I’ll post more details later, but for now, I have posted most of the pictures of what we did. I need to get a picture of what’s done so far. Yesterday and today, we framed, put up the dry wall, and hung the door.
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| My Ultimate Office |
I still need to tape, mud, sand, prime, and paint the new walls. I also need to put up the casement around the door, and all the rest.
The work continues. Today involved yet another trip to the hardware store because we didn’t have any mineral spirits, which was needed for clean-up on today’s task.
However, with that taken care of, I was able to unwrap the door and start the first layer of stain. I plan to put on 2 layers of stain with polyurethane and be done. I also want to get this done before Saturday, so I’ll be doing a layer tomorrow morning (first coat on the other side of the door) and tomorrow evening (second coat on the first side). Then, I’ll need one final coat on the other side on Saturday morning. The door will then be ready for hanging on Sunday.
It’s all staining for the time being. Thinking further ahead:
After the floor is down, it will be time to put up the white board and install the trim. At some point, I’ll need to purchase and stain the trim too. After that, I’m all done.
Today was the biggest day of expenses yet. It should be the biggest day of expenses for this project. We went to the hardware store today to buy a prehung door and the flooring I’m going to put down.
When we got home, I unloaded the stuff and then finished cleaning up the basement. I scraped the remaining pad off the floor yesterday and used a putty knife and wire brush to loosen up any loose pieces and grit from the floor before vacuuming clean. Finally, I used the cement I bought earlier this week to fill in the divots created when I pried up the nails holding down the tack strips under the old carpet. That should be all dry by tomorrow and I’ll have a reasonably level surface to lay floor on.
Tomorrow, I plan to put the first coat of stain on the door we bought tonight. That ought to pretty much do it for tomorrow. That leaves Friday for the second coat. Then, Saturday, my folks are coming up to help me frame the new walls and put up the door.
Nothing too exciting to report today and no pictures. Between working a bit longer than usual today and Terri being off at her Bible study, I didn’t get much done.
I was able to take down the painter’s tape and the paint looks great. We’ll still need to touch up a few places and paint the new walls when they go up. I also scraped the remaining bits of carpet padding off of the floor.
I also went to the hardware store and picked up the things I’ll need to start staining. I didn’t really even have time to pick up the door while there. I may do that tomorrow morning before I start work.
I need to finish cleaning up the floor and filling in spaces as well as pulling the three nails in the floor that I missed on the first time around. I also need to buy the prehung door and stain it.
Today, I worked the real job. However, the next task that needed to be done was to paint. My wife is the diva of paint. She tackled the job of taping, edging, and rolling out the first coat of the deep blue color I selected. It’s very blue. I like it. It also beats the living daylights out of the washed out avocado color that was there before.
Gabe helped too.
After dinner, I edged and rolled the second coat of paint, so we should be done with this round of painting. Since we have not yet installed the stub wall and door yet, we’ll still need to paint a bit more, but that’s going to be a small job.
I think I’ve solved my header problem with the stub wall as well. Duh. I’m going to need a header to go across the floor joists above the door. That will be nailed solid into the joists. The stub wall header will just need to be braced against that. Done.
Tomorrow, I’ll be purchasing a solid core door (and possibly some new molding) and begin staining. I may also pull up the padding we’ve left down for the time being and start prepping the sub-floor for the new flooring. Pulling up the tack strips from the old carpet busted it up a bit and I need to fill in the divots. Once that’s done, I’ll be ready to put down the underlayment and laminate flooring.
Between church and the Mission’s Banquet tonight, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for work today, but I managed to get a little more done. After church, I stopped by Home Depot to pick up some paint stirrers (forgotten yesterday) and a larger pry bar to help me pull the more stubborn nails from the floor.
When we got home I resumed pulling up tack strips and prying up nails. Gabe thought this was pretty cool, mostly due to the fact that I gave him safety glasses to where while I pulled stuff up. He ended up wearing them for the rest of the afternoon.
I just managed to get that done before Gabe’s nap time. As he was being put down for that, I also pried off the base boards, which I need removed so I can put down flooring later. The base boards are in bad shape anyway, so replacing them is probably a good idea.
Next, I headed off to Sears to get a replacement filter for the shop vac. Then, I headed off to Water’s True Value to look at some leveling cement, a trowel, and a wire brush to help me fill in the divots pulling up the tack strips left behind.
