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This year at Christmas I decided that I would put together a special surprise for Jess. I decided I would call upon my inner carpenter and build her a jewelry box to give her as a gift. The problem with this idea is that I didn't come up with it until December 3. That only left me 22 days to get it done before Christmas. Anyone who knows me understands that I take things like this as a personal challenge and I wouldn't be defeated by the short timeframe. This post is going to be framed as a timeline of what it took to get the job done. It's a long story so be patient. If you just want to see pictures click here.

Monday 12/3 - The idea hits me to build Jess a jewelry box for Christmas. I throw the idea around the office a bit and my coworkers think it will work. They all comment on the short time I have to get the job done but know I will get it done. When I get home that night I start designing it on graph paper. I called my father to inform him of my idea and ask if he could help me. He said he would help and to put the plans together and head over sometime that week. I end up working until 10 PM that night on the plans.

Tuesday 12/4 - I go over to my parents house to show my father the plans and buy the stock for the job. I told Jess I was going over there to help prepare the kitchen for the new floor my parents were getting (yes they were getting a new floor but I didn't have to do anything). My father looked at the plans, made a few minor changes and figured out the stock we'd need. We went to the hardware store to purchase the wood (Oak). I left the wood with my father who said he'd cut it for me on his table saw and to come back on Wednesday night.

Wednesday 12/5 - I head back over to my parents house after work once again under the "working on the kitchen floor" excuse. This time we actually had to pick up the flooring so it wasn't a total lie. We end up cutting out the pieces for the top and body of the box. Now this is where Jess almost caught me in the lie. She went out that night and I knew she'd be home around 10 and that she'd call the house around 9:45 stating she'd be heading home. I ended up working at my parents house until 9:30. She thought I was just going over there to pick up flooring and come home. I had no good excuse to stay over there so I tried to get home as fast as I could. At 9:45 when she called the house I was still on the highway so she called my cell phone and I said "I just left the mall after stopping there to do some shopping on my way home." Luckily I was right next to the mall when she called so all of the times made sense. I got home minutes before she did, ran into the house with a pile of cut wood, and hid it before she got home (whew I did it!).

Thursday 12/6 - While working I realized I forgot a piece at my parents house. I called my dad to inform him and a coworker stopped by parents house to pick up the missing piece to give to me on Friday (thanks Ethan!) Jess was going out again so I used this night to glue the top of the box together. My father had made me a template out of plastic that I could put the pieces in while the glue dried. I also had to glue the front of the box together because it was in 3 pieces due to the holes cut in the front for the drawers. This work was done in an hour so I was able to clean up, hide everything in the basement and get back upstairs before Jess came home.

Saturday 12/8 - While Jess is in the shower I go downstairs and glue the body of the box together. The problem with this is that after an hour of being in the template, the box has to be removed or the box will be glued to the template forever and the project will be ruined. Another problem is that the box HAD to be together as a single piece before the end of the day so I could bring it to my parents Sunday morning so we can measure the drawers. I was able to get everything glued and hidden away before she got out of the shower. I then took off to do some shopping. An hour later I got home, walked in the front door, ran passed Jess (luckily she was engrossed in Guitar Hero) and right into the basement where I took the box out of the template. She never asked me why I ran downstairs. I will be forever grateful to the Guitar Hero creators.

Sunday 12/9 - I had to be at my parents house at 11 because we were leaving for the Patriots game so I figured we could get some work done in the morning. I went over to my parents house at 8 and told Jess I had to help them do some Christmas decorating before we left (Damn I'm good at this lying thing). We measure, cut, and glue the drawers together and leave for the game. When we got back from the game, I ran downstairs to get the drawers and put them in the body of the box. Much to my surprise we measured wrong and the drawers are about 1/2" too long. I panicked because these drawers had to be done early in the week so everything could be sanded. My father looked at me like I was an idiot, went downstairs, fired up the saw and cut the drawers down to size. I was to glue them back at my house.

