Home Improvement 101

As we approach the 1 month mark at our new house, it feels like every weekend has been filled with home projects. With the bulk of the initial projects being finished at least we are able to enjoy the house. I think the turning point were the floors. That said, this weekend we were again busy with house chores (lawn mowing, dog baths, grocery store run, etc.) and more home improvement (painting the last room-guest bed, fixing some backyard fence issues, replacing the door handle in the storm door to the main entrance-after what seems like the 12th try the thing works now).

I hope we are done with the big projects for some time so that at least we are able to enjoy our surroundings a little more. We really haven't been out and about the area. Then again, I am sure that the parks around here will be that much nicer to visit once the weather cools down some.

One fun non-house project story from the weekend was a corked wine that Natalie uncorked last night as we were getting ready for dinner. The first sign of trouble was the appearance of the top of the cork when the foil was removed, it had a green, almost fungus-looking tinge to it. We decided to open the bottle to pour the wine out and the result was a fetid smell that was strong enough to cover the entire kitchen and living room. It is amazing the power that a rotten wine can have.

With that I leave you. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend.

Nathan Bedford Forrest on I-65

One of the fun things about moving to a new place is getting to know the quirks, moles, rips on the fabric of the new town. In Chapel Hill, for example, we got to experience a high per capita of Subaru's, a religious belief in college basketball, and so on.

I recently noticed on our commute to work up I-65 a statue of a bronze-colored horse with a silver-looking rider surrounded by confederate flags right off the interstate. While it is not unusual to see "interesting" objects/billboards off the side of interstates this one caught my eye because it stands out in an area of the interstate that does not really have much else.

I asked around work and did some web surfing and I found out that the statue is that of Nathan Bedford Forrest. If you are a Civil War buff or civil rights advocate you may know the name. You may also know the name from Forrest Gump, as Forrest gets his name from this guy. For a detailed description of the guy and the statue click on the above link. Nonetheless, Forrest was a general in the confederate army, and by all accounts a very good one. After the war, he became a leader of the KKK.

So far, two interesting aspects of Nashville that we have picked up on are the high number of vehicles that go up in flames (4 so far or 1 per week) and a statue of a KKK leader next to a busy interstate. I guess you know you are in Nashville when a car is on fire and there is a fiberglass statue of a Klan leader on the interstate.

On a side note, we have highly enjoyed our stay in Nashville and have found that the eateries here are superb. We hit La Hacienda today and had fantastic chicken and carnitas. We also visited the local farmer's market and bought some heirloom tomatoes, corn, and peaches. Oh, and the weather is wonderful.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Floors are in!

Yesterday the biggest project to date at our house was completed. The floor guys started Monday morning and by Tuesday around 1:00 pm thew beautiful Quickstep light maple laminate floor was fully installed. I will try to add before and after pictures when I get a chance but the place looks so different that I almost feel like we just got a new living room and kitchen. One nice side effect that I had not considered is that since the floors are continuous in the entry hallway, kitchen and living room the space feels even larger as it doesn't feel like separate rooms.

The girls have not seemed to join in our enthusiasm right away, especially Phoebe who keeps on hanging out in our bedroom or laying down in as big a section of the living room rug as possible. She has also not fully adjusted to the fact that she can't turn on a dime on the floors, so she spins her paws whenever she is trying to sprint anywhere. Meanwhile Stella is athletic and light enough that she seems to have no issue whatsoever. Oh, and she also seems to enjoy the clickity-clackity noise her paws make when walking on it.

I promise to post some pix soon!

Missing Carolina?

I had been thinking about saving this post for later in the week, but since I am actually waiting for some work stuff to finish up (first non-reading activity at the new lab!) I figured I would try to put something out.

Saturday night Natalie and I went out for dinner to a nice Asian restaurant (Basil Asian Bistro) after our painting party. While we were waiting for our entrees we were talking about the move from Carolina. Specifically we were talking about whether we were home sick at all. We both came to the quick conclusion that even though we miss our friends from home, and certain aspects from living in Carolina (Maple View Ice Cream, the country side, life sans traffic, soon to be basketball, etc.) for the most part we have felt at home in Nashville.

