Good thing Santa wasn't crawling around up there...

Take one Teflon coated fiberglass roof and put 17 inches of snow on top of it and what do you get?  You get a MetroDish instead of a MetroDome.  And a Vikings game that gets moved to Detroit!

Check out the video:
Metrodome Roof Collapses

Other pictures:
Pictures of the MetroDish

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Blow

This is what I got to do at 7:30 this morning.  What were YOU doing?  You will notice that the height of the drift is taller than the top of the front of the snowblower.  Even with a snow blower, it was tough moving this amount of snow because it had been so packed by the wind.  Still, I'm glad I didn't have to hand shovel it!

The drifts in the pictures looked so much taller when I was blowing through them.  They look wimpy here.  They were not...

Local Snow Totals

Shakopee:  21.5"

Red Wing:  20"

Lakeville:  17.4"

St. Louis Park:  15.2" 

Minneapolis (Airport): 17.1"

St. Louis Park is the closest to where we are, so we'll go with 15" at our place.  Tough to tell with 35mph winds whipping it around.  Now for the cold...

More snow!

It started snowing yesterday around noon and finished up sometime overnight.  Unlike the last snowfall that was wet and slushy, this snow has very little water in it.  Looks like 5 1/4" based on this ruler.  Now the cold will set in.  Low temps by Tuesday morning are expected to be below zero...

Kelli - do you still just have puddles of snow?  I'm sorry if you do...  The sledding hill is no doubt very busy today.

The Mysterious Pink Stick Update

Well, it appears we are NOT the lone pink stick in our neighborhood.  This morning we left the to go out for breakfast and went a different way out of the neighborhood than the way we go to work.  There are a few more sticks in various yards down the street- mainly on corner lots...  Still not sure what they are for, but we are not the only ones...  The mystery deepens!

The Mysterious Pink Stick

We came home from work yesterday to find this pink stick staked in the ground outside the front of our house - about 5 foot in from the curb:

None of our neighbors seem to be lucky enough to have a similar stick in their yard!  So, I called the city today to see if they could help solve the mystery.  I didn't find much in the way of specifics, but I was told that the color pink (as it relates to mysterious sticks appearing in your yard) typically indicates a "temporary site survey".  City Clerk/Sister Diane, can you perhaps confirm???  Like I said, I don't see any other mysterious pink sticks around.  Perhaps someone is going to build us a new house?  Hopefully, they let us know before they demolish the current one...

Pictures of us!

Last month we met Jennifer Swanson for a photo shoot.  She was looking for some victims, er...  test subjects to begin building her photography business.  For those of you who don't know, Jennifer is my sister-in-law's sister.  She took a BUNCH of photos and the link below is to the ones that turned out the best.  You will need Adobe Flash Player version 10 in order to view them.  Check them out!  And check out Jennifer's blog for prices for your own photo shoot.  We think she did a GREAT job!

View the entire album

Check out Jennifer's Blog

Frito-Lay Trashes Compostable Bags

Praise God the revolt worked.  Anyone who likes Sun Chips as much as we do knows that after Frito-Lay switched their bags to be 100% compostable, one really annoying feature came through loud and clear.  The bags are super-annoyingly, off-the-decibel chart LOUD!!!  If you are headed for a midnight snack, you best bypass the Sun Chips bag because you'll have the whole neighborhood up!  Apparently, enough people complained and stopped buying the product that they are trashing the compostable bag for now.  The picture is of our favorite variety (Garden Salsa) 

Click here to read the article.

The Carpet is Here! The Carpet is Here!

The carpet installers came Monday morning at 9am and were done about 4pm.  Everything went smoothly (and with little damage to the walls - just a couple places to touch up).  Below are pictures of the carpet and the space now!

Tuftex Carpet by Shaw.  Color:  Brown Derby

Desk Corner.  The bottom drawers in the desk went back to the cabinet maker to be modified.  They are too low now - they drag on the carpet.

Fireplace & TV corner

Game Table Corner

Walk Up Bar

Hallway

Stairs



The Carpet is Coming, The Carpet is Coming!!

FINALLY!!!  The carpet for our basement gets installed tomorrow morning (Monday) starting at 9am.  They MIGHT finish it tomorrow, but it could run into Tuesday.  Also, our cabinet guy is coming back tomorrow night to finish the install of the upper cabinets over the bar.  I halted that install until I finally got confirmation that we did not have to run any more electrical wires for the cabinet lighting.

This was our task list this weekend:
1.  Secure the guts of the light valance above the fireplace that I made (more on that later, maybe).
2.  Cut the holes in the bottom plate of the light valance to exact placement and size.
3.  Measure cut, scribe and sand the front of the light valance so it can be installed after the lighting is put in.
4.  Measure, cut and install the stainless steel inlay for the bar front (more on that later).
5.  Determine if the bag of grout we had in the store room matched the grout already on the floor of the laundry room (we still have to grout the threshold transition into the laundry room, so we needed it to match).  This involved gluing 3 leftover pieces of tile to a wood board and then mixing up some grout out of the mystery bag, grouting the "sample board" and letting it dry.  Yep - it matches.  But the threshold still isn't done...  A task for another day...
6.  Watch parts of a couple Twins games.
7.  Church.  I am now officially an elder-elect after our congregational meeting today!  Elder training coming soon and I'll begin my 3 year term on session in January.
8.  Watch a little of the Vikings game.  We won, but I realized after I was watching it for a bit that I had better things I could be doing that watching gramps throw a football...
9.  Move all tools, machines, electronics and furniture out of the basement family room.
10. Dust baseboards, corners, walls and ceilings.
11. Vacuum the basement floor.
12. Touch up painting on the fireplace wall.
13. Tell my wife how awesome she is (she really is!!)
14. Relax and wait for the transformation of the basement into a true living space in the coarse of 1 day.

Below is a short video I took of the basement as it exists right now (it's about a minute long).  Sorry, no narration.  The video speaks for itself...  Tomorrow - the same thing, with carpet! 

The Bar, Part II (Bar Front and Tile Install)

The is the granite tile we chose for the bar top.  It is 3/8" Santa Cecilia granite, 12" X 12". It has a mix of neutral tones (browns, tans and a little gray).  Our other option was New Venetian Gold, which typically has a little more gray in it.  We liked this one better.

Santa Cecilia Granite Tile (12" X 12")

The bar front cut and ready for install.  The screws have been pre-drilled and have had the countersinking done so they are flush with or slightly below the surface

The corner mitre with the corner tile dry set for fit

Dry fitting the tile

Setting the 1st tile (for real).  Karen pre-cut all the tile to save time, but I still worked with the thin set about 2 tiles at a time because I knew I had a couple high spots.  The thickness of the thinset varied a bit on the whole bar

The bar after being tiled.  I realized I didn't take any pictures of it during grouting, so this is as finished as you'll see it until the upper cabinets are in.

The stainless steel piece still needs to be cut and set in.