Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  My folks came up from Phoenix to spend Christmas with us here in Utah.  We enjoyed a nice church service at Grace last night, followed by the traditional party at Ted & Cathy Liou's.  Today we slept in a little, and spent the day at Pat & Chris's.  This is us just after enjoying a delicious Italian meal of salad with pear, roasted pecans, and gorgonzola, home-made lasagna, and home-made chicken fettucini - mmmm, delicious.  My in-laws bought an 1892 victorian home, which they've been remodeling/renovating for about 5 years - it's really cool.

December 24th is our brother-in-law, Alan's birthday.  His brothers/sisters-in-law pitched in to buy him a "Borat Mankini", which makes total sense if you know Alan at all...

 

 

This is Alan with my Mother-in-law's dog, Kira.  Kira is an abused dog with lots of problems - one of which is that she has no teeth, and therefore her tongue sticks out constantly.

Drywall

Well, the sheetrocker finally showed up this week.  He's hung rock and done most of the mudding.  He'll be by today to skim coat a few spots and paint.  He hopes to have the paint finished today, Christmas Eve, and collect that check before tomorrow...

Family Portraits

My sister-in-law is an artist, and recently took family portraits for Brandon & Wiz...  I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something funny going on.

Pat & Chris tagged along too.

What was I thinking?

I was reminding Katie last night at 830pm that there would be a couple of contractors coming over tomorrow for windows and drywall. I was reviewing the fine points of the work I expected done when she replied "you're going to be here for all this, right?".  I figured it wouldn't be a big deal for her to open the door and show these guys what to do, but it was... What was I thinking?  I'm really glad I was here because a few things came up during the window install that were outside the original scope of the project, that I was able to address myself. Also, my drywaller flaked out so I was able to bring over 5 contractors to bid today. The last one will be here within the hour, and most can start first thing in the morning. I'm also very grateful that my boss is so understanding - thanks Karen!

That's Sean the window-guy.  He's the son of a dairy farmer.  Having grown up with dairy farm kids, I might have guessed that - reminded me a lot of the VanHoffwagen clan.

Waiting to be installed.

Sonny is hiding inside.  He's a beef cattle farmer with about 50 head - enough to cover the cost of the land and equipment, but not enough to live on - hence the window work.  He was a really funny guy.

Middle of the day.  Aluminum recycles at $.53 per pound, which is where all my old window frames are heading.  We really need Obama to start regulating aluminum bats or something to drive the price like he did with brass, lead, and copper.

It's too dark out right now for a final photo of all our new windows.  I'll put one up in the next couple of days.  One of these drywallers should be here in the morning to start upstairs.  If they're willing to negotiate a bit, they'll also prime and paint this week too!

Thanks Pat!

My trusty Father-in-law Pat came to my rescue, as usual.  Pat helped me wrap up the sub-floor last night so I could be ready for my drywaller today.  Thanks Pat!

Almost ready for drywall

Our shower valve arrived last week, which allowed me to finish the rough plumbing yesterday.  Unlike a typical shower where everything is hidden in the wall, this valve and shower head standpipe are chromed and exposed.  It's manufactured in the UK, and we bought it on Ebay for half the price of the crummy chinese-made parts at home depot.

The supply lines had to be exactly 5 3/16" apart on center so I used some scrap plywood, doubled them up, and made this frame.  I also got to use my handy pocket screw jig to fasten it to the framing.

This probably looks like a big mess to everyone, but the plumbing is gorgeous to me.  I threw some left over fiberglass insulation over/under most of the drain lines to help dampen the noise common to ABS drains.

The bookcase and dresser are in place!  They're a terrific use of space and will help the master suite feel much larger.

I need to finish piecing the sub-floor back together and we'll be drywalling this week with a little luck!

Since the 2nd bedroom up here needed very little work, it's now a temporary storage room.  Like my marble-top vanity?  That should give you an idea of the finish materials coming soon - Deluxe!

Don't worry, I finally have my drawers on...

