Year: 2013

This Kitchen Remodel Is Killing Me

Faucet

Almost literally.

Last Friday night we were cleaning out some of the scrap/left over wood from the project that we had saved thinking we might be able to do something with. It was bits and end pieces and such that still had the cabinet color on a couple sides. After marinating on ideas for a while, it became clear that that wood was just what it was, scrap/leftovers, so we tossed it the dumpster. Well, one piece decided it was not going to go quietly and managed to stick splinters in two of the fingers on my right hand. I extracted the one on my ring finger, but the one impaled into my index finger was too deep for me to get out easily. I soaked it in hot water for a while and poked at it with my X-acto knife. I got a piece out that I thought was all of it.

Yesterday afternoon my index finger started to ache and it was slightly swollen compared to the left one. Ack! It’s infected! This morning I was going to get the company nurse to do some exploratory digging to get any remaining splinter out, but she was going to be out of the plant all week, so I broke down and called my primary care doctor. They said they could squeeze me in at 10:30.

Because I was a squeeze in, it took a while to see the PCP and after looking at my finger he said, “I’m sending you down the hall to the Surgery Associates. They’ve got all the cool toys.”

I’ve never been there before, so I had to fill out 5 pages of insurance information, family history, etc an get my picture taken. Because I was a walk-in there too I was stuck in a room to wait. And wait. I was visited by the nurse to take my vitals. And wait some more. Fortunately I had brought a book to read so it didn’t seem overly long. The doctor showed up and took a look at my finger and filled out a form on their PC with what she was going to do, Remove Superficial Foreign Body In Finger. I let her know it may be superficial to her, but not so much to me.

She left and the nurse came back in to set everything up for the procedure. I asked her what time it was, I thought 11:30 as my stomach was starting to growl. She told me, “It is 12:25.” No wonder I was hungry. When the doctor returned a few minutes later I asked if I had been there long enough to qualify for a snack tray or something, she replied, “They brought in Moe’s for the office staff and after the procedure if you want, I’ll fix you a plate.” I thought she was joking, but as I was checking out she came back with a ground beef soft taco and all the fixin’s on a plate, plus a cup of sweet tea. I wonder if that will be on my bill and if it is will Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama will cover it.

I left the plant at 10:00 AM and returned at 1:00 PM, for my troubles I got a free lunch, a script for Vicodin and didn’t get billed by the PCP.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1209

Pretty In Pink

Pink Dolly

We borrowed a co-worker’s dolly to move a piece of furniture over the weekend and decided to return it in “better” condition than what it was in before we got it. We were actually going to paint it pink, but a roll of hot pink duct tape was half the cost. Plus it was slightly less permanent, just perfect for our little joke.

Dueling Installs

Counter Top

The counter top folks called Thursday afternoon to say that they were running behind and could they do the install on Saturday instead of Friday. We had no real problem with that, so we were penciled in for between 8 and noon on Saturday instead of Friday.

On Wednesday we had scheduled delivery of our new fridge for Saturday afternoon. So wouldn’t you know it, the counter top people were late and the Lowe’s delivery truck was early. They followed each other down Boardman Road to our driveway. I climbed on the running board of the Lowe’s truck and asked if they had another delivery to make and then they could come back later. Nope. I told them the counter top folks are using the garage entry, so they could use the front door.

Trouble is, that way in has the narrower door to go through to get to the kitchen. They tried once and could not get through. They tried another angle and had to back up again. For attempt number three they finally relented and took the doors off. Guess what? That didn’t work either. They got the top part through the door but had to stop when the plastic panel on the bottom that covers the coil intake hit the door frame. That time they only had to back up a bit so the fellow on this side of the door could pop off the panel.

If they had just come back mid-afternoon or arrived at the time they were supposed to, they could have spent 10 minutes tops delivering the fridge instead of spending 45 minutes monkeying around trying to fit a 30″ wide appliance through a 28-1/2″ wide door.

Weekend Warrior

The Miata has morphed from daily driver to weekend warrior, seems like the only time it gets to come out from under its blanket is on Fridays and Saturdays. That’ll be changing soon as the BKR is wrapping up. Tomorrow the counter top goes in and Monday the back splash goes up. Also on Monday the last bits of plumbing should get wrapped up, sink and garbage disposal hooked up, ice maker line run and the dishwasher all buttoned up. Tuesday the dumpster that blocks access to the garage goes away and then the Emperor will once again be allowed back into his throne room.

Plus, spring appears to be finally here and the weather will now be nice enough to actually enjoy riding with the top down for at least the evening trip home from work.

Even though today was Friday, it was a weekend day for us because the Valve Store ™ considers Good Friday a holiday, so we uncovered the Miata and drove it when we did our running around. After we got home for the day I took advantage of the nice weather and changed its oil and rotated its tires.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1207

Now For Something Completely Diiferent

Fun eh

One of the Donna’s Canadian Cousins is in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pipe Band which marched in this year’s New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. It snowed.

Parade was not too long, only took 75 min to complete, it was the 3 hrs standing around in the holding area before marching off that was tough. But managed to make it. It’s been a long time since I last marched in a snowstorm.

Cousin John is a big guy and because of that he is in the back row, smack in the middle of the band’s official trip photo (Caution! 1.5M in size) taken in front of the UN after they had given a concert there.

Place Counter Top Here

Under Cabinet Lights

The contractor did some work at our place today. The (nearly) last of the handles went on cabinets, they sanded and smoothed out the sheet rock to old wall joints and the under cabinet lights went up.

Our counter top install is scheduled for this coming Friday morning. Last Friday they measured and yesterday they called to ask how many holes we needed for our faucet. The answer was one. After Donna and my afternoon walk I had a voice mail on my phone from the counter top people, “Please call me I think I may have given you the wrong invoice. We may have charged you for the wrong sink.”

Our first quote from them was for a Large Single Bowl, 30 1/4″ x 18 3/16″ x 10″. We decided that that size sink was big enough for bathing babies or medium sized dogs. As we have neither and all Donna really wanted was a sink big enough to soak an 18″ cookie tray, we asked them to quote a Medium Single Bowl, 16 Gauge, 23 1/4″ x 18″ x 9″ one. When I told the woman that we wanted the medium bowl and had an invoice to that effect, she said she had ordered a large sink.

My first thought was, which I voiced to her, “Have they started cutting the granite yet?” My second thought was, which I kept to myself, Donna is going to has a fit, we will be cancelling this order and we will just have some plywood counter tops with a 5 gallon bucket as a sink and the garden hose through the window for a faucet. She told me, “They’re still cutting Thursday’s job,” and that she would see if she could get a medium sink.

An hour passed, I still hadn’t heard back and with that second thought looking more likely, I called back. “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t think I needed to call you back. We get our sinks overnighted from Atlanta. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

Phewww!

Chocolate House

Chocolate House

One of the open shelves in the new kitchen, the one above the stove, will have a couple of neat old metal cars in it. One of which reminded us of an VW bus we had back on Guam when we were first married. We got out the old photo albums looking for a suitable picture of us to add to the shelf. We found one of us standing near said bus, but for a couple of reasons, one of which would be that I’d have to explain what is happening, we didn’t want to use it. So we found this one of us taken on our wedding day by one of our witnesses just outside the courthouse where we tied the knot and thought it might do nicely.

No, that is not the courthouse we are standing in front of, it is the Chocolate House in the Plaza de Espana, which consists of a couple of buildings still standing of the Spanish Governor’s house from the 1600’s.