ben.parmeter

It’s really quite fortunate that we love our offspring so much, because otherwise I’m not sure how we could put up with the sleepless nights.  I think it puts us into a state of sleep deprivation euphoria that fuels our endless dedication to feeding, diapering, and calming our newborns.  Suzy is grabbing some Z’s when Claire sleeps – and adjusting to the new schedule.   In fact, they’re napping together right now.  I felt it was a great time to quickly blog and to post some more photos of my girls.  So here they are:

Well, it certainly is; until tomorrow when a crew of tree removal experts descend upon my yard to turn that tree into a heap of firewood.  That’s revenge for ya!  So sit back, and let me tell you a little story about our Tuesday evening at home.  I suppose I should start from the beginning.

Tuesday was a particularly unseasonably windy and rainy day.  The remnants of the so called “super-typhoon” squarely walloped the northern part of California with 35mph winds, gusting up to 50mph.   Most of the morning was relatively un-eventful.  Suzy had left work at lunch time, because they were repainting her office.  The fumes were starting to really bother her, and that combined with the fact that she is trying her best to not breathe in any fetus-unfriendly toxins, she headed home.   Not too long after she got home, she called me at work to let me know that there was about a 20 foot section of branch that had fallen from one of the trees in our backyard, onto the neighbors fence.  She braved the wind and the rain in the backyard to investigate and found that the fence was actually damaged – and could sustain more damage if we didn’t get this off soon.

Needless to say, I quickly drove home to investigate myself.  I dropped an e-mail to my team, letting them know I’d be working remotely and dashed home.  When I got home, I confirmed the 20 foot branch leaning up against the fence.  Much bigger than I expected, and definitely not something I could move with sheer man-power.  It was big.  Using my mastery of physics, I acquired a rope from the garage and tied it to the highest point I could reach.  Meanwhile, the rain and winds were still raging, and looking up at the looming trees, I was a bit afraid that they would start to jettison more branches this size onto me.  But I carried on.  Having fixed the rope to the branch above the mid way point, I pulled as hard as I could and managed to get the tree off the fence and back into our yard.  A job well done.  And I fully intended to start cutting that branch into smaller sections, but Suzy convinced me that it wasn’t wise to do that now, so I packed up my things and headed inside.

I was pretty well soaked from the pelting rain, so I put on some fresh clothes and went back into the living room to sit on the couch and enjoy the sounds of the typhoon outside.  And this was when we heard one of the most gut wrenching sounds a person can hear.  Crrraaaaaaccckkkkk, swoooooooshhh, THUD!!!  Suzy and I were frozen in place, staring in horrified silence.  The large 50 foot tree closest to our house had just snapped at the base and fallen parallel to our house, filling our backyard completely with tree.

Seemingly, the tree had missed the house, or so we thought.  But as we got to the rear sliding door, we could see that the eaves of the house were damaged.  It was Armageddon back there.  My gas grill was squashed and there were branches and leaves everywhere.  Amazingly, it seemed to have fallen squarely within the confines of my yard, grazing the house ever so slightly.  We stood, staring at the mess before us for a few minutes discussing how lucky we were and how I was just out in the backyard and that could have been me squashed underneath that giant tree.

As we turned around, Suzy noticed one of the vent registers had partially popped out of the ceiling… and leaves and bark appeared to be coming out of the hole.  And then, water started to drip from the vent.  We quickly examined the rest of the ceiling in the back room.  We’d eventually discover the leak was spreading across the room to a light fixture and to seam in the dry-wall.

Suzy also discovered, when going into the master bathroom that a branch had breached the dry-wall and was sticking out out over the sink.  Strangely enough, no water was leaking in from this portion of the ceiling.

