Matt's bustin' my chops in comments because I don't write about love and guns and knives enough anymore.
Well, I haven't bought a gun in--literally--years. Too broke, too many commitments. Maybe someday.
But love?
Let me tell ya about love, Grawp.
I just gave my baby a bath and handed him off to my wife. Now she and the kids are in bed in the one air-conditioned room in this house because the heat index here is 93 degrees Fahrenheit at 9:45 P.M.
I, however, am going back to scrape drywall mud, paint the ceiling, and probably do some carpentry in the new bathroom.
You know why I'm doing that instead of sinking into bed with a grateful sigh?
LOVE.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Eureka! I Have Found The Perfect Toilet!
. . . . and I can return that smaller vanity, too. I should be able to fit that big bookshelf, now. I wonder what it would cost to do the walls and floor in stainless diamond plate?
Besides, this one is "suicide resistant" and presumably a difficult base from which to produce quality shanks.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
The Quest for Perfection Continues . . . .
The new bathroom vanity has to go back. I loved the colors, the old-fashioned faucet, the nickel finish, the size . . . . . but I've talked it over with my wife, and we've agreed that it's important to us that the shower door open more than ten degrees.
Damn, she's picky.
Damn, she's picky.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Promised Pictures--Clumsy Home Renovations
OK, here's roughly where I am right now, about two weeks before school starts:
Coming up the stairway, we find the landing effectively blockaded by doors and drywall. You can get a glimpse of the twins' room here, along with one of our woefully overloaded bookshelves. When we're done, there will be built-in bookshelves in literally every room in the house except possibly Kane's bedroom. To the left, the entrance to what used to be another bedroom, and beyond that, the entrance to the master bedroom. That banister is beautiful oak and looks like it was made by a master, but people have painted over it with three different ugly colors over the years. One day we'll have to strip it.
Turning left, we enter the hallway. This was all one room before, but we framed in that "T" shape to divide it into two rooms and a hall. Notice the bare wall is framed with 2x8 lumber; that lets us fit two pocket doors into one wall. By making them overlap, we save a ton of space.
Looking up, you can see the trapdoor attic stairs I just installed. Originally I planned to use decorative tiles like the ones you see around here in old stores. Those are "tin" or copper, but Owens-Corning makes paintable fiber tiles that can be made to look like metal or plaster. Now I'm thinking I probably won't try to do that where the hatch is, but we'll see. What I am doing is shoving sheets of half-inch particle board into the attic while I have the opening; I want to floor the entire attic. There's usable attic over most of the house that's completely empty, while the living space is hopelessly cluttered. The hope here is to concentrate on quality of life improvements over cosmetics for now.
At the end of the hall is the door to what will be Kane's room. You can see the problem--the roofline cuts right across it. I can just about stand up straight in the center of the room. On the other hand, this room has its own stairway down to the dining room with no such issues. We'll leave this doorway, though, so he can have quick access to the bathroom we're building. Besides, if we can pass through, we can leave from the front or back stairs during a fire, for instance.
The bottom line, from Kane's point of view, was that he desperately wanted his own room, and his brother wasn't crazy about separate bedrooms at all--much less getting kicked out of "his" room! Kane proposed that he take the back room as a way of compromising, and it worked. He really is progressing.
Looking to the left, you can peek into little Sean's new room. The light fixture looks odd because the fan blades have been removed so I can paint the trim piece on the fan (plus the ceiling) before I put it all back up--and the light piece is hanging by one screw. That window was a royal pain; the old one was a foot and a half longer, but I'd rather a toddler have a window he can see through but not easily tumble through. The old windows are wood-framed, single paned, and dry-rotted beyond repair, so every time we do a room, we do the windows. The ceiling is pine tongue-and-groove; we'll paint it, but I liked that it's not standard--and that I could install it alone with a stepladder.
And a few steps further in, we come to the new bathroom. This is basically what the nursery looked like a few weeks ago--you can see where I've begun the insulationg process with expanding foam. I LOVE that stuff! This was taken before I installed the pocket door frame for the bathroom; you can see it there. It doesn't look big enough to turn around, but I'm determined that it's going to fit a 36" corner shower comfortably, with a few luxurious touches. The current "bathroom" is one floor down and on the other side of that wall on your right. The new master bath will be below this room, taking up a room the size of the one we originally subdivided to make these three spaces. The current "bathroom" will be totally gutted, the floor replaced with an actual level tile floor with its own floor drain, and the washer and dryer will be in one end of it; the other end will be the office. One cool thing about this (besides the fact that it will free up a tone of kitchen space and hide the laundry area and muffle noise) is that there's just enough room under the roofline for a laundry chute from the upstairs bathroom over and down into the laundry area. I have hope that my dirty clothes will no longer be piled in a corner of my wife's bedroom. Our bedroom is one of the things I hate most right now; my wife deserves a comfortable, romantic bedroom. What she has is cracked plaster, peeling paper, one working outlet, and ruined windows.
