An Honest Facebook Political Argument

(lazy post)

This is genius. Meg found it at http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1803025.

I find it particularly funny because somebody once sent me a bunch of links to articles that were supposed to change my mind about some particular political issue, so I read them, studied them, actually, wrote a very detailed rebuttal, and sent it to the person who had sent me the articles. She then answered by saying "Sorry, I didn't actually read the articles I sent you. I just thought the titles sounded good."

Walls-Be-Gone

Meg decided that she didn't like those little wall-looking-thingies between the kitchen and the dining room. So I had to get rid of them...

First problem: The blade of the knife I was using to cut the sheetrock snapped out. Over a week later, I still have a pretty nasty scar.

We are going to replace the kitchen and dining room floors, but in the meantime, there's going to be either a hole or a not-very good looking patch there. We kind of forgot about the floor when we tackled this thing :)

House Projects - Biggest Update since like forever

---Fan + Porch Light.
Since we moved into the house, the dining room's light kept blowing up every light bulb we put in it. We asked a neighbor, who is an electrician, to fix it, but he started and never finished, leaving a bunch of loose cables dangling from the ceiling from the longest time. After his "repair," the porch light quit working. I got sick of nobody helping us out, even when we were willing to pay! So I went on the internet and learned how to fix the thing; I installed a ceiling fan, and now the porch light works again. I called a city guy to check the work, since I was a little worried about some loose cables that the former owners left on the attic, and he said that once I capped those cables, everything would be fine, safe, and that it would follow the code. Awesomeness.



---Shower Tiles.
A few months ago, Meg decided to replace the tiles in the shower. We had some really ugly white and green tiles, and we replaced them with marble tiles. Matt helped us a lot. Without him, it would have taken us days.



---Water Heater + No Longer Looking Like Crap Laundry Room.
Last year, we noticed that the tiles we had installed in the laundry room were coming loose. When I checked what the problem was, I noticed that the floor under the tiles was actually wet. That's how we found out that our water heater was leaking. Awesome, huh? So, the floor was wet, and the water had reached the wall, which was getting a little moldy.

Enter new water heater.

We wanted a smaller one, since everything feels so tight in that room. We finally went for a tankless one, which is supposed to be more cost effective, as it saves on gas and energy, since it only works when you actually need hot water. Also, since it produces hot water "on demand," and it heats the water as it passes through the tank, the hot water never, ever runs out.

I also had to replace a portion of the wall, which was very wet, and we had to re-tile. The nice thing is that now we have all new appliances in that room, that we will have no more leaks, ever, and that we got a tax deduction that saved us from having to pay any taxes last year. The not so nice thing? Our water heater broke, I had to fix the wall, and re-tile the damn room.

We have so much more space in the laundry room now, that we could put in a nice piece of furniture we found at Ikea which we use for storing shoes. On top of it, Meg painted a huge chalk board.

My First Printed T-Shirt!!!

After like 20 failed attempts, I finally figured out how to burn a good image on the screen printing screen, and printed my first t-shirt!!! This is the "Yo Gabe Gabe" design, rip off of Yo Gabba Gabba, of course. I liked the stenciled Gabe, and I wanted to write something other than just "Gabe" under the picture (I didn't want it to look like an obituary or something), and I came up with this, after watching my first (and only) Gabba Gabba episode at Chad's.

The result is not great. The image is crooked, there is ink where there shouldn't be, and there isn't ink where there should be, but I did it! I'm doing more tomorrow, and I'll start my video tutorial soon, so people don't have to go through the crap I had to go through when trying to learn how to do this.

So, buy your "Yo Gabe Gabe" t-shirt. They're only $50 and they go to a great cause (me).

Yeah, I Know!

Me: Meg, did it rain?

Meg: Who rained?

.

Utterly Uninteresting and Irrelevant Entry

School is out. I have two months until I have to come back, so I'll try to take advantage of the free time! Unfortunately, we're too broke to travel. We already reserved/paid for our Vegas trip this month, but other than that, I don't see us doing much on that department. Some stuff I need to do this summer:

- Finish the garden boxes and hopefully plant something

- Sell all that crap in my garage

- Make that dirt patch under my front window look nice

- Mulch e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e

- Paint the outside of the house. Years of sprinkler abuse have definitely taken a toll on the siding

- Get rid of that damn, immortal Chinese elm growing by our garage

- Visit all our friends that had babies and that I was too busy/lazy to visit but my guilty conscience won't let me ignore anymore

- Plan my school year

Some stuff I want to do this summer:

- Learn to do screen printing, start my business doing that, and make bank off it

- Have night-long movie marathon on the projector. I already tried it, but I fell asleep 15 minutes into the first movie (I have already watch the first half of Sherlock Holmes five times)

- Teach Gabe how to play racquetball and go hang out at the Weber State gym twice a week

- Hang out at cafes and talk about how much cooler the French are with highly educated, liberal minded people that somehow I will meet this summer

That's it for now. If I can think of something else, I'll post...