I took a short nap this afternoon after that and Terri did some clean up throwing away the larger bits of tack strip I’d pulled up and moving the trim out. After the Mission’s Banquet, I used the vacuum to pick up the rest of the debris created by pulling up tack strips. I then moved out the carpet remnant we pulled out and washed down the walls so they’ll be ready to paint.
Tomorrow, the plan is to begin the first round of painting. Since I don’t have the new walls in yet and still have a light switch to move, we won’t be able to get all the painting done in one attempt, but we can take care of the majority of it. Other things I have to look forward to are filling in the divots in the floor and figuring out how to mount the white board I have planned.
The biggest issue that is occupying my mind right now, though, is how to stabilize the top of the short wall we’re putting in. It won’t have the hinge of the door exerting pressure on it, but it still needs to be stable. The problem is that the wall it will be extending is in between two floor joists. I also want to avoid tearing up the ceiling very much while we’re at it, since the wallpaper treatment that’s up there is not going to be easy to fix if I mess it up too badly.
Ah, well. There’s a solution, I just need to think of it.
Cheers.
For those who don’t know, I work out of my home. Our house is 2 stories with a finished walk-out basement. When we first moved in, I had my office in what I think of as the back of the basement. As you come down the stairs you can go right to enter the family room where we have our TV and walk out into the backyard. Or you can turn left and enter the room that was my office.
After our son was born, this was no longer a good office for me to work out of at home. We moved Terri’s office there, which had been in the back of the family room and moved my office up to the loft outside of our bedroom. This had the advantage of being far from the family room where Gabe would be spending much of his time during the day and it was much better lit with a skylight directly above. This is where I work as of right now.
Over time, though, this space has shown its flaws. The loft overlooks the living room, so whenever Gabe and Terri are upstairs, it tends to be a noisy space. This is normally fine because I very rarely find the noise a distraction. It does mean, however, that during my regular weekly phone meetings (usually 2-3 each week) or if I get an unscheduled call (rare), they have to bug out or I have to dodge back into our bedroom and close the door. This isn’t a huge problem, but it’s annoying. Also, having the skylight above my desk is a mixed blessing. During May, June, and July the sun shines directly on my desk. I’ve designed a very affordable window shade (see the file folders?) to help cope with that, but it’s ugly and imperfect. I could install a real shade, but haven’t. The small space has led to some problems with keeping things organized as well.
Therefore, I began formulating some plans over the past few months to try and fix this. There are two possible solutions. There is actually a large unfinished space in the attic over the garage. This would make for a nice den built off the loft and is something I’d like to do someday. However, due to structural, ventilation, and electrical issues, finishing that space would be expensive. The other solution is to install a door somewhere in the basement and move back downstairs. So, this is what we’re doing.
If I’m going to do this, I’d like to create a space that I’m very happy with, so I’ve decided on doing the following:
Today, we started Day 1 of this remodel.
Prior to today, Terri cleaned out her stuff from her office and we cleaned out the garage and the spare bedroom so we could store her stuff there while we begin this transition. I enlisted the help of my neighbor and friend Jay to move out the large furniture.
Today, we made our first (of many) trips to Home Depot to pick up supplies and get started. Today we picked up paint and a new light fixture along with looking for a second time at other materials I’ll need. (I went there a couple weeks ago to figure out what my rough budget should be.)
When we got back home, I cleared out the rest of the furniture and pulled all the nails and screws out of the wall.
Then, I began replacing the light fixture with the new one we bought today. The old light was a single (hideous) flushmount ceiling fixture that generally sported a 60 or 75 what bulb. This was definitely not enough lighting, particularly with the avocado walls and forest green carpet. The light cast sharp shadows and the only thing that made it tolerable was the halogen lamp Terri had in her office to provide even brighter indirect lighting.
I installed a new fluorescent fixture this afternoon to replace the old fixture. The new light is much more adequate. Initially, we weren’t sure it was quite bright enough, but I’ll come back to that.
Earlier in the day, I also looked into what it will take to move the light switch. I’d like to have the switch inside the room, but it’s currently sitting outside. I have a couple different ideas on where to put it and how to move the wiring. I’m still thinking on what I want to do there.
While I was working on the light, Terri filled in all the holes in the walls with spackle. After I finished installing the light, Gabe and I sanded down the spackle. Gabe informed me later before going to bed that, “Today was a really, really, really, really, really good day. I liked sand papering those white spots on the walls.”