Coming up the stairway, we find the landing effectively blockaded by doors and drywall. You can get a glimpse of the twins' room here, along with one of our woefully overloaded bookshelves. When we're done, there will be built-in bookshelves in literally every room in the house except possibly Kane's bedroom. To the left, the entrance to what used to be another bedroom, and beyond that, the entrance to the master bedroom. That banister is beautiful oak and looks like it was made by a master, but people have painted over it with three different ugly colors over the years. One day we'll have to strip it.
Turning left, we enter the hallway. This was all one room before, but we framed in that "T" shape to divide it into two rooms and a hall. Notice the bare wall is framed with 2x8 lumber; that lets us fit two pocket doors into one wall. By making them overlap, we save a ton of space.
Looking up, you can see the trapdoor attic stairs I just installed. Originally I planned to use decorative tiles like the ones you see around here in old stores. Those are "tin" or copper, but Owens-Corning makes paintable fiber tiles that can be made to look like metal or plaster. Now I'm thinking I probably won't try to do that where the hatch is, but we'll see. What I am doing is shoving sheets of half-inch particle board into the attic while I have the opening; I want to floor the entire attic. There's usable attic over most of the house that's completely empty, while the living space is hopelessly cluttered. The hope here is to concentrate on quality of life improvements over cosmetics for now.
At the end of the hall is the door to what will be Kane's room. You can see the problem--the roofline cuts right across it. I can just about stand up straight in the center of the room. On the other hand, this room has its own stairway down to the dining room with no such issues. We'll leave this doorway, though, so he can have quick access to the bathroom we're building. Besides, if we can pass through, we can leave from the front or back stairs during a fire, for instance.The bottom line, from Kane's point of view, was that he desperately wanted his own room, and his brother wasn't crazy about separate bedrooms at all--much less getting kicked out of "his" room! Kane proposed that he take the back room as a way of compromising, and it worked. He really is progressing.
Looking to the left, you can peek into little Sean's new room. The light fixture looks odd because the fan blades have been removed so I can paint the trim piece on the fan (plus the ceiling) before I put it all back up--and the light piece is hanging by one screw. That window was a royal pain; the old one was a foot and a half longer, but I'd rather a toddler have a window he can see through but not easily tumble through. The old windows are wood-framed, single paned, and dry-rotted beyond repair, so every time we do a room, we do the windows. The ceiling is pine tongue-and-groove; we'll paint it, but I liked that it's not standard--and that I could install it alone with a stepladder.
I Got Your Gun Buyback Right Here, Genius!
Xavier posted the letter from John from Guns Save Life (formerly Champaign County Rifle Association) the best pro-gun organization in the state, bar none. I've said many times that I wish these guys were in charge of the movement statewide, and in the last year or two they seem to be moving in that direction.
GSL literally sends officers to gun "buybacks" in Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, etc with bags of junkers donated by members. These are turned in for cash or, if no cash is offered, for the prizes which are then offered for sale to members. The cash is then used to finance pro-gun activities for GSL! This time, they're spending money on .22 rifles to give away to kids. In the past, I believe they've put the money toward more "Burma-Shave" propaganda signs along the highways. It's a long read, but it's well worth it. You owe it to yourself to read at least far enough to see a young Chicago cop explain that WWII snipers used pump-action .22lr rifles.
GSL literally sends officers to gun "buybacks" in Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, etc with bags of junkers donated by members. These are turned in for cash or, if no cash is offered, for the prizes which are then offered for sale to members. The cash is then used to finance pro-gun activities for GSL! This time, they're spending money on .22 rifles to give away to kids. In the past, I believe they've put the money toward more "Burma-Shave" propaganda signs along the highways. It's a long read, but it's well worth it. You owe it to yourself to read at least far enough to see a young Chicago cop explain that WWII snipers used pump-action .22lr rifles.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
I Think It's Awesome That You Think I'm Awesome
Matt G. shared his story about getting a little well-earned praise and what it can mean, and I can't let anyone tell a story without telling one of my own. It's my OPD (Obnoxious Personality Disorder) acting up again.
