Archives - August 2005

Wednesday, August 10th, 2005

Wow, it has been a crazy August so far! I'll bring you, faithful reader, up to speed. First off, we lost the house deal due to the owner (who is a real estate investor), wanting $10k more than what the house appraised for. Fuck that. So, we made peace with the situation and dove back in.

On Saturday we saw a gorgeous single family home in a quiet neighborhood that had been on the market for three hours. We were in love, so we said "yes" and drove another hour north to draw up the contract. As were about to sign the papers, the agent gets a call from the other agent. "Oops!" there was a mistake with the listing and the real price was ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS more than what we were quoted. Needless to say, we were devestated. What the hell?

To make matters worse, I'm in California all week, so Lisa is looking at properties by herself :( and I feel like I'm not pulling my weight. Then again, I'm pulling in two grand this week for three days work, so it's not all for nothing, hehe. So she's looking at two properties tonight and I hope something wonderful happens.

We want a house!

Baby Maren sports a Jayne hat replica as seen in Firefly!

Here I am on the plane... the layover was interesting. Someone flew a smal charter plane and landed in the incorrect area, and about 11 planes (including us) sat on the tarmac for almost a half hour. Then, on our left, fire equipment swarmed a plane that had landed under duress. FUN!

I sprung into action! "Click!"

So remember that glue gun burn I got a few weeks ago? Once the blister juice reabsorbed, I cut the dead skin off, fearing infection. It looked DEEP and BAD, so I showed the nurse on our hall. She said "not infected, and by the way - you did an excellent job of cutting and cleaning the wound. But anyway - go to the clinic and show them, since I'm not well-versed with burns". So I went on over to teh clinic and showed the nice lady. She recoiled in shock and said "go to the burn ward NOW. I'm calling them to let them know you're on the way."

Fuck!

Turns out, there was necrotized tissue and that it was a partial third degree burn - we were looking down into the muscle layer! So she used some silvadine, and scrubbed the wound down to healthy and bleeding tissue. OW. It's healing much better now - but man, that was nasty.

Yum! Okay, back to the grind... hopefully I'll see Adam Savage today!

I miss you all!

Catching Up!
Monday, August 22nd, 2005

Good lord, this has been the month from hell in some ways... we've had three houses fall through - but it's looking like the fourth is sticking! More on that tomorrow. In the meantime, here's the rest of my pics from California!

Here I am showing off the screen-used XXXXX from XXXXXX.

Here we are on our way to Skywalker Ranch.

You make a left!

Drive up the mountain...

Past the big rock.

What's in the booooox?!

Potty picture for Jane.

Pretty barn holds the most amazing things in the world ever ever ever, and I can't show you. Maybe one day...

George Lucas was there that day! It's where we ate lunch.

Here's where they do the cookouts - the food is always exquisite... this is the third time I've eaten there.

I think this is the technical building.

We put in our full day of working on the XXXXXs and XXXXXs, and drove back to Walnut Creek.

Here's a funny anecdote: as we're travelling down the mountain, a rather determined man on a bicycle decided that the minivan was just not "in it to win it", if you know what I mean.

So he passed the minivan ON THE RIGHT. Balls of steel. The bicyclist then rocketed ahead and we lost sight of him.

And then of course, we got stuck in traffic.

OUR NEW HOUSE!!!
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005

Welcome to our new home! We move in the second week of October!

It was built in 1925, with an addition to the rear in 1940.

We will live in Parkville, on a one way street!

Here's the other side.

A side door will come in handy for trash removal and spray-a-thons.

We have three (!!) stained glass windows.

Here is where the lawn mover lives. There is also a shed.

Did I mention that we have a POOL? How decadent and delicious!

Here is the back of the house.

Another angle.

We will respect the posted signage.

There is a nice amount of space under the front of the house as well.

The shingles are cedar, and very old. We will eventually need to reside the house.

Here is the front room - the formal living room. There are two stained glass windows above the faux fireplace. The gas log thing comes with the house - wheee!

Here is a detail on the stained glass window.

Standing at the other end of the room looking towards the front door and the stairs.

Turning to the left, you will find the solarium (heee!!) where Lisa will do her secret Lisa things.

Standing in the Solarium, looking to the right - built in bookcases.

They are also built in to the left side as well. Every room, including this and the back porch, have ceiling fans.

The original hardwood floors have gorgeous inlaid darker wood.. oak, maybe?

Even the landing on the stairs have this! Check out the unpainted original banisters - swoon!

This longer stained glass window is above the stairs, on the way up to the second floor.

If you whirl around, this is your view. We have central air and radiator heat.

Let us travel to the formal dining room, shall we?