Well, my first dresser is coming together.  I installed the full-extension drawer glides this weekend.  I was hoping to have the cases trimmed out too, but ended up raking leaves in the snow much of Saturday.  I have a giant cottonwood tree in my yard that hasn't finished dropping leaves, even though every other tree in Utah dropped 3 weeks ago.  I'm going to cut it down before next fall.  Here are photos of the drawers in place.

Where's Santa?

Most of you already know my "son" Mario.  He checks the windows frequently for cats, and this time of year, for Santa. 

This is "Santa Kirby".  We name all of his toys after his much loved Uncle Kirby (Pat & Chris's dog, who passed away a couple of years ago).  Mario still gets jealous at the mere mention of Kirby's name, and usually rips the stuffing out of any toys named Kirby.

Baby Update

Katie and I visited the Dr. again last week.  He performed an ultrasound and the baby is progressing normally.  We didn't get any pictures to share this time, but should on our next appointment at the end of December.  We are watching our child's fearful and wonderful creation, and we are in awe. 

My First Drawers!

I've read that drawers are difficult to make, and now I know first-hand...  They turned out really well though, and I'm looking forward to attaching the glides this weekend.  After that I'll add poplar facing and trim to finish, and haul them upstairs.

I have experience with dovetail joints on a knife box I made for a chef friend.  However, because I wanted to finish this sometime in 2009, I used a much simpler but strong locking dado.

Because I was accused of not taking safety seriously, here's photographic evidence of my eye and ear protection, as well as a "chicken stick" so I don't chop off my hand.  Never mind that my pant leg almost lit on fire next to my toasty heater (yes, there is a door open for ventilation off camera).  I also did not use a celebrity to conceal my identity, or did I.....?

Thanksgiving

Oh yeah, we also celebrated Thanksgiving all together at Pat & Chris's.  We all helped with dishes, and Chris's turkey was outrageous!  Look at that beautiful food!

Here we are too!  (These are actually celebrities employed to protect our privacy!  They look just like us!)

Let's take a moment to talk about shop safety...

Let's take a moment to talk about shop safety - never let your mother, mother-in-law or wives see the stuff you do with whirling discs of sharpened high-carbon steel.  Oh, and you should probably wear safety glasses and ear protection, read, understand, and follow the instructions for all your shop tools, and stuff.  I made the carcasses for a built-in bookcase and dresser drawers on Saturday with some help from my father-in-law Pat.  This pile of ply-wood is about to turn into sawdust.  Note my awesome dust collector, doesn't everyone think that Byron Black and Jason Addink really need one of these too?  I sure do!

I suck at making straight, perfect cuts with a circular saw, so I employ a simple jig that good-old Norm showed me one Saturday.

And, viola!  Just like the Old Yankee Workshop, you have a sweet bookshelf and dresser carcass. 

I actually made measured drawings for this project (which are available for $29.95), and highly recommend using them.  I was pleased with how accurate my Hitachi cabinet saw is, and everything turned out terrific!  I must admit though, even with measured drawings, lots of experience, and Pat's supervision, I still made a mistake or two...  Chatting with Pat, a question struck me - I wonder if Jesus ever had to measure twice?

Interdenominational Christmas Service

Grace Baptist Church hosted an interdenominational Christmas concert tonight - it was great.  Between my friend Skip and I, we handled sound without any hitches.  We even managed to make a recording so you could hear some of the talent we enjoy every week in our regular service.  Of course, I just listened to the recording and it's pretty crummy - ARRGH!  Just add that to the list of challenges to handle (why do microphones hate God?)

Christmas Gifts

I think I may have to do (help) with the Christmas shopping this year.  Katie is doing much better moving into her second trimester, but she still needs to take it easy, and I don't want her out in the crowds more than she needs to be with the flu bug going around.  So, does anyone know where I can find this dog leash for my mother-in-law and her dogs?

Running Sound in Church

I used to run sound in my church as a boy. I think we had about 3 channels or microphones to manage - 1 for the pastor, 1 for anyone else speaking, and one for the piano. We used a tape recorder to make records of the service. The hardest part of the job was setting up a conference call for 3 shut-ins at home, so they could listen to the church service. Sometimes they'd forget to flip the "mute" switch on their phone, so you could hear the football game or snoring in the background - but hey, they were shut-ins so you have to cut them some slack.


