Demolition Man

Yesterday was demo day for the kitchen and if it wasn't for a little wet dry wall mud we'd be laying some floor down. I think Wednesday will be a good day to start laying the planks. Removing the cabinets was easy, but the floor was a different story. I had a crash bar and a spud bar on hand for the job and it took a good three hours to get the two layers of linoleum, a quarter inch sheet of plywood and a three quarter inch sheet of particle board up and out to the front yard, but good things don't come without some blood (none), sweat (lots) and tears (none yet). : )

Here's a few before, during and after demo pictures.

Our kitchen never looked so good.

Texas BBQ

Susan and I went to San Antonio this past weekend for her ??'th High School reunion. It was suggested I take out the number of years for her reunion and since I like my life as is, I complied. : )  We got to visit and stay with her brother Jimmy and his wife Martha in the Casita. The place is super nice. We also visited with our niece Shannon and her husband Damion. But Lauren, their daughter was the best part of the trip. Well maybe? Family and friends are nice, but the food was the kicker. We ate out for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. It was AWESOME!  Lauren was fun to be around and at 16 months she's bordering the perfect age of two years old. Highly mobile and interested in everything. Visiting my buddy Gonz (Steve) and Mary D was great as well. I had to remind myself how to go to bars, drink beer, throw darts and shoot the shit. It was tough to remember, but I managed. It's always nice to back to Texas, but the humidity is still a killer for me so I'll take the clouds of the North West any day of the week.

 

Lauren wasn't too happy while I was holding her, but when I kicked in my charm she was fine.

 

Here she is in a much better mood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kitchen

I forgot to mention on the earlier posts about our kitchen project. The cabinets are built, the doors and drawer fronts on ordered and we're planning on doing the demo next weekend.

Funny

So we're all watching TV tonight and the State Farm commercial comes on with all the rep's sitting on top of the roof. You know, the one when the dude falls and rolls down the roof line. My family tells me I'm a bit on the strange side because every time I see it, I laugh. And then, Bek laughs at me because I'm laughing at the commercial and then we all start to laugh at each other. Jaz thinks there's something wrong with our gene pool.  I'm easy to entertain.  

Vision

 

Some people may not be able to see anything more than a stack of wood, but I see our new kitchen. Today was day one of the remodel and I cut, labeled and positioned most of the pieces needed for each cabinet into it's assigned pile. Not having done any large projects lately, I was a bit nervous pushing the first sheet of plywood through the table saw but after a few minutes of generating dust all nerves fell to the wayside and I fell into production mode. 

 

 

Let's hope I can still count to ten after the project is done.

Jury Duty

I received a summons in the mail last week to appear before the presiding judge for the city of Lakewood. Out of the 30 applicants the lawyers chose seven of us to sit in the box and I was lucky juror number 7. The case involved the defendant getting arrested for possessing tools that "could" be used for burglaries. He was caught hiding/prowling near a bank and a coffee shop wearing all black clothes and a paint ball mask. He also had a small flashlight and a small crowbar (aka cats paw) in his possession. He told the arresting officer he was hiding in wait to scare his girlfriend when she arrived to pick him up. Make note: it's 5am, very dark and the girlfriend, whom he couldn't recall the name never showed up. Our job as jurors was to determine if the defendant "intended" to use the crow bar for a crime. I thought it was a slam dunk before we went back for deliberations,but several questions came up and as the elected/volunteered Foreman I did my best to keep everyone on track and keep the ball rolling when it got too quiet. A few of the jurors had some doubt in there mind about a guilty verdict, but focusing on the evidence and not on assumptions eliminated the grey area. We talked/deliberated for about 30 minutes and finally agreed on the guilty verdict.  We dropped the hammer on the dude!

Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

 

After my cross race today I got cleaned up and did a supply run at Lowes for my outfeed table and side extension. After moving stuff out of the garage I went to work. The outfeed table is actually my assembly table raised a bit with a few 2x4's and it saved me a bit of work making one. The extension on the side is pretty basic, but effective. I didn't want to spend too much time and money on anything because it'll all end up in the landfill after the kitchen is done. All the sheet goods will be purchased this Friday and will sit on the saw horses with a couple verticle 2x4's supporting the middle.