invited some friends from the neighborhood (and my old job) to join us, so we had the patter of little feet in the house to make the place cheerier. The bird made it on the table a few hours late (I'm still getting the hang of this new stove) but I think everybody had a great time. I'd like to post pictures of the day, but I didn't have the time or presence of mind to touch my camera.

Friday we took a field trip to a few places I'd read about but never been to before: Second Chance, an architectural salvage warehouse, and Housewerks, another (smaller) warehouse with one-of-a-kind architectural elements. Second Chance is an old home enthusiast's wet dream. More wooden doors than a person can shake a stick at; fields of cast-iron bathtubs; hinges, porcelain tile, sinks, and shutters; and a whole warehouse with overstocked new/used building materials (windows, cabinets, etc.) Housewerks is located in an old gasworks building I'd been to 10 years ago in its previous life as a photographer's studio. Think of old signage, wooden gears, carnival canvas, stained glass, and other unique finds from all over the country, and you get the idea. (The kind of stuff you can't fit in a house like ours, but would go great in a loft/warehouse-style apartment.) It kind of sucked not having any money to spend, but I'm positive we'll return there when we do.

We then saw the new Harry Potter movie, which I'd give four stars out of five. I've not read the two books, but it was fun entertainment—just don't go hoping to see some of the details in the books fleshed out (I'm told they cut a lot of it out.) They'd better hurry up and film the rest of them before the kid who plays Harry hits middle age.

We got the two train nuts together for a trip to the B&O Museum on Sunday, which turned out to be a fun afternoon. My Dad spent his childhood blocks away from a major switching yard in Jersey City, and much of the freight going west through Pennsylvania went through Jen's father's town, so they wandered the yards and asked the old-timers about engines and steam and cars they'd grown up looking at. The Museum has done a lot of work in the last year, adding new cars, opening the work shed, and updating exhibits—it's great to see. Meanwhile, my mother and sister launched a full assault on the local Kohl's and Target, and filled the back of the car with Christmas presents.

This morning, they stuffed the car and headed home into the overcast skies. I always get a bit down after Thanksgiving, because of the build-up and excitement of the weekend, and this year is no different. This year I also have to come back to reality and figure out where the mortgage payment is coming from, which is why I'm writing this and putting off what I should be doing.

Posted on November 28, 2005 1:40 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

November 23, 2005

Snow!?!

Hey, whatever. The turkey is defrosting, the garland is hung, and the firewood is stacked by the fireplace. Gobble gobble, everybody, and enjoy your vittles this year.

PS. Lost just keeps getting better and better.

Posted on November 23, 2005 10:07 PM | link to this entry

November 21, 2005

You're Rushing Me.

(I started this on Thursday, but like many other posts here, I wasn't able to finish it very well. I finally tacked on a coda just now.)

Thursday evening, I was wandering the aisles of the Safeway on the hill in Ellicott City looking for coffee filters and something to eat. This particular store is always quiet and sparsely populated, so I always feel relaxed when I'm in there. I have a sneaking suspicion it's probably going to close soon due to the proximity of the shiny new Superfresh up the street, but the produce is always pretty good, the shelves are full, and there are always carts lined out front—I figure that's a good sign.

I prefer going to places where there are few people, actually. When I was in college, I spent many nights in the copy center downtown until the early morning hours, and I always enjoyed being in the city at 5am. Traffic was nonexistent; parking spots were plentiful. I'd sit at deserted streetlights and imagine having the city all to myself. It got so that I'd leave for Kinko's at midnight just so that I could avoid the hassles, and I'd have the place all to myself with the odd Jesus freak or graduate student.

I was in the store to pick up some dinner—I'd just been at a restaurant, but I didn't want to spend $30 and talk business through a mouthful of food. I was slowly pulling things from the shelves when Sinatra's version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" came on the in-store speakers. Something about the melancholy, quiet way the song rolled along fit my mood perfectly. Outside, the temperature had dropped to a chilly 30°. Most of the leaves had fallen down off the trees. Suddenly I realized it's the middle of November, and that Christmas is around the corner.

I used to really look forward to the holiday seasons. I'd always try to come up with interesting gifts for my family and friends, and (in the years I could afford to) surprise them with something exciting. These days, I'm not filled with the same amount of giddy fun that I was in years past, but it really doesn't have anything to do with the holidays—it's more about the aftermath. The idea of three months of gray, cold slush does not excite me.

Last night (Sunday), I built a fire in our fireplace with some of the wood I'd chopped from the elm tree out back. We sipped some wine and relaxed, letting the warmth make us sleepy. The lower half of the house is mostly clean, and I chopped some more wood today before it really started to rain. Hopefully we'll be able to stock up firewood for the cold months when it's uninspiring outside.

Posted on November 21, 2005 11:58 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

November 19, 2005

Weapons.

We're going to a firing range this evening to shoot guns in celebration of a friend's birthday. This should be interesting. Should I rent the Thompson submachine gun, or just stick with a pistol?