Delightful! We kinda already feel like we know what it will look like to live in this room - some of the decoration is very Lisa... I'm guessing the rug and basket wouldn't appear in our decor.

Love that Iconography.

The antique chandelier and plaster medallion come with the house - SWOON!

From here you can enter the kitchen. You can also enter the kitchen via the front room, and from the kitchen you can go into the BACK room!

The entrance to the basement is from the kitchen. There's already a cat door - this is where the side door is located.

This is the first thing you see in the basement. Must have been an apartment once. We'll keep soda and beer in this fridge, and THIS will be my workshop sink - it is stainless and PERFECT! The current owner has the litterboxes located to the left of the sink - a great loaction for them. This room will be where a lot of the less-mess construction will take place on my models and props.

Another view.

The back of the basement, which can be closed off. this is where the power tools will go. Messy and/or volatile things.... There is a FULL bathroom back here too, though you need to be less than 5' 5" to shower standing up, hehe,

From the back of this basement room, looking towards the door.

President Clinton (lifesize) is in the closet here, titter.

This is that midget bathroom - cute!

Opposite the wall of the midget bath is the laundry and utility room. Access this room from the front room, next to where you come down the stairs.

We also have a sump pump with full battery backup. Booyah.

There was even a PROP GUN in the basement. It must be a sign.

Dunno if the water filter conveys, but the Insinkerator disposal is OURS.

Kitchen.

Kitchen as well. Front door to the right, background.

Gas range works! tik tik tik Poff!

Little secret pantry room is behind the kitchen - you can see through the lowest level to the stove, awwww.

Past the pantry, you enter the family room and back porch door.

Standing at the other end of the room. This will be where the surround sound, TV, and prop collection goes!

There is the back door.

And here is what you see out the back room window.

Here is the very Annapolitan (shudder) back porch.

Other side.

Magically transported upstairs, here is the bedroom that overlooks the front of the street, above the front living room.

This is the second bedroom, located above the dining room.

Opposite end of the room, looking towards the hall where you see the doors for the master bedroom and bathroom.

This is the hall, looking towards that front bedroom. The stairs are to your right, and the AC unit is above us. Heat rises, cold air descends. Very efficient!

In the master bedroom, looking at the back yards.

In the master bedroom, looking at the access panel for the bathtub.

Upstairs bathroom and kitty.

From the bathroom, looking at the hall.

From the front bedroom, looking at my lovely car.

From the front bedroom, looking at the hall.

And finally, patient reader, from the upstairs looking down!

Preparing to pack and rediscovering old musical friends
Thursday, August 25th, 2005

So we still have the house, lol! Tonight we sign some more papers, and then we wait to settle at the end of September. Now is the time where I start mentally preparing about what to pak, where to put it, and where things will go in our delightful new space. Over the past decade I have gone trough a few hardcore purges, and a lot of old useless "stuff" is gone. Replaced by a lot of newer equally useless items, of course.

I will finally have a spot to hang my Lynda Barry and Angus Oblong art. I will finally be able to display my props and models in a fetishistic fashion. I will finally have a space for my summer and winter clothes that doesn't involve rubbermaid bins in the dank basement. I will finally have a justification for buying a few Airport Express hubs.

I recently made (and am making) a few mix cds for a few people, and will be making the Prop Party mix cd for September 17th. I feel inspired today - I used to just churn these mix tapes out, and the packaging got crazier and crazier with each thing I made. I do believe I reached my decadent high point with the "emergency box" I made for my friend Jessica, who was moving across the country, stuck in a car with her mom, dad, and younger brother. Of course we had crushes on each other at the time, so my effort was crazy.

Handmade 4ply newsboard box, sporting a skin of handmade black Thai paper. The cross was silkscreened kraft paper. Cross was hand cut and applied with bookbinder's glue (as was the black paper).

Inside lined with sage green handmade pulpy paper, trimmed with more of the kraft paper from the front. Irridescent clear acetate packing. 24 Maxell XLII 90 minute cassettes. Those took forever to dub...

I remember the J-Cards were each hand painted with acrylics in bright colors so they looked like candy. Looks like she got The Cure, Magnetic Fields, Cocteau Twins, The Make*Up (live), Slant 6, Siouxsie, Tori Amos, and others. Soon after this, I got a cd burner, and never looked back. So really, this monumental effort symbolized the end of more than a decade of mix tape making.

