Holiday fun
Another 4 day weekend, my 2nd one in 3 weeks. Having a government job really has it’s perks at times. The time went pretty much as predicted which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Thanksgiving morning was spent mostly watching the parade. It was unusually warm in NYC. For some reason, the parade is most entertaining to me when it is frigid. Watching the parade performers battle the elements to try to lip sync with their frozen mouths is just more fun to watch. There were quite a few performers whom I didn’t know. They were mostly the young hip hop/pop performers that are followed by those 20 years younger then me. I actually missed the arrival of Santa Claus in front of Macy’s because of getting ready for our Thanksgiving meal, but it didn’t really bother me all that much.
We went to Mom’s place and got to see her new sofas that replaced a worn out pit sofa. Then it was off for our holiday dinner. The restaurant opened at 1 and we got there about 10 after. It was maybe half full and we didn’t have to wait. Dinner was served quickly, was delicious and we were out of there in no more than 75 minutes. After we took mom back home she had a couple favors for us to do. I asked mom if she wanted to come out to our place and hang out, but she declined. (she seems almost allergic to coming to our place at this point) So we hit the road and headed home. We abandoned our recently established tradition of hitting Kmart after our Thanksgiving meal this year. I had stuff I wanted to do at home. It was nice to eat out again this year but to be honest, I think next year we may return to doing a more traditional holiday dinner at home. I sort of miss it.
Thanksgiving afternoon/evening gave me time to do some of the tiling prep, namely sanding down the existing vinyl floor and pulling the toilet. Sanding the floor gave me an up close and personal view of how uneven the floor was, making for a challenging tiling job. The rest of the night we sort of relaxed and watched some of our traditional Thursday night tv.
Friday was the worst of the tiling days. The measuring of cut tiles, the spreading of thinset and laying the tiles is the worst part of the job. The uneven floor resulted in a less than perfectly flat surface but it is only noticeable if you are looking for it. It’s a messy, grimy, knee burning job. It took all afternoon to finish but considering the amount of cuts I had to do, it was done relatively fast. When we laid the last piece, I was relieved that the worst of the last phase of the tiling project was done. Instead of doing a diagonal pattern like we originally planned, we stayed with the stagger pattern that was used in the other areas. It’s just more visually appealing to us.
On Saturday Ali had to work so I promised her I would get the grouting done without her so I didn’t have to subject her to more of this crap work. The grouting went very well, the longest part of it was doing the wipe down of the tile after the grout dries. You have to be very thorough with cleaning off the excess grout and it gets very tedious. With some of our spare tile we also made a small little tile board that is designed to be part of the elevated area we will be building in Nicki’s dog run. Yea, it’s sappy but will be a cool little personalized thing that we will look back at for years. I even got her paw print in it. I will have some pics of the various stages of the project up during the week. We have 1 more day of wet curing the grout, then we can seal it, replace the toilet and put everything back into the bathroom.
So with the brunt of the tiling project behind me, we wanted to go out Saturday night to see a movie to celebrate. We hit the 20 screen theater with plans to see National Treasure. We figured this was it’s second week out so it shouldn’t be overly crowded. Well we figured with it being thanksgiving weekend, there would be a lot of people there but we underestimated just how many. With a 20 screen theater, there are TONS of movies showing at all times. Well when we got to the ticket window, they had a small hand written note posted that listed a handful of movies that actually had tickets available! National Treasure wasn’t one of them. Damn it. Out of the remaining choices we decided to see Christmas with the Kranks. It was a light, funny, laugh out loud (at times) movie that was a good kick off to the holiday season for us. We both enjoyed it.
