Except for actual painting, which we will have to do (assuming a color scheme can be agreed on) the bathroom remodel is done! They finished up the new cabinet on Wednesday Jan 2, which was calendar day 7, but it was actually done in only 5 work days. Not bad! And (unlike Fox) the city inspection(s) are already complete.
We ended up going with ReBath; we think they did a great job. If/when we do the other bathrooms we’ll be most likely using them again.
Apart from having to wake up at 6:00am (Six! In the MORNING!) and keeping the cats locked up, it’s gone pretty smoothly so far. If it continues to go well, the bathroom should be fully functional by tomorrow night, and done on Wednesday. Of course, then we’ll have to paint. Ergh.
More progress pics!
Although I’m counting today as “day 5”, it’s really only 4 days because of Sunday. They won’t be out on the first, of course, but the cabinet should be installed on Wednesday. Not bad at all!
Since it was the End Of The World and all, we decided that we should do a bathroom remodel! Well, actually, it was because the shower stall developed a pretty good sized crack and we figured we had to do something about it before any serious water damage ocurred.
Technically, it’s only a half-bathroom remodel, because all we’re going to do is rip out the shower and tub, to replace them with a fancy improved shower and a storage cabinet. Also, the crappy linoleum and carpet (Carpet! In a bathroom!) is going to be ripped out and replaced with tile. We aren’t doing anything to the vanity sinks and cabinets. Maybe later.
Anyhow, we got this all set up and ready to go for 12/26 – when we get a call from the bathroom guys saying that they couldn’t get started because there was still a permit open on our house. An expired permit – from when we replaced the HVAC system… TWO YEARS ago. Apparently, Fox Service Company never actually had the city inspection done on it. In 2010.
Well, that got mostly straightened out – the permit has been “renewed” and Fox is (supposedly) going to get an actual inspection done on the two year old HVAC system Real Soon Now. Whatever, we haven’t been killed by it yet, and at least the remodel can go on: which it has, starting only a day late. I call that pretty much a win.
Yesterday was day 1: Here’s some pics.
First part of their inspection is done, and they’re back again for the next stage. So far, so good!
I finished The Gathering Storm this weekend. It was absolutely fantastic. I was drawn completely in, down to gasping and whimpering as events unfolded. It was a major rush, and I can’t wait for the last two (for reals, yo) books to come out. Pure bliss.
Major kudos to Brandon Sanderson – he pulled it off beautifully.
In other news, I tried to electrocute myself last Wednesday. Took out half a wall and 3 computers in the lab at school – talk about embarrassing.
So, I was going to work on my project write up, using Pages, which means using my powerbook. The battery on the aging laptop doesn’t seem to hold a charge for more than an hour and a half, if that long, which means I needed to plug it in. There was an empty outlet, no problem. However, the desks and computers were wired such that the locking cable (twisted metal) to one of the computers was lying across the outlet. I pushed it aside, definitely out of the way, but there must have been more pressure on it than I figured and it popped back in the way as I was about to plug the cable in.
Pow.
Holeeecrap but that was some spark! There were a couple sparks that I just watched fall all the way to the floor before they went out.
Embarrassing.
Luckily, once the campus electrician dude found and threw the breaker, all was well. Outlet still worked, as did the computers. My power supply, however, is probably toast. I’m sure the cable is, at least, I’m not going to try it, but I’m not sure about the actual power supply. Maybe the Apple store has a way to test them, I don’t know. Still, at least my powerbook wasn’t plugged in yet, and, thankfully, neither was I. Eeesh.
Electricity is not necessarily your friend. :D
Next time, I’m just gonna suck it up and use notepad.
(click through for a more impressive size)
Originally published at Jen’s Corner. You can comment here or there.
Last Thursday, Rob and I had the fantastic opportunity to go to Bracken Bat Cave and watch around 20 million bats emerge from their cave to go hunting. Of course, we didn’t see that many bats – we were told it takes almost all night for the entire colony to emerge.
It was incredible. As we walked up to the area above the cave, we first noticed the stench of bat (and, apparently, beetle) guano. It wasn’t too bad, but fairly powerful. After the initial blast it wasn’t very noticeable.
The cave (picture below, also more pictures on my flickr photoset) was really just this huge hole in the ground. Once things started hopping with the bats you could see thousands of them circling the cave mouth in some instinctive holding pattern.
Then they just came spiraling out of the cave, thousands and thousands of them. The vortex of bats created a breeze as it rose from the cave – they were so close you could hear their wings whirring. As more and more of them came out, they began to stream south in this endless river in the sky.
It was absolutely an amazing sight.
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