Not So Famous…

According to my records, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve updated.  Is that because there’s nothing new in my life?  Because I’m not thinking about anything?  Because nothing is pissing me off?  C’mon, you should know better than that.

There’s plenty annoying me these days, sure. I just don’t have the time to write it all down like I used to.  I’m told it probably has something to do with having a kid, and that’s probable.

• I’m having a discussion with someone I love regarding Mormonism, and whether it’s a sect of Christianity or a cult.
• I’m discussing the animus imponentis of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a fellow member of my church, and listening to the audio of the recent conference on the same topic that our presbytery recently held.
• I’m discussing the fact that social life on the Internet is not the same as it once was with someone who laments the loss of the past.
• I’m preparing to have my son baptized this Lord’s Day.
• I’m watching my son learn to suck his hand and laugh at his daddy.
• I’m working on a proposal to the County of Santa Cruz for work.
• I’m playing Lord of the Rings Online, Mega Man 9, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Worms as I have time on the PC and XBox 360.
• I’m doing random home repair projects such as installing a medicine cabinet, installing a coat-rack, installing 2 ceiling fans, and replacing the door sweep/weatherstripping on my front door!
• I’m keeping up in my daily Bible reading.
• Most importantly, however, I’m trying to maintain my relationship with my wife and foster a relationship with my 2 month old son.

I’m doing a lot.  I don’t feel I’m doing most of it very well, except for the proposal.  (When I’m at work, it’s easier to focus on one thing at a time.) It’s hard to balance all of what I need to do with all of what I want to do, but it’s the subjugation of selfishness that needs to happen when it comes to kids and life.

Kim and I have been discussing how life has changed with an infant in the house.  I’m looking forward to all the teachable moments with little Iain, but as a 2 month old, he’s definitely challenging. I’ve been told before that my life would change when Iain came.  I knew this.  I knew it would be drastic.  But very few people are able to convey the magnitude of the difference, I don’t think.  :)  Even me.  :)

Anyway, I’ll not neglect this blog forever.  I’ve been keeping the software that runs it updated, etc.  I’ve been thinking about it.  :)  And when I have the time and the inclination, I’m sure I’ll write more.

To begin, the Sunday after my last update, the T1 at my work went out.  Functionally, this meant that my office had no Internet.  Now, this has a LOT of ramifications that are not instantly apparent, but suffice it to say, it caused lots of problems, and AT&T was less-than-speedy in getting the problem resolved.  On Monday, they determined the problem was their router installed in our office, which was not delivered until Tuesday, at which time it was determined that there was more than the initially diagnosed problem present, which AT&T so unhelpfully determined was my internal wiring (read: Not AT&T’s problem, so sorry), and inisisted on testing the circuit continually until finally admitting on Wednesday that there was an outage in the circuit and that they had to rewire it.  Oh, and they called me at 5am on Wednesday to let me know that…….everything was still not working.  THANKS A LOT!!!  Anyway, on Wednesday everything was up and running again.

Many of you know that we were hoping that escrow on our house would close on Friday, the 21st.  It didn’t, of course.  I still don’t know what caused the delay, or why it was insisted upon that we rush to sign the Brazilian Rainforest-sized stack of papers just so we could wait almost a week for things to close, but ultimately, the house closed on Wednesday…just before Thanksgiving.  Happily, Kim decided to buy paint on the off-chance that we would close Wednesday, so we had a lot of paint.  Our door shopping was less-than-fruitful, but we went to Home Depot on Wednesday night and bought a door, which we planned to install on Friday.

Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving.  A little quieter this year, which was nice, since the storm approaches with house-preparing, and little Iain coming.

Friday was a tremendous pain in my sizeable butt.  MANY thanks to the people from church who came to help out.  We can’t thank you enough for all the help painting!!!!  And uber-thanks to Gabe, who fumed with me at the stupid door we finally got up by the end of the stinkin’ day.  Also for helping me figure out how to install the toilet-flushing mechanics in the front bathroom.

Saturday was much the same as Friday, with the painting.  The difference was that instead of farting around with a stupid door, we were attempting to repair what has come to be known as “Satan’s Toilet”. Seriously, I cannot believe how much of a pain this stupid toilet was to repair.  Here is a list of what had to be done, and what went wrong:

1. To begin, we knew we needed to replace the wax ring at the base of the toilet.  “No problem”, we were told. “Just buy a nice wax ring with a cone in it, and everything will be fine.”  So we started to take the stupid toilet apart Friday night.  Right bolt of the tank came off just fine.  Left bolt…….not so much.  It was rusted completely immovable. We were already seeing how this toilet was going to behave, so we got dinner and watched The Illusionist to close out the night on a good note.
2. We ended up trying a bunch of different ways to get the stupid toilet bolt undone, and ended up using a grinding drill attachment that we used to finagle the stupid door the day before to actually grind THROUGH the stupid nut.  Yay.  Tank came off.  Now for the wax ring.
3. The wax ring was completely obliterated, along with the mounting collar thing.  We couldn’t even see how the heck the thing was ever attached.  Finding the right collar was about 5-6 trips to the stupid hardware store, where we were sold a collar that was too small, an insert that was too high to set the toilet down, and told that we needed to drill holes in the concrete floor despite there not being any  from the last time.
4. We finally got a mounting ring that would work, and got the toilet put together.
5. We dubbed the toilet Satan’s Toilet, and it took us nearly all day to get the stupid thing done.

We got most of the painting done, got the door mostly up and functioning, and now have two working toilets.

Black Widow death toll: 3

Swearing in front of a member of our church: 1

Sanity Lost: 2 (Gabe and Me)

Still, we got a lot of work done, and all the fussing and arguing with inanimate objects made Kim very happy with me.  Also, I know how to put up a door now…the next one will be much easier.  And toilets hold no mystery for me any longer.