Another year has gone by and it’s better than ever (at least in my opinion) 
Happy 13th Anniversary to my wife, Elizabeth
Category Archives: Personal
Gasland
Watching Gasland is depressing. While I like the idea of being energy independent and getting off of foreign oil, I don’t like the idea of fracking. It seems very short sighted and trying to solve the near term problem.
What I wonder is what the hell have we been doing since the 1973 oil embargo? Or even the panic in 1979. You would think that as a nation when we had to ration gas we would’ve learned and tried to solve the problem. But here it is 34 years later and we consume gas like it’s no tomorrow. Clearly we didn’t learn anything from our past. It’s quite sad actually.
I realize for every view point there’s a counter view point, the Natural Gas industry has a different opinion on Gasland:
Natural gas is a clean, abundant and domestic energy source that holds vast potential to promote cleaner air, grow local economies and enhance energy security in the United States and, increasingly, around the world. The natural gas community is committed to the safe and responsible development of this energy source, and we welcome questions about the film Gasland because it gives us the opportunity to set the record straight in a fact-based way.
Personally I think they’re full of it Many will blame the Administration for not doing more but clearly the people to blame are the special interest groups that actually run this country. We have this belief that WE THE PEOPLE are in charge, we’re so wrong. I think the problem isn’t Congress or the Executive branch, but the lobbyist that have our leaders ears (or more likely other parts of their bodies).
Happy 6th Birthday Iliana!
Today is Valentine’s Day and Iliana’s birthday!
First book of 2013
I got a Kindle Paperwhite this past Christmas. I’m not much of a book reader but for 2013 I wanted to read more. As a James Bond fan (I own the Blu-ray box set too and the recent Amazon James Bond book sale ($1.99 each for the Kindle versions), I bought all 14 books. I know not that interesting, but I FINALLY finished the first book: “Casino Royale”.
The one thing I noticed about Bond in “Casino Royale” was that he wasn’t as ruthless as he was in the movies. I guess they have to have a lot more killing in the movies to keep folks interested, and it could have been the time when the book was written, 1953. If you are a James Bond fan,
I recommend checking out the books.
Next book is an actual paperback, also a gift, titled “Team Geek A Software Developer’s Guide to Working Well with Others” so far so good. It’s quite entertaining.
I’m sick of the gun debates
Personally, I wish no one had guns but sadly that’s not reality. Given the second amendment, I understand why people want their guns, and I’m ok with them owning some: pistols, rifles, even shotguns. Now I don’t see any reason to own AR-15 type rifles.
I hear many gun owners whine about losing their guns, as if an assault weapon ban would actually remove ALL of their guns. Fear not you’ll get to keep some.
The ‘guns don’t kill people, people do’ arguments are annoying too. Usually followed with arguments that cars can kill people, hammers are weapons too. But what these other items have in common is they ALL have real alternatives uses, i.e. a car is meant to transport people from one place to another, a hammer is meant to bang a nail in. You know what doesn’t have an alternative purpose? GUNS. You know what they’re meant for? TO KILL SOMETHING.
Another argument that drives me nuts are hunters. ‘Oh I need my guns to hunt’. Ok you can have your rifle, but you don’t need an AR-15 to hunt. Unless you just want to kill something and shred it. Besides if you’re a real hunter you’d be out there with a bow or hell hunt that animal with a spear and a knife.
And recently there was this video of a 911 call where a wife defends herself with a gun. Again, no one is trying to take ALL of your guns away. So that’s not really a good example of why we need guns. Besides for every example of someone defending themselves with a gun, there are 10 other examples of DEATHs.
And why doesn’t anyone that quotes the second amendment ever include the first part of it “A well regulated militia,”?
I will agree with my gun toting friends that gun control isn’t the only answer, and that mental illness and other factors need to be looked into. But unlike them, I still think we need gun control, specifically bans on assault weapons like the AR-15.
</rant>
New house (2012)
Many of you know but some don’t, this year (2012) we embarked on a wonderful adventure and, with God’s grace, had the opportunity to build a new house. The adventure began one Sunday afternoon in February, our anniversary to be exact. We met with Andrew Pinter of Pinter Construction to look at a .60 acre wooded lot. The neighborhood had stagnated because of the economic downturn with many of the old builders out of business. But we saw promise in the subdivision especially the location which put us just 5 miles from our old house which means commutes, schools, and routines wouldn’t have to change much. While I was hesitant to make any decisions that day (pretty typical of me), Liz just KNEW this was the place. So we put a deposit on the lot that day.
We spent the next few weeks pouring over plan after plan. Ultimately we decided to modify one of Andrew’s plans to suit our needs. The original house had your typical gable roof and not much character (in our opinion). We made most of the changes to the front elevation and the kitchen. Finally, on April 13th we signed the contract to start construction of our new home.
