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Project Insomnia

Project Insomnia is many things, but in this context it is simply a "braindump" of whatever I happen to be thinking/reading/watching/doing at the moment. Parental guidance suggested.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Landscape project: day 18

Landscape Day 18
Aug 18, 2006 - 22 Photos

Day 18: Plants are in. Sprinklers and lights are both in and working on timers. Equipment is all gone and the site is clean. All that's left is some tile repair (see previous post) and sealing the tile. And planning the party.
|| Andrew, 2:59 PM || || link ||

Landscape project: day 17

Landscape Day 17
Aug 11, 2006 - 10 Photos

Day 17: More plants are in, and the crew finished adding mortar to the tile cap in back. Unfortunately during the process of putting in plants in the front courtyard, two tiles along the walkway were cracked. They'll be replaced before the tiles are sealed, which should happen this week sometime.
|| Andrew, 2:56 PM || || link ||

Landscape project: day 16

Landscape Day 16
Aug 10, 2006 - 32 Photos

Day 16: The end is in sight! Plants were delivered and some were actually planted. I let Watson and Linus out on the balcony to watch and of course they immediately jumped to the lower roof, but they couldn't go anywhere from there so I let them wander around. I also got a couple of close-ups of a very large spider who has established residence below the balcony.
|| Andrew, 2:49 PM || || link ||

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Landscape project: day 15

Landscape Day 15
Aug 1, 2006 - 8 Photos

Day 15: The concrete cinder block retaining wall gets stuccoed, and a thick bead of mortar is applied to the front overhang portion of the cap tile. The back overhang is still bare, for now. Also, electrical outlets are installed both front and back.
|| Andrew, 4:50 PM || || link ||

Landscape project: day 14

Landscape Day 14
Jul 27, 2006 - 6 Photos

Day 14: The front courtyard tile is done. (Or is it?)
|| Andrew, 4:46 PM || || link ||

Landscape project: day 13

Landscape Day 13
Jul 26, 2006 - 8 Photos

Day 13: About half of the front courtyard tile is done. Some reinforcement is added to the cap tiles on the back wall.
|| Andrew, 4:42 PM || || link ||

Landscape project: day 12

Landscape Day 12
Jul 25, 2006 - 6 Photos

Day 12: The back yard tile is done, including capping the retaining wall. The wall will be revisited a few times in the next few days as we see that laying a 12" tile across a 6" cinder block, leaving 3" of overhang on each side, is not quite workable...
|| Andrew, 4:39 PM || || link ||

Landscape project: day 11

Landscape Day 11
Jul 22, 2006 - 22 Photos

Day 11: Lots of tile! After the crew left (and the mortar was dry), we let the cats outside to check out the new back yard.
|| Andrew, 4:35 PM || || link ||

Landscape project: day 10

Landscape Day 10
Jul 21, 2006 - 9 Photos

Day 10: Tile! Also, another crew came in to sort the contents of the debris box; it was only supposed to hold "construction" debris (concrete, dirt, bricks, etc) but anything and everything had been thrown in there and Allied Waste was making a big stink about picking it up. Even after the debris had been sorted, it took AW another week to actually collect their box.
|| Andrew, 4:30 PM || || link ||

And there was much rejoicing...

Judge orders stop to warrantless phone wiretapping:
A federal judge ordered a halt today to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping of calls between Americans and alleged foreign terrorists, saying the program violates the Constitution as well as a law requiring judicial approval for all electronic surveillance.

'There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,'' said U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in rejecting President Bush's claim that he had the inherent power to authorize the program.
The suspension of the program, implementing Judge Taylor's order, is stayed pending appeal. Expect the full range of neocon dirty tricks to be deployed against this judge (the "activist judge" charge will be the least of the pejoratives leveled at her).
|| Andrew, 2:33 PM || || link ||

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Landscape project: day nine

Landscape Day 9
Jul 19, 2006 - 7 Photos

Day nine: More work on the new retaining wall and installing the plumbing for the irrigation system. Also, Comcast came back and put in an access box for the inadvertent splice in their trunk line.
|| Andrew, 10:26 AM || || link ||

