2/05/2005

The plumbing's done! Hurrah!

Well, my dad and I did a lot of work on the house in the last few days, but the most stressful and rewarding has been ripping out the old, pinhole-leak ridden length of copper pipe and replacing it with CPVC (which is different from PVC in that it can handle more pressure and higher temperatures).

We cut the old pipe, installed the new, waited for the glue to cure, and turned the H20 back on with fingers fully crossed. The verdict: NO LEAKS! Yay!

Having a fantastic dad with mad handyman skills has officially saved us hundreds of dollars. Thanks dad, we love you!

Other projects completed:

Replaced shorted out light at bottom of stairs.
Installed fan switch in upstairs bathroom.
Installed remaining storm windows in house.
Hooked up DSL connection.

The house is coming together finally! It's about time for a housewarming party!

2/01/2005

As our children slip blithely into fascism

"When told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high-school students said it goes 'too far' in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories."

Wow. What more can I say, really?

For the whole story, click here.

1/30/2005

We're in!

We moved the last bit of our stuff from the Connecticut Ave. apartment this morning in a driving snow, and pulled up to our new home just in time for the last flakes to fall. It's hard to believe that less than a year ago we were in Oakland dreaming of buying a house and in less than nine months here we actually have one.

The move went pretty smoothly, and the weather turned out to be fantastic, thank goodness. The movers didn't even have that hard of a time getting our mondo couch down four flights of stairs (man I'd been dreading that....). Only a few scratches to furniture marred the move, but nothing serious.

Now it's down to the unpacking, which is something else, let me tell you. In fact, I've got a bunch of cool new photos waiting on my CoolPix right now...if I can just find the damn connection cord in one of these boxes....