2007 in Review: Foiled!

The road to remodeling our house has been a long one. We started working with our builders and the city as early as last April. In September, just two days before the demolition work was to begin, the city shut down the project claiming that our house was built in our neighbor's yard. Their aerial photography showed that the north side of the house overlapped the property line by 2-5 feet.

It would take lots of additional paperwork, a land survey, and Kris and I pleading our case in front of the the city council to resolve the matter just before Thanksgiving.

Cool Article

Kris found this in today's paper and was inspired by it.

Christine Brunkhorst: Why I assigned reading over the holiday break

Imagination wastes away every day for lack of what is found in literature.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/13064326.html

2007 in Review: Lake Life Almanac

The dock went in April 7th and went out November 1.

The picture to the right features the diving skills of our friend Clint, and the photographic brilliance of our friend Jen.

2007 in Review: 1st Kayak Ride

We definitely had cabin fever last winter, so when the ice started to break up, Kris and I were out in the kayaks immediately. This picture was taken by our neighbor (who thought we were crazy) on March 31, 2007.

(Note: Just to prove that we weren't crazy, Josie and Homer had jumped in for their first swim the day before. It was a very short swim.)

Happy Holidays!

Motivation

Kris and I don't buy into the typical motivational poster crap that turns up in the workplace, so when we learned about the Parody Motivator Generator at http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php, we jumped at the chance to create something a bit more relevant.

Living at the intersection of technology and life...

You'd think that with both of us employed at Best Buy, we'd have some cool toys at our disposal, but we are really limited by the anti-technology bubble of rural Wright County (where people hunt for food right in their front yards!).

Last week we were finally able to drop our dial-up Internet account (goodbye 1996 technology!) in favor of a Sprint mobile Broadband card (hello 2002 technology!). Thanks to this, our blog posts take mere minutes to upload rather than overnight!

We understand the rest of the country will be converting to a digital TV signal sometime in 2009. We're happy just to get a Twins ballgame on the radio out here in Mayberry!

Who the Puck is That?

Kris started playing on a women's hockey league this fall/winter and is loving it! She was slotted into the defense(wo)man position because she was one of the few players who could skate backwards. While not initially excited about that (it's cooler to be a forward apparently), she has quickly become quite adept and is a tough defensive player.

She's typically a bit more modest about her skills, and frequently jokes that a game is successful when she doesn't trip on the blue line. As her number one fan, I can speak to her incredible skating prowess and rapidly developing hockey skills. Not bad for just picking up the sport at age thirty-something.

Why do we call our house Fort Awesome?

News Radio is one of our top 10 TV shows. If you're familiar with it (and our sense of humor) you could easily guess that our favorite character is Jimmy James (brilliantly played by Stephen Root).

In the hilarious episode "The Secret of Management" Jimmy takes his team to his billionaire mansion for a motivational leadership retreat. After a quick tour of the grounds, the following exchange ensues:

Jimmy: I wanted a house just like Xanadu, but without a dorky name.

Lisa: So what did you call it?

Jimmy: Fort Awesome.

'Nuff said.

Countdown to demo

After months of fits and starts, it looks like we are moving closer to the start of our remodel! When we returned home from work yesterday we were surprised by the delivery of one of the coolest forklifts we've ever seen!

This monster will soon be ripping off the top of our house which will undoubtedly, trigger the worst snowstorm in Minnesota history. Why? Because it's par for the course at this point.