matching tracksuits

The first gentleman came in, measured some windows, and then started talking about how great his windows were. Fun little demonstrations of how effective his windows were at stopping heat and such. Finally, the price: for our 1,300 square foot house, 14 windows total, with one of them a large picture window: $10,000. I'm rounding up here -- it was nine something. I thought, "Wow -- quite a bit more than I was expecting."

The next fellow came in. Same deal. Why in the world did I not stop him earlier? "I know you're going to show me all these wonderful ways your windows are going to save us money, but I just need a price." It would have been so easy. Finally, a quote. This one was going to be big -- I knew it. In fact, before K went up to give L her bath, I muttered in Polish, "It will be the same price as the other guy, or higher." The gentleman wrote it on a piece of paper and slide it over to me. It was difficult to maintain composure.

$20,000.

Twenty grand to change fourteen windows. "We could remodel our kitchen and get a good bit done in one of the bathrooms for that," I thought.

Finally, some simple, honest contractors came in. We ended up paying less than 25% of the highest bid. The results: K insists on keeping all the blinds up now.

An honest price.

Good quality work.

Guess who'll get our business again?

How many nails does it take to hold a door in place?

Apparently only two, because when we ripped out this old door to put in a new one, we used a reciprocating saw only twice, for the two lonely nails on the knob side. The door was held in place, I'm assuming, by the generous application of caulk on the outside of the door. The caulk did double duty, though, for it not only secured the door but insulated the door, and it was a solo gig. Not a scrap of insulation between the door frame and the house; not a pin-point of insulating foam; not even a gratuitous bead of caulk.

No only that, but the door was essentially levitating.

It's difficult to discern it in the picture, but that block of lumber looked as if it had been finished with a dull hatchet.

The whole thing was so poorly installed that if I'd sneezed when closing the door, I might have knocked the whole thing out, frame and all.

Not this one, though.

First major project of this weekend: the deck.

Before:

After cleaning and sanding:

Second major project: recovering from installing Windows XP Service Pack 3. "Within hours of its release, Microsoft's Service Pack 3 for Windows XP began drawing hundreds of complaints from users who claim the update is wreaking havoc on their PCs" I later discovered (source). That was in May, and apparently it's still not fixed.

A half-project of taking our Jetta in for a flat tire fix provides a striking contrast. "Imagine if everyone provided service like that," I said to K. "We'd go to pick up our car and find someone in the shop had opened the hood and taken a sledgehammer to the engine: it would look the same, but would never work again."

Yet another mind-numbing example of the "mystery" of the Microsoft monopoly: crappy products that rule the world.

The morning summer sun is actually merciful here — thanks, in part, to the forest we have in the backyard.

I now fully understand why plumbers charge the fees they do. I mean, if you had to go into strangers' homes and deal with this stuff, wouldn't you?

And this drain was only for our kitchen sink, dishwasher, and washing machine. Forty years' of grime -- not to mention what appears to be straight-out mud.

How do drains get this nasty?

Suffice it to say, it's a good thing there is no way to digitize odors, because ladies and gentlemen, you would almost literally be up a particular creek...

We’re in the midst of re-doing (I hesitate to use the term “remodeling” since it’s such a small job) our closet.

Before:
After:

After — well, sort of after. The door frame width is a wonderfully-irregular 40 1/8 inches, so we’ll have to buy custom doors for it.

Forty and an eighth?! Where do they come up with sizes like that?

Yard work is much like paperwork -- it tends to pile up and overwhelm. Unlike paperwork, though, I can't just toss yard work into some draw to make it go away for a while.

Yesterday, I played catch-up.

• I finished digging out our antiquated, slow-draining, often-overflowing drain.
• I mowed.
• I trimmed.
• I changed the oil in the car (for a change of pace, I guess).
• I raked.

And then the oddest thing: I was filled with energy. That's another crucial difference between yard work and paperwork: working outside energizes; working inside drains.

Tomorrow, at school, I dig into the pile of work that awaits -- some of which I'd promised myself I'd do this weekend.

• Make-up work to grade.
• Reports to fill out.
• APS plans to finalize.
• Final exams to create.

And you'll find it, at 2:45 in the afternoon, when my last class has padded out, sitting at my computer, hardly able to hold my eyes open, dreaming of a shovel.

Well, not quite tumbling.

We cut down a half-dead cedar tree yesterday, but it was so entwined with vines and such that it didn’t quite fall. It took some encouragement.