Monday, March 9, 2009

Weekend

Friday - After work (we get out at 1 on Fridays) I met a window guy at the house. Even though I knew exactly what I wanted, he wanted to make sure that I got the entire sales pitch. An hour and a bunch of measurements later, I handed over a check for 2 grand and the windows were ordered. I didn't stick around thereafter, as I had a bunch of stuff to do video editing wise.

Saturday - Got to the house bright and early at 7am to wait for a dumpster. While I waited, I took every screw and nail out of every wall and window casing. Terrible.

The dumpster came on a fairly big truck, as it's a fairly big dumpster (30 yards). This turned out to be a terrible idea. The truck was too wide, as well as too tall, to fit into the driveway without tearing out some curb and more importantly, wires going to my neighbors house. Solution? Drop the dumpster off in the middle of the street and wait an hour for a smaller truck to put it in. Killer idea. I kept on working on the walls/windows and 45 minutes later, the police paid me a visit. Apparently, a permit-less dumpster taking up one lane of a residential street is some sort of hazard. Fifteen minutes of explaining and a phone call to the dumpster company later, and the cop was gone. A half hour after that and the smaller truck, with a much more inbred looking driver arrived. Toothless, but possessing much dumpster driving skill, the new driver, and his smaller truck, dropped the dumpster off and was ready to be on his way. Before leaving however, he asked if he could "take a piss". I told him that the water is not yet on in the house, so he "pissed" onto my garage. Off to a good start.

A half an hour after that, my contractor showed up to start demo. He and his possibly (definitely) illegal immigrant crew got to business. As that was my last responsibility at the house for the day, I went home after giving him a key to the place. I had to get ready for the big meeting of the families (mine and my girlfriend's), so I sped home to finish up the hours and hours of video editing for our family awards show (video clips seen here - http://www.youtube.com/user/academicone09). The show was a big hit with red faces, embarrassment and laughter abound, as were the steak tips, and the day was finally done.

Sunday - Woke up, packed up the crowbar and sledgehammer/axe, saw my girlfriend's family drive away and she and I headed off to Lowes to spend those gift cards. (Lowes aside - did those Lowe's T commercials confuse you as much as they did me? It took a few viewings to realize, "Oh, Lowest, as in prices") We grabbed some dust masks, some bleach, gloves, step ladder, etc paid and headed out the door into the wind. I was thinking, "hey, this is my first official home improvement tax write off, sweet". No sooner had I finished the thought when a gust of wind blew the receipt away. Not just rolling/sliding across the ground, as to give us a chance to retrieve it, but soaring high into the sky. It flew up about 35 feet, and danced along the side of the building. Once past the corner, and another direction of wind could effect it, it went even higher, probably to about 60 feet, and flew over some trees. If it didn't land in the hands of a CPA, then I guess that $130 bucks I spent won't be a write off come next year. F.

After the receipt fled, we got to the house and started the super fun stuff; smashing walls. Amanda took the inaugural swings and we destroyed some wood paneling, pulled up some carpets, took down some cabinets, installed new locks/deadbolts and tried not to get injured. Amanda cut her leg (barely), but that's about the worst of it. I'll get some video of the demo fun up in the next few days. It should prove to be at least a little entertaining, if not for the destruction, then definitely for Amanda's exclamations when breaking things.

Today I get to have a permit authorization form notarized and hand it over to my contractor at lunch. I'll also Dremel out some of the front door, so I can fit the stupid new deadbolt in the door. Why aren't such things uniform? What the f?

After that, It's get some oil delivered tomorrow, get the plumber started and not much else for me until Friday afternoon. My contractor will be working in the house all week (I hope) finishing up the demo and getting some framing done. He should probably start work on refinishing the hardwoods too. Who knows?

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