tap my glass

Been out a few times recently. Saw the hold steady at zaphods:

Then last weekend saw his brood ness elliott brood at barrymore’s:

They were both incredibly large shows. Massive in fact.

In other news, my renovation obsession is almost done. As i last updated you, the drywall is done. Unfortunately, it looks like shit, i did a pretty crap job, but the job is done. It has since been painted, and the floors are in. Now its to the moldings, frames, paint those, and then ly on the floor and bask. Then its nothing but computer games and for a few months. Ay…. well, we’ll see about all that. But definitely some chillout time is in order.

After what feels like forever, the drywall in the back room and a little bit of the corridor, is done. I just finished the final sanding run after the 3rd (or millionth) coat of mud. Phew. Doing your own drywall is REALLY time consuming. It just takes SOOOO long to mud corners, sand em down, fix skrew holes, etc.. But it is done now. I don’t care if it looks like shit, but its done. I actually think its a pretty decent job, the ceiling corners aren’t perfect, but most of the rest of it should be ok. Next is painting… and then finally, FINALLY, i can put the frickin floors down that have been sitting amidst the dust for months. O, and i can clean my house now, now, i have no excuse, there will be no more massive dust generation. Ahh, clean house.

I’m about to go out to a friends going away party now. He’s joining the army, takes off for basic training next monday. I’m not sure what i think about it. Obviously i wish him the best. Perhaps if i hadn’t of inhaled so much dust over the past 4 hours… well actually i was wearing a ventilator.

I really try to find excuses all the time don’t eye? I’m tired… ahh, but soon i won’t be, as this massive weight will soon be off my shoulders, and i can safely sleep in on the weekend, stay in bed, play video games, poker, etc., without a massive project looming. There i go, talking about myself again, totally self obsessed. I promise to reach outwards once my abode is under control, promise.

The bathroom, and my week off, are almost done. Today i finished the shower tiling, cleaned up the tub, installed the light fixture, turned the power back on. Damn 13w energy saving lights the girl convinced me to get aren’t frickin bright enough!!! They were expensive too. O well.

Its been a long week, i haven’t really stopped doing work since it began, and really only have about half of what i wanted to get done, done. I may not even finish tomorrow, that epoxy grout is tuff shit, and i still don’t have a sink solution. Should hopefully figure that one out tomorrow. Might just use my old cabinet, cause i know it fits, and get a “vessel” and new funky faucet for the top. We’ll see.

Heres a quick update (i always appreciate nudges, thanks shell!) on how my renos are going.

I’ve shifted focus to the bedroom/2ndroom of the unit. This weekend was highly productive. The wall’s framing is complete, its electrical (once doublechecked since i had to move the outlets out) is all done, and the ceiling is strapped, insulated, and (mostly) ready for drywall. I’ve finally cleared out the majority of shit from the room and its relatively clean. I’m hoping this weekend i can get some folks over to help me throw the gypsum up on the ceiling and the walls (most of the walls).

The one wall that i won’t, is the bathroom. The bathroom is tricky cause i want to do the floors, new sink, and the tub. First thing will be to throw out the old sink, decommision and move the toilet out, screw the floor (literally), and lay tile. Then grout, then probably some sealant. Then the toilet can go back in and i can pee again…. but there’s gonna be some time delay in there. If i’m uberfast, i can get all that done in a long day. But it will be tough. O, i forgot, the drywall really needs to go up first, and if theres a crease behind the toilet, it should be taped and compounded first. Not to mentionthe toilet needs to be moved a few inches - i haven’t figured out how i’m gonna do that yet. But it must be done!

The tile has all been bought. I’m doing this dark brownish/blackish tile on the floor, dark grout. The tub will be slick white on white with a boobhigh strip of these kick ass red glass tiles. It should be quite striking, hopefully. But thats another issue - not having a shower, no doubt for a few days (epoxy grout == hard to work with), but it needs to be done. Right now the wall with the shower spout is the only remaining chunk of the old dividing wall, the water coming out of the pipe hanging on a thread. But its worked so far.

