Call me a hopeless romantic...

Dee drives a 2004 Land Rover Discovery II. We purchased it in the summer of 2004 and got a great deal on it because the car was a demo for the local Land Rover dealership. This is Dee's second Discovery II as she just plain loves the vehicle. 2004 was the last year that the Discovery II was made, so Dee was happy with her first one. The tires on her car were the original tires that came with the car, and they were in need of replacing. This fact was brought to light last Friday when Dee discovered that one of the tires had gone flat (of course, I was out of town and could be no help!). Dee called AAA to replace the flat and as soon as that was done, she went to see our friends at Ronda Tire. Tim Ronda looked at the tire and determined that it was beyond repair. So what does a loving husband do for his bride as a Christmas gift to ensure her safety when she drives to and from work? He buys her a new set Yokohama Geolandar H/T s tires. Joyeux Noel, Deirdre!

Day 4: Electrical and Dry Wall

Today Jim continued framing the bathroom with 2 x 4s, 1/4 inch slats of wood and drywall. He also spent part of the morning re-routing the ventilation duct to that the heat/AC will vent through the kickboard of the new cabinets. I have to admit that the bathroom was never that warm as I think that the old vent was not working properly. I am happy to report that within an hour the bathroom was warm once again.



Paul the electrician came by to rough out the wiring for the switches, two GFCI protected outlets, the lights over the vanity as well as a vent fan. He will be back on Friday to complete more electrical work.
I spent most of the day in our basement cleaning up all the dust, dirt and debris that fell through the floor joists during the demolition process. To be frank, the back room of our basement needed to be cleaned up and organized, so all of the stuff that fell out from the ceiling was a good reason to do some cleaning. I plan on spending more time on Friday reducing entropy in the basement's backroom again.

I could not be more pleased with how this project is moving along. Jim is doing great work and the transformation in what was one of the ugliest bathrooms we have ever had the pleasure to own is apparent.

Day 3: Plumbing work begins

The bathroom remodeling project is moving ahead with all deliberate speed. In the past two day, the carpenter Jim hauled away three trailers worth of debris from the demolition of our main bathroom. I think that there is dust everywhere in our house, but is often said, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet. Today was the first day of plumbing work. Lance, who works for Grandville Plumbing, is doing the work. As some of you know, one of Deirdre's greatest fear is any sort of plumbing problem. Well, the pipes in this house had some unique work done on them in the past, as Lance pointed out to me. He is going to replace some galvanized pipe (which is cheaper than copper) and use plastic returns lines, so hopefully once he is done with plumbing in the sinks, shower and toilet we will have many, many years of trouble free plumbing in the new bathroom.











I am comfortable doing electrical work. I understand Ohm's Law and how the electrons travel from the power company into my main electrical box and are further distributed to the outlets and light switches in our home. I am nowhere near as comfortable with plumbing work. I would much rather pay a professional to do the job right the first time and not have to worry about a pipe leaking or a drain line not draining. Lance has been nothing but business as he works to plumb in a the supply and return lines for the bathroom. This project is really starting to take shape, now that the demolition is done. Updates to follow!

This message is for Tina...

I wanted to let you know that Lara Lutz relayed your message to me at her husband's retirement ceremony on Saturday. Thanks for the kind words and please, keep reading!

Bathroom Project Day 2

Well, we are already half way through the second day of the bathroom project and things are moving along according to schedule. Jim was here at 8:30AM and he immediately went to work, pulling out the toilet (I had the honor of helping him move it into the trailer for disposal) and then he went to work on the lovely yellow and white tile on the floor. Using a chipping hammer, Jim was able to remove get up all the tile in short order. What is next for him is to rip out the wall between where the sink and tub used to be.

Samson continues to be interested in this project, thought I am keeping him in his crate while the work is going on. Way too much canine interest for his own good!

Bathroom Demolition

Today was Day 1 of the project to remodel the main bathroom in our house. Steve, the production manager, and Jim, the carpenter, arrived at 8:30AM to review the project. Jim then started to work on demolishing the bathroom. Attached are some photos from today's evolution. Lots of dust and dirt and general entropy!


