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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Working Around the House

    Since I only have weekends to do stuff around the house I wanted to get started early on painting the Master Bathroom. Well things didn't go as planned. I uploaded my podcast, surfed the net for a bit and then Harry got up and we had breakfast. I was not feeling to hot, both Harry and have been under the weather. So I opted to not paint as that take alot out of you and instead I would do odds and ends around the house. So today I...

    • Cleaned the master bedroom
    • Put away all the laundry that I had wash a few days ago.
    • Organized all the close in our closet.
    • Finished the drawers that Harry had started.. he did the majority of the work I just spray painted the handles and re-attached them and put the drawer back together again.
    • Set up our new HDTV in our bedroom but couldn't get it connected to our Direct TV, will have to deal with that tomorrow.
    • Put the vents back on the wall in the master bedroom, been wanting to do that for a few weeks now.
    • Put the new door knob on the guest bathroom door and hung the door back on, again been wanting to do that for a week.
    • Cleaned up the kitchen a bit by cleaning off the island.
    • Unpacked a few boxes of our DVD collection and put them in the newly painted DVD racks.

    And I did this while not feeling 100%.

    I wanted to get the office done but I'm just too tired at the moment. I may get a burst of energy but will see what happens. I always have tomorrow.

    Hope you all had Happy Halloween and don't forget to turn back your clocks on hour.

Knights of the Guild Ep9 pt2

Friday, October 30, 2009

End of another work week

    This week of work was quiet.. didn't have much to do, the show is just getting started and I don't have many people to manage. But after work today I came home and did an interview with my buddy Rick and his son Andrew for my Knights of the Guild podcast with Jenni. The interview went great, after that I had some dinner with Harry and then we drove to the transmission place to pick up my jeep finally. Took five days to repair and cost my $1995.65 but it's working again and I guess that is all that matters.

    After we got home I started working on editing Episode 9 part 2 of Knights of the Guild podcast as the fan interview is all I needed to finish it. I had planned to release it on Sunday Nov. 1st but since it was done and podcasts don't do well when they are released on Sunday I decided I would release it tomorrow even though it's Halloween.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

    Since I started work again I have picked up some more audio books. My buddy Christopher talked about this new series called Percy Jackson and the Olympains, it sounded pretty cool so I got all five books on CD to listen on my drive in and from work. Here's a brief synopsis: Percy Jackson & The Olympians is a series of adventure and fantasy books authored by Rick Riordan. Set in the United States, the series is prominently based on Greek mythology. The series consists of five books, as well as spin-off titles such as The Demigod Files and Demigods and Monsters.

    The protagonist is Percy (Perseus) Jackson who discovers that he is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea and earthquakes. He learns that the legendary beings of Greek mythology still exist, including monsters, Cyclopes, Empousai, Titans, and also the Olympians (Greek gods) themselves who dwell in Olympus, now situated at the mythical 600th floor of the Empire State Building. Monsters frequently attack him because he is a child of one of the "Big Three" (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades). Percy meets many other young demigods, both friendly and hostile, who are also in the process of discovering their heritage and powers.

    So far I have listened to book 1 The Lightning Thief and book 2 The Sea of Monsters and today I started book 3 The Titan's Curse. They are fairly short books and not super complicated to understand. I love Greek mythology so I'm really enjoying all the reference in these books.
    They are a fun read, not as engaging as Harry Potter but very enjoyable and I look forward to the further adventures of Percy Jackson.

Jeep Woes 3

    Today I got a call from my mechanic and he said the part that he needed was not available and that he would need send my broke part to them to repair.. and of course that will delay my jeep from being finished. Now I have to wait until Friday for my Jeep to be done.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Dog Pen and Jeep update

    Not much going on today.. work was fine.. still slow as there are only two editors, four loggers and an assistant editor here at the moment.

    No word about my jeep..

    And Harry finished Daisy proofing the dog pen. We are now confident that Daisy won't get out.. she's a smart doggie so will see.

Monday, October 26, 2009

The Dog Pen

    While I was at work Harry got to work on the Dog pen. One thing we liked about this house when we saw it was the previous owners had a doggie door that went from the Master Bathroom water closet to an outside pen that was enclosed. Daisy is really good at holding her bladder for up to 10 hours but of course we feel horrible having to make her do that so we are happy to have this dog pen that she can go out and do her business anytime.. only issue is this dog pen would work for any other dog but not our Daisy.. she's too smart and realized how to get out of the pen so today Harry started working on making sure she can't escape the pen.

Jeep Woes 2

    Well just got work that there was some "hard" pieces that needed to be replaced with the additional charge of $138.77 So now my total repair for this Jeep will be $1995.45

    You know I can get upset.. because that won't solve anything. Sometimes life just throws you a curve ball. Things could be so much worse.. at least I can afford to make the repairs and not have to charge them to my credit card.. I am thankful for that.

