We start ‘em early ’round these parts.

Yes, froggy can change the channel - but getting him or her to settle on one and quit flipping? That’s a different story.

Bedroom update

The hurricanes that have come through have proved advantageous for us! When it rains, Mike can’t work on any of his projects - that is, except ours! We’ve got the bedroom laid out, the insulation in, and the drywall hung. Here are the pics:

This is the hallway above the stairs. Notice the light! We can now turn the light on and off from both the top and the bottom of the stairs! Woo Hoo! That means, of course, that we are no longer in violation of code.

This is how the door layout turned out. We still have the original frame, and will be putting it back in place.

From inside, in much the same location as the previous pictures. The large structure is our new closet, which will be fantastic.

When we started ripping stuff out, we discovered two closets that had been closed up on the far (shared) wall. We removed one, creating an enclave, but we left the smaller, under-the-stairs closet.

We decided against lifting the ceiling to the rafters. BUT, we did decide to put a few spot, recessed lights into the new ceiling.

Construction Update

Here are the latest pics:

The Bathroom

These pretty much complete the downstairs bathroom. We still want to replace the shower, but it’s not going to happen without major structural improvements. We have to fix some of the exterior in this area next year, so we’ll probably do it then.

The Beam

The beam is as it will be. (Look at that - I could be the Pope!) We’re planning on putting up one of those fake tin ceilings on the plywood. It will, ultimately, be quite beautiful. McDaniel has a number of tin ceilings, inspiring our choice. It will also help further define this area as a hallway.

A modest proposal

Since most of the problems in our country are currently being caused by the radical evangelicals, here is a modest proposal to take back the US from these fascists:

Given that (a) they don’t really accept the constitution (they deny the separation of church and state), (b) they deny the freedom of religion to others (their uniting ideology is proselytizing) © that there is no arguing with them (the only evidence on any issue that they will accept is true is that from the Bible (recall that Pat Robertson denies global warming, the promotion of ‘creation science’ is one of their hallmarks, and they believe Bush is an honest man - all in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary)), and (d) most of them come from Texas, I propose the following solution:

Cede Texas to Bush as a Christian homeland.

Texans have never really believed that they were a part of the Union anyway, so it’s a perfect solution! Of course, we’d have to give most of Southern Texas to Mexico, in order to protect the native (predominately Catholic) Spanish-speaking population from the harassment that is inevitable when living with people who believe that you follow the anti-Christ.

Note also that Texas takes much more from the Government’s coffers than they add and that we don’t really need their oil - after all, the main reason why we are so oil-dependent is because the oil companies block investment in alternative energies. Get rid of their influence, and we get rid of the major obstacle to energy independence. I’m also sure that Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC will be so thrilled that we’ve ‘contained’ Bush that they’ll give us a sweet-heart deal for a while.

Of course, we have to expect some difficulties during the period of partition - all those people moving from Grand Rapids to Waco will no doubt cause hardship. But if we buckle down and really commit to making this world a better place, we too can finally live in a democracy!

OK, OK, I know...

That I haven’t posted in like 3 weeks. Classes started, man, back off! Anyway, I’m trying to get back into the flow, and I saw this in the Washington Post today and just couldn’t resist. I’m taking suggestions for the best caption. So far, my personal favorite is:

"Are you sure you’re not an enemy combatant?"

But there’s also the perennial favorite:

"Have you seen any records of my service in the national guard?"

or, prehaps:

"Admit it - you’re the person who gave those forged documents to Dan Rather?"

or, even:

"Is that Osama Bin Laden stuck in your teeth?"