All Around Town

TGIF, team! We hope everyone has a great weekend ahead! Yesterday was crazy icy all around town. Only got as high as 33-degrees.


Most of the ice on our driveway melted in the sun, but at the bottom, it's still coated. I took a little spill running to catch the bus in the morning. I was giggling on my sliding sprint. Gotta love winter in New England!

Unrelatedly, here are a couple cool things cool folks sent us this week:

Gigapan image of inauguration (Use the zoom feature and see how it keeps its clarity! Crazy. Dubyu Bush looks annoyed. Clarence Thomas looks asleep. Scalia looks like he wants to punch somebody. GHW Bush’s hat is totally ridiculous. Yo Yo Ma is taking an iPhone photo.)

Great inauguration pics from around the world

E-Trade Baby

Oh, and I got this in a Rhode Island newsletter. I love the place, but it makes me scratch my head a little: Rhode Island Receives "International Star Diamond Award" in Tourism. I guess tourists don't ride city buses or need street signs to help them get around town. Probably they just spend their time at the beaches and in the burbs.

PS
It's 17-degrees, and our dryer is fixed.

Zombies

Happy Thursday, everyone. A few developments:

Both of us were *total* zombies yesterday. So tired. So much yawning. We had a great, fast workout on Monday morning, but waking up super-early may have taken a toll on us. Coming down from high altitude in NM and transitioning from warm to cold climate may also have contributed. Anyway, we're better today, and we're considering going to the gym early tomorrow morning. (I responded to kerfuffled comments on the latter matter here.)

We got about four or five inches of snow yesterday morning, followed by freezing rain, then rain last night. The rain came down hard and had no where to go, since the gutters were covered in snow and ice. We had to go out in the evening, and the roads were flooded. We shoveled the driveway, and now there's a thick sheet of ice on it. It's hard to tell, but look at the sheen from the garage light in the second picture. We're not sure Grover can get down the driveway safely.





We salted the driveway, sidewalk and stairs with some pet- and plant-friendly stuff. It's 29 now, going up to 33, so hopefully some or all of it will melt away. Shoveling it is not really an option.

Also, our dryer is supposed to get fixed tonight! I walked to Atomic Appliance on Wickenden yesterday in the sleet to pick up the replacement terminal block we ordered. And we were out last night in the rain to go to Home Depot. We picked up a new power cord. Our electrician is going to reinstall both the block and cord. He's going to handle it in trade for the corner IKEA desk we have in storage in the basement. We're not using it, and he needs it for his home office.

Last and not least, Brown released its big economic impact email. Word is, unless something major changes (and things can change, of course), my job is safe through June 2010, for which we're grateful. We're still waiting to hear what Sue will be getting into next year. March or April is when the news will come out.

What the Heck

Sue took so many neat photos along the way, what the heck... might as well share them.

Here's a real-life Eeyore.


A group of crows was trying to scare off a curious red-tailed hawk. The hawk responded by advancing to a forward position in a nearby tree, sending the crows into a tizzy.


Controlled burn. Scary since Los Alamos is still recovering from a massive uncontrolled burn in 2000. (Definitely check out the link.)


Frequent cackled cock-a-doodle-doos proceeded from the blunt beak of this sassy specimen.


In Hatch, NM, self-proclaimed Chili Capital of the World. We assumed the pup was the mayor.


No picture can capture it.


The curling river faaaar below is the Rio Grande. While it's named for its length rather than its breadth, it appears in this picture that I could step right over it, like it's a trickling stream. In fact, it's about 300 feet across! Fee fie foe fum!


PS
This is an early bird post. For the first time, we're trying out going to the gym in the morning. It's now 5:48, and we're heading to the gym momentarily. Still waiting on dryer part. Still off caffeine. Expecting another snow storm tomorrow; weatherman is talking 5-10 inches.

Sweet Hookups

Hello, everyone! Our trip was sort of three trips mushed into one, which made it feel longer than it actually was, which is good. Here's a quick summary...

