So I go to Menard’s last night to pick up 25 UltraDeck 16′ deck “boards”. I have that in quotes because they are a composite of plastic and some wood fibers and not really boards at all. So anyway, I’m in Menard’s and they sell me 25 of these and I get the piece of paper to take to the back yard. I also get some deck board fasteners and some 1 1/2″ screws to hold the fasteners down and some 3 1/2″ screws for the 4×4 posts that are going up. I’ll probably also need to get some 2″ screws later, but those can wait. Oh yeah, I also got a level to make sure that the 4×4 posts are plumb.

So you’re wondering why this is titled “Frustration”, right? Here’s the deal. I set the passenger seats flat in My Element so that I can haul 16″ boards. I think I can get at least a dozen of them in it and hoping I can get all 25 so I only have to make one trip. I get out to the lumber yard part of Menard’s and first off the doofus at the security gate can’t tell me where the deck board are. I’ve got to drive around the lumber yard looking for deck boards. (Can you say “incompetent”? Sure – I knew you could) And then for the REALLY frustrating part. I finally find the bin with what I want and there is one board in it… one stinking, lousy board. How the heck can they sell me 25 when they only have 1?!?! So I wait there for about 5 minutes and no one comes by – another frustration. Then I get back in My Element and head back to the Customer Service area.

The folks are really nice about it but what it boils down to is that there was an error entering inventory and they were shorted one “bundle” on the last delivery. OK, so I talk with the guy and actually get a few ideas about what I’m going to do to the deck; maybe this wasn’t so bad. I also learn from the gal behind the desk that they could deliver this for under $20. Hey – no wear and tear on My Element and drop all 25 off for under $20? Cool! But wait – that’s more frustration. I call them today to sort out the delivery thing and find that no, it’s not under $20 – it’s almost $50! ARGH!

Here and I thought the good business model was to underpromise and overdeliver!

OOOOOO! Iowa bloggers unite! Let’s all go to the Iowa BlogBash 2006! It is Bob’s brainchild described here and here. I was reading up on it and it looks pretty cool! The only issue is that work will take me out of the country in July and I could be just getting back into the US then. The dates of travel aren’t firm yet but if I’m in Iowa, I’ll be going to the Iowa BlogBash 2006! If you are an Iowa blogger and can make it, let’s make a HUGE party out of it!!

Got a lot done this weekend, although it may not sound like much. I took Friday off from work, so it’s got to be included as a part of the deal. Friday I cleaned out our old entertainment center; my brother came over and helped me move it to the garage (not sure what’s going to happen to that monstrosity yet). Then I cleaned the carpet where it used to sit. This was all in preparation for the delivery of the Toshiba 50HM66! It is now a welcome addition to our family room. This was a part of the home improvement that I deemed absolutely necessary! On a sad note, my aunt passed away earlier in the week and the visitation was Friday evening 4-7pm.

Later Friday night, I went to see Spatterdash. Wow. The Missipi Brewing Company was PACKED! And, as always, Spatterdash didn’t disappoint. It was a great show. There were a lot of people there from work (the lead singer and I work in the same department at our company) in various states of inebriation. Let’s just say that eveyone thad a great time!

Saturday was a busy day. KC left in the morning for Orlando for a conference. This left me to do the shopping and some cleanup. Then in the afternoon was my aunt’s funeral. What a downer. She was a picture of health. Yeah, she was 70, but she looked younger than her daughter. She and her husband played tennis a couple of times a week, rode bicycles and went on walks each day. They really didn’t “act their age”. It was really a shock to the family to lose her. The pastor of her church delivered a wonderful eulogy and it just seemed to be over all too soon.

Sunday was a day of rejoicing. I went to the Cedar Rapids Airport and picked up Breezomatic! She will not be going back to the cruise ship she was working on. She thought the work was OK (although 15-16 hours a day of chopping vegetables and washing dishes didn’t sound like OK to me) and she got a long with a number of the crew, she did NOT like the head chef. After hearing her side of the situation, I don’t know that the chef will last much longer. He didn’t seem to get along with anyone on the ship. Oh well, chalk the situation up to experience and another line on her resume.

Also, Sunday, I continued work on the deck. All the side fence and seating are off. One third or so of the floor is off – the third farthest from the house. The joists below that third have been treated with a cedartone stain/sealer. Next step is to get the floor boards to replace the ones I took up. The new floor boards are going to be plastic/composite, so I don’t have to stain and seal the deck every year. Next step is to put down the new floor boards. Right now all of our deck furniture is packed in close to the house. Hopefully it will stop raining long enough for the crew I hired to paint the house soon. We haven’t had three non-rainy days in a row for so long that they haven’t been able to work on my house! In the mean time I’m going to continue work on the deck.

Happy first day of summer! (officially!)

Happy Birthday, Adam!!

Yeah, part 1.5 because it wasn’t a big enough improvement to be an entire step. I changed out the vanity and sink in the bathroom downstairs. We have a 3/4 bath there with about enough room to turn around without banging in to anything. Here are the before pictures:
   
As you can see there are pits and discoloration on the sink. I used to use AOSept for my contacts cleaning solution – it is very acidic. It’s the acid in the cleaning solution that made the pits and discoloration over time. Also, the faucet handles were not working well; it was really difficult to turn the water completely off. The other thing wrong is the popup stopper didn’t work – there was no way to hold water in the sink. Also, there had been some leaks in the drain and the bottom of the vanity had become waterlogged and wasn’t in good shape.

