Monday, February 21, 2011
Samford's Step Sing
This past weekend while I was out of town my wife was consumed with arguably Samford's biggest event of the year, 'Step Sing.' While most schools have tickets scalped for sporting events, this is the one Samford event where tickets are very hard to come by. Step Sing is basically a show choir production where various groups are competing for bragging rights. Rebecca and Caroline brainstormed the idea of creating and selling posters using their photographs to raise money for their photography department. They took pictures opening night, Rebecca designed the posters, and then sold them Friday and Saturday night. Since posters had never been done before no one knew about them and sales were slow at first. By the second night word had gotten around and they were a huge hit. Some groups sold out and had to take additional orders. I joined Rebecca this past Wednesday on campus to set up a table for order pick ups and last chance purchases of extras. The beautiful weather made for a great midday of hanging out with my wife.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Like Old Times
This past weekend was a trip back to high school days. A while back, my friend Brad suggested we go down to Spanish Fort, AL to visit our friend and former roommate Matt Cook (here is his blog) . We've all been friends since middle school, but since the end of college we don't get to see each other as much. So we made the trip down and had a great weekend of just hanging out. It was nice to sit around and not do much. We cooked steaks on Friday night. Saturday, Cook and I worked on his raised beds in which he plans to plants vegetables. We only had a circular saw to work with so Brad added helpful insight, such as "You need one of those saws that cuts the angles." Cook had already done the base, we just put on the top cap. I think it turned out very nice. Sunday we went to church and then Brad and I headed back to Birmingham. I'm so blessed to have an abundance of friends from all my stages of life.
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| Hanging on Cook's Inversion Table |
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| Its suppose to help your back. |
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| Showing us how its done. |
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| The Old Gang. |
Snow Day
Snow has been forecast several times this winter, but every time it didn't happen, it was only ice, or we were out of town. I feel like that has happened to us a lot over the past couple of years. The snow always happens in places we just left. Our time finally came last week. We got several inches through the evening hours. Rebecca and I went for a walk and came to this grassy area out by the main road. Since Rebecca lived in eastern Tennessee for a while, she was a much more experienced snowman maker than myself. We quickly assembled frosty and set him up by the street. We were only able to get cell phone pictures, because by the time we got back with the real camera he had fallen over at the mid-section (my contribution). Twas fun while it lasted.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Condo Updates Continued
I have a good bit of down time during the winter, so I've continued to work on some projects over the past couple weeks. Changing outlets and light switches has taken up most of my time. The 1/2 bath is done except for a second coat of paint and decorations, which don't fall into my category. Hopefully we can continue painting the upstairs this week.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
It All Evens Out
We had two interesting stories happen to us the other day. Rebecca and I were out shopping for supplies for our work weekend. As we were walking into Home Depot, I noticed a leather container on the ground by the pansies. I picked it up and sure enough it was a ladies wallet. We took it in the store and gave it to customer service. They paged the owner over the intercom to come to the desk. Seeing that no one was coming and the fact that it was outside, Rebecca and I figured she had already left. We asked if we could look at it closer to see if we could find a phone number knowing she was probably frantically searching for it and canceling her credit cards. We couldn't find a direct number for her, but after making a couple calls based on some other information, we were able to get in touch with her. She was ecstatic that it was found and said she was on her way to where we were. She pulled up and appeared to be on the verge of tears. She thanked us many times and shook my hand. I didn't catch it as it was happening, but when she let go I realized she had put something in my hand. A glance at my hand confirmed what it was. I looked back up and she was already getting back in her car. I told her I couldn't take it, but she would not listen and was adamant that I have it. The meeting probably didn't last longer than a minute as she got back in her car and dove off. We went back in the store to continue our shopping and I looked at my hand a little more closely. Instead of one $20 that I originally thought, there were two $20. When we were trying to return the wallet I never envisioned getting a tip for it, but in the end who doesn't like getting $40?
The second story occurred about 8 hours later. That afternoon/evening we went to Lowes to get the other portion of our supply list for the weekend. We had one 10% off coupon so we were trying to get as much in one purchase as possible. Also the store was running a deal where if you spent so much on bath items you got $25 off. We met the criteria and one of the associates had told us it should show up on our receipt. After we checked out we looked at our receipt and didn't see any indication of it so we asked the cashier. Our inquiry resulted in a 15 minute wait as she and the manager tried to figure out the reason the register didn't ring up the discount. In the end, she had not scanned one of our bath items at all, so it failed to show on the register, thus failing to meet the minimum amount spent to get the discount. So the manager rang up the item and gave us $25 off of that. Had we not asked we would have gotten out of there 15 minutes earlier and $50 more in our pockets.
