train table, revised

ok. so p got home and took a look at the legs and said they had to go. i was in total agreement. i just had them slapped on so it looked like i actually did something while they were gone. so after some discussion, we headed to home depot on sunday and bought some more materials and paint. at about 9pm that night, i had finished cutting, sanding, gluing and installing the legs. it was now p's turn to add the finishing touches. for the next four hours, p put on two coats of paint. at one o'clock, she woke me from my nap on the couch to set up the train so a could see it as he came down the steps. here's the finished product. much sturdier than the charlie brown action i had going on.

the dig out

so here are some pix of the work that was done shoveling.
walkway looking east.
walkway looking west.
the alleyway and around the bend

so speaking of the hoa. last night at 9pm i headed to the airport to p/u p and a. after long delays, we finally make it home at 2am. we pulled into the alley, made the bend, and noticed that the hoa finally sent someone to plow the alleyway. the only thing was, they started from the west end, which wasn't at all shoveled, and headed east... thereby dumping a row of snow about 8" high and 6" wide in front of all the garage skirts. they were not respectful enough to plow the snow they left behind. i was so mad. i couldn't believe that the plowperson didn't take a second to look at the alley and realize it would probably make more sense to go east to west. i'm gonna raise a stink.

5 nights w/o p and a: afternoon and evening 5

with the snow storm that hit denver, i was unsure if p and a were going to be able to return home tonight. but all seems to be well at the airport as far as inbound flights. so in about 45 minutes, i'll be heading out to pick them up.

after work today, i stopped by home depot for materials to finish the train table. after browsing around for about 30 minutes, i realized they didn't have everything i was looking for. i stopped off at home to change my shirt and shoes and decided to through myself into the fray of crazy holiday traffic. the main roads around the city were in good shape, but the side streets were packed snow and ice... but still driveable. my first stop was the home depot off south colorado blvd to check for materials. luckily, they had everything i was looking for. i then decided to try my luck in cherry creek, two planned stops: the library and the mall for some random shopping. after actually getting to the creek, i decided parking was going to be a headache, so i headed out of the creek to the park hill library. after a quick stop there, i headed back home. kind of a wasted trip, but driving through the side streets was a blast... i avoided a ton of traffic by doing so and i'm sure saved myself anywhere from 45-60 minutes of travel time.

at home, i goofed around for a bit, then met with R to get a set of his keys for emergency kitty care since they were heading out for a week. after goofing off for another forty minutes or so, i buckled down and finished off the train table. the legs are a bit weak, but they can be replaced/ upgraded in the future.

with the train table done (the legs are charlie brown'd, or homer simpson'd, however you prefer to call it)... need p to help with redesigning it so it won't fall over when aiden starts to play on it., it was time to vacuum, mop the floor, take a shower, shave, do some laundry and dust off some dishes.

it's now 830 and p's plane just took off from dfw.

it'll be another late night, but after a cup of coffee and a homemade cookie, i'm sure i'll be up for a while.

excited to see my wife and kid after five long and busy days... and i thought this would have been a mini-vaca for me... going out and sleeping in. i did neither.

the highlight of the week: definitely the snow storm and working with the neighbors to dig out the alley.

5 nights w/o p and a: day 4

yep. day four. it was a snow day. the blizzard of 06 kept just about everyone within their own neighborhoods.
i woke up this morning around 6am thinking i could bomb through the alley in p's car and make it work. boy was i wrong. i opened up the garage door to find about 18-24 inches of snow in the alley. i realized getting to work would be just about impossible. so i called into the ai that was at the refinery and told him that i wouldn't make it in. i changed into some snow shoveling clothes, hooked up the ipod to computer speakers i keep in the garage, and started to shovel. due to the nature of how the houses/townhomes are set up, we share an alleyway and have a driveway of about only eight feet. so i shoveled out the eight feet, which took about an hour, and then moved to the front of the house to shovel out the walk.
i opened the front door to find a snow drift about three feet high. looking over the gate, the snow drift was just as high. as i started on the front walk, my neighbor four houses to the east came out with his shovel and started to shovel a path toward the east alley. after he dug out a path to the alley, he turned in my direction and we worked toward each other. at that time, another neighbor started to dig out her walk, and being done with one portion, hucked myself through the snow and helped her dig out her walk so she could open her gate.
since all the shoveling i planned for the day was done, i decided to hike on over to home depot to see if they were open, get some stuff for the train table if they were open, and also to get a walk in. after about a block, i decided this walking stuff is for the birds and went home and got my mtn bike. the main arteries in and out of stapleton were plowed and in ok shape. so i got the bike out and rode up to home depot: closed, so i headed back to 29th to see what would be open for lunch. everything in the town center aside from anothony's pizza was closed. so i called up r&m and let them know. and then proceeded to head to their house to see how their shoveling was coming along.
29th was not at all plowed; but some poeple had driven down the road and packed in two tracks... just hard enough where i could spin through 95% of it. after about 45 minutes of playing in the snow, i headed back home.
after a change of clothes, i met r&m and headed to anthony's for a meatball sandwich.
after lunch, it was back to the garage to do random things... but i ended up shoveling more snow. i found out that the road north of the house had been semi-plowed, so i dug out my car so i could get to work in the morning. at that time, some of my neighbors were out shoveling their own section of the driveway... and ended up we all worked on shoveling out the alleyway so we could all get our cars out. i think it took about three hours total, but now, half of the alleyway is clear and eight families can get their cars out. woo hoo. wait, where's the HOA?
dinner, a half batch of cookies (due to a lack of flour) and it's now 9pm. thinking about vacuuming the upstairs.
off to work tomorrow. but only four hours.
not sure if p and a are gonna make it home due to the storm. i believe dia is closed until noon tomorrow? the 5 nights w/o p&a could be stretched a bit longer. hopefully not much though; would really like to have them home for xmas. only time will tell.

