Ceiling Update

I did my best Michaelangelo impression last night and painted the garage ceiling.  The mudded effect doesn’t quite match the rest of the ceiling. The edges where the new piece of sheetrock meets the existing pieces is pretty noticeable. But the important thing is that by God, it’s done!

HD is here!

Woo hoo!  DirecTV officially added 21 new high definition channels this morning. Here they are:

A&E HD (channel 265)
Animal Planet HD (channel 282)
Big Ten Network HD (channel 220)
CNN HD (channel 202)
Discovery Channel HD (channel 278)
The History Channel (channel 269)
The Learning Channel (channel 280)
The Movie Channel (channel 544)
NFL Network HD (channel 212)
The Science Channel HD (channel 284)
Showtime Too HD (channel 538)
Showtime West HD (channel 540)
Smithsonian Channel HD (channel 267)
Starz Comedy HD (channel 519)
Starz Edge HD (channel 522)
Starz HD East (channel 520)
Starz HD West (channel 521)
Starz Kids (channel 518)
TBS HD (channel 247)
The Weather Channel HD (channel 362)
Versus/Golf Channel (channel 604)

Time to be a full time couch potato.

Use Stairs, not the ceiling

That’s the valuable lesson I learned last week.

Wife and I are having a garage sale this weekend.  So last weekend, I went up into the attic above our garage to bring things down to sell.  For a long time, I had been handing these items down the attic stairs to my waiting wife.  On virtually the last item to bring down, my leg decided it wasn’t going to stand on the wooden flooring in the attic…it was going to take a shortcut:  through a piece of sheetrock.

Perhaps the closest feeling to putting your entire leg through a piece of sheetrock & being suspended above your garage is going skydiving and having your parachute getting caught on the wheels of the plane once you’ve jumped out of the plane.

There is one major difference, however…a skydiver can’t hear the howls of laughter coming from the wife on the ground down below.

Not being able to afford a professional to come in and fix the now-gaping hole in the ceiling of by garage, wife and I decided that this was going to be the latest family project.  My brother-in-law (who’s done sheetrocking before) and mom-in-law came up for the weekend. While bro-in-law and I struggled valiantly to hold up the sheetrock, the women were holding the brace so he and I could screw the sheetrock into place.  The fact that we only had to try this twice before we got the sheetrock in place was, in my estimation, a major accomplishment.

And then there’s the fact that I had never hung sheetrock before.  It’s a thrill I don’t necessarily feel like I want to experience again.

So now it’s up, it’s mudded, sanded, and waiting to paint…just as soon as muscles I didn’t know I had stop screaming at me. 

More TV in high definition

I have DirecTV and a 42″ plasma HDTV.  I’ll watch crap programming just because it’s in high definition.  With an antenna I have in my attic, I get WJTV, WAPT, and WLBT in high def…although JTV comes in the best.  The wife was smart enough to leave me alone with my TV when The Masters golf tournament in HD was on.

I’m pretty pumped. DirecTV might start broadcasting a lot more channels in high def beginning this weekend.  Here’s the list I’ve seen:

A&E HD
Big Ten Network HD
Cartoon Network
Cinemax HD East
Cinemax HD West
CNN HD
ESPNews HD
Food Network HD
FSN New York HD
HBO HD West
HGTV-HD
The History Channel HD
Madison Square Garden HD
NFL Network HD
National Geographic Channel HD
Showtime HD West
Smithsonian Channel HD
Starz Comedy HD
Starz Edge HD
Starz Kids & Family HD
Starz HD East
Starz HD West
TBS in HD
The Movie Channel HD
Versus HD / Golf Channel HD
The Weather Channel HD

In October, DirecTV is supposed to be adding:  

Animal Planet HD
Bravo HD
Comcast SportsNet Chicago HD
Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic HD
Discovery Channel HD
Fox Business Channel HD
FSN Detroit HD
FSN Prime Ticket HD
FSN Southwest HD
FSN West HD
Fuel TV HD
FX HD
The Learning Channel HD
MGM HD
NBA TV HD
New England Sports Network HD
The Science Channel HD
Sci-Fi Network HD
Speed Channel HD
SportsNet New York HD
USA Network HD
Yankees Entertainment & Sports HD

 Yes, there is still a lot of crappy channels in there…but at least it’s more channels!!

Tobey & Elliot update

4:30 am.  That’s what time the dogs have been waking me and wife up with their barking.  Yes, we have them in a cage in our bedroom.  Why not put them in the laundry room on the other side of the house?  I’m thinking about it.

I used to stay up past midnight every night and be in at work by 8am with no problem. Not any more.

At 4:30am, the whole house wakes up.  The routine: take the dogs outside so they can do their business.  Immediately after that, feed them.  Then, back outside for a second bathroom break.  After that…hook up the leashes and harnesses.  Me, wife, Phoebe the alpha Yorkie, Tobey and Elliot take a mile and a half walk through the empty, dark Madison neighborhood streets in hopes of tiring out the pups. We only delude ourselves in this because these dogs NEVER GET TIRED! 

By the time we get home, it’s too late to go back to bed, but it’s too early to go into work.  We end up watching morning news…which usually sucks. Wife sips her Coke and plays solitaire on the computer. I sip my coffee. The dogs continue to bounce around the house chewing on anything and everything.  Finally, off to work.

Ah, work…a respite from the dogs. But like a man returning to Dracula’s castle at sundown, I know they’re waiting on me, ready to pounce when I return. Usually, wife already has them out of their playpen and is letting them fight with each other in the kitchen.  Dinner is one eye on my food, another eye on the dogs to make sure they don’t chew through an electrical cord.  After dinner…it’s another mile and a half walk. This time, as if we weren’t masochistic enough, we add the lab/retriever dog to the walk. So picture this image: me walking Phoebe the alpha Yorkie who’s leading the way, wife in the middle walking Tobey and Elliot trying to alternately bite each other or bite Phoebe, and then me with Callie the lab bringing up the rear because at age 12, she doesn’t have the stamina to keep up.

I start the day and end the day in the vain hope that I can outlast a house of dogs.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  One look at Elliot rolling on his back to let you rub his stomach, and I’m wrapped around his little paw.  I’m such a sucker. And at least I’m getting into shape.