We flew to San Diego on Friday, and we stayed at Steve (my brother) and Julie's (my sister-in-law) for the weekend. Among other things, we hit a bowling alley and rolled a few games while Daniel participated in his league. We went to SeaWorld, and Robin, who works there, arranged "sweet hookups". There was a trip to Las Clementes to have lunch with Holly who brought cool JR, and we went to an entertaining place called the Shout House (The Home of Dueling Pianos) in downtown San Diego on our final night in town.

Then, over three days (Monday through Wednesday), we drove about a thousand miles through the desert to Los Alamos, NM. The early part of that trip was along the Mexican border. Lots of RV parks, border patrol vehicles, gusty winds and American cars. We stayed in hostels in surprisingly hip Tucson, AZ and quirky Truth or Consequences, NM along the way. On Tuesday morning, as we attempted to watch President Obama's inauguration, we got kicked out of a hotel lobby in Willcox, AZ by a quilting group insistent that their meeting was very important!

Wednesday we drove up through NM, had lunch in Albuquerque, and up until Saturday morning we were in Los Alamos with Sue's Aunt Catherine and Uncle Steve. We made a trip into Santa Fe on Thursday, and we saw some amazing museums and Tsankewi National Park on Friday.

We snapped a couple hundred pictures along the way. No album would do justice to the amount of new information we absorbed, but here're a few choice pics.

Beluga Whales. Note the people in the water. Eek.


A cold lizard in Steve and Julie's backyard.


The border fence is the black line in the distance.


A junk shop window display in Truth or Consequences.


Um...



PS
Thanks to all for their birthday wishes! And, it's now the year of the Earth Ox!

Waddle Quack Waddle

Happy Friday, y'all! Sue and I hope you're slated for fun and productive weekends! Our ducks are lining up (waddle quack waddle) as we speak. Shorts and sandals for 77 in San Diego. Winter jackets, gloves and hats for skiing in NM.

We'll have lots of pictures, and hopefully a story or two, when we get back. Unfortunately, we're expecting we won't be able to provide updates along the way.

It's currently four degrees outside. I've got mixed thoughts about it, but they canceled school today in Providence, Cranston, and Pawtucket on account of the frigid temperatures. They did yesterday as well. Craziness.

On a totally different topic, take a look at these little prototype collage pieces for Friday fun. I suppose they're mainly for folks who've wondered whatever happened to cartooning. Please pardon the mess... hee hee.





There's more to come on the collage front... but for now, hugs, high fives and kisses!

PS
Bye, Mr. Bush. Hello, Mr. Obama.

16 at Noon

Today it's supposed to snow again. It's currently 14-degrees, and we're going to get all the way to 16 at noon. A special thanks goes out to everyone who supplied us with winter clothes over the holidays. We really really really appreciate it!

Tonight we'll be heading to the gym, the Super Wash Center, then packing. Sue's been watching Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes at night, but it gives me a queasy feeling, so I can't. I try, but I just can't.

For your enjoyment and edification this Thursday, we've posted below a few things that should not be missed.

The Long Now Foundation
Michael Chabon on the Long Now Foundation's 10,000 Year Clock

Pearls Before Breakfast
Full audio of the amazing performance

The Open Mind digital archive

PS
We replied to recent comments from the past couple days. As promised, Meg, we'll get back to the gang about the lead test results.

Batteries Not Included

Our electrician, Dave, came yesterday. He couldn't remedy the situation. I'll be walking to a place called Atomic Appliance at lunchtime today to see if they can replace a part for us. If they don't have the part we need on hand, hopefully they can order it. In the latter case, I can already see us in my mind's eye watching Lifetime at the Super Wash Center.

The junction box (pictured yesterday) was not the culprit. The big spark we saw this weekend out of the corner of our eyes came from the place where the plug was attached to the dryer itself. It's in close proximity to the junction box.

