David and Susi’s Blog

This is a recent video of Angela and Mephisto playing with their favorite cat toy. These little guys are just too much fun!

Tags: Cats by David
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This is a video which was taken a few days ago and shows Robert tearing out more old construction mess, and more bastardized slapped together construction which is clearly work of the previous homeowner. Just when you think you have seen it all, then you tear into another damned mess. There was really no substantial construction in this area of the stair case. There had previously been a large window installed here, but the hole for the window was only covered up with insulation board, and then the siding was nailed to the insulation board. This is obviously not the right way to build a house, and clearly shows yet another failure of the previous owner to fully disclose KNOWN structural defects with the house structure. As you can see from the video, there isn’t much between the outside elements and the inside of the house!

Robert has since completely and properly re-framed a new window opening, which will add some nice natural light in the stair case, and should also aid in cross ventilation of the living room. There is still some additional work that remains in regards of the window and properly securing it to new framing, but this will be addressed when the new window is installed.

Tags: House, Renovation by David
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Susi took this video of Aden, Robert’s son, a few weeks ago… We aren’t real sure what language he is currently talking in, but he is definitely trying to explain how the cat door works in the gate that keeps Aden from falling down the stairs.

Tags: Cats, Uncategorized by David
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It has indeed been quite a long time since either of us had written anything to the blog, so I felt that it was very much time to at least write something! We haven’t added or changed much on the blog lately, just spending an incredible amount of time trying to keep the damned comment spam bots from completely filling the web server logs with their non-sense. I have installed a new feature which by some stroke of genious prevents these stupid comment spam bots from leaving posts on our blog, but they continue to try in record numbers–so far to date, the application has blocked almost 900, spam comments and the application has only been running 6 days! Needless to say I am quite pleased with the performance of the WP-SPAM Free Plug-in, Now it would just be nice if the bots were smart enough to know that they aren’t being successful… I only mention this in case you have attempted to leave a comment recently and it never appeared on the website. As with any type of program of this nature, I am certain that it will not catch 100% of the comment spam, nor will it treat 100% of all legitimate comments properly. So far though it looks to be catching 100% of the comment spams though.

As far as what has been going on in our lives lately… Well, lets see… A couple of weeks ago, Robert our contractor found himself in a very awkward situation with regards to his living arrangements, so Robert has moved in with us. This will help him get back on his feet, while helping us out with our never ending house project. Robert has partial (60%) custody of his 21 month old son Aden AKA “Bubba” who certainly livens the place up a lot when he is here! Despite the on going construction in the house, we have managed to piece it together enough to keep the little man safe, and provide him with a nice play area in our former living room. We both really enjoy the little man, we just haven’t figured out where he gets all of his energy!

We received our wonderful little “Economic Stimulus” check last week and have since used it to stimulate the economy of the local lumber yard when we purchased the sheet rock and insulation for the second floor. This needed to be done before the weather gets much warmer or it would have been nearly impossible to work in the attic. Robert installed 4 new roof vents on the roof to help deal with the intense heat that can build up in the attic space, re-ran one of the vents and patched another hole in the roof from a previously removed vent. With all of the outside stuff done on the roof, Robert then began installing the sheet rock on the ceiling last week, and finished up the electrical wiring upstairs. This past Friday Robert and I started to insulate the ceiling with blown in cellulose fiber insulation. While this insulation isn’t as itchy as fiberglass insulation, it is incredibly dusty and makes a huge mess! In the end it was well worth the mess and irritated noses and throats, as we now have over a foot of insulation in the ceiling. While this may not sound that significant, we are certain that this will save an incredible amount of money and energy. Prior to all of our work, the second floor was always incredibly hot in the summer and incredibly cold in the winter. This should not be a problem with the proper amount of insulation that we now have in place. In addition to the cellulose fiber insulation in the attic, the walls upstairs are now properly insulated with fiberglass insulation. I can already tell a big difference…

Last week Robert also completely rebuilt our old staircase going upstairs. There is now a nice landing built into the staircase with an additional step in the living room. Robert really beefed up the staiway, as it was in pretty sad shape. The stair treads used to squeak real bad, and were additionally not very deep. The old stairway wasn’t much fun to walk up and down, but the new one is much better!

In the coming days we will finish the wiring for the Cable TV, Telephones and Networks. We started this a couple of weeks ago, but have been trying to focus on getting the second floor a little more livable. Susi’s daughter Michi will be coming for a visit in early July of this year, so we have a lot of work to do to get ready for her visit.

This past Saturday, our dear friend Melanie got married and we attended the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding with a very nice reception following the wedding. Melanie looked so beautiful all dressed up in her finest! We both wish Mike and Melanie the very best as they start there new life together as one, and hope that they will have many years of happiness together.

Well, I think thats all of the big things that have happened in the past couple of weeks. I uploaded several new pictures in the May Photo Album so go and have a look…

Cheers,

David

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