Austin ModHouse

advertising has taken control of #1 son.  he's been obsessed with the fun promised at chuck e. cheese's.  I took the three kids for lunch.  after a large pizza, soda and dealing with tokens, games and tickets... we were all worn out. 

while we were up north we made a house call to a listing of mine.  it has a brand new price.  I knew there was a great likelyhood I'd get to meet a neighbor or two.  sure enough, one soon appeared and had this to say, "new price, that's an interesting prospect".  

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we reshuffled the flor and found it related better with cork in this manner.  

rest of the cork is down.  next is plumbing and cabinetry.

for many years kat has been talking about her yearning for some Hotel California karaoke action.

like al bundy reminding us of the glory days, she has often told us when she was the lead singer in a band in taiwan that "performed for thousands of people".   she finally purchased sing-star to show us all.  the game is sort of like guitar-hero mixed with karoke.  it actually grades your performance on correct tone and delivery.  kat was quick to tackle some of the more difficult songs and mastered U2"s "Beautiful Day" on her first attempt.  she certainly did validate her singing ability.

I'm aware of my abilities and steered us into the Ramone's "I wanna be sedated".   I found that David Bowie sets the bar pretty high in "Heroes" (I didn't do so well).  this game is actually a great tool for learning to sing.  you can see in the pic above how it shows where your tone should be and when the singer is too high or too low.  my daughter found she can do pretty well along to blondie's "Call Me".

after my failure with Heroes I got back in my groove with joy division .  something to be said about knowing your limits... or that I identify with the mentally disabled.

quickly developing his motor skills

continuing the marathon summer birthday celebration we went bowling at the UT underground. 

my daughter was recently upset and discouraged by her bowling ability at a classmates bowling birthday party.  we made plans to go when the lanes were mostly empty so she can perfect her technique without pressure.  by the end of the game she was regularly sending the ball straight down the lane at nearly 8 mph.  she was extremely excited.  kat didn't do so well, but she can sing.

after bowling we found we had a thirst for cheap beer and greasy food so we went over to dirty martin's .

then we made a trip to fiesta where kat got her chicharones.  we also stocked up on dried chilies and unsweetened chocolate to make mole enchiladas.  too bad that hsin-hsin is not here to help make the mole.  I have tried to explain that the sauce has chocolate in it but she is certain I am joking.

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before the gig. outside legendary antone's downtown austin.  the lucky thirteen shirt really tied the outfit together.  funny thing about this summer rock camp.  she set her alarm and got up early every morning, got herself dressed, brushed and braided her hair all on her own.  

in the green room eating animal crackers with her band.

sugar is a powerful drug

we were anxious for the show to begin.

a few people came out for the show.

being introduced by their instructor.   

they hit the stage and rocked "schools out for summer".

the singer managed to put in a great deal of energy that I didn't notice during rehearsals.  they nailed it! closed with an excellent version of "psycho killer"

mexican food after the show.  daughter's birthday is approaching and she's requested a sampling of austin's best enchiladas.  kat has perfected the two fisting method while browsing the menu.  we started with tacos al pastor.

he acquired the sword from kat's mexican martini to help keep his taco together. 

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two decades ago the wine world was taken over by bad rose (sutter home), they called it white zinfandel.  as temps are daily around or over 100 and the evenings are still warm, we drink less zin, shiraz and cab.  we tried a rose malbec that we really enjoyed.

#1 son loves salmon skin.  he has been complaining when I buy salmon at sam's (5.99 lb) that has already been skinned.  so we splurged and got wild caught alaskan sockeye salmon (18.99 a lb).  my daughter and I don't really care for the skins so we send ours to the skin loving side of the table.  I made sure #1 son got a huge piece of skin that he promptly shoveled into his mouth.  then he was too full to eat the salmon.

as the sun starts to set, marvin assumes his position to wait for dirk the axe wielding dare ga-nome to illuminate.

a good time was had by all.