One aspect of that has helped the transition to our new digs has been how busy we have been. From the get-go we have been flooded with house projects and really have not had time to sit down and think about Carolina. Also, having each other, the girls and Emmitt has helped immensely in that you always have someone to talk to or scream at when they are eating the left-over pancakes off the counter (I plead the 5th!). Finally, there has been work. While it has been slow for both of us science-wise as expected, we have both been able to get out of the house and interact with our new labs.

Nevertheless, if any of you are planning on making a trip out this way, we'd love to see you. Oh, and don't forget to bring with you some Allen and Son's BBQ and some Maple View Ice-cream.

More movin'

Another weekend bites the dust, which means that I need to update the list of home projects. Saturday Natalie and I painted our bathroom and the room that serves as our office (a.k.a. Whatifsports central). I am very happy to report that both projects were completed and the once hot pink office is now a nice bluish-green.

My toughest home project so far has been changing/installing a door catch/hinge for the screen door on our main door. Our main door has a very useful extra outside door that has a replaceable screen/glass panel so that when the weather is nice (not now), you can prop your main door open and leave the screen door closed to allow air flow while keeping our 3 Musketeers (Emmitt, Stella, and Phoebe). The problem with the door is that when we moved in the door did not catch, thus allowing the pets to simply push it open with their snouts. I have since removed the old catch, moved it on the frame, removed it, lost it, bought a new one, bought spacers, installed all of the above, and failed miserably at getting the door to catch. So, by my count this has been the most tedious home project to date and I see no easy fix besides replacing the latch on the door. I guess you just never know what project is going to stomp you.

In honor of Aron

I love reading Aron's blog for many reasons, two of which are; he keeps it real and he can run faster than I ever will while taking it "easy." I must say that I am not much of a runner. I have never mastered the art of "loving to run." That is to say, the actual running part of running does not feel good. I don't actually enjoy pushing myself as hard as I can even though I do it because I am competitive enough that I can't do it any other way. The point being, I am not a good runner. The only time I ran as a kid was while I was playing soccer, football, baseball, tennis, etc.

As I have gotten older (aka-the last year) and stopped doing as many team sports as I would like, running is a way for me to burn away the calories of frustration. Natalie talked me into signing up for a 15K last February, which we ran on May 20th. With the great help of Nate I got a training plan that I followed somewhat religiously to get myself in running shape to do the race. The result of the race was me running it in about 8:55 pace, which I wasn't too thrilled about as I had been running the distance around 8:35 pace. Nonetheless, during the training period I enjoyed the best aerobic fitness I have had since high school. The best was playing Saturday morning basketball with some buddies and feeling in great shape the entire time, even as people were tiring out. The second best thing was waking up the following morning not feeling sore whatsoever.

In part because I was a little frustrated that I did not do as well in the race;in part because since May 20th we have been incredibly busy moving our operation to Nashville; in part because the oppressive heat doesn't work well with me (even if I am from Little Mexico), I had not hit the streets for a run since then. All of that changed today. Right after our floor installer guy told us that he was not coming to lay the floors down until Monday (they were supposed to start today and finish tomorrow at the latest), Natalie mentioned that it was nice outside and mentioned that I should try to go out for a run. With that, I changed and put on my new New Balance 767's and hit the road for an "incredibly strenuous" 3.5 mile run.

I started ok and I sucked wind for the most part, but I would just like to thank aron for letting me know that my crappy splits have a place in life, and that place is the end of this entry (sorry, I don't have the mile splits because I forgot to look at my watch):

First 1.75 miles (Thank you Google Pedometer): 16:13.78
Second 1.75 miles: 16:52.88

Of Pots and Pans

With a new weekend coming to an end it is time for another edition of "Name that House Project." This week we had some help and painted the living room and living room entrance a nice Gobi Dessert Brown (see # 710C-3). The tiny hallway that separates the guest bedroom and office is also going the same color but will have to wait a little longer. Also, I ventured into the world of electricity and changed two regular kitchen wall outlets for GFCI outlets that have a breaker. The outlet work was not too bad once I figured out what I was supposed to do, which oddly enough happened just as Nate and Steph's parents arrived at our door as they drive to NC. But I will get to the purpose of their visit in a minute.

