Rooftop

One of the subsequent days, we went to Hapuna Beach, which is a state park and has easy car access, showers, and even some vendors. The day wasn’t clear, but 78F is still 78F, and the water was still delightful. There was wind, which created some copy surf, but we still enjoyed the expansive beach. Later that night, we decided to take in a Luau; the preliminary activities were fun enough, but the actual show was kind of a turd. Michelle and my parents had all been to a Luau before and thought the food and show was lacking by comparison. I thought the food was just fine, but the “Freedom cost a buck ‘o five” God/Country Music/USA song was both so bad and out of place that my meal was in peril. I guess they know their audience though, because everyone else thought the jingoistic number fit right in with the “tour of Micronesia” theme. We then left shortly after Ella got scared by a Tongan warrior dancer who nearly collided with her and he weaved through the audience making menacing gestures. I can see how she might have been a little scared, but I thought it was amusing.

We continued our tour of beaches with Kahalu’u Beach Park, where we rented a boogie board with a viewing glass so Ella could see fish. Despite swimming lessons from a young age and constant bath-taking, she’s surprisingly timid around water. Still, she enjoyed the view, and Michelle and I were delighted to be in the warm ocean with our little girl. We almost collided with a turtle too, but my spastic response scared both the turtle and Ella, who was done being in the water. We moved north up the highway to the next beach which was very sandy and the surf was high. We did some body surfing, saw some dolphins, and played in the sand.

On a couple of the evenings, we wandered in to town to check out the shops and restaurants, occasionally taking in a meal. Downtown Kailua is quaint, friendly, and somewhat rundown. I’m not sure if this was purely a reflection of some local economic change, the larger economics of the world, of if vacationers had just simply reached the critical mass for T-shirts and “local art.”

I think my favorite beach (except Makalawena) was Mauna Kea Beach. It’s adjacent to a resort/golf club, but that doesn’t ruin the excellent view of the northern knob of the island, the delicious water, and trees overhanging the sand. We set up our blankets underneath a sort of locust tree and were shaded the entire time, which is good, because I think they take your infant away if you get it sunburned. We played in the surf, both girls thoroughly enjoying the warm water and gentle waves. The snorkeling was actually quite good around the rock/reef on the south end of the beach. Plenty of sea life, reef, and no one got hit by an errant golf ball.

My favorite snorkeling was actually at “Place of Refuge,” a rocky bay that is teeming with life, and where the sea floor dives to about 80 feet just off the shore. There’s a cool set of steps in the rocks (accidental, mind you) at the north end of the bay where you can drop in to the water. You’re immediately greeted by schools of yellow tangs, and if you follow the shore along the north end of the bay, there’s just too much to see. The coral is fascinating and hides so many little creatures which you don’t notice until you get close. Swim out towards the middle of the bay and you watch the coral drop quickly in to the beautiful blue abyss. I hurt my ears several times trying to really get down deep because the scale of the place misleads you about how big the place is. Plus, I wanted to try and reach the dive mustering spot with the word “ALOHA” spelled out in cinderblocks. My dad and I visited twice, the second time everyone else joined us. We also visited the National Park facility there at the place of refuge.

But like all good things, the end came, and we boarded our respective flights home. Grandma and Grandpa took off on the Blue and White plane, and we boarded ours. The trip home still went really well, though it’s possible that the effort of keeping two children happy on a 6 hour flight erases at least some of the relaxation we’d escaped for. Madeline was awake for most of the flight home, and really didn’t care to be seated much. When we finally arrived in Seattle, everyone was hungry, and all the restaurants were closing or closed. After a sleepy flight back to Portland, we were home, and only had to stomach two days of work before the Thanksgiving holiday.

This is sorely overdue, but I wanted to mention a few things about our trip to Kona-Kailua in November. It’s a trip we’d been planning for nearly 9 months with the sincere desire to get out of town. We were very curious how this whole traveling with kids would work, and we wanted to start making an effort to vacation with family.

The flight to Kona was spectacular. There was a short leg up to Seattle which was uneventful, then the 6 hour flight to Kona went splendidly. Ella was entertained most of the time through a combination of coloring, toys, window screen movements, bathroom trips, and cartoons on the iPhone. Madeline for her part slept most of the trip, which really helped.