After work I stopped at Menard’s and picked up the new vanity/sink combo and a new faucet. I got home, changed and began the mini-project at about 6:15. I unhooked the water leads and the drain. Then I took out the sink and then removed the screws holding the vanity to the wall and removed it. I then discovered I needed to get new water leads as the ones that were there were WAY too short. I also needed an extension for the drain. So…. a trip back to Menard’s to get new water leads and a drain extension. Then I had to cut the baseboard as the new vanity was 6″ wider than the old. My next dilemma was that the new sink was about 1/2″ wider than the old one. I solved this one by cutting the trim around the door for the sink to fit in to so I had a good, clean face to the wall. Then it was put everything in and seal it with some silicone adhesive. Here’s the end result, at about 7:50 (in time to watch Game #6 of the NBA Finals!!):
   
I think you’ll agree that the new one looks great and the water is easily shut off AND I can use the popup stopper!

No, not the TV show. It’s what’s happening here. Today, KC and I took two of the rails off of the deck. The west rail was a lattice fence and two small tables that were built in to the deck wall. The east rail was seating. We have both the west and east rails off the deck. Some of the south rail is off – it is all seating. We have also taken down all the shutters on the house. (We are going to get new shutters, so these won’t be reused.) Now that the east and west rails are off and the shutters are down, the painting crew we have hired should be able to paint the entire house without anything getting in their way. Now if the weather would just cooperate – we’ve had enough rain to delay their work on the house they were doing before ours that they have not yet started ours.

Other things we’ve done this weekend is to check in to big screen TV’s, furniture, a garage door and new shutters. So far it looks like this: the shutters will be blue since the house is going to be painted a light grey with white trim; the garage door is going to be white insulated steel; we found the perfect chair/loveseat/couch combination at the La-Z-Boy store – it’s expensive but should last a long time; right now it looks like the Samsung 50″ DLP TV with stand at Sam’s Club is the one to go with (lower price than others, but Samsung is a quality DLP TV according to reviews on the net). We’ve also checked into prices on a sink/cabinet for the downstairs bath; looks like that’s pretty easy to do. Then there’s a replacement for the shelves we have in our basement. I think we are going with a kitchen cabinet set with a counter. It’s 57″ wide and 15″ deep so there will be some finagling going on, but I think I can make it work. Should give us the storage we lose when we remove the entertainment center that now houses the TV, VCR, DVD, stereo, VCR tapes, cassette tapes, LPs and other junk.

Yup, lots of work ahead this summer. But we’ll get there.

In the wee hours of the morning AFTER Father’s Day, I’m checking my email and see this gem from Ron. The Fatherhood Cycle judged by the age of the son:

• 4 years: “My Daddy can do anything.”
• 7 years: “My Dad knows a lot, a whole lot.”
• 12 years: “Oh, well, naturally – Father doesn’t know that either.”
• 14 years: “Father? Hopelessly old-fashioned.”
• 21 years: “Oh, that man is so out-of-date. What did you expect?”
• 30 years: “He knows a little bit about it – but not much.”
• 35 years: “Maybe we ought to find out what Dad thinks.”
• 40 years: “Let’s ask Dad what he would do before we make a decision.”
• 45 years: “I wonder what Dad would have thought about that? He was pretty smart.”
• 55 years: “My Dad knew absolutely everything.”
• 65 years: “I’d give anything if Dad were here so I could talk this over with him. I really miss that man.”

It’s hard to believe how much spam my site has been hit with recently. I thought it was bad last week, but this morning really takes it. Check out this partial screen shot of my Admin Panel for WordPress:

Now I realize I didn’t check on the site last night, so it’s basically 2 days worth. However, I think 182 spams is simply too much. Spam Karma does a great job of catching and holding the spam until I either approve (only on in the 4001 caught) or delete them. I just think that 182 in two days (well, actually one day and 19 hours) is simply too much. All of the spam are trackbacks, so now I need to find a way to stop the trackbacks from these sites; for those of you who don’t know, a trackback is created whenever a site links to a blog entry. I can trackback to my own blog if I want to refer to earlier posts, I can trackback to others’ blogs if I want to refer to their posts. The problem is I don’t want to stop ALL trackbacks, just the ones that are spam.

Right now I’m running version 2.0.3 of WordPress. I know that WordPress is constantly in development (that’s a part of being open source!) and I also know from the WordPress development blog that there is a version 2.0.4 that will be released shortly. One other thing I know is that the next major version of WordPress, version 3.x, is also under development. I hope in the next version they have a way to rid us of spam. I’m just not too optimistic. I mean, really; if a way is found to block spam the spammers will simply come up with a new way to get in. That’s what has historically happened. I’d like to think we can get this taken care of, though.

Well, I’m not exactly dropping my Lakers fan status. However, I AM a fan of the Mavericks and the Heat. Both teams play as a team, both pass pretty well, both have all players get touches, both play pretty good defense. I am a fan of this year’s NBA finals for no other reason than the great teamwork displayed by both teams.

As a side note, I have just added Mark Cuban’s blog to my blogroll. Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks who made his fortune selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo. He is a unique team owner in a lot of respects, but has a lot more interests than the NBA. Heck, after reading his blog, I’m impressed with the “average Joe” quality he shows there. Yeah, he may be a gazillionaire, but he comes off like your buddy down the street.

Happy Anniversary Al and Sue!

Congratulations to Erica Lester, Miss Iowa Outstanding Teen 2006!! She won the title Friday night, but I just found out a few minutes ago. Erica is the daughter of Kevin and Karla, friends of ours.