Looking back there are couple lessons learned.
1. You make money when you go to Home Depot and lose money when you go to Lowes.
2. More importantly, I learned more about my own flawed nature. While the thank you money that morning was unexpected, it immediately became mine and I thought of ways I could use it on myself. If for some reason it got taken away from me 10 seconds after I got it, I would put up a fight and claim it was mine. While she did give it to me, we certainly would be fine without it. That very night at Lowes, an error on their part ended up costing us $50 more than thought 15 minutes prior. It was their merchandise and we wanted to buy it, so of course we needed to pay for it. That's the right thing to do. However, as I walked out of the store, I somehow felt I had been wronged, even though we paid exactly what we should have. A few minutes later it hit me that after the morning and evening events, we had just about evened out by receiving an unsuspected $40 and then paying an unsuspected $50. Even though I didn't realize it at the time the Lord was taking care of us through it all. He provides for all of our needs and now I understand that this whole episode was just a way of showing me that it is all his anyways, and that I get way too caught up in what is 'mine.'
The day reminded me of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant from Matthew 18:23-35. Where basically the servant is forgiven of a large debt from the King, but later fails to show the same mercy to the people under him who owe him a much smaller sum than what he was forgiven. When God gives me something unexpected I often take it for granted and act like I deserved it, much like the money from the wallet. Then, in the very same day, I get bothered about paying a sum that I rightfully owed.
The Lord took care of me and taught me a lesson even though it took me a while to realize it.
The second story occurred about 8 hours later. That afternoon/evening we went to Lowes to get the other portion of our supply list for the weekend. We had one 10% off coupon so we were trying to get as much in one purchase as possible. Also the store was running a deal where if you spent so much on bath items you got $25 off. We met the criteria and one of the associates had told us it should show up on our receipt. After we checked out we looked at our receipt and didn't see any indication of it so we asked the cashier. Our inquiry resulted in a 15 minute wait as she and the manager tried to figure out the reason the register didn't ring up the discount. In the end, she had not scanned one of our bath items at all, so it failed to show on the register, thus failing to meet the minimum amount spent to get the discount. So the manager rang up the item and gave us $25 off of that. Had we not asked we would have gotten out of there 15 minutes earlier and $50 more in our pockets.
Looking back there are couple lessons learned.
1. You make money when you go to Home Depot and lose money when you go to Lowes.
2. More importantly, I learned more about my own flawed nature. While the thank you money that morning was unexpected, it immediately became mine and I thought of ways I could use it on myself. If for some reason it got taken away from me 10 seconds after I got it, I would put up a fight and claim it was mine. While she did give it to me, we certainly would be fine without it. That very night at Lowes, an error on their part ended up costing us $50 more than thought 15 minutes prior. It was their merchandise and we wanted to buy it, so of course we needed to pay for it. That's the right thing to do. However, as I walked out of the store, I somehow felt I had been wronged, even though we paid exactly what we should have. A few minutes later it hit me that after the morning and evening events, we had just about evened out by receiving an unsuspected $40 and then paying an unsuspected $50. Even though I didn't realize it at the time the Lord was taking care of us through it all. He provides for all of our needs and now I understand that this whole episode was just a way of showing me that it is all his anyways, and that I get way too caught up in what is 'mine.'
The day reminded me of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant from Matthew 18:23-35. Where basically the servant is forgiven of a large debt from the King, but later fails to show the same mercy to the people under him who owe him a much smaller sum than what he was forgiven. When God gives me something unexpected I often take it for granted and act like I deserved it, much like the money from the wallet. Then, in the very same day, I get bothered about paying a sum that I rightfully owed.
The Lord took care of me and taught me a lesson even though it took me a while to realize it.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Condo Makeover
When we bought our condo back in October, we knew some updates would be in store in the near future. Before Christmas we decided to set aside MLK weekend as Condo Work Weekend. Rebecca's parents came for the weekend, my parents helped, and Matt and Loren came for Saturday. We came up with quite the list of projects to tackle this past weekend. Our work crew did a great job and the only thing we didn't get much of was sleep.
Friday Rebecca and I went to Lowes and Home Depot to purchase all the supplies and products. The plan was to let the Ladies do all the painting and the guys to do everything else on the list. Our place was a rental the prior 25 years, so everything was done for cost and efficiency. All the walls were the same color so Rebecca picked new colors for each room and bathroom.
