Kitchen Day 1 - Finish

Had to finish what I could when Kim went back to work for a few hours and my apprentices had to occupy one another.


After the brackets arrive, the bar top goes on and we await the opportunity to paint and stain everything to match.

Now it will sit until Sunday.

It has begun

Kitchen Remodel - Take 2, Day 1

When we moved into our house in July, the kitchen was in desperate need of new cabinets and counter tops. Not having the budget for both we opted to do the cabinets before we moved in and the counter tops later. That was remodel Take 1.

The time has come for Remodel Take 2.

Today's project was removing the tile counter top from the island and prepping it for the building of the bar top.


That went rather quickly and I was able to move on to modifying the base. I removed the area to the right, which is where the wine fridge will move to, and removed material to run the new support structure.

Now the structure is being fit to the cabinets, which will allow for the attaching of the bar top when the brackets arrive. For now it will wait, roughed in until Sunday, when I get back from work.
More updates then.

Morgan's new 'do

Before everyone freaks, she loves it and that is what matters.

When Eliza gets bigger and bigger

Morgan often tells us all about when Eliza gets bigger and bigger.
"Daddy, when Eliza gets bigger and bigger, she can play with Morgan toys."
"I give this to Eliza when she gets bigger and bigger."

Well, we're getting there alright.

Eliza has been in her new car seat, having outgrown the other one (22 lb maximum) and is now in a nice comfortable rear facing wonder of a seat. That means she is out of the carrier, so no more snap and go stroller, one of the 3 necessities of parenthood these days.
It also means she's sitting up in the cart or at the restaurant.
Last night we ventured out to dinner and Eliza got to sit at the table with us instead of cooped up in her carrier and she was all the flirt we knew she was. She talked, banged on the table and stared at a couple a few tables away. Eliza being as adorable as she is (non biased opinion) won them all over.
A part of me, and I'm sure Kim, saw this milestone coming, but didn't think we'd be there already. She's only 7 months old for Pete's sake.
Eliza is also on the verge of crawling, right about on schedule with her sister. We were looking at some old video of Morgan's first crawls (Gods all that hair!) and looked at Eliza and sighed.
They do grow up so fast. Granted I wish they'd skip ahead to the following directions, using the toilet alone, sleeping through the night part, but I'll take whatever I can get.

Yesterday I got a great 2 hour nap with Eliza. One of those Daddy naps where she sleeps and I just give her little kisses on her head.




A few days ago the girls helped me wash the car.I figure it will take me 16 years to get used to this thought, so let's get started on it.












Morgan is becoming quite the artist. She draws wonderful (non biased) pictures of stick figures she calls "happy faces" and LOVES to take pictures, especially of Eliza. She's not bad either. She took this picture just the other day, Kim only turned it on for her.
Eliza's bottom teeth are clearly visible from space now and she enjoys chewing everything she can find.
More updates as they happen from Carriage House.

I wish I was this clever

More on the girls tomorrow, but first, fun with Google Maps.

In case you didn't know, Google Maps has been sending cars around to collect a street view of the nation. Maybe you've seen the little VW bugs with strange triangle mounted on top, well, they're taking 360 degree pictures as they drive. the idea is that you can type in an address, get the directions and then see what it looks like from the street.

Well the folks at woot! posted a recent link to a certain street that knew when the cameras were coming.

Street with a View was a kind of art project that lines the street with different gags to catch on google street view. Now their street will forever have a marathon, marching band, mad scientist, sheet rope escape and medieval battle.

Too fun.

Next Blog Adventure!

Ever notice that button up near the top that says "next blog"? Well, it take us to a random blog on blogger.com
This morning, while waiting to buy tickets to see Wicked, I decided to take an adventure into the "Next Blog."

What I found was mostly in other languages or personal family stuff, but the rest was very interesting. And since the Blog universe keeps growing, I think I'll revisit the button on occasion and bring you the highlights.

So without further fanfare, let's start the

Next Blog Adventure!