We met my parents at the airport in Kona, picked up a Grand Crapavan from the rental company, and headed to our rented condo just south of the main strip in Kailua. The condo was fantastic (you never really know until you arrive), and we grabbed some fast food while setting up base camp. (There were mongooses wandering around the parking lot, something I’d not seen on my previous trip a decade ago.) After that we split up, shopped for groceries, swam in the pool, and hung out on the lanai looking for where to go the coming days.

The second day we drove the van north with a picnic lunch to Makalawena Beach, in Kekaha Kai State Park. It was a bumpy, slow ride from the highway down to the trailhead, and likely not some place that the rental should have gone. From there, a 30 minute trek past one gorgeous beach, some wild goats, and a barren lava field to a white sand beach that was heaven. As it turns out, you can get there by 4×4 if you have one, as there were several trucks on the beach. From the moment we arrived, it was quickly clear that everyone was happy here. Both girls loved the gentle waves, and Ella loved playing in the sand in the “warm ocean.” We’d been promising her that she’d enjoy the warm ocean since a disaster during a storm in May where she was knocked off balance by a quick rush of water past her feet and fell in the cold Pacific near Manzanita, OR.

Now I’m trying to remember the order in which we visited beaches, but by in large, the order of the day was something like this: Get up, have coffee and breakfast, watch Curios George, make sandwiches, spend 30 minutes trying to get sunscreen on everyone, then load up the van and go to a beach. We didn’t stray from this formula much, largely because it was so perfect. We didn’t attempt to see the volcano or Hilo simply because a long day of car travel with the girls wouldn’t be any fun. And it’s really hard to improve on a working formula.

We ended up visiting several more beaches, but I’ll pick up again in another post. It’s time to wake the girls up, take them to Grandma’s and go to work in the dark.

Here are some pictures of the trip to Kona though.

Cost and time have been preventing me from skiing much the last several years. However, I started this year with a trip up to Mt. Hood Meadows with my sister for a half-day on the slopes. We were virtually alone on the drive up and the parking area never really got more than 1/4 filled. Somewhat of a surprise for the first day of the year. I guess folks knew about the wind and decided to nurse their new-year hangovers off at home.

After putting stiff boots on in the rain, we headed up to the lodge for tickets and a bathroom stop. I was able to use a $50 gift card I’d received several years earlier that has been in my daughter’s play purse much of that time. Meadows is surprisingly expensive, and the gift card only covers about 70% of the ticket cost. The whole endeavor is rather expensive.

The first few turns were awkward, off-balance, and I typically over-turned and did a lot of stopping. With each dip, I asked my thighs if they remembered the balance required for a stable telemark turn. Eventually we reached an agreement and my feet settled happily in to the massive plastic boots. On the third run, the slopes pushed back at my feet with a comfortable force that I had sorely missed. The burn in my thighs, the snow sticking to my beard, and sensation in my fingertips as I brushed the ground during deep turns were intensely therapeutic. They also unlocked wonderful memories.

My sister and I were able to ride just enough to satisfy ourselves without actually getting hurt. It was a lot of fun to spend the day with her without any of the other noise of life. She’s much better than I remember and it was a bit of work keeping up. Now we just need to make time to go again.

Our 2009 opt-in Christmas card is up. I read in the Herald-Republic over the weekend that e-cards are becoming more common because people are poor. I feel like I helped set the trend, though my motivation was sloth.

While we were in Hawaii, Madeline took her first furtive scoots. She didn’t start crawling outright, but she could be motivated to move a certain distance by either rice puffs (she also started on chewable food) or people. We couldn’t call it crawling because she’d only take a maxiumum of two scoots before either rolling over and sitting up again, or lunging forward to the desired object.

Last night however, she broke the 3 scoot barrier and started moving in a way that we’re comfortable calling crawling. She moved towards me several times, then upon reaching me, used my pant legs, the side of the ottoman, or other tall object to pull herself up. She’s mobile.

We knew this was coming, so we’ve already put gates back up. I can remember how happy we were to take the gates down, so I’m a little disheartened to have them back up (at both the top and bottom of the stairs). It’s now a challenge to move between floors when carrying something or someone.

It’s both exciting and scary all over again.

AT&T is suing Verizon over their there’s a map for that ads. AT&T is of course reacting poorly to a clever and powerful advertisement, but I understand their concern.

Verizon's 3G map

This is an intentionally misleading use of a map. Not only did Verizon pick a color for AT&T that’s difficult to see compared to the background, they are emphasizing total area covered, not total population covered. This is the same travesty you get when you look at 2004 election maps of red vs. blue states where it seems like the entire country is red when in fact it’s not the land that’s voting but the population.