Landscape project: days seven and eight

Landscape Day 7 + 8
Jul 15, 2006 - 6 Photos

Days seven and eight: Day seven was a Saturday, day eight was the following Monday, and we were out of town. The crew starting installing the irrigation system and building the new retaining wall in the back yard.
|| Andrew, 10:22 AM || || link ||

Landscape project: day six

Landscape Day 6
Jul 14, 2006 - 36 Photos

Day six: A big day! The concrete pour. Since there's no outside access to the back yard, the concrete crew had to run a hose through the house. The New Canaan guys worked well with the concrete guys and got the back yard pad poured quickly. Unfortunately the truck didn't have quite enough to fill in the drainage cuts or the removed section of the front sidewalk, so that was done later with manually-mixed concrete.
|| Andrew, 10:17 AM || || link ||

Monday, August 14, 2006

Nosmo King

It's 2006, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Why are there still people smoking? It's disgusting, especially when someone comes up to my register (yes, posting by phone from B&N again) smelling like he smoked a whole pack of the cheapest American cigarettes just before walking in to the store. Gross.
|| Andrew, 8:20 PM || || link ||

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Sunday, bloody Sunday

Another basically wasted Sunday afternoon at BN. I've worked out that between our second jobs we bring in about $800 after-tax each month. That would be tough to replace. With the landscape project wrapping up and the kitchen project just about to start, I would like to be home a bit more but then the extra cash would certainly be helpful for the inevitable budget overruns.
The point of all of this is that I'll be staying for now.
|| Andrew, 12:47 PM || || link ||

Friday, August 11, 2006

Landscape project: day five

Landscape Day 5
Jul 12, 2006 - 7 Photos

Day five: More prep for the concrete pour, with framing and base-wire set out. A six-foot block of the front walk was hammered out so that the tile which would eventually lay on top of the pad would gently slope down to the existing grade.
|| Andrew, 6:34 PM || || link ||

Landscape project, day four

Landscape Day 4
Jul 12, 2006 - 8 Photos

Day four: The back yard, now completely cleared, is dug up to provide drainage. Channels are cut in the concrete pad for downspouts, and frames are set for the new concrete pad.
|| Andrew, 6:12 PM || || link ||

If only we could train ours to do this...

From Google Video: a cat who not only has learned to flush the toilet, but does it over and over again.
|| Andrew, 10:05 AM || || link ||

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Landscape project, day three

Landscape Day 3
Jul 6, 2006 - 11 Photos

Day three: more debris removal, digging out the rest of the retaining wall and sub-wall, accidentally severing the Comcast trunk line that runs through our back yard (oops), discovering that with all the huge shrubs removed, both the front and back fences are rotting away.
|| Andrew, 10:15 PM || || link ||

Landscape project, day two

Landscape Day 2
Jul 6, 2006 - 10 Photos

Day two: More demolition, digging out the concrete footings from the old deck and removing parts of the retaining wall from the back patio area.
|| Andrew, 6:38 PM || || link ||

Landscape project, day one

Landscape Day 1
Jul 5, 2006 - 28 Photos
Day one: The crew from New Canaan Homes arrives and quickly begins tearing out the old plants and dismantling the deck. By the end of the day, it's getting pretty bare.
|| Andrew, 6:29 PM || || link ||

Landscape project, day zero

Landscape Day 0
Jul 3, 2006 - 16 Photos

Day zero: We (mostly Jen) moved our patio furniture out of the way. This is what the front courtyard and back patio/deck areas looked like before the project started.
|| Andrew, 6:17 PM || || link ||

Thursday, August 03, 2006

The T&Cs of Town & Country

From today's SF Chronicle: Some fear mall upgrade will oust small stores:
Town & Country Village in Palo Alto -- the iconic, low-slung shopping center on El Camino Real that serves as a landmark for fans pouring into Stanford University football games -- is getting a $20 million face-lift, but not all the shoppers and merchants there are happy about it.
We live nearby and visit Town & Country fairly often. I think everyone would agree the place needs a facelift and general upgrades, but I really do not want to see it become Yet Another Chain Strip Mall.
|| Andrew, 2:14 PM || || link ||

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

That was smart.

Mere days after mentioning Vagablog, I completely forgot about it in the series of SMS posts from Monday night. Look, no character limit when posting by phone!
Yay me, posting by phone from the 2nd job again.
|| Andrew, 8:07 PM || || link ||

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