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about half way done with the crazy cork flooring.  some days when I am sick of thinking about parcel ID numbers, the cost of diapers and the fuel spent going to the store or my thorens that has become a thorn in my side, I really enjoy going out into the heat to work with something tactile.  but then I come back inside... 

I liked the clouds over my crazy garage wall.

soon I will show some images of the crazy pioneer cabin we found at the back of the property.   

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the new flor in bedroom area of the overlander 

gamma ray protection camp 

he's into pirates.

she wanted a visor

chef inspired head protection for the heavy eater.

scary dude with dirty shirt...?  

I think there is a new modernist residence in progress on the other side of the valley from us. 

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yesterday I wrote that I planned to polish the burke chair base.  today I did it.

a boy will be born unto you.  he will eat in massive quantities and produce great volumes (in audible tones and diaper deposits).   

joyous shall he be.  until he completes the task of eight hours continuous sleep, crankiness will be bestowed upon your chambers.

the prophecy has been fulfilled. 

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an ebay find.  buy it now price was only $40.  we'd stumbled on it within the first hour of it being posted.  they normally end much higher.  the base is aluminum and I can polish it to a mirror shine.  this will go in the airstream once I am done installing the flor and cork flooring.

if it looks a tad familiar...

 the burke chair made in dallas was also used on the starship enterprise, from the original star trek series. 

my daughter was happy that is was made in here in the USA like things used to be.  she is tired of finding the made in china label on everything. however I don't think burke still makes chairs and if they did, they would have likely outsourced production to china just like nearly every other american maker of goods.

the sleeper sofa for the front of the 68 airstream overlander has also arrived.  I really need to get back to work on that project as the new parts are starting to arrive.  it was designed in denmark, made in china.

her band; breakfast cereal killers, have three songs in their portfolio since they added miss you by the rolling stones and schools out by alice cooper.  the rolling stones song prompted a mother to request a lyrics change as her daughter was not comfortable with the original.  we can sympathize with the sensitivities of a young female, however, it is school or ROCK and not school of NURSERY RHYMES.  I'm sure they'll do great.  they have their first gig at antone's in less than a week.

sofa made in italy, 1950's coffe table made in USA with a base made by me last year.  guitar made in china.

keeping us on our science fiction theme, her brother practices his light saber (thank you, wookiepedia)

back to the cool house tour of 2008, I understand some tourist had suggested we insist that the cool house tour folks strike out the comment about our rain water collecting pool cover!  I'm sure they'd love to ask for the couple thousand brochures to be returned so they can strike out that line!

here is how it works: we have a pool cover.  when it rains, the rain water collects ON the cover.  we have a pump with a hose attached.  that pumps the rain water OFF the cover; it's a safety issue in case somebody falls onto the cover.  the pump is attached to a hose that can be directed to water the lawn or into a rain water collection barrel for later use.  so YES, our pool cover does collect rain water that we can use to on our landscaping.   

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the cool house tour was yesterday.

we were told to expect at least 1800-2000 tourists.  they had around 3500 tickets that were out there.  nobody counted heads so we are not sure exactly how many people came through.   

they asked people to take their shoes off 

it was hot outside.  after several hours of touring, they were tired and found a place to sit.

we were the only house on the tour with geothermal hvac.  we had thought our mechanical contractor and neighbor would be in attendance, I heard he went out of town.  so, I had to spend six hours explaining how a geothermal havc works.

some people really don't get that it's just a regular heat pump inside.  they were convinced that I would not be able to heat my home beyond 67 degree in the winter.  one person got quite argumenative.  I should've made a diagram on the chalkboard to explain.  would've saved me 5.5 hours of talking.

other popular questions were, "what is this counter material?" it's caeserstone 

and, "what is that on the wall?" answer: polygal

it was odd being a fly on the wall in our own home.  some folks act like they are in a model home, they have little restraint, if they want to see in a drawer, they just open it.  it's odd to observe somebody peeking in my sock drawer.

 the one comment we heard a lot of is how our home is "fun", or "lived in".  one girl got very excited and exclaimed, "LOOK!, KIDS LIVE HERE!"  maybe we differ a little from the turtleneck clad modernist crowd.

