A blog/journal about my life and the stuff I like. Popular subjects include music, guitars, gear, books, movies, video games, technology, humor.
Below are few more shots of the progress on the framing and we happened to stop by when they were drilling our well. 
Back left corner looking at the home theatre. 
Back patio looking at the master bedroom
Standing on back patio looking through wall at home theatre.
Left side, J&J guest bathroom and 2nd guest bedroom
I don't know what that means precisely, but it usually means something good. And oh yes, my friends, this is good. Here are some pics from the framing. I think they've done this all in one day so far.
House front with office on left, library (dining room) on the right.
House front.
Left side with as yet unframed guest bedroom on the far left.
House front looking towards as yet unframed garage.
Slightly zoomed in from previous shot.
As yet unframed guest bedroom at left front of house.
Guest jack/jill bathroom with home theatre in back.
Ohhhh yeah. Zee Home Theatoooorrrrrr.....
Back side of house looking towards the breakfast nook. We'll be getting 6 more feet of concrete added to the little sliver of porch you see there.
Back patio looking in to living room where worker is cutting wood.
Another shot of the front left.
Looking at the back patio wall where the outdoor kitchen will be placed into the home theater.
I spoke with Ben the Builder and he said it should be possible to get the extension of the back porch like we are requesting. He said they could do it when they pour the driveway. He estimates it will be $5-6 per sq ft, so that should be something we can cover in cash. Since we wanted it to be flush with the existing patio, it may run a bit more since I'm assuming they have to make it thicker, but it should still be feasible. Ben estimated they would have the lumber delivery early this week and our house might starting taking (more) shape by Wednesday. Updates forthcoming.
ago we were marking time in a small encampment we had established about two weeks prior. We were waiting on the word to move north. We knew it would come soon, and we were ready. The call came around mid day and by that night we had moved to a spot just south of the Iraq/Kuwait border. We were part of one of 13 columns (IIRC) that 3ID formed for the invasion, near the far west side. We were composed of elements of an Infantry and Combat Engineer Battalion. Our FAS (Forward Aid Station) was composed of my 577 Treatment track, as well as a command vehicle and a couple of ambulance tracks. Heavy bombardment of thousands of predetermined enemy targets had already begun the night before, and we got the command to move forward sometime after midnight although I don't remember the specific time.
It was a strange feeling crossing that border. I know I felt we had crossed not only a geographical line, but an historical line that after which we could not stop events from playing out, whether positive or negative. In some ways it seems longer than 10 years, in others not. Many question what we wrought with that invasion. Was it worth it? I'm not sure we'll ever know, and it will probably be up to historians to debate as they have all wars in the past. The only thing I do know is I'm very fortunate to have made it out alive and essentially unscathed.
and empire? (that's a Heinlein reference, in case you were wondering.) (and you were). Read a book, sheesh.
Anywhat,
here are some more photos we took on Saturday after they finished.
Front porch/door.
Looking down the front perimeter from the left side of the house.
From front door looking back left towards home theatre.
Front door looking towards back patio.
Left side with two guest bedrooms and bathroom looking towards home theatre.
Home theatre with sunken front with the intent to create a modest stadium seat arrangement and hopefully get the center of mass of the screen down to eye level at the primary viewing position.
The next few shots are of the back patio which is outlined by the slightly lower margin. That back square is the spot for the fireplace and a current bone of contention. After seeing it in person, this doesn't look like it will adequately accommodate the fireplace I envisioned, so I'm asking the builder what we can do to include extending the slab portion across to the depth of the solitary square. I want to have some low brick or stone walls on the right side for seating and possibly a slot for firewood storage.
As you can see above, by extending the length of the kitchen, we essentially lost porch space outside the breakfast bar area. If we extend the slab out even with the fireplace square, we should have some usable porch area on that side as well.
The two pictures above show the master bath/shower.
Garage.
