Who knew?!!

So, roughly 6 weeks ago, I did a post, which caught everyone up to speed. In the past 6 weeks, i can't count the number of times someone has commented to me "when are you gonna update your blog?" Who knew that you all were actually interested in what I had to say? Most of the time when I open my mouth, its usually combated with a quick shot back at me, or no comment whatsoever. A few noteworthy events have occurred since January 14th. Today, I looked at my stock portfolio, and my stocks were GREEN! It was only today though, but just strange to see that color these days.

Something funny that I realized. After I started my new job, and it started to get deathly hot in Pahonix, I said to my boss "I'd rather work in Alaska in the Winter than Phoenix in the Summer." Well, that didn't quite come to fruition, but I ended up in New Hampshire the last week of January. When I got to NH, it was 9... degrees not pm. It may have well been 9 pm, but who cares, it was 9 FREAKIN degrees!

So, an extended family member runs this gorgeous resort in Portsmouth, NH. He always said that if I was in the area, to stop by. Well, since I stay at Marriotts these days, and his property was one of them, we decided to stay the night. He gave us some of the best rooms in the building, on the top floor, overlooking the sea. There's a reason they call it Wentworth by the Sea. http://www.wentworth.com/ So below are two pictures out my hotel room the following morning. Please note: The marble floors in the bathroom are heated, and the Lobster Roll in the Roosevelt Lounge is fantastic



Many of you were aware of all my furniture issues. Dresser draws that I can't budge, a Chaise that broke, and a TV stand that the surface bubbled. Well, some good things have and are about to happen. After 3 months, I've finally convinced Squan furniture to deliver a new chaise and fix my dresser. I hope nothing else goes wrong with this furniture. My TV stand, well, that was a long search. I wanted something that concealed the center channel speaker, and found this great piece at Short-Circuit City for 500 beans. Well, I would say that right after Short-Circuit declared they were liquidating and closing all stores, the surface to my stand decided to bubble. I contacted the manufacturer of the stand, Laurier (a Canadian company), and explained that now I have a defective product, where I can't return it to the store I bought it from. Within 2 weeks, I had a full refund in my hand. Amazing customer service on Laurier's part, just wish their product was better. See bubbles below.



So, the Kitchen appliances are finally in. It took a while to get everything done, and its in there for the most part. Unfortunately the Damper for the exhaust fan wasn't installed, so I currently get a cold breeze that runs through my kitchen. I'm working on that one. Might be a job for my brother and I to do. You'll see my lovely Kitchen-Aid dishwasher, which for the time being, runs no risk of being overworked. Its fantastic at cleaning my 6 glasses and 3 plates that I may have used over the weekend!


Senior Samsung Microwave has gotten some use so far. I've made particular use out of the buttons, used for cooking. While I was shortly used to the time and temperature dials on my old microwave, I quickly adjusted to this newfound technology called "buttons." You push them, the thing beeps, and then bam, it cooks your food. Amazing! What will they think of next? Some sensor that cooks your food until it reaches a certain temperature? Oh, yeah I have that feature too.

The inaugural meal cooked on the Whirlpool Gold stove was Turkey Chili. Yeah yeah, stop the snickering. I decided to go slightly on the healthier side for those who are cholesterolly challenged. I thought it came out a little salty and not spicy enough, others said it was really good. One of the coolest features on my new stove is that the grates are integrated... So I can just slide pots and pans back and forth over the burners with little effort. Something is wrong with me. I'm excited about appliances and cooking. Um, Tailgate, Beer Pong, Chug. There, manliness asserted.

Another cool picture, this time from the left side of the plane.

A housewarming party will happen sometime in 2009. Things have just been super busy and hectic, and its taken a while to get things under control. Although its up for debate that I've never had anything under control. Regardless, the status can now be called quo, since I have a working kitchen. Peace out everybody!

This month in review...

So, the kitchen is almost done (only took 5 months). I haven't quite been around, and the plumber was on a vacation, so it took a little time for my appliances to get hooked up. Its not like I spend any time at my house anyway....

Other big accomplishments in the last month: I bought a desk (not pictured), and got lots of house stuff off my Christmas list (often referred to as a bridal registry) and am almost done hooking up the home theatre system. Being that it has only taken 4 months to hook this thing up, is one hell of an accomplishment. It only took three separate orders (roughly 2-3 weeks apart each time) to figure out exactly what and how many I needed. A little help from Kevin my brother, and Kevin my friend (while my brother is my friend, these are two different people), and John - the wiring is essentially complete. I can't wait until I can watch Top Gun, The Last Samurai or one of the Pirates movies on Blu-Ray!!!

