Whomp Power

Hopefully I didn't jinx it with that title. :) They came and put the gutters on today, which took all of 10 minutes. Saturday the plumber comes, then tuesday the electricians return to fix their problems and fill in the ditch. Keeping our fingers crossed...

I almost wish I didn't know about this. Can't go. Can't afford to go. Really really really really really want to go. Wish I didn't know about it. It is over my birthday, so if anyone feels so generous they want to pay to send me, another adult, and two kids, by all means be my guest!

We've been listening to the BNL Podcast, and it is so great. Ed does it, but oftentimes one of the other guys sits in. They talk about their upcoming album, tell funny stories and talk about what songs are about. Sometimes they even play acoustic versions of them... Ed sat there and played guitar and sang When I Fall and it was so wonderful.

I remembered recently that we had a cd in our collection called Disney Music From the Park. We bought it because BNL was on it. They sing an awesome version of Grim Grinning Ghosts, the song that the busts (as in statues) sing to you as you are finishing the Haunted Mansion. I thought maybe there would be stuff on there that Owen would like, so I put it on my Rio. Oh. My. God. I couldn't decide who to throw out of the car: me, or the player. It was the most vile music I'd every heard (except for BNL of course!).

I heard about this somewhere, maybe on NPR - Cities of Asylum. It is a network to give persecuted writers a haven outside of their home country. According to the site: "A City of Asylum is a free space, unfettered by censorship or political repression in which writers who have undergone such hardship may safely practice their craft. Writers are hosted by a city or region for a period of one to two years."

This site was mentioned in a recent article in Mothering magazine. You can check to see how toxic your skin care products are - interesting to do when you think you are already buying something that is better for you than the average product.
Why should you care? "Less that one percent of all the products in Skin Deep are made from ingredients that have all been screened for safety by the industry's safety panel. That leaves more than 99 percent of all products with one or more ingredients that have never been publicly assesssed for safety, raising questions and concerns for consumers who need to know their products are safe."
And! "Industrial chemicals are basic ingredients in personal care products. The 10,500 unique chemical ingredients in these products equate to about one of every seven of the 75,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S. Personal care products contain carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, endocrine disruptors, plasticizers, degreasers, and surfactants." Yuck.

To end on a more uplifting note, these are pretty damn funny: pre-pixilated clothes for reality tv.

The workers worked hard 3 days this week (monday and tuesday they were "sick" and then their "van broke"). They finished cladding the building, put up the big door, and finished the stall fronts. This is the last we will see of Ted and his crew. We love the red color, and the stall fronts are really beautiful.






The electricians came and dug a big ass ditch all around our yard, which is still there because the plumbers need to use the same trench and it needs to be inspected (I presume). We have no idea when the plumbers are coming, so knowing construction workers in general (and plumbers specifically), we could have the ditch for a while. Maybe we could enlarge it and make a moat.





The electricians appear to be from another planet. They hooked up the lights we specified: 3 indoor lights and two outdoor lights. They put up two light switches inside the building. They were supposed to put up 3 switches. Both switches turn on the inside lights. No switches turn on the outside lights. Still awaiting their excuse on that debacle.

Today was a big day, they poured the pad in the shop area, and under the lean-to. There are windows in, and while the concrete guys worked the crew put up the siding around the stall area. I love the red color! We (O and I) watched them pour concrete for a while, and he got to sit in the cab of the cement truck, and honk the very loud horn. They were really nice.

The fellas spent the day putting up vapor barrier, insulation, and metal roof. Enid would not stop barking and growling at them, so I took her out on a leash to show her they aren't up to anything malicious. She seems to have gotten over it.

D is out with a friend tonight, so I picked up a 22 oz bottle of Newcastle to enjoy after O goes to bed. I remember highly enjoying these in the past. I cradled the bottle fondly in my arms on the way to the checkout counter at Thriftway. I don't remember it smelling like Coors Light. I don't remember it tasting gagalicious less than drinkable. Shoulda bought the Guinness. Only 21 ounces to go...

Owen's got a website. Yes, we've turned into those kinds of parents. Go to it here. Set your bookmarks to stun.

I didn't even know it was Phase 3 (frankly, I don't know what the phases even are), but here we are. The framing is done, and they are ready to move onto the roofing and metal. We were sledding and throwing snowballs when they pulled in to work... there is about 4 inches of snow here and it keeps coming down. Needless to say, we were surprised that they even showed! They ended up only working for about 2 hours. Kind of hard to see in the picture, but there is a man high on a ladder working on the barn.

