Project Miner

I spent the majority of this weekend starting to paint/stain the stairs and surrounding walls. Painting is a nightmare, though it’s not really painting that I hate, it’s preparing to paint that I hate. All the taping and putting down paper/plastic to protect the floors and other areas takes forever. I spent about three or four hours prepping on saturday, then about 45 minutes applying the primer. I had to build a piece of makeshift scaffolding that would have made Grandma lose her mind (two ladders, leaning against opposite walls with a 7 foot piece of wood between them).

The next day, I spent another hour or two taping up other areas and covering the half-wall just to make sure. Then, I finally painted the walls. The walls are in bad shape, though, and we should have used flat paint instead of glossy paint, to hide the imperfections. My patch at the top of the stairs totally shows through, so I’m going to have to redo that again (or finally give up and call in a drywall specialist). Otherwise, it looks good enough, I guess. I actually think that removing the tape after painting is worse than putting the tape down. it’s a nightmare and gets all sticky on the paint and sometimes doesn’t want to come out without help from a razor blade. Sigh. I’m probably doing several things wrong. I think it’s only about to get worse, somehow I think staining the steps is going to be a lot more painful than painting the walls was — probably because I care more about how the steps look than I do about the screwed up walls. The steps are all new and awesome, the walls are old and poopy.

This week, I will be spending a lot of time after work prepping the stairs. I have to individually tape/wrap each post, so I can stain between them. I started that on Saturday, and cut all the paper to do it for the half-wall at the top, so it should go fairly quickly.

The only big screw up was putting the pan liner in a trash bag on the porch and not sealing the bag. I came out later and saw the pan liner (which was full of left over primer) had outweighed the rest of the bag and toppled over. There’s now a white spot on my porch about 8 inches in diameter. Drrrrr. Though, now that it’s there, I want to paint that area black, which I feel is something I should have done a while ago.

Wow, what a trip. I’ve never had a trip that had such polar ups and downs before. I wonder if it’d be better to recap the days or write a quick list of ups and downs. I guess I’ll go with the days…

Friday

Went skiing at Keystone. Rented Katy a pair of regular skis and me a pair of skiing boots (at this point, all I have is the snowblades). Katy took an all-day lesson and I skied with Troy and Elaine. It was pretty easy to get the feel of the snowblades, I was just behind Troy on the first run. By the third run, I felt really comfortable on them and was flying around, having a blast. So, there is a big plus – hooray for the snowblades. Katy seemed to have a good time and was feeling great about it when we met up for lunch. Just before lunch, I did a run with Troy and we were seriously hauling ass. The result of which was my lift ticket removing itself from my jacket. Sigh. The place we bought them didn’t have the bar code, and I didn’t save the little tear off part of the ticket, so I had to buy another one. Nothing like a $130 day on the mountain. Boo. Oh well, I say, “it’s vacation, whatever” and buy the half-day ticket and head back to it.

At the end of the day, we were all pretty wiped out, so we grabbed a drink and sat in the jacuzzi for a bit, then took naps, and then out to eat Chinese.

Saturday

This day starts out as bad as it can get. Katy was up most of the night feeling sick (and getting sick, I won’t get graphic, the next sentence will say it all). We head to the emergency room at 2am and find out she has food poisoning. Poor Katy. Sushi at the restaurant is probably the culprit (she was the only one to eat it).

6 hours and 3 IV bags later, we leave the hospital. Did I mention Poor Katy? We spent that day sleeping and trying to get Katy healthy. Troy and Elaine did some shopping, I went out with them for a short time to grab food, and we pretty much just relaxed.

Actually, aside from the hospital part, it wasn’t so bad just relaxing. Well, for me, it wasn’t. Katy was in hell all day long.

Sunday

Better than Saturday, but still Katy’s stomach was touch and go. We did our outlet shopping on Sunday, while Troy and Elaine braved A-Basin in the super cold and snow (Friday it was nice and sunny (though still 20 degrees), but Sunday it was bitter cold and snowing sideways). Got some good stuff at the outlets and spent good time with Katy. Happy happy she was feeling better. Troy and Elaine wisely quit after lunch, so we all hung out most of the night.

