.: bistan.net :.

This is only my 8th blog post this month.  Sad.

This month, my blog made $65.23.  That’s $141.68 since this blog began on July 15, 2008.  I’m a loooong way from being a professional blogger.  Thanks to whoever is clicking on my amazon links and purchasing stuff.  Also, thanks to those who are clicking on my adsense links.

I uploaded my final C# project tonight.  I am 1/10 of the way towards another masters degree.

I ran 37.2 miles this month, totaling 458.19 miles since I began running in February 2009.  That’s a pathetic average of 35 miles per month.

Hopefully, that chart will start to look more like an upward curve.  Then again, the summer heat is not a runner’s friend.

This fall, I plan to run 4 10Ks, a 13K, and a half marathon — all in preparation for the 2010 Goofy Race at Disney.

That’s enough math for tonight!

For the past few weeks, I’ve been up before 6:00 am every Saturday morning, running the local 5Ks.  I’ve managed to PR every race so far, coming in with a 28:24 and chopping it down gradually.  My current 5K PR is 25:50, set yesterday in Reynolds.  

Strawberry Festival - current Personal Record

I have one more race before it gets too hot – the Run 4 Missions 5K next week.  Run 4 Missions is my favorite local 5K.  It’s put on by good people for a good cause with lots of competition and good amenities.  Sure, Jay’s Hope had free Chic-Fil-A biscuits at the finish line, but Run 4 Missions had ice cream!

Dogwood Festival

Strawberry Festival

It’s getting way too warm outside to run.  I run best between 45 – 70 degrees.  When it hits 80+, I would rather be inside.  I guess I can hit the dreadmills at work to stay in shape during the summer.  Ironically, we had a used treadmill here at the house for several years, but gave it away because nobody used it.  Then, I started running.  Figures.

In the first episode of my pack rat series, I mentioned that I would one day get rid of my collection of hotel soaps.  Since we finished renovating the bathroom floor last week, today seemed like a good time to do it.

I’ve mentioned before that I take the soaps from hotels, but can you believe I’ve amassed this much?  I mean, who takes baths on vacations, right? (Just kidding)

There are soaps and shampoos from California, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Washington DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, many from Disney World and Disney Cruise Lines and even a bar from an Amtrak train!  In the next few months, I plan to add soap from Tennessee, Colorado, and Louisiana.

When I was younger and would go on school or church trips, I would make sure I was first into the hotel room so that I could swipe the soap before anyone noticed.  And if someone would call the front desk to report the missing soap and request more, I would swipe that too!

I have enough soaps and shampoos to mask the odor of several bodies for a very long time.  This isn’t even all of it!  After taking those photos, of course I found more hotel soap that had wandered away from my main stash.  And this doesn’t include all of the bars that I’ve used since I decided to stop collecting it and start using it. (No, we aren’t throwing it out.) We won’t have to buy soap or shampoo again for a VERY long time!

This has been a beautiful weekend!

Saturday, we were up bright and early so that I could run the 5K at the Dogwood Festival in Perry.  Last year, this was one of my favorite 5Ks, so I had to do it again.  And, at $10 per person, I put Kimberlie and Tristan in it too.  I nailed a personal record, shaving 30 seconds off of a race I did 2 weeks ago.

Afterwards, the kids went to a birthday party for one of Tristan’s classmates and then Kimberlie and the kids planted flowers while I got things done around the house (that’s code talk for checked facebook 9000 times and read email and blogs).

This weekend’s pictures are courteous of the law school’s new Canon 50D.  Back in November, I wrote about the law school’s new Canon 40D.  I waited over 2 years for the law school to budget for a nice camera for our building, and as soon as I got the 40D, WMG (worthless marketing guy) stole it from us.  After my complaints reached the right people, we were given permission to order a second camera.  Of course I chose a nicer one.  I love the 50D!

Today is my and Kimberlie’s 6 year anniversary.  After church, we had a nice meal and then came home and took a long nap.  It’s rare for the entire house to take a nap at the same time.

This past weekend, which was a 3-day weekend for me, I renovated the flooring in our master bathroom.

The original goal is to rip up all of the vinyl flooring in our house (kitchen, mudroom, and 2 bathrooms) and replace it with ceramic tile.  It’s about 400 square feet in all.  The vinyl flooring was put in by the builder and like pretty much every other piece that makes up our house, I’m sure it was whatever he could find at some discount building supply shop.  Over the six years that we’ve been in the house, the vinyl flooring has started to discolor and bubble in certain places and the seams are starting to rip up, especially in the kitchen. 

