Just thought I would let everyone know that I'm setting some records today for boredom at work. I just love it when I'm waiting for other people to get things done and I don't have anything to do. There are only so many times I can check my email in a single day before I start going nuts. I am quickly approaching that limit.....
Monday, January 31, 2005
Friday, January 28, 2005
Paint Fumes
Jen and I have been on a painting rampage this last week. As I think I said earlier, we got our new furniture in and have now begun to paint. Well, last night we finished up the kitchen. This concludes our breathing in green paint fumes. Thank goodness. I guess we do have to do a little bit of touch-up work still, but that's nothing big.
A word to the wise, good painter's tape is worth its weight in gold. We bought some nice tape this time made by 3M. It was twice the cost as the cheap stuff but it made a huge difference. The other stuff (which we used in the fireplace room) didn't stick down well and let some paint slip in underneath it. The 3M stuff layed down perfectly and left an practically flawless paint line after we pealed it off. It was quite amazing. I don't think we're going to have to do any touch-up work at all in the kitchen. Awesome!
So now we need to start decorating & sprucing up the kitchen and fireplace room. Paul (Jen's dad) brought us some firewood for the fireplace. It looks really nice in the little firewood holder. He also helped me figure out how to work all of the different parts of the fireplace. We got a wine rack for the kitchen that doubles as book-ends for our cookbooks. We also have that Monet painting that I bought Jen for her birthday. So far that's all we really have in the way of decorations. I think we're going to go with an Italian-ish theme in the kitchen. We also need to buy some endtables for the fireplace room. We found some stuff we like, we just have to decide if we want to get a coffee-table as well. There's not a whole lot of room to fit it in.
Oh, by the way, if you ever get soot on a piece of fabric don't use water or cleaner to get it out. Instead, use a high-quality white eraser to rub out the carbon. We tried it and it worked great. We got a couple small smudges on the couch (oops) after working with the fireplace. We called our stain protection company, StainSafe, and asked them what to do but they wouldn't help. Apparently "soot" wasn't specifically covered by our warranty and they couldn't give us cleaning tips because they would then be liable for any damage those tips might cause. What a load of crap. I sure am glad we gave them $200 to "protect" our furniture. It's okay though, because I registered my complaints with the Better Business Bureau and am now starting a handy little internet campaign to trash them on every rating and furniture sight I can think of. Let that be a lesson, do not scorn a computer science guy! :^)
A word to the wise, good painter's tape is worth its weight in gold. We bought some nice tape this time made by 3M. It was twice the cost as the cheap stuff but it made a huge difference. The other stuff (which we used in the fireplace room) didn't stick down well and let some paint slip in underneath it. The 3M stuff layed down perfectly and left an practically flawless paint line after we pealed it off. It was quite amazing. I don't think we're going to have to do any touch-up work at all in the kitchen. Awesome!
So now we need to start decorating & sprucing up the kitchen and fireplace room. Paul (Jen's dad) brought us some firewood for the fireplace. It looks really nice in the little firewood holder. He also helped me figure out how to work all of the different parts of the fireplace. We got a wine rack for the kitchen that doubles as book-ends for our cookbooks. We also have that Monet painting that I bought Jen for her birthday. So far that's all we really have in the way of decorations. I think we're going to go with an Italian-ish theme in the kitchen. We also need to buy some endtables for the fireplace room. We found some stuff we like, we just have to decide if we want to get a coffee-table as well. There's not a whole lot of room to fit it in.
Oh, by the way, if you ever get soot on a piece of fabric don't use water or cleaner to get it out. Instead, use a high-quality white eraser to rub out the carbon. We tried it and it worked great. We got a couple small smudges on the couch (oops) after working with the fireplace. We called our stain protection company, StainSafe, and asked them what to do but they wouldn't help. Apparently "soot" wasn't specifically covered by our warranty and they couldn't give us cleaning tips because they would then be liable for any damage those tips might cause. What a load of crap. I sure am glad we gave them $200 to "protect" our furniture. It's okay though, because I registered my complaints with the Better Business Bureau and am now starting a handy little internet campaign to trash them on every rating and furniture sight I can think of. Let that be a lesson, do not scorn a computer science guy! :^)
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Life in Indianapolis
I know I haven't written in a while, but it doesn't seem like too much has been going on. Jen and I have been really busy but there isn't much in the way of excitement. The most exciting thing right now is that we got our new furniture for the "empty" room, which we'll now need to come up with a new name for. That got us motivated to go get some paint and start in on the walls.
We took our time at Lowes and tried to pick out something we both liked. It was going to go in the "empty" (fireplace) room as well as the kitchen. We considered a bunch of different colors but we finally narrowed it down to some khaki/grey/brownish colors or some khaki-green colors. We did some fancy eliminating & matching until we came up with a color we both liked. It ended up being one of the green colors.
At first, we just bought a quart of the paint so we could test it out. When we got home I painted a 4 foot by 4 foot section and then we waited for it to dry. We really liked it, so we went ahead and painted the rest of that wall (most of it, anyway). Well, we didn't quite know what we were doing so the paint didn't look right. The area of overlap between the initial test section & the rest of the wall looked weird. Plus, there were some areas where we just didn't get the paint spread out quite correctly.
So, we decided to repaint over that wall with the original color. There didn't seem to be much use starting out with a cruddy wall right off the bat. I figured that if we didn't do it right, we'd always wish we had.