Monday

This time it was Poor Elaine. She got sick all night Sunday night. Maybe a delayed reaction to the sushi (she had one or two pieces of Katy’s sushi)? Either way, her and Troy were in no shape to hit the mountain, so Katy and I went back to Keystone together. This time she rented snowblades, so we were on the same equipment. We did a few runs of “schoolmarm”, the 3.5 mile long beginner run at Keystone. Awesome beginner run, and Katy did a great job. She was a bit scared (as we all are at first) of the steeper spots and went pretty slowly. She only fell a few times (when she was scared of the steepness and psyched herself out) and once she finally gets over the fear, she’ll do great.

We had a great time on the mountain together and got a good picture at the top, taken by one of the mountain sharp shooters. We usually never use those guys, but this trip, we had no cameras on the mountain. Troy forgot his battery and our camera is too big and would crush my ribs if I fell on it, so we didn’t bring it. Anyhows, the dude took a great picture of us and we shelled out the $34 to get two 5×7’s of it.

Tuesday

We decided to rent snowmobiles on Tuesday at a place near Breckenridge. We got on them and the guide took us to a little oval track to test them out and get a feel for them. I was driving, with Katy on back and couldn’t hear what she later said was her screaming bloody murder. She was super scared by the motion of the snowmobiles in the snow (which was like hydroplaning constantly), and after that initial run didn’t want to continue. The guide did the typical laid back “whatever” approach and said something like “you’ll be fine, that was faster than we’ll go on the trail, the trails are way easier than that was”. Well, that donkey was full of it. The trails were about three feet wide and had sharp turns and he wasn’t going slowly. Of course, nobody else seemed to care, so it wasn’t like he was necessarily careless, but he should be attentive when somebody basically tries to get out of the activity altogether. Grrrr.

That said, the half-way point in the ride was at the top of the continental divide. Breathtaking views, seriously amazing. The visibility was basically “as far as you can see”.

After Katy braved another event (I’m thinking ski trip part II is unlikely), we went into Breckenridge and walked around while Troy and Elaine skied a half day with his parents. Great time shopping and walking around, again just spending time with Katy.

That night, we had a great dinner with the Deus’ and gang (side note: I ate two fried shrimp and enjoyed them. I was drunk on margaritas, so I can’t say I tasted it, but I’m gonna try again), packed and headed out of town.

Summary
To sum it all up… We somehow made it out of a trip with food poisoning and still had a good time. It was nice to be away and not really having to do anything. Skiing is fun, even though it’s tough work at times. I’m super glad I went with the snowblades and will now buy some boots to go with them. I kind of wish I had regular ski bindings instead of the clip in bindings, but it’s not that big of a deal. Katy will probably not want to take a cold trip again, so next ski trip will probably be a “guys trip”.

“There go those barneys right now with their skiing trip”.

Tonight we head to Colorado with Troy and Elaine for some skiing (and apparently ski mobiles and awesome outlet shopping). Super excited about the trip, it’s been a long time since I’ve been skiing. I decided to quit snowboarding, in favor of skiboarding. Snowboarding is just a bit too difficult and not enjoyable when I go once every two years. 75% of the trip is remembering how in the hell to snowboard and not kill myself. I tried skiboards years ago, and they were by far the easiest (and therefore most fun) things I’ve used on a mountain. So, I sold the snowboard and bought these (except mine are red) on ebay. Don’t have boots, so I’ll probably pick those up in Colorado or rent them and find a pair this summer when the mega sales are on.

Katy has never been skiing and given her back condition, I’m a bit worried about it. She’s competitive as hell and is athletic enough to ski, so I’m not worried that she won’t get it or won’t like it. Really, it’s just the back and her hatred of the cold (though, that’s shared by everybody, except Wade). At first, I thought she might be scared when she sees a decent sized hill, but then I remembered her on the lake in July with Sean and Stephanie. She just wanted to go faster and faster and get knocked around by waves and stuff, so I think she’ll do fine. It’d be awesome if she liked it enough that we could go regularly. I kind of miss skiing.

