Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

The hot water heater was replaced without incident yesterday. Well, there was the faint pain of writing a check for said replacement, but the plumber who did the work was nice, chatty and good at his job. And now we can turn off the water to the hot water heater without turning off the water for the entire house! Same for the gas. Exciting, eh? And we have both hot and cold water running through our pipes again!

Work is really busy this week. Fun, chaotic, slammed, amusing, productive, crazy busy.

Today’s comic of the day is from Sinfest. It makes me smile. A lot. So true. (Okay, it makes me giggle a bit too.)

I’m heading to New London, CT again next week. Leaving Sunday again and coming home Wednesday. Yay! I already did my expense report for last week (aren’t I virtuous?) and now I’ll have to do another. Have I mentioned how much I hate forms? No? I will tell you a story about my 1st grade parents’ night sometime… but not now because I’m starving and need to go eat dinner. But Sunday I’m actually arriving much earlier than usual thanks to my usual flight being booked solid… this means hopefully I’ll have time to visit with Andy and his fab family and maybe make it into Mystic while the bookstores are open.

tags: comics, fish without a bicycle, hot water heater, house, sinfest, travel, work

Explosives, light and cameras, oh my!
I’ve posted a set of my fireworks pics from last week. These are all from the Upper Darby display on the 1st. We saw fireworks on the 4th but it was raining so I didn’t pull out the camera. I’m definitely going to take my tripod next year! Fritz has some awesome fireworks shots up as well (they’re up over here too). You can never have too many fabulous fireworks photos to distract you, right? Most of Fritz’s photographs actually look like fireworks and are totally amazing. (And they are exactly what convinced me that I need to take my tripod next year!)

Several of my photos look odd and funky - vaguely like sci-fi sky vistas from a far-away planet. That’s part of the fun though - seeing how the random shots come out and how even the ones that aren’t strictly “good” make your imagination wander much like your imagination gets going during the display itself. There’s something about fireworks that just inspires glee in my heart. I think I mentioned that I had my screen saver using the fireworks photos. Seeing them drifting across the screen when I glance over at the Mac while working is fun.

Visitors for the new guest room!
Jon and Kirsten arrived last week on the 4th proper and we settled them into to the freshly painted guest room! The baby animals are gone and the walls all have fresh sheetrock and are a lovely blue!! (Before/beige and after/blue pictures! Remarkably the rug still kinda works.) This also means the walls are smooth and mostly flat! Very exciting for our rather unique house. The contractors have another week or so until they finish up the master bath and patch the ceiling and paint in the dining room. The celery-hay color got old and I need it to go away! We picked a sagey green for the walls and will be keeping the trim white. It’ll be nice to get an even coat of paint on the walls. I might even put up curtains after this! (Don’t hold your breath!)

Excursions while Jon and Kirsten were here included Independence Mall, the Liberty Bell, Monk’s, the Japan House (the koi have grown) and a vain attempt to see the Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Alas I had not grasped that the tickets had times attached to them and we didn’t have quite enough time to wait for the next available slot. And probably the week of the 4th isn’t the best time to be trying to see the big sights in Philly… But at least it wasn’t as hot as last time they visited us!

Weather = too hot
This week is as hot as the last time Jon and Kirsten came to visit. It’s 100° F out there and the heat is staying through Wednesday. The National Weather service has had a heat advisory in effect since yesterday. In short, it’s bloody hot.

I’m missing the WebCT reunion tonight, which is kind of a bummer but I really couldn’t justify a trip to Boston with how work is going this month. Next week I’ll be in Connecticut for meetings and stuff - if only they hadn’t been rescheduled! (Originally they were scheduled for this week so I would have been up in the area for the reunion…)

June Stats!
Oh hey, I’ve been meaning to post these too…

June Stats:

• Flickr: 8 new photos, 184 unique visitors.
• Miscellaney of a Cheshire Cat: 13 new posts, 7707 hits.

tags: 4th of july, fireworks, fourth of july, heat, home improvement, house, liberty bell, philadelphia, photography, sight seeing, statistics, visitors, weather, webct

Sleep destruction
Unsurprisingly, I find 6:30 a.m. to be a heinous hour of the morning. And I will be finding it heinous for the next 2 weeks while contractors work on the house. It’s worth it to get the job done sooner I guess but it means I have to get the Fop up early too which is possibly my least favorite task in the world. 6:30 a.m. is only 2 hours earlier than I usually get up… but those are important hours. I anticipate going to bed quite early tonight.

Home destruction
Yesterday demolition started on the master bath. Can I just say how glad I am that we’re not doing this ourselves? When one of the guys was turning off the water valve to the toilet, he heard a “tink” in the wall, then water. The connector had snapped off inside the wall. (I’m also glad we’ve never had to turn off the water to that toilet!) The result was much scurrying to turn off water and a water feature in the dining room below. Half an hour after that, there was a 4×6 foot hole in the dining room ceiling. There’s an enormous amount of dirt and grick that builds up under the subfloor and over the ceiling in a 100 year old house.

Yes, the contractors are insured. Yes, I’m probably going to change the color of the dining room. I also get to replace the rug, which pleases me even more. Luckily this all made me giggle and didn’t damage what little furniture we having in the dining room.

Other reasons I’m glad we’re not doing this ourselves? The wall tile in the bathroom looked like it was probably layered over another set of tile. Nope, not tile. THREE INCHES of CONCRETE. On the wall. Under the tile. Huh? I suspect it has slowed down the demolition a tad. They also found 2 improperly closed off outlets behind the wall. Our house is so entertaining. But now the contractors understand why we’re so eager to run fresh electric to the rooms we’re renovating. The dumpster fit snugly in the driveway, so at least it’s out of the street and closer to the front door (which is convenient for all the concrete that needs to be hauled out).

I like these contractors. They amuse me.

Wedding!
On a non-destructive note, we went to a beautiful wedding this weekend. ld_lorenzo and Sue are now hitched! It was a beautiful garden party wedding. (Sue’s gardens are amazing.) I really enjoyed the whole afternoon. It was one of the most lovely weddings I’ve been to in ages. I especially adored the cupcake wedding cake! The ceremony was touching. The atmosphere was beautiful and mellow. There appeared to be very little stress and no rushing about. I think I got some nice photos which I should package up and send off to them. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful event. I’m so glad we were able to be part of the day.

Computer destruction
As a side note, a highlight of the Fop’s horrible-aweful-very-bad-day yesterday, his hard drive apparently ate its partition table or something equally debilitating. Poor Fop.

Weather destruction
It’s a hot week already. I am unimpressed. Global warming is bad. So are summers around Philadelphia. Ick.

tags: destruction, heat, home improvement, sleep, weather, wedding, weekend