    Jeep should be ready either tomorrow but more likely Wednesday.

Jeep Woes

    Got a call from my mechanic about my jeep's transmission. Not going to go into all the technical details but needless to say the transmission ends to be pulled apart and further checked. That will cost me $750 just for them to remove the transmission, look at it and put it back (if I don't do any of the work). He also said that with this kind of problem they will need to rebuild the "soft" parts of the transmission. That will cost me and additional $1033.88 for a total of $1783.88 and he said that if they find more issues inside with the "hard" parts the cost can go up.

    I have been thinking about buying a new car as Harry has his new Truck and it's really made me want a new car. So I questioned should I have all this work done on a jeep that I don't want anymore. Well we just bought the house and Harry and I are debt free and I didn't feel like having car payments so I gave him the go ahead with the repairs.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Remodeling - Day Forty-Five

    Today’s remodel agenda focused mostly on getting the Guest Bathroom finished. That has been on the agenda for a while, but there just have been way too many other projects that had to be done as well, and the guest bathroom never made it to the top of our project list. So I attempted to finished it yesterday but got about 80% done. Today I planned on finishing it up. In between painting the bathroom I started to work on the office.. tried to organize the million of cables we own. I would go back and forth between painting the bathroom and cleaning up the office.

    In the afternoon I called AAA to get a tow truck to come by and pick up my jeep and drive it to the transmission place for them to look at first thing on Monday. Harry followed in his truck and since the transmission place was out in Canyon Country we figured we would go to Costco and pick up an HDTV for our bedroom since we had a second Direct TV HDDVR that we hadn't hooked up yet because we had only the on TV.

    We also wanted to shop the other half of Costco since we only got half way through it the first time. After a few hours we emerged from Costco with a new 26" HDTV with a built in DVD player, along with fire extinguishers, sham wows, a new dog bed, pens, yard work gloves, bread, two pre-made meals and a bag of candy just in case we get tricker treaters (really just an excuse to have candy in the house).

    After Costco we went up to Lowes to get some cable ties for Harry to start working on the dog pen that is attached to the side of our house.. There is a doggie door in the master bathroom that leads to this pen for Daisy to go out and do her business if we can't get home for a long period of time. But of course Harry needs to do a little work on it to keep her in it.

    After that trip we came home and I was tired but determined to finish the guest bathroom. So I painted the trim and did some touch up works on the corners and voila it's done.. and it looks AWESOME.

    Up next (meaning next weekend) will tackle the Master Bathroom... whoo hooo

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Remodeling - Day Forty-Four

    Well it's the weekend and now that I'm back to work weekends are my only time to help Harry around the house.. so today’s Remodel task started off with Harry having to finished up the DVD racks with polyurethane. While he did that I started painting the accent wall in the Guest Bathroom. While standing on the seven foot ladder I lost my balance and fell to the floor. I manage to turn upright and avoid hitting my head on the sink or toilet but instead my left foot went right into the gallon can of red paint. I laid there for a moment trying to figure out if I had broken anything but every seem to be in order. I started to get up as Harry came running to see what had happened. As I looked down at my foot I realized that about 1/3 of the red paint had come out of the can and was now all over the walls, tile floor, paint tarp, bathtub, and my pant and sock. It was a mess but after a little cleaning up we managed to get all the paint up. I was sore but avoided some serious injuries.

    After Harry finished the DVD holders he tackled the chicken wire around the 'garden'. We planned on using the chicken wire on the outdoor section for the dog. There is a small gap up on top and of course our dog has figured out how to squeeze out of it... so we plan on sealing up the entire thing. After the chicken wire he removed the old and falling down blue picket fence.

    I continued to paint the guest bathroom.. I did all the walls and only had the trim and corners to take care of... but I was tired and sore from my fall so I called it a night and figured I would complete that room tomorrow.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Broken Jeep

    Not the best way to start my day. Got up this morning and felt pretty good. Got ready for work, then go sidetracked and was running late. I jumped in my Jeep and started it up.. sounded good. Started to drive away and heard a sound that I hadn't heard before and it didn't sound good. I continued to drive down the hill hoping that the jeep was just cold but when I got to the main street it sounded worse. I got out and looked at the engine to see if anything was lose, but it all looked fine. I got back in and drove a half a mile and then the transmission slipped and my engine rived up. I thought to myself.. there is no way I'm going to work in this jeep so I turned around and headed back home. Luckily the jeep made it all the way home. I talked to Harry for a minute and then jumped into his truck to get to work. Not a good way to start my new job. I'll have to take my jeep in this weekend and have it looked it. Sounds like it's a bad transmission, which can be costly.. oh well such is life.