PS: Yes, it should say "electrolites" instead of "electolites" up there. I'll fix it one of these day.

New Videos of Gabrielito

When Gabe turned 2 (months), we learned that he should be smiling, but he wasn't. That worried us a little bit, and Meg even started fearing autism and what not. But then, about three weeks ago, he started smiling, laughing, talking (in his own language, of course), all at once. He can even stand up. Well, with some help from his dad, you know. But hey, that's good enough for me!





En español!

Cuando cumplió dos meses, edad en la que, según los libros que hemos estado leyendo histericamente, ya debería haber estado sonriendo, Gabriel era tan serio como cuando nació. Por supuesto (como buenos padres histericos que somos) que esto nos preocupó, y Megan incluso empezó a pensar que tal vez el chico era autista! Pero tres semanas atrás, Gabriel empezó a sonreir, a reirse, a hablar (en ese idioma que tiene él), todo de golpe. Incluso puede pararse. Bueno, con un poquito de ayuda del papá; pero como buen padre histerico que soy, eso es más que suficiente!



.

Meg's Blog Is Back!

Or at least let's hope so! Check it out, and then come and check mine out again! It gets lonely here...

http://megansaine.blogspot.com/

.

On How I got Really Mad at a Poor, Nice Blind Guy

Yesterday we went to have lunch with Meg and Pat to celebrate mother's day. Of course, it was Gabe's diaper changing and feeding time (it's always Gabe's feeding time). I then cavalierly volunteered to change him, hoping the bathroom would have a changing station. Well, it did, but it was inside the handicap's stall, which was occupied, but not only that, the door was wide open, and the guy inside was on the phone loudly setting up an appointment for something or another. I didn't see crutches or a wheelchair, although I didn't really look very intently (it was pretty awkward as it was), so I thought "Well, I've done this same thing enough times. After all, handicap stalls are spacious and comfortable. I'm sure that when he sees me out here waiting with a baby to be changed, he will hurry." But no luck; the guy was really taking his time.

After some five minutes of waiting, and listening to the details of the appointment setting, I decided to unroll the diaper bag's changing pad and change Gabe on the floor, all the while shaking my head and mumbling to myself how horrible and unfair the world was. By the way, the bathroom was pretty small, and I decided to locate myself in a spot where the guy in the stall could see me, but I couldn't see him (again, it was quite awkward already!). "This poor baby crying and my fervid head shaking should show him!" I said to myself. Once I was done, I huffed and puffed out of the bathroom.

A few minutes later, as I was sitting at my table telling Meg and Pat about the rudeness of this stall user, I saw a blind man walking out of the bathroom being guided by a waiter to his table.

Needless to say, I felt like a total jerk and rapidly changed the subject.

.

Of How I Could Have Died Today!

Today, as I was in the freeway coming back from work, I looked behind and noticed that a lady in a nice white car was approaching me at a frightening speed. I also noticed that she was on the phone, looking away from the road. I was getting a little scared and I wasn't sure what to do, but then, when she was really, really close to me, she saw me and rapidly veered to the left (I was in the far right lane). When I looked through the rear view mirror, I noticed that she was speeding towards the far left across the freeway. When I looked again, I saw the car roll over in that dirt section between the southbound-northbound freeways. It was insane; I've never seen anything like that.

I immediately pulled over and walked back where the car was. Many police cars were already there, and some ambulances were already on their way. Another guy had already pulled over, and since he was behind the white car, he saw the accident better than me. According to him, the car doors opened when the car was rolling over, and some people flew out of it, maybe kids. I tried to see if the driver and the passengers were OK, but I couldn't see anything at all.

It was strange how calm I was when this all happened. It almost felt like I was watching a movie; it was unreal. But once I started thinking more about it, I became quite shaky. I am very worried about the people in the car, and I really hope that they are OK.

I can't find any information on the accident on the internet. The accident was right before the 335 exit on I-15, northbound. It was today at about 2:45-2:50. If anyone hears anything, I'd appreciate any information.

.