I scored and got a bike for my birthday this year (thanks Katy!). The first ride was fun, but also miserable. I’m actually in pretty good shape right now, but the ride was still treacherous – I assume because it’s a new set of muscles to work out. I went for the second ride Monday and it was much better. Partially because my brain started working and I realized that I have a “camel back” from snowboarding, so I could carry some water with me. Filled that up, strapped it on and rode around, no longer parched the whole time. I was planning on riding near Troy’s house and back, thinking that would be long enough for workout #2. When I got near his house, I was just getting going, so I kept on moving. I ended up going through the highlands, back through piedmont park, then through Ansley and back home. It was about 40 minutes total, which is a time range that I’m happy with for right now.

I was wondering how far I went and googled around for a site where I could trace a map and find the distance, landing on gmap-pedometer.com . After putting in my route, the bike route Monday was just shy of 6 miles. Bah, that doesn’t seem far. Oh well. I planned a route for getting to Steelray (thanks to Brian for the help finding most of that)… here’s it is, about 8 miles. Now I just need to get a more stable schedule going so I can actually go to work there again (holidays + vacation = no set schedule, which is no fun for the mildly obsessive compulsive). The laptop is going to feel much heavier on that bike ride. Good thing it’s backed up periodically now, so when I fall and crush it, I can just buy a new one.

Things are finally starting make sense with Grandma’s current health woes. She was feeling kind of out of it and dizzy last week, and went into the doctor to make sure nothing was wrong. It turned out she had several TIAs over the course of a few weeks or so. TIAs apparently aren’t as bad as strokes, but having a lot of them isn’t a good thing. So, they put her through the ringer of tests and were going to get back to her. Monday night, she got super dizzy and asked to go to the hospital. As usual, she spent about 15 hours in the ER, getting very spotty treatment. They viewed her brain again and thought maybe it was dementia. D’oh. They decided to do some more tests and look at her heart, and then the problems became more apparent. I’m getting this third hand, but she has muscle tissue weakness (tear? something not good, whatever it is) in her heart. They think it’s probably plaque build-up and are putting a catheter in today to look around and maybe do an angioplasty if they find build up. They should know the real cause of the heart problems after looking around, so that’s good. When I was there last night, the doctor said the TIAs definitely fit as a result of the heart issues.

If there’s a good side, it’s the doctor saying “We don’t usually do this catheter/angioplasty routine on 81 year-olds, because it usually doesn’t matter. But, you are in very good shape, so we’re going to treat you as we would, say, a 60 year-old”. Well, good for my Grandma, but maybe not so good for other 81 year olds, eh? I hate being disappointed by doctors. That’s a whole different issue, though… I need to hurry up and build that hater site.

I’m a Braves season ticket holder now!  Woot!!  I bought two seats for a 20 game package, all the games are Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons.  20 games seems just right for me.  Here is the list of games:

• Mets. Sun, April 8, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Nationals. Thu, April 12, 2007, 7:35 PM
• Marlins. Sun, April 15, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Dodgers. Sun, May 6, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Mets. Thu, May 24, 2007, 7:35 PM
• Phillies. Sun, May 27, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Cubs. Thu, June 7, 2007, 7:35 PM
• Cubs. Sun, June 10, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Tigers. Sun, June 24, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Pirates. Sun, July 15, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Cardinals. Thu, July 19, 2007, 7:35 PM
• Cardinals. Sun, July 22, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Astros. Thu, August 2, 2007, 7:35 PM
• Rockies. Sun, August 5, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Giants. Thu, August 16, 2007, 7:35 PM
• Diamondbacks. Sun, August 19, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Mets. Sun, September 2, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Nationals. Sun, September 9, 2007, 1:05 PM
• Brewers. Thu, September 20, 2007, 7:35 PM
• Brewers. Sun, September 23, 2007, 1:05 PM

 

Games on that list that I’m most exicted about are:

• Dodgers on May 6.  The Braves have a food stand that imports the food of the opposing team.  Dodger dogs.  Oh, my.
• Tigers on June 24.  I heart the Tigers and have since ‘84, so that’ll be a great game to see.  Plus, any time a team who played in the WS (even if they got swept by a team in looney-ville), you have to be excited to see them come through.  Maybe Verlander will start, or Zumaya will pitch… 100 mph fastballs are awesome in person.
• Mets games.  They suck and I look forward to boo’ing them.
• Giants on August 16.  Maybe a Zito sighting?  Maybe a Bonds sighting?

