jjncj.com

Somebody in our family turned 50 recently. 50,000, that is. On June 10th, 144 miles through a tank of gas the reliable, trustworthy, efficient, useful 2005 Subaru Outback began the second half of its journey to 100,000 miles.

This car has been through quite a bit with this family. It brought all three of our kids home from their places of birth (hospital for Elizabeth, birth clinic for the other two). It's taken Crystal and me on two anniversary get-aways. Carried lumber for the house remodel. Made five trips to Anchorage (one of those being a one-day round-trip for shopping and to pick up an oven). Helped us move into (and out of) two places. Carried pallets for a contract job (five in the back, four on top). Dozens upon dozens of shopping trips. Been an impromptu baby-changing station.

It's been a great car. We look forward to another great 50,000 miles.

After several months of no progress on the house (due to finances--mostly--and other things), some more work is being done on the house. NextStep ministries from Wisconsin is sending teams up to Fairbanks this summer to do construction projects in the area. Our house was one of the locations chosen, and we are excited!

So far on the agenda: new stairs, vapor barrier, new kitchen window (done!), some electrical work, plumbing installation, and sheet rock on the upstairs ceiling. We'll see what else we can accomplish.

We have a list of todo's to get the upstairs livable so we can move back in, and that is our action plan. Our finances are tight (still working part time, looking for a full time job), and the team has a limited budget, but we know God is in control, so we'll see what He has in store.

Keep praying! We're making progress!

Jonathan may be 2.5, but he is still a toddler. And sometimes he toddles...and sometimes he does faceplants. Such was the case, sadly, this past Sunday at Alaska land. He was trucking across the parking lot and hit an uneven spot. I only caught the last half of the event, so as near as I can tell, his hands went down, but didn't adequately catch his fall. His face made contact with the asphalt knocked off his glasses (they survived) and gave him, as he put it, an "ouch on my cheek." He cried, we wiped it off, prayed for him, and he was ready and raring to go once again. Brave little boy.

Or so said Elizabeth this morning at breakfast.

Yesterday evening, Crystal started getting pains below her stomach. Having just had a chiropractic adjustment earlier that day, she didn't think much of it; she wasn't due for three weeks, after all. But as the evening progressed, it became clear she was experiencing contractions. So, early this morning, the mid-wife came over, checked Crystal out, and said, "Yep, you're dilated to three centimeters."

Time to go to the birth clinic.

After a relatively short labor (about five hours total), our third child, a boy, was born. Eight pounds, 14 ounces; 21 inches; born at 4:37AM today, January 24th. Incidentally, today is also my dad's 65th birthday. Another interesting fact about my dad's birthday: He was born about 6:30AM, Arizona time. So, our new baby boy was born 65 years after his grandpa, almost to the minute.

Praises:
- Crystal was only three weeks early, so we didn't have to go to the hospital (the cutoff is three weeks prior, two weeks after)
- Baby and Mommy and doing GREAT!
- Labor and Birth had no complications

Prayers:
- Baby boy doesn't have a name yet...we want wisdom in naming him!

Edit: My dad is 65 today, not 68.
Edit: Correct hospital "cutoff"

Joshua is starting a new job Monday! See his geek blog for more details.

These tickle me, for some reason.

Q: How many elephants can you fit in a VW Bug?
A: Four. Two in the front, two in the back.

Q: How can you tell if an elephant is in your refrigerator?
A: There's a footprint in the mayo.

Q: How can you tell if two elephants are in your refrigerator?
A: There's two footprints in the mayo.

Q: How can you tell if three elephants are in your refrigerator?
A: The door won't shut.

Q: How can you tell if four elephants are in your refrigerator?
A: There's a VW Bug in your driveway.

So, due to lack of projects at my current employer, I might be getting laid off come Wednesday. Not the news one wants to hear.

If anyone has any leads for telecommuting tech jobs, please let me know. There is a link to my resume at the top-right of this page.

Thanks!

Every now and then you get a reminder that small children are still working on discerning that fine line between reality and dreams. Like today, for instance.

