day 4

the insulation is in and the basement continues to take shape. the inspection will be done tomorrow and wednesday they are starting with the drywall. to assist with choosing a paint color we were given a "color wheel" which as it turns out contains a swatch of all 3 billion colors, several new ones that haven't really been invented yet and some that really don't exist at all. i'm hoping that allie can narrow it down to 2 or 3 thousand before i get involved. once the paint color is decided we'll be looking at carpet. unless i'm missing something i see this project getting completed ahead of time.

abbi benefit

there's a benefit for abbi, the little girl i spoke about here. she is finally home now from the hospital but is still under constant care and has a long road ahead. the benefit is to help raise funds for the medical costs and wages lost. here's the 411:

when: sunday, july 27th
time: 4 pm to 8 pm
where: woodbury lutheran church
address: 7380 afton rd, woodbury, mn

you can also make a tax deductible cash donation to:

woodbury lutheran church with "abbi fund" written in the check memo.

see the offical poster with more details here

day 3

(obviously these are not consecutive days)
ok, no new pics yet because there's nothing much new to see. i could have shown some pics of the switch boxes that the electrician nailed to the studs but i don't want to overstimulate anyone. i can see this thing taking shape and coming together. soon the kids and i will have to give up our street hockey games on the concrete floor. this past weekend i bought a spool of speaker wire and re-routed the wire i had running across the basement ceiling to the living room above. on monday, the electrician ran the cabling and roughed in a total of 11 recessed cans for lighting, 1 phone jack, 2 data jacks, 1 cable jack, and a boatload of electrical outlets. the heating guys is coming tomorrow to install the new heat ducts and returns. we are due for an inspection at the beginning of next week, and by the july 4th holiday (or more likely right after) we should be looking at insulation and drywall. we can start looking at and deciding on paint, trim, and carpet samples very soon.

day two

i've been framed. three guys came out and blew through the framing in 4 hours. it would have taken me that long to setup the playlist in itunes that i would have used while framing it myself. you have to really stretch your imagination to see me doing this sort of thing by myself anyway, which i had actually considered at one point. and when i say myself, i really mean helping another guy do it who knows what he is doing. i have a few skills (see creating a playlist in itunes) but real manly labor like carpentry and the like, not so much.

basement: day one

today is the day we begin the project of finally finishing our basement. and when i say "we", i mean general contractors of minnesota (they do not specialize in website design). they are handling this gig from cradle to grave including getting the permits, framing, wiring and electrical, drywall, trim, pain, carpet, the works. should be complete in 4-6 weeks. i'll mark the progress here.

valleyfair

the price crew enjoyed a fantastic day at valleyfair this past saturday. great weather + short ride lines = perfect day. this was the first time that we've been where all of the kids were old enough to really enjoy it. i'm not a huge ride guy myself, but i did muster up the courage to go on the "power tower" which is "a powerful three-tower structure featuring two gravity-defying rides. one tower blasts riders straight up nearly 27 stories in the air before dropping them back to earth. the other tower slowly lifts riders to nearly 275 feet, then plunges them downward faster than a free-fall". the wife and alaina liked the "wild thing" coaster and noelle preferred the "high roller". owen rode on the "mild thing" (kiddie coaster) probably about 25 times. a good time was had by all! catch the pics here.

happy fathers day!

to my dad and all the dads.
dad, glad we could spend part of the day together. everything i know, i learned from you! (except for maybe the computer stuff)

ps. and...happy anniversary mom & dad!

paraskavedekatriaphobia...

means "fear of friday the 13th", which seems a little silly. i can understand how some people and cultures have deemed the number 13 to be unlucky, but why just on friday? wouldn't monday the 13th seem really unlucky? i look forward to fridays. fridays mean the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend. so, 13th or not friday, you are alright with me.

soccer dad

summer vacation has offically started for my kids, and as such, my associated parental responsibilities have begun as well. the schedule looks something like this: i'm booked on monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday evenings for the next 6-8 weeks. practices on monday games on wednesday for noelle, practices on tuesday, and games on thursday for alaina. that doesn't even include owen's t-ball roundup which also starts sometime soon (i should probably know when). i'll get back to you on that one. at any rate, we'll be running at full capacity for the foreseeable future. more soon.

piano recital 08

here's the long awaited footage of my girls throwing down their numbers at the piano recital last monday night. capturing any sort of video from my antiquated equipment is a multi-step process which i won't go into here. suffice it to say it, there are many conversion methods that need to happen to get it into a viewable format. i keep pushing the need to upgrade my technology but i haven't been able to gain any traction in that arena as of yet. please disregard the audio static in the duet piece. there's some unidentifieable audio interference that occurs a couple of times. i'm not sure what it is, but it's the same noise i've heard when my cell phone is too close to a speaker. at any rate, enjoy my rather amaturish attempt at editing video.

and we're back...

it's been 4 days but it looks like my ability to publish pictures directly in my posts has been restored (see big orange blogger b above). while scanning the blogger support groups i found scads of folks experiencing the exact same problem, many of whom actually run business using their blog. closed circuit to business owners who use a free web publishing service to operate their business: this is a bad idea. you'll never get the support you need from a free service. spend a couple of bucks and use a real service with actual customer support. the old adage "you get what you pay for" comes to mind here. in my case, sure, it's an inconvenience, but what am i supposed to do? demand immediate resolution to my free blogging service? doesn't make sense. now, i do pay for my domain and web space but those services never became unavailable. i did however notice that my entire blog was offline for several hours this morning. that is a bit more of a concern but if that's what it took to get my ftp publishing fixed - it works for me, and i'm sure my reader base will extend leniency in this regard. and if they don't? well...sorry. so blogger, i wish it hadn't taken 4 days for you to fix this but we're cool again.

something is broken...

this has happened a few times in the past and it always drives me a little batty until it is resolved. it seems as though blogger is refusing to publish my photos via ftp. i get a message that "Your publish is taking longer than expected. To continue waiting for it to finish, click here", that seems to loop to infinity and beyond. i had to use a work-around to get the below pic of noelle to appear in the post. this has happened before in the past but usually it only lasts a couple of hours and then disappears. this time it's been days. i love all things google and i love my blogger but c'mon guys help me out. here's to hoping that this gets resolved soon.
see my post in the blogger help group

happy 9th noelle!

my girls continue to grow up right before my eyes. this time it's noelle's turn. we celebrated noelle's birthday with family sunday afternoon. it was a gorgeous day and we spent a good part of the afternoon playing in the backyard and relaxing on our porch. happy birthday noelle, we love you!
see the pics.

PS. the puppy is grandma and grandpa's NOT ours :-)