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The 30-year-old shed in our backyard was falling apart -
...so it was time for a new one! It was built on-site today. Click on the photos to enlarge them.
—Mike @ 21:21
Life with a robot - Diane has generously gifted us with our very own iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner. What a riot. This thing is more fun than a pet (what pet cleans up after itself?) Provides hours of endless entertainment, as we watch its seemingly random passes over our flooring, sucking up dirt we didn't even know we had. It's driven by its proprietary algorithms that are designed to ensure full coverage (even though the lines in the carpeting end up looking like the Nazca Lines in Peru), spot cleaning where needed, and automatic re-docking in its power station when done. A few times we actually couldn't find it, until we realized it was quietly but busily at work far underneath some of the furniture. We're considering names for it; I'm kind of patial to Astro (the dog from The Jetsons ;-) Thanks, D!Labels: haha, home, technology
—Mike @ 22:34
Yikes, Mikes - Our new next-door neighbors Mike & Tracy moved in yesterday, right on schedule. Let's see now, out of the 15 houses on our street, that makes 6 Mikes -- yikes! It's enough to equip a radio studio ;-) Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Michael Lane intersects with our street?Labels: home
—Mike @ 15:56
Corner to corner -
After decades of talking about how little leg room we all had in the tiny downstairs bathroom at the lake house, we finally did something about it this season. Last week, the old bathroom was demolished, and in its place we had a corner toilet and corner vanity installed, and it feels quite luxurious in comparison. We can even... umm... stretch our legs a bit. There are still a few minor items to be completed, but you get the idea from the photo, which also shows off the brand new tile floor.
—Mike @ 22:40
As high as an elephant's eye -
Or in this case, as high as an elephant ear plant. It's been one very wet summer, and it's just amazing how happy Veronica's summer garden is, when provided nearly unlimited rainfall. The elephant ear plant in particular is out of control, and everything else is growing sky high too!
—Mike @ 23:16
Full speed ahead - Maybe "Full speed ahead" would be a better title for this blog. Friday night, we visited Wasabi downtown with friends Rick & Erica, and caught up with the last few months. We'll be taking a 10-day Caribbean cruise to five new (to us) island destinations with them this fall.
Saturday morning, my nephew Joey participated in the finals for his swim team (his team hosted the event for all the particpating teams from the area, and my brother Joe worked his butt off for the event, as part of the setup and cleanup committees). The even involved 300 swimmers, and the hundreds more who attended to everything from timers, food concession, scoreboard operators, staging directors, and official rooters -- it was quite the organized event, with the 64 multiple-heat swim events taking up most of the day. Joey's team took first place, and he personally did well enough to qualify for this week's conference events (the best of the best competing in a type of all-star round). Here are a couple of short videos I shot, the first is from his freestyle event, and the second his breaststroke.
Saturday afternoon, we shot up to the lake to call the weekly windsurfing race and take photos of the racers for this year's trophies. Brother Kevin took first place in both of this weekend's races, and holds the lead for the Open Fleet as the season heads into its final month.
We have a number of projects underway up at the lake this year, including:It's definitely keeping us all busy, to say the least.
- replacing the 60-year-old walls to the outdoor shower,
- expanding the lakeside patio with a perimeter of patio blocks,
- maximizing the available room in the tiny downstairs bathroom by replacing the fixtures with a "corner" toilet and a corner sink, and
- pulling up the pavers on the brick patio to replenish the underlying sand that has washed out over the years (after first plugging the leaks on the side walls where it was coming out, of course).
Mom returned to the lake house this weekend for the first time since her stroke earlier this month, and continues her remarkable improvement. She was happy to be back with the family, and we were happy to have her there again; it hasn't been the same without her. Veronica filled in as chief meal planner, shopper and chef for the hungry hordes.
Veronica came through a car accident unscathed last week, no injuries anywhere. The body shop gave us their estimate of $5000 damage, and the insurance company has cleared the repairs, which should take about three weeks. She was very lucky.
Anyone looking for a 4-BR house in a great neighborhood (with excellent next-door neighbors)? Our late next door neighbor's kids (Mary passed away a few months ago suddenly, after being our close friend and neighbor for the past 26 years) have been busy at work refurbishing the place and catching up on maintenance, and it's sparkling like new now, just ahead of their putting it on the market.Finally, here's a photo I took this evening in our backyard -- the colors of the various flowers seemed to glow under the sunsetting sky. It's been a very wet summer (we returned home from the lake Sunday night to find a full 4 inches of water in the rain gauge!), and the foliage is in an unusual state of full bloom for late July. I seem to remember things going mostly brown by this time in past summers; this year I'm still cutting the grass every 4 to 5 days to keep up.
Labels: family, friends, home, nature, photos, restaurants, sports, videos
—Mike @ 20:37
New front walk -
Well, it turned into another one of our typical two-year projects from idea to completion, but we finally replaced our old broken-brick and cement walkway with a new one made of modern pavers. The contractor did a super job!Labels: home
—Mike @ 17:00
Backyard critters -
Veronica's turned our back yard into an official Nature Habitat over the years, and here are three of the animals that are grateful for it. The hawk is a regular visitor and loves the tasty morsels the other birds provide, much to their abject horror. The cardinal is my favorite bird of all time, and always has been. Our hawks are forbidden to eat them. This year, we have FOUR bright-red male cardinals, and several females as well -- a record. We were surprised so many males would share the same territory -- maybe they're all from the same nest. (Of course, many would ask -- wouldn't that just cause them to fight more? ;-) The third photo is of a red-bellied woodpecker.
(PS - A few days later, we actually counted five red male cardinals in one bush, and it was snowing at the time. The only thing better than spotting a cardinal is spotting a cardinal against white snow :-)
—Mike @ 22:30
Our latest project... -
...is a new Pella front door and storm door, to replace our 20-year-old steel door. The window at the top lets in some extra light to the living room without sacrificing much in privacy, and it's extremely air tight compared to the old one. We're very happy with the Pella installers; they did a super job.
Labels: home
—Mike @ 21:53
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