We begin our adventure by learning everything we wanted to know about...well...what are those things? That's what I want to know and will learn from:
http://haworthia-gasteria.blogspot.com/

After getting our fill of succulents, let's cleanse the palette with something tasty from Poor Girl Eats Well Now if I spend more than $5 at the store, I'm going to feel wasteful.

I'm not entirely sure what this site is about. They're Korean and apparently REALLY want someone to high 5 them.

Stumbled onto a neat concept (I hope), a blog titled simply 365. there are only 2 entries so far so I might just wander back and see how the year progresses. Glad I didn't find it on day 364, what a lot of reading.

The 365 folks might need this blog, a happy place to think about the future, before they make plans for day 1356.

Completely useless blog of the day award to: Softwares

The Pope is always getting into trouble with that new puppy of his. Follow along with his adventures in Vatican City on the Pope's Blog

And sometimes you get Gold. Everyone remembers Grandma Taylor was a stickler for proper punctuation and grammar and constantly corrected even school teachers on their use of you're vs your. So I will now be following the Apostrophe Catastrophes.

Yeah, I'm THAT important

Some of you may remember that a few months ago I (Justin) decided to get politically active. Maybe I was caught up in the excitement that became President Obama and his call to public service, but there was an opening on the local Fire Commission as an alternate.
There was also a seat open on the Emergency Medical Care Committee. When I interviewed for the positions, I apparently came off as more as a Paramedic than a Fireman and I got the Committee job.

HERE is the link to the Commission meeting where my nomination was accepted. I'm one of maybe 30-40 people who meet every other month to talk about how emergency medical care is being delivered in the county we live in. It's not glamorous, but I have THE seat for my district where as the Fire Commission spot was as an alternate. Commissioner still sounds cooler than Committee Member, but I'll survive.

I'll keep all up to date on what happens. See you then!

Today IS better than yesterday

Notice anything different on people's faces today? They're smiling.

President Barack Husseian Obama picked up the reigns of America from the drunk driver that crashed us all into a wall.
All over the blogosphere today are comments from righties saying Obama should be given a chance and not judged until he gets results from his policies. I agree. We should do the same for George Bush. He is clearly a failure.
For anyone reading this who supported the other side, you still get to take part in rebuilding this great nation to the grandeur it was before we spied on each other, tortured our enemies and gave rich people free money.

But that's old news. For today, we simply smile, knowing things will be different now.

Eliza's sounds

I've tried a few times to get the taun taun sounds on tape, but she always seems to quiet down when the camera rolls.

Luckily there are Ubernerds out there who hand build their own taun tauns, from scratch, and use sound clips from the film to "test" it.

You only need to watch the first minute or so to get an idea of the sounds she makes. After that the video is just creepy.

Thank the Gods there were witnesses

I had planned to wander over to the Reinhold's today with some baby stuff and figured I'd have Eliza in tow. No problem there. They have little baby Chloe so the two of them can stare at each other and drool.

At the last minute as I'm climbing in the car Morgan wants to come along. Despite our best efforts she is intent on coming along "to see baby Chloe."

The drive is fine, she and I are making small talk with Eliza in her new car seat grunting like a Taun Taun.

At the Reinhold's I had to change Eliza, then give her a bottle. While I was doing that Morgan was wandering around their place, then suddenly decided she was going to wash her hands. She's good at rinsing, washing, rinsing and drying, so I decided to let her go for it.
After a minute I heard no water and the door to the bathroom was closed.
"Open the door please, Morgan."
"Morgan, open the door please, I will not ask you again."
The door creeks open and her pants are down.
"Daddy, I'm going potty all by myself." and the door closes. I look from Nikki to Dylan just to make sure they heard her say that.
I must have given Dylan a secret Dad look because he was already moving to take Eliza.
"Do you mind?" I asked, "Not at all" was his reply.
I opened the bathroom door and there is Morgan, pants down, climbing onto the toilet telling me "I want you a go daddy, I going potty." and she shooed me away. I quickly called Kim to tell her what was happening when Morgan emerges with a smile, pants back up, struggling with the button on her pants.
"Daddy!" a HUGE smile, "I went potty all by myself!"

