Jarett's Blog

An attempt at building a fireplace mantle

2009-01-06T10:27:00.005-05:00

After 2 years of nagging (..."suggesting") that we need a decent mantle, I decided to build one.

Original Mantle:

Building the new mantle:

1. Frame a box around the existing top shelf.

2. Put a shelf on top of the framed in box.

3. Add crown molding underneath the shelf.

4. Add some thin molding around the bottom of the framed in box.

5. Side view of the shelf and moldings attached.

6. Sand, prime and paint the top portion.

7. Widen the columns and attached some molding on the front.

8. Closeup of the new column and molding.

9. New columns are attached, molding added, and columns are primed.

10. Finished new mantle after 2 coats of paint :)

Ever wonder what the dog(s) do when you're not home?

2008-12-04T09:27:00.003-05:00

Apparently mine bark at the neighbors:

Hurricane Gas Hype

2008-09-12T10:13:00.003-04:00

Hurricane Gas Hype has hit Chapel Hill, NC...about 1,200 miles from where Hurricane Ike will likely hit. This is my first time seeing a sign like this on a gas pump. Fairly lame, but the good old Accord only wanted 9.9 gallons, so I was safe.

Dog in a bucket

2008-08-25T19:27:00.001-04:00

I am a shelf building machine

2008-08-24T13:43:00.001-04:00

More signs please

2008-08-24T12:57:00.001-04:00

Make your own Dog Agility Jump

2008-08-02T14:58:00.003-04:00

Been putting off this one for a while, so I decided i'd finally make it. My very own homemade dog agility jump for Montana. It was way easy than I thought. I figured i'd make it out of PVC pipe and some couplers.

I bought two 10' 3/4" PVC pipes and bag of tee joints for 3/4" PVC pipe. I cut the PVC pipe into:

1 4' section
6 12" sections
4 6" sections

With those pieces cut, I put together the 12" sections in 2 upside down Ts. I put another tee joint on top of the 12" piece that would be facing up, and then a 6" section and another tee joint and then one more 6" section.

In the end, I have a dog agility jump that can set at 12", 18", and 24". Or, I suppose I could mix it up and have it settable at 6", 12" and 24". And can easily modified to any height with a little more PVC pipe cutting. And all for $6!

Harry Glaser Photography

2008-07-16T09:44:00.003-04:00

Presenting: Harry Glaser Photography at www.harryglaserphotography.com

Black and White Gallery, Color Gallery, and Still Life Gallery

Buy Prints directly from the artist!

Enjoy.

The Work at Home office

2008-03-28T15:59:00.004-04:00

At least for me, on Fridays. All I need is my ThinkPad, cell phone, and the dog.

80 degree weather in Raleigh :)

Kitchen Redo! New Cabinets and Countertop

2007-12-09T19:38:00.000-05:00

Just got done with an exhausting kitchen redo. We ripped out the cabinets and countertop and put in all new ones. All by ourselves. The old cabinets were literally falling off the wall and counter was in a sad state.

We used cabinets from Lowes and a custom order counter from them. Not as easy as it seemed at first, but in the end not really as hard as it could have been. We chose unfinished cabinets and painted them white so everything would look nice and clean. We got a new white microwave and installed it. We swapped out the cream colored panel on the front of the dishwasher for a white panel. And we repainted the walls a light beige and chose a beige-speckled counter and installed it.

Before, as taken by the prior owner in FSBO pic. It really looks a lot better in this pic that it actually was. VERY 80's and VERY ugly:

After, taken by ME, pardon the mess - we just redid the kitchen :) :

Next steps may be to tile the backsplash and get an all white dishwasher if the current on ever breaks.

Pictures of the redo in depth can be seen below:
Top cabinets replacement
Bottom cabinets replacement/countertop replacement

More house fun:
Depopcorning our living room ceiling

Dog running with all 4 legs off the ground!

