Month: January 2013

A Walk in the Woods

Memorial Gate

For the first time in quite a while we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. From slightly chilly at the start to just right at the finish, it was a great day for one. For the drive home we even got to drop the top on the Emperor. It was a busy day in the woods too; we saw 5 folks on horseback, 3 fox squirrels, 2 people entering as we were exiting and 1 lone jogger.

Friday we ordered the cabinets and counter top. Yesterday we bought a pendant light for over the sink, the white subway back splash tiles and picked up our online ordered faucet. Today we meet with the contractor and set a date, he starts demolishing our kitchen on February 4th. I also wrote him a deposit check of 30% of his fee and it took two tries. I ran out of room the first time when the figure was X thousand, X hundred, X tens, X ones point XX cents, so we rounded up to X thousand & X hundred dollars.

This evening we spent our $200 microwave allowance on a really cool retro looking microwave, a 4 slice toaster and a new electric teapot.

The only thing left for us to buy for the project now is the under cabinet lights and it is turning out to be harder than I thought. The little puck lights I first picked out were going to be like $80 for both sets. The contractor poo-poo’d them as they were more homeowner DIY and not really set up to be hardwired in like he planned. So I started hunting the web for something more appropriate and mostly found stuff the pushed the $400 mark for our set up. Gotta find a sweet spot somewhere in between those two.

Started up, went down, still down.
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Seasonally Appropriate Weather

Today was the MMC breakfast for January. Unlike last weekend’s top down all day weather for the trip to the Microcar Museum, this morning’s temperatures were about half of what they were then, so tops were up at all times. Fittingly this weekend we only had half the cars of last weekend. Still there were five cars for the drive to the Swamp Fox in Aiken from the starting point in North Augusta. And when we got to the restaurant there was one car waiting for us.

We had told the folks at the restaurant that there would be around twelve of us and it turned out we were right on the money. Ten made the drive and one was waiting. The twelfth man was a friend of a member who worked at the Aiken Train Museum and came to tell us a little about it and offer up a tour of the place afterwards.

We could walk to the museum as it was only about 4 blocks away, but with the seasonally appropriate weather and being a car club and all, we would probably drive. As breakfast progressed and we heard some history, almost everyone thought a trip to a transportation museum for the second Saturday in a row didn’t sound like too bad an idea.

At some point our guest received a phone call and when he hung up he had some “good news” for us, there was a kids birthday party at the museum and we could help out by doing a little instructional skit for the kids. Four of us would be the train engine wheels and make chugging noises and one lucky person would be the smoke stack and get to make woo-woo sounds. One other would get to pretend to be stuck on the tracks and another would get to rescue them.

Our guest had to get to the museum in a slight hurry, so off he went, telling us to meet him there. As we all settled up our bills, most of us decided that visiting the train museum would be a better idea on a day that didn’t involve a kids birthday party, I think a couple cars did go, but the majority scattered in other directions.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1191

Heavy Lifting

Floor Tiles

We went to Lowe’s tonight and picked up the kitchen floor tiles. Nine boxes with 18 tiles in each and three loose ones. To even out the load some we put four boxes on the back seat and 5 boxes in the trunk of the Purple Whale. The car was still un-level enough that I had a couple people flash their lights at me thinking I had my high beams on.

After lugging everything into the house I went and got a bathroom scale to see how much a box weighed. 60lbs! Yikes, us old folks ain’t used to toting that much stuff.

Double Standard

Last week on Justified’s season four premier there is a small scene in the first few minutes that is there to set up the plot line our intrepid hero will travel. And in it, because its on cable, they tossed in a bit of nudity. The woman is totally starkers, but Timothy Olyphant is wrapped in a towel. Kind of a double standard, huh? I’m betting more than one viewer might have enjoyed the sight of Timmy’s hiney.

Tagged:

Free Sink

When we first picked out the counter tops at Lowe’s, Cabinet Guy told us that if we did buy it from them we would get a free sink. Cool.

Then the Contractor told us that we should shop around for the counter top because we could get something a lot cheaper from a local granite place. Well he was right, it was a lot cheaper, but that was mainly because we were looking at a different grade of granite. If we did buy from the local shop we would have to buy our own sink for $175. That figure is not a lot compared to the stone, but every little bit saved…

This last time at Lowe’s we looked at the lowest priced granite and it was only $2 more a square foot than the local guy and it was sealed with a 15 year warranty, so decided to just get it there. Plus the sink was free.

After about the third time of hearing that the sink was free, I muttered just loud enough to be heard, “It ain’t free, it’s in there somewhere.” Cabinet Guy responded that it was free as long as we picked from one of three standard sink styles.

When we got home I put the Lowe’s quotes inside our little remodeling folder and removed the counter top quote from the local guy. Before tossing it I looked it over and noticed the price break down; the sink was $175 and the sink cut out charge was $100. I looked back at the one from Lowe’s and sure enough the sink was listed at $0, but the sink cut out cost was $280.

Free sink my ass.

Spam-O-Licious

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Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum

Toy Cars

Today the MMC took a last pilgrimage to a museum full of cars that make the Miata look normal sized, the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum before it closes its doors forever in February. We had a recent record turnout of 10 Miatas and a bonus RX-8. We also had near perfect weather.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1190