Timmerov's Blog
kitchen update
the tile back splash is going up. the fireplace passed its first inspection. we were promised the stovetop hood would be functional. things are looking pretty good for thanksgiving cooking.
total cost of kitchen so far: $78,379.89
panther
mac os x 10.3.1 is great. if it works. otherwise it sucks. i have a new 15" powerbook g4. it likes panther a lot. i also have an old blue and white g3. it likes panther a lot too. except for one small detail. it won't boot by itself. it won't even try. it's like it can't even see the panther disks. not even the installation disks. except if you boot on the jaguar installation cd and restart from there. apparently that cd does some little piece of magic that let's panther boot. once. i usually leave my computer on a long time. but i'm not willing to leave it on
all of the time. nor am i willing to do the cd booting dance every morning. so my poor old desktop machine will have to remain in the stone ages for a while longer.
bennett's birthday
bennett's birthday was a lot of fun. he wanted sushi boats for dinner. sounded good to me! i love sushi. garrett had fun grabbing snacks from the boats. bennett got some strange presents. i was more than a bit skeptical about the baked clay bookmarks but they turned out okay. the weird one is the elephant that blows butterflies out of its nose. it's elefun. it's hella fun. of course bennett wanted his cake decorated just like the picture on the box. it also turned out okay. remind me not to look at works of art in progress.
hockey
we won! normally, i'd be all excited. except we moved down a level. our team is in a rather awkward position. we have too much skill for the intermediate league and we're too old to compete with the young legs in the advanced league. ah well. maybe we can develop teamwork skills in the intermediate league that we can apply in the advanced league and be more competitive. course, there's always the old fart league on sundays for 35 and over. no no no no no no no!
kitchen update
yay! i have a door on my office again. we've reclaimed most of one room for habitation. we're winning. we must be because we're running out money. the baseboards are done. the tile arrived. hopefully, that will be done next week. the bad news is alisa's childhood piano got damaged.
total cost of kitchen so far: $78,100.53
kitchen update
yay! we have new baseboards everywhere. the new fireplace is going in. the tiles for the back splash are here. the cabinet man comes today. the only current setback is the electrical wire that doesn't connect to the lights. oops. they have to remove a cabinet and open up the wall. fun. it's nice sleeping under a roof supported by 2x4's instead of stucco.
total cost of kitchen so far: $74,322.53
new job
well, i started a new job at rearden studios. so far i've assembled a white board, bought a new laptop, surfed the web, spent 6 hours on trains, mooched a few meals off the boss, and i was present when the rest of the gang was working on a script for a cg short.
kitchen update
well, the tile for the backsplash arrived today. custom of course. we specified exactly how many of each kind we wanted. someone screwed up, of course. so instead of getting 70 4" corner piece tiles we have 70 square feet of corner piece tiles. bah. well, at least it wasn't the other way around. 9x too many is definitely better than 9x too few.
wish list
i'd like to wake up with a cute little blonde lying next to me who didn't think it was hilarious to stick their finger up my nose.
kitchen update
there's a three foot mouse hole going from my bedroom to the front porch. pretty neat huh? it all started a long time ago when a hole appeared in the stucco at the end of the gutter over the front porch. when it rained hard enough water would get in and rot the wood. it doesn't rain here very much so i'm sure this took a while. the extra moisture in the ground attracted subterranean termites who where happy to eat the remaining wood. terminix noticed and killed the termites. a few summers ago some bees decided this hole would be a really nice place to live. all that chewing and spitting and fanning in the wall made so much noise it kept us brand new parents awake all night. terminix wouldn't kill them cause they're endangered. but we couldn't have hostile armed insects swarming around our front door. so i sat on the front porch for a week spraying every one i saw. eventually, they left. we knew the wood was damaged because we noticed the lack of 2x4's when we replaced the ugly bricks in front of the house with pretty stones. now we have the attention of a pretty good contractor so it seems like a good time to fix all that. the ripple effect. we were disappointed there was no honey left in the hive.
last day
today is alisa's last day of work. she baked a cake. i love this woman.
job hunt
i start my new job on monday. i'll be working for rearden studios making tools so independent studios can make cool cg movies like toy story and shrek cheaply. well, maybe not cheaply. but less expensively than the way the big boys do it. my title is technomancer and the other part of my job is to explore whatever crazy idea the boss thinks up.
seti hackers
i have mixed feelings about seti. on one hand, i'm pretty sure the chance of detecting an alien signal is effectively zero. a baseball could theoretically quantum tunnel through a glass window but the odds of it actually happening are also effectively zero. on the other hand, seti is such a romantic idea that people are donate their disposable income on it and in a bizarre twist finance real astronomy. most seti people are cranks, mostly harmless. this entry was inspired by the latest seti crankitude: we need to be really careful with the signals we haven't found yet because some malevolent et could take over our computers and/or beam themselves here.
DnD
john ran his game on friday night formerly known as orphans and now known as cheery champions or maybe cherry champions. we went to rescue the high priest of st cuthbert who was under attack at the laughing monkey inn by some bandits led by some sort of ape-man. half the party went ahead and discovered the were-babboon was more than they could handle. fortunately, the other half of the party came along just in time to keep tongue-eater from eating anyone's tongue. hopefully, the prisoner we let go will lead us to the head bad guy who still has the magic wands that will save the town from imminent floods.
my plane
our super decathlon hasn't flown since july 28th. bennett and i went to visit it in the maintenance hangar yesterday. it's all in pieces. the broken formers have been replaced. they expect to start putting new canvas on this week. but it's gonna be another month or so before it flies again. sigh. i've already informed my new boss that i'll be taking a few days off then.
cool jobs
i thought i just landed a really cool job. but the other day i saw a guy with the coolest job in the world. this helicopter lands in a parking in the middle of this technology park. two guys with hard hats and tool belts jump in. helicopter flies off down the freeway and lands dab smack right on top of a high voltage power line tower. the guys gingerly climb out onto the tower. helicopter flies away.
pumpkin
this year i painted a pumpkin like a strawberry. it was way. kids would come up and say "nice pumpkin." i'd say, "it's a strawberry." they'd say, "nice strawberry." i'd say, "it's a pumpkin." i felt obligated to go with something inoffensive this year. no one liked
last year's creation.
kitchen update
yay! we have an oven again. haven't had one since september 2nd. the pretty floor is going in. they're working on it this weekend. the special floor laying power assist hammer is really loud. mmm... lasagne... mmm... meatloaf... mmm... scalloped potatoes...