My 4 day hiatus had pretty much flown by, by the time Sunday came around. My previous 3 days went very quickly with holiday festivities and tile work. Sunday was a good day. I knocked out a bunch of small outside chores before Ali even got out of bed. Ali and I took the cheesey e-bike on an extended road test. On Wednesday I got a call from a distraught Ali, the chain had jumped off and gotten wedged in the rear wheel, immobilizing the bike. I came and picked her up and got the chain back on, but everytime I did and tested it, it would jump right back off. As I was working on it, I was approached by a guy that was menatally slow, on his bike. He wanted to know all about the bike at first, said he heard they cost like 1500 bucks. I told him, “Not this one” He then went off on a different tangent, telling me how he was retired (even though he looked to be in his 40’s) but he had to sell his van to pay the rent and now he just rides his bicycle. I patiently engaged him in the conversation but soon he was off to the laundromat. So anyway, over the weekend, I flipped the bike upside down and discovered the back wheel was aligned in such a way that it made the chain jump. So I wanted to test the repair with an extended road test. We went to the end of our road and back, about 3 and a half miles. On the ebay ad, the bike is listed as having a cruising distance of 15-20 miles. HAH! By the time we approached our driveway the bike was going at walking speed, on it’s last legs. Cheesy thing, but at least the chain stayed on.
I also worked on very stubborn, frustrating problem on my neighbor’s PC. Watch out if you have an older PC with a SIS 7001 USB controller that has WIndows XP on it. I upgraded this for them last weekend but evidently none of their USB devices worked. I think I have it finally figured out but I won’t know for sure until tonight when I take the PC back.
We settled in for an afternoon of watching Eagles football. The game was almost a duplicate of the Redskins game the week before. The game was close, the Birds were looking shaky, and then late in the game they pulled away to make the final score look very lopsided. They won their division already. I was telling Ali that I can’t remember an Eagles team being 10-1 since I can remember following the team. As a fan, I can’t ask for more so far this year, although if they falter and don’t at least get to the Super Bowl, the season will be below expectations. This team needs to take the next step badly.
The dirt spreading guy showed up on Sunday. Our former huge piles of earth are now flattened out, raising a few areas that used to be underwater during rainy season. Seeing the results makes me want to get more fill, but at these prices I will have to hold off for awhile.
During the day Sunday I got a sudden urge to get a roomba. What is a Roomba? A roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner. Our house is a pet hair nightmare. Between the dog and the cats, even with vacuuming every weekend, the pet hair is just nasty during the week. I had heard of the Roomba for years and just dismissed it as a gimmick, something for people that have nothing better to do with their money. Well now they have improved the technology and the price has dropped to a point where you can jump onboard without breaking a leg. After seeing it in action, I can honestly proclaim it as the best money I have spent on a home appliance, ever. It really is amazing. After I charged it up for 3 hours I set it loose. I spent a good 45 minutes just watching it do it’s thing. I watched it hug the dog bed, go under the recliner, hope chest and cabinets and sweep up dust bunnies that have lived there forever. I watched it get itself unstuck from seemingly sticky spots with ease. It is an incredible piece of engineering. You just hit a button, and it will go off and clean for up to 2 hours, when it’s battery gets low it actually has the brains to go find it’s docking station which is also it’s charger and dock itself. When it was done I pulled the dust bin and was surprised by all the junk it picked up. It works equally well on tile or carpet. This morning we set it loose in our bedroom before we went to work. It is an effortless way to keep the mess under control during the week when you don’t have the time/desire to be vacuuming. I HIGHLY recommend it if you have pets that drop hair like a balding man.
I got a chance to play a lot of Halo 2 over the 4 days. It is an INSANELY good game. Imagine Doom 3 quality graphics with a gripping plot and diverse and addictive gameplay. It is truly fantastic and with the addition of XBOX Live multiplayer, it gives the game another dimension. I went online a few times and got mashed. One particularly funny moment came when I was riding a vehicle, feeling invulnerable as I sped by people on foot and mowed them down. Well an adept player got next to me, jumped on my vehicle, punched me in the head, knocking me off the vehicle and then backed up and ran over me. Even though it was an embarrassing way to get wrecked, I laughed. Just a great game.
Oh I never jumped in the pool. Even though the water was almost 80 degrees, I lacked the inspiration to take the plunge. I will try to atone by doing a XMAS swim.