She sure did. All the frustration and stress of the accidents and confusion and she wanders into a strange bathroom and completes one of the 3 main tasks of life.

Now its just to tying shoes and driving.

Tooth #2

Bottom middle right is through. And she'll tell anyone who will listen that it hurts.

STRESS

Notice the all-caps? I'm venting.

I've had my share of stressful situations, not just at work, but with a number of other experiences in my life.
I was stressed in school as a kid to the point of migraines. I got stressed out over balancing work and school to the detriment of both. I stressed over whether I would ever play college soccer. I stressed about quitting college. I stressed over getting back into college.

I was stressed Kim wouldn't show on our wedding day. I was stressed I would fail my Paramedic exams. I was stressed I wouldn't pass the SFFD exam, I was stressed our UHaul wouldn't make the drive from Albuquerque to San Francisco.(It didn't)

But looking back at all of that from where I am now, it seems like no big deal.

The economy doesn't stress me. Politics no longer stress me.

My daughters stress me out. Eliza has a certain scream we now attribute to her teeth ripping through her gums, that, as Dane Cook jokes "Is the sound that makes me want to punch infants." He was talking about a car alarm, I'm talking about my actual infant.
The old story says that Nature makes children cute so you don't smother them when they scream. I agree. Eliza has the most radiant smile and laughs when you smile back, but has an inconsolable scream around nap time that makes your head rattle.
Her voice shakes at the end of it and before the next she has to take 2-3 stunted breaths to get enough steam going for the next one.

*sip of wine*

When we finally realized it was her teeth actually breaking through that was causing her pain we went for the old standby teething tablets. They dissolve in the mouth, allowing for temporary relief, at least enough to forget the pain and fall asleep. But even then she can almost make the windows rattle.
Today it was a perfect storm of distractions that seem to all to commonly be in place when that sound comes along.
Morgan is trying to nap so we're keeping the house quiet, Kim and I are working on one of our word puzzles from Tanga and the scream is going full blast. I've been in a few times to check that she has her pacifier, and she does. It's amazing she can move the amount of air she does and the pacifier stays right there. Almost like those covers trumpet players use to get that cool jazzy sound, only Eliza's sounds are not groovy.

I had had enough and sprang up to my feet, marched into the dark room and punched my opposite hand. "Justin!" Kim cried as Morgan had already awakened crying and I already knew that punch in the hand and the ever so brief tingle of pain was all I needed to calm down.
"Please just sleep baby" I tell her as the screaming continues.
"We're out of teething tablets" Kim's voice from earlier today echoes in my head.
30 seconds later I had Eliza in Kim's arms and was out the door to Target to get more teething tablets.
"2 please" I tell the Pharmacist who keeps them behind the counter.
"Will there be anything else?" she asks me, I imagine to ring me up there.
"No, thank you" and I went to the isle I needed.

That's when I learned Target doesn't sell liquor.

So its a glass of wine and some quiet time, but Kim reading the paper next to me and commenting on everything she reads seems like the babbling of a brook (no offense Dear) in comparison.

This too shall pass.

/vent

A little fun

Pardon our dust

As you can see, Justin has been hardly working at making the site a little more personalized. With the success of the random quote generators I wrote, I've tried my hand at writing a rotating header image script, which seems to be working well so far. You'll also notice I added our little weme family there on the right, hovering just above the first post. Thought that might bring a smile or 2.

Until next time...

Eliza has a tooth!

As of tuesday Eliza now has a bottom front left tooth poking through her little gums. The one next to it is considering doing the same.

KS/js

Kim goes back to work

Well, work will be coming to Kim. She heard back from her employer that they want her back in any way. She has decided to start easy, one day a week, from home or after hours, when needed. They'll hopefully get her in next week to get a new laptop and start networking.

In home front news, we canceled the work order on the new kitchen. It seems that 4 years does a lot to a construction and remodel company. They have so many bad reviews and actions pending at the BBB, I'm not sure how they keep getting customers. So now we're getting quotes on all the house projects we want to do and seeing what can get done.

