Plans, Present and Future

It all started with our crummy kitchen counters.  The counters are painted plywood as best as I [Michael] can tell, and they're not contiguous, with seams on either side of the dishwasher installation.  The solution? Replace the countertops.

And so it begins.  Of course, it isn't as easy as just replacing the countertops.  We have kitchen storage issues, like most folks, and would like additional cabinetry to store the various appliances, dishes, and foodstuffs we like to keep around.  We do not wish to sacrifice counter space to expand the cabinetry; if anything, we want more counter space.  We've played around with different ways to accomplish this, but given the current confines of the kitchen there just aren't many options, and nothing that gives us what we want.

Besides the kitchen, we have long eyed the "back" of the house with some measure of disdain.  Our four small bedrooms are currently accessed by a narrow hallway running down the center of the bedroom wing.  The whole arrangement reminds us of mobile home life. For some time we've toyed with the possibility of changing the layout, but as long as we stay within the confies of our exterior walls we keep coming up one room short when exploring our options.

And then comes the energy efficiency issue.  Our home continues to be an energy hog.  While we don't use as much energy as we used to, we still use considerably more than we should have to in order to stay warm.  The next step in our energy improvement plan is work on the exterior walls and some of the windows.

So...

The solution seems to be an addition to the back of the house.  This will give us the space we need for all our plans.  By incorporating the expansion into the siding/window project we think we'll actually enjoy lower heating costs after the expansion than we're seeing now.  We'll also gain the space we need for the renovation project, because we'll need to clear out rooms in order to reorient and rebuild walls and floors.

The floorplan here should give folks an idea of what we're contemplating.  At this point we're thinking about building the shell for the expansion this spring and summer and encapsulating (siding, insulation, and windows) the whole house before next winter.  After that, we'll start renovating from the south side of the bedroom corridor and work our way north.

We had our first snowfall last week.  It's all gone now, but while it lasted the kids had a good time.  There will be more to come soon, with snow beginning to appear in the forcast as autumn gives way to colder weather.

Sometimes Michael Robert reminds me a lot of myself as a child (I suppose this is a common observation between parents and their children).  To illustrate, I offer two pictures of smiling boys.  Which one am I?  Which one is my son?  If I were to carefully select some of the pictures of me and my little boy the difference might be a little harder to tell.

We were watching "An Inconvenient Truth" last night.  Michael asked a question about the show and we were telling him that our planet was in trouble.  He said that we (mommy and daddy) should fix it.  I explained that I would be too old to do much good, but that he wasn't, and that he was going to have to save the planet; he would be our superhero.  He really liked that idea.

Our son: savior of the planet.

They're Reading it After All

Such pretty little flowers.  I [Michael] was a little surprised to see flowers this late in the year, but there they were, and I had the camera handy.  They were tiny little things with blossoms only about a quarter of an inch across, but a flower is a flower no matter how small.

This month's newspaper article, Giving it away is better, generated some responses from my readers.  I fielded three phone calls yesterday and today.

The article spells out my latest excursion to the dump and the reasons for it, and then goes on to suggest that Juneau could use a "free store" where people could take their excess serviceable items instead of throwing them away.  The calls I received were favorable insofar as the callers agreed that Juneau residents don't have suitable options when it comes to getting rid of our extra stuff, but the suggestions they offered miss the point.

Two callers mentioned a website, Juneau freecycle, where people can post items they want to give away on the site.  I have to ask: why?  The Juneau Empire already has a "freebies" section where people can post their free or cheap giveaways.  There's also Craigslist.  These are all options, but they are limited options.

I mentioned our "free stuff" tent in my column.  I also mentioned the reason for setting it up: so I wouldn't have to mind the store.  That's the real point.  If people have to devote time to giving their surplus stuff away (time waiting for phone calls, time waiting for people who have called to come over), then it isn't worth their time.  The implication behind "free stuff" is that it is free for the person getting it, but that it should also free the person giving away the stuff from having to devote unnecessary time to the endeavor. If I have to spend ten or twenty hours trying to give things away, and if I put any kind of price on my time, I'm better off taking my surplus to the dump and being done with it.

Of course, while I would be in favor of having a free store in Juneau, and would probably shop there, I don't know that I'd have much time to volunteer toward making such a project work.  That's one nice thing about writing a column.  I can suggest ideas and hope somebody else steps up to put in the actual effort.

The West Marsh

The rains come down.  All that water has to go somewhere, doesn't it?  As the runoff channels down into our little watershed it carries with it whatever gets carried off by the rising current.  Funny thing though: when the water comes to our property, most of the silt falls out.  The water leaving our property is clearer than when it enters, thanks to a very low slope and a lot of greenery along the banks of our now overflowing creek.

Before I [Michael] realized what an effective job our natural floodplain does at filtering sediment, I actually gave a little thought to damming the creek to accelerate the process.  After looking at the clarity of the water going out, however, I am convinced that a dam would be a waste of effort (unless I wanted a skating rink in the winter).

Of course, flooding in our present location is nothing to be alarmed about. West Creek needed to rise a mere four inches to fill most of its flood plain.  Our house is another fifteen feet up.

It is instructive to observe our little flood. It helps to understand where we might want to add more fill, or where we might want to divert a trail to avoid an area that floods.  It's also reassuring to see that the extra water isn't carrying away any of our creekside improvements.

