Cabinets

The cabinets were installed in the kitchen today. There is still a lot of work to be done, but you can start to see what it is going to look like. The work triangle (sink-cooktop-fridge) is going to be much better than our previous horrible arrangement with the cooktop tucked away in a corner next to the sink. Plus, there is more floorspace in the food prep area than I initially thought.

We did discover a minor flaw in our kitchen layout - there isn't a good place near the sink to put a garbage can. The can is in a cabinet across the way. Not horrible, but it would be more convenient to have close at hand to the sink.

Silver

Every cloud has a silver lining. We have a very heavy rainstorm in the area today and it has saturated everything. The bad news is that we discovered a leak in the new kitchen roof. The good news is that it was found before all of the finish work was done. The guys think it is a seal around one of the vents. Hopefully, they can fix it quickly.

Exile

When you work from home, a noisy construction project is very disruptive. Yesterday while we had tile cutting and a lot of heavy machinery digging outside of my office window, I was reduced to taking conference calls in my own ersatz phone booth. Our upstairs closet outfitted with a folding chair - we still have the funky wall paper from the previous owners in there.

Otherwise, I've just been spending an inordinate amount of time at Starbucks (usually mornings) and Ukrops (which has a nice quiet upstairs cafe with WiFi). We still have at least a couple of weeks to go, so I'll probably be pretty well known by the end of this thing.

Trail

Yesterday afternoon I went for a moutain bike ride for about an hour. The weather was perfect and it was a lot of fun to get out after being sidelined with injury for a while. It's neat to be able to actually climb a (small) mountain and ride trails entirely within the city limits. I was a scofflaw since I know that bikes aren't allowed (although they aren't clearly marked) but I didn't see a soul up there on the trail - I guess everyone is out of town this week.

Mad

I think I've found a new show to watch. Since The Wire went off the air, I've not followed any particular television show. The show is Mad Men on AMC. I had seem part of one episode a few weeks ago and it seemed interesting, so I watched a couple of episodes On Demand last night and I'm hooked.

Mad Men is set in 1962 in an advertising agency in NYC and has some great characters and interesting story lines. I don't know how historically accurate it is (my guess is very), but these people break every rule we have in the 21st century work place. Everyone smokes and drinks brown liquor (all the time). I'm not a big fashion guy, but the attire is excellent as well.

I guess I know what I'll be doing on Sunday evenings now.

Redeye

I'm done with the redeye. I flew from San Francisco to Atlanta and then to Wilmington, NC earlier this month, departing SFO at 10:25 PM PT and arriving ILM 9:44 AM ET. I had some trepedation about the flight beforehand because I was assigned seat 30D on the 767 from SFO to ATL. That is essentially in the middle of a row in a sea of humanity in a small aluminum tube. More or less a death sentence for enjoyment of the flight.

The flight was completely booked and nothing I did could get me out of that seat. I tried to upgrade using (worthless) points, but got denied. I tried calling. I tried the website every 4 hours. My persistence paid off and on my last try before I rebooked to Friday (cutting into my vacation), I hit the jackpot and grabbed an exit row aisle.

The flights were smooth and everything departed and arrived on time. I even got some sleep. But I felt like death warmed over the next day. Even after a nap, I was extremely tired and my legs were killing me. If I can't handle a flight in the best seat in the house outside of first, then I shouldn't be doing it. So, no more redeye for me.

Crowd

When I left the house this morning at 8 AM, there were a large assortment of workers in there. We had a crew of electricians working in the kitchen. We had a crew of roofers finishing up the last corner of the standing seam roof. We had a large crew from the floor finishers hustling us out the door (from the original Lee's Floors, not to be confused with the raft of imitation Lee's Floors in the greater Roanoke area). Poor Ellie was very confused about all the activity and our kind neighboors let me put her in their yard. Jack didn't seem too happy about being awakened early and thrown out of his comfortable bed (actually a sleeping bag on the floor at this point, but he still looked grumpy). All I can say is that it was much quieter at the Roanoke Airport (which has some kind of construction project of its own going on).

Ick

I've got a summer cold. Right now, it is a seriously sore throat and some slight pain in my sinuses. I can't swallow without feeling like I'm choking down a quantity of hot coal dust. Not having a kitchen doesn't help since I can't make myself hot beverages to soothe the beast. Ugh.

dog

This fall, we are contemplating adding another dog to the family. A puppy has been firmly ruled out by the wife and I concur (puppies are cute but a whole lot of work). So, it seems like a good thing to do is try to find a rescue dog. The preference would be for an Australian Shepherd, less than 5 years old, that is housetrained and used to other dogs and kids and is located within a day of driving of Roanoke. The Australian Shepherd Rescue Page has a number of listings, but it might take some time to match all of our criteria.

Five

While the wife was off doing something mature, I had a great day imitating a four (almost five) year-old with a drivers license and a credit card. We started the day by getting up late and wrestling for a while. Then we took the dog on a walk and hunted down bad guys in the neighborhood. Afterwards, we went to McDonald's for lunch and got a cool Star Wars toy that led right into the main event - an early showing of Clone Wars.

Although it has been throughly dissed by most of the movie reviews out there, I had a good time. OK, the plot was pretty transparent and the animation wasn't that impressive, but there were some pretty cool battle scenes (most of the movie). Maybe it is something best seen with a kid. My son had a great time and exclaimed "That was the best movie I've ever seen!" when we got to the parking lot.

Even after that, I did one more kid activity (I fixed a bike). Then it was on to yard work and I was a 30something once again. Which reminds me, it's back to work tomorrow.

Slug

The marathon training took a hit over the past couple of weeks due to a combination of injury and travel (i.e. laziness). I think I have a mild case of plantar fasciitis. The pain is more in the arch of my foot than the heel, but it seems to match up in other respects. I have had a lot of stiffness in my legs during and after running, so I'm going to try to treat it with some better stretching, acetiminaphen and some ice. Wearing flip-flops for the past week certainly didn't help. If it doesn't respond, I'll make a appointment with the doctor.

The best thing about having a marathon on the horizon is that it forces you to train smart - you want to be in good shape, but it is more important to be pain free. 26.2 on a bad wheel is no fun at all.

Back

We just returned to Roanoke from Figure 8 Island on Friday. The home renovation project is still going and now we have a construction zone bisecting the house where the kitchen used to be. This means we have to walk outside to get to the family room since the area is sealed up (although there is still dust everywhere). After being in the ultra relaxed environment of the beach for a week, this is a nice shock.

Today, they are in there banging around and sanding the hardwood floor in the bedroom. We did the ecologically sensitive thing and used the hardwood from the kitchen floor (which will be replaced by tile) in the bedroom. We should know the results tomorrow.