at 6 pm we turned on the music and opened a 2002 miner syrah magnum

we invited neighbors and friends over.  there were many kids.  they ran wild.  there was little we could do to slow the chaos.

we had captured one of the tadpoles.

we returned it to the lower pool the next morning.

looks like we will have a few more tadpoles on the way.

going backwards, below is before the cool house tour of 2008

I had finished shoveling granite to repair the driveway on friday. 

it rained saturday.

a new ravine in the driveway.

saturday eve was a great time to be on the green deck.

took a few pics of the house while it was all cleaned up for the tour.

shannon from shelter (the builder) was dispatched to remove the sticker from the window that is way up high.  bobby (GC) was not thrilled that it had not been removed before they installed it.  I just don't have a professional window cleaning crew in my budget.  we used to extension poles, some masking tape, a scraper and a hose clamp.

master bed room.

master bath

dingus in his natural habitat, poptropica

daughter's room

landscaping by owner.

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the KXAN news feature has been loaded on their website.  I heard they showed a snippet of it last night and we did manage to catch the full story at 6.45 this morning (I look fat)

LINK HERE 

my "to do" list is empty.  I even got a few extra items done.  a big part of that success is that my mother has been cleaning the house so I can do other stuffs.  I even shoveled more crushed granite onto the driveway.  I was not amused when it started to sprinkle soon as I completed that chore again.  we really need the rain but I was glad my driveway did not wash away before sunday (so far)

got a shade sail over the seating area on the green deck/roof

and file this under the NEVER A DULL MOMENT category:

we were getting ready for our late afternoon swim when the dogs started barking towards the back fence.  they can't get to the back without receiving a "correction" from the invisible fence.  

we found a baby deer was trapped back there.  somehow, we have two fences between us and the property along the street behind us with a space of about 18 inches between the two.  this baby deer had managed to get in between them and could not get out.  

I managed to squeeze in there and had hoped to grab it and carry it out.  it took one look at me and said "BAAAAA-AAAAAH!".   it then proceeded to throw itself into the fence and try to jump into it.  I could see it's nose was getting bloody so I froze and it then ran past me and found a gap.

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after a year of living in the house, we have the family pictures off the floor and on to the wall.  we gained something that looks lived in but lost a bit of that crispness of blank white walls.  we chose the long corridor outside the kid's rooms for pictures of ourselves.

for the other big sections of blank wall...

on loan from our friend, artist sharon kyle-kuhn 

she carefully chose pieces that would compliment the flow of the house.  

I love how the blue dot on the wall seems to be poking fun at the blue dot on the blue moon neon sign and the painting over the fireplace seems to mimic the whole area.

sharon likes to use an assortment of found objects.  here, we see used packaging scraps mixed with encaustic   she often pigments the medium herself with things common to every day life; dirt, paprika, tumeric etc.  I have not yet nibbled on any of them but they sure look great on our walls.

after the sun set, marvin showed his distrust of what has made the new zoysia it's home; dirk, the black axe wielding gnome.

kxan was here at 7.45 this morning 

 just stumbled on an article listing the 10 best places to live.  one of the factors listed was % of workforce in the "creative class".  austin topped that category at 36.5%.

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around four years ago I made us a new dining table.

it's held up well which is very impressive considering all the time that is spent there doing homework, eating meals or just enjoying a cup of coffee. 

there are several blogs I follow through the course of the week.  I was surprised to see what appears to be my table on the freegreen.com blog

 after closer inspection I see their image has a butcher block sort of top.  after all, I did buy the legs at ikea, they are an off the shelf modern item.  but my top is kirei board which is not so common...  but then, I flipped to another blog and found the Jetson Green blog featuring kirei board!

 maybe I'm just paranoid and this all has nothing to do with me and mind control/reading rays and I can take off my special hat

 I think NOT!  the hat is staying ON.

rock camp is in session. 

and very timely is that the first song they are learning to play, PSYCHO KILLER

I shouldn't worry... right?  maybe I need a special suit too? 

either way, she is very excited about her band.  it's great to see her so confident and practicing. 