Update: We decided to go with a .38 pistol, figuring it would be enough to get familiarized with. That activity would make for an interesting date...

Posted on November 19, 2005 4:24 PM | link to this entry

November 17, 2005

Ruins

Posted on November 17, 2005 4:38 PM | link to this entry

November 16, 2005

Stuff I Didn't Do.

~~Take a shower this morning.~~
Rake the leaves out in the front yard, which threaten to swallow our cars.
Renew my overdue library book and pay the fine. The library's robot called me this morning to complain.
~~Finish the baseboards in the dining room. But they're close.~~
Take my vitamins to fend off the flu.
~~Pull the huge splinter out of the side of my hand from last night.~~
~~Call the lawyer this morning to talk about my possible business venture.~~
Go to Sam's Club to buy a turkey.
Copy the receipts from Sears to claim the rebate on our appliances.
Clean out litterboxes.

You'd think I was sitting around this place eating chocolate and letting the mail pile up at the door, but I'm not. I've been going nonstop since I was laid off. We're getting our plans laid out for Thanksgiving, and I'm overseeing the final touches on the kitchen. The counter guys were out today to fix the sink, which hadn't been hung correctly. It was detached from the granite in the center by about a half-inch, and the silicone bead had torn loose. Apparently the install guy never braced the front and back, just the sides. So when the disposall got hung from the drain, it pulled the sink down. Thanks for that, buddy.

Posted on November 16, 2005 12:52 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

November 14, 2005

Stupid Me.

Not that I have any time to restore one, but I should have just gone to buy the BSA engine and frame I saw on Craigslist on friday instead of thinking about it for an hour. For $60, it was a deal.

Posted on November 14, 2005 4:43 PM | link to this entry

Kitchen/Dining Room Updates.

After finishing most of the touch-up work in the kitchen, this weekend I moved out into the dining room. (Some history: the dining room has been unfinished since our first year in this house. We scraped wallpaper and pulled the lousy paneling off the walls before the wedding, pulled the carpeting up the night before our first Fourth of July party, and painted last fall. It's been in stasis ever since.)

The strange hole in the front corner has been filled. There are two new baseboards installed and finished with cap molding, waiting for a fresh coat of paint. The other two will get new molding and a sanding before being painted—it's hard to get a 17' length of wood without having it specially cut—and the remaining nicks and dings in the wall are getting smoothed out.

I'm leaving the window as it is for a while, until we can afford a replacement—getting something architecturally accurate with modern construction is going to cost big bucks. Until then, we'll cover over the holes with curtains and I'll tack in the replacement molding.

Also, I covered the nasty paneling out on the front porch with three(!) coats of white Kilz to try and brighten the light coming in the front of the house. Years of nicotine have already burned through the paint and stained it brown.

With these two rooms done (or close to done), we'll have three rooms on the ground floor completed, and we'll be able to focus on the living room.

Posted on November 14, 2005 11:58 AM | link to this entry

Hey There, Friends...

I'm taking a break from wrestling with Illustrator 10 this morning. Often I find that Adobe adds all kinds of 'features' into their products that don't act the same way they did in previous versions; right now the Free Distort effect is not behaving the way a mature 10-year-old should, in my opinion.

It's been pretty quiet in my corner of the Web lately; that's not because I don't want to write, but because I'm exceptionally busy these days. I wish that activity was correlating into income, but sadly, it's not. I'm making some cash, but it's not the kind that will keep the mortgage, health insurance, and grocery bills paid.

Instead, I've been rocking out in the kitchen, getting the finish touches down—all the stuff that usually takes the longest. I've also moved out into the dining room, to finally finish the baseboards off, and try to dress the front window up as much as I can. I'll refer you to this entry for more information and some pictures in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, we've been keeping busy with friends and other activities. Dave C. stopped over to haul away two (!?!) truckloads of debris from a year's worth of rehabbing last weekend. Dave, I didn't follow up last week on the final trip to the dump, but I hope everything went well. Thanks! You'll be happy to know I filled that empty space on the garage floor with...more debris. I'll haul it away this time.

We've been getting used to the new kitchen slowly. The user guides for each of our appliances are thick, like manuals for the Space Shuttle, which makes heating coffee a technological challenge. We've figured out how to turn off the beeping that accompanies every keypad entry, which is nice. We've also found that the microwave cooks the shit out of anything you put in there in about five seconds. It's actually kind of frightening.

On Sunday Jen busted out all the china and various boxes of stuff marked "KITCHEN" that we threw in the basement and never opened when we moved. It was interesting to see all kinds of stuff I'd forgotten we owned, and better still to have it up in the cabinets looking purty. The decision to have glass doors installed was smart.

Overall, we've taken a room that we used to feel uncomfortable in, embarassed by, and annoyed with, and made it into a room that we enjoy spending time in. I often find myself standing in the middle and staring off into space (possibly beacuse I'm contemplating the interest payments) but also because it's just better to be in there.