Elizabeth was sleeping on the bed while I worked at the computer. She woke up from a dead sleep, eyes open, and, the following conversation took place:

"Hey dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Earlier I saw some giraffes."

"Really?"

"Yeah, outside."

And she laid back down and was back out. And this all happened in the spam of about 60 to 90 seconds. Wow.

If you go to the rebuild category (http://jjncj.com/blog/categories/1-rebuild) the first post is a "sticky post" giving introductory information. Well, now it's going to serve double duty. I'm going to take my todo list from this post and add it to that sticky post, and update it as thing get done.

That way, you'll have a constantly updated progress chart. So, either bookmark the rebuild category or the sticky post itself. Or just add our RSS feed to your RSS aggregator.

Last Friday (2008-09-26) the house was spray-foamed! This is a polyurethane closed-cell foam that is one of the best insulators out there. We got four inches of foam in the studs up stairs, and two inches of foam in the 2x4 furring down stairs. Translation: the house is very air-tight and very insulated. The boiler with a couple of unit heaters on it can keep the house quite cozy.

We spent the last week cleaning up after the foamers (studs have to be cleaned, random foam overspray, etc), removing the rest of the sheet rock on the upstairs ceiling, and sweeping/vacuuming up the aforementioned mess. Save the stairs we're redoing, no more demolition!

It's coming along nicely. Stay tuned for more!

A lot of progress has been made since our last major update three months ago.

• Almost all the upstairs wiring has been run. Just a few runs to lights from the switches remain.


• The basement has been furred out with 2x4s. Much thanks to my dad for getting me started on that, and to Robb for spending several nights learning (along with me) how to do framing.


• All the wiring for the exterior walls is done downstairs. Again, Robb helped a LOT


• All the conduit for media (network/phone/coax) has been run to the exterior walls. (Robb, Jason)


• Acquired a connex container and moved our already-purchased cabinets and flooring into it to make it easier to work in the house. (Robb, Jason T., Steve M.


• The house was prepped for being spray foamed. (Robb)

And today the house was spray-foamed. We got four inches of insulation in the exterior wall upstairs (2x6 walls) and two inches in the exterior walls (2x4) down stairs. We're so excited! We've been praying that the weather would stay warm until we got the insulation in, and it did. It's expected that we'll have highs in the thirties in a few days. So that Indian Summer we've been having? Yeah, that was a God thing.

So, the house is sealed up and insulated, and should be very easy to keep warm. Other work can now continue. Our todo list as it currently stands:

• Cleanup for foaming


• Floor reinforcement downstairs


• Walls we're replacing: Bathroom/guestroom; Family room/office; Laundry/Office


• Wiring up interior walls


• HRV System


• Replacing stairs (code compliance)


• Solid foam insulation on downstairs floor


• Radiant floor heat downstairs?


• Resurfacing down stairs floor


• Media conduit for interior walls (including speaker wire conduit and security system conduit)


• Plumbing


• Window replacements


• Sheet rock


• Switch/outlet installation


• Underlayment upstairs


• Texture walls


• Priming and painting


• Flooring installation


• Cabinets and vanity installation


• Kitchen appliance installation


• Miscellaneous stuff (light fixtures, etc)


• Move in!

So, did I miss anything?

So, quite a to-do list, but the insulation today was a major milestone. We're getting there!

Edit: Added HRV.

Spam subject today:

"You have never thought that this could change urlife for better."

What is urlife? And why would I want to change it?

Yes, it was a spam for, ahem, "enhancements."

Today I was looking over the letter that came with our garbage bill, and saw that the City of Fairbanks was attempting to lower the cost of collecting garbage. They are doing three things. First, they are going to start working four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days. They say this will save them time doing their mobilizing and demobilizing at the beginning and end of the day. Makes sense. Second, they will only drive through a neighborhood one time on the collection day. Good idea. I didn't even know they did multiple passes as it was.

But the third way was the one that caught my attention:

We are installing GPS systems on our City packer trucks and have redesigned routes to maximize efficiency and reduce trips to the landfill.

I always love to see technology put to good use.

Now, if we can only get them to implement something like this system we could save them even more labor costs. And we'd be able to put yard waste in the bins without bagging it first!