Moving

Well, I am moving my blog site to our family domain zollyzoo.com. The new address will be www.zollyzoo.com/joeblog.

The Office

Hilarity has come back to TV.

For a long time, I have not really found anything worth watching on TV. We mainly had cable for the kid stations and Jenn liked to watch ER. But in the last few months (right before the blasted writer's strike) both Jenn and I have discovered NBC's series The Office. I'm not going to go on and on about it, but lets just say that in one episode you will probably: feel a bit awkward... no, make that extremely awkward, have a good hearty laugh, and most importantly, think to yourself, "this is actually kind of realistic".

Nbc.com has some of the latest episodes available to watch for free. Check it out!

Demo!

The fireplace is history! All we left was the box for the hearth, just in case it is usable. The demo was a lot easier than I had anticipated. I think that usually you have cinder block behind masonry on a fireplace. So I was prepared to have to chisel all of the mortar away from the cinder block. Thankfully, it turned out that they used some sort of adhesive to attach some chicken wire to the wall and mortared from there. I think that it is much better this way, we should be free to do pretty much whatever we want with the fireplace since there isn't any think on the wall to worry about. One thing that we will have to do that I wasn't really expecting is re-sheetrocking the wall there. I think that we will probably have someone come in and quote us the job before I do that. The sheetrock shouldn't be that hard to do and theres no sense in doing it at all if we don't need it for the new fireplace installation.

Hopefully we have more to report on next week.

Remodel

So, with tax returns coming soon, and tax rebates supposed to be coming soon too, its time to think about how to spend the money as fast as possible, at least that is what it seems like.

The Beginning

We didn't really mean to schedule such a big project. The only thing that we really wanted is to get rid of the carpet in the dining room. We decided to put hardwood flooring down, and also decided that we also wanted to do the rest of the open area while we were at it. The carpet in the front room is a disaster from all the foot traffic through the front door. So basically the areas that will be hardwood is the front room, dining room, and hallway. This will leave the bedrooms carpeted, bathroom tiled and the kitchen and entryway with a tile-laminate (which we will replace with real tile next year or so).

The Domino Effect

If we replace the floors we will have to replace the trim as well.

We aren't big fans of the rock work on our fireplace, and the edge of the hearth makes us nervous with two little ones learning to walk, so that will be coming out and replaced as well.

The ceilings through the majority of the upstairs have that stupid popcorn junk on it, so we will be scraping the popcorn off and getting them textured.

The first section of wall on the north side of the hall has about a million holes in it from hangings over the years, and also has a lot of wall plates for switches, outlets, and phone jacks. So we will tear the existing sheetrock down and replacing it with a new sheetrock and consolidated locations for the plates.

The first section of wall on the south side of the wall along with the railing next to it is going to be demo'd and replaced with a new longer section of railing.

Finally, we will be replacing the existing sliding glass door with french doors.

Conclusion

All in all, it should be well with in our cost budget, but I'm just hoping that the time we are in a war zone isn't dragged out for months on end.

The only thing that I will have done for us is texturing the ceilings. The kitchen was remodeled a couple of years before we bought the house, and they redid the ceiling in the kitchen. We want the new texture to match the existing. I've done texturing in the bedrooms, and have gotten pretty good at it, but we really want the transition between textures to be seamless.

There are two things I am a little nervous about doing. First is the south wall that we are completely taking out and putting up a longer railing, just because I haven't really done anything like that before. Second is the fireplace... same reasons as before plus the fact that the fireplace is such a focal point of a room. We may very well end up getting some professional help on it if we feel like we need it.

I will try to keep the blog up to date with planning, materials, and procedures of our workings.

Proof I am a Nerd

I hope to be blogging more often for awhile, we have a big remodel coming up and I will try to document as much as I can so the millions of you can follow along at home!

Anyway, I was thinking about something the other day (I don't really recall what exactly it was) and thought "I am a total nerd". So Here is the nerdiest things about me.

I was such a Harry Potter nerd that I actually subscribed to a couple of Potter Podcasts.

I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy novels. I love the LOTR and have read all three books in the trilogy, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and some other miscellaneous publications by author JRR Tokien. I own all three extended versions of the movies, total running time somewhere around 12 hours and another couple of days worth of special features.

