Mud Mud Everywhere

I had my first work week at the city this past week. It was a short one, three days. I got my first EDO this Friday. I also got a check on Wednesday. A Surprise since I'd only been there one day. I double checked to make sure they hadn't made a mistake. It was just a shock to see a descent size paycheck again. Man I missed that. Aside from a different style of mouse and keyboard I am jumping right into things. Also AutoCad 2007 is a little different version than I'm used to.

The house

I got the all the plumbing wrapped up Friday and put all the drywall up. I finished the first coat of mud tonight and hope to get another on tomorrow. Things aren't going as quickly as I planned, but still moving forward. The new windows arrived today and they look sharp. Now they just need to be installed. Sigh, the list seems to go on and on.

Basement Renos

Before we even bought our house, I had thoughts in my head of adding a second bath in the basement stealing space from our laundry room. So after we had our realtor do a walk through of the house she said it would be a good investment to add the second bath. So there was no time to lose since I start my new job on Tuesday. Unfortunately I don't have a before picture but I have during and at monumental marks during construction.

After clearing out the laundry room and removing one wall, I set up some plastic in preparation to keep dust to a minimum. Last Monday I rented a jack hammer and went to town. Here are some pictures of the progression.

DAY 1 - Jackhammer 101

Here is a picture of me in full force removing most of what used to be laundry room floor. Notice I'm wearing ear protection. I hauled over 40 - 5 gallon pails of debris out of the basement.

Here's an after picture of my head. I was sure I didn't have any grey hair. You can see where my ear protection was.

DAY 2 - Clean up

I got the area all cleaned up and ready for the new plumbing. I planned on puting the new plumbing in but had to wait till day three to pick the stuff up.

DAY 3 - Out with the Old in with the New


Here's a picture of the old cast iron. It only took 1 hour and two reciprocating saw blades to cut through the cast iron. I replaced over half of the main line with new ABS pipe.

Can you see the bathroom yet?? Plumbing is all in and ready and waiting for Concrete. I ran rough-ins for a sink, toilet, laundry sink, and clothes washer - no more CENTRAL VAC pipe for clothes washer drain pipe. It kind of reminds me of an octopus.

DAY 4 - Concrete

I think I was a little ambitious doing the concrete myself. I planned on making it to a funeral at 4:00. Unfortunately I didn't pick up the concrete till 2:00. Marsha was a great help, hauling many buckets down the stairs and helping smooth the concrete. Her cake decorating and great spacial awareness skills was a great help. We finished the concrete at 4:00 but I still had to return the trailer and clean up so, needless to say I didn't make the funeral. I think next time, I'll leave concrete to the pros.
Of course we had to leave our initials. I conveniently placed them where a wall would be.

DAY 5 & 6- Framing

I started framing Friday and finished it last night. Now can you see the bathroom? A spacious 3'3" X 7'5". It's nice to see it take shape, after many hours planning and dreaming in my haed.

So this is all for now. I still have to run the rest of the plumbing, finish some wiring and hang some drywall. Am I being too ambitious, maybe a little.

Who's Been Sitting in My Chair?

Talk about leaving your mark! This is a picture is of our living room furniture. Marsha had just nicely vacuumed the upholstery, and sat down for a quick water break.

I'm going to Saskatoon

Well, it's official. I signed the papers today and accepted a cad job in Saskatoon. It's been a long road the last couple of months.

Back in January, Marsha and I decided it would be best for me to get back in the cad field and be DINKS - Double Income No Kids. So the search began. After searching online for a few days I found a job in Regina. The idea of me commuting from Moose Jaw wasn't great but we liked Moose Jaw, and our new house, and I wouldn't move to Regina.

So, it was time to freshen up my resume and check out my references to see if they'd still support me. So I gained the guts and called my boss at the City of MJ. I wasn't sure what he'd say about me, seeing that we didn't quite see eye to eye. But when it came down to my cad skills I know I showed them off there. I also had a contact at the City of Saskatoon with their Electrical Systems. I'd worked for them when I was a student and did really well. So my reference had a small chat and he'd mentioned there was a posting for the city. I wasn't quite ready to move to Saskatoon but thought that would be the next, and final, place I'd move in Saskatchewan. So I checked out there website and sure enough there it was. I applied and within a week I had a call for an interview. Marsha and I drove up for the interview at the end of January and did some touring around Saskatoon to see areas and houses for sale. The interview was about an hour long. A good interview, from both sides. They had some good questions and I had some for them as well. When I found out the pay was and extra grand a month compared to the same job here in MJ I thought that it would easily offset any living costs.

So we waited to hear from the city and finally a call came. There was good news, and there was not so good news. I was the successful applicant for the position, BUT there was an union grievance that had occurred. You see, I was going to be in an entry level position and so the person I was replacing was moving up. Well someone felt they were better off in the higher position than the guy I'd be replacing, so they grieved the hiring of that employee. They were going to meet with management at the end of the month, so we'd have to wait till then. So more waiting. We waited till the end of February then called to see if there was any more information. They finally got back to me and informed me that the grievance would not be going in my favour, BUT, yes another but, that there was a position that had opened at the Electrical System's Branch and they would like to talk with me. He told me he'd get back to me early the following week and arrange a time. So the next week the call came and they wanted to do another interview / chat and tour. This time it was going to be with the head supervisor and, get this, my reference. Now wouldn't that be an interesting interview "well we'll have to check your references..." - looks across the table. I figured I had a good shot, but you never know.