Monday 12/10 to Thursday 12/13 - This entire week I got up at 5 AM just after Jess left so I could work on the box. I managed to get all of the gluing, puttying, and sanding done during this time. On Thursday I was going to my parents house to finish some things up before staining on Saturday. Well we had a snowstorm on Thursday and no work got done but we weren't that far away from being able to stain on Saturday.

Saturday 12/15 - Originally Jess was supposed to be at her parent's house in New Hampshire this day so I could get the staining done without her knowing about it. Well that changed when another storm forced her to stay at home. I had to radically change my plan so I went over my parents house under the excuse I had to move furniture back into the kitchen (which I really had to do). We went out and got the stain, finish, hardware, and material to line the drawers then went back to the workshop to sand and stain. We got a gel based stain that is really good stuff. It dries really fast so I was able to get multiple coats on in a short period of time. The problem with it is that it's so freaking messy. I had it ALL over my hands and it doesn't come off. I couldn't go home covered in brown stain after telling Jess I moved furniture so I had to scrub it off with pumice soap and Lestoil (real fun). After we actually moved the furniture I got the finish on, packed it into the car and headed home. I ended up coming home like 6 hours after I left so I had to make up a series of excuses as to where I was.

Monday 12/17 - Jess went out again at 6 PM so I was able to spend the next 2 1/2 hours getting pissed off putting the material in the drawers. I used a spray adhesive to hold the material in place and it worked but the material was very hard to work with and would stick, bubble, wrinkle, and generally be a pain in my ass. On top of that, when you cut the material it would turn into this fine dust that got everywhere (including my fingers that were covered in glue so they turned blue). I managed to get everything done and cleaned up by 9 PM so she once again had no idea what I was doing.

Thursday 12/19 - I was home alone again so I was able to go downstairs and put the hardware and feet on the box. I then placed it in the box my XBox 360 came in. The outside of the box was covered in white paper so it didn't look like I was giving Jess and XBox for Christmas ("great, you got me an XBox for Christmas, I'm so excited.") I filled the box with tissue paper and it looked really nice. The plan was to wrap the box the morning of Christmas Eve so she had no idea it existed.

Monday 12/24 - I wrapped the box up, put a nice bow and ribbon on the box, and hid it behind everything so it wouldn't be noticed. The project is finally complete. I managed to assemble (with help from my father) a jewelry box from scratch in 21 days.

Tuesday 12/25 - She loved it! Thanks to everyone that helped with the project.

A few weeks ago I installed a new fill valve into the toilet and we thought that would fix the " constant running" problem we had. Well, it didn't fix shit and I was forced once again to go toe-to-toe with this waste-eating beast. Instead of constantly flushing, the problem was enhanced by the new fill valve. Now every hour or so it would sound like the toilet is magically flushing itself.

This went on for a few weeks and then on Monday morning after my shower I was standing in the quiet bathroom and I heard the clue that would unravel this mystery. This was a dripping sound coming from the toilet. I checked around the toilet to make sure nothing was dripping on the floor. There were no drips. At this point I figured there had to be a leak somewhere between the tank and the toilet itself. After talking with some co-workers and researching how a toilet works on the internet I figured that the flush valve had to be leaking somehow. I would have been able to confirm this had I some food coloring which I could have used to color the water in the tank and watch to see if it leaked into the bowl. I did not have food coloring so I didn't get to try my cool experiment.

Saturday rolls around and we head out to buy a flush valve. I had no idea what I was buying but what I found is that this is quite a universal thing so there were no options, just an entire shelf of the same exact valve. We got home and I started in at 10:30 AM. The instructions said to drain and remove the tank. I shut off the water, drained the tank as best as I could, unhooked the hose that fills the tank. These were all the same steps as last time so I used my memory of the watery mess I made and placed a water catching device (cool whip container) on the floor to catch the water. All of the water fell into the container and not onto the floor (yay). Then I knocked the container over and the water went all over the floor (shit). Now that the floor was considerably wet I had to remove the tank from the toilet. The tank at this point has a little bit of water at the bottom and is filled with the sediment from years of well water sitting in it (it looks like a brown sludge). I unscrewed the tank (and got more water on the floor) and lifted it off of the toilet. I then ran the dripping tank outside so I could clean it out with the garden hose.

