Painted Vinyl Siding + New Ceiling Fan!

When we moved into the house, I noticed that the siding vinyl was pretty nasty in some parts. I thought it was just dirty, so I washed it, brushing like crazy, but it didn't make much difference. I then thought that maybe it was stained, but then, looking closely, I noticed that the white paint in the vinyl had actually faded. The sprinkler had been hitting the wall for years, and caused the vinyl to discolor.





I then asked around to see if vinyl siding could be painted, and it turns out that you can. You just need to use primer and then paint a lighter shade or color than was there. Since our siding was white, we just kept it like that. It turned out so good, it looks like new!





We also decided to change our bedroom light to a ceiling fan. We chose a small one (since our bedroom is rather small), and it turned out awesome!

The only problem: this unit uses a remote control, it doesn't have those little chains you turn the light and fan on and off with. That was a pretty nice surprise, the real problem was that I was supposed to fit in the remote control unit that goes on the fan into the light box that goes attached to the ceiling. Those light boxes are about four inched wide. The remote control was like 6 inches wide. I ended up having to climb onto the attic and extending the remote control unit cables so I could actually attach them to the fan. It was a pain, but it works just great. The fan looks very nice, but if I'd known what a pain it would be to install, I would have definitely picked up a different one!

Gabe's Missed

My friend Ashley posted this on her Facebook:


Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?

Ashley is an amazing friend. She came to the hospital to visit when Gabe was born, and she was about to have her own baby then! She and her husband are so awesome. Too bad they had to move!!!

Printed Onsies!

I did a few more attempts to print stuff, this time on some of Gabe's onesies, and even though the results are not mind blowing, they're ok; definitely better than my last ones. The actual prints are coming out better, but I'm having a hard time centering the prints where I want them on the shirts.




This Travis one came out ok, except that I didn't put enough ink the first time, so I put the screen down and tried to do it again, but it was a little off, so that guy in the right looks double.


The Killer's screen came out perfect, but I didn't put enough ink. Also, I was so excited to actually do the print, that I didn't stop to clean my hands. As a consequence, the logo is a little faded in parts, and there are ink stains all over the onesie.


For this one, I thought that I would print the big logo on the back, and then print some tiny logos on canvas, then cut one and sew it on the front of the onesie, sort of like a badge. This one is the only one that came out perfect, although I wish I had printed the big logo a little higher.

Why I Hate Percy Jackson

I recently finished reading the second Percy Jackson book and the first Artemis Fowl, two young adult novels (well, more like young young novels), and although they share some elements, Artemis Fowl was pretty good, while Percy Jackson is stupidly dumb and I hate it so much that I feel like kicking it until my feel fall off.

You see, a few years ago I still felt I was too good for young adult books. I mean, I read Shakespeare and Poe for fun when I was 14! (Mostly because my parents couldn't afford kids books for me and all they had were old copies of those books that they inherited from their parents.) I never even wanted to see the cover of a young adult book, until Meg and I listened to Because of Win Dixie on a trip to Washington, and I was sold. Of course, there are amazing YA books, and there is absolute crap, like everything else. Harry Potter is no Nobel Prize in literature, but it's decent. The writing is ok and sometimes actually kind of exciting. Percy Jackson, on the other hand, is a badly written, boring, unfunny rip off of Harry Potter. And if you don't believe me, check this out:

1. A young orphan (semi-orphan in PJ's case) boy who has special powers and doesn't know about them until he goes to this school where he's taught how to use his powers. By the way, he's also the chosen one, and even though he's not super smart, he's the cat's pajamas! (Harry/Percy)

2. A girl who also has powers and who is very, very smart becomes friends with the main guy and saves his butt a million times. Even though she's very smart, she's not as special as the guy, but she's ok with that (Hermione/Annabeth)

3. A friend guy who is not as bright as the main guy or his girl friend, but he is very noble and trustworthy (Ron/Grover)

4. There's even a super evil character who the main guy has to fight (and he's the only one who can fight him!). He beats him in every book, but never badly enough to get rid of him until, I assume, the last book (Voldemort/Chronos)

There's even an invisibility cape and half bloods on both books.

But that's not my main problem with the book, it's just that it's badly written. There are so many parts that are supposed to be funny, and they are NOT; so many parts are supposed to be sad and melancholic, but they are just cheesy and ineffective. There's a part, for example, where the author might have thought "Oh yeah, I'm writing about the gods of nature, so maybe I should throw in some environmentally conscious remarks," so he did, really quick (like one sentence), and went on. It was a pathetic attempt.

You might wonder why then did I read TWO of these crappy books. Well, so many people said that the second one was much better than the first one that I gave it a try (some of those people were my 6th grade students, so that should've told me something...). Also, I just heard it on audiobook, so it wasn't so painful or such a waste of time, but I wonder what did the people who saw me yell at my iPod think.

Artemis Fowl, on the other hand, is kind of similar. A 12 year old criminal mastermind decided to steal gold from fairies in order to restore his family's fortune (he's not an orphan, but his parents are out of the picture. He also goes on the archetypal quest when he steals from the fairies, like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and every fantasy protagonist does). Sounds lame, huh? Definitely not as cool as reading about the adventures of Poseidon's son among Greek gods and demigods. But the author worked it out in such a way that the book is interesting, exciting, funny, and just plain good.

After HP, PJ, the Twilight series, and a bunch of other crappy YA fantasy books I've read, I was ready to give up on them, but AF was so good that I might at least give some of them a try in the future.

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.