Upstairs Bathroom

The upstairs bathroom remodel turned out exactly as I had hoped, something that was far from a certainty. Thanks to my Dad for helping so much and to my Grandpa for making the stained glass window.
The old bathroom:

My Dad helping with the demo (we both blew our backs out during this process, which delayed the project by about two months):

Tiling the shower:

All finished, woohoo!:

The window:

Bird's eye:

Downstairs Bathroom

What have I been up to you ask? Working on my house and playing volleyball. I just recently finished up adding a bathroom in the basement and completely gutting and remodeling the bathroom upstairs. I think that they turned out pretty good considering that my Dad and I have never attempted anything like this before. Here are some progressive pics of the downstairs bathroom.

Trivia Night Fever

I’m getting my house refinanced, which has kept me pretty busy the last week. I am assuming that the appraisal will be about two weeks from now, so I have been working to complete a number of lingering unfinished projects. As some of you may know, I added a bathroom in the basement and gutted the upstairs bathroom to the studs and started over. I am now working to at least make the rest of the basement presentable and finish up the landscaping for this year. I will post some pictures when/if anything actually gets completed. I was going to post some reviews of the last few books I have read recently, but I just received a phone call that explained my presence was needed at Buffalo Wild Wings for some trivia. I can’t argue with that, I will post again tomorrow. If anyone has a book recommendation, I’m listening.

The week that was...

I would like to apologize to my faithful readership (nonexistent) for the lack of posts last week. When I created this blog I had intended to post every day or two and I didn’t even make it a week. I will redouble my efforts and try to do better from here on out. Just because I haven’t been posting doesn’t mean that cool things (or maybe just things in general) haven’t been happening so let’s get you caught up on the happenings of last week.

Monday 4/6:
Monday was an exciting day, as I recall, because it was opening day for the St. Louis Cardinals. I took the afternoon off and headed out to Buffalo Wild Wings to meet up with a couple of cronies and enjoy the season opener. That’s about where things started to go south. I ran into countless delays getting out of work and then had the good fortune to have my path impeded by a coal train that must have snaked half way to Chicago. I ended up missing half the game but showed up with plenty of time to see the Cards new closer Motte blow a two run lead in the ninth. Ehh, what the hell, right… it’s a long season. Next up was a trip down the road to catch the National Championship game at the Brickhouse. What followed was quite possibly the worst championship game in the history of college basketball as North Carolina destroyed Michigan State and pretty much had the game wrapped up after the first ten minutes. I forced myself to watch the rest of the game and retired for the evening, thoroughly disappointed with the day’s events.

Tuesday 4/7:
This day contained virtually nothing of consequence. I think I went to the store or something equally mundane; so for all intents and purposes this day didn’t really even happen.

Wednesday 4/8:
Work is doing a “walk your way to wellness challenge” where you are supposed to count how many steps you walk and record the distance on a website. Teams are formed by department and the winning team gets a few prizes like gift cards and whatnot. I foolishly agreed to participate and have been stuck wearing a dorky looking pedometer as I motor around campus. While I have been disappointed with how little distance I have logged, I am quite confident that my ability to look like an idiot is now unrivaled.

Thursday 4/9:
Thursday was a glorious day, one that will likely be turned into legend by bards and poets. It was the end of session tournament for our competitive indoor volleyball league. We have won the regular season title a few times but always choke in the tournament. All that was about to change… three hours later, we had fought our way past all challengers and were proudly posing for our team picture in our free T-shirts. There was much rejoicing and it was good to finish up the indoor season on a high note.

Sand volleyball starts next week and as of this writing it looks like I will be playing on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. It’s a little ridiculous, I know, but I figure I am done taking classes for now and what the hell else am I going to do, so why not?

Friday 4/10:
Friday was pretty lame. I worked in Litchfield and then hung out at the house for the night. Loser…

Saturday 4/11:
Saturday I was hell-bent on being productive and turned my attention to the yard. My old roommate Kevin had come up from Edwardsville and fortunately agreed to help, likely due to equal parts boredom and altruism. Regardless, I was glad for the help and began to go about pulling weeds and spreading mulch. I wish I could say that I was all finished and could post a picture of said work but unfortunately, despite our best efforts, there is still much to do. I will post some pic’s when I get it all in shape for those of you who give a shit, though I can’t image there are many who do. Much more interesting than the yard work, was the unusual amount of wildlife that we encountered during the process. Kevin had the misfortune of accidently raking a bunny nest and sending them all scattering. I have little doubt he is still regretful for his unintentional displacement of the bunny family as he was visibly shook-up following the event. Even more unsettling was my encounter with a snake. I damn near picked it up only to recoil as the “stick” began to slither away. I don’t have a huge problem with snakes but I’m not a huge fan either and I figured that was as good a time as any to call it a day in the yard. I did manage to snap a pic of the menacing serpent with my cell phone.