After we repainted that wall we painted a different wall the green color. It was the fireplace wall at the end of the room. We took our time and did things right (after looking up directions online) and it turned out exceptionally well. We're really happy with our color choice. I'll stick a picture in here when I get a chance.
So now we just need to paint the rest of the room and the kitchen. I'm not looking forward to painting but I think it's going to be really nice when we're done.
That's pretty much it for now. Work is really boring this week. I'm kind of getting sick of doing the same thing. ADHD most likely. My class has started (Algorithm Design & Analysis) and it's going well. There are only 4 of us in the class. Jen's work is going well, too. She's got an easy month. In fact, she gets all of next week off. Good stuff!
We took our time at Lowes and tried to pick out something we both liked. It was going to go in the "empty" (fireplace) room as well as the kitchen. We considered a bunch of different colors but we finally narrowed it down to some khaki/grey/brownish colors or some khaki-green colors. We did some fancy eliminating & matching until we came up with a color we both liked. It ended up being one of the green colors.
At first, we just bought a quart of the paint so we could test it out. When we got home I painted a 4 foot by 4 foot section and then we waited for it to dry. We really liked it, so we went ahead and painted the rest of that wall (most of it, anyway). Well, we didn't quite know what we were doing so the paint didn't look right. The area of overlap between the initial test section & the rest of the wall looked weird. Plus, there were some areas where we just didn't get the paint spread out quite correctly.
So, we decided to repaint over that wall with the original color. There didn't seem to be much use starting out with a cruddy wall right off the bat. I figured that if we didn't do it right, we'd always wish we had.
After we repainted that wall we painted a different wall the green color. It was the fireplace wall at the end of the room. We took our time and did things right (after looking up directions online) and it turned out exceptionally well. We're really happy with our color choice. I'll stick a picture in here when I get a chance.
So now we just need to paint the rest of the room and the kitchen. I'm not looking forward to painting but I think it's going to be really nice when we're done.
That's pretty much it for now. Work is really boring this week. I'm kind of getting sick of doing the same thing. ADHD most likely. My class has started (Algorithm Design & Analysis) and it's going well. There are only 4 of us in the class. Jen's work is going well, too. She's got an easy month. In fact, she gets all of next week off. Good stuff!
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Mosby Comes Home
Mosby went in for his surgery yesterday and we were able to pick him up this evening. He had his claws chopped off. We felt pretty bad about getting it done, because it does seem fairly barbaric. Basically, they just chop off the ends of finger bones and then sew the skin over the top. Yeah, that's not good for him. But we figured that we don't want our kids getting scratched to heck so it's probably best just to get it over with.
He's actually doing pretty well. He was nice and calm when he got home. He gets a little freaked out when he hits something with a paw, but I think he's getting the idea that he needs to be a little careful for a while.
I have noticed that he's sitting funny on the couch. It's pretty hilarious actually. Combined with all of his other weird contortions I'm starting to think he's double jointed or something. Check out these pics...
Mosby has now seen Mark sit on the couch enough that he's got the hang of it.
Mosby is now trying to see just how long he can be.
My little computer geek.
He's actually doing pretty well. He was nice and calm when he got home. He gets a little freaked out when he hits something with a paw, but I think he's getting the idea that he needs to be a little careful for a while.
I have noticed that he's sitting funny on the couch. It's pretty hilarious actually. Combined with all of his other weird contortions I'm starting to think he's double jointed or something. Check out these pics...
Mosby has now seen Mark sit on the couch enough that he's got the hang of it.
Mosby is now trying to see just how long he can be.
My little computer geek.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Christmas Time Has Passed
Well, after just two short weeks of Christmas cheer it looks like it's back to the grind stone for Jen and I. I think we both stated this morning that quiting our jobs seemed like an entirely perfect choice. Of course, one of us would need to keep working. I nominate the cat.
We had a great time with all of the family. We saw the Caulkins crew the weekend before Christmas. That was a really fun time, we're just a bunch of goofballs. We went down to Jen's parent's house the day after Christmas and stayed one night. Then my parents came to Indianapolis this weekend and left this morning for Michigan. It was really nice to see everyone again.
The only downer for the holidays was that Jen had to work on Christmas Eve through Christmas Day. I got to see her on Christmas Eve, but it really stunk that she had to work 30 hours straight on Christmas. Yuck! But she survived and we had a nice time over the rest of the holiday time.
Thanks to everyone for all of our gifts and for taking the time to see us or have us over. It seems a bit too rare that we get to see everyone. I guess that's what I get for marrying an Indiana girl. :^)
We had a great time with all of the family. We saw the Caulkins crew the weekend before Christmas. That was a really fun time, we're just a bunch of goofballs. We went down to Jen's parent's house the day after Christmas and stayed one night. Then my parents came to Indianapolis this weekend and left this morning for Michigan. It was really nice to see everyone again.
The only downer for the holidays was that Jen had to work on Christmas Eve through Christmas Day. I got to see her on Christmas Eve, but it really stunk that she had to work 30 hours straight on Christmas. Yuck! But she survived and we had a nice time over the rest of the holiday time.
Thanks to everyone for all of our gifts and for taking the time to see us or have us over. It seems a bit too rare that we get to see everyone. I guess that's what I get for marrying an Indiana girl. :^)
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