I wanted to give it a shot before calling the pros.  Why shouldn’t I? I have two arms, two legs, and a brain just like the immigrants that I could have hired for the job.  Sure, I’m pressed for free time lately, but I would have to be at home anyway to babysit the construction workers.  I wanted to start with a smaller area first.  After all, I couldn’t completely dismantle the kitchen and both bathrooms at the same time.  Since our toilet was leaking and the moldings in our bathroom needed to be replaced anyway, I decided to start there. When I say bathroom, I mean the room that contains the toilet and shower, the sink area outside (technically part of our bedroom), and my closet.

Here are a few pictures of the old flooring:

Thursday 4/9: Rip up old flooring, patch cracks, prepare for tiling.

Friday 4/10: Install tile.

Saturday 4/11: Grout flooring.

Sunday 4/12: Remove haze and seal grout.

Monday 4/13: Install moldings and transitions, paint.

Tuesday 4/14: Reinstall toilet, finish up.

The new flooring:

Total cost: about $300.  That includes purchasing a $90 tile saw and other tools that were required for the job.  The cost of actual materials was only about $150.

I’m tired of flooring right now, but at some point over the next few months, I will tackle that kitchen!

You have two options today:

1. Dress your kids preppy and go to church:

2. Stay at home and feed rabbits and ducks:

Whatever floats your boat, enjoy this beautiful day!

I bet you won’t find the title of this post anywhere else on the internet!

This is a pretty busy weekend for me.  I’m replacing the cheapo-vinyl floors in my bathroom with ceramic tile and it’s Easter — which brings festivities and traditions of its on.  I really didn’t have time for anything else . . .

Then early Thursday morning, my step-dad’s mother died.

“Don’t tell anyone”, they told us.  The “family” didn’t want anyone to know that she died..  They wouldn’t even allow the funeral home to publish the obituary until after the service (tomorrow).  Here it is though, if you care.  She was on hospice for the past few weeks and has had numerous ailments in recent years, so its not like it was unexpected

The service was scheduled for the exact same time as my church’s Easter Egg hunt.  OK, I thought.  We’ll just miss the egg hunt and go to the funeral.  Then, at the last minute, not only was the service a secret, but kids were banned.  We scrambled with ideas, but it is pretty much impossible to find a last minute sitter on the Saturday afternoon before Easter.

So at 2:00 this afternoon, after getting up early and grouting in my tile (look for the home improvement post soon), Kimberlie took the kids to the church egg hunt and I went spouseless to the funeral.  I had on new clothes — pants, shirt, and even a tie — and my nice pair of . . .

SANDALS!

Yes, I did wear sandals to a top-secret funeral.

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter.  I am going to church, possibly out to eat, and then back home to continue the flooring saga.

The faculty and students at work are currently on spring break, which is great!  I’ve been able to catch up on so much stuff.  On Friday, we are all off.  I seem to work for the only employer that includes Good Friday as a paid holiday.  My plans?  Rip up the cheap flooring in my bathroom and install ceramic tile.  Of course, you will be able to read about the entire experience right here in a few days.  Let’s hope it goes well.

I’m also trying to finish out this stupid C# course.  I have one more project due at the end of the month and then I’ll be one-tenth of the way towards a second masters degree.  I haven’t decided if I want to attempt any courses this summer.  The summer semester is only a month long and I’ll be in Colorado for one of those weeks.  Mercer is sending me to do a presentation at a conference in JonBenet Boulder.  Also, I may ditch the graduate courses over the summer because I really want to upgrade my MCSE from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008.  I have the materials, I just need the time.

If I could just lock myself in a closet for a month with nothing but books and a few computers . . . actually I would probably just waste the time by playing on Facebook and Twitter.

Remember the bottom of the Pack Rat Part 1 post, where I mentioned that I have tons of hotel soaps?

Last weekend, we spent one night at a Ramada (I’ll never use priceline again) and two nights in a one bedroom condo at Disney’s Old Key West Resort.  Here’s an example of what I brought home from the trip:

That’s 4 rolls of toilet paper, one roll of paper towels, one load of tide, one package of coffee (I left some behind), one small bottle of palmolive, two loads of dishwasher detergent, two sponges, one shower cap, one bottle of ceramic tile cleaner, and many soaps and shampoos (minus that ones that we used there).

That’s all from just 3 nights.  I should have documented all of the crap we brought back from our 8 night Christmas trip.  I make sure I always have extra room in the suitcase for the freebies!