April 27, 2003
The end of the weekend is here and our backyard is officially done. Sort of.
Friday Sarah began the arduous task of moving the rolled up grass out of the yard. We finished that on Saturday morning. Have you any idea how much grass a 15′ X 30′ yard can contain? About 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older….
Anyway, once the grass was gone it was off to the rental place for a tiller. An hour and a half, and three good passes, and the hard lumpy ground was soft, tilled-up goodness. Still lumpy though. We returned the tiller and picked up a landscaping rake to help get the lumps out and (hopefully) make the water run away from the house and towards the flower bed at the back of the yard. Visually speaking, it looks like we succeeded.
After 8 hours of solid work yesterday, today went pretty smoothly. We finished raking and shoveling and re-raking till the lumps were gone and the grade looked good. Another trip to the Rental Center and I came back with the yard roller – filled with water it’s a 250 lbs. compacting tool of the gods.
A couple of passes with the roller showed us a few spots that needed some work – and some dirt – but within about an hour or so, presto! One even yard. I must say, it looks pretty good.
Since we are suppose to get some rain over the next couple of days we’ve decided to hold off on seeding. We figured the rain will show us if our grading job worked. If not, we can fix it and seed next weekend.
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April 25, 2003
We rolled up our backyard yesterday. Literally. And it looks better already.
I know I said we were going to do this whole yard thing over the weekend, but something came up. We have new neighbors across the street. Wednesday Steve and Dana (new neighbors) were cutting up their front yard with a handy dandy sod cutter. Well, Sarah and I went for a little walk, they said “hi,” we introducted ourselves and set about small talk.
“Looks like fun,” I said. “Funny thing, we were going to do the same thing to our backyard on Saturday. Were’d you rent the cutter?”
Steve replied, “Well, I work at a golf course — I just borrowed it from work.”
“That’s handy. We called around a couple of places to rent them….”
“When were you going to do it? This weekend? I could probably bring the cutter back for you,” Steve offered.
Then we looked at each other and said, “Of course, we could just do it right now.”
A few short minutes later, voila! One cut up backyard. And while Steve was slicing our turf, Sarah helped Dana pick up their front yard.
Now ours is in neat little rolls, stacked along the driveway. The yard waste disposal company is going to love us as they haul away a ton of dirt and grass over the next few weeks.
Tomorrow, we just need to clean up the bits of yard that didn’t get cut, rent a tiller and turn everything over. That should give me a few inches of loose dirt with which to regrade. Ah, home ownership.
They only other mini project I have – that I’ve almost forgotten about – is my bansai. Sarah bought me a little seed-starter kit for my birthday, but I don’t really know what to do with it. Kristen? Help? Anyone?
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April 24, 2003
Today is Bring-Your-Noisey-Child-to-Work-So-No one-can-Actually-Do Anything-Day. So I’m working at home. I love flexible hours and work-at-home capabilities.
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April 23, 2003
Tuesday’s are my T’ai Chi night – corrections and push hands classes. And, as of last night, sword. It is, well, different — kind of like doing the form, kind of like playing push hands, but really neither. And at this point I don’t actually know the steps, so it’s very much confusing. But when there were 5 of us doing the first couple of moves all in unision it looked awesome.
This also means that I’m going to be rather tired on Wednsdays. I left the house for T’ai Chi at 6:00 pm yesterday and didn’t get home until a bit after 10:00 pm. I normally go to bed at 10:00 because I get up at 5:00 am. Being worn out from some 3 hours of T’ai Chi, that 5:00 alarm was a bit tough to handle. I hit snooze way too many times. Luckily I can’t actually be late for work…. (Odd thing, even sleeping in a extra 1/2 or so and leaving the house 15 – 20 minutes later than normal, I still made it to work about my normal time. How does that happen?)
In Other News:
Not much. The patio is now just an empty spot where bricks once lay. This weekend, hopefully, we are renting a rototiller and sod cutter and attacking the backyard. The plan (I believe I’ve mention it before): take that lump over there and move it to here and around that a bit. In general, make water flow away from house and garage. The ex-patio bricks will find a new use as small retaining walls and what-nots as needed. Eventually, I think I’m going to build a small, free-standing round deck.
Well, I suppose I should actually get back to work now….
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April 21, 2003
We had a great time in Niagara. The hotel was mediocre, but we didn’t spend much time in it anyway. The power of the falls is truely amazing. The river flows so serenely yet violently at the same time. Right at the brink the water looks like liquid glass, just gracefully sliding along. A few short feet later it erupts into a powerful spay. Then, below the falls, all is calm for a while as the river resumes its course.
A couple of kilometers from the falls are some of the most powerful rapids I have ever seen. The energy in the Niagara River over those falls is monumental. Standing along side, I could feel the calm energy of it all as it hurried its way along down steam.