BEFORE
AFTER
Mid April we walked the lot to select which trees we wanted to keep, I wanted to keep them all but that wasn’t realistic and ultimately we did need a yard for the family. One of my favorite are the 2 oak trees that ultimately flanked the front of house. In the next two pictures I’m standing in the middle of the lot. The first picture is looking from the back to the front of the house at the 2 oak trees. The second picture are the trees we left (seen with orange tape) plus the wooded lot that behind us.
Looking from the back yard to the front 2 oaks
View of backyard from the front.
After they cleared the lot, next steps were to dig the foundation footers. They dug and poured the footers, then the truck that delivered the foundation materials had “JESUS CHRIST is LORD” on the side which was somewhat apropos. It was exciting to see the process progress.
Jesus Christ delivers our foundation materials
Footers
Triangle Brick: Oxford line
Brick foundation
The framing began in late May, and they had it pretty much done by the first week of June. The goal was to get the roof on and the house dried in. It’s amazing how fast framing crews can frame a house.I think this was one of the fun stages as you see the house start to come together.
Last time we will see the sky from inside the house.
By June 30th, they made a lot of progress with the framing. Here the house has the siding, shakes, board and batten, shingles, and gable details. The stone, columns and metal roof come much later.
Front elevation
Then one warm Tuesday night in July, I played contractor myself and installed the speaker wires for the rear channel speakers and a pair in the screened in porch for some summer tunes. Most builders don’t like you doing stuff, but Andrew didn’t mind one bit, he actually helped me get started. I also ran CAT6 and CATV to the attic for future expansion. Check out the finished speaker installation below.
Running speaker wires
Finished speaker installation
As work continues inside, the outside gets stone. But it is no less fun to walk through the house checking the progress.
Liz and her CBS friends came to the house one hot July night to write scripture on the floors, studs, and walls.
By mid August, the house has been painted, columns put up, stone installed and rough grading done. Inside the plumbing, electrical, cabinets, drywall, and more were all done. While it looks done, there is still quite a few months more of work left. At this point we still had to pick out tile, stain color, and confirm interior paint colors.
One evening in August, Marco found one of our many visitors. Here he holds one of the frogs that were hopping around the backyard during the summer.
Then on November 4th, we moved in to our new home!
This post contains just a few of the pictures taken through the process. Feel free to checkout more: new house album.
Brick and Mortar stores
Usually I’m an online shopping kind of person, but there are times I need the item today. While Amazon Prime can get it to me next day, that’s not always good enough. Here’s what I think every brick and mortar store needs to do to compete successfully with online retailers like Amazon.
I want to be able to buy *ANY* item you carry online and pick it up in the store, I’m not interested in WEB ONLY products or products you don’t even carry that are sold through other vendors. So far the best buy and pick up in store experience I’ve had has been with Sears. I take my receipt in, scan it and 2 minutes later a guy comes out with my goods to put them in my car. Unfortunately, Sears suffers from the WEB ONLY or products they don’t sell problem which sucks. One of the worst in store pickup experiences comes from Lowes hardware. They take FOREVER to get the item. Sometimes having to call several times to get someone to go retrieve it. This summer I went in to pick up a range hood for the kitchen, it took 20+ minutes before they got the item. That’s just ridiculous, I even offered to go get it myself.
Another thing that brick and mortar stores suck at is SHIPPING items from their site. We recently orders some items from Kohls, let’s just say it’s been more than a week and I still haven’t gotten all of the items They take way too long to ship items or their shipping prices are more than the actual items, like IKEA. They charge $249 to ship in NC for a $170 desk, grant it they have an excuse furniture is heavy. Still we ordered a TV cabinet from Amazon and got FREE shipping on it, like this TechCraft credenza. That was one heavy box and yet it was FREE to ship. So between high priced shipping or slow shipping, brick and mortars have a long way to go.
I realize that brick and mortars make their money by having consumers wandering through the store so they buy more, but I’d argue you’d get more people to come in if they could see you have the item, and be able to purchase and pickup at the store. It’s a sale they probably wouldn’t have had anyway.
And yet another thing is INVENTORY. Why is it so hard in 2012 to have an accurate inventory accessible online? I went with a friend recently to Radio Shack to pickup an item that online showed In Stock only to have the store be out of stock. Really? have we made no advances in technology to keep track of inventory?
For now, unless I need the item TODAY, I’ll stick with shopping online at Amazon, Crutchfield, Newegg, and Monoprice. Maybe one day, hopefully before they go out of business, brick and mortar stores will figure out how to compete effectively with online retailers. Happy online shopping folks!
Closed on old house
Today we closed on our old house in Wake Forest. So for this week only we actually owned two homes
Happy 9th Birthday Marco
Today Marco celebrates the last of the single digits: 9! He’s growing up fast and still HILARIOUS! Sadly he had school today, but he’ll get to play with his friends later and go bowling tonight.
