The weather is so perfect now I couldn?t justify staying inside, but I still wanted to compose a post so the logical thing to do of course is to drag my laptop up to the roof and give ?er hell from there (yeah, I have internet access on my roof, doesn?t everyone?). So I guess that brings us to right now. Me on the roof enjoying the sun, and you likely behind some well lit desk sometime in the future. Nifty. Enough of this nonsense though before I disappear in a poof of my own logic.

So yeah, the last few days have been perfect hence my yard is full of the wreckage formerly known as ?ugly-ass siding?. The stuff comes off relativily easy but I have to admit, so does human flesh when it comes into contact with it. My hands look like I spent a nice relaxing afternoon punching a pile of screws. Gloves you say? No, but I?m sure I had a really good reason not to wear them (as blood is pouring all over the ladder). If that seagull shits on my laptop I?m going to have it for breakfast tomorrow. I guess it is picture time though. Here’s a link of sort of what it used to look like. And here’s how it looks now.

I asked Brad to stop by after work today and evaluate the condition of the exterior of the house. Since he has forgotten more about construction (and pretty much everything else) then I will ever know, I figured it was good move. I found him poking at the siding with a screwdriver exclaiming in disbelief about how good of shape the siding was in. After seeing it in person, he?s under the likely correct assumption that removing all the siding would be a waste of time and money as the current stuff nailed up can be salvaged. Isn?t it neat to watch me oscillate back and forth between decisions? So he?s going to bring his pressure washer by tomorrow and I?m going to see how it goes. Who knows, in a few weeks the outside may be done. Ok, stop laughing. Well, I have to give a talk tomorrow during our lab?s technical lunch so I?m going to dive back into my pile of papers (or maybe just read a book ? who knows).

Taken Friday evening looking west over Lake Superior.

I can say for certain now that the house was that dark green. I spent a lot of time today pulling off siding and throughout the process it became quite clear that the green was the color of choice. There is also some crazy dark red on certain spots that could be interpreted as trim. In any case though, people defiantly started noticing the house now. You can tell that people are glad to see progress when the walk by with a smile, eager to watch the progress unfold over the ensuing months. Hopefully I won?t disappoint.

From the looks of it though, all that stuff will have to come down. I?m only working on the lower level now, but I imagine the same will hold true for the upper levels. If the weather holds tomorrow and I do the north side, I will know for sure. At the moment, I?ve done the west side, and some of the south side but my ladder isn?t tall enough to reach very far up into the second level (its 24 feet tall too). With that in mind, I took a picture to put some things into perspective. Sometimes I forget how absolutely huge this house is since from the outside everything is big so it almost looks normal sized. So here?s me standing out on the west side. That window above me is at the bottom of the front staircase.

I went camping out at Brad?s land on Lake Superior last night. I snapped the requisite 400 sunset pictures (which look cool). I was also out there on Thursday giving him a hand pouring concrete. Actually, everyone in the research group who was in town was out there. Interesting lab bonding time. Anyway, he had one of his Alaskan Malamutes out there and let me tell you they are friggen huge. But you don?t have to take my word for it because yet again, the camera was there to save the day.

For tonight though, I?m just taking it easy at home. I started a nice fire and moved the laptop down to the fireplace and I?m just sort of relaxing and getting things digitally situated.

I?m really trying to figure out what color the house really was. I mean, over the years it has probably been every color of the rainbow but I?m seeking the first color. I took this picture of what I?ll just call a paint sample. Now I need your help. So which color is it? The dark green? Or the almost golden orange that you can see spots of? I think the orange stuff may be the actual bare exposed wood though. Any guesses?

After spending the better part of yesterday afternoon 4-6 miles above the surface of the Earth cruising back from Florida, I can safely say that I am avoiding anything to do with alcohol for a while (and I?m certain I don?t have a monopoly on that sentiment). Why did I go there? We threw my friend Sean from Back Home Long Ago a surprise bachelor party down in Destin Florida (the redneck Rivera). Poor bastard had no idea he was going someplace warm until about an hour before the flight left. Anyway, it was pretty crazy time although once my body figured out I was on vacation it basically shut down. Unfortunately though, I broke my camera again jumping in the trunk of a car . . . uh . . . forget you read that last part. Luckily though, I can just take it back and get a new one. Aside from that, no one was arrested and property damage was likely kept to a minimum.

