Zeigen

Fellow men,

“Laundry” means sorting, folding, and putting away the clothes. Dumping the dirty stuff into the washer, moving it to the dryer — that’s all the easy part.

I have learned this the hard way and hope you profit from my downfall.

How about dem Bears?

Now, please excuse me because I need to go use some power tools.

Your bro,
Stephen

P.S. In other news, “doing the dishes” apparently means doing more than just piling the dirty dishes in the sink. I’m still investigating this one.

Everyone head over to his blog and tell him to write more and/or wish him a happy birthday!

Wish I could be there in Canadia to celebrate with you. Instead, I’m Vegas-bound. But I’ll put a bet on something for you?

To my darling, talented, beautiful and super dedicated wife, Kimi,

No one ever said having two kids would be easy, and it certainly is more challenging than we’d ever discussed or imagined. But there’s no one I’d rather face the challenge with than you. Just look at the two gorgeous children we’re raising. I see you in their smiles, their laughter, and their eternal curiosity.

I love you more than I could ever have imagined. Happy sweet Valentine’s Day birthday.

-bee

Packing
Driving
Idling in traffic
Crying, vomiting (Sophie)
Cleaning, comforting
Eating
Driving
Stopping
Driving
Stopping
Driving
Waiting to see snow
Seeing snow
Arriving Blue Lake Inn
Pondering 50s decor
Checking in
Collapsing / sleeping (them)
Gambling (me)
Complimentary donut eating
Checking out
Sledding
Eating
Arriving Zephyr Cove
Greeting, socializing, eating
Sleeping
Eating
Sledding
Napping
Swimming / Waterfalling (Mont Bleu)
Eating
Gaming
Sleeping
Eating
Sledding
Eating
Driving
Driving
Driving
Eating
Driving
Unpacking
Unwinding
Blogging

…and it was the cat.

I dropped the word “robbery” in my last update, and a number of concerned friends and family members contacted me. Thank you, concerned friends! Your concern is touching.

And, in this case, fortunately it’s unneeded as well. Here’s the story.

The other week, at work, I got a call from my neighbor, Corey. Corey lives a dozen houses down the street, is a mechanic and tow truck driver, has a fun family (including a daughter, Caitlin, who is 2 and plays with Sammy sometimes), and is a hell of a nice guy. But he called me and said, “Um, Steve, did you ask for someone to haul stuff out of your POD?”

“Um, no,” says I. “Wait, maybe Kimi did. Why?”

“Two people are loading boxes from your POD into their car.”

I called Kimi and confirmed she didn’t pay for any hauling, and then I called Corey back. (I should have called the police at that point.) Corey said the two thieves had noticed him watching them and took off. He was currently chasing them in his pick-up truck, but had Caitlin in the back, so nothing too crazy was gonna happen. He lost them when they ran a red light across Middlefield.

I rushed home, and at that point I was imagining a worse-case scenario: The house robbed, computer and stereos taken, Kimi’s jewelry gone — but nope, the house was untouched.

After opening the POD, it was clear that some things had been rifled through. Turns out an old video camera, my old Nintendo 64 (oh no! No more Goldeneye!) and maybe a few other things were taken. But everything really valuable had already been unpacked — mostly what was left inside were books and Kimi’s crafting materials and office supplies.

A police officer arrived quickly, took my statement, and then tried to dust for prints. Remember on CSI when they can extract partial prints from bullets and the throats of corpses or other random stuff? Here a perfectly ordinary handle and bolt — with plenty of surfaces for prints — didn’t prove to be a sufficient surface for the officer to find anything. (“By the way,” he says, “that dust is toxic so wash really well.”)

In the past when something’s been stolen, I’ve felt really violated. After this incident, all I felt was that we had gotten lucky. It was also entirely our fault for leaving the POD unlocked. As a wake up call, it reminds us to be more diligent — and that we should finally finish unpacking.

Kimi and I each signed a last will and testament today.

Each year, a significant number of people die “intestate” — without a will. This is a terrible condition to end up in, especially if you have children, because the probate costs on your estate will be significant (meaning attorneys and the state will take a huge chunk), the process will drag on forever, and result in hard feelings or problems, because each state has default assumptions that probably don’t match your wishes (such as, depending on where you live, your parents getting a bigger share of your estate than your children).