The garage door guys comes at 8 AM tomorrow and the new counter top guy sometime next week.

Hanging history

I'm at work a few days ago and we got a call for smoke in the area. No big deal, it is Christmas Tree burning season after all, and an elderly woman lets us through her garage into the back yard to track down the source of the smoke. On the way back out, after finding which house to go to, she tells us her father was a retired fireman from the City. "That's his helmet there."

Hanging from the large rafters of the garage are 2 perfectly preserved helmets that look like they were hung up yesterday. Both date easily from the 1930s, with the small head size, maybe a 6, tall hand made leather front and tall eagle design. That's all I'm able to note when the boss calls for me to hurry up so we can go fight the fire.

We tried to go back and knock on the door to learn more, but she was gone. I took down the address and plan to write a letter asking if I can photograph the helmets and any photos of her father and give them to the station he retired from. Then maybe get a photo of the old log book there of his name and such and give a nice pic to her.
Imagine something so amazing just hanging in a garage, I had almost walked right into it before she mentioned it. Almost 80 years of firefighting history perfectly preserved in a garage in the middle of the City. I'm not even sure the Fire Museum has such a quality piece, and they have some nice old lids.

The Simpsons couch gag

Watching the Simpsons is always fun, but I liked watching to see what Bart had to write on the blackboard and for the couch gag at the end of the opening credits.

Well now you can watch ALL of them back to back in this youtube video. Too funny. See if you can spot the live action Simpsons, lego Simpsons and the fire pole one.



HA! HA! Simpson

Raised in a strange house?

A recent post by Angela about the stresses of parenting brought to mind a number of memories from childhood.

When I talk to other folks, outside the fire service family, they are surprised to learn that I do a majority of the cooking in our house. When they ask why I simply state that I can and enjoy cooking and it helps my wife who is often busy throughout the day. Growing up it was not uncommon for Dad to cook so I simply learned that Dads cook.
We were taught, indirectly, that every member of the house chips in to keep the home running smoothly. Although I can't recall ever seeing my father hunched over a pile of laundry, I don't have that memory of my mother either. Many of the chores that kept the house going were done when we were gone at school or later, done by us.

Allowance was never an automatic thing, it was earned. Laundry folding and doing dishes was a given but extra tasks in the household, such as yardcare, was where the allowance was earned.

I recall that Angela and I would rotate dish duty on odd and even days later in school life and often fought about who had a night off recently and who's turn it really was. Vacuuming upstairs versus downstairs, dusting, cleaning toys, books, etc from around the house was all alternated. Back then I thought it was just to keep us busy, but it was teaching us to appreciate what we had and how to keep it well maintained.

When Dad would come home from work to chores unfinished he would be angry. He may had only been upset, but it always came across as angry. On days he was at work I would make excuses not to do my chores and then dread walking home from school and seeing his truck in front of the house, knowing my afternoon would include mowing the lawn and housework. From that experience I learned that procrastination may give you a day off today, but tomorrow will be bad. Spread out your duties and each task alone is simple. Although walking home to find Dad was working an overtime was like a dream come true.

I recall these events simply because being raised in a fire service family meant things ran differently than other guys' homes. I saw my dad throughout the week, during the day. He couldn't coach my soccer teams because of his schedule, but who wants their dad to be the coach anyway? Too much pressure.

When Mom started transcription, I remember she had a late shift and we would be awakened from bed and Dad would drive to pick mom up at the hospital. I hated it. I hated it a lot. But it was that sacrifice that allowed her to succeed and work from home that allowed us so much more in the years following. Without those few weeks (It may have been less or more, I was sleepy) the rest of our school days would have been filled with keys on necklaces and an empty house after school.

My parents were a confusing pair to say the least, I only ever saw them fight once and it was only a verbal altercation at that. I heard from friends that their parents fought all the time. Mine said they'd talk upstairs, later and that was that. They solved their problems in private so Angela and I didn't have to deal with it. Confusing at the time, genius now.

