And now... new blinds

Windows_Dec2006 030
Originally uploaded by Minnaert.

Since the new windows all got put in, it was time to take a step from the temporary blinds and get some real ones. One thing we discovered with the temporary.... They adhere really well to the window casings, which is great for the function of the blinds, but after you leave them up for a year, it takes off paint also! So there is a little bit of window moulding and casing painting in our future now.

Photos posted on Flickr

We ordered these blinds from www.JustBlinds.com. We used the same company when we lived in San Jose also. The blinds are good quality, are delivered, free shipping, in about 1 week after ordering, and about half the price of normal stores. I would recommend them. You have to install them yourselves... but it's pretty easy. Measure twice drill once though.

-Gary

an anniversary of sorts

Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of us driving to LA for good. Today is Sarah's 1 year anniversary at LACMA. Time travels fast. One year ago we posted to this wiki that we had arrived after a crazy drive full of all kinds of stinko weather.

The drive yesterday was far less eventful, less traffic and fine weather. I will post some photos from the Christmas in Santa Cruz once I get them all cleaned up.

After a year I don't think we can say we are 'acclimating' any longer. We have adjusted to LA, ad are enjoying living in WeHo. It's supposed to be in the 70's today, and the skies are clear, I think it's hard not to get to adjusted to this sort of life.
- Gary

Typical Santa Cruz

I am always saying that Santa Cruz has some strangeness to it (I am not the only to have made this statement...) but often it is difficult to quantify how Santa Cruz is a little more weird than anywhere else.

We walked downtown yesterday, had a little lunch, went to the book stores, checked out the shoe places... Downtown is known for attracting a variety of the interesting locals. There were several musicians (i.e. buskers) of questionable quality. But one who was quite good, and who typifies why Santa Cruz can be a strange place, I got a picture of with the camera phone. Nothing like a full orange neoprene suit for you & your accordion. I guess this guy is "Accordion Man", a local fixture.

New Windows!!!

We finally got replacement windows installed on Wednesday, Dec. 23rd. We had been wanting to do this from about the second night we stayed in our new place. The old windows were 24 years old, single pane and crappy. Since there is a fire station down the road from us, we would hear the fire engines roaring out of the station a couple times a night. Now all things are nice, energy efficient and quiet, most of all.

We used American Vision Windows. They did a great job. The installers were a lot of fun. Their ongoing joke to each other, when once was being slow, or lazy was to say "This is not the park!" (in a spanglish accent, and joking). Kinda funny.

The old windows. Ick, yuck. Leaky, lots of noise.










When the windows were all taken out. It was cold in LA (60s) and the windows were basically out all day, and I froze while the installers will all there.






Now the new windows all in!! Yippee! New windows are so much quieter and energy efficient than before.

Garage Kitty in the car

Our little friend, the Garage Kitty, who we have posted a few pictures of previously, is sly, just like a cat. If you are not paying attention when you arrive home and get out of your car, Garage Kitty sneaks under your car door and jumps into your car.

She jumped into the car the other day when I got home, then hopped on to the spot under the rear windshield. It was nice and warm there I think. The next day when we got home she jumped in again and wanted some attention from Sarah. Funny kitty. She doesn't want to get out once she's in the car, you need to pick her up and put her out.

Let the holidays begin, the tree is up!

Christmas Tree 2006
Originally uploaded by Minnaert.

Even thought its about 80 out today, and Gary is wearing shorts, we got our Christmas tree put up and decorated. Lots of good looking presents under the tree already. There really is no winter in LA.

When we were bringing the tree in one of our neighbors commented on how we really overpaid for our tree. That there were better & cheaper trees at the grocery store than at the nursery where we got ours. She could not believe what we spent.

- Gary

lots of wedding photos posted

We finally got around to sporting through all the photos from the wedding. We posted them all on-line, see the link below. The majority of these are from Leah, our pro photographer, but also from many others who sent us the great pictures they took.

