Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Yesterday, I cut two small blocks of wood and Owen and I sanded them and rounded the edges. Then I drilled a hole in each one. Then he painted them Pollock-style. Today, they were fully dried, so I took them out to the garage.
When I was a teenager, my family and I moved into our first place with a garage. One of my dad’s friends brought over two tennis balls the day we moved in. When my dad asked him what they were for, he just said, “You’ll see.”
Of course, we were all busy moving boxes into the house and unpacking that day, but later, we went in the garage and saw the finished product: the two balls were each suspended from the ceiling by fishing line. My first thought was, “Yay! Tehter ball!” But it turns out that the balls were to be used to know how far to pull our cars into the garage. Once the windshield hit the ball…that’s where you stop. This, of course, maximizes your storage area in front of the car, while simultaneously ensuring you’ve pulled in far enough to allow the garage to close.
I really liked this idea, and I’ve since installed something similar in the three garages I’ve owned. You can buy ready-made garage parking stops, of course. But why waste the money? Just find something around the house, and string it up.
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Owen and I filmed a movie today.
Okay, so we didn’t film the whole thing – I plan to film the rest sometime in the next few days – but we recorded the most important parts.
It was very important that I make a film this week because over 99% of the year has elapsed and I have not made a single film. Now, when I say that, I am excluding things I record for other people – such as weddings – and I am excluding home videos that are recorded just for sentimental reasons.
When I say “make a film,” I mean the whole thing – pulling out the tripod, purposely setting up a scene, having an idea in mind, then editing all the footage together with proper titles, transitions, and effects.
I’ve made at least one short film (“filmlet”) every years since 1992. Some years, such as in 1993 and 2008, I made over ten films. In other years, such as 1998 and 2006, I only made one film. But I’ve never let a whole year go by without making at least one.
Anyway, just thought I’d throw that out there. It will be a while before I edit it and make it available for public consumption, but at least I kept the tradition going. Twenty years strong.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Here’s my wife blog post summing up everything we did for the holidays: CLICK HERE. Or maybe I should say “detailing everything we did,” since we did so much and we basically celebrated everything. Jennifer suggests we join a religion so that we only have to celebrate that religion’s holidays, instead of busying ourselves with all of them. I don’t know, I can’t find a flaw in that logic. I guess I’ll be a Presbyterian come New Year’s Day.
Jennifer and Isla took Owen to his grandparents’ house today. He’s gonna be there until Saturday. While they were gone, I filmed the remaining footage for the above-mentioned film. Then I imported it. I think it’s usable. I’ll start working on it soon – I just want to finish up a few home videos, first.
Friday, 30 December 2011
Today, with one of our kids away, Jennifer and I went out to get supplies, then came home to finish work on our office-slash-toy room. Earlier this week, we pulled the molding off of the ceiling. The previous homeowner thought it would be pretty to put up really thick molding around the extension area It wasn’t. So we tore it down.
Jennifer and I then filled in the many nail- and screw-holes, as well as a few places where chunks of drywall fell off. I cut one of the pieces of molding and nailed it above the window, so that it matched window frame that went around the other three sides of the window.
“Why,” you ask, “would someone only put molding on three sides of a window?”
Good question.
I think the molding above the window was removed for the butt-ugly curtains. We tore those down months ago. Anyway, the molding matches perfectly. It’s one of those improvements that you wouldn’t even know about unless I specifically pointed it out to you. Which I will do.
After taping and tarping, Jennifer got to work painting the ceiling and walls. It’s already looking better.
It’s amazing what we can get done when I am home from work all week and our son is off with his grandparents.