Compare AT&T’s map to a map of population density:

US Population density

Notice how AT&T has service wherever there is any significant amount of population? They retort that they have 3G service available for 296 million customers. So they’re claiming they offer 3G service to 96% of Americans. I suppose the obvious question for Verizon is why are they spending so much time and money extending a 3G network to that remaining 4% of the population that is geographically dispersed, and where they’ll get such little return on their investment? Verizon isn’t in the game for community service, they’re in it to make money. If I were a shareholder, I’d be rather concerned, especially considering that Verizon will have to update their network. And that they have crappy phones.

After two winters with the horrible windows upstairs, we finally decided to replace the windows in ours and Ella’s bedrooms. We decided to use vinyl windows upstairs because they aren’t as visible from the street, because the one functioning window upstairs is already vinyl, because they were cheaper, and lastly, and possibly most importantly, we couldn’t get a wooden double-hung window big enough for our room nor an wooden arch top small enough for Ella’s. We bought our windows from Parr again (making it the 13th, 14th and 15th from them) but didn’t have quite the same service as usual. The big window was over 2 weeks late, and several times when it was supposed to be available or delivered, it wasn’t. Makes it difficult to shop local.

The window in her room was an old wood-frame, round-top, single-pane thing that was both drafty and let a generous amount of condensation form on the inside during the winter. The condensation also promoted mildew growth, so we had to clean her window and sill with some frequency. Replacing it was easy enough, though it exposed how poorly done the exterior trim around the windows was. None of the newer trim had been primed, so the latex paint was peeling like mad. The calking around the windows had failed as well because the paint it was adhered to lost it’s integrity. So half the time was spent installing the window, and half sanding, priming, sealing the old woodwork.

Yesterday afternoon the big window (a birthday present) finally arrived (and was delivered by the repentant sales guy, no less) and I tore out the old aluminum frame window. It looks like it was designed to be used in an RV. The quality was so poor and the window didn’t ever seat right, so during the winter, you could stand anywhere in our bedroom and feel a breeze. A cold breeze. So it was mildly satisfying to remove it and clean up the frame for the new window. I had to cut a small shim to put on one side because the opening turned out to be 1/4″ too large, but a really quick trip over to my dad’s shop solved that. Just putting the window up into the opening, even without being sealed was as good as the previous window as far as draft and noise. After installing it and caulking the outside, it was draftless, quiet, and really nice looking.

Immediately after installing it, the ambient outside noise was suddenly coming from the remaining front window. It’s next, and I may try to tackle it tonight after work since it’s a relatively simple install and will make the project be mostly over. Except for replacing the trim with matching wood rather than gauche fiberglass molding. And going back to paint the woodwork around the windows.

I’m well sick of my thesis by now, but seeing as it’s year 3 of the slog, I’ve got to wrap things up. Well, it’s year 5 of all of it, but the first 3 were awesome, so they don’t really count. I took the summer off from my thesis because I wasn’t able to accomplish anything useful while school was out and one of my committee members was on sabbatical. Summer is over, so I’m back to looking for a replacement committee member (sabbatical was extended) and trying to present my topic, get human subject approval from the graduate office, and get in to the field to try some layer maps on 5th graders.

Luckily, I still enjoy the topic.

My former vegetarian of a wife recently purchased half of a half beef from a local farmer, which she split with a co-worker. The two of them compared multiple local farmers/ranchers and ultimately decided on this farm. I imagine the farmer’s blog explains why they chose the farm, but I think economy also factored in. Which is why we weighed and calculated it all as we crammed our freezer full of meat.

Over the last few years, we’ve slowly increased our consumption of meat (not hard for a vegetarian), though we’re still way under the average for Americans, which I suspect is partly due to the cost of the meat we buy, our enjoyment of alternative protein sources (I actually like fake sausage better than some of the cheap pork varieties), and because of the litany of health and environmental reasons for doing so. These are among the reasons we have 3 noisy chickens in our back yard – we know they’re treated well, we know their diet, and we know what was involved in the lifespan of the “product”. Oh, and the eggs are really good.

I’m not going to get in to all the stuff about the state of commercial feedlot operations, the treatment of cattle or anything because it seems like there’s so much already written about it. Suffice to say we’ve managed to get a cow who’s trip through the food system is one that we can get behind while at the same time supporting local businesses, reducing the amount of oil used in the production of our beef, and lastly, but not insignificantly, saved some money.

