Today’s criminal, one Mr. Sparky Barnard, was caught red-handed.

Exhibit A)

"Oh I am soooo sorry"

Unfortunately this was discovered as merely a cover story for the larger crime.  Committed in secret upstairs.  Right next to the location of a previous infraction!

Exhibit B)

Somehow... someone knew when to hide when I went upstairs... I wonder why.

As we all know, chewing on and tearing up carpet is a serious infraction if you want to maintain your status as a good dog.  Having violated multiple house rules, the criminal was sentanced to an afternoon in doggy jail.

He is very remorseful:

"Ohhh I am such a bad dog. I won't do it again I swear!"

So Sparky is currently serving his sentence for the afternoon.  At which time he will be released and be his normal bouncy self.

Technorati Tags: Sparky, Jail, ThatEdeGuy

Post from: Jake's Corner

In the dog house

I suspect this was in response to him being left alone for the first whole day in a week.  Bad dog!  (The shredded cardboard was spread fairly evenly between the kitchen and the living room.)

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Post from: Jake's Corner

Ummm what was wrong with the box?

Being the computer geeks that we are, some of these projects took a little more time and effort than we thought they would – but its kind of a learn as you go sort of thing.  Of course as all building adventures go, we did miss a couple of things.  Like extra boards for framing the glass blocks in that bathroom window.  His wife was less than impressed with us on that one.  Especially since it was a holiday weekend and we couldn’t get more boards till Tuesday evening.  We did however get that one finished up Wednesday evening, so we are back in her good graces.

The bookshelf project is going pretty well.  I have the boards cut for the frame, I just need to borrow Ede’s belt sander so I can make sure the ends are smooth and exactly the same size.  (It is going to be a 7ft long and 4ft high bookshelf – I have named it “The Unit.”)  Once the frame is together and the backboard cut, I have a nice cherry wood stain for it.  It will go really well with the darker color that I painted the room.  (Deep red, Victorian Garnet I think the technical name of it is.)  So the office is slowly coming together.  I hope to have it finished this weekend actually.  (Both the shelf and getting the office put together.)

I also managed to buy and install blinds this weekend for the master bedroom.  So that room is looking a little more finished now as well.  Once it dries out a little bit, I will bust out the Weed wacker I got for my birthday and straighten up the outside a little bit.  Other than that – there are a zillion little projects, but most will be of a more low priority nature.  The one exclusion to that being the leaky relief valve on the water heater.  (Fortunately a couple of the guys on my fire department are plumbers, so I will be able to get help on that.)

All in all though – it is nice to be able to do these projects.  Yes owning the house means potentially great expenses if something major breaks, but being able to make the place like we want it to be is also a lot of fun.  I am having fun having a garage with electricity as well.  Won’t claim to be the best Mr. Fix-it, but I am having fun trying and fun building stuff.

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, Thatedeguy, home depot, Menards, home repair, building, bookshelf

Post from: Jake's Corner

Mr. Fix it – kinda

Moving in general usually means a WalMart trip for supplies and stuff. Moving into your own house – more so I think. We have been renting a house for two years, so there are various places we are a step up from people coming from an apartment. Yet, there have been things we are lacking that one needs when they are the landlord. Though it isn’t just that, and it leads me into this installments topic: The Lawn. (Queue music and trumpets please.)

In renting our place, the neighbor kid mowed the lawn for a reasonable rate, so we never had to buy a lawn mower. His dad had his own well system, so turned the sprinkler system towards our lawn all the time. Plants, we did a little, but what point was there in investing a lot of work into someone else’s house on stuff that we couldn’t take with us? Long and short of it is, we never really had to do anything outside.

Now that we are moving into our new place, we had to get a lawn mower, hoses, sprinklers, etc. It added up pretty quick, but with a little looking around not that much. (The mower cost us $15 at a garage sale. Not the best thing in the world, but it will do the trick.) This does mean we will have to put more effort into the outside, but since the place is ours, there is an inherent desire to see what we can do with the place. I am sure there are a ton of outside tools or whatnot that we don’t have yet. However we have enough to make a start and keep the place looking decent.

The next project (and so installment) is painting: Geek or Chic?

Also, in future pieces I am planning on linking to other blogs I find that discuss this topic.

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, jamestown, north dakota, homeowner, walmart, lawn and garden

Post from: Jake's Corner

Issue 1: The New Homeowner Chronicals

Anyways – I love the concept of a Quite Zone. (Plus it would close the crossing by my Fire station so we wouldn’t have to play the fun game of dodge the crazy people trying to run us over when running from our vehicles to the station.  It is actually kind of sad we have to play that game, but people seem to be oblivious to what guys running towards a firestation means.)

The City Council in pushing this seems to be missing the critical point – every measure on the ballot that included anything with a Tax Increase failed.  *We do not want special assessments* – nor one-time fees, no matter how big or small they are. Stop spending us to death. If it is great, spend less somewhere else instead of taxing us more. (Sorry my liberal friends, but instead of always demanding more money, try reallocating.) Becoming a homeowner in the past week is making me watch that bottom line much closer – especially since those “assessments” generally come in the form of property tax.

If it is going to mean an increase in taxes just to do it, find another way. The people said no to more taxes not the idea. So don’t try to bypass them just because the idea is good.

Technorati Tags: Jamestown, North Dakota, Olorinpc

Post from: Jake's Corner

Quite Zone in Jamestown

All in all, we are still very excited.  Shane is going to try to help me finish moving the upstairs stuff over to the new place.  (Pretty much just office stuff.)  If we managed that, then it will be the main floor stuff, which all goes onto the main floor of the new place.  I think our biggest dissapointment this weekend was we weren’t going to just keep moving stuff and try to get everything moved.  (Duh it never would have worked, but we have been excited enough to think abouit it!)  Oh and that we can’t pick up Sparky (our new golden puppy) till after moving weekend.  Though that does give us more time to get puppy stuff and the place ready.

Technorati Tags: Jamestown, new house, homeowner, north dakota, olorinpc

Post from: Jake's Corner

Exciting weekend!

Actually a pretty good idea. First reason being we will have a little more time to gather stuff and also find more stuff to sell when we have everything moved out. The second being instead of trying to help with the garage sale, I can get moving on getting more boxes and actually packing things up. We close on the 11th, with the big move the weekend after that, and I feel like I have hardly anything packed. (Well that is more of a fact than a feeling, but you get the idea.)

Anywho – It just means I have to force myself to be extra productive this weekend, while at the same time crossing my fingers that there aren’t too many firecalls. (Last weekend I had a lot of house work actually all planned out was the weekend we got something around 7 pages in a 48hr period.)Technorati Tags: jamestown, north dakota, olorinpc, jake barnard

Post from: Jake's Corner

Weekend suddenly free

Now it is a bit early for me to worry about it, so I am not. However this happened to come across the newsfeed today, so I read it anyways. I have been getting a little better at this since we have rented a house for a couple of years, but seeing as we will be owning our own place next winter, I am planning on trying to do the best job I can. In the end I am sure it will save us $$, so might as well try.

Technorati Tags: House, olorinpc, jamestown, jake barnard, north dakota, winter

Post from: Jake's Corner

A bit early, but good article