Fuego 5

Start of shameless self-promotion...

Tomorrow evening (Friday, February 20th) my salsa band "Fuego" will be performing at the Blue Moon Ballroom for the 5th time since we started the band. In the last few months we have made some great additions to the band - we now have two new female singers doing vocals and backups! What a great improvement this has been - something we've always been missing. Now you don't have to just hear a bunch of instrumentalist guys with so-so voices singing backups (sorry guys, but you all honestly know that singing isn't our first calling - that's why we are playing instruments!) And of course we still have the rest of the great cast - piano, bass, trombone, saxophone (me), and fantastic percussionists as well as our leader Martial doing the leads. And we have a few new songs in the mix too.

Should be a great time. After the success of having a cash bar there at the December gig, that will also be available this time around, as well as the "free" (included with the $10 cover charge) 1-hour dance lesson at 7:30pm with a guest dance instructor. Otherwise our music will start at 8:30pm.

Come out and enjoy a wonderful night of music and dancing!

The answer is: 6 hours

What is the time it takes to put in a new dream kitchen sink! Seriously, since about a month into moving into this house 5 years ago, I have wished I had put in the sink I wanted instead of the default generic sink. And finally this year I did something about it (ok, Erin helped a lot, and friend Jay who works at Home Depot helped us pick out the right stuff and get a good deal).

We ordered all the parts nearly 2 weeks ago, and they came on Wednesday - a black granite deeper sink basin (8.3" vs. 6"), an oil rubbed bronze tall-neck faucet with in-faucet pull-out sprayer, and oil rubbed bronze side drinking water tap. Additionally, I have always wanted an under-counter water filter (in place of the Pur one attached to the faucet which is awkward and gets in the way a lot). So, at about noon, we were kind of wandering around the house and decided let's just get it done, and started around 12:30.

First was to remove the old sink - actually easier than we thought. Turn the shutoff valves, disconnect the supply lines, and disconnect the PVC drain lines, and remove the under-counter clamps holding the sink in place. After we pulled off the old sink, we cleaned up the old putty that was sealing it in place from before (not too hard).

I have to say I'm glad things are so standardized these days - everything is standard sizes. The sink itself was the exact same size as the old one, we had to notch out two corners just a bit because this sink has square corners and the old one had rounded ones, but 2 minutes with a saw took care of that. All the new supply connector lines were the same size, and the drain holes are all the same size. We had to buy one new piece of PVC and cut it a different length, but that was really easy (Erin is a pro!) Even the sink basin itself is easy to set up - the 3 standard holes are cut but it has knock-out holes for anything else you need.

At 2:30 we made a quick trip to Home Depot to pick up some caulk, plumbers putty, and teflon thread tape. Back home to finish - Erin put caulk around the edges of the sink and we dropped it into place. We put in the under-counter clamps, puttied in the drain holes, and hooked up the drain and the garbage disposal. It was at this point we realized that we'd need the different length PVC pipe (originally it looked like we wouldn't need to change anything), and while Erin was doing that I discovered the adapter for the water filter was going to be the wrong size, so we made a second trip to Home Depot at 4:30.

Said hi to Jay while we were there, and he helped me figure out what I needed for the water filter adapter while Erin got the PVC we needed. We also bought a jigsaw as the one I had was so old it fell apart the first time we attempted to use it earlier.

Back home to REALLY finish this time! Cut the PVC, finish the drains, mount the under-counter water filter, put in the adapter, and re-hook up the supply lines. Turn on everything...doh! Something was leaking. Checked all the connections, the cold water supply line wasn't quite tight. Take 2. All looked good! Ran the water for a minute as recommended before hooking up the sprayer, and then ran the drinking water for 5 minutes so the excess carbon drained out of the filter. Turned the dishwasher on...all was good.

Or so I thought...I'm always paranoid when I do plumbing work, and this time I'm glad I was, because the drinking water connection was leaking. Badly. Fortunately we caught it before it got out of hand, cleaned it all up, and checked the connections, and I think it wasn't tight enough. Continuing to monitor.

The cats were loving this whole day, because of all the chaos and new things to explore, so this was a treat for them too. Boxes everywhere, stuff strewn all over the kitchen...they were in heaven. We had to shoo them away from under the sink while we were working, but they were pretty good, and it was fun to watch them play in the boxes :)

The complete picture-by-picture account:

New Sink

Goliath Online

Fun and action-packed weekend. Friday we actually grilled for dinner (it was in the 40s!) and watched #4 of the final 10 Battlestar Galactica.