When we got the dryer, there was no plug. We think this was because the washer/dryers are sold in the US and Canada (and maybe other places), and different plugs are required for the different electricity sockets in each country. We had to go to Home Depot to get a plug and attach the plug ourselves. Needless to say, it was rather annoying - batteries not included.

We guess it's possible that we attached the plug incorrectly, but it worked for four-five months. Plus, the attachment of the plug is pretty simple - tighten three screws over three contacts.

All of the foregoing is a long way of saying, as Yoro might have put it back in high school, the dryer is hemmed up. Dave kindly removed the destroyed part we need to replace, as well as offered to reattach the new part whenever we get it.





Maybe it's a sign. Maybe we should be drying our clothes on racks and wires to save energy.

Third Worst

First off, Nick got in safe. He's on a three-city internship interview tour. Providence today, Boston on Wednesday, NYC on Friday. We drank a PBR and talked some about how his other interviews went, his planning with Nicole, where'd they'd be living in each city, where Nicole would be working, all the usual stuff that matters to near-PhDs in psychology.

He's off to his slate of meetings at 7:30ish, then after his trip to two hospitals and a couple other places, he's taking the rental car north. Reminds us both what Sue was doing this time last year. (What's a word for nostalgia that makes you giggle and cry at the same time?)

The electrician's coming today. This is the junction box that sparked and smelled. We thought it might be blackened inside, or we'd see something melted, but nothing.



In other news, the continuing saga of Rhode Island's budget deficit endures. I found this report from December from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which is written very well in plain-speak. According to Table 3, Rhode Island's projected deficits make it the third worst managed in the country, as a function of general fund (which amounts to, I think, budgeted spending), behind CA and AZ. Only six states have no currently known budget deficit: AK, MT, ND, TX, WV, WY.

Last Wednesday, Governor Carcieri made a speech covering the steps he'd take to close the budget gap here in Rhode Island. Lots of the natives I've spoken with made time to watch it. To say the least, the speech laid out severe cuts. The state's budget called for $55M in support to localities, but under the Governor's plan, that allotment would be reduced to zero. About $50M in aid to RI schools would be cut. Medicaid would face major cuts that would impact hospitals here.

The public and political response has been mixed. Some say it's necessary, and we should support the Governor. Others say it didn't have to come to this, pointing to the fact that things like boats in the Ocean State are not taxed, and inefficiency and waste are rampant - for example, the school system in Rhode Island is divided up into 36 jurisdictions, meaning, there are 35 extra sets of administrators, contracts, budget management offices, etc.


Tough times.

Lap of Luxury

Happy Monday, Team. We hope everyone had a great weekend. But we hope you weren't as busy as us. We were busy bodies.

During a trip to Home Depot on Saturday morning, Sue had an urge. She felt like painting. So we picked out a new color for the guest room. The thing was/is that Nick, Sue's lab-mate from grad school (not cousin Nick from Boston), is coming to stay with us tonight, since he's interviewing for internship at Brown. We hope he does very well(!), and as a result of his visit, we *had* to complete the room by bedtime last night.

We would have made short work of it, except that we sanded and painted the walls first. Then, when we moved onto the woodwork, paint started peeling off in large chunks.


That meant a great deal more prep work than we had expected... scraping and chipping the paint away, sanding to flatten it out, cleaning up the chips and dust, inhaling a lot of the dust, then painting. (We're going to test these chips to see if they were lead-based or have a lead-based layer underneath.)

It was sort of funny that, as we chipped away the dirty white paint on the window frames and floor boards, the color beneath was very close to the color Sue had chosen for the walls. It's peach, or tan-with-orange, or something... Kiva Glow. Anyway, we got it done! Nick will be sleeping in the lap of luxury.




There was one other part of the project which took a bit of doing - re-sizing the radiator cover. We're not sure if we tossed the old radiator cover for that room in the rush of moving in back in the summer, or if it ever had one, but we had been using the cover from the dining room. It's for a larger radiator.