    On the house front.. Harry continued to work on the DVD holders. They were light pine color but we wanted black to match our TV room.. so a few weeks ago my buddy Will and I sanded two of the DVD racks and today Harry painted the two and sanded and painted the third one. All he has left is a polyurethane coat and they will be good to go.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

1st day on the Job

    I've been out of work for three months and 2 days. It's the longest I have gone without a job. It was prefect because we moved and remodeled our house so the time off was much needed but having the house also meant I would have to work again if we wanted to continue to remodel the house. So today I went back to work for Max Post. I've been with them the past three years working on Season 1 of America's Toughest Jobs and then Season 5 of Deadliest Catch. This time I will be working on Season 6 of Deadliest Catch. Right now there are only two of us which is kind of nice but soon enough it will be packed with editors, loggers and assistant editors.

    My first day was very quiet. I inventoried the edit bays to see what was needed. And helped out my AE with digitizing.

    After being off for 3 months I didn't want to come back to work but once I was here it's like I never took any time off. It's nice being back in the same office on the same computer.

    Let's hope this season goes a bit smoother then last season. :)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Last Day of Freedom

    Today we had a lot to do since this was going to be my last day before heading back to work full time.

    First we drove to Home Depot to return unused flooring and 2 screen doors. Well the returning of that stuff didn’t turn out to be that easy. We had bought the flooring at the Home Depot in Van Nuys with a purchase order type invoice, which I was told would make it easier to return the flooring if needed.. well that wasn't the case. Since we did not return it to the same store for some reason they could only give us a store credit, we're talking over $1100 but we did purchase more flooring and that was with a regular receipt but of course that was at home. So we decided that Harry would drive home while I stayed at Home Depot with the flooring. Once at home he tried to find that receipt… but couldn’t find it. So I told him to just come back and will take the credits as 45 minutes had already past and I was tired of standing there. A few minutes later it hit me that he may not has looked in all the places to I called him back just as he was getting back on the road and told him to look in another location and sure enough he found the receipt. So he got back to Home Depot and after another 20 minutes of craziness we got our refund... and it only took about 2 hours or so.     Once we were done with we bought the box of power tools that Harry really wanted. We paid about 130 bucks for a power drill, a circular saw, a reciprocating saw, a flash light, a33 pc drill and driver set and 2 rechargeable battery packs... not a bad deal. Now that we are home owners will be using this stuff more often.

    We grabbed some lunch as we were both starving as we didn't expect it to take 2 + hours to return the flooring. After lunch we headed to Bed Bath & Beyond in Santa Clarita. We picked up two more bar stools. We then went to Costco and signed up for a Executive Membership. For those of you guys who don’t know what Costco is, here a short explanation. Costco is a type of Wholesale/Big Box store with quite significant savings and the Executive Membership pays back 2% on all purchases. After we signed up we started to shop. This place was so big we didn't know where to start. So I picked a corner and we started going up and down the aisle and about about five aisle in our cart of full... it as crazy. We did about 1/3 of the store in two hours and by this time we had to get home to let the dog out so we figured we would come back on the weekend to do the rest of the store. We went to check out and Harry predicted that we had spent about $800 bucks and I said about $500. Well we were both shocked when the total was barely $400, we got a ton of stuff and some good deals. We plan on making Costco our first stop for anything.

    By the time we got home it was late as our first stops today went alot longer then expected. I didn't get to do anymore house stuff and starting tomorrow will only have weekends to work on the house. But it was a good day.


Monday, October 19, 2009

New Job, Bar Stools and Lamps

    I finally heard back from my former boss about possible coming back to Deadliest Catch for the sixth season. And of course as my life goes they want me back and want me to start the very next day. I figured I had a few weeks as we are still working on the house. But they need me so I managed to push my start date back one day so I can get some stuff done around the house before then.

    So the first thing we did was drive to Bed Bath & Beyond in Palmdale to pick up the Bar Stools and the Lamps. We got a really good deal on the lamps, they came as a three pack, 1 floor lamp to 2 desk lamps. We headed over to the Bar Stools and knew we needed the 24" stools to fit our counter. We also knew that we wanted at least 3 stools but of course they had only 2. So we picked them up and planned to go to another BBB in the future to pick up one more.