There won't be much news about "The Mikado" for some time.  Rehearsals won't start until February or March.  I did make a pitch for making a video of the production, calling for the effort to be an integral part of the production process, rather than an afterthought.  The director responded by presenting a list of participants who would need to sign release forms and stressing the need for a good sound balance.  This is a stark contrast to the typical "I'll get back with you" response, and is a good sign.

And here we are, the third Wednesday of the month.  Time for another newspaper column.

Reconnecting with the outside world - September, 2008

 

 

Ko-ko, the Lord High Executioner of Titipu
Now Playing: The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring

Juneau Lyric Opera held auditions for Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" over the weekend.  Sheryl signed me [Michael] up for an audition on Saturday, and callbacks were earlier today (Sunday).

Somehow I never really doubted that I would get a call back, especially since I took the extra measure of getting the sheet music to the pianist several days before.  For the audition I sang a 1904 piece titled "Uncle Sammy", which has some ironic political satire when performed for contemporary audiences ("When Uncle Sammy rises in his might, he's always sure he's right, when he begins to fight").  They invited me to callbacks at the conclusion of the song, even before the laughter died down (it can be taken as a very funny song today), gave me a copy of the libretto, and asked me to look at Ko-ko's part. 

As with most of the shows I've done, I knew very little about this show  before the audition, but through You-Tube Sheryl and I were able to watch several interpretations of many of Ko-ko's songs.  Some of the melody lines were familiar too, since one of the "Veggie-Tales" episodes used several songs from the Mikado.

I enjoyed the callbacks.  A large part of my satisfaction in doing theatre in Juneau is in knowing many of the local amatuer actors, and the group assembled today included several people I've had the pleasure to work with before.  There were some new faces as well, which is another benefit of doing theatre.  The music for the callback was difficult but that hampered everybody equally (with the exception of one lady who either knows the melodies or can sight read sheet music, and another who sang one of the songs from memory).  The dialog was easy enough.  I also got a little boost from my You-Tube meanderings, as the last song chosen for the callback was one that I heard a great deal of the night before, enough to put the melody line in my head so all I had to do was to sing the lyrics off the sheet music.

I got the call offering me the part at 8:30 this evening.

Rehearsals begin in March, with shows in the first two weekends of May.  It will be the first show in Juneau's new high school, which adds a little twist to the production because nobody knows what state of completion the auditorium will be in by then (students began going there this term, but construction work continues in at least some areas of the complex).

Something to look forward to.

Old business, New business

First, the old business.  Of course, there’s always old business, although with a blog there is always the question of why anybody would want to rehash old news.  In this case, it isn’t so much the old news as much as old pictures. Back in May we went to a party at Auke Rec, the same recreation area where Sheryl and I [Michael] had our "day after the wedding" party.  It was a lovely day, warm (for here), sunny, no wind, about as nice as days in Juneau get.  After a while, Becky made herself at home on the beach near the water line, slowly burying herself in the mud.  Michael joined her, at which time Becky started trying to bury him too, or at least started flinging mud in his direction.  They both pled ignorance when asked what they thought they were doing.  Of course, neither of them had any problem with the cold, cold mud until it was time to go, at which point they both cried incessantly (perhaps it was the cold water I used to rinse them off before putting them in the car).

More recently, work continues on the new storage area on the west side of the garage.  Until the retaining wall went in, the ground to the west of the house was virtually unusable, especially in winter when ice would render the sloping hillside too treacherous to attempt a crossing.  Our previous blog entry shows how tall the retaining wall had to be to level out the worst stretch of the hillside. The work on the west side was fairly straightforward. Build the retaining wall. Fill in behind the retaining wall.  Put in pier blocks.  Assemble roof supports.  Attach the roof.  When I added lights and an electrical outlet in the new covered area I duplicated the effort in the shed we constructed last summer, so now we’ll be able to see what we're doing in both areas in the dead of winter. And what will become of the new storage area?  For one thing, it would seem to be a good place to put the radial arm saw, which I never use because it’s too much of a hassle to haul it out of the garage (and too messy to run in the garage).  There are a number of other things that we’d like to store there too, things that need to be out of the rain (and snow) but otherwise don’t need a heated space, like garden tools and yard equipment.  And then of course there is the prospect of storing another couple of cords (or more) of firewood, but we’ll have to deal with that as wood becomes available. Speaking of available wood, we may be coming across a large quantity of it soon enough.  Several of our trees (about a dozen) are showing evidence of a spruce beetle infestation and may already be dying.  After giving the matter some thought we’ve decided to let the infestation run its course, which means that we’ll be losing some trees, gaining some daylight, and filling both woodsheds for the next few years.  I’m mostly okay with losing some of the trees, because we have plenty of them, and since the older trees are in the most jeopardy their loss would enhance the growth of the younger trees, just like nature intended.  The only thing I don’t look forward to is removing the stumps: my experience has been that even the small tree stumps are really difficult to dislodge from the ground, as I was reminded while taking out the one old stump (which should have rotted out but didn’t) that resided in the path of the new retaining wall. Becky’s in Kindergarten five days a week and loving it.  Michael is in preschool two mornings a week, and he loves it too.  So far, I have been too occupied to consider what the extra “free” time means to me.