Ug, I had these lofty ambitions to write a nice long post telling our exploits in Florida but that brief vacation from Houghton was enough to recharge my work battery enough that I am just dead ass tired. I spent most of today reviewing technical papers on Hall thruster discharge physics (interesting stuff, but not for 5+ hours) in preparation for an ultra-technical discussion with Brad in the morning. After that though, I roller bladed about 7 miles which isn?t that unusual but I?ve come to the firm conclusion that my wheels and bearings are completely shot. Not a huge surprise since the streets are basically a sandbox at the moment and I abuse the crap out of them. With the cardio out of the way for the day and my blood still flowing, I went to work on the house for a while. I started taking some shingle ?siding? off in the north-east corner in an effort to see if my Plan A for siding will work. Plan A being restore the original siding with a pressure washer and 2 million dollars in paint. The jury is still out on whether that would be a good idea or not, but unless I donate a kidney, there is no way I could afford to put vinyl siding on this place.

I’m off to Florida for the weekend. It is a bit of a surpise to the people involved and I don’t want to be the one who leaked it. I’ll fill you in on Sunday (or Monday).

It is official now, I?m in writing aversion mode. The nice part about that though is since my lab work has cooled off a bit, I?ve found time to do a lot of things I just sort have had on the back burner. Laundry is a good example of that. I?ve been really digging in the B-sides of my wardrobe lately but last night I actually washed all my clothes. Better yet though, I actually cooked a decent meal last night as well. I bought some tenderized steak and some teriyaki sauce and made one hell of a marinated steak. I?m pretty sure that by the time I finish this paper, the house will be spotless, I?ll have read 7 books, I?ll be a master chef and on and on. Truth be told though, I want to kick this thing out the door before I take off for Florida on Thursday. I?ve got the first flight out in the morning and should be sitting on the beach on the gulf coast by noon. I can?t wait to escape if only for the weekend.

Ok, so one hour after starting writing this, I?m back at it again. Emily and Mak stopped by Cyberia to go out for Emily?s pre-test beer. What a tradition I?ve started here. In case you don?t know, every time before I run a thruster test, I always go out the night before for at least one beer and thus far I?ve had really good luck doing so. It came up one day at one of our group meetings and has sort become engrained in the culture of the experimentalists in the lab. So Em, thanks for the beer and good luck with the electron trap. Maybe after a beer I can suddenly write better too (hah hah hah, I wish).

I was sort of bored this afternoon after taking a few runs to the dump (I cleaned all the crap out of the yard) so I went for a little drive. With gas prices like they are, I usually limit my mobility to essential travel only, but that does little to curb my incessant stir craziness. Anyway, out of nowhere the fog rolled in near Calumet casting everything into this eerie flat light. It just so happens I was near this cemetery so I actually turned around, parked and snapped a couple of pictures. So I guess the trip was worth it.

In other news, I bought a bunch of books at the Backroom today. $6 dollars got me 4 books and a bumper sticker, have to love that place. So I’m starting on “The Canaan Legacy” by Michael Kahn. I suppose though, I should write a nice book report on the last book I read as it was pretty good. Any one else read any good books lately? And Statistical Mechanics doesn’t count.

I don?t know why this is so hard for me. I?m trying to write a journal paper and it is like eating chalk. As it turns out, I?m a terrible technical writer. I told Brad a few weeks ago that I could write for hours about how some tree looked but couldn?t write about what I do 8+ hours a day to save my life. Why is that? I have this test data that I took for a reason. It told me something, now I just have to explain what it told me and why I took it in the first place. Sounds simple enough right? God, how ironic is this? I?m writing about how I can?t write. Ok, I better get back to not writing.

Does anyone know of any good directory synchronization software? I?ve found a few but any personal insight would be great. The reason I ask is because I?ve parked my butt downtown at Cyberia Caf? with my laptop working on a journal paper but I?m going to have a hell of a time keeping things in sync. Here?s what I need: I have two computers at home (a desktop and a laptop) as well as a home directory on campus and I absolutely have to keep my home directory (aka ?My Documents?) in sync across the board. With information stored in only two places, it wasn?t so bad, but since I?ve added a third things are getting dicey. Such are the perils in such a connected world I guess.