    Once we got home we started to assemble both bar stools. That was fairly easy and straight forward. While Harry assembled the second bar stool I started putting the floor lamp and table lamps together. After we were done we really were pleased with our choices. But we also figured out that we needed a total of 4 bar stools for our island to make it look nice. So when we go to pick up another one will pick up two more.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

It's all about Kenobi

    Today Harry and I decided to take a break from the house and go visit family (dad, brother, sister-in-law and nephew). We now live about 95 miles (1 hour 40 min) from them. So instead of us traveling every other week to visit will have to limit our visits to once maybe twice a month depending on our schedule. But we haven't seen them since we moved (a month and a half ago). So I got up early and made a few phone calls (dealing with previous utilities). Once Harry got up we got ready and headed out. Once we got there we hung out with everyone for an hour or so. Then went out to lunch with Dad (to our favorite Chinese food Hong Kong). Mike and Lora were going to a Wrestling match and Kenobi was at a babysitters. So when we got back we hung out with Dad and watched some TV. Around 5 we decided to head back as we knew it would take a few hours to get home. So in the end we drove for about four hours and spent about four hours with the family. Harry and I were finally able to take a group picture with Kenobi.. he is a little over 4 months and weighting in at a hefty 17.5 lbs. Man is he adorable.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Finishing up the Kitchen

    Today I spent the day doing odds and ends around the house. My goals were to finish the kitchen and office. Of course my best laid plans never work out. Got sidetracked every time by Star Trek The Next Generation and Voyager. But in the end I did manage to finish the Kitchen. Meaning I unpacked, continued to wash everything (Harry started this the day before) and then put everything in it's new home. So with exception of accessories the Kitchen is done. Please keep in mind that we plan on replacing the horrible green tile and counter tops.. but it's going to have to work as is for now.




    I also put faux stain glass on the entry way window. We came across this stuff at Lowes (or Home Depot) and we didn't want to do a tiny curtain and we both liked this pattern. It was fairly easy to apply and I think it turned out pretty good.


    I did start to work on the office but it was a long day and I was super tired.. there's always tomorrow (oh wait we're visiting family)... there's always the day after tomorrow.

Friday, October 16, 2009

More House Stuff

    Today Harry and I did more house things. We started to unpack the rest of the Kitchen boxes. We unpacked the rest of our clothes (well the hanging stuff). And finally we attempted to put up our curtain in our Master Bedroom. It was a trial and error and in the end it's up but will have to be taken down to be fixed but we now understand how to do it and shouldn't have any issues with putting it back up as well as the other three that we have gotten so far.

    Little by little we are getting the unpacking done. I was disappointed today that the my Steven Walker picture was too large to hang over the fireplace. The colors were perfect and it would have looked great above the fireplace.. oh well will find some other place in the living/dining room to put it.

    We also went to Bed Bath and Beyond and found a floor lamp and two table lamps that we both agree would look great in the living room (for some reason Harry and I have totally different ideas about lamps. Everything else we have the same taste) but we did find some we liked as well as some bar stools for our island. We of course left our coupons at home so we plan to go back and get them next week.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Knights of the Guild Ep 9 pt1

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Unpacking and Rugs

    Today Harry and I unpacked the rest of the Kitchen stuff. We wanted to wash everything or at least rinse everything off but before we could do that we had to go to Lowes to pick up some plumbers puddy to seal the hole where the dishwater release value is attached to the sink. So instead I just unpacked the boxes on to our Island to give us a better idea of what we have and were we are going to put everything.

    During this time we got a delivery of a rug that we ordered from Home Depot a few weeks back for our living room. We saw this rug at the Home Depot store but you had to special order it. It has our living room colors and looks great with the place. One more piece of the puzzle. Now we just need a light, pictures and accessories and the living room will be done.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Editing and Black Outs

    Today I spent most of the day editing my Knights of the Guild podcast. Both Ep 9 pt1 and pt2. It was a dreary and kind of rainy day today. The winds were howling and there was a storm north and south of us. About mid day the power went out and of course I didn't save my work so I lost about ten minutes of stuff.. luckily Avid has auto save. It was only down for a few minutes and came back on fairly quickly. I finished pt1 of the podcast and prepped it for upload. I got most of pt2 done and just need to cut in a fan interview.. well we have to find a fan and interview them first then I can cut it in.

    After editing I hung out with Harry and watched some TV. Like I said it was grey, rainy and cold out so it was a nice TV day. I did manage to go out during a lull in the weather and grab some candle from the garage as I knew the power would be going out again. And sure enough around 9pm it went out again. This time it was out for about ten minutes. We did manage to stumble our way to the box of candles and light few as it's complete pitch black up here in the middle of no where.

    No more black out, at least none before I went to bed.. but the storm continued to hit us with wind and rain.

Monday, October 12, 2009

More House Stuff

    I've lost track of the number of days we have remodeled. This week has been fairly slow week for remodel. After doing it for a month and a half non-stop I think we are just taking it slower. The house isn't going anywhere and yes we do want to finish we also want to be able to enjoy the house also.

    Today we had some tree trimmer comes by and trim down some of our pepper trees.. I guess during the winter the winds really pick up and if you don't trim the trees they tend to blow over. At least this is what we were told. We are still learning about the area but the trees were over grown we could see that but after the trimming they look so bare.

    I also cleaned up the deck. I was getting tired of all the crap just sitting out there the past month. So I cleaned up everything and made it look like a deck again. It's also suppose to rain and I didn't want everything to get soaked.

