glh's Journal: A few updates

Had a pretty good weekend. Got to go to the Ann Arbor Art Fair. We looked around at a lot of booths but didn't find anything that we wanted to get for the house (well, at least nothing we could afford!). It was a pretty hot day. In my least favorite section (where all the non-profit groups are) of particular interest were some JW's (wearing ties and white shirts in 100 ' weather) and a guy at the nudist booth was overly friendly (while I was walking by, he piped up with an emphatic "HI!")

Nothing to exciting on Sunday. Went to Lowes to get some stuff so I can get the garage door opener's installed. After looking at the manual I'm a little nervous about doing it. There are 16 steps, and the opener is at a funky angle that you're supposed to get by sticking a 2x4 above the door. Definitely won't be a one person job... And Sears charges $109 to install. Not something I really want to have to pay for, so I'll probably figure it out myself.

Landscape is the next thing we're trying to get figured out. It's going to cost quite a bit to do irrigation and grass, which we are most likely going pay to have done. Of course, I didn't budget enough (about 1/4th). To save money, my wife and I are going to slowly do the bushes / plants when we can get to it (at least that's the plan right now) but we are planning on setting the beds in place before we do too much. We have a friend from our old church that does landscaping and want to talk to him before we get going with some guys who "do it on the side".

In other news... We've got a .NET User group meeting coming up tomorrow and the topic is on Microsoft Team Server. It looks like a pretty good product especially for integrating life cycle type stuff in software development. I'm going to start playing around with Beta 2 some more pretty soon but I need to get some more ram first. Looking forward to that- there are plenty of new features that I want to check out.
But playing with .NET 2.0 is kind of low on the priority list right now with all the unpacking and misc. projects I have to do on the house.

Landscaping

[KshGoddess]

Landscaping is easily the most expensive bit of the exterior of the house. We have a 1/4 ac lot, and the front yard is mostly done (and mostly river-rock), the back yard, well... we got x amount of sod from the builder which we put down, and we have the raised beds, but that's pretty much it.

Rocks are expensive. Dirt's not cheap, either.

And plants... well, our neighbor's been getting 10-cent half-dead things at lowes lately.

Re:Landscaping

[glh]

And plants... well, our neighbor's been getting 10-cent half-dead things at lowes lately.


Heh, that's about all we could afford right now... :) I'll have to check out Lowes. We are probably a little ways off from doing the actual bushes and plants- I'd like to get the grass done first. However, I notice most people do that part first and the grass later. So who knows....

Re:Landscaping

[KshGoddess]

she hits the clearance stuff, and figures that it's half dead already, if it dies, she's out 10 cents, not the 4-5 bucks a plant that's sometimes charged.

we'll probably need at least a new rose bush soon. the "other" side of the driveway has awful dirt; we'll have to dig the old one out, amend the soil and put in the new one. :(

Garage door opener

[Degrees]

My brother and I did the garage door opener of my first house - it wasn't too bad; BUT, I was single and in no hurry....

I think it *is* a two person job, because at some point, one of you lifts the worm gear (or chain) motor, and the other fastens the straps which carry the motor. You want to get the angle right, because the movement of the door can hit the drive shaft (or chain), if things aren't aimed right. Not so much a problem if you have a roll-door. If you have a roll-door, the other part where you

Re:Garage door opener

[glh]

You want to get the angle right, because the movement of the door can hit the drive shaft (or chain), if things aren't aimed right. Not so much a problem if you have a roll-door. If you have a roll-door, the other part where you might need the second person is if the door counterspring cable skips a loop.

Yeah, the angle is my biggest concern. I do have a roll door so hopefully it won't be too bad. I was looking at the angle iron kit I just bought and it was not enough length for hanging the openers. So