And so I braved the wind and the rain one more time to climb up onto the roof (never do this in a storm, I know), and attempted to assess the damage.  Using the pruning saw that I got from my parents in law last winter, I started to hack away at the branches to try to get closer to the roof puncture.  My neighbor, an extremely kind man indeed, ventured up onto the roof with me with a small hand saw.  Together managed to wrap a tarp around the branch and the puncture, hoping to stem the torrential flood of water coming into the roof.  After a good amount of time we decided it just wasn’t safe to be up there any longer and we headed back indoors.

After calling my insurance company, they got me in touch with an emergency contractor who was able to come out to my house in the same evening, saw back the branches on the roof, remove the giant branch protruding into the house and seal up the hole with plywood and plastic.  This would allow us to limp through the remainder of the storm and stop the water damage from getting any worse than it was.

Needless to say, we were both pretty shaken up by the whole event.  That night, we chose not to sleep in the bedroom, for fear that the tree might somehow shift in the wind, dislodge and roll into the house again.  And if that happened, we didn’t want to be anywhere near it.  So we slept on the couches in the living room that night, waking at every little sound.  Luckily, the weather gave us a break, the wind calmed down and the rain slowed to a trickle that very night.

Without further delay, here are some pictures that capture the moment both right after it occured and the next day.  Enjoy.

One might think that over the last month or so, nothing has happened of note in my life.  But alas, that is not the case.  For some reason, after sitting down in front of the keyboard, I’ve been struck with a terrible case of the writers block.  I just haven’t been motivated to write about things lately.  So instead of writing a well thought out post, chronicling the goings-on, I’m going to make a list of random things I’ve been up to with photos.  Ben’s month in lists…

Things I’ve been doing lately:

• Celebrated Suzy’s Birthday, Twice (Once at Ruby Tuesday – Shameful, Once at The Melting Pot – Delicious)
• Brewed an Oatmeal Stout for annual competition with one of my co-workers
• Purchased a PlayStation 3 (Mostly for Blu-Ray support, but also for games and media center)
• Got the Santa Fe fixed
• Read “Happiest baby on the Block”
• Visited like-minded friends on the Central Coast of California, made friends with their dog Parker

• Saw this drooling bird on the pier at the beach

• Went to a good old fashioned Melodrama (my first time… and a great experience)
• Visited Taipei, Taiwan for work

• Read “Baby Wise”
• Ate great Asian food in Taipei, Taiwan
• Worked in Taipei, Taiwan
• Took pictures in bathrooms in Taipei, Taiwan (“Keeping a Clean and Pleasant Environment Makes Everyone Delighted Thank You”)

• Played Beatles RockBand (Thanks Chris!)
• Traveled to Oregon for work, visited my parents
• Met Nico Edan Ferguson for the very first time.

• Said goodbye to my long time friends Pat & Cynthia – Have a great time in Taiwan my friends… see you in two years!
• Baby Shower plus BBQ with the family in Stockton
• Obtained a flash for my fancy camera – subsequently super impressed with results
• Took second place at the Oktoberfest for our Oatmeal Stout (See Above)

• Brewed Scottish Ale from a kit (I know… I was too lazy to do my own all-grain recipe)
• Toyed with the idea of brewing a blueberry wheat beer for my second keg
• Spent time with the fellas at one of my best buds houses while Suzy had another baby shower in Sacramento – More Rock Band
• Worked A Bunch

And that folks, is just a tiny portion, of the things that I’ve been up to lately.  More to come…

I’m not sure if it was that we were inspired by Anne or some of our other friends who compost regularly but we’ve finally given in.  Suzy sort of talked me into it, but anything involving worms and decomposing organic matter and I’m hooked.  Actually, it took a steady campaign by Suzy to even get me to allow the purchase of the materials.  But it all finally came together this week.   We’ve had the plastic bin for several weeks now, which I promptly drilled many small holes into with my cordless drill.   It was wildly fun to poke holes in a perfectly good plastic bin.  I relished it with childlike abandon.  But after the the drilling was done, I lost interest for a couple of weeks.