2007-05-25T21:42:00.000-04:00

Check out this sweet picture of my dog, Montana, that I snapped with all four legs off the ground!
Bordie Collie mixes are the best. Original unzoomed pic can be seen here.

Armed Pilots?

2007-05-09T22:01:00.000-04:00

Huh? Is this right? We have armed pilots in the US?

Sometimes I feel like TV doesn't try anymore

2007-02-20T07:56:00.000-05:00

For instance, take this graphic of an accident with an overturned dumptruck on "News 14 Carolina". I feel like I could have made a more impressive graphic for this traffic report 20 years ago. Honestly, this is terrible.

But then again...maybe this is the best I can expect from North Carolina television?

AAdvantage award booking hint when flying USA 48 to Hawaii

2007-01-29T09:05:00.000-05:00

When you try to redeem your American Airlines miles online they give you different tiers of booking availability. Some flights are available as Miles sAAver (or whatever they call it) awards and some are AA anytime awards. The first takes less miles and the second about double that.

So when planning my trip to Hawaii (from Boston - an almost $800 ticket) I checked availability online and nothing came up without asking for about 70,000 miles. BUT, since Sarah made me call them to double check, I spoke with an American Airlines ticketing agent and they told me that since many of the flights from the US 48 to Hawaii are codeshared on a Hawaiian airlines flight they won't show up online. Turns out that by calling and booking your awards ticket on the phone you can get the ticket for about 35,000 miles instead of 70,000. You'll get nailed the $15/ticket phone booking fee, but not so bad considering the full price of the ticket.

Summary: You can book award tickets on American Airlines from the contiguous 48 states to Hawaii for less miles if you try and get a codeshared flight with Hawaiian Airlines via the phone. More flights and options are available over the phone than online.

You're welcome.

New TV!

2007-01-28T11:54:00.000-05:00

Here she is:

Updates for Montana's Heartworm treatment....

2007-01-10T21:57:00.001-05:00

Updates for Montana's Heartworm treatment can be found at http://missstinky.blogspot.com/. Sarah started a blog too to capture how Montana's heartworm treatment with Immiticide is going. In the meantime, Montana looks ridiculous, they shaved half her back!

Montana dog: Pre-Heartworm treatment

2007-01-09T20:26:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Montana's first day of Heartworm treatment. Here she is pre-treatment:

We got her last summer from the pound where she tested negative for Heartworm. We started her on HeartGard as soon as we got her, brought her to the vet for her checkup last week and she was positive (in 3 tests) for Heartworm! So, she starts her two day long ordeal tomorrow with 2 doses of Immiticide... :( and then we have to figure out how to keep her calm for about 6 weeks while the medicine works its magic to kill the Heartworms. She'll be back to her Border Collie mix self well before the 6 weeks, so it'll be a challenge keep her calm.

The dog chewed out of her crate!

2006-12-05T09:34:00.000-05:00

That's right, a post! I write this message to inform you that my dog has chewed out of her cage. The 40 lb border collie mix chewed a 7" x 4" hole in the side of her crate and somehow climbed out. Truly remarkable.

See the dog and the hole in the crate, I'm not sure how she did it.

The Backyard - Before and After

2006-10-01T17:35:00.000-04:00

Before

After (note the awesome Carolina grass :-) )

Went to a Durham Bulls game tonight

2006-08-11T23:45:00.000-04:00

I went to a Durham Bulls game last weekend and again this evening. Seems like they're a decent baseball team. Even sort of semi real baseball, I guess...for Durham. Strange is that they gave away Sara Lee bread at the end of each game. I've never heard of giving away bread at baseball games, but then again it is Durham.

I got a Dragon Tree

2006-07-23T22:06:00.000-04:00

Isn't it sweet? It met all my requirements: does not require direct light, good for beginners, needs occasional watering, and looks awesome.

Montana = awesome

2006-07-21T22:22:00.000-04:00

You wouldn't think it, but Montana is awesome. I thought that when I moved to North Carolina that I lived in the middle of nowhere. I was wrong, because I found the middle of nowhere...and it's in (or including all of) Montana. The trip began with a short 5 hour flight to Montana, from Raleigh via Salt Lake City. Who would have thought that it's 4+ hours from RDU to SLC? Not me.