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getting things ready for the cool house tour has involved getting rid of a bunch of surplus building materials.  we can't seem to throw useful materials away and have held on to them for "future projects".  it is now time to use it or loose it. 

this far end wall of the garage has always leaked.  all the water sheets down the wall that has no overhang.  the tongue and groove cedar just wicked a lot of that up.  now we have this mondrian-esque metal skin that reaks of neoplasticism.  thanks to my mom for working out there in the heat and the sun to make this happen.

I discovered and anihilated two more giant wasp nests.  they are likely attracted to our van gogh-esque sunflower field .

kat spent the morning replanting the circle in the middle of the drive.  we strive to plant texas natives that are drought resistant.  yet, she has been getting caught by bright blooming annuals.  her last selection lasted about a week before they turned brown and crispy.  this mix of succulents and sedums has a good shot at making it for the long haul.  we know some of these are suriviors because we cut them from a nearby cactus patch that was growing like mad.

I spent the morning putting up some shade cloth over what we call the man-hole.  the idea is that if we have a bunch of people at the house, this is where the men and congregate to get away from the women.  (I borrowed this concept and name from a friend's ranch I visited) our man-hole is the paved space between the garage and the carport.

  it's a great idea but since I do all the cooking, I am often found lurking around the kitchen, or wherever the wine is.  the correct title for the pic above would be; KAT IN MY MAN HOLE.

she was demonstrating that the shade cloth works.  there was an instant fifteen degreen difference. 

the chunk being cooperative.

this one didn't make it.  was being eaten from the inside by ants.

it was replaced by a pair of yucca 

 after we finished all this hot yard work we were in need of some spicy father's day foods.  we saw a car pull up and a nice couple got out with their child.  they greeted us and explained how excited they were to be touring our house.  I had to tell them we were not ready and could they please come back NEXT sunday.

it's father's day and I wasn't gonna put on airs about some fancy food joint.  I wanted super spicy with a big beer.  I once spent a year working in the kitchen at hooter's while I was studying photography,  I still have a soft spot for their wings,  but today we opted for plucker's!  they have THE spiciest foods I have ever put in my mouth, fire in the hole wings! 

when Hsin-hsin was here I made a special trip to pluckers to share these wings.  I've seen her eat a raw jalapeno like it was an apple.  the fire in the hole wings proved too much for her.  kat had announced that she would not give in to the spicy temptation, but she ended up eating some as well.  my mom also had some of the spicy chicken delights.

a fireman's #4 so big it takes two hands (this was before the spicy chicken)

we are VIP material at pluckers.  later we called my father to wish him a happy father's day.  he asked oldest son (pictured above) what we did for father's day.  his reply, "uh, we went to pluckers and got plucked up!"

the chunk is still too young to sample their endorphin rush poultry consumables.  that has not stopped him from expansion.  I'm not sure we will be able to carry him in a few months if he keeps sumoing at this rate.

she can eat the hot (which is pretty darn hot!) but not the fire in the hole.

this is kat after giving in to the poultry of pain.  they also have great sweet potato fries!

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!!!!Thomas McConnell has posted a bunch of his shots for the cool house tour.  ours is the first of the group.  kat and I just stared at his pics for a while this morning.  we'd like to move into that house, nevermind the real thing was behind us, we like looking at his pics better!

click HERE to see the pics he took of our house 

I also like looking at the toguchi & weathroford house that is #25 of the guide book I wish I could go on the tour.  but I sorta have to stick around here.  I'd also like to see the binford residence #7. 

could somebody ask the folks at the billig bldg #31 who made those crazy tiles I see over the front door, on the back splash and up a column near the kitchen.  also of interest is the nick mehl design #33 (we have friends planning to build a nick mehl design) and the pilgrim build #32 (we were in this house while it was under construction, I like pilgrim)

we got some CRAZY bugs in tx.  found this crawling by the pool.

he started playing possum when I put him on this paper to take his pic

I've been spending short bursts of time in the garage.  I would run in, get what I needed and run out as I could hear the buzzing.  I saw the yellow jackets seemed to circle this bag of car parts.