Suzy had started using one of the small buckets that some of my beer making supplies come in for storing up food waste.  It was rapidly filled and eventually exceeded capacity.  This was the breaking point, we needed to get this project underway.  And so, as you’ll see in the photos below, we made good on our plans to get this thing going.  Read the captions to see just exactly what the heck we’re doing.

I really hope it works out.  I have no idea how to tell if it’s working.  I’m sure the little worms have retreated into the bedding, and will not be seen again for a long time to come.  I just hope they’re OK in there.  In this hot California heat, they may have been cooked in their little plastic oven.

Internet folks.  It’s hot out here in California.  I’m so lethargic, I can barely type out these words.  I know it said 108, but my little digital thermometer said 110 around 7PM last night.  That’s hot by my standards.  Fortunately, it’s a dry heat, meaning the humidity is low.  So at least we can breath.  Thank you science, for bringing me my air conditioner and my refrigerator.

Suzy and I are surviving.  There is hope on the horizon.  I see a cool, breezy 98 degree day is forecast on Friday.

I thought some of you might be interested in the progress that I’m making with my little backyard hop farm.  Check out the latest here:

Remember that room I had planned on remodeling a few posts back?  Well, I’ve actually made quite a bit of progress over the last couple of weeks.

The horrid crown molding?  Gone.  The pink ceiling?  Now a soothing Swiss Coffee.  The baseboard?  Updated.  The old disgusting carpet?  Replaced with laminate flooring.  The electrically dubious ceiling fan?  Replaced with a new fan/light fixture.

I’m feeling pretty accomplished right now.  But there is still tons to do.  Since this once guest room will now be our office I’m going to move all of our office things into the room.  This includes moving our cable (for the cable modem) which I’m just a bit tentative about doing – as it involves drilling through the exterior wall.

And in other news, no rain in sight yet.  Spring is still here.

Well, it seems to work for Ingrid, so I’m going to take some pictures of my recent projects, post them here, and hope that I can get to them soon.

Here is my latest gadget. This is no ordinary record player, this is the Ion. It’s connected to my computer via a USB cable and is made specifically for backing up those old analog albums to digital files. It’s a beautiful mixture of old and new technology. I can’t wait to start converting those old tracks. But the work is time consuming. Lining up the needle, capturing the audio at just the right second, and all of the digital clean-up to remove the major scratches and pops takes a serious amount of time. Right now we just have a few albums to transfer. Suzy has a collection of Beatles albums at her parents house that I can’t wait to give a spin.

And recently for my birthday, I also received a turkey fryer kit! Before you get too excited, I’m not going to be using this to fry up any animal flesh. Suzy and I are basically vegetarians now anyway.  Instead, I’ll be using this to brew up some delicious batches of beer.  It’s the perfect setup, with a big aluminum brew-pot, propane stove, and long thermometer.  Pat also hooked me up with some copper tubing, which he had pre-fashioned into a spiral.  I’ll use this to make a wort chiller, to do a rapid cold-break.

This is all in preparation for brewing my first Organic Beer.  We recently visited an Organic Brew Shop in Santa Cruz.  I’m excited to get started on the brewing process for this one, but I’ve been putting it off until I got the propane burner and pot setup.  Organic beer may be taking the whole organic thing a bit too far, but hey, it’s beer.  Do you think it will taste any better, or worse or the same?  Time will tell.

Not only did I want to wait for the burner setup, but also the completed Wort Chiller.  While I had the copper tubing, I still needed hose to connect to a water source, to supply the cold water for the cold-break process.  Suzy and I recently went to the hardware store and I picked up a nice thin marine hose that hooks up nicely to spigots outside our house.  Here’s a picture of the cleaning process to remove the thin layer of laminate from the copper, boiling in a solution of water and vinegar.  Also a nice test of the burner.