Ok, thats it. Good progress, but so much left to do. Let me do a quick run down:
- added floor joists above
- rebuilt wall between bath and bedroom
- removed and rerouted existing electrical
- removed old redundant beam
- removed ceiling, drywall and wood
- removed all drywall, wood from one wall
- removed crap flooring
- added new beam for 1 existing and one new joist
- added new framing to exterior wall
- removed many, many nails
- insulated exterior wall
- ran 2 new curcuits, 3 plugs, 2 fixtures, 3 switches
- installed bath fan
- strapped ceiling
- added some ceiling sound insulation
- sweated a lot, fretted a lot, and had a lot of smoke breaks, the best of which include ice cream

But its been fun, and its good cause soon i’ll actually have made “real progress”!!! Then to pick some flooring for the little hall and bedroom. Soon, soon, soon.

And hey, thanks for reading this far!!!! I’m going to sleep now.

I’ve always had a serious problem with people who misuse lanes on the queensway. When i get off at kent, i like the fourth, rightmost lane to be all mine after bronson. I’ll cruise along slightly faster than the rest of the snarly traffic, and should have an unobstructed path to kent street. But you get those days, where there’ll be a dozen cars all left blinky blinky holdin me up, and it pisses me off. Sure, a couple coulda been from outta town and oblivious to the signs, but most are just making use of the real estate at other, more considerate drivers expenses.

Thats not really that bad though - worse, is the westbound conjunction of the 416 to the queensway. Damn this pisses me off somethin fierce. You get slowdowns every morning, sometimes as far back as the bayshore offramp (rare), and then low and behold, a new lane develops half a click before the moodie offramp!!! “This lane must be for me to pass all these people” says annoying assholes in hummer h2’s and various other scorn worthy vehicles. They cross lines and pull out at the first sight of a clear chunk of pavement, nary a shouldercheck to look for incoming legitimate mergers they will be disguising themselves as 10 seconds later. Holy crap, something fierce, i hate that. Am i right in this? Or is this survival of the fittest? I think its selfish and uncanadian, and it pisses me off.

And don’t get me started on march and campeau. Holy crap. Something equally fierce.

In other news, i think i’m going to reframe my back bedroom from the inside out. Theres only a few nails holding up the second story of my house so i’m gonna add some more support from the inside. The room is gutted now, ready for 2 by 4 action. First thing though, i need to decide if i want to replace the window. Its shite. I might replace a bunch of windows. And by me, i mean someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. Cause i don’t think i should mess with windows… should i??

I just realized i haven’t sat down and relaxed without anything in the backdrop to do, for a very long time. Since i got my house, which is approaching 1 year ago, there has always been something that needed to get the pump done. Always something to look into, research, figure out, decide, buy, fanagle, shim, cut, or pry out just waiting for me to find the time. Tonite after a hard day of not turning my panel off when working on it (i think i will from now on), i decided to relax the pump out tonite. I’ve almost forgotten how?? But i did remember, and it has been kinda nice. Except i eat far too much when i’m relaxing.

Serious electrical work has been accomplished. I know can/have done junction boxes, know that that thing that home depot *doesn’t* sell to connect wires to a box is a connector, have discovered crazy circuits, not gotten zapped, and have almost completely isolated the upstairs panel from the downstairs (only two outlets left, yippee!!!). The back room is also sans drywall, power, flooring and ceiling, its all ready to be applied to. It is my playground, and hopefully it will be completed in the next few months. Ahhh, fun stuff.

In other news i’m trying to train for this 10k race coming up at the end of may. It should be ok, the “training” is hard, mostly because i haven’t given my body a rest from intoxicants like i should. Its tuff, trying to enjoy and partake in my lifestyle is not condusive to removal of certain seemingly important elements for long periods of time. But in the grand scheme, another 5 or 6 weeks is by no means long, and it really should be done.

I hope the leaves come out soon. I’m basically sitting here waiting for that to happen. I’m procrastinating about fixing stuff, just trying to work the energy up to put a shirt on and go upstairs to fix a bathroom sink cabinet thingy. I didn’t install it too well considering my floors being all slanty and the bottom of the thang being all straight. Sometimes shimming just doesn’t do the trick. You need to screw too.