If slow and steady wins the race, I'm definitely winning the race of home remodeling... Unfortunately I think new siding will have to be included in the 2009 budget. On a nice windy day, sitting on the couch, one can feel a chill emanating from the wall, or maybe even a breeze through the living room. Step out of the warm shower on the the cold tile, I get fears of turning into Flick from A Christmas Story: "ITHS STHUCK" Evidently in 1954, they deemed exterior insulation to not be necessary... Oh the joys of home-ownership. As I always include pictures in my post, here's few cool pics from the last month:


On a flight from Pahonix to Newark I snapped this pretty cool picture of the sunset over the wing. It was much more phenomenal in person though.



So, on December 19th, I flew from Pahonix to Detoilet. It just so happened that there was a huge snowstorm from the midwest to the east coast. In roughly 4" of snow, we landed 20 minutes early at DTW (thanks to a ground halt, and us being the only jet inbound, we were allowed to land). My coworker Rich was stranded for an extra 5 hours at the lovely Pahonix Sky Harbor airport with absolutely nothing to do, waiting for his flight to take off. Who'da thunk that flying to Detoilet in the winter, during a snowstorm, would be better than flying to NJ. So back to my flight, since its MY blog, we landed early. Evidently we had Ray Charles as our pilot and Stevie Wonder as the copilot. Approximately 40 minutes later (20 minutes late of the original arrival) we parked at the gate. The first gate was not plowed out, the second gate had some airport machinery stuck in a snow bank, and we parked at our third gate. I think Ray and Stevie just wanted to do donuts in a 737 in 4" of snow.

Rochester, Michigan, Home to Kevin Kassa, and the Rochester Mills Brew-Pub, had roughly 11" of snow. What is there to do? Well a 3 block walk to main street, see all the cool Christmas Lights, and another block to a fine establishment which serves food and beverage... mmmmmmmm beeeeeeeer. So the impending weather made certain people panic, and after some nagging, Kevin and I decided to leave Michigan on Saturday and head to NJ. A majority of the trip was without precipitation, and with good road conditions. The Ohio Turnpike on the other hand, seemed to have some icing issues. We went through a 6-mile stretch where we saw a spinout/jersey barrier induced Car-Be-Que, maybe 7 other cars off the road, and an 18-wheeler with flaming brakes. If you imagine that there is no sun glare in the picture below, you see some of the ice on the trees somewhere in Ohio. Look really closely!

So, after order # 2 came from Monoprice (needed more wire) I employed Kevin my friend/neighbor and John to come over and help finish up the installation of the home theatre system. They helped out a lot, and I was almost done. Just needed to order some more banana plugs (things you put on the speaker wire to plug into the plate and stuff). I made sure I had all necessary working tools. See man-fridge below.

Thanks for keeping up, and see you in a few weeks!

Where have you been?!

OK, so I know its been almost 2 months since I've done any updates. Lots of things have happened. The pilgrims landed, fried a turkey, and drank a lot of booze. Wait, no, that was just the normal thanksgiving at my parents house.

Aside from things... some of you have heard that the Chaise broke... stay tuned for those details further on down. A funny thing happened on the way to the Storum... My cousin Lisa sprung an idea on me the day after turkey day. Her daughter Chelsea, works for Lowes, which was having an employee appreciation event, which consisted of 30% discounts on certain brands of appliances. You wonder why you haven't seen pictures of the kitchen, here's why.

#1 Microwave with TIME and TEMPERATURE DIALS! DIALS! Did you hear me, DIALS?! I had never seen a microwave with time and temperature dials. What's even funnier, you had to hold in the start button, for about 5 seconds. My first venture ended up with melted plastic all over my food, along with about 35 atoms of Uranium 235 being transferred into my left arm. I no longer need lights at night, I just follow my left arm.

#2 See space above stove where aforementioned Microwave used to reside. The stove was just as old as the microwave. Funny thing about the stove, there were missing buttons, and it just never wanted to light. When we first came to the house, the former owner was baking cookies, but I think it may have just been a candle, and fake cookies!

#3 Old Kenmore Dishwasher, that while it ran through cycles, never washed a dish, and left hard water stains.... just lovely.

Picture of space previously occupied by said dishwasher.

