Tag: home

Damn squirrels

Before we moved into our new house we saw evidence of animal (probably squirrel) activity in the attic. A condition of the sale was that the hole in the soffit where they were getting in be patched and some damaged ductwork be replaced. Not long after we moved in I noticed many strange sounds in the house during the day while I was alone at home working. I assumed/hoped the critters I was hearing were on the roof instead of in the attic. This went on for some time. The noises became stranger and stranger and louder and louder. I was fairly certain something was in the attic, but I didn’t know what, and part of me didn’t really want to find out.

We have a pest control place that has been taking care of spiders, mice, etc. so we asked them to come take a look. Squirrels. They were in there when the guy came out. It would be $450 to remove them and patch the holes where they were getting in. This isn’t unreasonable, but it’s really more than we can afford at the moment. I reluctantly took it upon myself to attempt to remove them. The first time I climbed up into the attic I saw two squirrels in different places. One of them I even pinned up against the wall with a board. I could have partially ended the infestation right then and there, but I didn’t have it in me to go through with it so I let the little bugger go.

The next step was to get a trap at Home Depot. I baited it with bread and peanut butter, as several people recommended online. The bread was stale and the peanut butter was organic. It was all we had. A few hours later I checked on the trap and it had been tripped, but the bait was still there and there was no squirrel inside. I reset the trap. A few hours later I checked and the bait was gone and the trap hadn’t been tripped. I guess it needed some fine tuning. I tried again the next day with fresh (stale) bread and (organic) peanut butter. This time the bait was gone once again and the trap was not triggered. Grrr. I could just hear the jokes about the squirrels outsmarting me.

After a brief hiatus for Thanksgiving travels I tried again today, this time using (organic) sunflower butter with the same old stale bread. Bingo. Within a couple hours I had one of the squirrels trapped. It was freaking out. I brought the cage outside while I waited for Melissa to come home so we could take it somewhere. I put the cage inside a rubber tub A) to doubly-ensure the rodent didn’t escape in the car and B) to try to calm it down a little, both of which were successful. We drove several miles to a park on the other side of town to release it. Adding insult to injury the damn thing urinated and defecated all over the inside of my rubber tub. As the gate opened it took off like a bat out of hell. Hopefully, we’ll never see it again.

Scared shitless

Now, I still have at least one other squirrel to catch. I hope that’s the last one, though I suppose there could be others. I wonder how much noise I’ll hear tomorrow while I work…

July 2010 Stats

Washington University in St. Louis

I guess the big news is that we’re moving to St. Louis. We’ve been traveling back and forth a lot. We found a house nice and close to the Washington University campus, Forest Park, and The Loop.

Garage sale

We had a fairly successful garage sale early in the month. We’re gradually getting organized, packed up, and ready to move. I won’t lie, it’s pretty stressful. On top of that I’m once again busier at work than ever before. Let’s hope we all keep our sanity in the coming weeks.

Photo of the Day

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Running

Are we having fun yet?

Photo by Melissa

It’s too hot to run, though somehow I wound up with more mileage in than last month.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 109.05 Mile 10 10.905 Mile
February 76.18 Mile 8 9.5225 Mile
March 84.86 Mile 10 8.486 Mile
April 83.15 Mile 9 9.23889 Mile
May 57.95 Mile 7 8.27857 Mile
June 17.98 Mile 3 5.99333 Mile
July 54.62 Mile 8 6.8275 Mile
Total 483.79 Mile 55 8.79618 Mile

Cycling

P7219259
Photo by epon

It’s almost too hot for cycling. I think the people I ride with are getting tired of the steady stream of sweat dripping off my face and flying back onto them.

August 2010 Cycling by bike

Bike Distance # Rides Avg per Ride
Bianchi 21.6 Mile 6 3.6 Mile
Big Red 22.9 Mile 3 7.63333 Mile
Pocket Rocket 51.36 Mile 4 12.84 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird 294.73 Mile 6 49.1217 Mile
Total 390.59 Mile 19 20.5574 Mile

January-August 2010 Cycling by bike

Bike Distance # Rides Avg per Ride
Bianchi 278.6 Mile 43 6.47907 Mile
Big Red 49.4 Mile 8 6.175 Mile
El Fuego 40.9 Mile 11 3.71818 Mile
Lynskey 31.8 Mile 2 15.9 Mile
Pocket Rocket 266.1 Mile 13 20.4692 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird 1672.38 Mile 47 35.5826 Mile
Total 2339.18 Mile 124 18.8644 Mile