I went to the home n garden show yesterday. It was ok, pretty much what you’d expect. Every third booth seemed to be someone selling a miracle squeegee product, or miracle “never clean your <blah> again!!!” solution (90% of the time you could substitute in the word “gutter” for “blah”). I bought some seeds. I got some black tomatos, some cantelopes, and some smoking tobacco. I’ve got an aquarium where fish had previously died and i don’t want to see that happen again. I’m gonna plant some stuff, see what happens. It should be ok, their death shouldn’t be taken so bad, and i won’t constantly feel like the specimens could have a better life somewhere else (even thought that’ll be the case with the plants).

I’m also in the process of tearing the shite outta my back room, ceilings are coming down, light fixtures will be installed, chimneys probably not get removed, but crazy weird beams are gonna come crashing down. I hope my house doesn’t. It shouldn’t, but you never know.

Other than all this everything is superb. Back to the old adage “why write in your blog when everything is peachy?”.

If a door stop needs installing, don’t wait, install now!!!

Holes that were once holes that get fixed, but then become holes again, aren’t like seasons, or memories, or other things that go away and come back. They don’t create a feeling of warmth, and comfort. They don’t make you feel that life is worth living, and all the bad times were just a test and penance for the good times, which are the majority. O no, not at all… reoccuring holes are nothing like that.

What reoccuring holes do, is make you realize you have prioritization issues. They teach you that once a wall is damaged, it will never be the same again. Like the battered fruit that is our brain matter and conciousness, we struggle to understand our place and our surroundings, and the reoccuring hole makes us realize how little we’ve progressed. The reoccuring hole symbolizes all that is wrong with our society, and teaches us nothing of how to advance further.

Ok, i ramble, but DAMN IT, I’M PISSED!!!!! Now i have to try to patch it again, reputty, repaint, yada yada. I moved my bed too so i’ll be staring at it every night before i go to bed. Silly, silly me.

Its been a *busy* week and a bit. I made my house look even more ghetto by stringing up some old school xmas lights outside. I did however finally take the tape off the front windows, it helped the ghettoness, but i was getting sick of looking at it. I had some panel work done, yadayada, this is the first time i’ve sat down at my desk in my new location and do nothing but play poker and drink a beer. I’m also eating corn chips and learning of proscuitto (including how to spell it!!!).

As for all that lustation mumbo jumbo, lets just say life never turns out the way you expect it, and lust can be redirected just as easy as it can run away screaming and shouting. And sometimes, it might even come back to you…

So the painting, at least what is currently necessary, is done. The front, the burnt pumpkin, worked out super kickassedly. My bedroom, while bright orangy/yellow del sol, is good. The bathroom, smurf blue, is ok. Its all still quite ghetto, but looking less n less every day i’m here. Which, officially, this is my first full one. So i’m in good shape. Stuff is everywhere waiting for shelves to be built, and organization to occur, but it will, all in good time. I can’t wait to rip the crap out of the floors and see whats going on underneath… can’t sand till the spring, but at least i could make an inch or two of head room and walk on 4$ ghetto runner rugs from crappy tire for the winter.

In other news, what do people think of purely physical infatuation? When you see something or somebody that you just have a total desire for, but for little reason other than physical traits and mannerisms? The little dialogue that has taken place has been well scripted and predictable and little judge to base any real feelings on… is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is this feromonal, or is it fantasy? Worthy of consideration or best left to dream about? Is there any way to bridge the gap when the scripted dialogue is at least set in clay… that clay’s pretty hard too. Straying from the script might arouse suspicion from the director… but i suppose the worst case is you’ll be thrown out of the play, and your reputation, albeit in a smallish circle, will be forever tarnished. But i guess your resume will still expand. I’m willing to learn the hard way either way, but if anyone has opinions, let me know, i’ll let you know what the director does if i do anything diddly in the decending dreary days.