I'm no longer blinded by the light! While I had no clue how to measure for the blinds, or what to do, a lil help from Mom ended up in an october trip to Lowes to pick up blinds. Magically none had to be cut, but there's still some work to be done on the dining room door, and curtains for the living room.

Look at the strategically placed Redwings blanket. If it were absent, you'd see how the Chaise part of the couch, is no longer level. Whilst I knelt to close that window, the Chaise snapped. Maybe its a sign I should go on a diet?! It was roughly 6 weeks ago, and Chaise number 2 should be coming very very soon....

What's next? Well I fly out to Detoilet (detroit) to visit my bro this weekend and drive back to NJ. We'll spend some time working on the wiring for the home theatre system, so I can take full advantage of the TV and Dish Network's Turbo HD. The picture is phenomenal! Thanks for reading, stop by and enjoy a few beers. $10 to the first person who finishes a pepper flavored beer without making a funny face. (Kevin, Kelley, Lisa, Bryce and Jack all know what I'm talking about)

Ooh OOh what kind of progress?

Much to the dismay of everyone following the blog, this week's update does not include pictures or mildly amusing stories about what transpired over the weekend. This past weekend was one of a relaxing nature spent in Queens..... One of Diane's friends got married on friday, and of course during the reception, when they throw the bouquet and garter, we both got called out...

Saturday was a costume party, thank god there are no pictures. I went as the guy from Operation. An easy $30 costume from Target, however, note to anyone: THIS COSTUME DOES NOT BREATHE WELL. Subsequently and completely un-arranged, Di went as the board game Twister.

Sunday I watched some of the Jets, listened to the rest of the antics on the radio, saw some of the Giants, ate a great dinner at Mom & Dad's, listened to the rest of the antics on the radio, and returned to Clifton. I did drum up the energy to do some cleaning/dusting when I got back, and hooked up the TV to the antenna on the roof. I get CW HD, and PBS HD, and the regular channels, but no HD. Sooner or later I will call Dish.

Next weekend: Golf Tourney saturday! and hopefully working on the wiring for the home theatre! Woohoo!

"Insert Tetris Theme Song Here"

Oh what a fitting tribute to the wonderful game from 1988... For those of you who just went and looked it up, you're pathetic... I'm guessing it was 1988, but i can't really be sure. So after the furniture guys delivered my furniture (only 2 or 3 minor knicks, and some styrofoam stuff stuck to the dining room chairs) we ran over to The Depot.. or as it all it The Debt-Oh! Picked up some furniture sliders, and proceeded to re-arrange the living room furniture a few times. SOME PEOPLE insisted that the TV be placed on the western wall, ie far away from the door, where those ugly mirrors used to be. Well in order to do so, said couch & chaise, and wandering ottoman, kind of blocked off the space. Rotating the couch 180 degrees, proved to open up the room alot. I heard some chirping about the TV being "too far away". Oh! forgot to mention we picked up the TV stand from Circuit City, which included a nice spot to conceal the center channel! So, thou who shall remain nameless, insisted that the TV and entertainment center would never fit between the stairs and the tiles... scroll below


Not only did it fit, it fit pretty damn well! And, at 52", its nearly impossible to be too far away. A drop in visit from Mr. Musler confirmed that the TV was in fact, in the best position. What you don't see, is the temporary blinds over the window... A tribute to my college days... A Sheet!

So, there's dust everywhere. Evidently the virtually dust-free floor refinishing means, "we'll leave a film of dust on the walls that you'll have a b*tch cleaning. The best results came from a swiffer and some good ole elbow grease. Below, a picture of the awesome table w/granite inlay.

Matching server. It was dark, and there were some light issues.

A dark picture of the bedroom, but it looks real nice! I finally have a bed to sleep in! I'm so excited.

To those of you expecting the normal style of humor that accompanies the writeup - I've been up for 23 hours, and although that in and of itself means i should be loopy, I can't think of any situations i can impose my views upon to make it funny.

Travel note: beware of flying with Halloween costumes. I am going as the guy from Operation, and realized due to my travel plans, I had to bring my costume to Arizona. The TSA agents thought the round object with string coming from it looked suspicious. Upon asking, I opened my bag and explained that it was part of the costume. A few jokes were thrown around, and they explained to me that its not Halloween yet... National Security at its best!