The passenger side mat in my car that I drive to and from work is covered with fingernail trimmings... I'm not sure if this is nerdy or just gross, and I wonder why I can't find a carpool.

I don't watch sports. I never have and I probably never will. I'd rather watch c-span than espn any day of the week. I will try and keep up with the Jazz when they make the playoffs, but that is the maximum interest that I will ever show. I would like to point out, that although this is a nerdy trait, it also happens to be one of my wifes most favorite traits.

I get bloody noses easily, some might not classify this as nerdy, but I feel pretty dorky with a tissue sticking out of my nose as I walk around the house.

I call my Mom and Dad "Mommy and Daddy"... never really got over that stage I guess. Also, I do kiss my mom on the lips... it's the way I was raised, OK. I didn't actually know this was weird until a rather awkward conversation I had with some guys at the MTC. I think the statement I mad had something to do with comparing a certain kiss to one like you give your Mom. Not everyone understood my comparison.

I'm going to stop there. I was planning on making a cool list too, but after getting stumped at number 2... I decided to let it rest.

Oh, by the way, since there are like 3 people who ever come to my blog, I'd like to pass on this list as an assignment to yall. Leave a comment to know that you read my post and are brave enough to let us all know how nerdy you are.

Album of the last few months

Most of you know that Pink Floyd is my all time favorite band. Pink Floyd started in the late 60's with a psychedelic sound similar to the late Beatles. After their first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, they lost their front man and lead guitarist, Syd Barrett. He was replaced by David Gilmour, and they really didn't appoint any one member to take on front man responsibility. They we fairly successful in England and wouldn't hit world wide fame until the late 70's with Dark Side of the Moon. But the precursor effort to Dark Side was an album called Meddle. Often overlooked in the Pink Floyd catalogue, Meddle represents a transition from a pop sound to a more art-rock style. The album only has six tracks, five of which are 6 minutes or under in running time. The last song, Echoes, is a 23:30 minute magnum opus and often considered by Floydians as the greatest and best song that they ever produced. Echoes was also a precursor the makeup and style of the classic Dark Side of the Moon.

Anyway, my favorite song on the album is Fearless (which is also my favorite Floyd song of this period as well), and the short song Seamus is from whence I take my email and screen name in a lot of online places... this song is often considered the worst Floyd song ever. :)

Enjoy!

BTW - Pink Floyd is not the name of anyone in the band. It comes from the names of two American jazz artists, Floyd Council and Pink Andersen.

Album of the Month

Well, I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I couldn't quite figure out exactly how to format it. I'm going to start choosing an album that I like every month and write a short blurb on why it is great. Like I said before, I am somewhat of a snob when it comes to music, so please take what I say with a grain of salt.

Beck is an artist that I've only recently become a big fan of. Everybody remembers his hit single Loser in the late 90's. I have been familiar with a few of other singles that he has had out, (Where It's At, Ramshackle, Derelict, etc.) but never really had the money to invest in an album and check it out. Once I did look at one of his albums (Mellow Gold) but a couple of the songs had rather foul names... so I passed.

Recently I became familiar with Becks 2004 album Guero, a great album as well. I started listening to more of his stuff online and was introduced to his album Sea Change. It is very different than the rest of his catalogue that consists of a lot of eclectic and off the wall music with odd lyrics and catchy rhythms and tunes. Sea Change is all very soft and melodic. Most of the songs have a sad overtone. Some people may find this depressing, but I just find it calming. It, along with other of his albums, was met with critical favor. But unlike his other albums, not a lot of immediate popular success. Since it's release, it has picked up a big name in it's own rite, appearing in many greatest album lists and being compared to such iconic albums as Pink Moon and Blood on the Tracks.

Anyway, I digress. This is a great album and it can be accessed by clicking the play button in the little player that is in my sidebar or by going to Blogmusik.net and typing "sea change" in the search window and sort by album name. This is also a great way to check out other stuff from Beck, but be forewarned if you do that he does have some rather "colorful" language and you listen at your own risk. If anyone wants a list of safe songs, just let me know and I'll but together a playlist. Blogmusik is a free player with no registration required.