Here's my story:
Last year our reading specialist was retiring. I only worked with her that one year, but I knew her a little before that; her husband was the superintendent in my first district, so he was the guy who fired me after two years when they downsized (multiple jobs to cut, and I was the newest guy on staff.)
Besides that, they live literally around the corner in the nicest house in town.
Anyway, she gave a training session. It was one of those "Let's all stay an extra two hours after work and learn about diversity!" kind of things.
In this case, it was "differentiated instruction," which is the "tactical" of the education world. Good idea, but now it's just a buzzword to most people.
She didn't handle it that way. She did two solid hours of one classroom technique after another. No theory, all applications. I used 2 (TWO!) of her ideas the next day, and they both worked. I can't emphasize enough how weird that is; these things are NEVER practical. NEVER. Normally it's like going to a hippie retreat with a bunch of people who don't believe in hippie retreats.
Anyway, I wrote her one of the little "Recognize a Professional" notes they leave in the work room in the desperate hope that we'll be nice to each other. But I also emailed a note praising the practicality and telling her how well her ideas worked--and I CC'ed that to our building principal.
You'd have thought I hired a skywriter to put her name across the wide, blue prairie skies along with hearts, moons, stars and clovers. She looked like she might very well burst!
(Frankly, I was being more than a little selfish--I wanted the principal to see that the staff would go the extra mile if the training was practical and focused on what we do in the classroom.)
Here's my story:
Last year our reading specialist was retiring. I only worked with her that one year, but I knew her a little before that; her husband was the superintendent in my first district, so he was the guy who fired me after two years when they downsized (multiple jobs to cut, and I was the newest guy on staff.)
Besides that, they live literally around the corner in the nicest house in town.
Anyway, she gave a training session. It was one of those "Let's all stay an extra two hours after work and learn about diversity!" kind of things.
In this case, it was "differentiated instruction," which is the "tactical" of the education world. Good idea, but now it's just a buzzword to most people.
She didn't handle it that way. She did two solid hours of one classroom technique after another. No theory, all applications. I used 2 (TWO!) of her ideas the next day, and they both worked. I can't emphasize enough how weird that is; these things are NEVER practical. NEVER. Normally it's like going to a hippie retreat with a bunch of people who don't believe in hippie retreats.
Anyway, I wrote her one of the little "Recognize a Professional" notes they leave in the work room in the desperate hope that we'll be nice to each other. But I also emailed a note praising the practicality and telling her how well her ideas worked--and I CC'ed that to our building principal.
You'd have thought I hired a skywriter to put her name across the wide, blue prairie skies along with hearts, moons, stars and clovers. She looked like she might very well burst!
(Frankly, I was being more than a little selfish--I wanted the principal to see that the staff would go the extra mile if the training was practical and focused on what we do in the classroom.)
Random Good Stuff That Happened today
Today was a good day.
I got the second pocket door frame installed and level. It looks like a complicated mess, but really all the shimming and leveling was the hard part. The two frames are overlapping inside a double-thickness wall, opening in different directions. When it's done, all you'll see from the hallway is two pocket doors, each 18" from one end of the hallway, opening in different directions. All the liquid nails, shims of varying thickness, nails, and screws of varying lengths and colors should be neatly hidden away behind the drywall.
Grandpa told me once that the difference between the professional and the amateur is that the professional knows how to cover his mistakes. Grandpa was a professional pipefitter and factory mechanic, actually, so maybe that wasn't very good advice for him. But, hey, it works in carpentry.
The nice thing about doubling these pocket doors is that it makes rooms this size possible. I can fit a 36"x36" corner shower in the little bathroom with a toilet and a sink, which is going to make a HUGE difference in our quality of life. With a door swinging in, I couldn't possibly make it fit; with a door swinging out, the hall would be blocked when the door was open. The drawback to these pocket kits is that they use "split studs"--pairs of 1x4 on either side of the door, with the flat side facing the wallboard rather than the edge of a 2x4. That's a lot more flexible and a lot less strong. But by using these two frames doubled up, I got the chance to screw the frames together solidly, which should strengthen them both considerably.
