Numbers

I stumbled across this report (pdf) about the Roanoke region recently. It isn't thrilling reading, but if you are curious about the demographic and economic data about the area, it is worth a quick glance.

Population of Roanoke City in 2007: 90,902
Decline since 2000: -1.5%
Roanoke City median household income 2005: $33,501
VA median household income 2005: $54,207
Roanoke City with at least Bachelor's degree: 18.74%
VA with at least Bachelor's degree: 29.46%

The fact that the ratios between the income numbers and the Bachelor's degree numbers are just about proportional is telling. We don't need no education.

Hiatus

I've been crushingly busy with work the past couple of weeks and we've been in our typical early summer busy mode which limits my extra energy for writing anything on this weblog. Just to keep it from gaining cobwebs, I'm writing this quick post.

Part of that early summer busy mode was the Bath County Triathlon. The race was a lot of fun. We did it as a family team with my wife swimming, me cycling and my daughter running and finished in a respectable time. The weather was absolutely perfect and we had fun at a friends post-race party at the family farm in the beautiful countryside. The only downer was that a friend came down from NYC to do the race and had to scratch due to a rib injury.

Floor

After another few days, we have a floor and some of the framing of the interior walls is starting. We need to start picking the finish items soon (tile, bathroom fixtures, etc.)

The past two weekends, the people working on the project have put in at least a few hours on Saturday morning. I don't exactly need to hear it six days a week, but I'll trade a few quiet Saturday mornings for a project completion before the kids go back to school.

Uneventful

I took a business trip to Peoria, IL this past week and it was absolutely uneventful. Delta was on time both ways and the weather was cooperative. Pleasant, even. A very nice contrast to my last trip there.

The only mild surprise was how crowded the flights (all four were booked solid) and the Atlanta airport were. With all the recession talk and airlines cutting back like mad, I half-expected it to be a ghost town.

Walls

Another week and we have the beginnings of a wall. The project passed inspection on Monday, so it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the framing. My thoughtful wife sent me this picture today of the latest progress and it looks good. I missed all the fun of having the power turned off to move the circuit over to the left hand side of the house.

We did our first (and hopefully last) change order this past weekend to screen in the new porch instead of leaving it open. It should be really nice during the outdoor season. Last weekend, we went to a party hosted by some friends who have recently added on a screened-in porch and it was a very nice space. I'm looking forward to it and the price wasn't all that bad (I'll just have to drive Goldie, our 1999 Subaru wagon, for another year or two).

Wood

Here is the progress to date on the home project. They have started to frame in the floors over the crawl space. To do that, they had to relocate the downstairs heat pump unit. After the move, the system works fine. So, that is good (especially since it is hot right now).

They have been pulling out some of the bricks to reuse them, thus the gaping holes in the exterior brick facing. This is not a quiet process. It makes the same sort of sound as cavity drilling at the dentist. I spent a lot of time working at Starbucks and Mill Mountain Coffee this week.

Hot Dog

This is the first day this year that I've felt hot just being outside. L10 and I went on our 1-mile walk today around noon and it was warm and sunny out there.

There was a great deal of of storm damage and many downed trees not half a mile from where we were walking due to an intense microburst storm last night. Where we were, there was absolutely no damage. Strange.