This week, my brother Jonathan sold his art car - the Scirocco he painted to look like a Mondrian painting. He's depressed, and I can relate. I had to sell mine in 1996 when it became a money pit. It was a 1986 VW Golf with 286,000 miles on it, and I had modified it cosmetically druing it's last two years as a drivable car. I spraypainted it green, gave it a variegated copper racing stripe (I used to gild my shoes in high school - I loves me some gold leaf) with a festive "5" that later sported a space ship flying around it, a la the Space Lego logo from the 1970s. Then I added piping (copper tubing and pool hoses) around the wheel wells like the Delorean from Back to the Future (the rear ones have this in the pic below), four PVC pipes epoxied to the hood to simulate a blower, computer components set into the dash to make it look like a spaceship, etc etc. It was fun.

The green paint really hid the rust.

I made this vinyl Cure bumper sticker with some drafing appliqué film and enamel paint - I miss that bumper sticker.

This weekend, Lisa, Tom, Jane and I are going to KOP in PA to get our shop on. We'll also take a detour to Schwenksville to swap some proppety props with Steve, and drop off my latest paint masters for an upcoming Star Wars item. I gotta say, though it is a LOT of hard work and late nights, being an offical part of Star Wars "stuff" is so amazingly cool. Those simple toys were my best friends, when I was growing up. I loved my landspeeder as much as any kid loves a stuffed animal.

Look ma - I'm travelling the Jundland Wastes - lightly!

Here's a really cool pic of me from 1977 or so - note how much this cat looks like my Simon!! My cat is immortal and this is proof.

Speaking of old photos with family and cats, here's my mom, pre-kids, with her first kitties - Sheba and Cleo. Keep her cat Lillith in your thoughts - she has a lump on her kitty chest that might be cancerous - they operate tomorrow to remove it. She should be fine.

Okay - back to daydreaming about our HOUSE!

YEAH!

Nervoussssssss
Monday, August 29th, 2005

Our soon to be house gets appraised today or tomorrow. We close on the 21st and get to move in on the 24th! That's two weeks earlier than we had anticipated, which is awesome! We're nervous though, since the first property we thought we had fell through due to the appraisal not meeting the selling price. Hopefully in this case, we should be fine, since other homes have sold recently in the $200k to $225k range. Still, until we're moving boxes in, I'll be a wreck.

Lisa and I joined Tom and Jane ona field trip Saturday to King of Prussia Mall in PA. The girls shopped while Tom and I went to hang with our friend Steve. Luckily (for his family), we were at the mall when their car broke down, so we helped them out! We also got to push a car out of a parking garage which is always fun - and it reminds me of high school, when everyone I knew had cars that needed jump starts. No pics though, since we were busy pushing :)

We gorged ourselves at the Cheesecake Factory. I slept like a baby.

This week I'm working on what might be my 20th Blade Runner blaster build up! Thsi one features sounds and lights - should be ultra spiffy when it's all done.

Lately I can't stop listening to Kristin Hersh ... yay!

Lillith Vs. The Big C(ollar)
Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

My mom's cat, Lillith, came home from the vet yesterday, after having a tumor removed. She did well, and it was self-contained, so she should make a full recovery. Now for those of you who do not know this cat, Lillith is 14, and grew up with Jonathan in the house, who is my nearly 21 year old brother. She's not a biter or a scratcher - her weapon is her voice - she complains and complains. You can pick her up, squeeze her, and generally treat her like you would a dog, and while most cats would shred you or scramble to get away, Lillith sits there, whining. The funny thing about the whole convalescence is her ginormous collar. You see, Lillith is a terrible patient, and is determined to remove her own sutures. So she's stuck wearing this for the next two weeks:

This thing is FUNNY. I was almost peeing myself last night, watching her (in a medicated opiate stupor) stagger around, banging the cone on table legs and walls. Every time she felt hindered, she's make her little whine noise, which is a deep "meeeh" sound. It's amplified by the cone, for added comedic effect. Oh god, it's so funny. Then she would feel resigned to her fate, and just ... sit (see above). There would be an occasional "meeeh-ooorrrr" and she's shoot daggers at anyone (human or cat) that looked her way. Simon and Gabriella (the other cats) are FREAKED.

Mid-complain meowrrr.

Sullen and feeling sorry for herself.

So... angry.....

This is a cross between abject rage and total bat-shit high. Have you ever seen a furious cat on pain meds? It's a treat.

She'll be fine in about two weeks, but for now, Queen Lillith has been taken down a peg or two. Heh. Poor kitty!!

Sassy Vest
Wednesday, August 31st, 2005

Lillith has agreed to wear a much more comfortable "vest" that was made from old baby clothes. It's not nearly as funny, but she is much happier (not that she looks it, but trust me).

Almost done with Karl's Phaser Rifle from the delightfully kitschy 60s Star Trek.

Finished John's Blade Runner Blaster... black rubber grips! Coolness!