This past Monday night the call came in and he informed me that I was the successful applicant, sounds familiar. So we hammered out some start dates and such and now we are on the move.

We've been waiting to hear this news since the end of January. This week has been a clean the house spree. I also started some renovations in the basement and then new windows all around. We've been looking at houses in Saskatoon, and the market is crazy. We'll find something I'm sure, and maybe I'll be lucky and be able to do some renovations.

So like I said, it's been a long road, but one worth travelling on.

YQ 2007

I've been wanting to help out with YouthQuake for quite a few years. This Year I finally had the time and opportunity to help out. My friend James is working for the Productions out at Briercrest and I told him earlier in the year that I'd like to help out. Well, he gave me the call this year. My job was basically lackey, stage rat, what ever you want to call it. I moved things on stage. It was cool to be on stage for basically the whole weekend. I started on the Wednesday of last week helping load in all of the audio equipment. It was fun to be part of a road crew. Lots of physical labour and lots of fun toys to look at. This year GV Audio, a company from Regina that brings LOTS of audio equipment, brought in a new speaker system. Apparently it just arrived from France the day before and they needed a venue to test it out in. They were a set of Line Array speakers from NEXXO, (I know techno stuff probably the people reading my blog could care less about) but this system rocked. Positioning and everything is plugged into a computer and you do what it tells you. Included is a laser to guide the aiming of the speakers. Anyways, needless to say, the system worked great. In fact, just the Line Array had enough power for the Hildebrand Chapel, but that doesn't stop us from adding more!

This Year's YouthQuake was a little different. Here's a quick synopsis: Instead of hiring a big band, they took the money and and gave it to youth groups to help a mission that they had in mind. Youth groups submitted videos that the youth of YouthQuake voted on who deserved the money. Apparently the people that might have normally gone to the concerts went back to their dorms and talked instead of going to the night concert. I think there are mixed feelings, but I think it turned out great.


Downhere, apparently a band that was from Marsha's time a Briercrest, came in and performed. Elevate, another Briercrest band lead all of the worship during main sessions.


Here are some pictures of Downhere performing on Saturday night from my perspective on stage. Marsha was able to make it out and take in the show.

Downhere

Downhere - Drummer

A Taste of the Lighting

The Digital Yamaha Sound Board

Ian Leary, GV Audio Sound Technician

I spent a lot of time around Ian, no doubt he was running that Yamaha digital board. So knowing me, I picked his brain a bit.

The Smell of Freshly Cut Wood

This past month I was asked by my farming boss Don to help him do some cut a sheet of plywood into pieces and hep him assemble boxes for Peacock production of Cats. I was also fortunate to be able to drive his brand new truck he just purchased. He wanted me to see how it ran. We went for lunch at Quiznos and over to DQ for some dessert then took the truck on a quick highway drive to show me how she ran. Being in Peacock's wood shop sure brought back memories. I think I lived in there I think. In my grade 12 year I built my mother a buffet and hutch. I had many classmates think I was crazy for doing such a large project but I pulled it off. It had rave reviews making it onto to Peacock's website. It sat on display in the office for a week till I had time to pick it up. I think I had three offers to buy it. I could have sold it for 4 times the amount it took for materials. I think mom would have been angry if I did sell it seeing she hadn't even seen it yet.

The Buffet and Hutch

Last weekend I finally got around to cleaning up my shop and getting it somewhat organized so I could do some wood projects. First on the agenda was to build some simple frames for some paintings that we bought in Barcelona on our honeymoon. I had some pine from an old futon dad had that I used to make the frames. I basically used most of my big tools I have in the shop: Tablesaw even with dado blade, Planer, Jointer, and Miter saw. When I put the pine through the planer for the first time and it sure brought back good memories from the fresh smell of pine that filled the shop. Now to most of you, this probably means nothing, but to a woodworker, a great smell. So here are some pictures of my shop.

The Tablesaw - Looking North

Looking South

The Planer - West Wall

The Joitner - East Wall

The Mitre Saw - East Wall

The Router - North Wall

Wood Storage - East Wall

All I wanted for Christmas Were my 2 Front Teeth

Well I got a whole new grille instead. Let my back up a bit.

I had a wee fender bender on the 15th of this month. I rear-ended a Ford F-150 truck. I think there is more damage to the other truck than mine. The bumper and driver's side quarter panel were damaged. There might have been a bit of frame damage. I had $1000 of damage to my truck. All of the damage was luckily contained to the front bumper and grille. Not a scratch on the paint. My truck didn't want to start when I wanted to move it off the road at the accident. Apparently the force of the impact knocked my distributor plug wire off. I had to call in the police and they towed it away. I've been using my parent's mini van for the past couple of weeks. I thought it was good on gas, quickly found out it's not. I did have to pay $15 over my deductible due to rust on my bumper. I've never seen the Mazda emblem shine before. I guess I'll be paying for it later.