Is it freakin’ March yet?  Sigh.  

Back in town from DC, and finally getting back into a little bit of a groove. The trip had the usual ups and downs. Seeing friends and being in DC again is always nice. This time, work ranged from really enthralling and fun (discussing architecture for the new system with Jol and Steffen, even though Jol and I were not on the same page and I didn’t understand half of what he said) to just plain terrible — Thursday had three meetings, the shortest of which lasted 90 minutes (thank you, Trent) and the longest of which was just under three hours (Janette can talk, even though I like her enthusiasm). At the end of Thursday, I went to the hotel and worked on getting the damn Cisco VPN client working (I’ll save that for another journal entry entirely, titled something like “I hate computers”) and decided I needed a nap. Laid down at 7:30 and woke up at 5:30 the next morning. Nice.

Best part of the trip back was my reception at Marta. The flight was better than most from DC – I was the window (no great views this time, though) and the woman in the middle was small, so everybody was nice and comfortable. I read from take-off to landing (Ball Four is still awesome) and even remembered the ear plugs this time. After waiting to get my bags for what seemed to be as long as the flight itself, I hopped on Marta. (Another side note… I have a new entry for the hater blog, people who know each other yet sit on opposite isles of a transit system and yell to each other. Fuckers.) When I got to Arts Center station and to the top level platform, Katy’s car was at the curb. She saw me and jumped out and ran over and hugged and kissed me. Awesome stuff.

The weekend was pretty fun. The weather has been amazing here (60s/70s) so I washed my ride and spent some time outside. Had dinner and played games with Josh and Christy, which was a great time. Also, sold the old hooptie! Woot! Got $2100 for it, which was probably a better deal for the buyer than for us, but we were glad to get it. The guy who bought it was 18 years old and a waiter and must have kept a pillow full of cash in his room. $2100 in cash, $300 of which was ones, fives and tens. At least 100 one dollar bills. The stack was about four inches tall when stacked up and held together with rubber bands. We gave the money to Katy’s parents, since they gave us the car and paid for our wedding and are just awesome. Felt good to give them the money, especially considering they are trying to get their kitchen floor redone.

Back to the grind… for a few days at least. We leave for Colorado Thursday to ski with Troy and Elaine, and it’s all I can think of right now.

Something I thought of last night at dinner with Jol that I really wanted to remember to write down. On the flight into DC Sunday, around the time they announced we were descending for landing, I finally was able to relax and shut my eyes a bit (the idiots behind me stopped yelling to each other, that woman was shouting “I says ….” every two seconds). It didn’t last long, but I did get about 15 minutes of quick shut eye. When I woke up, I looked out of the window to my left and got to see an absolutely beautiful view of the national mall – the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol, with the Monument all lit up and looking ominous (and phallic, as usual). It’s such an awesome view, and how could you get that view outside of an airplane? I don’t think it’s possible… unless there are helicopter rides or something, and with all the air traffic and security around the area, I think that’s unlikey (or wicked expensive). Maybe from a super swanky hotel, condo or restaurant in Rosslyn? Whatever, it was awesome, and made up for Mr and Mrs Yelly behind me.

From now on, when given the opportunity to pick my seat on a flight to/from DC, I will make sure I’m on the left side of the plane flying into DC and the right side flying out. It’s not guaranteed the plane will even fly over that part of the Potomac (sometimes it comes in from the south east and doesn’t loop around or doesn’t leave to the north), but when it does, it’s an awesome sight.