So I got to Montana and met Sarah at the airport after almost two weeks apart (yes, I'll call the wahm-bulance, shutup Betsold, since you're probably the only one reading this). We got our rental Corolla, which was surprisingly not crappy, and headed up to Glacier National Park (GNP). The ride up was pretty full of seeing nothing. We decided to take the scenic route, route 89, and along the way we saw...nothing. It was about 2.5 hrs from Great Falls, Montana to GNP. We arrived at about 6pm, since the stop at delicious Quiznos delayed us a bit.

Evidently it doesn't get dark in Montana until like 10:30pm. So we had a few hours when we arrived to drive around the park and grab some dinner. The first day we drove from our hotel, the Rising Sun Motor Inn, up Going to the Sun Highway to Logan Pass and beyond. It was an awe inspiring (good phrase, I know) drive and I saw things I never thought I'd see. The mountains are HUGE and everything looks like a painting.

Friday we did a pretty sweet hike at Logan Pass on the continental divide. We started walking across a boardwalk, which quickly ended and we were hiking across snow, in July, in Montana, on cliffs of snow that looked like if we slipped we'd be sliding down about 300 feet on more snow to a nice pile of sharp rocks. We survived the snow and made to a small pond along another path and to Hidden Lake. Shortly after we saw the lake in the valley, we saw the psycho mountain goat. We were like, "oh whatever, a goat, we'll just keep walking and it will go away." WRONG. We walked towards the goat, it walked towards us. We walked back on the trail from where we came, the goat followed us. It followed us (while we were all alone on a mountain) about half a mile back up the trail and wouldn't go away. So we found some other people and it still kept walking towards us. Eventually enough people got there and the goat stopped walking on OUR path. Silly goat. We finished our Logan Pass hike and figured what the hell we'll go up to Canada. So to Canada we went. Waterton Park in Alberta was nice, but Canada totally got the shaft in terms of Glacier Park awesomeness.

Anyways, Saturday we went on more hiking, this time near Many Glacier a little north of our hotel. We wanted to go on a hike but it was closed because of bears. We went on a different hike that the other direction from the bears. We almost made it to Swift current pass. (i think that's what it's called, i forget now). We saw some waterfalls and eventually made it a few lakes and then turned back. Then we went on a boat ride on one lake, a short hike to another, and then a hike to another. We saw a moose (look closely, it's a lady moose lying down), and then headed back for dinner.

I'm really starting to get tired of typing, but check out all my pictures on my flickr account.
http://flickr.com/photos/jarettstein

Off to Montana tomorrow....

2006-07-12T22:01:00.000-04:00

...will post pictures upon my return. You'll have to wait. I'm sorry, be patient.

Back late Sunday.

From the Chapel Hill police log

2006-07-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

Chapel Hill News | News: "# A man fled the Harris Teeter in Carrboro on Wednesday after putting four packs of rib-eye steaks in his pants, according to police reports. The suspect, thought to have roughly $60 worth of steak in his pants, was last seen running toward Lloyd Street.

# A Chapel Hill man was charged with larceny Wednesday after placing two rib-eye steaks from Weaver Street Market in his pants and leaving the store. Antonio Leon Gattis, 41, of Apt. A-3 at University Gardens on Pritchard Avenue, was released on a written promise to appear. The steaks were valued at about $26."

...very interesting......

Casa de Jarett and Sarah

2006-07-01T22:41:00.000-04:00

Almost ready for prime time. Here she is:

the front

living room - pre setup, and pre moving truck

living room - pre setup, and post moving truck

kitchen

living room - post setup

living room - post setup

entry way

master bedroom - pre bed frame setup

guest bedroom - (sorry it's a mess, we actually had guests)

the office

guest bathroom - aka the duck bathroom

stairway

living room, another angle!