Her parents arrived on Saturday and we got going. We worked til about 2 in the morning. Sunday we went to church and then got back at it. The most memorable thing happened late Sunday night and well into Monday morning. One of the projects on our list was to replace the shower valve and shower head in our bathroom. It was leaking and the original handles, so we wanted to update it. Dad and I opened it up to look at it and decided "we didn't have the tools to pull this off" during the work weekend amidst all the other projects. So we decided to just change the shower head, which is simple. Changing the handle involved changing the valve, which meant we would have to cut the copper pipes and solder the new valve on. Another big issue with plumbing projects involved cutting off the water. To our knowledge and our neighbors there is no water cut-off for individual units or even buildings (which have 4 units a piece). The only known water valve is at the street which cuts off the water to about 32 units. So making that many people inconvenienced is not a good way to make friends with our new neighbors.
Late Sunday night we decided to attempt to fix the leaks in both our showers. You still have to turn the water off, but you don't have to cut the pipes to replace the valves. So we decided to wait until late that night to turn the water off hoping everyone was asleep. At about 12:30 I took my vice grips to the street and turned the water off. We worked on the guest shower first. It took us about 30 minutes, but we replaced the leaky gaskets and put it back together. I turned the water back on and no leaks. We then debated about doing our shower. We decided it was now or never so I went back outside and turned the water off again. Rebecca's dad began to turn the cap to access the valve. It was not breaking loose so he turned harder. I don't think he realizes his own strength sometimes. When it finally did begin to turn, he wasn't sure if it was just the cap or all the pipes behind it. If it was the pipes it was too late and you had to keep going to find out. The cap finally broke loose and our worst fears were realized. The pipes behind the valve looked like a twizzler. So it was now about 1:45 AM, we had leaky shower valves, and 32 apartments did not have water. If we turned the water back on, the pipes would leak into our walls causing lots of damage. My heart sank about the situation. The day had gone so well and now we were in quite a bind because now so many people did not have water. I went ahead and cut the sheet rock out behind the shower valve to see it from the other side since that would have to be done eventually to fix it. We attempted to rig some way of catching the water and diverting it to the shower drain, but there was no way I could sleep with that going on. We decided to call the 24 hour plumbing hot line. My biggest fear was that there would be a huge fee for after hours call on a holiday weekend. The number diverts you to a national call center which in turn gets a local guy to call you back about your problem. TJ from Evans Services called me back 2:30AM. I told him our situation and asked how much this would cost. He said an after hours service call is $90 if they don't do any work. If we get them to fix something they wave the fee and just charge for the fix. That wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, so I told him to come on. He said it would be an hour before he got there and it would take an hour and half to fix. So that put us at being done at 5 AM, just in time for people to be waking up and needing water. At this point Rebecca and Mr. Chip went to sleep, leaving me to wait on TJ to arrive. I sat by the window watching for the van to pull up. TJ showed up and got to work. Because I was so tired the whole event seemed surreal. I took a picture of him working to document that it really happened. I took him up to our bathroom and showed him the damage. I then asked him about the damage to my wallet. He said normally a valve change cost $500. I thought great, this is definitely not a normal situation. But then he said, how about $300. I was shocked. This was much cheaper than what I was expecting, so I told him to get started. I'm not sure why he knocked off $200. Maybe because we already had the parts and I had already cut the hole in the wall. Or maybe he was just being nice. He definitely had the upper hand so I'm so thankful it was less than expected. I always enjoy watching somebody work who is good at what he does. TJ was definitely skilled and did the whole operation without making any mistakes. It took him an hour and half like he said. By 5 AM we had a leak free shower with the new valve, handle and shower head that we originally wanted and the neighborhood had their water back on. To celebrate I took a shower. I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep before it was time to work again. Surprisingly I was not that tired. The Lord took care of us and in the end the whole situation worked out very well.
We didn't get everything done, but I'm very happy with the things we did get done. Here are some pictures of the updates.
Friday Rebecca and I went to Lowes and Home Depot to purchase all the supplies and products. The plan was to let the Ladies do all the painting and the guys to do everything else on the list. Our place was a rental the prior 25 years, so everything was done for cost and efficiency. All the walls were the same color so Rebecca picked new colors for each room and bathroom.
Her parents arrived on Saturday and we got going. We worked til about 2 in the morning. Sunday we went to church and then got back at it. The most memorable thing happened late Sunday night and well into Monday morning. One of the projects on our list was to replace the shower valve and shower head in our bathroom. It was leaking and the original handles, so we wanted to update it. Dad and I opened it up to look at it and decided "we didn't have the tools to pull this off" during the work weekend amidst all the other projects. So we decided to just change the shower head, which is simple. Changing the handle involved changing the valve, which meant we would have to cut the copper pipes and solder the new valve on. Another big issue with plumbing projects involved cutting off the water. To our knowledge and our neighbors there is no water cut-off for individual units or even buildings (which have 4 units a piece). The only known water valve is at the street which cuts off the water to about 32 units. So making that many people inconvenienced is not a good way to make friends with our new neighbors.
