Kitten for adoption

We are fostering an adorable 9 month old female kitten. She's a lot of fun and will make a great addition to a family. PLEASE tell everyone you know, who might know someone who might know someone... We can't keep her. She's spayed, litter trained, has rabies vaccine, etc. Here are a couple photos of her, including the cat with her new best friend.

Other photos

Click on the pictures of Maddy or Kitty below and you can scroll through a few more pics in our photo album.

Maddy, chillin

Stairs: Breaking Ground

In what will be a long project I broke ground, literally, on the stairs to the attic tonight. The first piece is fortifying the the floor beams of the first floor, if you have a lot of time I can explain what the first floor ha to do with the stairs to the attic.

Here's a picture of the hole, Kitty is just finishing his inspection

Magic number

Second only to cycling, in my world, is the great sport of baseball. My team is the Boston Red Sox. It's time for the pennant race, the time of year when everyone is trying to get into the playoffs, and the Red Sox are looking good. They have the best record in baseball and are 6.5 games ahead of the Yankees.

It is getting close to the time of year where we start watching what is known as the magic number. That is the number of games the Red Sox need to win to guarantee a place in the playoffs. To get into the playoffs, in baseball, you either need to win your division (there are three) or have the best record of the teams, in your leauge (American or National), that don't win their division (called the wildcard). For the Red Sox to automatically win their division, the American League East, they would need to win the next 27 games. Now if the Yankees lose or the Red Sox win the magic number goes down by one, if both of those things happen the magic number goes down by 2.

Making things more complicated is the wildcard. Currently the Red Sox are 10 games ahead in that race, meaning their magic number to get into the playoffs is 24 wins. Winning the division means they don't have to worry about the wildcard at all, lets hope for that.

For more updates on Red Sox nation go to Over the Monster

Yankees Suck!
Go Sox!

Good Dog!

Maddy is the smartest dog in the world. Either that or the dog training book I'm reading is brilliant - The Complete Idiot's Guide to Positive Dog Training By Pamela S Dennison. I'm not sure if it's complete training or for the complete idiot... Anyway, after 4 tries she can now sit on command, is generally housebroken, and sleeps in our bed. I guess she did the last one on her own.

She's terrified of the car though. Not quire sure what to do about that.

The stray cat has been fixed and is now back in the world. If anyone knows anyone who might want a FABULOUS cat, please let me know. She's super friendly, adorable, and spayed. What more could you want in a cat? I'd keep her if you-know-who would let me...

turning points

You know the ones I mean. Choices that radically shifted your path in life. Something about holding your 17 lbs. niece in you hands makes you think about those things. For instance, I once sat on the bumper of my car with my friend, Carla, trying to decide whether I wanted to stick with my new, and very difficult, job. The alternative was moving to Bend, OR to try and train to become a professional cyclist, sans performance enhancing drugs. I chose the job. Where would I be now if I hadn't? Does it matter?

How about you? What were some of those points for you?

Dog Name

Wow! We never get comments on our blog - everyone is invested in the puppy's name! We have decided on Maddy. It came out of Madison, which is the name of our street. We've already gotten her ID tag, so it's set in stone. I hope you like it!

New canine member of the family

So my Niece continues to work through the basic rudimentary facets of life, like seeing for the first time and figuring out the difference between Mom and Dad. According to the doctor everything is going great with Ava, correct weight gain, and all other developmental markers are being met. In the mean time, Jodi went off to the pound and we finally have ourselves a puppy dog. A mostly Boxer mix, seen here playing with my parents Beagle, she is 8 months old. Her name is still a point of contention, though she did come named Petunia.

The mountains we climb

In what will always go down as a bitter sweet day, this past Thursday at 7:29 pm, we celebrated the birth of Ava Rose, my niece. At the same time we morn the death of her twin brother Jack Taylor, who we were never given the chance to get to know. It is with great conflict that I write here about the new joy in all our lives, a joy tempered only by the loss of the unknown.

Life after home repair

It has been a while since either of us have actually written anything here. So here goes.