I suited up and went in armed with wasp spray!

the nest!

evicted!  permanently!

nana's summer craft camp is in session.  daughter loves artsy things.  #1 son said, "do I have to paint more pots?"  he did eventually tap into his inner artist and find pleasure in applying paint to pots.

my daughter made this in last summer's clay camp.  she has rock camp starting next week.  she'll be playing guitar in a band.

halloween?  no, it was on sale at harbor freight tools and my old welding helmet was getting slow with the dimming action.  so now I am the cyclops flaming skull welder.  had to do a repair down by the car port.  when I first welded some of the fencing I was running through a 100 ft extension cord.  didn't get good penetration.  good and secure now.

life in the lower pond is thriving.  the snails have many, many, many baby snails.  the mussels are happy and we have several tadpoles.

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when we have guests over for the first time we most often hear "the pictures on the blog don't do your house justice".  I don't take it personally as I have never put a great deal of effort into them, I'm too busy with house projects!  and kids!  and life!  

so now I don't have to.  the pic above was taken by thomas mcconnell.  he has several good pics of our home on his website.  his lens angles are wider than mine!  (there are two links, the first has a a pic of our kitchen and dining area if you let it scroll, the second screen will have a page where the pic above is found).

THE NEW PHONE BOOK IS HERE, THE NEW PHONE BOOK IS HERE! 

 OK, so it's not the new phone book.  it's the guide book for this years cool house tour. 

 we are on page 19 (pdf of austin cool house tour guide book 2008 here)

there are a few errors, kat has no "e" in her name, we have no need for a terminex barrier as we have no wood framing, and "west lake hills" is three words, not two.  people often get that wrong since the city of west lake hills is in an area commonly referred as, westlake.

 I have not yet seen the cover of the guide book, BUT I have heard that I am on it.  we're all itchy to get down to central market and ask to see a copy  and confirm this rumor.  I could very well be a blur and I recall asking thomas if I shouldn't put on a clean shirt etc.  my was dirty from cleaning up and working around the house and we don't even own an iron...  ironing of shirts is a complete waste of time and resources and a fowl display of vanity.  a status symbol that is rarely seen in austin where flip-flops are business casual (says cool house tour cover boy 2008)

edit-I just saw that the cover is the last page of the pdf (page 43) me and my unironed dirty shirt are a bit of a blur 

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I often catch up on other modern home blogs at livemodern.com
  marshall mayer has compiled a list of blogs that are fed through there.  sort of like a google reader but without the effort of finding then subscribing to all the modern home blogs yourself or having to sign in.

I was a bit confused when I found this image from our blog posted on another blog.  took me a minute to realize what I was looking at.  it was a blog post about our blog, and here I am blogging on that blog entry...

my friend, architect gregory la vardera, often posts to the materialicious blog

it's true, I don't like turtle necks.  most of the year it's just too hot to wear turtle necks in texas.  besides, I never liked that choking feeling, makes me feel a bit chlostrophobic.

I was pleased to read that we are "just living a regular life" 

every now and then I run into somebody who reads the blog.  every once in a while somebody will tell me, "WOW that is some exciting life you have!"  ... I'm not sure if that is really a reflection of my life or the person making the observation.

while I'm on about blogs...  I recently found this on modernaustin.com

I'm happy with what I have, don't have a lot of wants or lusts after more and more... but this house makes me want for more money.  it's just around the corner from where we currently live.  if only I had a spare 1.5M to buy this to use for entertaining, or a weekend house or... something! 

anybody out there interested in ownging this?  wanna be my neighbor?  give me a call and I'll schedule a viewing; 512-587-7310.  if I can't buy it myself, it'd be great have a friendly neighborhood modernist for the ocasional evening cocktail.