January-August 2010 Cycling by month

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 166.25 Mile 20 8.3125 Mile
February 140.67 Mile 12 11.7225 Mile
March 508.83 Mile 18 28.2683 Mile
April 318.98 Mile 13 24.5369 Mile
May 365.89 Mile 20 18.2945 Mile
June 447.97 Mile 22 20.3623 Mile
July 390.59 Mile 19 20.5574 Mile
Total 2339.18 Mile 124 18.8644 Mile

Walking

Walking around campus

It seemed like I walked more than usual, as I frequently walked to work last month whilst listening to live Tour de France coverage on my phone. I guess the previous month’s trip to San Francisco added more miles than the Tour.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 28.66 Mile 9 3.18444 Mile
February 51.45 Mile 16 3.21563 Mile
March 34.7 Mile 10 3.47 Mile
April 44.35 Mile 11 4.03182 Mile
May 48.75 Mile 14 3.48214 Mile
June 64.2 Mile 16 4.0125 Mile
July 56.3 Mile 15 3.75333 Mile
Total 328.41 Mile 91 3.6089 Mile

The Great Room Swap of ‘010

For the past few months William has been getting up at night. A lot. Melissa heard from some of her friends who have babies Will’s age that they sleep better in a separate room. He’s been sleeping in our bedroom downstairs since he was born. We weren’t quite ready to put him in his own room all the way upstairs. After a brief conversation Friday evening we decided that we should move the office downstairs and move our bedroom upstairs right next to his. This way Will could sleep in his own bedroom and we wouldn’t be that far away. The problem is that our bed wouldn’t fit in the office, so we had to move Will’s room into the office and move our room into Will’s room. We basically decided to completely rotate the three bedrooms.

Great, so how do we do this? Each of these rooms has furniture (some if it quite large), and numerous smaller items. Also, Melissa is injured and can’t really carry anything. I arranged for my dad to come over on Sunday to help carry some of the largest items up/down stairs. But given the monumental size of this task I couldn’t wait until Sunday to get it started. All Saturday morning I pondered the best strategy to proceed while Will was napping in the Baby Bjorn strapped around me (which was just the start of a rough day for my back). When he woke up I got going.

Since three rooms would need to be rotated I started with an empty space in one room, moved one piece of furniture in, replaced that piece in the second room with a piece from the third room, then replaced a piece in the third room with a piece from the first room. And so on. Over the next 6-8 hours I disassembled our queen sized bed, a futon, a crib, a dresser, a desk, a filing cabinet, etc. and carried these items up/down stairs by myself. By the end of Saturday I was exhausted and my back was aching, but the move was over half completed.

Today I woke up and ran 12 miles. I took a short break to watch the Olympics 50km Cross Country Ski race. Then my parents arrived and we got to work moving the remaining desk, dresser, filing cabinet, changing table, and numerous smaller items. We got everything moved into the correct rooms. We still have a fair amount of work to go to get all the slightly differently sized closets organized.

We really should have done this move before Will was born, but we thought it would be too much work. Now that it’s (nearly) done I can say that it definitely was a lot of work, but I think it will be totally worth it.

Little guy

This little guy decided to join us inside at some point (in the last few days?). Well it was pretty weak and barely moving by today. We trapped it under a glass long enough for me to take a few photos then I let it go outside. With the 0˚F temperature, I’m not sure whether this was better or worse for the Yellowjacket wasp than just letting it die inside. We’ll never know.

Yellowjacket

Yellowjacket

For what it’s worth, here’s how I took the photos. The little guy was crawling around on a piece of paper with an upside-down glass covering him. I had my trusty Canon 50D on a tripod just barely above that level with the lens about 8″ away. I used my 60 mm EF-S macro lens at f/18 for a relatively large depth of field. I had a studio strobe with a soft box at 3/4 power just off my right shoulder, providing ample light for the fast shutter speed (1/125 second), small aperture (f/18), and low ISO speed (100).

The little guy was crawling around, so I waited until he was in a good position. I then focused on it, briefly tiled the glass back (for an unobstructed shot), quickly pressed the shutter, then set the glass back down (so the thing would fly away). The final images here are cropped to roughly half the width and height of the original 15 megapixel images.

The Super Secret Storage Room

When Melissa & I were looking for a house we were intrigued by the “bonus storage room” listed for the house we eventually bought. This is an unfinished room above the garage that happens to be quite large (24′ x 8′). The terminology for this room has evolved from bonus storage room to extra bonus storage room to extra secret storage room to super secret storage room and all other permutations of these words. In fact, I’m not sure we’ve ever used the same name twice.

Lumber

Anyway, it’s a great room, in that we can store lots of stuff in there. Conversely, it’s a horrible room that allows us to accumulate lots of stuff and cram it in there with no organization whatsoever. Hoping to allow for better organization I started building shelves in this room about nine months ago.