    The last thing we did was build the Ikea furniture that we purchased last night. Harry and I sat down and knocked out two night stands, one sofa table and a coffer table in a few hours. They look great and take a step closer to finishing our remodel. I don't like putting stuff together but the Ikea stuff are very easy and and come with great instructions.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Shopping and Unpacking

    Today we got up and started to clean off the Deck a bit, the past month the back deck seemed to be the catch all for all the crap that we didn't want in the house. I wanted to clean it up because of the treat of rain.

    We first brought the rest of our clothes to the house. There were like 25 hefty bags full of our clothes. I was getting tired of wearing the same things over and over. Now I just need to find the time to unpack them and hang them. Once we did that we drove Harry's truck over to the garage and put all the kitchen and bathroom boxes on it and then drove it to the back door where we unloaded the boxes and put them in the appropriate rooms. Once that was done we I loaded up the truck with all the crap and trash (that we would have to get rid of at a later date) into the truck and drove it back to the garage and put it in the spot where we removed all the clothes and boxes earlier. There was still stuff I wanted to do on the deck but we really wanted to get to Ikea to look for side tables, night stands and other accessories. So we grabbed some lunch at El Pollo and then spent the next three hours walking around Ikea buying up stuff.

    In the end we purchased two night stands for our Master bedroom, a sofa table and matching coffee table for our living room, two hanging organizers for the master closet, curtains and rods for our guest bedroom, mater bedroom, pantry and office. We spent around $700 but we got some pretty cool stuff. But the one thing about Ikea is that you have to build all the stuff yourself so that is going to be my day for tomorrow.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Knights of the Guild Ep 8 pt 2

    Knights of the Guild Ep 8 pt2

    • October 10th, 2009

    Show Notes:

    Here it is Episode 8 part 2 of Knights of the Guild. We hope you enjoy it.

    Today’s show features:

    • First up we have our monthly Vorkism.
    • Our location today is my new house were we are trying to upload The Spiers of Dragonor.
    • We talk about Behind the Scenes for Season 2 Episode 10 - Socializing Sucks
    • We have a wonderful Fan Interview with Markus

    Markus.jpg

    • We then have a very long Fan Feedback section with some audio comments
    • Then we have our final words and we say goodbye.
    • We also have a very cool Contest happening with a wonderful online cookie store called GeekyCookies. Here are the details below or go to their website at http://www.Geekycookies.com

    codexstaff1.jpg

    We at GeekyCookies have teamed up with Kenny and Jenni of the Knights of the Guild Podcast to give one lucky Twitter follower a free dozen cookies of their choosing from the GeekyCookies catalog! Entering is as quick as logging into your Twitter account!

    To enter:

    • Log onto your Twitter account (or sign up for one).
    • You must be following BOTH @GeekyCookies AND @KnightsofGuild.
    • Once you’ve successfully followed both accounts, tweet the following:

      “I want FREE COOKIES from @GeekyCookies #GeekyCookies”

    • You must enter within the contest period, starting Saturday, October 10th and ending Wednesday, October 14th 12:00AM PST
    • And that’s it!

    ONE (1) Winner will be selected at random from participants who live in the U.S. and meet ALL the above requirements. The winner will be announced on Thursday, October 15th at 5:00PM PST. Winner will then be contacted privately to retrieve the necessary information to send prize. Good luck to all those who enter!

    Please send your audio or written comments to knightsoftheguild@gmail.com or you can leave your comments in the comment section of this site.

    Thank you again for all your support, we do this podcast because we are fans and more importantly for the fans.

    Kenny & Jenni

    Other Important Links

Cleaning Up Day 2

    Today I got up around 7:30am and started to edit my Knights of the Guild podcast Ep8 pt2 as I said it would be released today. Finally got done cutting it all together around noon and started the process of leveling out audio levels and converting the file twice. Was done around 2pm and finally was able to upload it.

    About an hour later I got message on my twitter about issues with the audio. I checked the cut and it sounded fine. The complaints continued and I checked the MP3 I uploaded and was shocked to hear many audio glitches. I immediately pulled the podcast and spent the next six hours trying to figure out where the problem was. Around 8pm I finally figured it out and was able to level it once again and convert it twice before uploading it. I think the final product was up around 9:30pm, that's 14 hours after I started.. I can say that was the longest it's ever taken me to get a podcast up.

    Between uploads and conversion I worked on cleaning up the Master Bedroom. Got rid of all the trash and bed plastic. Harry and I finally brought he dresser in from the deck and put it in our master bedroom closet. I also cleaned up the kitchen a bit. This place is finally starting to feel like our home.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Cleaning Up

    Today I pretty tried to tidy up the rooms. Everything is still all over the place. I started with the Guest bedroom. Cleaned out all the trash and empty bags. Then brought the TV and direct tv box in. Got the room looking good. Now we just need some curtains and this room will be complete.

