mek.highcroft.com

So much for global warming...

It's a little bit cold here in Minnesota this morning. This is not the coldest weather I have been in, but it's getting pretty close. The coldest day I remember was 36 below zero. Why do I remember that? Because I was with the Wayzata Fire Department at the time, and we were out fighting a house fire that morning. Yes, spraying water on a house at 36 below zero. We were on the national news that mornin.

The temperature image here is captured from the Minneapolis Star Tribune web site, and is only slightly warmer than the actual temperature (-25.2) at our house this morning. Once it gets this cold a few more degrees does not really matter, but drawing a deep breath through your nose on a morning like today is enough to wake up even the most stubborn of non-morning people, ME.

I love having a digital projection clock and thermometer (see the Oregon Scientific web site to see the unit I own), but when you wake up and see -25.2 projected on the ceiling, it pretty much makes you want to roll over and go back to sleep until summer.

Before and After Images of the Kitchen remodel

The remodeling project photos are in, but I've only been able to put the "after" photos up so far. Each image has a short description beneath the image.

View the before and after images.

I will post a comprehensive (as much as I can) before/after gallery soon. Being able to see what it used to look like, the transition (demolition and installation), and finished product is much more dramatic than only seeing the finished product.

A beautiful, finished floor

While some blogs are rife with political, social, and economic intrigue, my recent posts have been on the rather more mundane topic of my kitchen remodeling project. No much contention or strife, aside from the time and effort involved in getting it done.

So, yesterday we finished installing the new flooring. The rooms look fantastic IMO, and I'm incredibly glad we decided to go ahead with this part of the project. I'll take some more photos and post the before and after shots soon.

Of course, as with most home improvement projects, one thing leads to another, and a couple small additional items popped up last night which will require some attention:

• Baseboard moulding needs to be stained and installed
• Kitchen walls need a final light sanding and the application of paint
• Cabinet installers need to come back to install the quarter-round beneath the cabinets now that the floor is installed
• the hollow luann door from the kitchen to the breezeway will now be replaced with a solid oak door

Yes, I have plenty of plans for other improvements on and in the house, most notably, the conversion of the breezeway from a lovely country blue to the natural wood tones underneath the thick coats of paint and wallpaper. When will this next project start? Well, let me catch my breath, finish up the kitchen, and maybe I'll be ready to start something new in a month or so.

Thanks, Dave, for all your help and expertise. Without your assistance and guidance, this project would not have been nearly as fun, or the end result as beautiful.

Closer, closer...

Saturday was a very busy day. I still maintain that if I had been more diligent in my preparations, the floor would be done now, but my ever-gracious father-in-law said we did all that we could have done.

The bulk of the kitchen/dining room area is now covered with a buautiful Antique Amber Oak Pergo flooring. Installation of the outside edges and transition pieces ( to the breezeway and the living room) still remains, but I'm expecting only a couple hours of work tonight and the whole floor will eb complete. Then we have only to install the baseboards and the rooms will be done (ok, we still need to paint the kitchen, but give me a break!).

I can hardly wait to post the photos!

Family Photo

The weekend before Thanksgiving 2003, a good portion of our family (On the Kelly side) got together for a gourmet dinner (pizza from Papa John's) at our house. We have not all been together in the same room (let alone the same state!) for several years. We took some photos to commemorate the occasion, one of which is posted here.

In Order or appearance, left to right:
Back row: Heidi K., Mom K., Jen K., Rachel K., Mike K. Jr., Aaron Z., me, Ken K.
Front row: Caroline K., Dad K., G'Ma K., Dane Z., Rita Z.

Floor Pause

I did not get to the planned-for work on the floor last night. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it was -9 degrees in the garage, and I did not feel like spending time in the garage cutting sheets of luann for the kitchen floor. So, tonight I'll have to double up on the work to get ready for saturday. I did take a few pictures however, so I'll have a bit of before/during/after photos when the whole thing is said and done.

New Floor: One Step Closer

Yesterday evening saw (can evenings see?) a flurry of activity in the kitchen/dining room as preparations for the new floor continued. On hands and knees, I pulled out carpet pad staples, checked for loose sub-flooring nails, and finished trimming the carpet pad back to the hallway. Oh, and dropped a pile of money at Ye Olde Home Depot for the Pergo flooring and related materials.

Tonight (this week will be a busy week), after Bible study, I'll be laying down the sheets of luann to level the floor, and rebuilding a small section of the sub-floor by the sliding glass door. This will start immediately after I run 30 big screws into the floor to eliminate the squeaks-n-creaks.

I'm surprised at how quickly this part of the kitchen remodel is moving along. Maybe it's because I expected it to take longer, and maybe it's because this is really not the hardest part of the job. Who knows. I'm just glad that the floor will be done soon!

