And the cream of the crop is Chicago – South view from John Hancock Center

It was a good decision to head in, as we got to talk with some cool fans while waiting on line, and got to meet Stipe and have him sign our book. Sure, being superfans is not really our thing, but it was a nice excursion from working on the house.

Some cool moments:
• An older woman walking by asked what the line was for. When she was told ‘R.E.M.’, she said “Is it a seminar on sleep?”
• I got to hear Michael (when about to sign our book) say, “S.Rod? Is that how you say it?”
• S.Rod asked Michael if he would play our friend’s favorite track “Monty Got A Raw Deal” at their Atlanta show (which our friend will be at)— Stipe’s reaction: *snicker* “Fat chance.”

You probably also have no idea what the hell a soffit or a chase is, but let me help. A soffit, in the basement sense, is essentially a box made of wood framing that runs along your ceiling to hide ductwork, pipes, and any other unsightly thing. (Unfortunately, I cannot build a soffit to cover up the neighbor’s house across the street!) Soffits are finished by covering with drywall, smoothed, and painted to match your walls. A chase is the standing version of the soffit.

In total for our basement renovation, I have built 7 soffits and 1.5 chases. The first 3 soffits and 1.5 chases were done last fall during my initial drywall run. Then I took some time off from the project (from burnout!). At the time I took off though, the major eyesore left in the space was this massive industrial size ductwork that the original contractor had run right across the center of the main room. It was ridiculous: anyone over 5’10″ had to duck to walk through the room. This was definitely something I could not build a soffit around. More importantly, what good is a finished basement for resale value when it has a giant duct bisecting it!

Finally, this past April, we had an HVAC specialist come in and reroute this massive ductwork into a smaller duct system that wrapped around the perimeter. It was unbelievable how the sudden headroom blew me and S.Rod away. The only problem was that it was going to take a whole group of soffits to cover it, a project easily ten times more complicated that the first ones I’d done.

Luckily, now armed with the help of a now fully mobile assistant, the framing of the last 4 soffits was completed over today (iPhone pix below). Now all that remains in the basement is to finish drywalling these and a few other walls, install the drop ceiling, finish the doors, and add some trim and moldings— and it might actually be a livable and workable space.

As you may recall from this April entry, we were on a mission to upgrade and integrate the desks for our new home office.

Originally, I had envisioned two L-Shaped desks to go in the corners of the room opposite the closet and entranceway. S. Rod had foreseen a great disturbance in the Force with that, and suggested a room length slab mounted to the wall so it had no legs to deal with.

However, balancing the new desks against our three seven-foot tall bookcases ruled out the slab idea. Worse, the small width of the room canceled out the L-shaped desk idea too. So after selling our old tables at a yard sale, we moved into our townhouse without any desks.

But inspiration sprung from below. Outside of the turquoise paint color, the second thing we put in the room was the FLOR carpet. We bought those color patterns quite spontaneously, but it turned out to help make our choice much easier.

I had pushed for a more modern look to keep pace with the paint and carpet, and S.Rod found a frosted blue-green glass table with brushed nickel edging and legs that fit in perfectly. Multiply that by two and the new workstation was complete.

Now if only we could have such luck with the studio… Click here for the hi-resolution version. Cheers.

A photo of the first complete room in the townhouse… just like I promised four months ago. Hey, it may be easy to put big furniture in a room, but the smaller pieces—which accent the room, and bring together the theme—are always harder to assemble. Unless you buy everything in one store… how boring!

As it turns out, our dining room is the culmination of 7 stores (IKEA, Target, Crate & Barrel, FLOR, Home Decorators, Michaels, and Home Depot). The room gets brilliant natural light during the day, and is great for dinner over a discussion of metaphoric cartoon mascots.

Now that we have 3 studios, we’ll hopefully never be forced to use this as a crafting table again. Click here for the hi-resolution version. Cheers.

. . . That’s the ticket: no pain, no gain.

Sure, go ahead, make jokes. In all seriousness, we went into the situation of buying a home with the most optimistic of intentions. At the time, we could not truly grasp how people could get completely miserable in the midst of a process which was bringing you something that you have always wanted.

But now we understand, now we too have felt the pain and suffering of dealing with all of those annoying things that you never encountered when we were renting and carefree.

It’s been a rollercoaster over the past two months. But, you know that point in the ride when you’ve gone through your last loop and you can feel the sled starting to slow, that you’re just a few hundred slow yards from when the safety railing pops back up, and you step off? Yeah, we’re right there. We know that the ride is just about to end.

Now if we can just hold down our lunch…

The primary upgrade in our move will be the addition of a 3rd bedroom. For two people who enjoy arts and crafts, it’s only natural that this room will become a studio. Of course, you may ask, “Well, didn’t you have a studio before?” Yes, but it also functioned as our office/library/archive/computer room, so a little separation will be quite liberating.

More to the point, without all of the arts and crafts to bog down the office/computer room, we’re hoping to give it a little more productivity. The decision has been made that of the three IKEA desks now in the office/studio, none will be in the new office. The drafting table will go to the new studio, the pine desk will be an “uncle” gift to my oldest nephew, and the last desk will be out in the tag sale at month’s end.

With two desks to replace, we figure the best replacement would be an L-shaped corner workstation for both of us. But any specifics from there are totally up in the air.