After we finished with that, I took my first irrevocable act: I cleaned and then ripped up the dark green carpet. As I was cutting it with the razor, though, Gabe started to get distressed that the carpet was going away, so we let him run around in the room one more time before I pulled it out. When cutting the carpet, I cut much wider than I needed to. I plan to have a professional come in and do whatever remediation is needed to fix the carpet back down. I don’t think I trust myself nailing tack strips into cement and using a carpet stretcher. I’ll let the pro cut the carpet to precisely the right size.
Once the carpet was up, we noticed that the lighting seemed much more adequate than before. It would appear that the dark green carpet was absorbing a huge amount of light. The laminate flooring I think we’ll get is lighter and more reflective and so is much of the furniture I’ll be putting in, so I think the lighting is going to be just fine.
Finally, I began working on pulling up the tack strips. They seem to have been nailed down with two different sets of nails. One set being the usual 5/8” short nails and the others being some much larger ones. My pry bar was able to get the little ones with no problem, but I may need a heavier pry bar if I’m going to get out the larger nails. I had to stop though shortly after starting as Gabe’s bed time had arrived and whacking a pry bar with a hammer on concrete is one of those noises that carries pretty well.
Tomorrow, I will resume pulling up the tack strips and see if I can do something about those larger nails. I will also need to pull off the trim around the floor in preparation for the new flooring. I also need to get something to patch the holes in the floors where the tack strip was. Next, will probably be washing the walls and then painting.
After that, I’ll start working on prepping the floor and then putting down the floor. I’m putting off the framing, dry wall, and hanging the door a bit because there are some challenges there that I’m hoping to get some help with. I also need to get a door and stain it too.
I hope to have another update on the progress toward my ultimate office tomorrow.
Cheers.
I’m a pretty avid reader. I’m a terribly slow reader, but I still manage to read between 5 and 10 pages from a novel each night before going to sleep. I usually read another 5 to 10 pages out loud to Terri before going to sleep. I also read lots of news, blogs, tech articles, articles from various evangelicals, fundamentalists, and reformed writers. According to my Google Reader statistics, I’ve blown through about 2,400 headlines in the past 30 days with 63 of them listed as “Shared” which is a pretty good indication of how many of those entries I’ve read carefully, so about 2 a day. I read at least one chapter out of the Bible to Gabe every night, usually one or two picture books to him before bed, and I’m usually studying or searching scripture for something two or three times a day. And I haven’t even covered the amount of reading I do for work with wiki pages, articles shared by coworkers, documentation needed to solve problems, new policies, important email, etc. Reading is pretty important to me.
I really love reading novels, though. I usually wish I could read way more than 10 or 20 pages a night. However, I have one major problem with novels and fiction in general. Movies and TV shows and plays and poetry and whatever else you might mention in the category of “fiction” all have this problem. The problem with fiction is that it’s fictional. Profound, eh? Let’s just talk about novels, though, knowing that the word “novel” could be replaced with any of these other forms of fiction.
What I mean by “fiction has a problem with being fictional” is this: the world in your fiction doesn’t have to have anything to do with the real world. Given that I’m often reading science fiction, it’s really not supposed to. That said, fiction (and science fiction in particular) is almost always a work of exploration in the realm of morals, values, and human nature. What would the human condition be like if dinosaurs walked the earth? What would happen if aliens destroyed the planet? What would happen if people could perform magic? What would be the implication if we developed a truly thinking artificial intelligence? Many books have tackled these questions in various ways. At some point, for these books to be interesting, they must intersect non-fictional reality.
And therein is the problem. It is easy in fiction to present a version of humanity that does not exist. For example, imagine reading a book where a benevolent corporation rules humanity. The company is driven to generate wealth for the upper management, yet it serves all the people, no one is hungry, or sick, or unhappy. Unless there’s some extra reason I should believe this would happen or something dark and sinister lying underneath it, why would you believe that would possible? Why should you? That scenario might make good satire or a setting for some dark dystopia or horror story, but is not believable as a setting for much else.
Similarly, when Star Trek presents a world where mankind has moved past the sins of history: wars and famines and poverty and greed and all that; one must wonder which humanity Gene Roddenberry was talking about. Homo superior sounds about as believable to me as the last scenario involving the corporate oligarchy. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land or even Starship Troopers (not the movie, which barely has any similarity with the book) are similarly unbelievable in his rendering of successful communistic and militaristic libertarian societies, respectively.
