Spring Is Here

My apologies to the half dozen or so readers of my blog. I’ve just not felt the inspiration to post much lately.

The nice thing about getting out and visiting new places is that I find lots to things to take pictures of and write about. But there’s always a lull when I get back to Houston in terms of inspiration. It’s already been several months since the trip to Copenhagen and I must confess, the photographic and blogging inspiration is STILL at an all time low.

The Pi(e) Day Card was a fun project. We’re still pondering what’s next in the esoteric holiday card lineup.

Cynthia and I have been hard at work trying to get the front and back lawns into shape. We lost very little during the recent snow in December and the more recent hard freeze where temps stayed below 32 for awhile, so that’s good.

In the loss column was one of my favorite plants, the giant pink Hibiscus we’ve had since our first apartment in the Heights over 15 years ago. Call me sentimental, but I always looked fondly on the soul survivor of our futile efforts to maintain a patio garden in Houston. It had a place of honor in the front yard just to the side of the front door. Now that it is dead we’ve replaced it with a somewhat neglected Sago Palm we’ve had in a pot in the backyard. It’s a bit of a runt due to living in a pot in the shade in the backyard, but hopefully it will reach it’s full potential now that it has been moved.

We also lost the giant and hateful Bougainvillea that dominated the back garden. It was pretty and really doing well before the freeze, but just didn’t manage to survive so we spent the better part of two weekends cutting it down and chopping it up enough so that the trash collectors would haul it away.

We managed to get most of it gone but not without some parting shots from it’s numerous and sharp thorns.

There’s still a lot of work to be done and hopefully this good weather will hold for a few more weeks so we can finish it up. We’ve really had some gorgeous California style weekends with low temps and low humidity with lots of clear blue skies and sunshine.

Oh, and speaking of the good weather. We’ve been taking the opportunity to walk a few miles each day after work. That, in combination with a revised diet and some Wii Fit excercises I am personally down 20lbs!

Landscape Lighting

I am not the handiest guy around. I can manage the technical stuff, but when it comes to home maintenance and improvement I like to “leave it to the professionals.”

I’ve been wanting some landscape lighting for awhile now. For decorative as well as security purposes. I decided I would go to Lowe’s and check out my options. It took some time to sort it out, but I bought some lights, some cable and a timer enabled power converter and worked all day last Saturday installing it. There’s been a few tweaks over this past week and the above picture is the end result of my efforts. The pic doesn’t do it justice. It’s really something to see in person and I am quite proud of myself.

Tool User

When you have your roof replaced, it generates a lot of waste as a byproduct. For the most part, the crew did a good job of loading it all into trucks and hauling it away. Several truckloads of debris by my reckoning.

Unexpected, but not surprising, some nails ended up in the pool. Now that it’s getting a little cold here, wading in and fishing them out was unpleasant thought. Waiting till summer was also not an option. I tried using the cleaning net attached to the telescoping pole, but could not quite scoop them up.

Then it dawned on me. I’ve had in my possession a chunk of ferromagnetic rock since my teenage years. I found it near some railroad tracks when I was a teenager and I’ve just hung on to it. By placing it into the cleaning net I was able to collect all of the loose nails at the bottom of my pool without much effort and, most importantly, without getting wet.

Hammer Time

We’ve been through a few hail storms over the years. I rather regretted not contacting the insurance company to have a look at the roof after seeing many of our neighbors getting new roofs on each occassion.

We knew our roof was getting to a point where it would need to be replaced and were dreading having to pay for this out of pocket.

Before Hurricane Ike we did have an inspector come out and have a look and he said it would only be a matter of a few years before replacment would neccessary.

After Hurricane Ike plowed through we noticed a lot of loose shingles in the yard and called our insurance company to have a look and they declared the roof a total loss and are paying to have it replaced (less our deductable).

I’m home now listening to the pounding of hammers as the old roof is ripped away and the frame is being prepped for new decking and shingles.

Dooley is terrified and probably learning some new sound effects and some conversational Spanish.


Jackhammer

They say there are two kinds of houses in Houston. Those that need foundation repair and those that will need foundation repair. We just changed from the second to the first category.

The jackhammer is freaking out the birds a little. The house is vibrating, and not in the good way. Thanks god I’m not hungover with a headache and thank technology for telecommuting.