the more things change.

but some things remain very-much the same.

love, friendship, respect, affinity: for example.

this week i have had the unprecedented privilege of

re-connecting with perhaps some of the most influential

people i’ve ever known or hope to know.

i say ‘unprecedented’ because there was a time that i

rather divorced myself from many of these people and

have felt, for years, that i’d never be in contact with them

again, despite how much i may have hoped.  when i fell off

the surface of the planet and went into insanity for nearly a

decade, i never would have thought that i’d have the opportunity

to speak to a few people; indeed, i have long thought that i

scarce had the ‘right’ to speak to several for myriad reasons.

having been raised in a military family it was always a reality

that as a kid you might make friends, know them for a few years

and never see them again due to the geographical dislocations

germane to the military way of life.

it’s good to hear from and to have communication with

(most) all of my olde studio mates from landscape architecture

school and a few other ‘mates’ from those years that were in

studios in Vol Walker.

here’s another picture of spike and bruiser.

this was taken during their first winter in CO.

there’s about 14″ of snow on the patio outside

the door and they aren’t sure what to make of it.

the recent absence of a computer has greatly affected my ability

to post of late (as in the last two or three months). so here’s what’s

been going on.

jordan and associates moved to a kick-ass new office building and we

moved ’round the beginning of the year. the office was incorrectly

‘plumbed’ @ the utilities pedestal conduit-building location and less than

two weeks into the building about 1/2 of the office flooded. i’d elaborate,

but suffice it to say that we were entrenched with blowers, subcontractors

and finish folk for about a week to get things back in order.

then it flooded again.

that’s when we found the actual problem with the conduit and fixed it and

the freshly-re-wetted floors and baseboard mouldings…joy.

meanwhile back @ the condo:

we’ve added a few things to our living area.

erin has painted some choice walls a happy tomato red and for her

birthday @ the end of feb. we added a full trap drum kit to our inventory.

these are the drums:

and here’s the reaction:

i think she likes them.   and, yes, she wails.

hope everyone has been doing well.

the last few weeks have seen unprecedented progress to the life of the condo.

we have laid down 90% of the door casing and base-board moulding in the

downstairs.  only lacking some peices in the kitchen and a few headers on

doors and we’ll be finished with the hanging part.  next will be putty, sand, paint.

but at least we are no longer providing wee critters from black-ops infiltrating

our much-warmer-than-outside abode.  i don’t have pics yet ’cause some of

my corners are horrible.  but will post some soon.  like, before MAY at least.

in the mean-time, here’s a photo erin took when we were in new york this fall.

west point.

right.

i don’t post anymore.

i really appreciate you folks that have been

looking on the site to see if anything has

happened in the near-distant past. but

little-to-nothing has.

we took a little vakay to NY recently

with mom and step-dad.

fantastic time, and i’ll be posting pics

shortly. as soon as i get them to a web-managable

size.  but it might be a little while before that

actually happens as i have become a bit lazy

of late.

here’s an image to keep you placated…ground 0

stagnation that is.

this past week has been fantastic.

got to see the bros for a few days.

got to watch some college football.

got to see a 7 point lead get erased by

total idiocy and bad play-calling and

lack of secondary…

and to accompany all of the visitations (of bad spirits)

with the brothers and such we haven’t done a DANG

thing on the house save some laundry in the last week.

but today i think i’ll add some doors to the mix.

nothing like having your mom and da stay over without

doors on the bedroom their going to be sleeping in, or the

bath that everyone has to use…yeah…i’m not embellishing

any of that.

but i’ll leave you with a little travellin’ music.

sorry it’s not US making this hit.

sorry i haven’t posted in forever.

having said that, this week will prove to be post-worthy

in many respects as we are going to finish the bathroom

(finally) and hang some doors.

i know what you’re thinking, what did the doors ever do?

well those doors deserve it, no matter what you may think,

and we’re going to all stand around and laugh as we let

those rotten doors dangle on their hinges like the naughty

doors that they are.