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this should explain the blue framing at the far end of the pool 

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I've received a few questions about the blue structure at the end of the pool.  it is to support a shade cloth that we took down when it started to get real windy.  I'm hoping to get it back up today. 

this weekend we did little but sit by the pool and discuss the event for sunday eve, the cure concert.   

back in july of 1986 my friend steven and I drove to Dallas from our apartment in shreveport louisiana.  we went to see the cure play at the bronco bowl.  how we managed to do such things before internet and cell phones, we don't know.  I don't have the slightest recollection of how we even found out they were playing or how we got the tickets.   in 1986 shreveport louisiana, if you listened to the cure, you were definitely counter culture material.    that trip to dallas made a big impact on us as we no longer felt like outsiders.  we found thousands of people like us.  turns out there was nothing wrong with us that a little change of venue couldn't cure.  we soon left shreveport for brighter lights.

fast forward to 2008 and the cure was coming to austin.  emails were sent. tickets purchased early one morning (show sold out in a few hours).  work was juggled and vacation time was requested.   kids schools and sitters were managed.  

so a group of friends that started in the 80's had friday, saturday and sunday to do little but sit by the pool, eat some rudy's brisket and zu-zu's handmade mexican food. 

back out now if this eatin' drinkin' swimmin' and cure concert business is of no interest to you.

birds flock together

I inhereted some gift baskets that were made for the friends that were to put up scott and ali.  plan fell through due to illness so I got me some baskets!

steven was very excited and found that words failed to fully describe his emotions.

pass the baby on the screen porch.  we had nice weather all weekend and we are thankful that we are still able to sit out there in comfort.

our friend cmoore could not manage to get to austin so he caught the cure in dallas on friday night.  we all gathered around the mini mac media server as more than 70 pics rolled in over a period of 3 and a half hours.  it's funny that they don't allow cameras at concerts but now everybody has one on their phone, everybody except me... it's just about time for me to get a new phone.  anyhow, we appreciated his effort but after a/b 20 concert pics from an iphone, they all started to look the same.  (ok, I went back and looked at some more of the pics and there are some really good ones mixed in there, especially considering that they are from an iphone and 10 rows back from the stage)
 

little m had a birthday.  she seemed quite surprised a room full of adults (adults that had just spent the day sitting in the sun pouring tecate down their pie holes) singing happy birthday to her.  I'm sure we sounded awesome!

troy made good use of the new house media server to demonstrate how you can loose hours finding anything you can think of on youtube.  when not handling a computer he can be found on you tube playing with electricity. 

more sitting by the pool.

well, something has to be done about it. 

somebody needs to make a rule about tall people who stand in front of short people.  this was taken from our spot at the sunday night show.  had to borrow a phone to take pics since mine is lacking that feature.  I'm still not convinced I need to shell out big $ for an iphone, I already use an itouch and kat is hatching plans to acquire that for herself, once I get a new iphone.  (UPDATE, I just read that the new iphone is due out in about a month at prices as low as $199)

 the cure did not disappoint.  it was almost overwhelming to be there with many of my friends from almost 25 years ago and to have the same music that was so much a part of our lives then.  they played around 35 songs in a time of three hours or so.

three imaginary boys
fire in cairo
boys don't cry
jumping someone else's train
grinding halt
10:15 saturday night
killing an arab

we love live music.  the fact that austin is the live music capital of the world did play a factor in our decision to live here. 

not every show is a winner, some bands just suck live.  they have no enthusiasm or the sound is not as good as their recording.  some bands have some energy but they sound too much like the recordings.  they might be able to pull this off as a good live show if they are the new flavor of the moment with no long term fans. 

when you've been at it as long as the cure has (since 1976), the bar is set pretty high.  it's just fantastic to see really old songs get a new spin.  we were all exhausted and hungry after the hours we spent standing there (opening band, 65 days of static were also good) 

it wasn't all good.  there seem to be three types of people who go to these big shows.  

one will get there early to find a comfortable space to claim (us)

another has a smaller circle of personal space and does not mind crowding the folks who got there early but are generally nice folks.  they are often welcomed to share the live music experience by the first group as long as they don't step on toes.