Donovan went scooting up the new attic dropdown ladder like a monkey today and took a look around. It's too high for him to reach, but he caught my eye and said "I can't reach the cord to pull it down, but that's OK, because I can't go up there without you." Smart kid.
I had my first IEP meeting of the year (a special education meeting where the team writes a plan for the student's education for the next year-parents, teachers, administrators, speech, psychologists, etc. at one table) and it went very well, thank you. Nobody yelled, nobody threatened to sue anybody, nobody stormed out or anything.
Then I got to go to the Early Childhood Developmental Clearinghouse in Springfield. This is located on a seedy little street/alley in Springfield where you actually have to park your car and hop across two sets of railroad tracks to get to the clearinghouse, but it's a great resource most people don't know exists. I wanted to get materials for the Very Late Paper so I can finish it and turn it in. I owe my professor a paper that was supposed to be self-directed and somehow just fell by the wayside in the midst of a million other things. I want to finish it and turn it in whether she'll give me credit for it or not, because frankly she was trying to help me out by assigning it and it would be an insult not to finish it. Besides, it's a paper on co-teaching in a classroom with a regular-education teacher, and it turns out I have to do that in every single class this year. Every one. I don't even have a classroom of my own. Woohoo.
Anyway . . . the Clearinghouse. This is a small library of everything related to special needs kids/special education/child development. You can check out materials for free, except for periodicals, which they copy for you while you wait. For free (!) When you walk in, you tell the librarian "I need to make a reading list for co-teaching" or "I need to make a reading list on Asperger's Syndrome" and they search out everything they have on that subject. Then they search a national network of university and public libraries and give you a listing of sources available at other libraries in Illinois.
Does this sound awesome yet? Even if you're not a teacher, if you have a child with any developmental difficulties happening at all, or if you know someone who does, encourage them to look these people up. I'll try to give them their own post soon, in fact, and maybe it'll show up on search engines. Someone might actually get something useful out of this little monument to myself.
When I was done there, I managed to get to Guns N' Hoses while they were still open and get a belt case for my pager so I won't miss calls by leaving the damn thing on a table somewhere. It's a Motorola Minitor III, and the damn things have delicate little faerie gossamer plastic belt clips held in by even more delicate pot metal pins. I of course snapped mine off cleanly within days of receiving my pager. Guns N' Hoses is a neat little EMS/Fire/Police shop with some specialty stuff you'd otherwise have to order. I got some CPR shields, too, to put in our family cars. Chatting with the very hot girl behind the counter, who I strongly suspect was the owner of the car with the "GRYFNDR" license plate parked outside, was a delightful bonus. I love my wife very much, but tasteful ogling is always acceptable as long as you have an excuse.
That accomplished, it was time for a trip to the hardware store. I was just picking up some sanding and paint stuff, but hey--hardware store! Who doesn't love a good hardware store?
Finally, tired but satisfied, I headed for home, where I found that not only had my bride cooked chicken stir fried with many and various vegetables and spices, but there was a box from my good friend The UPS Guy on the front porch--a box of Dura-Coat! With which I shall refinish my beloved West German SIG-Sauer P220 .45 acp pistol.
A good day.
By the way, if anyone out there knows a simple way to add night sights to an early P220 without a dovetailed front sight--the front sight is integral--I'd like to hear it. I guess I need to go show it to my smith. I REALLY wanted some Ashley Outdoors 24/7's . . . big dot front, express rear, tritium . . . but they said even if I have a dovetail cut, the slide's profile will be wrong because the newer ones are different. I'm wondering if I could have the sight drilled and a tritium vial installed . . . or have the dovetail cut, install the sight, and either shape it down or fill in with solder until the profile matches. I'm going to Dura-Coat it anyway, right, so I don't need the metals to match.
Wow . . . . that became a long post.
I got the second pocket door frame installed and level. It looks like a complicated mess, but really all the shimming and leveling was the hard part. The two frames are overlapping inside a double-thickness wall, opening in different directions. When it's done, all you'll see from the hallway is two pocket doors, each 18" from one end of the hallway, opening in different directions. All the liquid nails, shims of varying thickness, nails, and screws of varying lengths and colors should be neatly hidden away behind the drywall.
Grandpa told me once that the difference between the professional and the amateur is that the professional knows how to cover his mistakes. Grandpa was a professional pipefitter and factory mechanic, actually, so maybe that wasn't very good advice for him. But, hey, it works in carpentry.