I have stopped working on the house full time and have started to figure out what it is I am going to do to bring in my portion of our income. On that front I officially started a company yesterday at the old Ohio Secretary of State. As soon as I get the certificate in the mail my company Rooty Hollow LLC will be official. Effectively, this means I can open a bank account and that if I get sued no one can go after our personal assets. I have to say it was super easy to do, fill out a 2 page form and pay $125 and I was off.

I'm going to focus on web design for the time being, it has started off well already. Though I still harbor dreams of buying investment property in the future.

As for the yard we ventured out in to the jungle that is our back yard and pulled up hundreds of small trees and weeds over the last week. Now we are trying to decide what to do next: a garden, a flower garden, a deck, a patio, a fire pit, etc...

We'll keep you posted

Photo from this weekend in Athens

New floors

So I have spent the last week installing and finishing news floors on the second floor. The pictures are kind of grainy, I think the camera battery was low, but you get the point. The first couple are of the floors before and during the installation. Then after and with the finish. We used a Red Oak hardwood tongue and groove flooring with a 3 layers of oil based varnish to finish. Laying the floors took about 4 1/2 days and the varnish another 3. It's a long process but I have to say this is already the best result for anything I have done in the house to date.

Clean F***ing Coal

I hate to get too edgy in this blog as I don't want to offend my friends and loved ones with my rants. With that preface here we go. An article in the NYTimes today really got under my skin. It seems our short sighted leaders have all found something they can pass in a bi-partisan fashion. These geniuses are going to pass a bill that provides the coal energy industry with the following , among other things:

" loan guarantees for six to 10 major coal-to-liquid plants, each likely to cost at least $3 billion; a tax credit of 51 cents for every gallon of coal-based fuel sold through 2020; automatic subsidies if oil prices drop below $40 a barrel; and permission for the Air Force to sign 25-year contracts for almost a billion gallons a year of coal-based jet fuel."

(for those of you who bash on welfare, that last little piece about the Air Force is worth (1,000,000,000 gallons / 42 gallons/barrel * $65/barrel) $1,547,619,050, how's that for corporate welfare?)

All this so the idiots running for president, including Obama, can say they made progress on securing America's oil independence. Do these guys have any idea what kind of damage coal mining does to our planet? Have they seen the creeks of southern Ohio or West Virginia running yellow? Hello, have they ever heard of Acid mine drainage? Have they seen what happens in WV when they remove the entire tops of a mountains to get at the coal seams?

Of course these the coal industry and the legislators are good and are going to get the support of environmentalists by saying that the emissions from liquid coal power plants is less and therefore they are better for the air we breath. Hello, it's not only about the burning of the coal, it's also about the extraction. Besides has anyone looked into the process of turning coal into liquid coal? What are the bi-products of that process?

Okay I'm done.
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Well I'm almost done. Anyone, of these yahoos who votes for this bill loses my support in the 2008 election!

Jim

We're in

Hey all. We moved in this weekend. As of Saturday we have our own house. The cats could not be happier, we didn't realize how uncomfortable they were in the attic. I am continuing to paint the 2nd floor, we are living on the first floor.

It looks like the paint and floors on the 2nd floor will be done next week. Then we will have a whole house.

Week 14 updates

Here are more photos, including the final back splash, the wood floor after being sanded and before the varnish and the final bathroom sink

Kitchen counters is here

Okay here is the final kitchen counter, we will install the back splash this week, hopefully.

Also the bathroom floor and sink (being built)

The Bathroom with tile

These are a couple of pictures of the bathroom with tile. The floor tile is not quite finished, but you get the idea. Oh and this is the final wall colour. These pictures were taken at night so the light is bad, and the pink window will one day match the wood window.

The kitchen colour

Here's picture of the kitchen with it's final colour. The area that is still white will be covered by either the counter or the back splash

Slow but steady

We are steadily making progress on the bathroom. Last week we put up all the walls and floors. Today I finished the tile in the bath tub, pictures tomorrow, and will be putting the first coat of paint on the walls and ceiling tomorrow. If all goes well that will mean putting tile on the floor by Thursday and the toilet and sink in on Friday. It will definitely feel more like a house after that is done. The counter is arriving on Monday hence we would be able to move in then.