I’m also a fan of Orson Scott Card, but the idea that humanity would unite so well under a common cause in Ender’s Game or that a human-built computer would really be successful as the conscience that prevents humanity from destroying itself in nuclear holocaust in the Homecoming series stretches credibility with me. Humanity has not, since the fall of the Tower of Babel, ever united in that way. Having built enough computer programs, the idea of making one capable of being a god that wouldn’t be an epic FAIL within in 6 months of being on it’s own is pretty hilarious.
All of these stories have taken a simplistic view of a system that is basically impossible to understand in a few hundred pages of text. If we were to really consider the full complexity of common systems like how all the people within a cultural area interact and how two cultures near each other meld together into a greater culture (folks in Manhattan, versus folks in Lawrence and Manhattan both being in Kansans, for example), you find a system that is fundamentally beyond human comprehension. No brain is big enough to comprehend enough of the facts involved simultaneously to understand why people work together the way they do. We can only generalize in the most vague of terms. Only great hubris allows a person to say he truly understands basic reality in any meaningful way. It’s not so much that there is no objective truth, but that without simplifying things down, we couldn’t understand even a small segment of objective truth.
Going back to the stories: these are stories that I found entertaining, interesting, and even thought-provoking. Yet, each of them failed to hold true to humanity in some important way. I won’t say I could do better because I know I couldn’t or at least I know I couldn’t on my better days. If I ever write a book, I’ll have to be sure to include in the preface, “I’m going to start by saying, I got this wrong. Humans don’t really work together this way, but they do in my head, mostly. I hate all the flaws in this book, but you have to stop editing the story sooner or later and may this be yet another monument demonstrating that human endeavors are imperfect and incomplete.”
Cheers.
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him [Jesus] to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
— Luke 10:25-37
That is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. This story is interesting on a number levels. First of all, it clearly outlines the prejudices held by society’s upper classes, those in charge of religious practice and local government. During this time, Israel was a Roman territory, so the national and regional government was of Rome. However, the local government was theocratic and generally provided to the Jews through the temple and the synagogue. More interestingly, is how Jesus provides a story that goes against tradition, challenges this prejudice, and promotes a difficult model to emulate. I’m going to describe this and then a couple ways this story is misused.
To start, let’s examine the characters here.
If you think about it from the perspective of the lawyer: a Samaritan is a descendant of a people who lived on your ancestor’s land after they had been conquered by a foreign king. It might not matter greatly to you if they were just as forcibly resettled as your ancestors were when they were taken away to Assyria and Babylon because they were living in the land promised to you and your ancestors by God. It might not have been easy for the lawyer to agree with Jesus in the end that the Samaritan was obviously the good neighbor here. In fact, since he doesn’t answer directly, but says, “the one who…” it looks very much like he didn’t want to say, “The Samaritan.”
Okay, let’s summarize. A man is beaten and left for dead. Two members of the religious and political upper class walk by without helping him. A member of a despised group comes and helps the man out, nurses him to health, and even pays for his stay in an inn with no hope of repayment. The Samaritan’s not even in the right part of the country, so he’s not in a good position himself, but he helps anyway.
This is proving to be a really peculiar story. But then the real kicker is that Jesus doesn’t even answer the lawyer’s question! The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” So, we read the story, get right up to verse 36, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” Prior to reading that, the obvious answer to the lawyer’s question is, “the man who was robbed” is the neighbor he asked about. The Samaritan just looks like color to shame the lawyer, but that’s not the point Jesus makes.
Rather, Jesus asks that question, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” Jesus’s question is the opposite of the lawyer’s. Not who should I serve, but who was the one who served? It’s a very poignant challenge. It states that a Jew should emulate, of all people, a lousy Samaritan.
So, what do we learn? Lot’s of things. A true follower of God’s Kingdom is one like this Samaritan. His background is questionable, but his actions are righteous. We all sin, but once we have been redeemed by Jesus Christ, we should seek to serve others in need, without regard to what that means to ourselves. This is hard to practice. It is obviously much easier to behave like the priest and the Levite.
But, that’s not all. This service is very, very personal and extremely generous. The Samaritan didn’t just notify the next town that a Jew was on the road needing help, he didn’t just pick him up and help him to the next village, he didn’t just pass him a few coins for the inn. This man “had compassion.” He, personally, cleaned and treated the man’s wounds. He “brought him to an inn and took care of him.” He stayed the night with the man to make sure he was alright and then, before traveling on, payed the innkeeper two denarii, which was 2 day’s wages. Think about how much you earn in two days. Would you give that kind of money to a complete stranger? But he didn’t stop there, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.” This is like giving them his credit card and saying, “Just charge that for whatever he needs.”