One other positive note was my mowing of the lawn for the first time using my new lawn mower. Using a Consumer Reports we found this Cub Cadet mower that was fantastic. You can easily alternate between side discharge by putting a plug in the machine, bag the grass by replacing the plug with a nifty sack that attached rather easily, or mulching. I used the side discharge for the back yard and the sack for the front as to not send my cut grass all over the neighborhood. Another two very nifty aspects about the mower are the curved handlebars (allows you to push the mower with your hands perpendicular to the ground instead of parallel) and a choke switch to start the mower (which prevents the blade from spinning when you start the machine, which can make starting the machine a lot simpler). Anyhow, if you are looking for a mower this is your machine!

Finally, our kitchen has been in dire need of a pot rack due to a severe shortage in storage space that has resulted in our beautiful pots and pans (wonderful gift from the Thornburgs) living in a box. Just a bad scenario all around as it is hard to get to them and the box is sitting on our butcher block which further complicates the storage situation.

We had received a great Rogar pot rack as a wedding gift, but unfortunately it did not fit in our kitchen as it was a little too long. Now, I hope Betsy doesn't kill me for saying this but we did not want the rack to go to waste, as it it is gorgeous, and upon hearing that Nate and Steph could also use a rack in their kitchen, we shipped it their way via their parents who were driving through Nashville on their way to NC from the midwest.

Replacing the Rogar we got an Enclume rack at Williams-Sonoma using a gift card Natalie had gotten. We have been waiting to put up the rack until we had the kitchen painted and with some time on our hands and with the kitchen painted we started the task of bolting the sucker to the roof of our kitchen. The rack has to be anchored to the kitchen on studs as to prevent it from falling on your noggin. Ceiling studs are found in houses in two formats: 16" or 24" apart. Our rack requires the 16" format, whereas our ceiling come in the 24" format. In other words, our rack is VHS and our ceiling is Beta. This will result in us taking the rack back to the store tomorrow. We will lose the $25 for shipping but should otherwise get the rest of our money back. The bigger loss is the mental hit that Nat and I took from realizing that our pots and pans will have to sit in a stupid box on our butcher block for at least another week.

With that we conclude another weekend of successful and unsuccessful home projects. Tomorrow I head back to work where I hope I will start making strides towards a project as it has been somewhat slow the first week. I also hope that Vanderbilt can figure out why I cannot get a damn electronic ID so that they can create my email.

TTFN,

B Mexican

PS- Nate, tell your dad I will do anything if he helps me do recessed lighting in our kitchen.

Everly's in town

To celebrate the 4th of July Natalie and I got together with the Everly's. David, Anita, Grant, Zach, Nate, and Ripi were in town for the night as they are on their way to Chicago, where David accepted a faculty position at Rosalind Franklin University. We went out to eat at a BBQ place about 2 minutes from their hotel that was very good. The BBQ is not Carolina style, but their pork and Texas-style beef brisket, with a choice of Tennessee, Texas, or Kansas City style BBQ sauce, was fantastic. So, if you are in town make sure to check them out.

After dinner we went back to their hotel where the kids hit the pool, while we just talked about stuff. David and I talked some about the challenges of him growing professionally now as a PI and me doing so as a postdoc. He talked about trying to broaden his research to make sure that he can get funded and I talked about the frustration of coming to a new place where you know nothing. It is a different feeling when you go from being the senior graduate student that knows a lot about your field to the junior postdoc that knows next to nothing about the new field. This lack of knowledge, 3 days into the job, I have found to be the toughest thing so far in the postdoc. Nevertheless, I am glad to get a chance to learn something new.

One good thing about the hotel was that the pool gave us a pretty good view of the downtown Nashville fireworks. As we said our goodbyes to the Everly's I felt somewhat sad in knowing that the Carolina-graduate school part in my life is over. On the other hand, it has been fun getting to interact with a new lab and having the challenge of learning and adding new knowledge to a new field.

Pulling the Tape

As we finished painting the kitchen last night, it dawned on me that one of the things I dread the most after painting is pulling off the tape. Forget all the time it takes to tape up the ceiling, cabinets, baseboards, etc. By the time you are done painting your wonderful room and the pain is dry, the last thing you want to see is a piece of tape bring with it a chunk of paint that leaves your newly painted wall with a gash that although realistically is only dime-seized, to your critical eye it looks as big as the Grand Canyon.

The wonderful thing is that the Grand Canyon of paint is only a magical touch-up away!