Aeyong had stopped by during the pour on Friday and snapped some photos in progress.
and Guitardom anniversary number 9. I've made note of this date a few times in the past as it marks the actual day I resumed the mantle of guitar player again. As I've said previously, it was a decision reached after having several months of unencumbered reflection while I was pursuing my MPH at OUHSC. At the time I realized that I still thought like a guitar player, I still consumed guitar oriented music, and I really missed that part of my life although I had essentially put the guitar down for the better part of 15 years. I would say it was one of the biggest mistakes in my life, but my life wasn't exactly empty in those years and alls well that ends well.
It's hard to quantify exactly what has transpired in the last year. This year marks 9 years of steady playing and incremental improvement. I know I'm getting closer to some targets (you never reach "the target" as it's always moving away), and I may actually get to a point in the next year or two that I can say (with a straight face) that I've satisfied myself with the amount of work in a certain direction or on a certain song. My song milestones are the same as they have been for the most part (Eruption, Endless Road, etc.), although I did start working on a project that has lain fallow for the past few months, and I intend to resume.
I began a "Guitar Hero Retrospective" project in the spirit of a project initially done and posted by a guitarist named Ketil Strand. It's essentially a medley of key tunes by the influential guitarists of the modern era (dating back to Django, Charlie Christian, etc.) While I don't know that I'll put together something quite as comprehensive as him, the project was a good way to not only put together a demo I could post for future opportunities, but it would also be a good way to either learn or enhance certain styles that are usually somewhat neglected in my playing.
The biggest determinants for my playing in the past year have been buying a Jazz Bass last winter, putting together a few acoustic numbers to play at my Grandmother Nonie's wake, and then gradually resuming electric, bass, and piano. Once the decision was made to play those songs for Nonie, I only practiced those tunes for the next 6 weeks or so. This fall saw me resume my regularly scheduled programming, with a bit more emphasis on the neglected electrics. In the past I had been trying to play piano in the morning, and then about 30 minutes of bass, followed by 45 minutes of electric, and closing with 45 minutes of acoustic at night.
I'm trying a different approach (as of this week) in which I will probably alternate electric on one night, followed by bass & acoustic the other nights. I feel like I need to get back to focusing more intensely on trying to improve technique, phrasing, etc. and the brief little 45 minute sessions were too superficial. I have also started to learn more parts by ear, moreso by happenstance as opposed to formal planning.
Learning bass lines by ear is quite a bit less challenging than guitar since they're typically monophonic (not counting Geddy and Chris Squire, among others) and the tone is usually cleanish enough that you can discern the notes easier. But I've also spent some time learning a few guitar tunes by ear, and I had started trying to learn some piano pieces by ear, although I set the bar pretty high for my current level of skill. I've really got to make that a regular part of my playing, because I honestly think the key to expressing yourself well on any instrument requires a great ear. I've also got to commit to actually working a bit harder to take all these riffs and bits of songs and forge them into actual tunes I record. I'm guilty of coming up with riffs fairly spontaneously, but stopping short of working them into full songs.
That's what I love about being a musician. There's always going to be something you don't know, and there's always going to be something that will challenge you on multiple levels. Cliche warning: It's the journey, not the destination. It's truly the process of learning, improving, practicing and the like that keeps the truly dedicated coming back. If you don't love the day to day work, you'll never keep it up.
I've got no problem with that...
That's when they're scheduled to pour Le Concrete. That's all.
I haven't talked to Ben the builder, so I don't know exactly where they're at, but I'm guessing the foundation pour is coming up soon. Here are some pics Aeyong took today showing the moisture barrier, rebar, and further plumbing prep of the foundation.
Master bath drainery plumbage piping thingies...
Le Kitcheone...
Zee guest Jack & Jill configuracione...
I'm out of fake accentish phraseology and that's the half bath with the home theatre behind it.
That's Aeyong's dirty window.
Above is our front elevation, although the dutch gable on the far right front is a regular gable like the others. Below is a home in Bella Ranch with a similar vibe to what we're hoping to achieve. We don't have any copper, and our brick is a bit more reddish. I didn't think I wanted any red whatsoever, but we looked at some sample photos with our stone preference (the same as below) and it actually gave a nice contrast.
Above is the kitchen tile. We compromised on the standard size tile and glazed ceramic, although I definitely envision us going with stone tile that we will install ourselves in the future. We wanted to go with different sizes but the standard options are limited to single size and ceramic or porcelain. Since we feel we can probably replace an existing floor without too much difficulty, this is an upgrade we will perform when the time is right.