5 nights w/o p and a: afternoon/night 3

the refinery today sent all non-essential employees home early today due to the snow storm that was just starting to build in colorado. it was about 945 when the AI told me to split since they were in the mode that if anyone were to stay, they would be staying the night. not wanting to spend the night at the refinery, i boogied it outta there.

the drive home wasn't too bad... snow packed roads, probably getting to around 3-4 inches on the ground. it still amazes me the idiots that drive and those that can't drive in the snow. anyway. i get home in about 30-35 minutes, and after moping around for a bit, decided to head to home depot to buy some materials for a's train table. after getting back home, i had lunch and proceeded plan out the table... a few measurements here, a few there... plug in the cirular saw, make a few cuts here and there and then line it up for assembly. turns out i measured something wrong. of course... so after mulling around a bit longer, i decide to rethink the table. a few more cuts and the table is about 1/3 of the way there... gotta figure out a few details and hopefully finish it off either thursday night or friday after work.

around 3pm i decide to clean the oven. it's been a year. actually, over a year. we have a self-cleaning oven, but decided to spray easy-off and do the wipe down. after the oven was done, i moved onto the bath tub. scrub a dub dub and a shower later, i started to put away clothes. then i hit the hallway closet and refolded a few sheets and reorganized a couple of shelves. on to a's closet for some repacking and then back downstairs. by this time it's 7pm and time for dinner.

since dinner, i haven't done much of anything. for some reason i watched a couple of hours of coverage of the snow storm... not like it really changed from minute one to miunte 90. now it's 11pm, don't know what the heck i've been doing, but i think it's time for ice cream. and bed.

5 nights w/o p and a: night 2

after work today i headed to the thrift stores. i was looking for a table top that i could transform into a train table for a; instead of building one. after two thrift stores, the only think i was going home with was the west side story soundtrack on vinyl for 1.07USD.
once i got home, i changed out of the work clothes and vacuumed out p's car. it was long overdue. i think if i were to gather all the kixs that were strew about the back seat and floor, i'd have at least one bowl.
once the car was done, i backed it out of the garage so i could build the frame for the guest bed storage. a few cuts and lots of screws later, the frame is up and ready for some thin plywood so we won't be staring at the bed every time we head into the garage.
after a quick sweep, i decided to cut down the handlebars on my soon to be ss/fixie.
now it's 10pm, got some dumplings in me and the simpsons are on... what to do tomorrow night..?

5 nights w/o p and a: night 1

i got off work early today to take p and a to the airport. they are headed to mission, tx, to visit with grandma and grandpa murray for a few days. after sending them off, i decided that despite the 30 deg F temperature, i'd park the car at home and load up a messenger bag with items that needed to be returned/ exchanged at various stops around denver.

stop number one was the dpl in cherry creek to unload some movies and cd's borrowed on friday. unfortunately, all three movies weren't that great.

the second stop was at the pottery barn in cherry creek mall. i was there to exchange a serving platter and return a vase. sales associate #1 that met me as i walked in was high on something. she was all over the place. she was explaining the policy that items ordered over the web could not be returned in the store, but still pulled out paper work and started to fill it out... and, the platter i wanted to exchange, she said flat out that it was not carried in the store and had to be exchanged through the website... after about five minutes of her rants and raves, one of her coworkers offered to take over the work as her shift had ended some time ago, apparently. so, the sales associate #2 got on the phone with the online store to get the return started, but was on eternal hold... and while she was on hold, called the stock room regarding the serving platter and within two minutes, the platter was exchanged. weird. especially after sales associate #1 said they didn't carry that platter in the store. minutes later, sales associate #2 got fed up with holding with the online store and decided to just give me store credit for the vase despite their policy of not doing so. she didn't feel like making me wait around and based on the number of people in the store, didn't want to hold other people up as well. not a bad stop.

stop number three took me down east alameda toward broadway to go to the denver library branch on east bayaud. p and i have driven/walked/biked by that branch many times, but never did stop in. so i thought i'd check it out and see what they had for movies to rent. i got the hidden blade.

i then rolled north on linoln until i hit the cherry creek bike path and rolled into d/t to larimer square. tow years ago, p and i had bumped into a friend of hers from school who was walking around with cigar boxes. he used them to transport pens and pencils... that day we saw him, we bought five boxes ourselves to store various items. i've been on a bit of an organization kick since the cross season ended and was looking to purchase a few more. the cigar shop only had about eight boxes and only two of them were wood... so i snatched them up, half off, since neither box had a closure device.

stop five was the dpl branch on welton. this branch has always had a good selection of movies... but not today... and thinking i could hit the park hill branch, i checked to see what time it closed: 6pm. and it was 5pm. so i got back on the bike and kicked it up 23rd ave to dexter for a stop at the park hill library. there i got 2046 and sympathy for mr. vengeance.

final stop: home. after leaving the house at 3pm, i was home at 545pm with about 18-19 miles covered.

after a quick meal of left overs, i made a few measurements and headed back out, but this time in the car. stop one was walmart... p's mom had given us a gift for aiden, but it involved tv- not really something we wanted to have aiden play with... video games + tv = too much tv. so i took it over to walmart and got store credit for it. then walked around the megastore to see what i could get. i couldn't really find anything... and the bright lights and various noises being bounced at you from all angles got to me so i scooted out of there. final stop, home depot. i'm looking to build a stowaway for the bed in the garage. so i bought some wood and came home. i'm beat and it's only 10pm.