Bathroom begins

Well, I said I would start the bathroom in July. Then it got pushed to the fall. Then "after christmas" and then finally "definately January". So, with that said, Gabe and i started the bathroom Sunday. Here are the before pics






Gabe took out the vanity on Sunday afternoon and then I started demolition this morning. The goal is to remove the old shower stall, part of the wall and the floor [ which I know is water damaged.] It is completely apparent that the orginal install of the bathroom cost approximately $7 and was installed by Bozo himself.











But the poor installation did speed the demolition. Tomorrow I will be removing the toilet, the shower base [ and whatever floor is left underneath it...] and the remaining floor down to the joists. fun fun.

Syracuse part Deux


Headed over to Syracuse Saturday morning. Eric met me for lunch and then we headed out with city map in hand to look at more neighborhoods. We headed to the South side of Syracuse and looked around the reservoir and also on Salina street. A very depressed part the town. But the housing stock was interesting.





We found this house on a tall precipice over looking the street. Despite the boarded up windows, it appeared as though someone is living in the house. [ Or squatting or renovating]












We found this church on Salina street. From the lack of snow removal - it is currently vacant. No For Sale sign however.





Saturday night we had a room at the Syracuse Marx Hotel [ soon to be Renaissance] A very nice boutique hotel. We will probably stay there again sometime. Eric's friends Tim and Martin were in for the weekend, so we headed out to dinner with them and a crew of Martin's former coworkers from Pottery Barn. Fun dinner.







Sunday morning we headed back out again to look again at a north part of the city starting in the St. Joseph's neighborhood and headed north. We found a set of brick town houses for sale that I plan to follow up on . Also many vacant buildings to look at.

Poking about in Syracuse

I have been talking louder now about relocating to Syracuse in the very near future. Eric just got a BIG promotion - "Senior Programmer / Analyst" and our joint financial gravity just shifted eastward to Syracuse. :O) I have been plotting my future and I think I am settled on trying Design/Rehab on my own. I think I have watched enough "Rezoned" and other shows to think i can do better. So I figure I can at least give it a try for a year or two. Friday I headed over to Syracuse to start looking at neighborhoods. I have been looking at real estate listings but with no frame of reference for where they are located in the city. So i spent a snowy Friday driving around Solvay, Tipperary Hill and Onondagua street with a city map, making notes as I went. Saturday Eric and I spent the day driving around East Genesee, Erie Blvd, Division and Butternut Streets [zip code 13203] along with a quick drive through the "Gay Neighborhood" - Hawley Greene. I have made jokes that if you want to start some real estate speculation , all it apparently takes is for a realtor to take a pencil and draw a triangle on the city map and say "Gay Neighborhood" and TADA! I really liked the neighborhoods directly east of 81 - nice hilly neighborhoods with south and west sun exposure. I will be going over again next week look around more. In the meantime - I started taking pictures of commercial real estate in the city. I keep thinking I have to wait to make the jump to commercial development - but maybe not? Here are some comercial buildings I spotted over the weekend














This is the Marcellus casket company building. It would make awesome lofts


























This was an unsual building however there was no roof. So I guess I could buy it for free?














This building was "For Lease" yet had no windows. So I guess some developer is sitting on it thinking they can make some money in the future from a Rite Aid or Wendy's coming in and tearing it down. Kool. [not]

Flippin' Cold

Ok - the weather gauge says 14. I am keeping busy working on house things so i do not have to leave the house. Brrrr! Of course - my office is the coldest room in the house. It is all in vain however - I have a double header in Volleyball this evening so my hermiting will end eventually.

316 uploaded as small

Layout experiments

The image layout tools in blogger are not to my liking - therefore I am experimenting today. I actually set up a additional blog to test layouts now.

Lighting finished




Just wrapped up the lighting finally. On to other stairway details.

Irony

Trying my best to finish some stairway lighting today but the electric gods are against me. I spent all morning trying to find a possible error in my new 3 way lighting circuit only to find that the fixture itself is giving me problems. Oh - well - I had to stop and move on. Eric and i are having our friends over for dinner tonight and the house is a mess. So I am quickly cleaning and will start cooking shortly. Hopefully the chicken defrosting gods are at least with me today.