The initial judgement of the product will likely begin tonight.

This is the conclusion to the flooring saga, following part 1 and part 2.

Tuesday night, after leaving my newly destroyed floors, my dad and I tried to rationalize the damage. It’d be fine tomorrow. It won’t look so bad after we put polyurethane on, and so on. But then we broached the subject of sanding it again and starting over. That’s when I decided to sleep on it. I didn’t actually give it any thought because I essentially crashed. I woke up several times, but discovered a new trick. If you put a little lidocaine cream on your finger and rub the back of your throat, it makes the hurt just a little less so you can sleep.

Wednesday morning I was still undecided about the flooring, still felt like crap, and just wanted to rest. So I did. That and I did a few phone conferences with my mom in Nebraska (who said that if my dad thought it looked bad, it probably was), and my wife in Washington, who thought the pictures I’d sent didn’t look that bad. We didn’t want the added cost and time it would take to resand and then refinish, but we’d have to live with the results of the stain if we didn’t. Since it looked so bad right where you enter the house, I finally decided that I had to resand. But first, I needed to rest.

A couple hours, several popsicles, a few pints of water, and a showing of Blazing Saddles later, I was feeling human enough to rent a U-sand machine from Parkrose Hardware (also damn awesome) and go after the stain. We picked this machine because it’s simply four random orbit heads with a dust collection system. We weren’t looking to sand away decades of neglect, just one stupid afternoon of stain.

Wednesday evening, when I mustered the energy to sand, I was delighted to find how quickly it removed the stain (my dad was right), and how nicely it took away all the extra filler left in the drum sander divots and low parts. I only managed to do the 36 grit before crashing again, but I went to bed with a sense of hope and a tub of lidocaine creme. Surely, Thursday I’d be better.

Thursday arrived, and I still felt like hell. I called in to catch up with my boss and spent a few hours catching up on e-mail. Thankfully, it was summer term, and after most classes had ended so the immediate stuff was pretty limited. I then dozed off in a rocker for a while and woke in a panic, realizing I still had to get the sander back. So I rushed over and did another pass on the floors with the 60, 100, and 120 grit then rushed the sander out to Parkrose.

A short time later, Michelle arrived home with the girls and took on the cleaning while I rested. By about 5pm, we were ready to try again with the finish. We’d tried spot samples of Zinnser’s Bulls eye sanding sealer, a shellac without wax. It looked fantastic, and it’s what we’d originally wanted before testing the stains. The lovely thing about shellac, is that it goes on quickly, and with a lambswool head and a painting pad, we shellaced the floors in about 30 minutes.

Something odd had happened too. Since Michelle and the girls’ return, I’d started to feel better. It’s unlikely related, given that it had been nearly a week since the throat pain had started, but after a popsicle, I was able to eat some food and drink a respectable amount of water.

Friday, Michelle and dad went after the polyurethane and really closed up shop on the project. They put on a coat in the morning, and then we took Ella out for a birthday trip to the Children’s Museum. We’d scheduled the day off, and managed to have a great time ignoring the incomplete project at home. My dad, saint that he is, put on another coat of polyurethane while we were out. Michelle and he put on the last two coats as well, totaling in 4 coats. We used the Zinnser water based Polyurethane because we’ve had great luck with Zinnser’s other products, and it was $10/gallon cheaper than the Varethane, which we’ve used in the past.

How’d it look? Freakin’ shiny, that’s how. We chose semi-gloss because we knew there’d be a fair amount of dog traffic and didn’t want the wear to show off so glaringly. Still, the semi-gloss reflected giant patches of light onto the ceiling. It was a startlingly mirrored surface, but it looked fantastic.

The final cost of the project, which includes the installation of new flooring in the kitchen, refinishing the floors (plus the stain disaster), miscellaneous costs like replacing the damaged sanding head, purchasing a dead blow hammer, buying pizza for demolition crews, etc. came to $1132. (check out the tally) The cost of the “stain incident” was around $150, though I have no regrets now. During the process, in my pain and dejection, I was certain I’d never do this again. However, hindsight is corrective, and $1132 for the entire project is still less than a third of what it would have cost for someone to refinish the floors. That doesn’t include installing new floors in the kitchen, which totaled under $400, or less than $2.60 per sqft for both the material and installation.

So, despite a few moments of DIY Hell, a week of pain and poor health, we came out in pretty good shape. See the pictures for yourself. Now we just have to repaint all the baseboards and install new quarter-round. Check back in 3 months.