    Once Harry got up he started painting the trim to the guest bathroom. About mid day we went and picked up his truck.

    After that we just did a few things around the house.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Catching Up On Life

    Today I didn't do much of house stuff.. We had a bunch of stuff we have been putting off because of the house and the move... First we had to get up early and take Harry's truck to the dealer for an oil change and maintenance update. After that I came home and started prepping for my Knights of the Guild podcast. Both Jenni and I have been so busy and have fallen behind so we were going to do three of the podcasts, each one takes about two hours to do and require a few hours to prep. While I did this Harry removed the door from the guest bathroom and started to paint it.

    Jenni got her around 3:30pm and after the tour we got to work. We had three interviews lined up. My buddy Matt from England and our friend Tabz and finally Brett who is a cast member of The Guild. Matt's interview was great, I don't know what it is about British people but they are all so very charismatic. After Matt's interview we started Tabz but kept having audio issue until finally we lost her, by the time she came back we started our interview with Brett. He was awesome and funny and we talked him into starting a twitter account and then spent the next hour explaining how it works and what he can do with is.. we had a blast but we really needed to start doing the podcasts. After Brett's interview we tried once again to interview Tabz but once again has major issues and decided that we would try again at a later date.

    We then moved on to record KOTG Ep8 pt2, then Ep9 pt1 and finally Ep9 pt2. We were finally done around 9:30pm and we were exhausted.. now I just need to edit them. One is due Oct. 10th, the next Oct 15th and the last Nov. 1st. My job has just begun...

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Remolding & New Phone

    Remodeling Day Thirty-Four

    Today our contractor Danny was back to finish up the Guest Bathroom. He started with finishing up the grout work. Next he changed the size of the vent, so that the vent would fit into the new vanity. The next thing he had to do was to change the plumbing to make it work with the new vanity. Once that was completed he put up the mirror. After he was done with that he had to head out to Home Depot to pick up a wax ring, since that ring had been missing since the house was built. So it was a good thing that we decided to remodel the guest bathroom. While Danny was at Home Depot he also picked up a Drum Auger (plumbing snake), that Harry and I needed to deal with our plumbing problem. As soon as Danny got back he installed the toilet, did some clean up and was done. With the guest bathroom completed the Phase Two of the remodel for our contractor is completed. Harry and I still have a few odds and ends to complete and we still have ton of unpacking to do but things are coming along. And one of these days hopefully in the near future we will be done. At least done enough were we feel that we don't have to get up and remodel or paint something.

    Since Danny got us the snake Harry started to take apart the kitchen sink pipes. He cleaned out the U pipe and put it back on but we were still having issues so I got in there was the snake and after some finagling I got the snake to go down the pipe for 15 feet (the length of the snake). It didn't seem like we unclogged anything but when we got everything back together and tested it the water went down fine.. so yay for us.

    Later in the day we drove out to the AT&T store in Palmdale to buy me a new phone, since I was going crazy without mine and knew I had lost it forever. I was looking at a LG Neon with a text pad but the employee showed me another phone that was nicer, with a bigger screen and was a better deal so I went with the Samsung Impression... And I love it. My plan still has 6 days left on it but the manager allowed me to get the phone at a discounted price. We tried to get Harry one because I knew he's been wanting a new phone as well but his contract isn't up until January.. but that's only a few months away. After that we went to Home Town Buffet to grab some lunch and I have to say we were the youngest people in there. It was around 3:30pm and the place was packed with older people and I figured it was their dinner time. After lunch we went Bed, Bath & Beyond to return the super soft bamboo sheets that we had gotten yesterday, since the sizes were messed up. We hoped that we would find a bigger set, but they had sold out of them so we just got a refund. I do know I'm going to look for other Bamboo sheets in the future. We then checked out Ashley’s furniture store for accessories, but didn’t find any night stands and coffee / cocktail tables that we both were in love with. So, guess we will have to find those items somewhere else.

    After that we headed home and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Shopping for Accessories…

    Today we took Harry's truck in for an oil change, the dealers is out in Canoga Park. So we left around 11 am and drove to the Dodge dealer. Turns out that they had to perform some additional service steps that have mostly to do with the guarantee on the car. They wanted us to leave the truck and of course we couldn't do that so we made an appointment for Thursday. It sucked that we wasted time and gas driving over there but what can you do.