Storage room shelves

This morning I finished.

What, it’s not like I haven’t been busy.

Storage room shelves

Anyway, the shelves are 24′ long and stretch all the way down one side of the room, and they include an 8′ work bench.

The Silence

It’s been a little quiet around here lately at My Name is Rob. In real life things have been anything but quiet. Nearly all my time at home has been occupied by our little bundle of joy, Will (now six weeks old).

Six weeks

On top of that I’ve been busier at work than I’ve ever been before. I am in the middle of seven projects at the moment (up from the usual two or three), one of which has completely monopolized my time for a month or so. The other six haven’t gone away, they’ll still be waiting for me when I finish this one. Needless to say, things have been pretty tense lately. It’s no wonder Will has been able to post way more to his blog than I have to mine.

As I write, I am putting off packing for my weekend trip to Chicago for a software development conference. I really should get back to that.

Oh, and what’s the deal with the damn soy aphids?

Muggy and buggy night

The Swing-a-majig

We were lucky enough not to be the first of our generation of friends and family to have a child. As a result, we’ve been fortunate enough to receive many hand-me-downs. Will loves his little hand-me-down bouncer.

Big shoes to fill

Melissa’s sister was nice enough to give us (among other things) a nifty swing. There was a slight hiccup with the swing though, when I started to assemble it I realized the entire assembly was there except for the seat… which I could not find anywhere. I searched the house high and low. Finally, Melissa asked her sister if she happened to sill have the seat. Her sister couldn’t find the seat.

Melissa started looking on Craigslist for swings. After a few days she noticed someone selling the exact same swing for a reasonable price, with the caveat that it didn’t run on AC power (battery only). Well, since it was exactly the same swing this limitation didn’t really matter because we could just take the seat off this one and attach it to the one we already had. We got the swing, swapped the seat, and Fig was good to go.

Swing-a-ma-jig

A day or two later we got a call from Melissa’s sister… she found the seat. Oh well, now there’s an extra. A day or two after that, a brand new swing (the exact same model) arrived at our house via UPS. My mom (who was well aware of our earlier dilemma) was kind enough to get the swing for us. In less than a week we went from zero functioning swings to three!

Well, I returned the new one, we’re using the pieced together swing, and we have still enough spare parts to build an entire new swing, should the need arise. We are fortunate enough to have many wonderful people who care about us enough to help us out in these stressful times, and for that we are truly grateful.

The Past Few Weeks

I’ve been somewhat quiet lately.

First, there was the Tour. I watched almost every minute for three weeks. There were lots of exciting moments and plenty of dull moments as well. One thing that kind of annoyed me was the extent to which the media (TV & Web) tried to create controversy around every little thing (Alberto vs. Lance, Cavendish vs. Hushovd, Hincapie vs. Garmin, etc, etc). Sure, there was probably some legitimacy to it, but everything just seemed to be blown completely out of proportion.

Next, as Melissa mentioned, I’ve apparently been nesting. We’ve done lots of work around the house in preparation for Fig’s arrival, and there’s still plenty more to do. On top of that we had baby week.

Fig's car seat

Hand rest

Finally, the I’ve been busy working on a couple of interesting (to me) software applications in my spare time. I’ll probably talk more about them in the future.

The bad news is I’ve been out with this knee problem for around six weeks or so. Earlier this month I completely stopped riding my bike (I already stopped running at the beginning of June). I still swam a little bit, but it didn’t help that my swim practices conflicted with my watching of the Tour.

The so-so news is that I started riding the bike to work again last week and picked back up with the Wednesday night rides. Last Wednesday I didn’t feel great. I kept complaining about how hard the ride was when everyone else was talking about how easy it was. I’ve got some work ahead of me. My poor ride was further complicated by a complete bonk with about 10 miles to go. 24 mph became 22, then 20, then 18, then 16, then 14, then finally 12 mph the last mile or two. It was the worst I had felt since, well, the Illinois Marathon.

The good news is I’m feeling better day by day. Since monday I’ve had no knee pain on the bike around town, and only very little knee pain on tonight’s hard 50 mile ride. I felt much better on this ride than I did last week, but my fitness is still very poor (by my standards). My heart rate was absolutely through the roof for most of the ride. My average heart rate was 154 and my max was 189, which is fairly ridiculous. Typical numbers from two months ago would be closer to 135 average and 178 max.

Sangamon River route

Tonight’s ride combined several commonly used routes along the Sangamon river into one, making for just about as much rolling hills as one can get around here.

