My Shit

I've worked every day at the house, often more than 12 hours a day, since we purchased it on Monday. I have:

• Removed wallpaper
• Designed the fence layout, measured, and ordered all the necessary lumber
• Installed GFI outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms
• Placed most of the poles for the new section of fence (still waiting on the concrete to cure)
• Been to Lowes and Home Depot a half dozen times each
• Installed an exhaust fan in the upstairs bathroom and a new double switch to run the lights and fan separately
• Insulated the doors to the attic sections to try to keep the heat of the attics out of the house
• Built a frame to go around the attic fan and insulated the frame/fan to keep the attic heat out of the house
• Took down a ceiling fan and some track lighting from the apartment and re-installed them in the house
• Removed all of the unsightly co-axial wiring from the outside of the house
• Re-routed the co-axial wiring from the DirecTV dish into the attic
• Mowed the yard
• Installed a new cover for the telephone outlet in the kitchen
• Flipped over some of the grates for the heating and cooling system so that you can no longer see into them (personal pet peeve)
• Finished breaking the top stair
• Made the holes in the walls and installed the boxes for the rear speakers, an isolated ground outlet, and the two co-axial connections and telephone connection for the DirecTV system
• Started wiring the isolated ground outlets I'll be installed in the room we're going to use as an office (this wire spans the length of the house)
• Tried closing off the vents in the basement and some of the vents in the main level of the house to provide more A/C to the upstairs (this is called balancing)
• Ordered parts for some speakers I am going to build to go with a B&O system Palila's mom gave her
• Cleaned up all of the wallpaper and wallpaper backing off the floor and put it in a trash bag
• Swept out the saw dust from the carport
• Took down the vertical blinds from infront of the basement door (junky old plastic) and installed the vertical blinds from the dining room (nice cloth)
• Re-installed the original track lighting from the apartment into its original location
• Drank a few beers

We've had this house almost a week and I still haven't slept there though. Maybe we'll have to camp out on Monday evening or something.

Things I need to do (in no particular order):

• Finish up all of my wiring projects
  • Wire 3 isolated ground outlets
  • Finish wiring rear speakers Done
  • Get the DirecTV co-axial cable from the upper attic into the lower attic and down to the wall outlet Done
  • Run the telephone from the kitchen to the home theater area Done
• Finish up the fence
• Figure out how the fence on the other side of the house is going to work (the gas line is on that side of the house)
• Help paint
• Pick out a 'fridge Done
• Figure out what's wrong with the lights in the foyer and at the front door (likely the same problem for both) Done
• Force Palila to pick out some light fixtures for the kitchen, foyer, and hall Mostly Done Done
• Drink a few beers Never really done
• Clean everything
• Pack and move
• Unpack
• Build speakers for the B&O system
• Figure out some better hand rails
• Actually sleep in the house Slept there a couple of nights now

Palila and I have been working on the house for a couple of days now. In fact, we started taking down the wallpaper on the same day that we closed. We are now doing our part to keep Lowes and Home Depot in business (even though Lowes is further away, I often go there because their stores are nicer, their selection is nicer, and their call center is in the U.S.).

On Wednesday, Lowes dropped off a shipment of lumber at the house. The back yard is nearly enclosed with fence, but not quite. I have to build about 100' of fence to finish it off. Two of my friends came down yesterday to help me dig holes and set the posts (you have to remember the 8-P's of fence building ... proper prior planning prevents piss poor pole placement). We rented the little auger from Home Depot to help us dig. After 3 hours and 4 holes, we gave up on the little auger and went back for the big one. It only took 30min to dig the next 5 holes. By the time we got all of the poles set in concrete we were beat. It was a nice cool 96 degree day. It looks like today will be about 96 again. Luckily, I have to let the poles set for 5 days before I can really do anything else so the concrete has time to cure.