The nice thing about doubling these pocket doors is that it makes rooms this size possible. I can fit a 36"x36" corner shower in the little bathroom with a toilet and a sink, which is going to make a HUGE difference in our quality of life. With a door swinging in, I couldn't possibly make it fit; with a door swinging out, the hall would be blocked when the door was open. The drawback to these pocket kits is that they use "split studs"--pairs of 1x4 on either side of the door, with the flat side facing the wallboard rather than the edge of a 2x4. That's a lot more flexible and a lot less strong. But by using these two frames doubled up, I got the chance to screw the frames together solidly, which should strengthen them both considerably.
Donovan went scooting up the new attic dropdown ladder like a monkey today and took a look around. It's too high for him to reach, but he caught my eye and said "I can't reach the cord to pull it down, but that's OK, because I can't go up there without you." Smart kid.
I had my first IEP meeting of the year (a special education meeting where the team writes a plan for the student's education for the next year-parents, teachers, administrators, speech, psychologists, etc. at one table) and it went very well, thank you. Nobody yelled, nobody threatened to sue anybody, nobody stormed out or anything.
Then I got to go to the Early Childhood Developmental Clearinghouse in Springfield. This is located on a seedy little street/alley in Springfield where you actually have to park your car and hop across two sets of railroad tracks to get to the clearinghouse, but it's a great resource most people don't know exists. I wanted to get materials for the Very Late Paper so I can finish it and turn it in. I owe my professor a paper that was supposed to be self-directed and somehow just fell by the wayside in the midst of a million other things. I want to finish it and turn it in whether she'll give me credit for it or not, because frankly she was trying to help me out by assigning it and it would be an insult not to finish it. Besides, it's a paper on co-teaching in a classroom with a regular-education teacher, and it turns out I have to do that in every single class this year. Every one. I don't even have a classroom of my own. Woohoo.
Anyway . . . the Clearinghouse. This is a small library of everything related to special needs kids/special education/child development. You can check out materials for free, except for periodicals, which they copy for you while you wait. For free (!) When you walk in, you tell the librarian "I need to make a reading list for co-teaching" or "I need to make a reading list on Asperger's Syndrome" and they search out everything they have on that subject. Then they search a national network of university and public libraries and give you a listing of sources available at other libraries in Illinois.
Does this sound awesome yet? Even if you're not a teacher, if you have a child with any developmental difficulties happening at all, or if you know someone who does, encourage them to look these people up. I'll try to give them their own post soon, in fact, and maybe it'll show up on search engines. Someone might actually get something useful out of this little monument to myself.
When I was done there, I managed to get to Guns N' Hoses while they were still open and get a belt case for my pager so I won't miss calls by leaving the damn thing on a table somewhere. It's a Motorola Minitor III, and the damn things have delicate little faerie gossamer plastic belt clips held in by even more delicate pot metal pins. I of course snapped mine off cleanly within days of receiving my pager. Guns N' Hoses is a neat little EMS/Fire/Police shop with some specialty stuff you'd otherwise have to order. I got some CPR shields, too, to put in our family cars. Chatting with the very hot girl behind the counter, who I strongly suspect was the owner of the car with the "GRYFNDR" license plate parked outside, was a delightful bonus. I love my wife very much, but tasteful ogling is always acceptable as long as you have an excuse.
That accomplished, it was time for a trip to the hardware store. I was just picking up some sanding and paint stuff, but hey--hardware store! Who doesn't love a good hardware store?
Finally, tired but satisfied, I headed for home, where I found that not only had my bride cooked chicken stir fried with many and various vegetables and spices, but there was a box from my good friend The UPS Guy on the front porch--a box of Dura-Coat! With which I shall refinish my beloved West German SIG-Sauer P220 .45 acp pistol.
A good day.
By the way, if anyone out there knows a simple way to add night sights to an early P220 without a dovetailed front sight--the front sight is integral--I'd like to hear it. I guess I need to go show it to my smith. I REALLY wanted some Ashley Outdoors 24/7's . . . big dot front, express rear, tritium . . . but they said even if I have a dovetail cut, the slide's profile will be wrong because the newer ones are different. I'm wondering if I could have the sight drilled and a tritium vial installed . . . or have the dovetail cut, install the sight, and either shape it down or fill in with solder until the profile matches. I'm going to Dura-Coat it anyway, right, so I don't need the metals to match.
Wow . . . . that became a long post.
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