We, of course, did all of the tourist things. At least the ones open at this time of year. The Maid of the Mist wasn’t running yet, and not all of the boardwalks down by the falls were open. But that was OK. We took the elevator down behind the Horseshoe falls and decended to the Gorge; went to the butterfly garden (over 2,000 butterflies); did a little hiking at a park along the river; marched up and down Clifton Hills too many times.
That is a strange area. Clifton Hills is full of tourist things, but mostly haunted houises. There has to be 4-5 different haunted attractions on one stretch of road. I convinced Sarah to go through one with me -Frankenstien’s House (or whatever). It was really lame. Basically, it was a twisting hallway with all of the lights turned out. Nothing jumped out at us, no one attempted to scare us. It was like they hadn’t turned everything on yet. Very dissappointing.
Today, we killed the patio. And that’s about it. Well, I poked the race car a couple of times – and it poked back. Now that the weather has gotten a bit nicer I’ve got to find the electrical trouble. It’s getting spark, but just won’t start. Unfortunately the wire that I need to track down is used for pretty much every circuit on the car. It just keeps going and branching off. It is very annoying.
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April 16, 2003
Here I sit all broken hearted,
Tried to blog
And …
Nothing. I’m just trying to not bitch about work, which is actually going OK. I’m just apathetic.
My plans for around the house were to work on the race car a little bit this week, but it has turned cold again. So that’s put on hold for a while longer. I’m getting very antsy though.
This weekend should be fun. Sarah begins Spring Break on Friday, so I’m taking a 4-day weekend and we are heading off to Niagra Falls. Sure it’s probably going to rain, but neither of us cares. I found this nice little deal at the Best Western Fallsview Hotel. We just want to get away.
Next up: the backyard. Currently it is super lumpy, holds water like a, well, a swimming pool. So we’ve decided to pull up the crappy patio, till the whole yard into oblivion, and regrade it so it slopes away from the house and garage. Stay tuned.
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April 14, 2003
I am now in the possession of Michael York’s autograph. It’s silly. It’s geeky. And I don’t really collect autographs. But it’s still cool. (And it goes nicely with my 3 Monty Python autographs.)
And now that nice weather is here, I can get out to the garage and work on the race car. I’m dreading it a bit because I have to do a bunch of rewiring. Automotive wiring is convoluted at best. What I really need to do is construct an entirely new wiring harness for the whole car. Oy. I think finding out why it isn’t starting will take priority; then rewiring the brake light circuit. Then maybe I’ll think about putting in the fuel safety cell (to replace the stock gas tank). We’ll see.
As for work. Yeah it’s there. I’ve decided to just do my job and not much else. Sad, but they’ve beat me down to that point. And now I really should dig up my resume and update it. I’m hoping something will open up internally, but I’m game for a new company.
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April 11, 2003
Having just read Ms. Gibbs’ post I don’t want to whine, but…
It seems that it is time I found a new job. I use to really love working where I do. That has slowly been eroded away.
And today it was made fairly clear that there are no promotional posibilities for me, at least not in my current department. Chances of openings in other departments (that I’d be interested in) at the moment are slim. So, it is time to update the resume.
On the up-side, I did just get our yearly raises and it was bigger than I anticipated; I have a job; I’m healthy.
And today my father is 65. Happy birthday pops.
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April 8, 2003
Stop whatever you are doing. Visit 8bitDandD. Go.
Now.
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April 7, 2003
Well, I survived the drive home. It actually wasn’t bad; all of the snow came after I was at work and was mostly cleaned up before I went home.
Now, back to what I tried to post earlier…
Saturday night was Kristen’s and Liam’s birthday party. I enjoyed myself, especially talking with Joe and Lisa who practice the Wu style of T’ai Ch’i. It was intesting compairing the two styles (I practice the Yang style) for their strikingly different similarities.
For example, both forms have a core same of postures that are the same – Grasp the Birds Tail, White Crane Spreads Wings, a version of Push, etc. But everything else seems radically different. The Wu style appears much more sinuous, their arm movements are more curvations and flowing compared to the Yang, which looks more formal. Also, in the Wu style there is plenty of wrist bending and leaning (bending at the waist). In Yang, we almost never bend our wrist or bend at the waist. One of our core principles is body upright.
Yet despite these visual differences, the internal aspects are the same. Joe talked about relaxation and sinking, both of which have to be about the most essential aspects of any form of T’ai Ch’i. The other similarity, which Joe didn’t see at first, is that both forms emphasis turning at the waist and channeling the force/weight/chi of your opponent through your body to the ground.
We even played a little bit of push hands, but the forms are radically different. I think it would take a bit for us to work out and experiment with the two forms to get any semblance of push hands. Plus, we were at a birthday party…
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