I feel fortunate that TiVo has a good legal benefit available: For a small monthly paycheck deduction, I have access to a range of legal services at no charge. One of those services is estate planning — which was really a relatively simple process of calling up a local attorney, going through an interview, and then signing the documents as we did today, just a few weeks after we started the process.

It’s never pleasant to think about all the different scenarios that come up during the estate planning (such as what happens if you’re on life support, or whether you want to be buried or cremated), but I do feel immense relief that if the horrible happens, Sophie and Sammy will be well cared for.

So, are you set? If you’re single and don’t have a lot of assets, probably not a big deal. But if you’re married or have children or have a house, it’s something you really should take care of. And eat your broccoli while you’re at it.

Today we move back in to our house, after nearly four months of living with friends.

As is typical for a remodel, the work took twice as long and cost twice as much, although we definitely added many more items as we went along.

Our house was built in 1950, in a hurry, and previous generations of owners had done their own work, badly, and without permits. It’s a very small house, with a number of issues. Things were fine when it was just me and my brother, less fine after I married Kimi and my brother moved out, quite a bit less fine when Sammy was born, and really unacceptable after Sophie was born.

We grappled with selling it and moving (bad timing for that, though), with renting it out and living in a rental somewhere else, with knocking it down and starting over, and with torching the place to collect insurance money. Between the market, our desire to obey the law, and not wanting to be out of the house too long, we decided to remodel instead. (We do love the neighborhood and the yard.)

Ultimately, for the remodel, we:

• replaced extensive dry rot damage, especially in the master bath’s shower
• retiled that shower, and added a pocket door to the master bath (it didn’t have a door previously)
• tented for termites, sealed many open beams, and repaired lots of termite damage
• did what we could to level the floor and deal with the cracked slab foundation
• ripped out disgusting carpet and put in a hardwood-like floor
• took down some walls between the living room and kitchen and a useless corridor to open up the place
• moved the kitchen to the back of the house
• took out some awkwardly-placed side windows, put in smaller ones
• ripped out some dangerous wiring and had the electrical redone (our contractors wondered why the electrical hadn’t shorted out)
• ripped out some disastrous plumbing that was like an octopus junction; at one point, someone had snaked it, the snake had snapped off in the pipes, and they just left it there — no wonder we had always dealt with uneven draining
• took out our badly water-damaged cabinets and replaced them
• took out a load-bearing wall made out of multiple pieces of scrap wood (our contractors wondered why the house hadn’t falled down) and replaced it with a safe support column in the middle of the now large living/kitchen/dining room
• replaced our antique and difficult-to-use oven with a modern one
• added a trash compactor
• moved the microwave to an under-the-cabinet model
• replaced some clumsy French doors to the back with compact sliding doors
• removed a chimney/fireplace that took up too much space and had unsafe masonry
• replaced the fifty year old furnace (the wood above it was so charred our contractors wondered why the place hadn’t burned down)
• added a closet to what is now Sammy’s room and had previously been an office
• added a coat room near the front door (taking up the space where the fireplace had been)
• replaced a door that banged into the front door with a pocket door
• deepened a linen closet that previously had been too shallow to place a towel in, by taking up space where the master shower had been unnecessarily wide
• previously, we had ripped out a termite-ridden back deck (with wooden boards we couldn’t keep from being unsafe) and removed the 60s-era hot tub and deck area with concrete, and turned the back yard into an open lawn
• replaced some inefficient 1950s front windows with larger, modern, insulated windows
• put in new light fixtures and evened out the ceiling textures of the big room (previously, some parts were exposed beams, some parts were sheet rock, some parts were wood planks)
• repainted and added new trim/molding inside and out
• probably a dozen more things I’m forgetting

This morning we walk through it all, and start the move-in process. I’d take pictures but our cameras are packed away…

Many thanks to Bob for letting us stay in his place for 3 months, Garry & Marilyn for putting us up for a week when things ran long and Bob’s relatives came to stay, Rob & Kelly for hosting us the last week and a half, Kyrie for numerous consultations on the design and plan, and support with the kids. and most of all to my darling wife who managed the whole project.

Done! (Except for the unpacking part. That’ll take a good two months, I’m sure.)