Carter Would Like to Say...

I AM GONNA 

BE A BIG

BROTHER

August 15, 2012

Jazz vs Clippers

Our 6th anniversary was back on the 13th of January. To celebrate we got tickets and went to a Jazz game. The boys spent the night at Grandma Jenson's house. Seth was very excited to stay. Grandma told him that she had chicken nuggets for dinner.

We started out with dinner at Crown Burger, one block from the Delta Center. Parking lots near the Delta Center charge $10 for event parking. If you eat at crown burger and spend at least $14, you can park there for free. That's what we did. The food was great.

We were pretty high up. Many people around us were complaining about how bad the seats were. I did not mind. I was glad to be there. One little boy said, "It's my birthday, and we got crappy seats."

There was a little girl sitting a few rows behind us that was quite annoying. She was screaming almost constantly. The guy next to me asked his wife, "Where are that girls parents." The problem is they were sitting next to her. One funny thing was she kept calling the Clippers the toenail clippers.

At half time I tried to buy some nachos. They were all out. How does that happen? I just had water instead.

The Jazz beat the Clippers by 29 points, so we enjoyed the game. It was a late game and we got back to Price at midnight. We slept at Grandma and Grandpa Jenson's house, since the boys were already there. We had a great time. I hope to do it again next year.

Storage Room Shelving

I work at a flooring store. We have racks with samples of all the products one might put in their home. Every few years manufacturers change the size of their samples, so that stores have to buy new displays. In order to get the newest colors and designs you have to buy the new displays. The old displays are garbage. I have a hard time throwing away good material. Last year, before we had our house, I was tearing down an old hardwood display. I thought I might be able to use the samples for some shelving, so I put them in the store's basement. There they sat for 10 months. I used 15 out of 30 on this project. The others are still down there waiting for the next project; probably the shed shelving.

Finally came the time to use them. The hardwood samples are 2 feet by 2 feet, so I built the shelving frames to match. I did not have to cut any of the samples. I just drilled pilot holes and nailed them down.

Seth and Carter were a big help. They handed me nails and mostly stayed out of the way. Seth even got out his own hammer and "bammed" (his word) some nails.

Here is the finished product. It was a fun project. I learned a lot, mostly from my mistakes. I need to thank Skip Gordon. I looked at his garage for a how-to on shelf building.

New Electrical

All the electrical wiring in our house is outdated. It had no ground wire. We had the main service updated from 60 amps to 200 amps. 60 amps is pretty low, only giving us 12 breakers. 200 amps is normal and gives us 30 breakers. This allows us to put each room on its own breaker. Now I am running new wire through the whole house.

First, we decided to do the upstairs bathroom. The light switch was out in the hall, so we moved it to the inside of the bathroom. There was no outlet in the bathroom, so we install one of those too. Here I am cutting a whole in the sheet rock for the new switch.

Here is Jennifer hooking up the new wire to the fishing cable, so that she can push and I can pull the wire downstairs and then up the light.

Here she is sending down the fishing cable to pull up the wire for the light.

The wall had a brace in the middle. I was not able to get the wire passed the brace all the way from the basement up to the light. I ended up cutting a hole in the wall, drilling a hole in the brace and feeding the wires through. Then I put the sheet rock piece back in the hole, screwing it to the brace and with a bit of mud and paint, returned it to its former condition. It's behind the stove, so it is barely seen anyway.

Jennifer is happy now that she can do her in the bathroom with the new outlet.

40 Degree Shower

Have you ever noticed that the on/off switch for your furnace is about a foot off the ground? Well, Carter noticed this too. He loves switches.

On Friday night, we were working in the basement. Carter and Seth were playing and not getting into too much trouble. I saw Carter turn off the furnace and immediately turned it back on. I got down on his level and firmly explained to him that he must not touch that switch.

Guess what, he did it again. This time without me noticing.

The next day, we got up at 6 am to get ready to go to the temple. It felt really cold, but I did not make the connection. You know how when you get out of bed, the bed was nice and warm. It always feels chiller out of bed than it did in it. We got all ready and headed to Provo. When we got home at 3 pm it still felt really cold in the house. When we checked the thermostat, it was set at 60 degrees, but the temperature reading said 48 degrees. Carter had turned off the furnace the night before. At 3 pm it was 48 degrees. It must have been in the low 40's at 6 am. I thought that shower was kind of cold.

Why don't they put those switches higher on the furnace? Like 4 feet high? Is it in the electrical code that those switches must be 10 inches off the ground? I am going to look into moving mine higher. I don't care what the code says. If there is nowhere to mount it higher, I plan to put some sort of cover over it. Carter will not be the last one of my little kids that finds that switch.