Going back to what I said before now, following Christ’s suggestion, “You go, and do likewise,” is a very hefty proposition. Serving others in need with such generosity is very difficult. I’d say it’s pretty nearly impossible. I can’t imagine there are many people who come close.
Now, my final point. I hear this parable cheapened and distorted far too often and it grates on my soul. Here are a couple things I hear the term “Good Samaritan” used to describe, which water down the meaning in ways that bother me:
If you want to use the above terms, fine, but realize it’s a misuse.
The real point, however, is that we should each be humbled by this story and realize how we’ve failed to serve others personally when opportunities have presented themselves. We should keep our eyes peeled for the people in need we run across and give of ourselves sacrificially. This isn’t a parable about serving others in the abstract, but of giving up that which is valuable to serve others directly and personally.
Cheers.
So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. — 1 Samuel 8:10-18
Someone asked me this week why I am “terrified” of government. “Terrified” is certainly too strong a word, but I’d certainly say I’m cautious and wary of government. This passage in 1 Samuel does a marvelous job of explaining why.
For those who may not know, the nation of Israel escaped from the tyranny of Pharaoh and conquered Canaan (modern day Israel) before 1200 BC. The settled the Promised Land at this time and took as their own, as the land God had promised their forefathers. For the following 200 years, the nation of Israel lived in what we’d probably call anarchy today. You can read about this period in your Bible by reading the Book of Judges.
Essentially, Israel was divided up into sections by tribe. During this time, they existed primarily as city-states, where each major city had elders that handled local government and exerted influence over the nearby land and villages. The tribes of Israel warred against one another from time to time, but were mostly allied with one another. Yet, they had no central authority, at least nothing we’d recognize as such today. During times of crisis, God would raise up a “judge” who took leadership over Israel and resolved the crisis. Samson is probably the most infamous of these judges and Samuel the most famous.
After living under this system for a couple hundred years (longer if you look back to the times of Joshua and Moses), the Israelites had had enough. They demanded that God give them a king. Samuel, who was also a prophet, had been judge over Israel shortly before this time and had appointed his sons Joel and Abijah to be judges. Though Samuel had been just, his sons were not and took bribes. (1 Samuel 7)
At this time, the people began demanding a king. “Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, ‘Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.’” (1 Samuel 8:4-5) We see that a king was something different from a judge in that what a judge was differs from what the other nations called a king. You can read above to see what many of those differences amounted to, but the gist is that under the judges, the people were closer to the Kingdom of God. (1 Samuel 10:7) A judge merely adjudicates and provides a relatively weak leadership role. More of a consul than a Caesar. A king is permanent, comes with the trappings of royalty, adds bureaucracy, industry, and taxes, and has absolute authority.
When we read on, we find out that this desire displeased not only Samuel, but God. “But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.’” (1 Samuel 8:6-9) What follows this paragraph in scripture is the warning given at the top of this post.
Clearly, a king is not what God wanted for his nation, but as God so often does, he lets people have what they want. Not only that, he gives “them up to dishonorable passions.” (Romans 1:26-27)
What does that have to do with today? Everything. While we lack a king over us, our government is still based upon the same kind of sovereignty that kings have. Previously, such sovereignty was philosophically derived from the Divine Right of Kings or simply who possessed the most power in force.
Our government is philosophically based upon the Inalienable Rights of people who use their liberties to choose leaders and, in a sense, our ownership of weapons to provide the force necessary to keep powerful people in check. The Divine Right has transfered from a patriarchal monarchy to the wisdom or folly of the people. We have the awesome responsibility of choosing the people who stand in authority over us. Once they have authority, they can do all the things threatened in 1 Samuel 8:10ff, even make us slaves. We have the brute force option open to us, but, fortunately, we have been and remain very, very reluctant to apply that force.
George Washington put it well in 1797, “Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant—and a fearful master.” I would not want to do without some form of government. Yet, I prefer to keep that government in a small box, like the gas fire that warms my house in winter.
The government we have has astonishing authority, authority that the nation’s founders warned us against. Samuel warns Israel against the use of this authority and we should heed that warning. We have sacrificed liberty in the name of safety. We have sacrificed happiness in exchange for license. We have sacrificed life for convenience. Soon, I fear, we shall exchange health in the name of compassion.
Were my hope resting upon men and government, I would certainly be terrified. (Proverbs 1:20-33) However, I could only be terrified if I had no hope for myself and my children. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)
Cheers.
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