Back in February, right after our ski trip to Cascade, we received a phone call from our family in Lincoln that our home had water in it again! I'd installed 3 sump pumps (Main, battery-powered backup, and water-powered backup for the backup), but this time the water wasn't coming from the outside. During a particularly cold day, the water inside the washing machine froze, and broke something inside of it that apparently didn't have enough "give". When the ice thawed, water came in through this broken part in the washer, filled its cavity, and then spilled out onto the laundry room floor. It continued flowing into the family room and onto flooding the kitchen. It soaked through the floor, the sub-floor, and into the basement. Drywall, ceilings, flooring, roughly 65% of our home was ruined.

The good news, was that our insurance covered the damage AND that we had already been saving up to do a Kitchen remodel for a few years (we actually started saving while we were living in Kissimmee, originally we wanted to remodel that kitchen).

Jantina posted a bunch of photos on Shutterfly, but these are a few before-and-after photos for the kitchen. All of the other rooms were basically put back the way they were before the damage, and we spent extra to complete the Kitchen remodel.


The old sink, faucet, counter top, cabinets, and flooring compared to new.


The flooring: we upgraded from carpeting in the family room and laminate in the kitchen to continuous hardwood throughout both. We removed the soffit and took the cabinets all the way to the ceiling. We also removed the wall on the left, and added a wall on the right.


One of the many "scary" pictures where things got a lot worse before they started to get better.

We still have items on our to-do list; we need to purchase hardware for the cabinets, replace/upgrade the appliances, and add the backsplash. We are thrilled to have walls, ceilings, and floors again!

A few Web comics that look promising and that I intend to check out when I have time (via Whitechapel):

• After-School Agent [link]
• Astral Airlines [link]
• The Disappointment, the Truth and a Few Cups of Coffee [link]
• The Immortal and the Iron Crutch [link]
• Team Mummy, Ch. 1 [link]
• Seeds of Orcus [link]
• Beleth's Library of Eclecticism [link]
• Witch Doctor [link]
• The Dreamland Chronicles [link]
• Kukuburi [link]
• Night [link]
• The Laroquod Experiment [link]
• Metaphysical Neuroma [link]
• Wide Awake [link]
• Sin Titulo [link]
  

Our April Fool's Day joke at the Journal-Courier got mentioned in today's Chicago Tribune and that story was picked up in a briefs package in USA Today.

I was invited to be a judge at the Society for News Design's 30th annual competition. It was held in Syracuse, N.Y., at the beginning of February. It was a great experience, getting to work and talk with so many talented designers, photographers, editors, art directors, etc. I wish I could have talked to people even more.

The winners were posted a while back, but as of today, I think, all the images are now included. http://tinyurl.com/d7ffbf

Wow, pretty cool to see your home town on CNN.com: CNN Video on Lincoln, IL

We just got back from skiing Cascade! My parents, Amie and Katie's families (minus Ethan) drove up from Lincoln and Jantina and I drove down from Minneapolis to meet them at the resort.

We actually stayed at Kalahari, an indoor waterpark and resort, about 15 minutes from Cascade. The resort was much nicer than anticipated. We had 3 rooms, a master with kitchen in the middle with two "hotel-like" rooms connected on each side. Nice HD panels in each room. We set up the XBOX on one of the smaller ones while the larger was left for viewing Super Bowl 43. Kalahari has go-karts, water slides, rock-climbing, lazer tag, and all kinds of activities inside, though I spent most of my time on the slopes.

We hadn't skied Cascade before, but we really liked that the runs were fairly close together and the lifts were well organized. Taylor likes to go straight down, and as he passed me he would yell things like "Super Sonic Speeed!". The 9 year old was always the first one down! Noah did really well too. At the top of one particularly steep run he asked, "Grandpa, is this a blue square or black diamond?", My Dad said he'd tell him at the bottom. Noah was happy to find out that he had successfully navigated his first black diamond :-)

We all had a great time! Here is a photobook Mom put together from the trip.

Editor's Note: This is the 1,000th post on FuzzyCouch.com.

Its been pretty busy. We had a great break back in Lincoln celebrating Christmas and New Years, spent a lot of time playing games like Agricola and N+ with the family. We are back in very snowy Minneapolis now. It is pretty, though.

I helped David with a project over the break. I helped him with a "clean sweep" of his office. We started at 7 a.m. the Friday after New Year's and cleaned and organized until 11 that night. Put a bunch of stuff in a sale pile, cleaned everything, and setup a new desk ... it looks awesome now!

Jantina's ongoing project has been on converting our DVD collection to computer hard drive. Once that is done we'll be able to select any movie and stream it to any TV over the network. It works out really well (except for subtitles on foreign movies like "Hero." Haven't figured that out yet).

CES and Macworld were last week. The only thing I'm really looking forward to are the new OLED displays, though it will be some time before they are affordable in larger sizes.

Electronic Gaming Monthly is closing. I've subscribed for nearly 20 years and they are closing the magazine and the editors are dispersing. I've been adding them all to my Twitter following list so I can see where they land.

This is a list of the movies that Guido — and usually Julie — have been watching, for the first time, in 2009.