Posted on November 14, 2005 11:15 AM | link to this entry

November 9, 2005

New Music.

The Campfire Headphase. Natural progression, artistic growth, improvement on the formula—good stuff. I'm glad I bought it.

Posted on November 9, 2005 11:30 PM | link to this entry

November 8, 2005

Moving Right Along.

Well, after three weeks of an exceptionally busy schedule, tons of freelance work, and several well-timed checks coming in the door, there's been some exciting stuff going on around here. Last night I had the second of two unusual and unorthodox interviews over two pints of Bass, and it looks like I might be joining a new company—doing web development again. More on all this later, but keep yer fingers crossed.

Posted on November 8, 2005 5:13 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

November 7, 2005

Leaves

Jen suggested the idea to get out of the house and go for a walk in the park near our house on Sunday. We got lucky with the weather and the timing; it was 70° and sunny, and the leaves are all in mid-change. I'll write more later in the day, but now it's time to work.

Posted on November 7, 2005 10:43 AM | link to this entry

November 4, 2005

Houseporn, Part 2.

All the pulls, lighting, and the new microwave got installed today. That area around the window is my responsibility for this weekend. I can't wait to get in there!

Posted on November 4, 2005 5:19 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

Time For A Bleeding.

The mortgage is due on the house this week, and that's not too bad. I was expecting that, and I had the scratch saved up. What I'm sort of choking on is the $800 COBRA payment I have to make today to keep our health insurance going. Yikes.

Last night we picked up our microwave (actually an oven/convection microwave, sort of a microwave on steroids) and $70 worth of drawer pulls from the IKEA, just in time to have the cabinet guys come back and finish up the major work in the kitchen this afternoon. I don't know what's going to be better for my mental health—getting the kitchen finished or ending this big-ticket spending period.

I suppose it doesn't help much that we just bought a pair of flat files from a friend whose design business was downsizing, but considering the price we paid (1/10 the retail price) we couldn't pass them up. And, a little freelance gig came in yesterday that should pay for the files, drawer pulls, and groceries for the kitchen. So I'm not complaining.

Posted on November 4, 2005 2:54 PM | link to this entry

November 3, 2005

Houseporn.

Counters are in. Holy Mary, Mother of God, it's almost finished.

Posted on November 3, 2005 1:19 PM | link to this entry | Comments (7)

Wheel Of Karma.

The five or so regular readers here are probably wondering where I've gone. After all, I'm working from home, so I should have lots of time to write, right?

The sad truth is that I feel like I have less time to write than before. Between three current projects that actually pay money, our kitchen installation (countertops are going in as I peck away) and life in general, I think the folks here at the Lockardugan Estates have less free time than they did two months ago.

There have been several folks who have made our lives easier this past month, as we hunt for food out of the boxes in our dining room and wash dishes in the bathroom. The Cauzzis generously offered their kitchen during our demolition phase downstairs, and we've taken them up on many delicious warm dinners. They are also raising three tiny babies, so we've tried to be respectful of their time and help out if we can. When Todd asked me if I could take a look at their front windows before the cold weather swept into Baltimore, I took him up on it without thinking twice.

Indulge me for a minute as I bring up a little Dugan History here. During my junior year of college, I got a side job painting the house of one of my professors, which made eating and drinking (primarily drinking) more economically feasible. I spent the fall of 1992 on her porch, scraping and painting the ceiling, listening to Pearl Jam and Nirvana from the nearby Loyola dorms and working until the dusk made it too dark to see. As word got out in the neighborhood about the student handyman, I got another job after that working on her friend M's house, shifting to interior work for the winter and back outside in the spring. She liked having me there, and we settled into a comfortable routine during the season—I'd come out and work for four hours, and she'd cook us both dinner. We became friends outside of the work I was doing on her house, and she went so far as to host a graduation party in her backyard for me.

After leaving college with a less-than-practical degree in Illustration, I kept housepainting, switching back and forth between houses, getting more and more involved as time went on. Simple painting gave way to repair carpentry, removing shingle siding, basic roofing, restoring sash windows, running air conditioning ductwork, insulating, and eventually gutting/rehabbing a bathroom in a third neighbor's house. I worked in that neighborhood for the better part of two years, and while I thought I did a pretty decent job, I was a lousy businessman. After two years I had to give it up to seek a better-paying job doing design.

Working at the Cauzzis' yesterday reminded me of that first fall I spent outdoors, working hard to keep warm and race the sun. I pulled the storms out, scraped and glazed the windows, and got a coat of primer to dry with an hour of sunlight to spare. H. made me lunch, which I finally ate at about 3, and I headed back out to put a coat of paint on the windowframes. As I was on the ladder, I was thinking about all the people in my life who have helped me along the way, and about the simple pleasure of helping my friends. I don't think I've done a very good job of tipping the scale back, but I'd like to think I made a good start yesterday. So, thanks to W. and M. for keeping me employed (and fed) back in the day, and thanks to the Cauzzis for letting me pay it forward.