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October 9th, 2008
 | 10:45 am - Taking action
Prodded by a newsletter from Co-op America, I'm applying for a VISA card through ShoreBank Pacific to replace an existing credit card. I'm already sparing with my use of credit cards relative to my peers, prefering that my money stay with the merchants, not go to VISA corporation as transaction fees.
The newsletter pointed out that late fees, annual fees, some of the merchant fees -- all provide profit for the issuing institution, not just VISA. In my case, that's Bank of America, whose values are, shall we say, not necessarily in line with my own. Funding Massey Energy, for instance, routine despoiler of rivers and razer of mountains to get at coal which McCain will then tout as "clean".
The Co-op America site also had links to ilovemountains.org, which made it easy to fire off email to my congressthing re the Clean Water Protection Act, HR 2169, which would have a big impact on mountaintop removal mining. They had draft emails to thank sponsors or to nudge non-sponsors, and an easy way to look up which one I needed.
It's something.
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October 8th, 2008
 | 11:59 am
I've never been a fan of "Ziggyism": surrounding oneself with coffee mugs, T-shirts etc. that remind yourself that life sucks, just in case you get carried away and have a nice day or something. So I've been thinking I should maybe swap out the Janet Leigh userpic for something more positive, like a snippet of the mosaic work.
The cabinet shop built one of the cabinets according to plans from fantasyland, making it too tall to fit in the space and putting a drawer at eye level. Eye level! I don't speak Russian, but even I could make out the words "professionalism" and "idiot" in conversation between Tile Guy and Carpenter.
Janet's not quite done screaming yet.
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 | 05:41 am - Things learned on Ravelry while awake at 5am
Shrinky-dink plastic now comes in sheets that can be run through a computer printer.
Calgary (where we're going for World Fantasy Con over Halloween) has apparently got some awesome yarn shops.
And a choice of Thursday night "sit & knit" groups -- coffee, or beer!
Debbie New had Skacel make a custom, 20-ft-long circular needle to use for one of her "labyrinth" sweaters. "She said it was not fun."
The authors of Mason Dixon Knitting are coming to Powell's on Burnside with their new book, next Monday night (October 13). I'm there! (Oh, bugger! David Macaulay is at the Beaverton store that same night. Have any of you seen him in person? Worthwhile?)
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October 7th, 2008
| 03:53 pm - Day 21
We returned from the gym today, said hi to Vassily out on the porch, and went inside to find the living room pungent with fumes and rather smaller than we'd left it. Vassily said, without breaking stride as he passed through with some bit of newly mitered tile, "Kebinets hev arrived." Ay-yup.
The floor tile is all down, including swapping out some of the white hex for black, and he started on the baseboard.
I said I'd bicycle to the store to get what for dinner, but I'm stalling.
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October 6th, 2008
| 04:10 pm - The factory whistle blows at 3:45
Day 20 ends with a flurry of workmen leaving the house. OK, just two. But it's soooo quiet now...
Today's achievements include great strides on the floor (click for better view):
except that we don't get to stride on the floor, so there's this: ( Read more... )
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| 09:53 am - The Problem, It's Starting Again; I Must Have Fruit
Day 20. The two tile guys are here, or maybe only Vassily is still here, his boss having been around long enough to get the ball rolling and then split. Sometimes that's how it goes. The overall project manager, who is supervising four other sites as well as ours, has also been and gone this morning.
He and Boss Tile Guy put their heads together over the plans and spotted two places where we failed to get the right kind of edge tile. We went over the plans with our man at Pratt & Larson when we picked up the mosaic, and thought we had spotted all the special bits, but nooo.
Not a crisis, apparently; bullnose field tile is a stock item, so David's gone to get it now. I'm confused; in that last session at P&L where we underestimated the edges, it was deemed preferable to order glazed-edge tiles that would take two weeks instead of instantly available bullnose tiles, ?why?
We've taken down the porch swing to make room for the tile saw, and the toilet is sitting in the hallway. There's a portajohn coming at noon. The basement still has a muddy trench halfway across. The project manager looked at the new pillar supporting the tub area and said "Hmm, that's supposed to be sitting on a pier."
I'm going for a walk.
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October 3rd, 2008
| 10:05 am - Dominoes
Aw, jeezus. When Rob the Plumber was working in the basement, he noticed that the floor drain didn't. We allowed as how it had never been quite right, despite many attempts to snake it out etc. Well, snaking wasn't going to be an option -- Rob showed us that it was plugged with something that went Thunk.
Sooo, as a separate operation to the bathroom redo, we arranged for Rob to dig out the floor drain and Make It Right.
So now there are jackhammered bits of concrete and small mounds of dirt in the basement, and Rob showed us his discovery: the cast-iron pipe leading from the kitchen drain joins up right there -- rotting, crumbling, cast-iron pipe.