The radiator in the guest room definitely needs a cover. Alec's futon fits snugly in the corner (see bottom), but might get crispy if it rested directly on the radiator itself. Also, it's nice as a bedside table. Anyway, we wanted to shrink it by nine inches. It turned out to be a pretty well-made contraption, and taking it apart was the hardest part.






I think we need a work table and some curtains.

And a few other little nooks and crannies: It snowed another four or five inches on Saturday night, taking us to about 2 1/2 feet this winter. That reminds me, hope you're having fun in Caribbean breezes, ma! We're both thrilled to be voyaging to visit warmer-state relatives on Friday, but we hope the weather doesn't interfere. Forecast is apparently calling for snow Thursday and a high of 14 on Friday. Yikes. We met Jim, Anka's husband, for the first extended time this weekend, and now we're Jim fans. Lots of birds came to play and eat and chirp at our new bird feeders over the weekend - a pair of cardinals, a bunch of finches, and the brown bird posse (plus a couple fat squirrels). The junction box that powers our drying machine released a massive spark and smelled like burning plastic when we started the dryer on Sunday morning, so we need our trusty electrician to come back. We did get our car battery replaced with positive results on Friday; rolling Grover to the shop was an adventure. Our refinancing was inked on Friday after work. The Eagles beat the Giants?! Lou and Sally, I guess it's as they say - any given Sunday.

140-Pounders

So Sue passed through the half-way mark of her internship program this week. To tell the truth, she and her peers weren't as excited as I'd have expected. I could be wrong, but I think mainly it's because the job/fellowship/grant/postdoc hunt (for most in the program) is weighing a bit heavy.

In October, we hosted a 25% Internship Completeness Party (mentioned way back here), and it sounds like in late February or early March, we'll be hosting a 75% Completeness Party. Maybe by then, folks will be revved up. I'll report back.

In other news, it's a longer story than this (with the balance of the story not really worth telling), we'll be rolling our car to Firestone this morning. Those of you who've been here know there's a Firestone just down the street.

You'll remember our garage springs post from December: Pretty Violent. Well, last night, we made a trip to Home Depot, and Sue and I spent some time working to install lower gauge springs on our garage door. It wasn't closing smoothly. We put 160lb springs on there last time; this time we installed 140-pounders. Well, I left the car's headlights on for the hour-or-so it took to complete the replacement/installation.

The good thing is that the springs are now totally installed with safety wire, and yay(!), the door closes smoothly. The bad news is, Grover's battery died. Firestone opens at 7, hence my completion of this post at 6:16AM.

Happy Friday, peoples! Wittle kitty anyone?



PS
In other kitty news, check this out. Local kitty identifies dead people... before they die. Thanks for passing this on, JonJon!

The 99

I've talked about riding the 99 several times, but I've not had the opportunity to snap a picture of any of the experience until yesterday.


I also updated ProPil Pop Quiz #5 with cookie pictures!

Grout Out

When whoever put work into our house previously, whoever had a penchant for doing a pretty half-assed job. In our kitchen, the old counter top (probably a pretty neat but very pink formica job from the 50s) was covered with cheap floor tiles. It actually turned out better than one might imagine.

The downside of having floor tiles on your kitchen counter, and probably the reason most people don't, is that thin gutters between the tiles all over the countertop naturally collect food, grit and grime. Over time, the grout between the tiles, at the bottom of those gutters, becomes stained dark, greasy and icky.

Our small task was to get that old grout out, and refill the gutters between the tiles with clean grout.

(This is neither here nor there, but we chose the color "Bone". It's the right color, but it's a little scary to be using an unknown ground-up material called "Bone" on your kitchen countertop. Anyway...)

We used a handy little low-tech grout knife...


... to scrape away at the old grout. Then we bleached the countertop, and applied new Bone grout.

BEFORE


DURING


AFTER


It was a four-hour job that makes a very noticeable difference in the way the kitchen looks, but now we have to wait a couple days to seal the countertop. The sealant protects the grout a bit, so the next time there's a spill, there'll be less staining.