This is a basic idea of what we want for the front of the kitchen eating counter. This isn't what the island itself will look like, but we just wanted a reminder that we want wood paneling and not stone or brick facade. We've discovered that while the stone/brick facade looks nice, it also can be hard on knees and toes if you're not paying attention.
This is the basic idea for the cooktop we want to get. We will try to stay within our appliance budget, but I think the cooktop is the one item we may go for a bit higher option.
This is in the zipcode of what we want to do with the outdoor fireplace. We want a ledge that's conducive to sitting, as well as small firewood storage area next to the fireplace itself. We haven't decided on how much brick and/or stone facade will use. The material will be the same as the choices for the house.
Above are the countertop choices. The top left granite with the red flecks and copperish streak will be the kitchen countertops. On the right the slightly darker flecked granite that continues the copper color will be all the other countertops in the bathrooms, home theater, and outdoor kitchen. The white sample on the bottom is cultured marble that will be used only in the laundry room. We managed to get colors we were happy with within our allowable choices.
The stone tile above will be for the kitchen backsplash. We're going to use the darker tiles on top in the larger size with the lighter color in the bottom picture for smaller tiles so it will be sort of the accent color. Many of our finish choices are lighter since the cabinets and hardwood floors will be darker.
I'm also looking at getting a custom painted set of tiles for behind the cooktop. We're trying to see if we can get this asian floral/tree pattern that has similar colors to the countertops and would look nice and understated. We have to see if the company in question will expand the image across multiple tiles.
The Gold tiles (not to scale) are the choice for the bathroom floors and wall/shower tiles. These are ceramic (or maybe porcelain?) but they have a variety of textures as seen above to give them more of a stone feel.
That very descriptive and interesting picture above is the wall color. We ended up settling on a fairly neutral beige that is really similar to the wall colors in our last two houses, but it's a compromise that's unavoidable when you start considering the other colors and the need for some contrast so we're not overwhelmed by dark colors.
The chateau brown (as used in chateaus, apparently) is the choice for the home theater walls. We were given two paint color choices and we could have used them however we wanted, but we decided to go with beige in every other room. It's all flat paint, not counting trim colors. The home theater walls needed to be a bit darker to absorb reflections.
The 3 pictures above show the hardware. This is a pretty standard material & color in home construction now, it's almost identical to what we had in our first Carothers home in Killeen. We like the color & material both, so why fix what isn't broken.
We had multiple options for the interior doors but we ended up liking what Royal Crest had in their office so we chose that, as well as the trim colors.
The old world texture on the right (not the color) is an option for two rooms in the home where they will go ahead and manually apply the texture when painting. We chose the two biggest rooms, the living room and home theater.
We didn't find the specific door we wanted. The two doors above represent what we hope to combine. The door on the left is a bit too "prison doory" to use Aeyong's real estate jargon, and I agreed. The door on the right's glass insert was bigger than we wanted. We're asking RC to give us the door on the left with the upper pane all glass so we have a half door sized glass insert (with a pattern to be chosen later). We really like how the wooden planks in the door evoke the hardwood floors we hope to get. That's another finish you won't see yet, because we're trying to find out if it will cost us more for our preference. We were quoted for scrubbed hardwood floors in the office, dining (library), and living room, but that was for 3 inch planks. We definitely prefer the 5 inch, so we're going to try and get them to change to those. We originally envisioned those being a really dark stain, but we're starting to think a little less stain will be preferable since we have dark furniture.
Yes, we actually got to choose the roof color. We went wild and chose the weathered wood, which is apparently what every other home in Mustang Creek already has (or close to it). We just couldn't see having some bizarre roof color that would call attention to itself. We figured the pink elephants and flamingoes next to the car on blocks would take care of that.
