This Old House

As we started another one of our many home improvement projects for this summer (which include, but are not limited to: laying tile downstairs, new linoleum in the kitchen, new widows downstairs, and a new yard in the back), Mom said, "I feel like we're in an episode of This Old House." I think mostly she was considering the terrible shape some of the walls and floors are in. Nonetheless, we moved everything out of the laundry room and bathroom on Monday, cut and laid out all the tile on Tuesday, and yesterday we mixed mortar and laid it all for good. (Well, I hope it's good.)

These shots were taken after the initial layout. I'll wait until the grout is in and baseboards replaced to show you the finished product. I actually enjoyed laying the tile, and Mom was a big help. Looking at it this morning, there is one tile that sticks up a little on one edge (not sure how that happened) but the rest looks pretty good. 

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The other project happening simultaneously is the kitchen floor. The floor guy started work yesterday, but discovered that a section of the sub-floor had to be replaced. (Said he wasn't licensed to replace it - what's up with that?). So anyway, after laying tile most of the day, I got to rip up an 8'x2' section of floor aroud the back door, and today I'll cut the new stuff in. I like that kind of work too. Below you see the kitchen cleared out before work started.

And below you see where we put everything - the front room. No, the stove is not plugged in (it's gas), and yes, the fridge is plugged in. I kind of like it there. Don't have to walk all the way around the corner to get a drink of cold water or a snack. Mel probably won't go for leaving it there though. Probably. . .

But anyway, since the kitchen was torn up we had to eat out last night (and maybe tonight too - WooHoo!) so we used a gift card I got from a  student this past year and got a couple of really good drinks at Juice-It-Up (like Jamba Juice), then drove over and picked up a couple of really good sandwiches at Quizno's. All this on the tail of the Giant's finishing a 3 game, shut out sweep of the Dodgers! Life is good.

My New Favorite Quote

So I've been revisiting old movies on YouTube. I really enjoyed "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" the other day; now I'm in the middle of "Zorba the Greek." And that's where my latest favorite quote comes from. The young Englishman is not too interested in making a play for the beautiful, young widow, because, as he tells Zorba, he doesn't want any trouble. To which Zorba responds:

LIFE  IS  TROUBLE.  ONLY  DEATH  IS  NOT.

Yeah, that's been my experience. About life that is. I don't have so much personal experience with death.

Day 2

Spent the morning finishing the raking of the yard, and I'll tell you something: I sure wish I'd had this rake last time I did this yard. Those puny garden rakes are worthless for this kind of thing. Tomorrow I'll try the grader.

Backyard Project Update

Yesterday I rented a very large walk-behind tiller and tore up the back yard. I spent about 4 hours working that thing around in the corners and back and forth to loosen everything up. I had some appointments in the morning so I didn't get started till noon. I picked up a little sunburn on my neck, and I felt like I had worked all day, that's for sure.

So this is what it looked like this morning when I started raking it out. I bought one of those 36" landscaping rakes to start leveling the ground. I'm going to rent a hand-drawn grader next, then start rolling it - grading - rolling - grading, etc. until we get it firm and level.

Hopefully by then Mom and I will have come to terms on how we want it to look (she favors curves and bushes, I favor straight lines and grass). But as the Beatles sang: "We can work it out." Stay tuned.

Fathers Day 2012

I had a great Fathers Day, thanks to everyone for calling or Face-timing (we've got to get David and Michelle an iPod).

The card below was from Mom, who always gets something good.

The inside says: "In Women!"

I agree.

This was probably the best Fathers Day gift from the ward I ever seen. A great big candy bar, with a special wrapper.

Big Hunk. That's funny

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4th Level Hike 2012

This year's 4th Level Girls Hike was short and easy. We did a 3 mile walk along the path that wends it's way around Bullard's Bar Lake. It's actually a bike path, well shaded, and mostly level. Took about an hour - not counting getting across the washout (see below). 

This was the washout. Really nothing much. I think if it were a group of 12-14 year old scouts we would have scurried down, then climbed up the other side. With the girls we let all the packs down first, then the girls climbed down holding the rope. We hefted the packs up, then helped the girls. Now surely if it were scouts, there would have been a few scrapes and scratches, and we wouldn't want that for the young ladies, so this was the better way - even if it did take longer.

