Doug's Sounding Board

Yesterday they finished destroying the bathroom including the ceiling. You can see the lame duct work they had for the bathroom fan. It’s supposed to be a short straight run, not a 25 foot (7.62 meters for any non-English unit people) run of flexible vent tube.

They also did more kitchen destruction. Opening up walls, removing the soffits, and smoe exploratory surgery on the room thrown in. I could see the contractor thinking about how he was going to work with all the weird things in the kitchen construction. Like that opening in to the ceiling, the bottom of that has the 2x4s not lined up with a 1.5inch (3.8cm) difference between them.

The bathroom and the closet are just empty shells now.

The kitchen is destroyed. Today the bathroom and closet get it and here are the before pictures and a picture of the plans.

Now I think I can not have to worry about moving things around when I go home. Yay!

More plant pictures soon too.

I watched “8 Mile” while sorting recycling and I enjoyed it (the movie, not the sorting). If Detroit is even somewhat like it’s portrayed int he movie, then man in it one bleak place. I felt like I was watching a movie that takes place in a depressed Eastern European hell-hole.

The rap battles were a lot of fun and I wished there were more of them, but then it wouldn’t have been like “Rocky” but with rap.

My body is tired. From Wednesday through this morning, (and leaving out a Fry’s trip and Thanksgiving dinner) if I was awake I was pretty much working on moving and packing things to get ready for the demolition on the kitchen that starts today.

Here are plans and before pictures of the kitchen. Tomorrow I should have pictures of an empty space where the kitchen used to be.

I’m glad to be back at work where I can rest.

My previous experience with black friday is generally going to stores to watch people go crazy trying to buy stuff. This year I tried out the crazy. On Thanksgiving I saw some Fry’s ads for amazing deals that would be happening on Friday so I considered going early, around 6AM. I was talking to Terry at the Thanksgiving dinner and he said that if I decided to go I should call him. When I got home I decided I would go for it.

I woke up at 5:30AM (no alarm), hopped in the shower, got ready and then called Terry. Terry said he’d be ready so I went over there and picked him up and handed him the Fry’s ads so he could prepare. When we got to the store that had cops out directing traffic. We got out of the Disneyland parking line and parked a block away.

We got to the store and saw more people there than we had ever seen before. We got a cart in case we needed it for bigger stuff and headed to the LCD monitors because there were some sweet deals there. I decided I could hold off on one so I went to get a free 80GB hard drive while Terry looked at the LCDs. Then Terry called me so he could find me (in the networking aisle (I was there mostly because it was quiet)). Terry called his brother from there to ask his advice om LCD panels and I went to look for the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Edition so I could finally record these laserdiscs to DVD (especially the original Star Wars) when I heard an employee yelling that the line started on aisle 13. I went back for Terry and put him in line and continued my search. I found what I wanted and headed back to Terry who was now on aisle 15.

Then we waited in line and got to snake through the video game section (XBox 360 was looking nice!) before I saw that some CDs were on sale. I excused myself and picked up the new Madonna album and the new Enya album for $6.77 each. Terry was still in the video game section when I returned. We finally passed out of the video game section to the computer section where the manager’s special was getting a free printer (a nice one even) if you bought a laptop or desktop computer. The funny part is that he was standing right next to the line and YELLING the deal to everyone who passed. If someone stopped and asked a question about it he would yell the answer even if they were face to face.

We finally made it past the computer section to the A/V section. We envied the huge wall-hanging LCD panels, and continued with the line. A few employees were walking around with hand-baskets full of batteries asking people if they needed batteries. We declined each time.

We finally made it through the appliance section and could see the checkout stands. Yay! And then a few more feet and we could see that the line actually turned left and went across the front of the store and back again before being able to check out. That was a problem since I had to be home by 9AM to take Nicole to work. I relayed this to Terry and he asked “So we have to abandon everything?” I said “Yeah, unless you want to wait here while I go take Nicole to work.” He said he had nothing to do that day so we went ahead with that. I stashed my pile of stuff so I could get it later and went home.

I got home in time, took Nicole to work, and got back to Fry’s to find Terry waiting outside. We went back in to find my stuff which was still where I stashed it, and I check for any deals on the NintendoDS. There was a bundle with two games I had zero interest in, but they also had the standard Nintendogs bundle, and Nicole wanted Nintendogs so that was a good deal. I picked up Trauma Center: Under the Knife because it sounded fun. The checkout line was normal sized at that point so we checked out right away.

What did I learn in case I want to do something similar again? Go with someone else (we did that), park a block away, and get in line as soon as you enter the store. Then you can take turns shopping and be ready to check out at the end.

I opened my freezer this afternoon to, what looked like at first a complete frosted mess. My first thought was that the frost-free cycle had broken so I closed the freezer door because I didn’t want to deal with it. Then I decided to look again and realized that I didn’t have to tug against the seal to open it, but it looked sealed and sounded like it closed. I tried closing the door slowly and found that something was blocking the door so it did close, but then would bounce back and hold it the tiniest bit open. I found the obstruction and removed it and then closed the door because I still didn’t want to deal with it.

I just went to go deal with is and scrape the ice out, but as I grabbed for the nearest hunk it collapsed in my hand. Well, collapsed isnt’ the right word really. It offered no resistance and was soft and fluffy like snow!

West Bank Story – a 20 minute musical take-off of West Side Story about rival fast food joints in the west bank and the families that run them. Kosher King and Hummus Hut.

Dungeons & Dragons 2 – This one felt more like a campaign being run than the first D&D movie. I think that makes it a better D&D story and a worse movie. Entertaining if you like D&D.

Around the World in 80 Days – The modern version – It was pretty funny and silly and didn’t try to be like the original. In fact it’s more like it was in very entertaining parallel universe where the academy of science hates science and makes deals with Chinese warlords named Fang. What’s not to like?

What’s your honest reaction to this story from The Week:

Waco, Texas
Church tragedy: The pastor of a Texas church was electrocuted this week when he grabbed a microphone while standing in a baptismal pool. About 800 people watched helplessly as the Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, of University Baptist Church in Waco, began flailing after he stepped into the waist-deep water. The woman being baptized had not yet entered the water, and was not hurt. The church was more crowded than usual because it was homecoming weekend at nearby Baylor University. “He was grabbing the microphone so everyone could hear,” said one church goer. “It’s the only way you can be loud enough.”

In the Pebbles & Bam Bam show… you know, the one where Pebbles & Bam Bam are teenagers. How come Bam Bam isn’t super strong anymore?