Just in case you were curious, here's the basic layout. The media room was actually smaller than requested so they tweaked the dimensions so it's 15x25 "in the clear" as they say in buildspeak. In other words, the interior dimensions are 15x25.
once I find it, at least. Here's the pseudo proud visage of a finisher, ladies and gentlemen. Nice that they don't have the finishing time posted in the picture (mopey face). Surprising that I managed a smile before I had my first post race beer. Or maybe I was just frozen in a rictus of pain. Six of one, half dozen...
...or perhaps the demesne? The seat of House Hightower? The Dominion of House Hightower. Adequately pompous and douchey if I do say so myself. And I do be do be do.
Now that we have that out of the way (for today, at least) on to updates. This part will be really short. There aren't any to speak of, not really. We did have a meeting with Ben the Builder on Monday to discuss changes to the back patio. Our original request was based on the home theater extending towards the backyard and thereby providing a longer wall to put the outdoor kitchen/fireplace against. When we changed the direction of the home theater towards the left side of the house, we lost about 10 feet of wall. Unfortunately no one (including RC) thought to have another look at the outdoor kitchen and what affect the shorter wall would have.
With only about 10 feet of wall to work with now (there's a door in the corner), it would have been ridiculously tight to have the countertop, sink, barbecue top, and fireplace all in that space. We settled on having RC create a square pad at the outer border of the covered patio to place the fireplace, giving us 10 feet of space for the sink, countertop, and barbecue grill. That way we will maintain the view (for what it's worth) out of the living room and keep everything flush (ish) against the left wall. The fire place angles out at 45 degrees to cover the main seating/table area that we intend. Our porch isn't overly spacious at the moment, but it will be adequate for us two and the dogs, and it should be okay for entertaining.
We envision expanding the patio size outwards and adding some landscaping features over time. These are mostly upgrades that we intend to tackle ourselves. If we do expand the patio with concrete or equivalent, that is one exception where we might hire someone because we hear it's more cost effective if you are going to pour a large amount of concrete. I'm not sure how expansive we will want to go at this point. We will definitely want more space, and we're thinking about a hot tub at some point in the future as well. I don't see a pool happening, neither one of us would use it enough to justify the expense.
That is one nice element of having the one acre plot and well water. We can see eventually adding a koi pond and some japanese/asian influenced landscaping (I'm especially fond of their minimalist approach that engenders multiple interpretations) but still being able to maintain a big enough yard for the dogs to do their thing.
The other "update" is that we will meet with RC on Saturday morning to discuss finishes/colors (brick, flooring, countertops, cabinets, paints, orangutans, breakfast cereals, etc.). We have a good idea of what we want, now we just need to find out if we can afford it. Our price already includes granite countertops in all areas except the laundry room, and hardwood floors in the office, library (dining room), and living room. The relative quality level of the finishes will affect the price however. I don't think we necessarily care about the fu fu level (real estate term) on the cabinets, but we do want nice countertops and ideally we would like one of the more visually striking very light (almost white) colors to offset our dark cabinets & floors. I have a feeling that won't be available in the level 1 list. As I understand it there are 3 levels of granite countertops (at least for RC) and we were quoted the price for level 1s as part of our overall home price. Hopefully we can find something we like without adding to the budget.
Actually, I don't have a specific bucket list, but there are things I want to do before the inevitable return to stardust. Although saying I ran a marathon is a bit generous, I did finish my first marathon yesterday, and I ran most of the way (about 22 of the 26 miles were at faster than a walking pace). Because of the way the course is mapped out and because I took a wrong turn at the detour for the half marathoners, I ended up running about 27.5 according to my phone. Either my phone is generous, the Cowtown Marathon mappers are a bit stingy, or it's a combination of both. I know I definitely ran further than 26.2, but I'm not sure it was 27.5.
As far as my pace and finish time, my primary goal of finishing was met, although I was way too optimistic in my prediction. I ran my first (and only) sponsored half marathon (I've run that distance multiple times, just not in official events) in 1:43, so I mistakenly thought I could run under 4 hours with no problem. Maybe I should have planned for 5 hours, although I ended up missing that with a total of 5:10. Even counting my temporary detour, I don't think it added 10 minutes. My biggest time suck were the walking miles, which numbered around 4 total. There's just a point where you run out of gas, and it's a struggle to just keep moving forward. I was so close in the 19-22 mile range of quitting and calling Aeyong to come pick me up. This is the point that's often referred to as "The Wall". Somehow I just kept telling myself to make it to the next mile marker and surprisingly at around the 23 mile mark I started jogging again and got a slight burst of energy and was able to "run" most of the way in.