Without going on in greater detail, I'll sum up. Parenting is tough already, despite the challenges ahead. Keeping house is difficult as well, without the headaches family adds. Put on top of that the responsibilities of a job, business, trade and it gets ridiculous. I believe in sharing the load, everyone doing what they can, when they can to keep the home on a balance of some kind. I think it is this spirit that led me to a wife who thinks the same way. Sure she won't mow the lawn, but I won't be breast feeding. I may not always vacuum, but I will be doing the repairs around the house.

We're a strange lot, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

We bought a bar

In these hard economic times, why on earth would we buy a bar?

Well, it's an addition to our kitchen island we've always wanted, even before we had this house. As you saw in earlier posts, we've been shopping around for counter tops in the kitchen. Those who visited at Christmas saw how hard is is to keep the grout and tile clean, let alone get it clean to begin with. So in our circles we asked a local kitchen remodeling company from a home show come out to give us an estimate on counter tops. His price was comparable to Lowes and such but they are able to do construction projects as well. When we asked him how much to add onto our island and make a raised area for stools he went right to it. He even commented on my refinish job on the cabinets before he knew it was a home job.

I was so proud of myself for asking every question I could think of. He gave us a fair enough price quote and then did the usual, "If you act now you get another 10% off" deal. Kim and I asked him to wait outside and discussed what we wanted to do. We brought him back in and asked for another 10% off since I would be staining the wood to match the cabinets I stained when we moved in. He tried to get me to do my own plumbing, no. Then I added him making a custom oak cutting board to fit where ours is missing. He did a little, "Let me call and ask my boss" deal that I'm sure was him making it look like he was taking too low a price. Yeah right. I feel good about getting more for less and he still hits his profit window. win-win.

So in the next few weeks, we'll be finalizing the time frame and beginning demo on the island so they can come in and build the bar addition. From there I'll add some outlets and they'll return and install the counter tops as soon as we're ready for them.

We are sooooo excited to get this going. We chose a Corian surface with a nice double rounded edge.
Let's just hope the girls can get scholarships.

Metal Mayhem part II

Back from the doctor visit and Eliza continues to impress. She is 27 inches long and weighs in at just shy of 20 pounds. At 20 pounds you used to be able to turn kids around in the car seats, but now they have to be at least 1 year old. Apparently the car hitting you knows how old your kid is.

On the more important note Eliza was able to get her shots split in two doses, one today and the rest in a few weeks. When we asked the doctor about the aluminum she had the same info we did and said some parents do what we're doing. I guess all that extra medical school covered something else.

The thing that worries me about all this is we just plain don't know. We don't know how these preservatives will effect our children, its been such a short time they're in circulation. Granted the number of autism diagnosis has skyrocketed, but the definition of autism has been widened so far you might as well call it "Kid just seems a little different" syndrome and leave Autism for the kids who are really sick.

So Eliza received an illegal and dangerous (in any other form) amount of heavy metals in a shot today to protect her from a legitimate danger.

What's that they say about damned if you don't, maybe damned if you do, we don't know, just pay?

Our doctor did have separate doses of the vaccines but their combined aluminum content was only slightly lower if at all and the non-aluminum comes in bulk cases and expires quickly so they don't stock it.

But she is healthy and well, so I can't really complain.

Heavy Metal Mayhem

With all the concerns out there about immunizations, a "new" issue has emerged, aluminum.
Aluminum and aluminum derivatives are used to increase the effectiveness of certain immunizations. What has caught Kim's eye and she passed along to me, is the AMOUNT of aluminum used. The FDA has set the limits allowable in injections and medications at 5 micrograms per kilogram per day. In other words, Eliza at approx 6 kg, if in a life threatening emergency needed an injection that had aluminum would be limited by law to 30 micrograms per day. The FDA has set that limit based on studies that show the body is not able to process metals above that level and that brain damage can occur.

So why is it that the immunizations she is scheduled to receive today could contain over 1200 micrograms of aluminum?