Every time we send water down from the kitchen sink, some of it is soaking into that patch of dirt. Washing dirt into the pipe, and degrading the concrete floor from below for good measure.
Rob's going to be jackhammering up another six feet of floor today, replacing that stretch of pipe, and getting the only sink in the house (!) operational again before he goes home.
Since we can pretty much bet that the pipe from that point to its exit point at the far wall is of similar vintage, he'll be back another day to dig that up.
I'm tempted to have him drill a test hole in a far corner, to see whether the concrete is a pathethic half-inch thick everywhere or just in the vicinity of the bad pipe.
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 | 09:02 am
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) vitoexcalibur proposes that debate moderators be issued a buzzer to cut off candidates "answering" questions other than the ones actually, y'know, asked.
When I am ruler of the universe, VitoExcalibur will be in charge on alternate Tuesdays, because Yay.
Which reminds me, there's been an answer to my fruitfly question! A gold star for foomf.
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October 2nd, 2008
| 04:42 pm - Bathroom Redo: Day 16
The second week's progress hasn't been nearly as dramatic as the first. I think it's all been carpentery & plasterers: reinforcing joists that some previous generation hacked into for their convenience, for instance. Our guys shifted the tub by 3/4 inch so that we wouldn't have to do something like that to make room for the drain pipe; as a consequence, the carpenter got to bulk up all of the studs on one wall by 3/4 inch. Slow, fiddly work. There's also a new floor-to-ceiling post in the basement, providing support. That bathroom floor has acquired an awful lot of holes over the years.
The carpenter also did some reinforcing in the walls, where grab bars or cabinets are going to go. Then the drywall guys nailed up sheetrock on almost all of the bare studs -- the area right around the tub is apparently the tile installer's domain, and they'll put up their own backing, and create the niches for shampoo bottles & soap dish.
Another day, the seams between the drywall were filled in with plaster. That was left to dry. Today, they attacked a lot of old cracks and bad plaster in the hallway, and skim-coated everything, including where the closet was. They left three different fans and a heater going, to help it all dry again.
They said the previous work in the hallway probably got its texture from walnut shells! We declined an offer to "blow sand" in the new plaster for texture.
A.M. and P.M. shots of the former closet door:
 ... 
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 | 04:14 pm - Saying "No"
cynthia1960 pointed out to me (with great enthusiasm) that the big knitting weekend Stitches West overlaps with, and is practically next door to, next year's Potlatch. Registration is already open!
I checked out the schedule, and made my own mini-grid of classes that interested me in the three timeslots that conflict least with Potlatch. Steeks, seams, ergonomics, knitting with fabric strips -- ooh, a woman from Yorkshire is teaching the method where you hold one long needle immobile in your armpit and have two hands free to knit like the wind. That would be such fun.
The one that sounded most useful was a full day class with Karen Alfke on Fair Isle techniques. I took Karen's "Unpatterns" class at Madrona last winter. Good technical teacher and lots of fun. (Reminded me strongly of Kate Schaefer.)
Then I looked at the prices. And asked, honestly, can I justify spending $150 for a sexy new knitting class with Karen Alfke when I haven't yet knit the sweater she taught about last time?
Students get early and free entry into the Stitches Market. Imagine the dealers' room for a good-sized convention; triple it, and fill it with yarn. Shiny squared!
But-- I have yarn. I have books and patterns queued up waiting to be knit.
I don't need Stitches West. I'll say No.
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September 28th, 2008
 | 09:23 am - foolscap
In suburban Seattle for Foolscap X. (Links not easy to include when posting from phone, sorry.). The hotel is in Redmond Town Center, one of those "gated community" outdoor shopping malls. That feels kind of weird. The mall gets points from me for having its streets named in accordance with the civic grid. And each shop has a real street address. I don't know whether the whole place is private property or not.
Have been eating too well, especially at Pomegranate Bistro. Guest of Honor Esther Friesner is a delight as ever. Knitting circle sprang up in the lobby yesterday. Passing men continually feel the need to make "humorous" observations. It must be very very threatening somehow to see women knit in groups?
One problem with the venue: the airlock at the entrance to the hotel is intentionally, aggressively, perfumed. Motion of doors and people then moves this into the lobby. I have taken to using the side entrance so that I don't have to taste perfume for the next half-hour. It is nasty.
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September 25th, 2008
| 04:52 pm - Day 9: We will love him and grout him and call him George
The electrician was here for another day of mostly invisible work, which the city building inspector then signed off on. But the big news is that we have the mosaic artwork in hand.
It is gorgeous.
This will go over the tub. The central diamond is 14 inches square, a bit larger than an LP cover. Field tile will be white 3x6 subway tile, as seen at right. The large blue piece lower left will be the back of a niche in the tub area, for shampoo bottles etc.
We are very very happy just now.
P.S. The artist is Margaret Kuhn.
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September 24th, 2008
| 08:49 pm - Have you seen this chicken?