Late Sunday night we decided to attempt to fix the leaks in both our showers. You still have to turn the water off, but you don't have to cut the pipes to replace the valves. So we decided to wait until late that night to turn the water off hoping everyone was asleep. At about 12:30 I took my vice grips to the street and turned the water off. We worked on the guest shower first. It took us about 30 minutes, but we replaced the leaky gaskets and put it back together. I turned the water back on and no leaks. We then debated about doing our shower. We decided it was now or never so I went back outside and turned the water off again. Rebecca's dad began to turn the cap to access the valve. It was not breaking loose so he turned harder. I don't think he realizes his own strength sometimes. When it finally did begin to turn, he wasn't sure if it was just the cap or all the pipes behind it. If it was the pipes it was too late and you had to keep going to find out. The cap finally broke loose and our worst fears were realized. The pipes behind the valve looked like a twizzler. So it was now about 1:45 AM, we had leaky shower valves, and 32 apartments did not have water. If we turned the water back on, the pipes would leak into our walls causing lots of damage. My heart sank about the situation. The day had gone so well and now we were in quite a bind because now so many people did not have water. I went ahead and cut the sheet rock out behind the shower valve to see it from the other side since that would have to be done eventually to fix it. We attempted to rig some way of catching the water and diverting it to the shower drain, but there was no way I could sleep with that going on. We decided to call the 24 hour plumbing hot line. My biggest fear was that there would be a huge fee for after hours call on a holiday weekend. The number diverts you to a national call center which in turn gets a local guy to call you back about your problem. TJ from Evans Services called me back 2:30AM. I told him our situation and asked how much this would cost. He said an after hours service call is $90 if they don't do any work. If we get them to fix something they wave the fee and just charge for the fix. That wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, so I told him to come on. He said it would be an hour before he got there and it would take an hour and half to fix. So that put us at being done at 5 AM, just in time for people to be waking up and needing water. At this point Rebecca and Mr. Chip went to sleep, leaving me to wait on TJ to arrive. I sat by the window watching for the van to pull up. TJ showed up and got to work. Because I was so tired the whole event seemed surreal. I took a picture of him working to document that it really happened. I took him up to our bathroom and showed him the damage. I then asked him about the damage to my wallet. He said normally a valve change cost $500. I thought great, this is definitely not a normal situation. But then he said, how about $300. I was shocked. This was much cheaper than what I was expecting, so I told him to get started. I'm not sure why he knocked off $200. Maybe because we already had the parts and I had already cut the hole in the wall. Or maybe he was just being nice. He definitely had the upper hand so I'm so thankful it was less than expected. I always enjoy watching somebody work who is good at what he does. TJ was definitely skilled and did the whole operation without making any mistakes. It took him an hour and half like he said. By 5 AM we had a leak free shower with the new valve, handle and shower head that we originally wanted and the neighborhood had their water back on. To celebrate I took a shower. I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep before it was time to work again. Surprisingly I was not that tired. The Lord took care of us and in the end the whole situation worked out very well.
We didn't get everything done, but I'm very happy with the things we did get done. Here are some pictures of the updates.
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| Before we started working. |
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| Entire Downstairs. |
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| Covering up the new furniture. |
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| Old Chandelier |
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| New Chandelier |
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| 1/2 Bath Before |
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| Notice wallpaper and floors |
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| The beginning of the new wood floors |
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| Mr. Chip working in his corner |
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| New wood floors |
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| Our toilet on the front porch |
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| Updated 1/2 bath with new floors, new paint, and new vanity |
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| Old fan in our room |
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| Old fan moved to the guest room |
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| New fan in our room that has a remote |
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| Dad reinforcing our counter |
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| Mrs. Melanie painting |
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| Dad's new scaffolding in our stairwell |
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| Mrs. Melanie on the 12 foot ladder on top of the scaffolding |
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| Me holding the ladder |
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| Rebecca asking for our scared faces, since in her mind we were all about to die on this rig to paint the stairwell |
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| Dad's scared face |
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| Old and new colors in living room. |
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| Rebecca painting on the 6 foot ladder in the stairwell |
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| The cause of my sleepless night |
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| The leaky valve now the broken valve |
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| Notice the twisting of the copper. Those are suppose to be straight. |
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| Cutting the hole in the wall |
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| The attempted basin to catch the leaky valve during the night |
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| Examining the problem |
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| Not going to cut it |
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| Our nice hole |
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| Rebecca posing at 2:30 AM |
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| TJ hard at work with his torch |
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| The note I had left at the street telling anyone who tried to turn the water back on to call me first. Its now going to be patched in the wall. |
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| New shower! |
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