The FDA does not regulate immunizations, at least not the same way they do medications. Why not? Is there some profit margin at stake? Probably not. It turns out there is a lesser of two evils decision to be made. There are immunizations that have less aluminum, but may not be as effective at immunizing our child against life threatening diseases.
Kim and I discussed it quite a bit last night and I've been up a few hours researching the facts. Problem is, there are none. No studies have been published that look at the effects of aluminum in immunizations on the tissues of the body, only on the injection site. Those studies show increases in pain at the injection site. If it hurts on the outside, chances are it is doing damage on the inside. But still, no studies are even looking at it. I think because the medical community at large could care less. They got rid of most of the mercury in immunizations since it only acted as a preservative, but only after public outcry.
So what to do?
We've decided, well Kim has, to either get the lowest aluminum content shot(possibly not covered by insurance)or spread the shots out at least over a few weeks to help her body process all the hard metals.

The more I read about this particular additive to vaccinations, the more I wonder what on earth these companies are thinking. They missed on the flu vaccine 2 years in a row and we're supposed to believe they have our health on their minds? Don't they only make money when we're sick? There's no profit in a healthy population.

There should be no profit in health care.

Now we only hope our doctor has access to the vaccinations that are best for our family.

$10,000 says you can't do 30 in a row

I was directed to this new site Future Game today and find myself going back over and over. It's easy. Where will the price index be in the next 30 seconds? Higher or lower? That's it. You pick which one and see what happens. You can earn cash the more correct choices in a row, 10 cents for 10 in a row, but if you make 30, you get $10,000.

The highest ranked each day wins an iPod and the highest ranked each month wins a laptop.
It's free and oddly addictive the same way midway games are, but it's free! How cool would the midway be if it were free?

My personal best is 5. Comment here with your login name so I can track how far behind me you are!

Midget 2 hits 6

6 months. 6 friggin' months old. Eliza will be accepted to college soon I think based on how fast she is growing. She is a chunk. A chunk and a half almost. She is in 9 month clothing, has been for a few weeks now, and much of it is getting tight. She smiles and grins all the time and is working on rolling over. As you saw in the photo earlier, she's in the walker each day and learning she can push herself around a little bit, more on accident than purposeful.

We're discussing what to do with the annual tax refund, provided we don't get an IOU from the state.
We're considering a new garage door, new countertops or a tankless water heater. It was a tossup earlier in the day, but after seeing hte solid surface options out there I think a decision has been made to go for new countertops.
We'll keep you all up to speed on the decision and bring you live team coverage as it happens!

Hehe.

Morgan has 2 settings

I think I've mentioned this to a few folks, but Morgan has 2 settings.

6 months old
and
16 years old

There is no in between. Sure parents can be preferential and notice 'genius' when junior doesn't trip and fall all the time, but some of the observations, comments and instructions Morgan gives lead me to believe she is indeed smarter than the average almost 3 year old.
Then there is the other side of the coin, the 6 month old side, that cries, collapses, covers her eyes when she does something wrong and refuses to calm down sometimes.

On another note, we're all recovering from the Christmas day bug that rolled into town with Angela. She had the sniffles and a cough when she arrived and it stayed long after they left. No blame here, had she had that stomach bug she would still be welcome, but our symptoms are now clearing. Well, mine are, Kim is in the other room with a dry cough. The girls have had runny noses most of their lives, but no cough as of yet.

I'm glad Morgan is too young to be asking about the invasion of Gaza by Israel. Its on the news and pictures are in the paper, she sees but doesn't comprehend their meaning. I'm not sure how to teach my children about war, let alone the ridiculousness of religious war. Let's hope Israel agrees to a cease fire soon.

CSS opacity vs z-axis

Hey visitors.
I've been working on changing things on Carriage House Blog, new year and all, and am having a technical issue. Like with most of my technical issues, I'm not sure there is a solution. Here's my problem:
I have a div element I want to float between 2 layers of existing div elements. It is position:absolute and the surrounding elements are relative, but I can't get the 3 layers to separate in order to insert the fourth. Should I take the easy way out and alter the opacity of the element or is there a way to crack the CSS z-axis settings to set them to 1,2,4 and my new one at 3?
I've assigned every division its own z-axis setting and no dice.


Well?