This weekend just FLOORED me

So, this past weekend was an interesting time. My brother flew in from Michigan because Caesars gave us free tickets to see Seinfeld (we'll get to that later). Along with that, I happened to be getting the hardwood floors stripped and refinished. Thursday, while I was in Arizona, my mom and sis stopped by the house to check on the flooring guys and make sure my house was still there. Mom dropped off the truck for me so that I had a car when I got back to NJ. Somehow, they managed to plan this whole spectacle to include a trip to Forno's.

So what do I see when I groggily (not sure if that's a word) stumble into my house Friday morning... My floor has chicken pox!

Later on that day, a view of the blue room, completely stripped... looks purty, but that damned noisy floor sander prevented me from sleeping all day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.... Just kidding.... So Kevin and I had this brilliant plan, and it did not involve drinking Guinness. Since I normally fly out at 6:45 on Mondays, he took a 6 am flight to return to Detoilet. Only one problem, this Monday, I would work from home, while the floors are finished. I woke up at 3:45 am, to drive my bro to the airport. I should get a nomination or something. Nonetheless, Mike Yarwich (Statewide Maintenance & Flooring in East Rutherford, or Lyndhurst) did some work on Saturday, so I'd have some really shiny floors Monday morning. A quick view of the dining room and living room after the first clearcoat. It got buffed up, and a few more clearcoats after that... they look amazing!

So the free Seinfeld tickets? As soon as we finished dinner, Kevin and I got the itch... We gave the tickets to Mom & Kelley, which once we said "complimentary drink" they disappeared... Later on, they said the show was not worth the free drink... ouch! WHY AM I YELLING? I DON'T KNOW!!! Anyway, I spent the first 15 minutes of the gambling night in positive territory, and Kevin grabbed a straight flush in 3 card. That didn't last long. We went home unhappy campers.... Overall, productive weekend, great to see the family, and nearly gave them a heart attack when I purchased a book! It was a book on poker theory, so don't get your hopes up about my recreational reading.

Furniture comes Friday! No more aerobed on the floor! I'm so excited. All of the wiring stuff is on the way to install the home theatre system. Volunteers welcome!

Congrats also go out to Kevin & Jen Bryce as they welcomed their daughter Emma to the world today!

Put on my blue suede shoes, and I boarded the plane...

WAIIIIIIIIIT.... stop the presses. My shoes are not blue suede. They're now light blue, leathery paint covered Adidas sneakers. I did however board the plane just before the asscrack of dawn on Monday.

While there is a general cost to home improvements, there has been an incidental cost of $3,040.
Paint for week 3 of the NFL: $250
Not doing research for week 4 of Kevin's (my brother) Knockout Pool: $2200
Making a second poor choice for week 4 in the "loser's pool": $800
The aforementioned now blue Adidas sneakers: $40
Weekends of aggravation and soreness: Definitely not priceless...

So week 5? of the NFL... I think its week 5, at least that's what someone told me. Consisted of another weekend of painting. Di swung over Friday afternoon and we started workin on the second coats of mountain honey and sweet sage... or maybe mountain sage and sweet honey... ok, the YELLOW and the GREEN rooms. What's left? The BLUE room! We picked Yacht Harbor. Where they come up with these names? I mean yeah harbor goes with yacht, but it could have been shipwreck yacht, which might provide some insight for these projects.. Unfortunately Di had to call it a short weekend, but she's put in plenty of hard working time. Wanna hear something funny, Bryce made soup again on Saturday. I spent Sat afternoon/evening working on the blue room, to get the first coat down. I made it over to Chez Bryce around 11 pm, and after a few pieces of cheese, was ready for a few hours of wii.

Sunday, I rolled off the air mattress... groaned, and said "oh boy, another day of blue." I rocked and rolled through, and only broke one paint roller extender. DO NOT BUY THE PLASTIC ONES! So, during most of the Giant game, I finished up coat #2 of the blue room. Funny thing, I was even able to paint over the spackle spots in the living and dining rooms I had to do because someone could not wait 10 minutes for me to do that before painting the second coat. Thou shalt remain nameless.

End result, a nice blue room, clean floors ready to be sanded... and another check out the door.

FYI: I didn't paint that picture with the really cool swirly effect, that's called glare.

What's next? the chicken or the egg? Floors get done Thurs, Fri, Mon and maybe Tues. Furniture comes on Friday! I'll finally have a bed up there. Just need to figure out the TV stand issue, so I can hook all those goodies up! I also plan on trimming some hedges this weekend, and fertilizing the lawn.