Interestingly enough, the dog is a bit wary of the floor part of the remodel. She was OK with me ripping down walls in the bathroom and bedrooms, ceilings and cabinets in the kitchen, and untold hours of painting, but the bare floor in the dining room is *weird* to her. She cannot lay comfortably in front of the sliding glass door (on the heat vent) and perhaps that is the issue. the bare floors also make it quite evident that she needs ner claws trimmed more often -- clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click clickety-click.

The "Kitchen Project"

In taking on the kitchen remodeling project this year, I was aware of the fact that it would take several months to actually fully complete the project. In September, we tore out ceiling soffets, old cabinets, and countertops, replacing the old with beautiful new oak cabinets and beveled-edge laminate countertops. We installed a dishwasher. We moved the natural gas line to accomodate the new location of the stove. We moved outlets and switches, and even modified the ductwork to get the air flowing under the new section of cabinets.

We had the walls finished and ceilings re-sprayed by a great contractor and have prepared new baseboard moulding for the kitchen and dining room. So what's left? The new floor. Get rid of the carpet in the dining area, and cover up the linoleum in the kitchen with something new.

We've decided to go with a Pergo product (Antique Amber Oak) and plan to extend it through the kitchen into the dining room, tying those rooms together into a more informal and open space. I'm hoping to have the bulk of the installation done this coming weekend.

Preparation for the new floor started last night. I pulled up the carpet in the dining room, rolled up the capet padding, yanked out all the carpet tack strips, and vacummed up about 11 pounds of dirt (from under the carpet and padding) from the wood subflooring. Tonight I'll pull up the remaining carpet padding staples, finish building up the floor with plywood and luann (to make it level with the kitchen), and possibly purchase the Pergo (and related stuff) flooring materials at Ye Olde Home Depot. I hope I'll remember to take some photos of the progress. Or at least of the final product!

With any luck we'll have a brand-spankin'-new floor in place early next week to compliment the remodeled kitchen.

Hobbies? Hmmm.

I've always had things I "like to do" when I'm not at work, but I've never really settled on a hobby (or two, or three...). I used to build plastic models (planes, cars, helicopters, whatever). I did a lot of whittling while I was in Boy Scouts. I assembled puzzles and built structures from playing cards. I need to find a new hobby. Not something like learning to play the cello or acupuncture, but maybe something like woodworking, painting (not the living room), or getting back into photography (not just snapshots of family events and vacations), or learning how to fly (and build) radio controlled aircraft.

Figuring out what I want to try is hurdle #1. Getting started and actually trying it is hurdle #2. I'm sure there are community education classes I could take, and I may start there.

In a recent post I listed a few things I'd like to accomplish in 2004, and one of them is finding a non-computer related hobby. It has been on my mind a lot this week, and I'm planning to finish the garage clean up and clean out the office at some point this weekend to clear the way for... something. Something hopefully soon.

Data Storage

I was looking for some basic definitions for network/data storage today to put in a newsletter and thought I would just put the info here... I'm not sure why.

• bit: Short for binary digit. The smallest unit of information a computer can read and manipulate. The value of a bit is 1 or 0.
• byte: The amount of memory space used to store one character; generally 8 bits.
• kilobyte (KB): 1024 bytes.
• megabyte (MB): 1,024 kilobytes
• gigabyte (GB): 1,024 megabytes
• terabyte (TB): 1024 gigabytes
• petabyte (PB): 1024 terabytes
• exabyte (EB: one billion gigabytes (one quintillion bytes)

Just think of how much music you could store on a 1 exabyte iPod...

Hmmmm ~10,000 songs fit on a 40 GB iPod. 1 exabyte = one billion gigabytes. ~250,000,000,000 songs would (theoretically) fit on a 1 exabyte iPod.

250 billion songs. Probably no space for commercials.

Do that many musical pieces even exist?

Looking into 2004

Just a few things I'd like to do in 2004

1. Do more crossword puzzles
2. Find and pursue a non-computer related hobby
3. Read more books to my daughter
4. Bring home more flowers for my wife
5. Eat less junk food
6. Lose 25 lbs.
7. Write actual, physical letters to friends and family more often

That's it for now. Nothing major. Just thought I'd better jot them down.

The big present -- the silver Dodge Grand Caravan SXT

So the whole idea of a minivnan was really unappealing to me for many, many years. The first minivan I rode in had the luxurious accoutrements of an armored truck, and almost the same pleasureable ride as a New York City cab. Over the years, the vehicles have changed, and they now are available in a wide range of colors, sizes, and with a list of available options that would make the menu at TGI Fridays look like a business card by comparison.