This was my camp site at Dark Day Campground. All the kids will recognize the camp bucket (no, I didn't pack that in), and the tent is a backpacking tent I borrowed from a friend. I was impressed with it when I saw him use it before, so I asked to use it this time to see if I wanted to buy one. . .  I think I will.

David will remember the hammock hanging up on the left. I brought it along just for fun. It makes a real nice place to nap in the afternoon. I brought along my Old Farmers Almanac and actually got through a few pages before dozing off. Mmmm. 

The food was great as always, and we spent the afternoon in canoes on the lake. I ended up in a canoe with two of the adult YW leaders, unfortunately. Not long after we left the dock one of them leaned over and dumped us all in the drink. But the water was nice, and my clothes dried out quickly. It was a fun day.

The photo below is of a scorpion that crawled across the campground the last morning there. There's nothing to judge scale by, but the whole thing stretched out was no more than 1" long. Just an itty-bitty thing, but then they say those are the worst ones. We had to poke him to get him to raise up like this for the picture.

The Transit of Venus

Yesterday our closest celestial neighbor, Venus, moved between Earth and the Sun along it's orbital path. Now if were a HUGE planet, it would have caused an eclipse (and probably several other major changes in our existence), but since it's a small body, the light it blocks from the Sun only creates what looks like a small shadow moving across the face of the Sun. They called that a "transit." So I set up my telescope and started watching about 3pm. The transit took over 3 hours, and after some time the Sun dipped below the houses and trees next door, but I did figure out a good way to shot photos through the eye piece of the telescope. 

The first shot - just after Venus makes it way past the rim of the Sun. This photo was taken before I put yellow filter on the eyepiece. To me, the most exciting thing to watch was when Venus made it's entrance over the rim of the Sun. Everything after that seemed anti-climactic.

With the yellow filter, about 30 minutes or more into the transit.

45-60 minutes later.

An hour or so later, as the Sun started to near the trees and other objects close to the horizon.

I was really lucky to have time during the day to watch the transit, and glad to be able to use my telescope (which doesn't come along too often). I had planned to use the video feed that I bought a long time ago for projecting what you can see through the eyepiece either through a TV or using a digital projector. I had even hoped to record it onto a VHS tape, but the old tape recorder didn't want to cooperate, and since it was a very bright day, the TV outside didn't work out well at all. But I was happy with the photos. I'll just have to refine my methods some more. Anyway, it was pretty fun.

School's Out!

So today is the last day of school in Yuba City Unified. Mom and I are going down to Joe's Crab Shack in Old Sacramento for some good seafood after school is out. I have nearly all of my work wrapped up, instruments collected for the big "district-wide music instrument inventory" they plan for this summer, and a little more filing of music to do before moving on to Barry School for the later half of the morning.The rest of the school is just starting their "last day of school" water games and outside activities.

I'm looking out my classroom window, watching a 2nd grade class getting ready for a tug-o-war game organized by parents. They have the rope. The teams evenly matched. There's a knot with a flag tied around it in the center - right above a pool of water for the losers to be dragged through. Loads of fun for everyone!

Except I notice that the distance from the knot to the team on the right is 5' from the water, and the distance from the knot to the team on the left is a good 12'-15'. Hmm, I think. There's something about this game that the parent organizers don't fully understand.

Nevertheless, the signal is given, the pulling starts (and lasts longer than I guessed it would, even with a couple of kids falling down), and wouldn't you know it? The team on the right, who had more than twice the distance to pull, won!

Maybe there's something about this game that I don't fully understand.

Anyway, we also have stake conference this weekend, and I think things will go well. I always wish that more members would make the effort to attend what I think is one of the greatest meetings (pardon me Elder Bednar, "revelatory experiences") we have in the Church, the Saturday evening session. Actually, I think stake conferences are always great. Even when I was very young I thought we ought to do that kind of thing more often.

So I hope you have a worthwhile weekend also. I know I'm looking forward to mine.