The Memorial Day Weekend

This Memorial Day weekend flew by. We got a lot accomplished, but not as much as we had hoped. I can’t help but feel partly responsible.

I had Friday and Monday off work, which is pretty rare. I celebrated by sitting around in my underwear until noon or so on Friday. I followed that up with my first post-marathon run, five miles easy. It went well. I had some tight muscles with a few aches, but no major injuries. I spent most of the afternoon mowing the lawn and doing other miscellaneous yard work. In the evening we went to Target to look at baby items.

Kickapoo mountain bike trails

Kickapoo mountain bike trails

Saturday morning I mountain biked at Kickapoo with Gene and Greg. I haven’t been there in a few months, so I wasn’t quite at the top of my game. The trails were a little muddy, but not nearly as bad as they could have been. Gene and Greg took me onto the “new” section of trail, which was absolutely ridiculous. Most of the trail is challenging, but this new part was downright sadistic. The single track trail was very narrow (18″?), cut into the side of a very steep hill, slanted downward, with tight and steep switchbacks. I made it through okay. Actually, it was dangerous. There, I said it. The rest of the trail pales in comparison.

Fields

Many unplowed fields across Illinois and Indiana had bright yellow flowering plants (which I assume are weeds) this weekend.

Saturday afternoon we drove to Indianapolis. First we visited Babies-R-Us to look at cribs and other various items. Next we went to Aimee & Brett’s house to pick up a few baby items they wanted to give us. Then it was on to Aunt Jeanne’s house to meet up with the family. Finally, we went to Zionsville to my uncle Dennis and (new) aunt Sally’s wedding reception (the main event of the trip). The reception went well, and it was great to catch up with the cousins, aunts, & uncles. Sally is a wonderful woman and she and Dennis seem very happy together.

Dennis & Sally

newly married Dennis and Sally

Sunday morning I got a little cleaning done in the office, but not as much as I (or Melissa) hoped. It’s never as much as I hope. I also worked for a little while setting up one of my old computers for my grandparents in Bismarck. After lunch we went swimming (our first family swim). Then we went shopping for new stoves. We’ve been on the brink of getting a new stove since Christmas. I think it’s finally going to happen this week.

Memorial

Danville National Cemetery at the VA on Memorial Day

Monday morning I drove over to Danville for the Memorial Day 5K race at the VA. It rained during the race, which kept the temperature somewhat cool, but also made the roads a little slick. Right from the start a large pack of high schoolers shot out to the front. I tagged onto the back of the pack, maybe 12-15th position for the first half mile. I was running way too fast and I knew it. What were all these jokers doing?

Entrance to the VA on Memorial Day

The 5K course followed the road around the VA, which was lined with flags for Memorial Day.

The second half mile I slowed down, but all the kids around me slowed down even more. I moved my way up through the pack. I reached the first mile in 5:36. I ran mile two in 5:50, by which time I had moved into 4th place. My heart rate was through the roof and it was starting to wear on me. The last guy I passed tagged along behind me and stayed with me for the third mile. He passed me back with around a quarter mile left. My last mile was 5:55 and I finished in 5th place (out of a record 398 participants), 1st in my 30-39 age group. I was worried I might still be feeling the effects of the marathon eight days prior, but my legs felt perfectly fine. It was a tough race, mostly because I started too fast (didn’t I just learn not to do that?). Well, racing a 5K is a world apart from racing a marathon. Incidentally, my heart rate hit 194 in the last tenth of a mile, which I believe is the highest I’ve ever recorded (my theoretical max heart rate is 195).

After the race I went to visit my grandparents. They’ve been having some health problems recently and I hadn’t seen them in a few months. They seemed to be doing fairly well, all things considered. My dad and I worked to get their computer problems straightened out. Then we had a pizza lunch before hitting the road. I drove my dad back to Danville in the new car, which he seemed to enjoy.

Finally we spent this evening at a cookout with Cara & John at our house. John got a nifty remote controlled speedboat for his pond. Good times.

The Wooden Nickel

I’m hard at work cleaning out my office. Yesterday’s electronics recycling was just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve had a fairly productive morning.

Anyway, over in the corner of the office I found a bag full of stuff I cleaned out of my first car (a 1986 Chevette) when we got rid of it in 1997. Don’t ask me why I still have this crap. Among many cassette tapes and the vintage chewing gum I found an old Royal Donut wooden nickel.

Royal Donut wooden nickel (front)Royal Donut wooden nickel (back)

Despite the fact that they are labeled wooden nickel, apparently they were good for $0.10 off a dozen donuts at the Danville restaurant chain. I remember using these as a child, but I really don’t remember how we acquired them.