So kinda big news = I have a new blog. My thanks to my brother for hosting me on his site these last couple of years, but it's time to move on. It's all about the formatting, afterall.

Eventually, I'll have gone through this entire blog and reposted any worthwhile entries to the new one (I think there are a couple I'd like to save), but that'll take a little time. In any case, thanks to those who actually read this thing even though I just always figured no one except my brother, dad (sometimes), and a couple of friends read it anyway so it's always been just for me since it was easier than real journaling (even though I do that from time to time, but usually only for really big moments).

Well, that's about it I think.

Um, my new blog is on blogspot and can be found here (http://halflightphotography.blogspot.com/).

cheers

Last night I went with some good friends to the Radiohead show at the White River amphitheater (setlist). It was weird, I haven't seen them since they toured for Hail To The Thief back a few years ago when - instead of seeing them there - I opted to drive to Vancouver. That show was good, despite also being an outdoor venue.

What struck me as odd I think was just how apathetic I was to this show last night. As in totally could have cared less about being there. It wasn't because the sound sucked from the lawn. It wasn't cos it rained sideways the last half hour and I stood shivering under Gore-Tex. It wasn't cos I couldn't see squat. But I stood thinking while they droned on and on to songs that used to be etched in my brain and that I relied upon to get me through some real shit that now standing there I just didn't care. It was odd. I lived and breathed Radiohead for years. And years. But I guess last night it just hit me that, that. That I'd grown up and didn't need them anymore. I wasn't in that place. Not near it, which I guess is good. I'm still not sure really what it all means but I'll spend some time wondering I'm sure.

Admittedly though, a flicker in me liked this song they play here in a basement somewhere called All I Need.



I'm the next act waiting in the wings
I'm an animal trapped in your hot car
I am all the days that you choose to ignore
You are all I need
You are all I need
I'm in the middle of your picture lying in the reeds
I am a moth who just wants to share your light
I'm just an insect trying to get out of the night
I only stick with you because there are no others
You are all I need
You are all I need
I'm in the middle of your picture lying in the reeds
It's all wrong
It's all right
It's all wrong

~ Homer, The Odyssey

~ Everett Ruess, A Vagabond for Beauty; Ruess had a craving to connect with the natural world in which he found himself, and an incendiary passion for the wilderness

"Even when we were little," says Carine, who was born three years after Chris, "he was very to himself. He wasn't antisocial – he always had friends, and everybody liked him – but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He didn't seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely."

Into The Wild, Jon Krakauer, published by First Anchor Books © 1996

Wow, I woke up out of a dead sleep last night at 3:37 to the crash of the loudest thunder I may have ever heard (definitely since living in Washington) - there was a huge lightning storm going on! I had all the windows/blinds in the house open and the bright flashes of blue light flashed throughout the house. I got out of bed to unplug all my stereo and computer stuff cos the thunder was right on top of us and really, really loud. It was all coming from the south and west, so I took turns between my kitchen and laundry room windows watching the flashes and the arks of lightning. It was super exciting!

What I really love about summer, even on these days that seem to be getting darker earlier and earlier (as in, before 9 o'clock) is on the weekend when I spend the entire day working on my house (which usually doesn't start before noon cos even when I'm good and get up early I enjoy the morning running or reading on the couch or something) and I have a snack when I get hungry but never lunch and finally usually around eight or nine or so (after a full day's work) I stop, unwind and sit down on my porch with a freezer mug of Simply Lemonade and just listen and watch the neighborhood wind down and listen to something on the stereo with the windows open so I can hear it and one song that always reminds me of these kind of evenings is this song called Don't Fade Away by a band called Dead Can Dance.



Long live summer and remodeling and relaxing and warmth and open windows and pale evening light.

So I finished installing the pedestal sink today after what ended up being -

1) the single worst project I have had to do on my remodel to-date
2) straight out of hell
3) something that instead of taking an hour or so to hook up the plumbing from the sink to the wall and connect the drain, it took roughly eight hours to complete that simple task (I had already finished all the plumbing in the wall earlier this summer, so all I had to do - literally - was connect the faucet plumbing to the supplies coming out of the wall and hook up the drain)

Granted, hooking up the drain took the expected five minutes or so, but the other 7 hours and 55 minutes was mostly spent trying to get the f•cking hot water supply to not leak. I went through -

- 8 brass ferrules
- 2' of supply line, each cut about six inches (the math isn't that hard then to figure out how many iterations it took me of cutting and bending pieces of pipe)
- 4 nuts (three of them stripped from torquing them too hard)
- um, 2 faucets (yeah, that was lovely)

I felt like Chevy Chase in European Vacation where he laughed and said he just couldn't get right in a traffic circle in London where he apparently spent the entire day trying to do so -It just would not either drip or spray out every f•cking time I turned on the shutoff. Seriously. Last night at 3AM I was livid to the point of tears, cursing my house and everything about this remodel. I just could not get it to work and had to force myself to go to bed not having finished.

But alas, finally, earlier this afternoon (I think) I got it, although I'm not convinced at some point it won't just completely fail and start shooting water all over the bathroom. I really, really hate plumbing. Really. Really. Really.



The final plumbing - I never, ever want to have to look back up at it again. Ever.



The sink. I have to admit, it does look a lot better than what the old sink used to look like -



But I still cannot believe just how difficult it was and why that f•cking hot water supply wouldn't just work ... the only thing that I think could make it better would be to find out it would have cost like a grand to have a plumber come in and install a pedestal sink.

Even though it's quite not finished yet, I think this room is a good example of why I wanted to find a small Arts & Crafts house from the 20's that hadn't been remodeled because I wanted to do all the work myself. Clearly, sometimes it's difficult and frustrating - but those last two pics show a room that was totally gutted (literally, I even removed the drop ceiling and hung a new one at the 9' height like the rest of the house) and is all me. My paint color. My fixtures. My flooring. Etc. etc.

In the kitchen last year, I couldn't afford to gut it (not yet - that'll be a few more years) so I just updated it and only painted the existing cabinets. I did redo the flooring, but am stuck with the same old range and fridge (I got a new dishwasher off Craiglist) - but the point is I couldn't gut it and make it totally me like I could afford to do in this bathroom and it shows. Cos it's not totally me, whereas this is and I really like this bathroom. I made a few mistakes, but for the most part it's turned out pretty good (uh, still learning as I'm going on everything).

And I was reading in This Old House about things to keep in mind when remodeling which is what I'm definitely trying to do - keeping the remodel classic and in-line with the style of the original house, and in doing so making sure nothing gets dated (like a bamboo-looking faucet or the finish of the day, so-to-speak) and will be attractive to a future buyer cos even though I love, love, love my house (I apologized to it for having cursed it the night before), I don't plan on dying in it so some day I'll move.