So it was with a little reluctance that I went shopping for a minivan over the holiday break. I was not sure I'd find anything I liked, let alone something I would be happy to own several years from now. So here I am, munch munch munch,eating my own words, "I'll never buy a minivan" munch, munch, munch.

I guess the moral of the story is never say never.

So, before you run off, scared that I might go start doing other suburbanite things like landscaping (done it), recycling (done it), or coaching kids soccer (hopefully someday), I have to tell you about this van.

We went to look at a Mazda MPV first. The incentives were great, and we were really happy with the Protoge 5 we'd owned for almost a year. So incentives and trade-in value aside, I thought the van was pretty comfortable and fun to drive. The engine has some good zip, and the features were pretty cool. In all honesty we probably would have closed a deal on the silver 2003 model later that week if the "finance manager" or whoever he was had not slithered up to ask up what he needed to do to get us to close the deal. This is very unfortunate. I can honestly say that that guy lost the sale for the dealership. We absolutely loved working with Jim, our previous salesperson, and we were happy to have the chance to work with him again. So we asked for a couple days to think about the van (it was the day before christmas, so I figured we have time to think about it and get back to them). Finance-man reluctantly let us go. A firm handshake and we headed out the door. I had, unfortunately for the dealership, already made up my mind that I would not be doing business with them. Yes, I may write them a letter to let them know the reason we did not spend 25,000 at their dealership in 2003.

While we were on the road home, we called another "local" Mazda dealership, just to see if they had any dark blue 2003 MPV vans in stock. They did. And the rebates? Well, $2800 more than the "huge rebates" at the other dealership, 10 miles away. Salesman was peppy, and we decided we'd go drive by to see what was on the lot. When we got there, the van was there, lookin' good, except that the antenna had been broken off. No biggie. The big deal was that rght next door was a Dodge dealership, so we sauntered over there to take a look. Too bad for the Mazda folks. Nothing against their vans, but the Doge people had a huge selection of vans out on display. And less expensive.

The 2004 dodge vans were REALLY on sale. Like $10,000 off, on sale. Might as well take a look. Ok. Bigger engine. More space. Well the seats don't fold into the floor, bummer. Rear heat and air, nice. Hmmm. It was looking like fair chances that we'd stop by and talk to the Dodge folks on Friday. And maybe the Mazda folks if things don't work out at the Dodge dealership.

We head for the Dodge dealer in the late morning on Friday. No biggie, we're just going to look, right? We were there for like 3 minutes when a sales person came up to ask if we needed help. Yup, we did, and there are a couple vans on the lot we'd like to look at. No problem. We head out to van #1, the silver SXT Grand Caravan, and tell him that it was the price that attracted us. He fumbles his words and nearly curses to himself, as he tells us that the prices were supposed to be taken out of the windows that morning. He gives us the keys and heads back inside, letting us head out on our test drive. We pull through the lot, and watch the folks frantically pulling the "SALE" tags with the major deals out of the windshields as fast as they can. I'm suddenly feeling pretty good. It's probably a bit on the shady side to feel like you're sticking it to the dealer, but they still make money on the vehicels, even when they are on sale. I mean c'mon. They are in business to make a pofit, not give the things away.

So we drive for a bit. Wow. Lots of great sight lines, engine is responsive and the van has almost every option except for the leather seats, moonroof, and multi-disc CD player. Oh yeah, no DVD. No problem. It's got just about everything else, and I actually am enjoying the drive. HUH? Enjoying a MINIVAN? Oh yeah. I'm quite astonished at the thing.

So after switching drivers (Heidi must test drive it, since it will really be hers day to day), and she likes it too. Lots of space. AM/FM/CD/Cassette player is quite awesome. Power stuff all over the van. Lots of cup holders and cubbys. Folding seats. Reclining seats. Trip computer for the geek in all of us. The sticker on the window tells me the "price" and the fuel economy. Well, the "price" is higher than the Mazda, but the payments will amost exactly match with the financing, especially if they will stick to the sale price tag in my hand. Hmmmm.

Well, needless to say we bought the Dodge. We never even visited Mazda dealership #2, and I have not called back dealership #1. We've put almost 600 miles on the van this week, visiting relatives 200 miles away (call it a good chance to break in the engine) who we should have visited a long time ago. They were VERY excited to have us come up for a day. I was also pretty happy to find out that the van is very quiet on the freeway at and, ahem, slightly above the posted speed limits.

The truth of the matter is that the idea of owning a minivan was not appealing to me. I'm a guy bent on functionality and utility, but requiring a certain aesthetic panache. I was not seeing the minivan as a practical object. It really is, and I think the one we chose is also pretty attractive. It's not a Ferrari or Corvette, but it's purpose is quite different. I'm honestly very impressed with our new SXT -- much more than I expected.

Ok, now you can tell me what you think =)