    So we headed back to Santa Clarita to go shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond since we had coupon for 20% off the the entire purchase. To prepare us for the shopping trip we went to Chili’s and we both had a delicious burger for lunch. After lunch we walked through the entire store and checked out a lot of stuff. And with most things there were just too many choices to choose from. We purchased place mats and napkins for the dining room. Next on the agenda were new bed sets for the guest room and the master bedroom. We looked at a ton of bedroom sets and finally decided on a very nice set in earth colors for the master bedroom. We weren’t quite happy with the tread count of the sheets that came with the bed set so we opted to buy a second set of sheets made of bamboo.. they were so soft. Once we were done with that it was back to the bed sets again, as the guest room gave us even more trouble than the master bedroom. We finally decided to go with a rather bold color choice, a mostly black bed set that’s set off with some white. Harry thinks that the green guest room can easily take the black of the bed set, especially if you counterbalance it with white curtains. I on the other hand wasn’t so sure about that. But we ended up buying it. We also picked up 4 additional pillows, since the pillows we’re currently using have definitely seen better days.

    After that we went looking for curtains. Well that is easier said than done. We either couldn’t agree on the same curtain, or when we did agree they didn't have our size. So this was a pretty frustrating experience. We decided to pick up curtains later as we were tired and just wanted to get home. We then relaxed in one of the massage chairs… and since we really liked them we decided to purchase one of those massage units. After that we bought a welcome mat and a trash can, that is supposedly “doggy” safe… but we will see how “doggie” safe that trash can really is. We ended up with alot of stuff and a bill of about 470 bucks and that's with the 20% off.

    When we got home I noticed that my cell phone was gone. We tore apart Harry's truck and retraced our steps to the house but no luck. I know I had it on our drive home as I was checking my tweets. The only time I got out was to get the mail at the entrance to our street. But both Harry and I went back there looking for it and still couldn't find it. I don't have a clue what happen to it. I did want to get a new phone but not like this.. I lost everyone's numbers and feel totally lost without it.

    Trying not to feel horrible about losing my phone we moved on to unpacking and setting up both the master Cal King bed and guest Queen bed. When I went to put the fitted sheet on the Cal King I noticed that it was coming up way short. It looked like it would fit a double but not a Cal King. The flat sheet was okay and the pillow cases seemed a bit small for king pillows.. I'm bummed because this was the only one they had at that Bed, Bath and Beyond since they were clearance and 50% off. Guess will try and BBB in Palmdale and see if we can exchange them.

    We finally get to sleep in our brand new Cal King Bed tonight...

Monday, October 5, 2009

Remolding - Day Thirty-Three

    Today we had the delivery of our mattress scheduled in the time between 11 am and 3 pm. We hoped that the mattress would be here early so that we could take Harry's truck for a oil change, as this needs to be done ASAP. Of course nothing ever works out as planned. The mattress delivery was a little after 1.30 pm and we didn’t want to do the oil change after that since we didnt' want to get stuck in traffic. So guess the oil change will have to wait until tomorrow or Wednesday.

    We also got word from the VET that Daisy is ok. Apparently she didn’t eat the rat poison after all. That’s quite a relief. Now she has to stay on Vitamin K for the next 2 week. After that period we have to go back to the VET and have more blood work done, to see that everything still is ok. Until then I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best!!

    After we went to Palmdale to go shopping at Lowe’s and Target. First we stopped by Lowe’s to pick up Dowels and Wood Glue to fix the issue with the Cal King Bed. We also had to pick up Drain Cleaner because our kitchen sink is draining very slowly. It was slow when we moved in but has gotten worse since we moved it.. might be the fact that we have been cleaning out our paint brushes in there. Guess I shouldn't do that anymore.

    After Lowe’s we headed over to Target to shop for End-tables, curtains, sheets and other accessories. While we were looking at all the accessories it hit us that we could get a lot of that stuff at Bed, Bath & Beyond and we have a 20% coupon for that store. But the coupon was in Harry's truck and we had brought my jeep. So we decided to get the accessories tomorrow. We just bought an end-table for the TV-Room and a 1 quart Ice Cream Maker that can make ice cream without salt and ice. Now we have just to find a few recipes for dairy free ice cream...yum!!!

    Once we got back from shopping the first thing we did is poor half of the drain Cleaner into the kitchen drain and hoped for the best. Meanwhile we went to deal with our Cal King Bed. We started connecting the one post of the footboard that had missing thread for the screw and then we glued the 2 dowels into place and left the footboard untouched. While the glue was starting to harden, we turned our attention to the headboard. We connected the headboard to the 2 remaining posts and then connected to 2 sides as well. At last we connected the the footboard to the rest of the bed. Once we had completed the assembly we put the box spring and the latex mattress into the bed. It's as finished as it can be for now. Tomorrow we’ll be buying sheets for the Cal King and finally be able to sleep in our new bed.

    After that we went back to the kitchen to check on the progress of the Drain Cleaner. Well it was pretty much what I expected… not much improvement at all. So we put the second half of the drain cleaner in and hoped again for the best. And again it didn't work.. so now the only option left is to take the drain apart. Harry was very excited as this is something he always wanted to do…

    Owning a house is fun and keeps you ‘entertained’ all the time…

Sunday, October 4, 2009

KOTG Microcast #10 Quest for PAX

Doggie Scare

    Today Harry and I took the day off from painting or doing anything to the house. Instead we were going to have a nice relaxing day. We did plan to go to Home Depot to pick up some wooden dowels to fix our Cal King bed as the mattress where being dropped off today.