Flew to DC for business with the AO last night. Pretty decent flight, except the people sitting behind me were loud as hell. I usually wear ear plugs on plane trips, but forgot to put them in before sitting down and they were sitting in my bag above me, probably mocking me and enjoying their own silence. I kind of pictured a movie, where you see the guy uncomfortably trying to read or get to sleep with the excessive noise behind him, and then cutting through the luggage bin and seeing his ear plugs sitting there, totally unused. Sigh. Anyways, it really wasn’t that bad, I got to read Ball Four some more (still really enjoying it) and even though my row of three was full, it wasn’t cramped – we were all normal sized people (I will make an apologies for hating giant sized people on air planes… maybe not the people’s fault, but it’s somebody’s fault and it fucking sucks for those of us who end up trying to fit into half a seat).

I was hungry when I got off the plane (at 8:45) and decided I should get something to eat. I was worried the hotel wouldn’t have anything open, and since it was Sunday maybe none of the delivery places would be open either. So, when I saw the California Pizza Kitchen was open in the airport, I stopped and got a Cesar Salad to go. It worked out perfectly, as soon as I got the food and went to get my luggage, my bags were rolling by. Grabbed ‘em, got to the metro and traveled to the hotel.

I’m in the room next door to the one I was in last time, number 1212, which makes my Rainman side happy. Last time it was 1210, which is also pretty good. 1214 would be better, maybe I’ll score that one next time. The room is smaller than before – there is no wall between the living room and the bed room – but overall it’s still great. I didn’t sleep well, as usual the first night in the hotel. My body is still thinking “wtf, this isn’t my bed” and “hey, where’s Katy?!?”. Oh well. Maybe by tomorrow night it’ll be better…. Troy recommended Tylenol PM, so I’m gonna try that.

This morning, I used the outside patio by the gym to jump rope, and then the railings by the pool to hold my feet while I did sit-ups. I love the little gym, and the outside patio for jumping rope. A security guard came and watched me jump rope, the whole time with a puzzled look on his face. When I got to a stopping point, I said “hey, how’s it going? I’m in room 1212 if you are wondering who the hell I am”. He kind of laughed and said something about me trying to be Rocky and went away. Ha. I get the Rocky thing a lot with the jump rope… time for some new jokes, people. Challenge!

So, here in DC. Tonight, Jol and I eat Chicken fried Chicken (hell yeah) and watch football (go Gators! eek, that’s not fun to say).

I’ve spent the last hour or so starting to read Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, which is a non-fictional book written by a baseball player in the 70’s. It was a huge controversy when it came out because Bouton told all, and prior to the release of this book, players never told all. According to the prologue, the public thought ball players drank milk and never swore and loved their moms, and apparently the people who ran baseball thought that perception was a huge reason the sport succeeded. Thinking about it now, I can even see how that belief carried all the way into my generation. Mickey Mantle, for example, is always pictured in such a way that you think “now there’s a good guy”, rather than the truth – “now there’s a guy who pushed autograph seeking kids out of his way and drank himself into a grave”. Bouton played with the Yankees, and one of the stories I just read was about “beaver-shooting”, where players tried to catch a peek at woman’s junk – from under the stands or by peering up from the dugout or even through holes they’d drill in hotel walls. Hilarious stuff, as told by Bouton, though certainly the section about Mantle being a leader of the “beaver-shooting” crowd might put a damper on his rep.

I can see how at the time of publishing, the true story tales of what players were really like and how they were foul mouthed drunks or perverts was appealing to readers. However, given today’s state of athletes, I’m sure nothing in this book is going to shock me. Instead, I’m just totally getting off on a major league pitcher talking about trying to win a job with the team – especially one who was a two-time 20 game winner and 2-1 in the fucking world series with the New York Yankees. It’s unreal for me to read about this, being able to really imagine myself in his shoes, or feeling what it really was like to deal with managers and compete with other players who you are also trying to root for. Sure, I’ve read a lot of other baseball books, but this one is more like a guy who wrote “Dear Diary” stories and then said “ah, screw it, here, everybody read it”. It’s awesome.

So far, my favorite line is when he’s talking about pitching better when scared (I hold that trait, if I’m doing something athletic and I’m scared, I find super strength I never knew I had). He tells another player about that and before one game the guy whispers to him “If you ever want to see your baby again, you’ll win this game”. Classic.