With the most recent events surrounding the results of Natalie’s application for the PA program—that is, the result that she won’t be attending—we’ve switched gears and have begun the process of getting our house ready for market. Part of that process involves me getting the rooms painted up and doing any necessary remodeling to make things look GREAT.

I took this past Friday off from work to start our bedroom—to paint it, install our new bed frame, replace an old outlet and put in some new switch/outlet covers. It wasn’t an easy task to say the least. I spent 13 hours alone on Friday just painting (two to three coats on all walls and the base board) as well as attempting to install the cool bed frame we bought at IKEA.

This is the first time we’ve bought anything substantial from them. Up until now, I’ve only purchased a few lights and smaller things for around the house. But this is the first time I’ve bought something from them that was substantial and required a heavy amount of installation.

I got the frame and got all the way to the point where you install the mid-beam and begin attaching these small steel bars (pretty flimsy…so don’t think they’re too sturdy) from the center beam to the side beams. It was pretty hit or miss if the screws would actually FIT into the holes and when all was said and done, I just wasn’t convinced that they offered any structural support whatsoever.

It was at about 11:00 last night that I realized (and in the midst of a great deal of frustration with this bed frame) that our box springs would NOT fit in our frame. No, they just wanted to fall through and offered no hope of being able to use them. I also realized that I must be missing something important here…namely some sort of cross-section support. Sure enough, after hopping on IKEA’s website, I saw that I was missing the slatted bed bases, which offer true support to your mattress, effectively eliminating your need for a box spring.

So Saturday morning I picked up one of those and a few things for around the house and that ended up working just fine. I just have to put our box springs into storage [we'll probably set up a guest room or something and use them for such a purpose].

I also got some clothing storage containers that slide under the bed and that effectively eliminated our need for dressers and saved us a TON of real estate in our already-tiny bedroom. So now we can walk through our bedroom without tripping on anything or having to squeeze past a piece of furniture.

I don’t have a true wide-angle lens, but here’s a pic of the new colors and our new bed frame:

I still have a little touch-up work to do on the ceiling, the wall, and the baseboard and we have to get some new carpet installed (the current stuff looks pretty ratty) and then our bedroom will look quite nice and ready to show.

Paul and I also braved the blustery conditions of Downtown Saint Paul and did a photo shoot to update our marketing materials (and website) with the changes that have gone down with Crash Effect as of late. I don’t think I’ve blogged about it or really talked about it much beyond my immediate friends and family, but both Kris (bass player) and James (guitarist) left the band because of “musical differences.” I expected Kris to pack up and leave the band, but certainly not James. Admittedly I’m disappointed, but Paul and I have a renewed vision for what Crash Effect is and think that it’ll be much better this way.

So in the coming months, watch crasheffect.com for information about this metamorphosis that is taking place within the band.

(from the photo shoot this afternoon)

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Well, this day seems to be a day of metamorphosis. Since it’s just after one in the morning and I need to be up at a reasonable hour, I’ve got to keep this short.

This day of change started out in the evening—a not too thrilling meeting with the rest of the band regarding some of the most recent events that have shaken up our foundation. In short, we are out both a guitarist and a bassist and are at a new point with Crash Effect.

Paul and I as founding members are working on building a new vision for how Crash Effect will operate as a two-person band while still fulfilling both our musical and humanitarian ambitions. I’ll elaborate on this at a later date.

The second change (and thankfully the last for today) involves my hair. It was getting long but tiresome. I was loathing having to keep it up, it would get in my face when trying to brew or bottle beer, and was just becoming a nuisance.

So I did something about it… (more…)

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I’ve picked up a few lights for the next wedding reception that I’m DJ-ing and one of them is American DJ’s special effect light, “Mystic” (.mov video file). Well, on the box was a sticker for a FREE replacement lamp, but it wasn’t the free lamp that caught my attention:

How many errors do you count? (more…)

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It’s been a relatively good day (despite having to work)—I’ve had a good birthday, my wife bought me some nice clothes and two new German-style growlers (which brings me up to four now), I had a nice dinner with some close friends at Great Waters Brewing Company, and I’ve finally finished bottling my beer.

I’ve got a shelf that currently is holding 35 bottles and 1 growler of my Winter Warmer and 46 bottles and 1 growler of my 3.2 version of an oatmeal stout. I’m actually surprised it finally reached 3.2% (ABV) given that just two weeks ago it barely was at 2% ABV. I guess shifting the carboy around must have stirred up one last hurrah of activity out of the yeast.

Yay for active yeast!

And in a matter of a week I’ll be ready to bottle up my Witbier, too. I guess that means I should start thinking about my next beer to brew. I think I might do an apricot ale (like Pyramid Ale’s celebratory Apricot Ale). It seems like a great beer to start spring out with. Granted, it sure doesn’t feel like spring out there, but in beer brewing cycles, it’s time to start thinking about spring brews, as you usually have to start thinking out six to eight weeks from now—and that’s, well, towards the end of March.

Apricot it is.

I may follow it up with another Witbier, as that always seems to go so quickly.

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