Right now, we’ve narrowed it into three styles to choose from (click to see a larger view):

1. Cheap and Swedish

2. Modest and Modern

3. Expensive and Clunky

Therefore, if you were me and S.Rod, which choice would you buy a pair of?

In the post, the giver of the tree (myself) assured the receiver (S.Rod) that I’d get another one on my annual business trip to Florida if the tree died. However, in May 2006, I changed jobs and that opportunity to get another tree from Florida was gone.

So fast-forward to Janaury 2007, and I was searching for a birthday gift with a narrative quality for the lovely Ms. S.Rod. I recalled my pledged assurance and decided to cash it in. I visited the sales site for the company Smith & Hawken and after some deliberation decided to purchase a Kaffir Lime tree (also known as a “kieffer” variety for all you 24 fans out there). To my surprise, the tree arrived via UPS Ground in a couple of days— totally intact, in good shape, and by some stroke of luck, on an unseasonal 60 degree day before the recent cold spell hit.

Of course, S.Rod and I have been tasked with keeping the tree healthy and fluorishing indoors, where temperatures near windows are low, and sunlight is scarce. So aside from the recommended 30-10-10 fertilizer, we sealed the windows from drafts with plastic sealant and have a strong dual incandescent-fluorescent lamp overtop.

Granted, we got the lime tree at a much later stage than the orange, so it should prove heartier in its resistance to external forces. But it is the only other sign of life in our apartment (where pets aren’t allowed and we’re not ready or certain we want kids), so keeping it alive is a prime responsibility. Indeed, a little tree is a good place to start in the chain of responsibility. Let’s just hope that we learned our lesson from its predecessor. Cheers.

Click here for the uncropped hi-resolution version.

When S.Rod and I were visiting my parents this weekend, we learned that an item lived in their kitchen pantry that had not been purged in quite some time. Sure, all of the front line items were replaced every month. But when it came to this item that had never been used, you know the ones that get pushed to the back and forgotten, the maintenance had fallen out of favor.

S.Rod brought up the idea of having pancakes for breakfast, so my mom recalled that she had some pancake mix in the pantry. She pulled out a small box of Aunt Jemima Original Pancake Mix. “Look,” she said, “it hasn’t even been opened.”

Being the pop culture enthusiast that I am (okay, semi-enthusiast), I noticed that the logo appeared pretty outdated. I looked for an expiration date on the box, but there wasn’t one. So I searched for another indicator: the copyright date.

To my complete shock, it said “© 1991 The Quaker Oats Company”. If you know that companies usually update the copyright every year, then you also know that we were twelve hours away from eating sixteen year old pancakes!

My mom, shocked as much as I was, could not believe that it was that old. She swore that she had only had this box for a couple years at best. So we looked to the only person who could possibly know: Aunt Jemima herself. Well, actually, “her” website.

While it turned out that the lot number and barcode yielded no expiration information, the truth came from an unexpected place: Aunt Jemima’s History. You see, it turns out that in 1992, Aunt Jemima’s head was tilted into a more upright position. With one look at our box with the tilted head, we knew our pancake mix was definitely celebrating its sweet 16!

< --- Logo as of January 2007

The moral of the story: If you're gonna eat hotcakes, then you better make sure your Jemima ain't tilted!

And if you think that we were being a bit silly about the old pancake mix, then you should read this letter to Dear Abby.

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The official reported snow amount for my town in Westchester (20 miles north of Manhattan) is that we got 24.5 inches. Some of the drifts were at least 30 inches though. For example, notice that 7 foot high pile of snow in the picture below of me digging yesterday? That’s my car.

While I realize this snow is nothing compared to places like Buffalo or Syracuse, that’s also one reason I live here and not there. Oh well. So here I sit, in my cubicle, with my lower back and ligament-impaired elbow aching, and swaying to the buzz of my fluroescent light. So it goes.

Luckily, the redemption is this: by this Friday morning, I’ll be in Puerto Rico on a mini vacation. Hopefully lounging at a beach area, sipping a frosty beverage and earning 20%. Heh heh.
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Click here for the uncropped hi-resolution version.

As it turned out, I ended up trading that painting that year for a portable art desk and a cell phone. The kicker is that I never registered the cell phone before it became prehistoric, and I still have yet to use the art desk. But at least the painting is out wandering the real world… which beats the ones lounging in my studio and basement.

Ultimately, I wish I had a mini Lo-Jack on those old paintings I gifted, gave away or traded… like a “Where Are They Now?” episode for Mark’s Art. That has the potential to be quite amusing. Although I’m sure the ones I gave to a certain psychotic ex have met an untimely death in a Long Island incinerator. Alas, I’ll never know.

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Click here for the large hi-resolution version.

But none was more desired than the machine housed at the Whitney Museum in New York City. So when the news came to us, we thought it was too good to be true. Thus, a visit was necessary. As the pictures show below, Acyrliture: Bite Size had indeed arrived. With the purchase of a token from the store cashier, the machine operates exactly like the classic cigarette machine it was salvaged from— pull the handle and a piece of hand-made minature art is yours.

If you’re in NYC, be sure to check out the Art-O-Mat located in the Whitney Store on the lower level. If not, you can also get an Acyrliture: Bite Size online exclusively at Magic Junk. Makes a great stocking stuffer or pollyanna for the holidays.

Click here for the large hi-resolution version.

Click here for the large hi-resolution version.