PS
We had an ice storm last night. Most stuff in the city is having a delayed opening, but not Brown and not the VA. Providence's pigeons are sick and tired of the lousy weather.

Death of the Doorbell

This weekend we did a few productive things to the house. We acquired an attic pulldown and researched our new front screen/glass door. We started regrouting our tile-covered kitchen counter, which will be featured in tomorrow's blog post, and we resolved #12 on our list of 2009 tasks.

When we first moved into the house, the side doorbell worked once. It generated a feeble bing-bong from the chime fixture between the kitchen and the front foyer. The front doorbell never seemed to work. We determined, three or four things could be wrong with the doorbell: the doorbell buttons, the chime fixture, the wiring, and the transformer that powers the chime down at the fuse box in the basement. The wiring and the transformer both require an electrician to rectify, and we figured it probably wasn't worth it for a doorbell.

The buttons and the chime itself we could test at little cost. So with hearts full of hope, we replaced the doorbell buttons themselves, and we tested them to no avail. Then we replaced the chime fixture, and we tested the buttons. Then we whispered a mumbled eulogy for the death of the doorbell.



We'll fill in all the holes, and if we ever really really want a doorbell, we can get the wireless kind.

PS
You won't believe it (we didn't), but the answer to ProPil Pop Quiz #5 is... $165.

Happy 2009!

Hello, friends and family. Happy 2009! The Pilgrims are back for another eight or ten months of posting proof of adventures in home ownership, (with any luck) professional progress in puh-sychology, pointless Pop Quizzes, poignant pics, fun with fungus, micro-farming, New England weather watching, and other debatably worthwhile stuff for your pleasurable perusal.

First things first, our winter breaks were pretty great. Sue had to work on Monday the 29th, so she had a bit less of a break than I, but overall, seeing the peoples, eating lots of good food, and the like was superbly enjoyable for us both.

One of the highlights of my trip was spending a couple restful days with Marge, Sarah, Uncle Lou and Aunt Sally in Bethlehem, PA. We were exposed to canine agility training. Though we didn't get to see the tunnels and seesaws and other obstacles, Lou and Sally's Irish Setter, Duffy...


...went over a bunch of hurdles with equanimity and ease.


And while I was in DC, Sue and her mom were up in Providence experiencing Providence's Bright Night. One of the performances is pictured below. Check it out. Woah.


But now we're getting back in a regular, post-holiday rhythm. So, as promised in the old year, we have resolved to undertake some major household improvement projects. The list is long, but we think we can hack it a ton of it, plus other things as they arise. These are in a loose priority order as determined by Senora Sue.

1. Paint upstairs interior
2. Install front screen/glass door
   
3. Fix dining room table (we got it from Craigslist and is very wobbly)
   
4. Install light on side of house (contract)
   
5. Weather stripping for front and side doors
   
6. Grading land around house
   
7. Install backyard fencing
   
8. Repair/replace front stoop (contract likely)
9. Strip and finish front, side, back and garage doors
   
10. Install porch door and stairs to backyard
    
11. Paint exterior, install shutters (contract under consideration)
    
12. Replace/remove doorbell switches and chime
13. Plant creeping bushes in the backest part of the backyard
14. Install attic pulldown
15. Install additional storage space/flooring in attic
    
16. Ceiling patching
17. Redo/finish basement
    
18. Redo kitchen
    
19. Refinish/repair wood floors on main and upper levels (contract likely)
    

Numbers 17, 18 and 19 perhaps won't get done in the next ten months, and who knows, probably a couple of the others won't either. That said, we're going to do our best to complete as many as we can before the clock strikes November 1st.

We actually made some progress on our list this weekend, so there are already some posts for this week in the works. Keep an eye out.

PS
If you want to add a little friendly peer pressure to your will and resolve, share your 2009 resolutions as comments. Today is my second consecutive day with no caffeine (if I remember correctly) in the past 6-7-8-or-so years!