It would be nice to have some cooler days, but I still have plenty of other projects. The next "cool" day will be Saturday at a bone chilling 86F. I need to pull some wire in the attic, but that won't happen until it gets cooler or I will just have to do the job at night. I can't tell you how much I like crawling across rafters, in the dark, with sweat dripping off my face. I also need to pull some wire in the crawl space, which should be much cooler, and also replace some light fixtures. By the time I'm finished with all of that, my poles might be cured and I can go back to building fence and getting that load of lumber out of the car port.

We've also been having fun with Dekalb County Water & Sewer. Instead of transferring the water into our names, they shut it off. Then they played games with us over the past few days rather than turning it back on. Palila had people in the office hang up on her more then once and they hung up on me once too. MFMJ finally went down to the meter and turned the water on himself. Without the water we couldn't flush toilets and couldn't mix concrete. It is a good thing I had friends helping me out rather than paying a construction crew to sit on their thumbs while we waited on Dekalb County Water and Sewer. I am going down to their offices today to make a formal complaint and see if I can get our connection fee removed.

I need to get headed out to the house though. There is so much work to do. I took the morning off to try to let my body recover from what I did to it with that stupid little auger yesterday. I also wanted to watch the U.S. in their World Cup game. I guess watching that was a waste of time.

Today is the day of closing on the house! Palila and I will soon be home owners. Now the real work starts.

You Are Oscar the Grouch

Grumpy and grouchy, you aren't just pessimistic. You revel in your pessimism. You are usually feeling: Unhappy. Unless it's rainy outside, and even then you know the foul weather won't last. You are famous for: Being mean yet loveable. And you hate the loveable part. How you live your life: As a slob. But it's not as repelling to as many people as you'd like!

I got the link to this from Abby. I originally got Burt, just like she did, but I know myself better than the quiz, so I modified my answers a touch to get the "real" result that explains me best.

My Nokia model 1100b cell phone that I got with a 2 year contract from Cingular does not work in East Tennessee and the adjoining area of North Carolina. I've tried the phone in several locations and pretty much anything east of Nashville is off limits for me.

When I try to make a call from this area my cell phone resets itself (called a "power cycle"). I've now been into two stores in East Tennessee, one in Crossville and one in Johnson City, where the sales clerk was able to say: "yeah, we see this all the time, the Nokia 1100b doesn't work with the 64k smart chip." In summary, Cingular's employees in stores in the East Tennessee region know that the Nokia 1100b does not work with the 64k smart chip in their region. The corporate office, however, has their head in the sand on this matter.

I was told to call Cingular's warranty return department to see about getting another phone. After much yelling I was not really able to get anywhere with them. They did send me another Nokia 1100b to try out. I am going to drive up to North Carolina today (a grand waste of my time and fuel) to see if this phone will do the exact same thing my current phone does. When it power cycles, like I know it will, I am going to have to try very hard not to punch the shit out of something. But then I'll drive back into the Georgia region and get on the phone with Cingular again.

I am going to give Cingular just the one last call to get things sorted out. If they do not respond accordingly I will have to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau against Cingular. I will not be stuck in a two year contract with a phone that does not work where and when it is supposed to work. Cingular provides coverage for their customers in that region and I pay for Cingular's services which includes nation wide no roaming. I am also often in East Tennessee to visit Palila's family. The situation as it stands now is unacceptable. I also wonder if I can be reimbursed for the gas I use today?

I don't want to put all of my pictures from the hike here so I just picked out my 3 favorites. I loved the bald areas in the Roan Highlands. My disposable camera couldn't even start to capture what I actually saw, but here's a taste.

This is a view from Jane Bald.


This is a view up Hump Mountain from Bradley Gap.


Finally, a view of Laurel Fork Falls. Note the people near the top of the falls. This gives you some kind of idea of the size of this falls.


You should be able to click on any one of these three photos to go to my Flickr page and look at the rest of the photos from the trip.

The hike was fun. The food poisoning after I got off the trail was not fun. Now I just need to air out all of this gear, finish getting ready for my first year presentation, and finalize all the stuff for buying a house. Should be a full plate for a Monday.