Full wedding photo set on Flickr

A few of my favorites:
The photography corps

Steve & Gabe wondering how Kii beat them to the garter

A happy couple

Storm troopers at Thanksgiving

We went to Santa Cruz for Thanksgiving. Had a great, relaxing time. Excellent food and turkey. Les and I stopped by the Circuit City to scope out the fancy LCD TVs both of us lust after. Next door was the Toys 'R Us, which for whatever reason had Star Wars Storm Troopers out front.

Reasons? None is needed, this is Santa Cruz.

Seeing the Star Wars stuff reminds me that we saw Carrie Fisher at the Geffen Playhouse last week in her show "Wishful Drinking". She has led a crazy, celebrity family life. Funny play.

A new guest bedroom light

The light bulb burned out in the guest bedroom the other day. When i went to replace the bulb in the fixture, i discovered it was a halogen light. Surprise surprise.

Anyway, we were never big fans of the light, and i didn't have a replacement halogen bulb, so we figured, let's just replace the entire fixture. Why not!

Here is the original. Not a very inspiring design.

And here is the new one. Nothing overly fancy, a simple fixture. This one uses normal bulbs too, so we can put the energy efficient ones in here. We got our new fixture at Lighting Expo. Down on La Brea, just past Pinks.

This was surprisingly the first time there was not a profanity uttered in installing the fixture. Either this one was easier, or i have actually learned something in the replacement of all the overhead lights in the condo.

- Gary

Photos from Napa weekend

Les took some excellent photos of us all on our Napa weekend.

He posted them on-line here.

- Gary

What catches the TSA's eye

Napa_Oct2006 021
Originally uploaded by Minnaert.

We visited Les, Francine, Josh, Erin and Ethan in Napa 2 weekends ago. We flew up through SFO. Francine gave us this chrystal which she had forgotten to give us some time ago. Since the chrystals are fused together, it is supposed to symbolise a good relationship or marriage.

Anyway, i guess to the baggage screeners trained by the TSA, this looks an awful lot like drugs. So, as they scanned and swabbed my bag, i was trying to figure out why on the way back they were so interested in my bag, but not on the way up.

Word to the wise - watch which stones you put in your carryon.

- Gary

The new rings

Rings 004
Originally uploaded by Minnaert.

One of the earliest posts on this blog (The Ring) was a picture of Sarah's engagement ring. Now that we both got wedding bands, we thought it was about time to post an update.

Two rings are better than one.

-Gary

Brunch photos from Gabe & Tabitha

Gary's niece and nephew, Tabitha and Gabriel (ages 7 and 5), borrowed the digital camera and wandered around taking photos of the post-wedding brunch.

I thought it was a very interesting collection of photos, and from a fun, and shorter perspective than what you typically see.

Photos on Flickr

The wedding guestbook

Instead of having a guestbook at our wedding, we had a polaroid camera. Everyone was invited to take a picture and then sign it. I got the photos all scanned in recently and posted them on flickr.

Our guestbook of polaroids.

the garage kitty

We have a community kitty, or the "garage kitty". The kitty lives in the garage, sometimes. She sleeps on the cars, the neighbors feed her. She is a stray and at times is very affectionate, other times, she cannot be bothered, just like a cat.

She also, as you can see, does not enjoy standing still when taking photos.

Finally... a new bedroom rug

For months we have been looking for an area rug for the bedroom. The combination of simple... but not too simple, and good quality... but not too pricy, plus the right color proved to be an elusive combination.
So: before we got the new rug:



and after we go the new rug:




We found this rug at The Rug Warehouse. The rug store is in this whole furniture store shopping center, which used to be a bakery, the Helms Bakery Building, in Culver City. They remodelled the place with furniture shopping, including this huge place called the H.D. Buttercup furniture mart. Now we know where to go in the future for our furniture needs.

-gary

The living room is painted

Here is how the living room came out. All the art is on the walls and the 'cayenne' paint came out very well.

I thought it was going to be too bold and dark, but it came out looking very rich, and there amount of light in the room really didn't change all that much.

now, what else is there for us to do?

The kitchen is now updated.

Here is the kitchen when we first moved in.
There was this little ugly bench near the fridge. Really kinda wasted space. You could maybe have a bistro table there, but you would be hitting the table with the fridge door all day.

