Home Stretch
Alexis and I are reaching the end of our 6-7 month old home improvement project. There’s no picture this time since there’s not much more to see. It’s doubtful you would be able to see the grout and caulk very well and it’s not all that interesting to boot. All we have left is to seal the grout, install the shower head and shower handle, then buy and install the shower door. It will be a huge relief to be completely finished.
No transition here, but how about a picture instead.
Things I learned this month:
- You can access an array in C++ like this, “4[array]“, instead of the typical way, “array[4]“. I haven’t found a reason yet as to why it’s allowed, probably some historical reason.
- The AMC remake of “The Prisoner” is a waste of time to watch. The ending is poorly written and disappointing.
- It would have been easier to put up the X-mas lights if I had tucked the plastic doo-hickies under siding instead of under the roof shingles.
- Management is always right.
- The Star Trek movie that came out this year is great on DVD.
- Never leave home on Black Friday and the subsequent weekend.
- I’m addicted to Facebook games.
Here You Go, Dustin
I don’t have much to post about. So here’s a picture of the slow progress we are making on the shower.
This weekend Alexis and I went to see “Where The Wild Things Are”. Despite what the odd guy at the concession stand said, it wasn’t depressing. It was a bit sad, but not terribly so. The movies is about a kid, named Max, trying to cope with life by escaping in his make believe world. I don’t know how the movie relates to the book, since I don’t remember ever having read it. The movie was good at catching the silly things kids do. The story that Max tells his Mom about a vampire loosing his teeth is a good example of said silliness. I think this would be a good movie for a psychology class. The need for a king which is referred to in Max’s make believe world is a symbol of his dad. Other events and animals though the movie have a counterpart in the real world.
Flu
I managed to catch the flu, most probably from a co-worker, last week which put me out of commission for four days. On the second day of misery I went to the doctor’s office. I have very mild asthma and started wheezing a bit so I felt it was necessary. What I really should have done was go in the first day I was sick. To test if I had the flu the doctor took a long thin q-tip and stuck it way up my nose, which was not a pleasant experience to say the least. A few minutes later the results showed that it was indeed the flu. The doctor also explained that in order to find out if it was H1N1, the swine flu, they would have to send it to the CDC, which they don’t do because it would flood them with tests. Long story short, the medication he prescribed seemed to do the trick and I’m feeling much better today.
After returning to work I couldn’t help but feel like I should quarantine myself to avoid sharing the days of misery I experienced. The stories of kids and pregnant women dying from the flu were in the back of my mind. During my absence at work, instructions were posted in the bathrooms on what one should do to prevent catching the flu and how not to spread it.
Before I got sick, we had our retaining wall on the edge of our property replaced. Our house sits higher up than our neighbor’s and the railroad ties that held the soil on our property were rotten to the core.
This is what the old retaining wall looked like.
This is what the new retaining wall looks like.
We also installed the shower pan, put up the concrete backer board and coated it with the incredibly red water resistant stuff.
New shower pan, concrete backer board with Redgard