What I found at the bottom of the tank proved my theory that the flush valve was leaking...

-The rotted gasket

The gasket that sat underneath the tank where it met the toilet crumbled in my hand.

I cleaned out the sludge from the tank and also cleaned off the back of the tank which had built up a nice dusty icky coating then I brought it back inside. The next step according to the supplied instructions was to remove the old flush valve, easy enough. What they failed to mention is that the big plastic nut that holds the flush valve in place is gigantic and far larger than any wrench I have ever seen. I tried the biggest wrench I had and it wasn't even close. I tried to remove it by hand and with a jar opener and it did nothing but stared back at me in defiance. Out of desperation I tried to fabricate a device to remove it using wood which like the all other attempts resulted in failure. Now that I'm pissed and swearing like a sailor I grabbed a pair of pliers and started breaking off pieces of the valve so I could pry the nut off. Now I have a pile of broken plastic and a flush valve that is still in place. I then grabbed the top of the valve from inside the toilet and pulled on it until it snapped, sent the bug nut flying across the bathroom and my arm scraped from bashing it into the side of the tank. The bitch was out.


-The remains of the stubborn flush valve.


Putting the new valve in was quite easy, I just had to trim a bit off the top of the tube so it would fit in the tank without a problem. I put it in place and HAND TIGHTENED (per the instructions) the new big plastic nut in case I have to remove it again. Then I hooked the chain up to the flush lever to make sure it would fit ok and it was perfect. The only thing left to do was hook the tank back to the toilet (sounds easy eh).

The old bolts (and rubber washers) that held the tank on were all corroded so they needed to be replaced by the nice new ones in the supplied kit. Well this is where everything went south. The new bolts were exactly the same size as the holes in the bottom of the tank. This means they did not want to fit without a fight. One went in without a problem, the second one was a freakin' disaster. It had no intention of ever going in that hole without a fight. I ended up developing a method of putting this second bolt in by putting a piece of wood (from the failed tool construction earlier) on top of the bolt and then hammering the wood with the end of the pliers I had. This worked great until the big rubber washer on the bolt couldn't get by the newly installed flush valve. I tried to wiggle it and get it around the valve but it was not happening. This led me to take the goddamn valve out again (good thing I hand tightened) hammer the bolt in the hole, and put the valve back in.

I placed the tank back on the toilet and put a nut on the end of one side (screwed right on using only my hand) then I went to put the nut on the other side and it wouldn't go on. I managed to screw the threads up so bad trying to get the bolt in the hole that it now required me to use a wrench to get the nut on. I got it about halfway on then realized that I screwed up the washer placement on the bolts AND HAD TO TAKE IT APART AGAIN.

After proper placement of the washers and nuts I put the tank back on and fastened it using the supplied wing nuts. It was at this point I hooked everything up, turned the water back on, adjusted a few things and had a flushing (non-leaking) toilet.


-The flushing (non-leaking) toilet.


Oh yeah it was now 12:30. That was 2 hours of pure unfiltered misery that I suffered through but it was worth it because our toilet has not randomly flushed, made a dripping sound, or leaked in the last day. I hopefully have defeated this monster.

Those of you who know me are aware of my OCD when it comes to scheduling and doing things in order. Every Sunday morning between April and October at about 9:00 AM I get out the lawn mower and mow the entire lawn. If rain is predicted or something more important comes up I will mow the lawn mid-morning on Saturday or Monday when I get home from work. Regardless of the 1 day fluctuation in the schedule, my lawn is mowed about every 7 days. If I go more than 7 days things start to look like hell and I start to get irritated.

With that in mind I want you to look at this picture...

You've got to be kidding me.