And also on the docket is a full remodel of our guest room.  The previous owners must have taken it upon themselves to install some seriously bad crown molding, which is basically mounted flat on the wall.  I just want to look at them and say, really?!  And the baseboards themselves look like molding that would normally be used for a door.  The ceiling is still a pinkish purple, the blinds are purple, the carpet is dingy, stained and old and the ceiling fan is electrically dubious.  All this must go.  So I will be taking it upon myself to go to town on this room and turn it into something that we don’t have to be ashamed of anymore.  I’m not sure how long this project is going to take me, but it will probably some time before we get it going.  Here are some before shots…

And here is a closer shot of the horrid crown… and pink ceiling…

Well, I could go on for days about all the unfinished projects around here, but I need to get myself up off the couch.  Until next time…

I guess this is just part of being a homeowner… plumbing.  My patience is being tested.  Thoroughly.  While I feel pretty confident when it comes to carpentry, or electrical work, I’m woefully incompetent when it comes to plumbing.  Maybe it’s just a confidence thing, but it certainly seems to be something that escapes me.

Why all the sudden rants about plumbing?  Well, I’ll tell you.  I have recently acquired a new kitchen faucet, which I love, from e-bay for less than half the cost than a retail shop.  It’s brand new, beautiful, and actually quite simple to install.  However, before I was able to install this, I had to tackle the water valves underneath the kitchen sink.  The water valves you see, are a different size thread than the shiny new faucet.  So, it was time to replace them.   At least one of the them probably needed to be replaced anyway.  It was very old anyway and the internal rubber gaskets were actually quite deteriorated.

Allow me to just get this off my chest.  Water valves are designed in the seventh level of hell, by retarded monkeys.  (hopefully I didn’t just offend all of my readers with that statement, especially my retarded monkey readers)  They work by actually destroying the copper pipe that comes out of your wall.  Thats right, destroying the damn pipe that comes out of the wall which are, I might add, impossible to replace without paying a big hairy sweaty man without a properly fitting belt who charges $100/hour. These valves actually compress a little brass ring which squeezes the copper pipe and deforms it such that the little brass ring becomes a permanent piece of pipe jewelry.  Replacing these brass rings is not possible.  Don’t do it.  Take my word for it.  Because no matter how careful you think you are, you’re gonna bend that pipe and then, you will never get a tight seal.  Leak city.

I have spent two evenings and an entire morning on awkwardly crammed underneath the kitchen sink, arms reaching around pipes, cursing and grunting.  Valves!!.  I had to take a break – for fear that my anger would take over and I would go on a pipe-wrench rampage underneath the kitchen sink.

Curse you valves!! Curse you!!!

I grabbed a bottle of my first homebrew tonight, and tossed it into the freezer to get it nice and cool. After about 30-45 minutes of cooling, I grabbed two pint glasses from the cupboard. The first test, opening the bottle. Using the fridge mounted bottle opener, I leveraged off the bottle cap which released a satisfying hiss as the carbonation rushed out. A misty fog briefly wafted from the top of the bottle. Also a good sign. I gingerly tilted the bottle to pour the liquid into the pint glasses, taking care not to stir up too much sediment. Bringing the pint glass to my nose, I sniffed to see if I could detect any off odors. Nope – nothing detectably bad. In fact, it smelled delightful. And then, the taste. Now, I won’t sugar coat this and tell you that it’s the best beer I’ve ever tasted… that would be over stating things just a bit. No, I’ll be honest, it’s not the best beer I’ve tasted. It’s a bit on the light side, not a very strong flavor. Not to say it doesn’t have good mouthfeel and body. It was fizzy and satisfying indeed. However, it lacked any real strong flavor of hops or malts – just smooth. Suzy says she detected a hint of lemon and seemed a little displeased with the flavor in general when paired with food. However, I couldn’t really complain. This is my first brew after all and the beginning of a great love affair with home brewing. I give it a B+. Next up, Hefe!

UPDATE 10-15: Tasted another bottle tonight and wow what a difference a day makes. The beer tasted brilliant today. Maybe that last bottle was a slightly off sample – or maybe it just needed more time. Either way, this is getting more exciting by the day!