also this week we have family descending upon NWA.

brothers and brothers’ friends will all be here for the

big 20-year reunion.  in fact, i probably won’t even see

the brothers for more than about 2 hours of the near-week

that they will be here because of said reunion.  but it should

make for interesting photo-graffy and stories.

when i get the bath done and the doors hanged i shall

post again, but right now i’m still reeling from the

big monday night football double-dose last night.

first game: definitely worthy of MNF

second game: lamentable at best.  and i’m still

wondering why i stayed up so late to watch it.

matt lienert my a$$.  what a waste of time.

at least when you watch arkansas players in the

NFL they perform.  sunday night kenny hamlin

was all over the place, got 7 tackles.  jamaal anderson…

well, sorry about the loss, baby, but got some sweet

pre-season action and some sacks.  i don’t know

what to say about matty…practice harder(?),

take that spot from jones-drew(?).  but the point

is that lienert was supposed to be the next freakin’

brett favre or something like that.  and last night

was just sad.

enough about football.

more posts this week.

Hogs @ bama on saturday…
GO HOGS!

i have a new name for the ‘worst character ever’

and it’s not ‘towlie‘, it’s TILE-Y.

i think i threw down a few pix of the tile in the

master bath just before i had actually done the

grout…

let’s all think about that word…’grout’.

it’s almost offensive.

it sounds dirty.

hell, it sounds like some sort of CONDITION.

‘hey man, you’re not lookin’ too well, everything ok?’

‘nah, man i got the GROUT. it’s tearin’ me up.’

‘duuude, sorry, yo.’

well, when we did the grout (eeeeeuw)

in the master bath i ran out of one kind and

in my haste ran to the store, grabbed a thing of

‘white tile grout, unsanded‘ and went back to work.

well the stuff i got was ass. (sorry mom)

it was more like a tub of ‘tub and tile caulk’.

totally vinyl, still pliable (two weeks later).

so tonight i am getting rid of it.

here are some smashing pix of the work.

grout removal

it’s not obvious from the pic how different

the old (good) grout and the different (crappy)

grout looks and performs, well here’s a better

view :

and if you ever have to do this little task,

don’t go and buy the $10.00 tool to the left,

(and i know most of you are pretty familiar with tools)

use your 5-way. it’s only about 10,000%

more effective.

almost there on the kitchen.

last night we put the remainder of the

shelving up and erin got after arranging

all of the dishes and such.

i promised pix. and pix i shall deliver.

kitchen cabs 1

kitchen cabs 2

and here’s a bit of a close-up of the bracket we went with.

now if we can get the hood up, this little portion of

the project can be wrapped.

no…not ‘rapped‘.

finishing the last few tiles in the master

bath is next on my agenda, and i better

get started.

more like ‘post ghosties’.

you old-school MAD readers will ‘get’ that last.

sorry i haven’t posted in a while,

we are still making progress but since it all seems

to look too similar the photos have been lax.

the upstairs bath is just about finished,

we only lack the shower curtain to make it

fully-functional.  the downstairs is slowly

becoming clear of clutter and tools.

we are going to put the shelves up in the

kitchen tonight so i’ll be sure and get some

pics of that to show everyone.

we also installed a new light over the dining

room table area.

then we installed another light over the dining

room table area.  moved the previously-installed

fixture to the foyer which i will hook up tonight.

soon we are going to get some help on cabinetry

from one of our family’s old friends/acquaintances,

the venerable SMG Alan Dunn.  also known as

‘the best damn carpenter EVER’.  the SMG has

more tools than a NASCAR race and could make

a board look like a sheepshank.  we’re hoping to hire

him to do the AV wall cabs and another piece in the

bedroom where the olde vanity was (in the bedroom).

In the BEDROOM!?  what is this a freakin’ hotel.

scratch that.  more like a MOtel!….

vanity in the bedroom…gimme a break.