In a biting piece of irony, the U.S. patent office sent me a nice letter letting me know that on January 2nd, patent # 7,158,123 Secondary touch contextual sub-menu navigation for touch screen interface was awarded to me and several former coworkers at Xerox. Here is the riveting abstract: A touch sensitive user interface of the type having a display screen for displaying images representative of menus and selectable list objects, for example; control logic responsive to the touch sensitive user interface for determining the contact position of a first probe and a second probe, such as two separate fingers, thereon, displaying menus including list objects representing primary and secondary features or functions respectively, so that a user may touch a selection on the primary menu with the first probe and subsequently touch an area on the display screen where a contextually related secondary menu is displayed for selection of contextually related features or functions.
The idea was to basically provide a "right mouse" menu to people using touch screens.
the Irony: Three of the people on the patent [ including myself ] have been laid off over the past 3 years. - Oh well - back to chicken defrosting.

New Years in Pensacola

I helped my father drive down to Florida this year right after the holiday. I promised i would do my best to break-in his new Passat. The car is pretty sweet -though I think the VW ergonomic engineers made a few poor choices. The engine and 6 speed tranny are awesome. We made good time the whole trip and took just 2 days to get down to Perdido Key. I was scheduled to fly back to Rochester on the 31st [today] in the early morning - but the weather was uncooperative and my flight was cancelled. I was rescheduled for a late night flight back to Rochester instead. That put the ki-bosh on spending New Years with Eric in Syracuse :O( - but i figured I could at least go over the next morning. Well - on my return to the airport at 4:30pm this afternoon- I noted to the AirTran person that the time allotted to catch my Rochester connection in Atlanta was hmmm.... 15 minutes.. the AirTran person promptly noted that i would most likely miss the connection. Which I interpreted outloud "so I spend New Years in the Altanta Airport???" He mentioned getting a hotel at my own expense.. but i figured New Years was probably not the best night to "find" a hotel in Atlanta. So Dad and I headed back to Perdido Key and I cooked dinner for Aunt Betty, Uncle Ted, Dad and myself. I am on the morning flight to Atlanta for a 7 hour layover in Atlanta tommorrow. Should be interesting.

Holidays Around the state


Eric and i spent the night of the 23rd with my roommate gabby in Rochester. I cooked pork loin and a big dinner and we exchanged gifts. Much fun. Eric gave me the digital camera i asked for. Its a Kodak Digital camera with some unique time lapse features. I plan to have to some fun with that. Christmas Eve, We headed over to Eric's Folks house in Syracuse to have dinner with his extended family. A very nice time and lots of food! We headed to Owego to my sister's on Christmas day. After dinner, my nieces and nephews unwrapped the wristwatch walkie talkies we bought for them and proceeded to start running around the house. It was great. A very nice holiday. Eric headed back to Syracuse the next day for work and Kristin and I headed down with her kids to see Aunt Catherine.

Christmas Party

I hosted the Come Out And Play Christmas party at my house again this year. Hosting always forces me to get some work done around the house every year. I even had enough time to add Christmas bling to the hallway!






The tree all finished











Brad and Bill came early to help











Gerry [ the event photographer] brought homeade peroigies










We had a great pot luck spread








Vic and Eric's brother Brian and his sister Michelle








Chris, Mark and Josh







Steve and Joey










Russ and Steve











Brian











Eric,Vic and Karl








7:00 started the gift swap/steal.







Jennie,Anne,Jaqeim and Steve passing the IKEA chopping board got passed around a bit.






Jennie modeling the Aja noodle gift set










Dave unwrapping











A handy kitchen item











Stan modeling the apron










Chuck, Joe and Greg discussing details of the Colt calendar







Eric pointing himself out in the Colt calendar :O)









Gerry and Tim

We closed the party at 11:00 and headed to Barnight at the Forum.