Saturday, December 30, 2006

Flooplan 2.Lance

Let's make our house better! Here's my idea the house can change: a new flooplan!



As you can tell from the next post, today I had some free time. Click below on Labels: floorplan to easily compare with other versions.

What do you think of my floorplan idea? The new parts are in bold. The big [?] is either a storage closet, or a stacked washer/dryer.

If you like, you can make your own version of a new floorplan. The easy way to do that is open this blank one, which also has lables for a few things with Paint (in Windows, Start > All Programs > Accessories > Paint. For Mac is it still called Paintbrush?) For those vector graphics artists out there, I'm happy to share my Inkscape *.svg files by email. (Me likey free Inkscape.)

Home again, home again..


.. the 4139 mile drive is over! (That's 7450 km for those of you with a reasonable unit system.) We had great weather for each of the 8 days of driving--no rain, and our tires only touched ice for 2 seconds. 1 second near the giant redwoods (C), and 1 second near Flagstaff (D).

But: now that we finished, I talked to my friends The Weather Gods, and today it is snowing!!



Even the cat is happy, as you can see below or on this video. (Actually, the cat is always this happy. He's a "pet me" slut--sad, isn't it?)



PS My award for "Most IQ-Challenged Hotel Staff" goes to Bristol, VA (H). Congratulations!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

on the road again..




Well, Christmas is over. You can tell when Christmas is over, because you're drinking beer in a hotel, and your back hurts from driving too much.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

road snapshots

Enjoy some snapshots from the road! feel free to ask questions about what you see.. I'm too tired right now to type much.. g'night



EDIT: Click on the above square to see many photos!

Friday, December 15, 2006

One little disaster after another..

Dad and I flew from Boston to Portland to repair the house he rents out. (Oh, the joys of being an out-of-state landlord!) We have been painting and painting and repairing and getting the gas back on and talking with the insurance people and lawyers and.. well, it's been a little bit stressfull. Then the storm hit.



Luckily, we had flashlights, which work in different colors. Otherwise, when the power went out, I wouldn't have been able to take the above photo.

PS For posterity, painting by flashlight is not advised. You end up leaving lots of little bare patches that you'll have to go over again. Posted by Picasa

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Floorplan 2.0



This one isn't exactly to scale, but it is much much closer. Having a floorplan closer to reality helps you realize things like "Oh, that window doesn't line up" or "the man who built this house was on crack." You know, helpful things.

Fireplace: fixed


After.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire... HEY! Someone get those chestnuts off there!

We cleaned out the chimney yesterday, and it was disgusting. The fireplace would not operate correctly--there is a metal flap to let the smoke out, but it would not move properly. So, my Dad and I took off the flap and I took a photo.


Before.

We cleaned the fireplace with a big vacuum cleaner. We even found a dead rat!! Or maybe it was a squirrel. (We hope it was a squirrel.)

PS - we need a name for the cat. What do you think?

Sunday, December 3, 2006

photos photos!

I have been promising people photos, so here you are! I'll try to post some comments inside each photo, if I can.



EDIT: Click on the above square to see many photos!