Saturday night involved going out downtown for one too many libations. Much wackiness ensued…

Sunday 4/12:
Sunday showed up and it seems the Easter Bunny had left me a hangover. Thanks Easter Bunny… My Mom came over and we went out to eat and then I retreated home to watch some movies on the couch and convalesce. I watched The Day the World Stood Still (Stupid) and Seven Pounds (Not too bad) and then called it a day, eagerly awaiting the start of the workweek (bullshit).

Hold Me Closer Tony Danza

So it was fantasy baseball draft weekend (Nerd Alert) and boy was it exhausting. Having already purchased my roundtrip train ticket to Chicago for Saturday, I entered the weekend with good intentions; agreeing to meet my friend Joel for a few beers on Friday night but promising myself to behave and retire at a reasonable hour. Everything was going to plan until my friend began pleading with me to go downtown and continue the festivities. He skillfully argued the point that his downtown apartment was only a few blocks from the train station and that if we went out, I could just stay at his place and then walk over and catch the train in the morning. Against my better judgment I acquiesced and after a quick trip home to collect some things needed for my trip, I made my way to 5th street. Several beers and a few awkward conversations with random drunk people followed and the next thing I knew I was back at Joel’s apartment with little to show for my trouble outside of a few debit card receipts and the disconcerting knowledge that, in addition to my friend Luke, I would most likely be accompanied on the trip by a huge hangover. After expressing some concern over the likelihood of waking up in time to catch my train, Joel disappeared into an obscure linen closet, returning with an alarm clock he promised was equivalent to a tornado siren. With my resolve bolstered by this supposedly magic alarm clock, I shuffled off to the spare bedroom, intent on waking on time…

I awoke to a meek beeping noise emanating from my phone, which I had cleverly placed on the night stand next to my head. I looked around, a bit discombobulated, and then focused on the alarm clock only to see a jumble of flashing numbers that were obviously uncorrelated with the actual time of day. Apparently the only magical power this particular alarm clock possessed was the ability to lose power the moment you took your eye off it. Fortunately, a quick glance at my phone told me that it was 7:30, which left me plenty of time to shower and head over to the train station. Luke was waiting when I arrived and a short time later we were barreling up to Chicago. Intent on investigating all that Amtrak had to offer, I headed back to the snack car only to be disappointed to discover that the donut holes (by far the most appealing menu item) were all sold out. I settled for a nasty deli sandwich and then returned to my seat, spending the remainder of my trip alternating between napping and listening to an audiobook. The rest of this story is pretty boring so I will spare you the details. Basically, we had the draft and then I caught a cab back to the Union Station to catch my return train. The return train ride was equally nondescript save for the existence of an ubiquitous stench that seemed a strange mix of body odor and burnt pop tarts. I arrived back in Springfield approximately 10:00 and wasted little time heading home to enjoy a much needed good night’s rest.

Sunday brought with it my second baseball draft in as many days and I by 8:00 I was in my car heading north to Bloomington. I stopped off in Lincoln to pickup Turbo Johnny and we strolled into the Baymont Inn conference room with plenty of time to spare. Again, more boring baseball stuff happened and by 4:30 I was back at home for a relaxing evening. That about sums up the weekend...

Other occurrences of note: I saw a guy at the bar that bore an uncanny resemblance to Tony Danza. I inexplicably found this to be hilarious and took much delight in pointing this fact out to the rest of my friends. I even attempted to capture a photo of Tony Danza’s doppelganger but like other strange phenomena such as Nessie and Bigfoot, he proved too evasive to be caught on film. Just as I reached for my phone to snap a picture he disappeared into the crowd never to be seen again. Funny shit, reminded me of that Friends episode.

I got into a bit of a fender-bender last week (no, it was not my fault) and had to put my car in the shop for a few days. I just got word that they are done and ready for me to pick it up! I will be glad to have it back as the rental company decided to give me a mini-SUV-family-mobile-wagon. I drove it to Beardstown for work today and felt like a soccer mom or something. Here is a photo of said rental:

And for those of you curious about last nights volleyball contest, we won all three games. Well done, Sweet Justice.

Sweet Justice

Thursday is my favorite day of the week. It marks the downhill side of the workweek and more importantly, it means playing volleyball with my indoor team, Sweet Justice. Also, Thursday is when The Office comes on, though sadly I believe this week is a rerun. Here is a photo of Sweet Justice relaxing at Brown’s after a hard fought contest: