Mathman's Ramblings

7.04.2009

Happy Fourth of July

To celebrate Independence Day, I am going to treat you to this performance of "Stars and Stripes Forever" by the Muppets.

7.03.2009

It was one year ago today that Emma and I moved into our house in Minnesota. Mel had been in the Twin Cities since the week before Memorial Day last year, but it wasn't until July 3 that Emma and I made the move. Overall things have gone fairly well. We had to make some repairs to the house, such as replacing the filthy carpet in the basement and repairing some leaks in the plumbing. We have also made some other upgrades such as replacing the fuse box with a circuit breaker and replacing the bathtub and bathroom sink. There are still some other things we need to take care of, mainly reshingling the roof and taking care of some landscaping. We will get to those at some point in the future.

We do enjoy living in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. There are plenty of things to do nearby, such as going to the Minnesota Zoo, the Science Museum of Minnesota, or the Mall of America. We have also made it to a couple of Minnesota Twins games, and there are plenty of restaurants to choose from in the area. Mel also enjoys her job much more than her previous job, and I line working from home for the most part, although I do miss the face-to-face interaction with my colleagues.

Despite all the things we like about the Cities, we do miss Cedar Rapids. We have some very good friends there who, unfortunately, we don't get to see as often as we would like, and the people in our old neighborhood in Cedar Rapids were much friendlier than those who live in our neighborhood in Cottage Grove. Upon moving into our house in Cedar Rapids we were greeted by our new neighbors. Here we have barely spoken with any of them. The main conversation I have had with out neighbors was when they wanted to know if we called the police on their dogs. And by the way, it wasn't us. Hopefully we can have some more positive interactions with our neighbors, although I can guess that is we somehow became wealthy enough for Mel to not have to work, we would probably move back to Iowa.

7.02.2009

Finishing the Bathroom

Last summer, while Mel and I were on RAGBRAI, we had some work done in our bathroom. We had just moved into our house that July, and the bathtub we had was somewhat disgusting, so we had some plumbers replace the bathtub with a new one. They also replaced the sink. Well, installing the new shower surround involved cutting away some of the drywall around the shower surround so they could fasten the new surround to the studs. Being that they were plumbers though, their work ended with the plumbing. So the gap around the tub has been exposed for nearly a year. Also, there have been two different types of flooring in the bathroom since a vanity was removed. (The photo of the floor, the third photo, is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise from how it should be. I am unable to change that.)

A few months before selling out house in Cedar Rapids, we actually had made similar changes to the main bathroom there. Of course this was before we had any idea that we would be moving, otherwise we probably would not have done as much as we did. But when we had the wall patched around the tub there, it cost us a little over $500, if I remember correctly. I decided it would be worth the money to tackle this job myself.

So today, I took most of the day off from work and began patching the holes in the wall. It was a little difficult to get the drywall cut to exactly the correct size, but I managed to do alright. The bathroom definitely won't look like it was done by a professional, but I think it should be adequate. Besides, most people won't see inside the shower anyway since the shower curtain is usually closed.

I am currently waiting for the joint compound around the showed to dry so I can sand it and apply more. Hopefully I can apply the texture to the new drywall tomorrow morning and maybe paint later in the day. Then we can replace the floor. Hopefully we can get this all done this weekend.

6.28.2009

Back to the Beach

Emma at the Beach
Originally uploaded by mathman72

A couple of weekends ago, Mel, Emma, and I went to the swimming area at Lake Elmo Park Reserve in Washington County to go for a swim. When we got there we had a tough time getting Emma into the water at first. This afternoon, after Emma's nap, we returned to go swimming again. This time getting Emma into the water initially was not too difficult. However, once she was in, she kept wanting to go back to the sand. Once she was standing at the edge of the water though, she kept walking back in. We only stayed about an hour this afternoon because we got there fairly late in the afternoon, around 4:00, and it was very windy, making it feel quite cold if we were not in the water. Nevertheless, we had fun, and Emma seemed to really enjoy it as well.

6.23.2009

Another Baby on the Way

If you are someone who visits my blog regularly, and doesn't just read it through some sort of blog reader, you may have noticed the baby ticker that appeared in the left margin of this blog on Sunday. It is true! My wife and I are expecting our second child! We currently have the due date calculated as being February 2, but everyone seems to give a different date. The nurse said February 3 or 4, the doctor said the first week of February, and the online due date calculator said February 2. The delivery will be scheduled anyway, so it really does not matter what any of these due dates are specifically, and as we found out with Emma, sometimes babies decide to arrive a couple of weeks early. I don't have much else to share at the moment, but I will try to keep all my readers apprised with the baby's progress.

6.21.2009

Another Anniversary

A week ago yesterday was a sad anniversary for me, but another, much more pleasant anniversary was yesterday. Yesterday marks the fourth anniversary of my first day of work at my current employer. This is the longest I have had any job since graduating from college. I have to say that I am very happy I found this job. Oh I enjoyed teaching some of the time, but I also had some problems with it. While it is a lot of work much of the time, it is also a rewarding job that I feel I am good at. In the past year, working from home full time, my work environment has changed considerably and my interaction with my coworkers has also changed significantly, but I continue to find it to be a rewarding job. I hope to continue working in the assessment industry for many years to come.

6.17.2009

Translations

One of the people I follow on Twitter, roneyII, decided some time ago to tweet exclusively using the Klingon language on the third Wednesday of each month. This is something that I have decided to do as well. However, as this seemed to annoy a couple of my Twitter followers last month, I am going to provide translations to my tweets here on my blog. Hopefully this will make everyone happy. The writing in pIqaD (Klingon writing) comes from qurgh's Klingon Language database.