Anyway, I continue to serve my new church in Utah by running sound.  We have an older set-up, and typically run about 12 channels for a good-sized worship team and the speaker (we're currently looking for a pastor as my father-in-law retired after a gazillion years serving in ministry), plus CD's, DVD's, and a projector with audio from the computer.  And now, we make digital recordings of the service, instead of using a casette tape.

I really enjoy serving in this way, but I'm really frustrated by several problems.  Under the right circumstances (whenever the power switch is in the "on position"), we pick up a Sunday sports radio broadcast.  The radio is always there, but you usually don't hear it until a quiet moment - like during prayer.  And, there's usually an amazing home-run or goal scored during the prayer, so the radio announcer guy goes ballistic. 

The sanctuary electricity wasn't grounded correctly.  Once I realized this, I went through and grounded several outlets used for sound, but we still seem to fight a buzzing noise at 60Hz (I've been told by professionals at my work that this frequency is produced by the power flowing through the wires).

Several of our mics, including wireless, choose to stop working at random times even though they were working just before the service.  I'm convinced we have ghosts or gremlins chewing the wires under the floor.

We cram 8 musicians into the front of our tiny church, about 2 feet from the speaker mains.  For those of you who don't do sound, this means I've got mics really close to the speakers, which tends to create feedback.  Additionally, some of our worship team members (are they deaf?) need extra volume in their monitors (the speakers on the floor that face the singers, so they can hear themselves), adding to the cacophony blaring back into the mics.  Sometimes there's more volume coming from the monitors than out of the speaker mains.

I did drag a professional AV tech friend of mine to the church and work through a bunch of issues.  But he did finally say that this was a really difficult setting, even for a pro - this actually made me feel better somehow.

And lastly, everyone has an opinion - usually opposed in some way to the opinion of the guy running the sound...

All said and done, I do enjoy running sound for my church.  It's something I'm relatively good at, and unlike many people sitting in the pews, my brain can follow the service while I'm messing with a bunch of switches and dials (ADD - my spiritual gift?).  For the record, we really do have a great worship team, and we're blessed that out of a congration of 80 or so people, we have 8 with musical abilities. 

On the subject of church sound, check out the "sound guy neck crane" on SCL.  When I receive the "sound guy neck crane", I'm usually thinking "yes..... I surely would have missed that noise so loud that the roof caved in......yes....... thank you".

Bakkers in Utah finally have a blog!

I've really been wrestling with whether to post a blog or not. Katie and I would like to stay better connected with those we love, but I'm paranoid about posting anything personal for the universe to see.

I'll have to do my best to balance personal information with enough ambiguity to establish plausible deniability. There's got to be several Bakker families living in Utah, right? Of course, now there's no denying whose blog this really is... I guess I need to keep wearing my foil cap and polishing my guns ;).

We have some exciting news (this is the real reason to start a blog).  After several years, God has blessed Katie and I with a child! Katie is about finished with the first trimester, and has been sick morning, noon, and night. Normally she vanquishes illness with stoic fortitude, but the daily grind of puking, forcing something into her stomach, and acid eating her insides away is really getting old. Please pray for peace and health!

Now that we have legitimate news to share, I'll try to update this blog every so often. There's not much to see, but here's the first photo of our child!

From Baby pre birth 1

Our mental illness

Most of you should know that Katie and I enjoy home remodel. Actually, I enjoy home remodel, and Katie enjoys being able to choose the materials, colors, and finishes of our home. It's a good partnership as I have no eye for style. She points and tells me what she wants it to end up like, and I engineer how we're going to get there. Our home in Centerville is our 3rd remodel, and we're looking forward to applying many hard-learned lessons from the first two. I'll update this stuff periodically.



You may remember our last home in Flagstaff. Here are some photos of the finished product. We miss this house quite a bit.

Master bedroom after some more work