Saturday, my new PC was FINALLY scheduled to arrive via FedEx (hooray for Saturday deliveries!) and at about 12:45pm there it was. While we had plans for the rest of the day, I couldn't resist opening it up and at least booting it. All I can say is, COOL. The last few new PCs didn't have a really noticable speedup - same operating system, same sort of processor, just a little faster and a little more memory. This one...well, going from a single core to a quad core with hyperthreading and 6 GB of memory, and a 64-bit operating system, well, it's night and day. The main thing I notice is that I can actually do 4 things at once and it handles it. I don't really think the 6 GB of memory probably get taken advantage of, but I'm sure it's not paging as much. Windows Vista? Well, I think all I've heard is basically true. If you have a big fast powerful machine and high-end graphic card, it works great. It's much smoother, much more is built-in (e.g. integrated Windows Mobile sync for my phone), and the network/driver support is great. Downsides? Well, most applications aren't written or compiled in 64-bit mode. They can run in 32-bit mode ok, as long as they don't do anything "weird" - I've had a few hiccups, but nothing major.

Shortly after, we picked up and headed to Eau Claire to surprise friend Caryn for her 21st birthday. It worked out perfectly - she was totally surprised, and we got to hang out with her all afternoon and had a nice dinner at the Haymarket Grille. After watching Caryn try on outfits, we headed over to her boyfriend's for the big bash. We didn't end up staying too long, as it was a 2-hour drive back, but we got to meet a bunch of her friends.

Sunday I had coffee with friends Bill and Eric, and we solved the world's problems (or at least we would have if people would listen to us :) After spending some time finishing up my computer and prepping my old one for Erin, I met friend Ryan to get fitted for tuxes for his wedding. Besides Mestad's being super busy on the bridal side, it only took us about 15 minutes. Erin and I hit lunch at Timberlodge, and I was back home to finish redoing all the computers so that mine was all set up for Erin, while finishing installing everything onto my new one.

Freaky Friday

It's not really a freaky Friday, it's actually a very nice Friday, but I was at a loss for a title.

This has been a hectic but fun and fulfilling week. We've been having twice-a-week salsa band practices given our upcoming gig at the Blue Moon on February 20th (shameless self-promotion going on - we are playing at the Blue Moon Ballroom on Friday, Feburary 20th from 7:30pm-11:30pm!) This is the strongest band we've ever had - we've added two singers/auxiliary percussionists, and still have the full set of people we had last time - so we're really up to 9 people now! And it's been lots of fun to have more people involved! It's going to be a great show.

Jazz band has been equally fun, we're digging out a bunch of the older songs that haven't been played in awhile. Some of these are even older than the oldest people in the group - really cool stuff. I've decided Count Basie has really become my favorite now for songs and arrangements.

Last night was the third IBM/Mayo social/presentation for the EAGLE group which I am now the present of. We got to have it at the IBM Briefing Center, which is really fancy, and we had a great turnout and one of our members gave a great presentation about the history of diversity at IBM. I am always proud to work for a company with such a great history of diversity - IBM has really been ahead of the game since they started. They hired the first black and woman employees in 1899, the first woman VP in 1946 (yes 1946!), and all of their non-discrimination policies were added LONG before states had laws in place. Sexual orientation was added to the nondiscrimination policy in 1984 (in the midst of the AIDS crisis), and domestic partner benefits in 1996. The best part of it, as someone pointed out last night, is that these strides forward were all business decisions - which makes them nearly impossible to roll back, and hard to argue with. IBM attracts top talent in employees, improves its creativity and expands its target markets by supporting diversity with its employees and with its customers.

Tonight is finally a "free" night, where I get to watch the 4th of the final 10 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and we're even going to attempt to grill with the heat wave we've bene having (high 30s!). My new PC is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, and we also ordered the new sink/faucet for the kitchen that I've always wanted (thanks Jay!) and hopefully will be putting that in next week. PIctures to follow...

Free Coffee

Ya know, it's possible I might be a little obsessed with coffee. But...after a bad night of sleep, it was great to hit Caribou north this morning and find out that they're doing the free drink deal if you put $20 on your Caribou card. This is a no-brainer for me - it only takes ~ 9 days to use $20 in coffee currency.

So for today and the next 5 days if I so choose, I can put another $20 on every day and get 5 more free drinks. Shelley, you better put this on your blog as a money-saving success story! (ok, so spending what I do on coffee is not money-saving, but I am saving money that I would have otherwise spent!)