There was some collateral damage, however. When Jim was ripping out the tub and the ceiling above it, he inadvertently put a hole through the wall in the Guest Bedroom. Dee and I were planning on repainting that room anyway, so now after Jim repairs the drywall, we will have a reason to paint!

Dinner in St. Charles

This weekend I went on a little road trip. One of my Navy buddies, LCDR Charles "Chip" Lutz, USN, had his retirement ceremony at Navy Operational Support Center Milwaukee, where he had served as the Commanding officer the past two years. Chip's ceremony was on Saturday afternoon, but before I went to Milwaukee, I stopped in St. Charles, IL. to have dinner and spend the night with the Belanger family. Paul Belanger is my oldest friend, as we met when we were three years old. Paul is married so Sara and they have three beautiful girls, Sarah Ann, Kathryn and Lauren. I have had the pleasure of watching all three grow up from infants into the fine young women that are today. The photo to the left is a picture of Paul and his oldest daughter, Sarah Ann, and their wonderful dog, Bennett, and the other photo is Lauren, Kathryn and Sara. Notice Lauren's fingers behind Kathryn's head!






In the two years I was stationed in Illinois, I would go to St. Charles from time to time on the Sunday afternoon following a drill weekend and make dinner. During the summer I would cook flank steaks and the like. Well, it is hardly grilling weather in Illinois right now, so we needed a recipe that could be made indoors. As luck would have it, Sara and Paul just upgraded all of they kitchen appliances so I was able to use their new stove to make the meal. Sara and I spoke earlier in the week and she asked if I would make Beef Tenderloins in a Port Wine and Balsamic Vinegar reduction. I had lost the recipe but luckily, Sara still had it. I left for St. Charles late Friday morning and I arrived at their house a little before 2PM. Sara and I went out and did a little shopping for the meal. It is actually a very simple recipe, but it has a wonderfully elegant taste. Everybody enjoyed dinner, and it was great spending the evening with the Belanger clan and I am looking forward to my next visit with them soon!

Our next great adventure!

Some of you who read this blog have been to our humble abode in East Grand Rapids and you know that the bathrooms are a little dated. Well, after much thought and meeting with a couple of remodeling contractors, Dee and I decided to use a company called HWC Homeworks. As fate would have it, the founder and owner of the company is a former Navy Supply Corps Officer. I have been working with a designer and planner for about a month now and on Monday, 10 December, the demolition of our main bathroom will begin. We have been very happy with the professionalism and "common sense" that this company has demonstrated during the planning process. This will be the first remodeling job Dee and I have ever experienced, so this will be a learning experience for us both. Updates to follow as conditions warrant.

Eight hours of my life, gone forever

Dee bought me a new Dell laptop for my birthday and it arrived the other day. I installed Vista Home Premium Edition and last night I tried to make Office 2007 work. Specifically, I tried to make Outlook work with my ISP. Well, everything seemed to work out OK until it came down to the Outlook automatically querying the Comcast e-mail server for messages. I spent hours trying to tell Outlook to remember my network password. I removed Office 2007, twice, cleared the registry, three times, and I could not make Outlook remember my network password and automatically look for new e-mails. I thought that the problem was with the PST file I tried to migrate from my old computer and after a bunch of different attempts, hours of time on differnet websites looking for a solution, and some help from my friend Chris, I was able to remove the old PST file and assign a network password that Outlook now remembers. I learned a lot about Vista and Outlook 2007, but it never should have been this hard. While my good friend Lisa lost 15 minutes of her life catching up on Vanilla Ice, those eight hours I spent working through what should have been a simple evolution were filled with frustration. At least now, my new machine knows who it is and what it is supposed to do for me. As Deirdre once said to me when approaching a technical computer issues, "No machine is going to beat me!"

Big Brother is watching...

I had installed a clock widget into my blog, but I was also warned when I uploaded the HTML code that if I changed anything in the code, that it could be removed. Well, whomever wrote the code pulled away my clock today. No matter. I will find another one!