Summer yardwork

I’ve been busy for the last few weeks – mostly with yard work. We ended up taking two loads to the dump – the old deck, old pool and older pool tubing, and leaves. We set up the new above ground pool, a new shed, and a base for the new shed. We took down part of the chain link fence and the fenced-in area that the previous owners had for their cat.

I was also able to clean up a bit downstairs. My desk is still quite the cluttered mess, but the table beside it is now able to be used. We took the four boxes of VHS movies to storage, and dropped off some clothes, shoes, and small toys to the thrift store.

going back to the vault

Before I was even married I started picking up the Disney animated movies on VHS. I figured that I would have kids at some point and would want to share the movies with them and even if I didn't have kids I would still want to be able to see them again.  Besides being pricy (usually about $25) the clamshells that the movies came in took up more space than regular movies. When we had to empty the wall unit to move it so we could update the flooring, we decided to not put them back. Unfortunately, we haven’t picked up most of them in DVD yet.

I really wanted to get the ‘classic’ Disney movies – Snow White, Cinderella, Dumbo, Robin Hood, and so on. We even got a bunch of the ‘secondary’ Disney movies but, for a while there, they were churning them out. I’m not sure I’m in any hurry to get Cinderella 2 or the extra Belle movies again.

In some ways Disney’s “vault” system works in our favor. Instead of having all the movies available all of the time, they cycle through them every few years, removing the old ones before they go on clearance (sending them ‘back to the vault’) to maintain the integrity of their pricing. While this keeps the films artificially valued high , it also helps to spread out the cost of buying the entire set.

So now I have to recollect them, because I need to have them, to share with the kids and for ourselves. It should also give us a chance to watch some of them with the kids again.

Books read - January to April 2013

Jan
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Indians by Benjamin Capps
Codex Eldar 4th edition by Phil Kelly
The Best of Instructables: DIY Projects from the World’s Biggest Show & Tell – Volume 1 by MAKE Magazine
Better Homes and Gardens Halloween pumpkin & parties: 101 spooktacular ideas by Better Homes and Gardens Books
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Soldiers by David Nevin
Geek Dad: awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share by Ken Denmead
The Geek Dad’s guide to weekend fun: cool hacks, Cutting-Edge games, and more awesome Projects for the Whole Family by Ken Denmead
Microcrafts: Tiny Treasures to Make and Share by Margaret McGuire, Alicia Kachmar, Katie Hatz and friends


Feb
Warhammer Armies: Dogs of War by Nigel Stillman with Rick Priestley & Tuomas Piriren
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Forty-Niners by William Weber Johnson
The Star Wars Craft Book by Bonnie Burton
Knitmare on Elm Street: 20 projects that go Bump in the Night by Hannah Simpson
A Ghastly-Good Halloween: 201 Spooktacular Recipes, Crafts & Decorating Ideas by Gooseberry Patch
A Store Like No Other – Eaton’s of Winnipeg by Russ Gourluck
Every Day is an Athiest Holiday! By Penn Jillette
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Pioneers by Huston Horn
The Mammoth Book of Street Art edited by Jake


Mar
Blown Covers – New Yorker Covers you were never meant to see by Francoise Mouly
Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition by Martha Cooper + Henry Chalfant
Maphead by Ken Jennings
Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts (5th edition) by Tuomas Pirinen & Alessio Cavatore
Brainiac – Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings
Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson


Apr
The Big-Ass Book of Crafts by Mark Montano
James May’s Lego House by James May

by title or theme?

In removing the dvds in order to move the wall unit for the flooring, we got a chance to put them back in a new order. Previously I had them organized by theme, in roughly the order in which they were bought. While this worked fine for me to find movies, it was a bit harder for others to find movies if I wasn’t there.

Since we had to take them all out anyways, I took this time to sort them as my wife wanted – alphabetically. While I liked having all the werewolf films together – American Werewolf in London, Cursed, Dog Soldiers, The Howling, Silver Bullet, Wolfen, and so on, they are now spread over multiple shelves.

I did make a few caveats. All the TV series are together on one shelf.  All the kids movies are on two shelves.  All the movies series are together – allowing Pitch Black to remain near the Chronicles of Riddick, as well as keeping the various James Bonds films together.

We’ll try it this way for now. It should be easier to slip in the new movies as I left room on the shelves for new acquisitions. It would probably be less of an issue if we didn’t have to double-layer the dvds. We used to have to triple-layer the dvds but freed up a few shelves by not putting back the VHS movies. We’ll have to move the shelves again when we add the baseboards and paint so I can always move them around again if I find that this isn't working out.

take the floor

Since Shan had already ripped out the carpeting in anticipation of getting the new furniture we thought it might be a good time to put in laminate flooring. We removed the baseboards and pulled out all the staples from the underlay. We picked up ten boxes at Rona and my dad came over to help. We moved the furniture forward a bit and did the first three rows but it went pretty slow. After he left we read the instructions and found out we weren’t quite following directions.

The next day my folks came over – I had left them a message about the instructions and we came home we were very surprised to see that they had completed all but the last three strips. Since they had to move the furniture, including the dog kennel to do this much we were very impressed.

We pulled out the dvds from the wall unit and moved it on to the new flooring so that we could finish. This required another trip to Rona for one more box of flooring and the transitions. That was finished up in good order and we moved the wall unit and bookcases back. We still need to get baseboards but since we need to remove the wallpaper and paint, we can wait for those.

SJG annual stakeholder report / Gygax magazine

Steve has finally released his stakeholder report for 2012.  It was a bit delayed this year as he finally took a bit of a break.  Ogre was a huge product that had a major effect on their line.  It still seems that Munchkin is a huge part of their product line.  We're not Munchkin fans yet but keep meaning to give it a try.  I'm happy that it's making so much money for them that they can afford to supplement other projects - like Ogre Designer's Edition.

He mentions that they are going to try to acquire some other game companies this year.  It should prove to be a very interesting year in the game industry.


Also, it seems that Dragon magazine is coming back - sort of.  Gygax magazine is a new publication started by Ernie and Luke Gygax.  The logo is the same font as the old Dragon logo and looks a lot like it did back in the Eighties when I first started buying it.  The table of contents is familiar as well - including What's New with Phil & Dixie. 

It's a quarterly magazine - mostly slanted towards AD&D but I may have to pick up a few to see how it stands up compared to the old days.

A couch too far?

We recently picked out new furniture for the living room to replace the old couch, loveseat, and chair that we had. The chair had to be removed to make room for the kennel and the couch had bad springs and had been clawed by the cats. The loveseat had been a replacement from Shan’s folks when they had upgraded their set and replaced the old loveseat that went with the set.


It was the first major piece of furniture that we bought since getting married and it turns out that we have vastly different preferences in styles. Shan likes her couches deep and overstuffed – with lots of comfy pillows. I prefer my couches with clean lines, low arms, and attached back cushions. We were at such an impasse that we had to go back with the kids to see if they had a preference but they were no help in deciding.

We ended up picking neither set that we like but instead compromised on a set that we both disliked a bit. When we had it delivered though they could not get the couch in to the living room. It seems Shan’s old set had a smaller than normal couch – and that took a bit of maneuvering to get in originally. We had to go back and reselect.

After much consideration and measuring we decided to get a second loveseat instead of a couch. The new loveseats are only a few inches shorter than the old couch. We also added an ottoman to the order – but the delivery would have to wait another week. Since we had already taken the old sofa to Value Village we were a bit cozy for that week with just the old loveseat.