I think I can improve that time and I'm tentatively looking towards the Dallas Marathon in December. I know during the race yesterday I was telling myself this was the only marathon I would ever run, but 20+ hours of rest and refueling is giving me some renewed optimism that I can do better. Since I didn't set the bar too high, that goal should be attainable.
a new TV series from CBS, possibly. John Deter was a honest cop, and in this town, the life expectancy of a honest cop is about, well, let's just say it's less. Less than normal. Because honesty is not valued as highly in this town, is what I'm saying. Because, criminals, obviously. Anywho...
In the context of this post it's considerably less dramatic as I'm talking about 2x6's and home construction. RC put out the frames for the foundation and they will ensure it's up to atomically precise standards with ye olde surverory rangefinder things on legs here in the next day or so. Aeyong had dropped by and snapped the pics (including the future home theatre, and yes it's spelled theatre, because I said so) and we'll go back and make sure the numbers match up with what we requested. The home theatre (see, you're not even noticing it now), is really the only critical room as far as precise measurements go. If the other rooms are generally close to what was promised we'll be fine.
I'm still working on a title for our home. I've read too many epic fantasies and played too many video games to not have a formal name. If I can't have a moat and a drawbridge I can at least have a pretentious title with a seal or something equivalently douchey.
how ya doin? Anywho, not much new here. We're going to drop by the property (I haven't come up with an appropriate title for it yet, but I want it to be palatial, majestic and rocking, so I'll probably go with "our place") this evening to check stake placement. I got a voicemail from someone with RC, I think it was the dude who went over the blueprints with us (I should probably remember his name), and they need us to approve the positioning of the stakes so they can proceed.
I'm not sure if they got the updated blueprints, so before I give them the approval I will ask whether this factors in the correct home theater dimensions. I'll probably take our rangefinder with us to shoot the stakes and see if it matches up with the dimensions we're expecting. We wanted to go last night but we had an ill timed thunderstorm sweep through and I didn't particularly want to go four wheeling in the mud.
Once we approve the stakes they should be able to proceed. I guess foundation is next, although we don't know the precise schedule. We'll be meeting to discuss finishes and colors in the near future as well.
On the gear front, Winter NAMM was recently held in LA and although there's plenty of new gear to be had, I haven't seen anything especially interesting that I want to drop some plastic towards. The most important upcoming event is the impending release of the new version of Axe Edit for the AxeFx as well as firmware 10.
This firmware is supposed to employ a newer approach to analyzing and tone matching amps and cabinets and it apparently has resulted in more precise and accurate models. I honestly thought they couldn't get much better about 4 firmwares ago, and after being proven wrong four times in a row, I've quit setting limits on what they can achieve with that magical black box. Another plus is that Cliff Chase (owner and lead designer of the AxeFx and Fractal Audio) just bought a mint Dumble 100W Amp (at a hefty price, enough to get a new Corvette if I understand correctly) so I expect that to be modeled and added with FW 10 or a later update.
The Dumble is one of the all time most sought after boutique amps, used by guys like SRV, Robben Ford, and Eric Johnson. It will be interesting to get a chance to try it out, so to speak. There are no other big gear events or purchases on the horizon. I'm trying to limit any expenditures until we're settled in the new home and get an idea of where our budget is at. Plus, we're going to be paying back the loan we took on my 401K for the 2.5 years, so that's a significant deduction from my monthly take home pay currently.
We had gone out for our favorite vietnamese noodles on Saturday, and since we were out we decided to drive by our homesite. It was a good thing we did because we got to witness the groundbreaking of the lot. At this point they're just grading the lot since I think they'll need the new blueprints to stake the property and those will probably take until next week. Nevertheless we got a few pictures and met our neighbors to the back side. Don't ask me about Aeyong's facial expression in the last picture, I was just snapping quickly. She'll probably have a few choice words for me in the future. We're on our way...