Eat a Maple Bar for Gramps - Since Dec. 26, 2010

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Last night, Gramps passed away.

I knew it long before I received a late call from my teary Mom.

I had an unusual amount of energy all night and was restless in bed for hours while Amanda slept. Most of that time I thought about Gramps and his passing in such a spiritual way that I can't really explain. I felt clairvoyance while he was dying on the other side of the country.

When my phone rang, I knew it was Mom to confirm the news.

This morning, Amanda and I walked to the Amish town of Grabill to buy donuts, specifically maple bars.

To modify a quote from my favorite Christmas movie: "Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my grandfather was a maple bar man." Gramps loved maple bars nearly as much as he loved Grams. Mom told me that when she was helping them move out of their last home, she found maple bars hidden all over the house. When I'd visit my grandparents in Palm Desert these past years, we'd always spend the morning watching Grams play tennis while eating maple bars for breakfast.

So, we ate maple bars this morning for Gramps. I hope you treat yourself to the same.

Yes, I won an iPad on Twitter

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Many people will open an iPad for Christmas this year. I was fortunate to win one(!) via a Twitter contest hosted by Parallels. Long story short, I'm a lucky guy. My wife reminds me of this often.

Parallels also gave me some free software that I'll be reviewing in a future blog post. More on that later...

I thought it'd be fun to record a short video unboxing the iPad like many of the great gadget sites on the Interwebs. I'm pretty sure I nailed none of the technical specifications of the device, not like that matters. The iPad has been sliced and diced and reviewed thousands of times already and for good reason. It rocks! In just the past day I've found that I much prefer it my laptop for reading news and blogs and general internet browsing. Of course, the heavy word processing and production capabilities are limited, which is why I'm creating this blog post on my trusty Macbook Pro.

Anywho, it's been a fortunate Christmas already, and here's my unboxing video! Merry Christmas Eve!

Home Improvements by this Homey in 2010

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IMG_0456 The problem with owning a home 100+ years old is that there's always something that needs updating. Fortunately, most of these issues aren't critical to keep the house standing, and I have a lot of smart people around me to help when I can't see an easy fix in a back issue of This Old House.

First, there was the Backyard Experiment late summer when I decided to try my hand at landscaping. Who knew tillers were so entertaining?

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I still have more work to do, specifically building a whole new fence, but you can only do some much yard work in one summer.

I had intended to install a front door a lot earlier than October, but that Possum Fiasco of 2010 burnt a hole in my wallet. Just to update you there, the possums are now long gone and I at least have the assurance that my crawl space is now mostly clean and my floorboard insulation is mostly new for winter. Fast-forward a couple paychecks and I was ready to take on the front door.

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An amazing part of working on your home are the surprises. Like, surprise, you've got asbestos! (We knew this already, but it's still surprising to see.)

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Or, surprise, you've run out of daylight and have to put the old door back up for the night!

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The most surprising part was that I didn't have a door frame at all. We had to build one from scratch on Day 2.

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With some significant assistance, the new door was finally installed. Pictured below are the door and a good summary of Amanda's contribution to the project.

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I still need to stain the door, but when the temperature drops so do the cosmetics projects. To that point, Amanda stops shaving her legs this time of year.

I've done a couple other projects in the past few months, but they're less glamourous. I laid down some laminate in the kitchen and laundry room but still need to finish that project and extend it to the laundry room. I most recently installed a sink in the master bathroom. That is hardly picture worthy because you can picture what a white sink looks like, right?

So that's my home improvement trophy case for 2010. I think I did OK considering I didn't really start until after the wedding. I already have a long list of projects for 2011. Ah, homeownership. It's a lot of labor and a lot of love.