Gary tore out the bench. Of course the kitchen tile did not extend under the bench. And the dryer vent, washer drain pipe and gas pipeline run along the wall also. We needed to put in tile which matched the current stuff, and route the dryer vent & washer drain pipe so they were close to the wall.

  

Sarah painted the kitchen a much nicer, lighter color

After that was all done, we put in some matching cabinets and a countertop, making the place a little breakfast bar sorta thing. The new colors make the place look great. One room done... maybe.

  

but how are the plants? - part 2

Plants May2006
Originally uploaded by Minnaert.

Our other cacti are starting to flower now.
This little cactus has blooms about as big as itself.

Main room color

LA_Condo_Painting_April2006 001
Originally uploaded by Minnaert.

So here is the color we got for the main room. The color on the paint chip was "paprika" but to me this looks more like raspberry ice cream. The paint store assured us that it will dry much darker.
- Gary + Sarah

which color for the family room walls?

We got some color samples the other day.
3 different Paprika, Balmoral Red & Khaki. color names like lipstick names.
Not when we would actually getting to paint the entire walls, but there is some paint there now.

-Gary

artwork on the walls of the office

Sarah put up a bunch of our concert posters on the walls of the second bedroom or office. We decided this room should be the colorful one in our home. The walls and posters are pretty bright.

- Gary

a quickr pickr post

New bedroom light

Yeah, I know we said we weren't going to work this weekend, but Gary decided to put in the bedroom light we bought last weekend. Notice the before & after pictures.

When Gary was taking down the old fixture, it had this weird sort of tension mount which seemed to require the glass bowl part to flex to be removed. Glass doesn't seem to like to flex too much, this was discovered when the glass bowl shattered while being removed. A lesson learned: an easy way to remove glass shards from a bedspead? A lint roller. Worked like a dream.

The new light seems to go a little better with the other fixtures in the place. And it isn't shattered into glass pebbles either.
-Gary

but how are the plants?

Plants_Feb2006 002
Originally uploaded by Minnaert.

I know many have seen the move in photos, and the painting and all of the activity... but really the big question on the tip of everyone's tongue is "but how are the plants? Have THEY adjusted?" I know we have been pretty human centric in our postings, and should think more of the flora. So here, look, one of our cacti is in bloom!!
- Gary

No working this weekend!

After a couple weekends of working, we decided we wanted to actually get out and see some new things in L.A.

We got some tickets for a the play 'Boston Marriage' at the Geffen Playhouse.
http://www.geffenplayhouse.com/boston_marriage.html
The Geffen Playhouse is affiliated with UCLA in some way or another. And it is in the Westwood area. Hopefully the play is good, it opened last weekend, and it stars Rebecca Pidgeon, Alicia Silverstone, and Mary Steenburgen. Woohoo, real life movie stars!
- Gary

New light in the kitchen

While Sarah has been painting every room, Gary found a way to fit the bikes into the storage area, cleared out all the remaining boxes and packing materials and put in dimmer switches, etc. On Sunday, we picked out some new overhead lights; one for the kitchen and one for the master bedroom. The master bedroom will come later, once the painting is complete, but here is the before and after of the kitchen.

On our first visit to the condo, we wondered if the previous owners had looted a pizza parlor...since this fixture seems to be liberated from the Shakey's Pizza of Gary's younger years. The photo of the new one doesn't show the fixture too great... there is texture to the glass. Everyone is invited over to see the new paint & lights. We'll post photos of the bedroom light once we put it in.

a quickr pickr post

A work day at home

Last weekend we tried to get started on all the things we want to do with the new place. The first step for Sarah was painting the second bedroom or office. Gary decided to tear up the master closet and put in a more efficient closet system. We decided we wanted a brighter color in the second bedroom... it kinda ended up a little more yellow than we thought (even though it was one of the more mellow paint chips we had), but it has grown on us. Our clothes didn't fit into the standard closet... so we were at a decision point. We decided to not throw out clothes... and the new closet setup works well. Tearing out the old carpet in the closet was an added bonus.

a quickr pickr post

- Gary