We received a postcard with a UK stamp, saying thanks for Bento, "Busy in London--just did Zombie Con--Eastercon next--J."
No idea who this is from. Was it you?
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September 23rd, 2008
| 09:52 pm - Bathroom redo: Day 7
Before:
After:
In other news, David noticed that the plans stamped APPROVED FOR CONSTRUCTION in large red letters which the foreman was working from were in fact the penultimate version, and showed incorrect dimensions in the vicinity of the medicine chest. Which the carpenter framed in yesterday.
It was fixable.
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 | 04:15 pm
Our nearby Fred Meyer is embarking on a major remodel. They are proudly "going green" with LEED certification, etc etc.
I just sent this via their corporate comments web page. I suggest other Portlanders do the same.
According to the AIA Seattle web page discussing the Hawthorne Fred Meyer remodel and its qualifications for the AIA's "Regional Top Ten Green Awards", a project goal was to focus on both interior and exterior water consumption and apply efficient water practices wherever possible.
I hope this means that Hawthorne Fred Meyer will be devoting less shelf space to the sale of bottled water, which is the antithesis of "green" in so many ways. It wastes transportation energy, requires production of non-biodegradable plastics, and diverts people's money and attention from the maintenance of our public water infrastructure.
Although there is consumer demand for this product, catering to this demand is irresponsible.
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September 22nd, 2008
 | 11:23 pm - Sendak
Just came across mention of a September New York Times interview w/Maurice Sendak. Question: was there anything he'd never been asked? "Well, I'm gay..."
Which makes me blink, and say Wow, for some reason. The importance of asking for the sale!
But a little Googling shows that the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia had a talk three months ago on the subject: "Out and About Sendak: Gallery Talk explores author Maurice Sendak’s life as a gay man". Which takes just a little air out of the anecdote.
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| 12:06 pm - Bathroom redo: Day 6
The gold-colored wallpaper is no more. Where it was is now bare studs, the bedroom wall beyond visible as dollops of plaster oozing through lath.
The vinyl flooring is also gone. Darn--I don't think we have a sample of that, and it probably doesn't figure in any of the "before" pictures I took. We know how fascinated we are by the glimpses we're given of "what used to be here", and however bland that floor was, by gum it's historically accurate for this house!
Removing our tub disclosed an area of discolored green linoleum. We can see where feet for an earlier tub sat: maybe 4 ft. claw-to-claw. Tiny.
Plans are being tweaked in the light of what's revealed behind the walls. The medicine chest will be an inch shorter, the inset shelf below it 3/4 inch lower, another cabinet slightly narrower, a niche in the shower moved. Nothing that counts as a problem (although we need to check whether the inset shelf has ripple effects, given the way the it interacted with the line of chair rail around the room).
 this ... has become 
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September 19th, 2008
| 12:49 pm - Bathroom Redo: Day 3
It has been transformed from a bathroom (everything built-in, plumbed, purposeful) into Just a room. With gold flocked velvet wallpaper, it seems, covered these past 20 years by the plastic tub/shower surround. On closer examination, it's more of a mustard calico.
The slightly slapdash quality of the previous redo is explained: anything to hide that wallpaper.
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September 18th, 2008
| 12:54 pm
Monday as our bike class rode along a quiet residential street, my rear innertube gave way with the loudest blow-out the instructor had ever heard. It had a good ten-inch gash--no patching this one. And all the features that make a Dutch bike routinely low-maintenance make it a bitch to actually remove tube or tire. I spent a few pleasant minutes sitting on the sidewalk gazing at the full moon while he went to fetch the shop truck.
She was ready yesterday but I had a migraine. Still a bit wobbly today, I asked davidlevine to come along on the retrieval expedition.
The shop is about an hour each way by bus. We added a brief layover where it stops next to our gym, so David could get his morning shower. Ironically, this was at just the time of the workout appointment I'd cancelled on account of feeling like crap. ( Read more... )
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September 17th, 2008
| 11:00 pm - Bathroom redo: Day 1
Flossing, toothbrushing, taking pills etc. in front of the kitchen window instead of the bathroom mirror feels very odd. Like cooking dinner on the front stoop.
Today a couple of people came to hang plastic sheeting, and one guy stayed to remove most of the wallpaper. All plumbing fixtures are still in place and functional today, but of course we've moved all our Stuph out of the way already, hence ablutions at the kitchen sink.
The bathroom opens onto a little "hall", 3 foot by 6. Other doors into this space include the former hall closet (which contains nothing but heating ducts and is going to be plastered over), the office on one side, the bedroom on the other side, and the living room/dining room straight ahead. Since office and bedroom each have other access, their doors into the "hall" have been sealed up until demolition is over, to keep the dust down.
Computer-to-bedroom used to be about five paces. Now it involves a 300-degree circuit through every room on the ground floor. Whee!
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