Wow, I have never seen this weather warning here before:
A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 4 AM PST THURSDAY.

A VERY STRONG STORM OVER THE CASCADES WILL CONTINUE TO BRING HEAVY SNOW...STRONG WINDS AND POOR VISIBILITY TO THE AREA. HEAVY SNOWFALL WILL CONTINUE TONIGHT. ADDITIONALLY...WINDS WILL INCREASE LATE THIS AFTERNOON AS THE COLD FRONT APPROACHES. WIND SPEEDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH AT THE PASSES WITH GUSTS NEAR 70 MPH ON THE RIDGES ARE LIKELY FROM AROUND 400 PM THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH MIDNIGHT. THESE STRONG WINDS WILL CREATE BLIZZARD CONDITIONS WITH VISIBILITY FALLING BELOW ONE- QUARTER MILE IN BLOWING SNOW... CREATING WHITE-OUT CONDITIONS AT TIMES.

!!!

Today is wednesday, and the crew has been here every day, working hard. The next two days should be exceptionally fun for them, since the weather is going to be - as one weather guy states - "the most exciting storm to approach the Northwest in several weeks...". Anyhoo, they have the walls framed up, and the trusses up and the roof framed. You can really get a good sense of how the building is going to look when it is done.

This is great -- Ohio State Senator Robert Hagan is proposing legislation that would prevent Republicans from adopting.

"Hagan's proposal is modelled after a bill introduced into the Ohio state legislature by Republican State Representative Ron Hood and nine other Republicans to prevent homosexuals, bisexuals or transgender persons from adopting children..."

"Hagan cites 'credible research' that 'strongly suggests that adopted children raised in Republican households, though significantly wealthier than their Democrat-raised counterparts, are more at risk for developing emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, an alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves, and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.'"

Read the article here.

I don't know about you, but I would MUCH rather have my kid raised by a homosexual.

At the end of the last post, I wrote "Next week starts the walls and roof!" I meant the next week, not this week. This week saw the concrete come in a big spinning cement truck, only to leave just shy of having actually filled all the holes. The foreman had to borrow our wheelbarrow because he forgot his. Then he broke our tire on it. This, I believe, happened on monday. With promises of a return tuesday ("maybe"), wednesday ("for sure"), with another 2 sacks of concrete and a new wheel for the wheelbarrow, he left.

I'm sure you can guess what happened tuesday. Wednesday showed neither hide nor hair of the foreman, but I did get a call from the project manager, who wanted to come out and firm up the electrical and plumbing. He said that his guys were finishing up another job first, but would be out hopefully thursday, if not then definately friday to start working on the barn. We squared away the electrical and plumbing. We talked about the missing rock issue once again... turns out that they left the turn about part of the driveway 3 feet short of what they were supposed to. What a pain in the ass.

Today is friday. I got a call at 7:45 from the project manager telling us that he had taken two days off, and his guys had apparently done nothing at any job, so are today completing the job they were supposed to be wrapping up on wednesday. He said "they'll be out monday to get started on your barn!". I'll wrap up this post by saying "Next week starts the walls and roof!". Hopefully I didn't jinx it.

Someday, we will go to the High Sierra Music Festival. Hell, I might go to the Republican Convention if it was in the high sierra.

This is also cool. I mean, saturday's line up? Hello! The Flaming Lips, The Shins, The Tragically Hip, and Sufjan Stevens... wow. and Beck, Death Cab for Cutie and The Decemberists on Sunday? Wow.

On a non-music related note, I found this blog via WWDN in Exile, who found it via Boing Boing. Is the correct term here gakked? I gakked it from WWDN? Anyway, it is called Re-Imagineering, and is, as it says, "A forum for Pixar and Disney professionals passionate about the Disney Theme Parks to catalog past Imagineering missteps and offer up tenable practical solutions in hopes that a new wave of creative management at Imagineering can once again bring back the wonder and magic that's been missing from the parks for decades."

I grew up going to Disneyland at least once a year, if not more, and I never really got tired of it. I read this blog and I would think "so? who cares if they changed the bandstand pavilion hub where you can pick which land you want to go to?". But I read the passion that these people have for keeping Disneyland a place of wonder, and many of the new changes are cheesy, too commercial (and I know you are thinking hello?! This is Disneyland! Of course it is commercial! but I think that Walt's original idea was to go beyond the limits of imagination to create fantastical worlds, not just movie tie ins) or jolt you back to reality. Anyway, I think it is really interesting to read.