the third and vilest type of person agressively moves in on any inch of space held by the person who got there first.  and those early bird types typically want to enjoy the larger circle of personal space  (proxemics) and will often shift when things get crowded.  end result is that as crowds get denser, the person who got there first get's bumped out of the prime real estate.  we did have a group of around sixteen people there to defend our space.  but after three hours some folks did manage to infiltrate and some toes did get stepped on.  all the same, we did meet some very cool folks who, like us, got there early.  we enjoyed sharing our space with them.  we met dr. todd "the rock doctor" and tarah who works for starbucks in round rock (sorry but round rock is outside of my comfort zone, too far north).

notably missing from  last night was cmoore, chris smith (who I hear reads this blog and is considering a move to austin) and also emily hogan.  you shoulda been there EM!  there is always the next one!

 to the girls from coushatta lousiana, who drove up to shreveport that summer of 86, and crawled through the A.P.T. window when they found I was not home, got upset and ripped up my head on the door poster that emily had brought back to me from london... that was unnecessary.  back in 1986 we didn't have iphones and there must have been some miscommunication.  you really, really didn't have to rip up that poster.

 I'd also like to send a belated "get well soon" to our friend mike o'mara back in baltimore.  we've been intending to send an actual card via snail mail but things have been crazy and time is not slowing down for any of us.  we haven't forgotten you guys.

Posted by paul at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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our screen doors for the porch were complete crap.  the screen was out of the front one so I rebuilt it in a similar style as our house front door, they are at opposing ends of the alcove.

#1 son was very excited to help.  I was pleased he was being good and not constantly asking me to use the computer.  he was enthusiastic as he ran down to the garage to grab a piece of wood we had left down there on the table saw.  then I heard his screams.

yellow jackets must have a nest in there.

he got two good stings.  when I went down it got me in the leg.  I've got more yellow jacket experience so it didn't have a chance to do much to me.  I dropped everything and ran like mad.

it's been a while since I posted a close up of the floors.  I'm finally done with the new floor finish.

Posted by paul at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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in the womb chair 

sold a bunch of my darkroom equipment and my grafplex to acquire my new chair 

he is over 14 lb at two months.  weight has him at 95%  on the chart.

had the neighbor girls over this past sunday.  they swam for almost four hours.  one managed to get the pool cover off the track and then tried to close it, notice how the water is now on top of the cover. 

I got to fix that at 10 pm after a long meal of sushi and liquid accessories.  we also witnessed one of the girls attacking the landscaping.  we were watching the kids having fun swimming and splashing when one suddenly gets out of the pool and pulls a clump of decorative grass out of the ground.  this was the second time I'd seen this girl ripping out our plants.

I later found another girl had been up on the green deck/roof trying to yank my cool orange LED solar lights out.  when did little girls get so destructive? 

Posted by paul at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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this is the sort of shine I am going for.

another pallet of zoysia.  went to the store and bought 20 bags of top spoil to give the grass just a bit of dirt over our rocky soil.  I got two of those metal carts they have in the landscape dept of the big box store.  I put 10 bags of 40lb top soil per cart.  #1 son asked if he could pull one of the carts and I laughed as I gave him the go.  he weighs around 40 lb and that cart with dirt would  be 450lb or more.  I was surprised to see him pull it all the way to the cashier.  the cashiers and customers all paused in amazement as he then pulled it all the way to the truck.  we must have been some sight since son #2 was sleeping in his car seat being pushed by my daughter.  me, my three kids and two carts of dirt!

kat took a break from her weekend job as household network manager to fit the puzzle pieces of sod.

starting to get that finished look.

making that airport express get along with our old router.

we are listing household palindromes.

last day of school. 

summer is here.  school is out.  some teachers had lined up to wave as the last bus left the schoolyard.   it suddenly got so quiet.

 my kids were sad since they both love school.  will try to keep some fun going this summer.  although I realize our outings are limited with a 2 month old under foot.  maybe all we need is an infant sized life preserver and some rope; green belt, red bud island, tubing in san marcos...

Posted by paul at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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