    Around noon I went into the kitchen to make some lunch and I noticed an empty box of D-Con rat poison pellets. When we moved in that box was full and since it was in the pantry it never crossed our mind that our Dog might eat them. Well a few days ago we took the door off to be painting so that room was open for a few days and sure enough the full box of pellets were gone. Immediately I thought that Daisy ate the poison and ran to my computer to look up what to do next. Everything on line said it's most likely fatal and the dog won't show signs of sickness for 24 to 72 hours and Daisy has been fine. I called our contractor to see if any of his workers spilled the box and dumped the pellets but he said he wasn't aware of it. I think called our vet and once I told them what happened they said you need to bring her in immediately. So Harry and I grabbed the dog and headed down to our vet.

    They took her in right away and a vet came out and asked me what happened. I explained the situation and she left. She came back and said they gave her a large dose of Vitamin K. They also drew blood and would know for sure tomorrow if she actually at the poison or if something else happen to it. They also gave us some vitamin K pills to give to Daisy for the next two weeks. I asked the vet if she is going to be alright and the vet said if she did eat the poison a few days ago she is showing no normal signs of being poisoned and with a few months of the vitamin K treatment she should be fine. So it's still a wait and see but things seem to be okay. It was a scary moment thinking we might lose her, she's a pain in the ass sometimes but she is still our baby.

    Of course this little interruption caused us to not go to Home Depot and we had to reschedule the mattress deliver to tomorrow. Oh and this vet visit cost us over $450, but she is part of our family and worth every penny.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Remodeling - Day Thirty-Two

    Today I was up once again at 7:30am.. not sure what it is but I can't seem to sleep past that time, maybe it's because I know how much work we still have to do. Well I was up and I jumped right in. Our contractor Danny was coming today around 8:30am and I needed to get the painting done in the guest bathroom so he could put the sink, vanity and mirror in. So I started with a layer of the deep red color. As last night Harry and I decided that we would be one large wall in the deep red and everything else in the yellow. So I got one layer on, at least where the sink and stuff would be going. I then went to the kitchen and started to paint above the island where we removed the set of cabinets to open up the kitchen. I started painting yesterday and wanted to finish it. I did a bit of painting there and then went back to the bathroom to do another coat. While that dried I went back to the kitchen island and painted some more. This island area is really sucking up the paint.

    I finished the bathroom area just in time for the contractor to show up. Of course I found out that they pushed back the installation of the sink and stuff for another day but at least it's done now. They went to work on laying the rest of the baseboard in the kitchen and pantry and then moved on to finishing the tile in the guest bathroom.

    Harry got up and joined me in the Kitchen and started painting the trim of the pantry door. I finished the area above the island and it looked AWESOME. I then moved on to finishing the fireplace mantel. I added another coat of polyurethane and let it dry. Then Harry and I did trim here and there in various rooms.

    When the contractors left I went to the mantel to pull off the painter tape and of course there was bleed through of the stain on the new tile so I had to clean that off. After a few minutes I finish the fireplace and mantel and I have to say it turned our WONDERFUL. This is my favorite thing we have done to the house.

    After that Harry and I put up the wood blinds in the Living room and put the finishing touches on the Living Room.. one more room that is complete. Well almost we still have to buy some accessories.. and speaking of accessories we purchased a area rug from Home Depot online that we saw yesterday. It will go nicely with the living area.

    Once that was done we went into our guest bedroom and set up our old Queen poster bed and moved our mattress into that room so we would be able to build of Cal King poster bed. We got everything out of the boxes and after a brief moment of thinking we were missing parts and instructions we got to work on building it. But our first attempt failed as the very first post we started with didn't have the thread inside the hole for the screw so we couldn't put the bed together with one missing post. We were both frustrated as we really wanted to get this done and we got the bed from Living Spaces and it was the last one they had so we couldn't take it back for a replacement... I'm sure will come up with a way of getting around this.. but for now we don't have a bed and our mattress are arriving tomorrow.

    After the bed fiasco we took a break and jumped on our computers. While Harry facebooked (he's new obsession) I cleaned up the Dining Room to match our newly finished Living Room. We then had dinner and watched to TV to finish up the night.

    We got a lot done but there always seems to be just a bit more to do. So as of now our Office, Living Room, Dining Room, Kitchen, TV Room and Guest Room are 90% done, leaving our Master Bedroom/Bathroom and Guest Bathroom to complete. I know will get there but even when this is all done we have to deal with the outside and then there is my toy room/garage conversion.
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