ORDER — TITLE (YEAR RELEASED) — FORMAT — DATE COMPLETED

1. "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" (2007) - Online - 01/01
2. "Burn Notice" season one (2007) - DVR - 01/03
3. "To Kill A Mockingbird" (1962) - TV - 01/09
4. "The Wire" season five (2008) - DVD - 01/14
5. "Ghost Town" (2008) - DVD - 01/15
6. "The House Bunny" (2008) - DVD - 01/17
7. "Frost/Nixon" (2008) - Theater - 01/25
8. "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" (2007) - DVD - 01/26
9. "Doctor Strange" (2007) - DVD - 01/27
10. "Wanted" (2008) - DVD - 02/01
11. "The Incredible Hulk" (2008) - DVD - 02/03
12. "Run, Fatboy, Run" (2007) - DVD - 02/10
13. "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" (2008) - DVD - 02/10
14. "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (2008) - DVD - 02/22
15. "The Visitor" (2008) - DVD - 02/23
16. "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (2008) - DVD - 02/26
17. "Coraline 3-D" (2009) - Theater - 03/02
18. "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008) - Theater - 03/02
19. "Watchmen" (2009) - Theater - 03/08
20. "State of Play" (2003) - DVD - 03/09
21. "Hamlet 2" (2008) - DVD - 03/10
22. "Flash of Genius" (2008) - DVD - 03/15
23. "Local Hero" (1983) - DVD - 03/16
24. "Zack and Miri Make A Porno" (2008) - DVD - 03/22
25. "Vicky Christina Barcelona" (2008) - DVD - 03/25
26. "Låt den Rätte Komma In" aka "Let the Right One In" (2008) - DVD - 03/30
27. "Enchanted" (2007) - Online - 04/06
28. "Hot Rod" (2007) - TV - 04/10
29. "Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter" (2009) - DVD - 04/14
30. "Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit ..." (2006) - TV - 04/16
31. "Knowing" (2009) - Theater - 04/18
32. "Mosters vs. Aliens" (2009) - Theater - 04/19
33. "Ghost Rider" (2007) - TV - 04/21
34. "3:10 to Yuma" (2007) - TV - 04/28
35. "No Country for Old Men" (2007) - TV - 05/05
36. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (2009) - Theater - 05/10
37. "Torchwood" season 1 (2006) - DVD - 05/10
38. "Star Trek" (2009) - Theater - 05/11
39. "The Hoax" (2006) - TV- 05/17
    
40. "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (2008) - TV - 05/17
41. "Rachel Getting Married" (2008) - DVD- 05/18
42. "Pineapple Express" (2008) - DVD - 05/19
43. "Taken" (2008) - DVD - 05/24
44. "Valkyrie" (2008) - DVD - 05/24
45. "Eagle vs Shark" (2007) - TV - 05/29
46. "Weeds" season 3 (2007) - DVD - 05/30
47. "Serpico" (1973) - DVD - 05/31
48. "Up" (2009) - Theater - 06/01
49. "Across the Universe" (2007) - TV - 06/02
50. "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (2008) - TV - 06/04
51. "Taxi Driver" (1976) - TV - 06/07
52. "Nina's Heavenly Delights" (2006) - TV - 06/08
53. "Drag Me To Hell" (2009) - Theater - 06/08

* Movies on TV count if unedited.———

In 2003: 28 (est.)
In 2004: 73 films
In 2005: 62 films
In 2006: 72 films
In 2007: 65 films
In 2008: 66 films

Labels: movies

This is the post I'll use to track my movie watching and video game playing for 2009.


Movies '09

1. Kung Fu Panda (DVD)
2. The House Bunny (Blu-Ray)
3. Traitor (DVD)
4. Expelled (Netflix Instant)
5. New in Town
6. Maxed Out (Netflix Instant)
7. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Netflix Instant)
8. Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price (Netflix Instant)
9. Disaster Movie (DVD)
10. Confessions of a Superhero (Netflix Instant)
11. Scratch (Netflix Instant)
12. Voices of a Distant Star (DVD)
13. Helvetica (Netflix Instant)
14. The Weather Underground (Netflix Instant)
15. The Atom Smashers (Netflix Instant)
16. Star Trek
17. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
18. Valkyrie (DVD)
19. Slumdog Millionaire (DVD)
20. Bottle Shock (Netflix Instant)
21. A Mighty Heart (DVD)
22. Bride Wars (DVD)
23. UP
24. Taken (DVD)
25. Defiance (DVD)
26. Hancock (Netflix Instant)
27. Transporter 3 (DVD)
28. The Proposal
29. Confessions of a Shopaholic (DVD)

Video Games:

1. Supreme Commander (Xbox 360)
2. Call of Duty: World at War (Rented)
3. Resistance 2 (Rented)
4. Motorstorm Pacific Rift (Rented)
5. flOw
6. Lost Cities
7. Metal Gear Solid 4 (Rented)
8. flOwer
9. Soul Caliber IV
10. Tomb Raider Underworld
11. Lego Indiana Jones
12. Red Alert 3
13. Peggle
14. Pinball FX
15. Space Invaders Extreme
16. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Current Video Game Collection

Labels: movies

My family donated to three charities for Christmas this year. One was the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) ... aka the XO Laptop ... and we added ourselves to the Google Map.

The Ultimate games I played in Monday were more on top of a crust of ice than in the snow. After a while, though, we had broken much of it up.

It was about 3 or 4 degrees, with little wind in Downers Grove. The 19 people that came to play seemed to have prepared and mostly stayed warm.

All but four of us went to a local bakery/restaurant, The Omega, for lunch. Then Mike Lommler, who went with me, helped me find the address in Lincolnwood where I had to run an errand. From there, though the terrible traffic tried to keep us from it, we headed home.