This is the lawn of the guy who lives across the street from us. Each morning when I take the dog out for her walk I get the pleasure of looking at this display. I'm waiting for the day I see a camera crew filming Jeff Corwin as he hacks his way through the lawn with a machete looking for some type of exotic creature. Just yesterday I was across the street talking to Rachel (who is lucky enough to live next to the jungle) and we noticed that there is a clump of weeds that has actually grown higher than the fence that separates her yard from his. Those big weeds are scary looking. I've been sure to keep Nikki away from them on our walks because I'm afraid they will come alive and eat her. At this point I'm not scared for my own life as I don't believe they could consume an adult human. That may change in time if they are allowed to grow more.

Jess and I were discussing what we can do about this mess. At this point we do not have a piece of lawn care equipment that can handle a mowing job of that size. It seems that we have two choices. Choice one is to go get a commercial harvesting machine or something of that magnitude to obliterate anything that dares grow there. This is not a perfect solution due to the fact that the lawn is actually really small and it would suck to have to move such a large piece of equipment around. Our second choice is to get a number of goats to eat their way from the street to the house. The problem with this option is the amount of shit that much grass would generate when consumed by goats. I would then have to write a post about the buildup of goat shit on the dirt lawn across the street.

It's actually quite amazing that a lawn can be this out of control in June. We can only imagine what it will be like by the end of August (especially if we can get some rain). It's not out of the realm of possibility for the grass to actually grow up higher than the windows on the house. Now that would be some interesting stuff. We'd probably be in a public safety crisis by then because those big weeds would be eating at least one person a week.

Throughout the summer I will post updates on the status of this lawn.

We have survived the worst of the "Spring Nor'easter" (not my name, blame the news). Sunday night into early Monday morning was the most miserable night we've had in the 2.5+ years we've lived here. When we went to bed Sunday night it was windy and rainy but not incredibly bad. At 1:30 AM I was awaken by the wind blowing debris around outside. I went downstairs to check on the weather and saw that we were under "a wind advisory until 5AM". I thought to myself, "well that's only 3.5 hours from now, we can make it" and I went back to bed. At 3:00 AM I was up again, it sounded like a hurricane outside but I looked around and we still had power. I found this amazing because we lose power everytime the wind blows. 15 minutes later, we were sitting in absolute darkness with the dog barking like crazy because my cell phone beeped when the power cut out. I knew this was coming but it pissed me off anyway so I navigated the house in pure darkness to go downstairs, find my flashlight, find the number for the power company, and call the bastards. After listening to the automated woman at the power company tell me that she was an automated assistant (like that wasn't obvious...stupid automated bitch) I said clearly, "OUTAGE". She responded to my query with "I understand you want to talk to the billing department, please hold". Yeah that's what I want to do, talk to the billing department at 3:23 in the morning during a storm that has knocked out my power. I hung up and proceeded to try and find another number to call. Each thing I found pointed me to the same number with that goddamn automated asshole on the other end. I finally discovered that you cannot use speakerphone when talking to the machine, got to the outage reporting system, and reported my outage. We proceeded to lay in bed for the next hour and a half listening to the wind, cracking of trees, and strange bangs.

Fast forward to 5AM. We decide to get up and see what is going on. I checked the basement and found no water had gotten through my defenses yet (minor victory, yay) and checked outside with a flashlight to find tree branches everywhere. Everywhere includes a branch on the front porch that was in the way of the door opening completely. We decided to run back inside because it wasn't safe. For the next hour we watched out the window as it got lighter and we could see how crazy it was outside. Due to the fact that with no power, we now have no water, we brushed our teeth with a bottle of water and couldn't shower. I checked the weather on my cell phone. The wind advisory that was expiring at 5AM now will expire at 7AM. Bored as hell with no power, we both left for work hoping that power will return sometime during the day. According to the server downstairs, power came back on about 6:55 AM (about 15 minutes after I left for work).

I took out the camera when I got home and took pictures of the front yard and the basement. The front yard was a mess with tree branches everywhere and the basement only had a bit of water soak through the foundation. While the storm pissed me off and caused me to be unclean and tired for the day, I have to say we were pretty lucky. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not pissed off now because I have to keep walking the dog in the rain and wind. I'm convinced that no matter what direction we walk, the wind will be in our face.

To see pictures of the storm results, please click here.