Kitchen cabinets and painting at Dad's

While I was in California, Dad and Gerald got the kitchen painted in preparation for cabinet installation. Then I brought up some helpers for Saturday.

Painting Grandpa's bedroom:



While the kitchen cabinets are being installed:



Moving on to the guest room:


And the living room:




We have yet to see if our work has passed the long term inspection process.

Visited the Brady's

After I finished up at a job site in Ontario, California, I took a drive down to Poway (almost to San Diego) to visit with Jeff, a guy I attended College with (over 20 years ago! What's up with that?!?!?).

I got to meet his wife (Pati) and kids (Luisa, Celina, Jon and Diego) that I had never seen. They are all younger than my kids, almost like Jeff and Pati picked up where Dawn and I left off.

When I left, I was told in no uncertain terms that next time I should bring my family (at least Dawn).

Flying to Ontario, California

I had to visit a customer site to solve a problem with my software.

When arranging my flight, it appeared I could book a flight on Northwest out of Pellston, but my company's travel department couldn't book me a seat. So instead, I was sent out of Pellston on United. On the surface, it appeared better travel arrangement, as there was only one stop (in Denver), as United recently added the Traverse City (TVC) to Denver (DEN) leg as a non-stop flight.

However, our flight was a bit out of the ordinary, as not long after we reached cruising altitude, the pilot indicated he was shutting down the left engine due to excessive vibration. After a discussion with Corporate, they decided to divert to Minneapolis, where we had an 'interesting' high-speed landing, what with 3 fire trucks lined up to meet us. After that, the plane load of passengers spent a couple hours (mostly in line trying to rebook flights).

While we were doing that, the pilot had the engine examined, took it for a spin around the tarmac, and pronounced everything OK, blaming the vibration on the fins not fully sliding to their outward position upon engine start. So about 50% of the people that landed in Minnesota took off in the same plane.

Ninety minutes later we were in Denver, and had lost about 3 hours on our schedule.

Father's day at the farm

Got Russ (and Hanna) taking care of grilling lunch:


While Rach wants to learn to drive the four-wheeler. Of course, several rides had to be given that day!



Hanna is keeping track of what Grandpa got for his gift (a slide show photo frame)

Finished hanging Drywall at Dad's

Gerald and I helped Dad finish all the drywall in his house while Dawn cleaned up our mess and documented the day. He has a contractor coming this week to mud and prime all the rooms.

Spent the day on Mackinac Island

Russ, Kelly and their kids came up from Phoenix with Kelly's mom, and we enjoyed a carriage ride arranged by Amanda (with the help of Jack -- Thanks Jack!)



More pictures to be unloaded from the camera

Happy Anniversary to us!

Well, it's only been twenty years. The day slipped by without much ado, as the celebration of choice Dawn made was to have us take the kids to Disney in August (instead of the cruise for two that I gave her for another option).

Another weekend on Dad's house

We finished hanging drywall in 3 1/2 rooms:

Master bedroom (upstairs):



Dining, Living and stairs:




And over half of the guest room:

Beckie's Kitten

Needs a bath after jumping in the toilet as it was being flushed:

Fixing plumbing

Last weekend Bruce pointed out that the old humidifier valve over the water heater was leaking. Finally got around to fixing it (putting a cap in place of the valve), after catching and dumping water for the last 3 days.

Open house + Dress making

Last weekend we had an open house to recognize Adam's graduation from Ferris. Numerous photos are below.








Tonight (Tuesday), Rachel and I were working late into the night to finish her costume to wear to Renaissance Day, where her class was taken to Castle Farms in Charlevoix.
Check out what we managed to sew together over the course of 10 evenings and a weekend:

Memorial weekend working on Dad's

We finished another room today -- we drywalled the other deep closet in the master bedroom.

We also managed to complete 2/3 of the drywall in the master bedroom -- it's actually beginning to look like rooms!

Kitchen with all it's drywall:


Upstairs master bedroom, northwest drywall:

Another weekend on Dad's house

We managed to finish the ceiling insulation in this two-day session, as well as the east wall is now insulated. That leaves very little insulation to complete the actual house.

Part way across the ceiling on Saturday:


The kitchen:



The living and dining rooms:


The finished ceiling:


Grandpa's helper:


Not pictured, we also hung the first 5 sheets of drywall (in the kitchen).

And the Geo installation continues...

Great Lakes was here again today, to plumb the humidifier to get its supply from the hot water heater, as well as add an outlet to power it. They also replaced that bad valve that wouldn't close for the 2nd stage of heat/cool.

The list of things to be completed is smaller (but is taking quite a long time to complete!):
- Consolidate humidistat with new digital unit
- Complete the control wiring

Just look at the dates between these posts! MARCH 27 until today?!?!? Nearly a MONTH!

Added the humidifier

Today they finished up a few more items, and added the humidifier.



Seems the items that need to be finished up are:

• 1 piece of pipe insulation
  
• move the humidifier source from the cold water supply to the warm off the hot water heater
  
• reconnect the control lines for the cutoff control unit
  
• install our back ordered thermostat
  
• tell me why the "small" water output valve is always open, even when the unit is off
  

Now the plumbing

The new unit appears plumbed, and the output plenum is on.



I turned on the unit and the entire family was surprised at just how quite it runs, compared to the old one. It is going to be WAY to quite in the house now!

Out with the old, in with the new!

Well, we've decided to proceed with our Geo-Thermal replacement; the supplier we chose is Great Lakes Plumbing and Heating of Indian River.

Here is day One of the furnace update:

Out with the old:


In with the new:

Easter Sunday

After a nice dinner with the family and when Dawn went off to work, I finished up the "business side" of the downstairs bathroom.

It has been a while since this side has been this clean or useful.



On the vanity side of the bathroom, I've got the old pipe removed and replaced the drywall to get it on it's way to completion. This shows a couple layers of mud on board, and will be ready for some paint "soon"!

Working on Ubuntu setup

A couple weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law gave me an older computer, on which I wanted to set up a home-based web server.

So far, I've managed to get Ubuntu 7.04 "the Feisty Fawn" installed, got vsFTP server running, signed up for a DynDns domain name (WayneRossIs.BoldlyGoingNoWhere.org), set up ddclient to keep that DNS pointed at my current cable-modem's IP address, and now I'm on to setting up a web server.

I am still stumbling on how to get the users I want to have access to my machine. So far, I can sign in within my house and have it work the way I want, but if I go over the cable modem/router the actual file transfer and directory listings don't go through. I poked ports 20 & 21 through my LinkSys, but there seems to be something more that I need to do...

I found a helpful Tutorial here for setting up Apache 2. Didn't take too much effort, and it was up and running a simple set of static web pages in just a few minutes! See the results here!

Following that, I set up SAMBA following this detailed guide, and that was good to go!

Getting things buttoned back up

The utility room is completed now:


Got the drywall back above the toilet. Just have to put the paneling back after I get a white piece of panel seam.