The drywall team here at the Academy has taken to shift work. Its a good thing we're not a union shop. This is the view at 3:30 am. Next shift comes on at 8:00.
Tomorrow: paint, baseboards and appliances.....
Tuesday: Christmas tree. And that will take more shifts than I care to think about.
Tonight the Academy attended the Christmas Gala for the Columbia Homeschool Community. The kids performed their Christmas play and various other talent skits. To me, what's on display more than anything at these events is the talent, patience and energy of our homeschooling parents. It never ceases to amaze me.
The Academy is so proud to be associated with such a fantastic organization, and with such a wonderful, talented and bright group of students and parents.
Every night I watch yesterday's TIVO'd taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Nothing makes me laugh the way this show makes me laugh. Sure, its the same stuff hashed over and over, and its all very predictable after a time, but there are certain people that just cannot be made fun of quite enough. And Stewart's "News" team certainly does a good job of that.
The night before last, Jon's guest was Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan. I know its wrong to think of Pakistan as a third-world country, given that they aren't (I mean, having nuclear weapons earns them the right to sit at the table with us, doesn't it?). But I couldn't help being impressed with how well-spoken, articulate and thoughtful this former General was. Now, I'm not pointing at anyone in particular, but it sure made me nostalgic for the days of articulate and thoughtful leadership.
Last night's guest was Tom Waits. Even if you cringe at his performances, you simply have to admire his writing. He must be one of the most covered artists on the planet. Plus, he appeared in one of my favorite Jim Jarmusch films, "Down By Law", and he wasn't bad. Anyway, seeing him being interviewed was a treat.
One of the great things about TIVO is that you can fast-forward through all the commercials, and therefore you can get through a half-hour show in just under 10 minutes.. sigh. Last night, I was occupied when the commercial break began, and caught just a little of the first commercial. It was for a new XBox video game called "Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball". Given the name, you'd imagine some Mad-Maxish take on the sport, played in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian beachfront landscape. Nah, its just the real game, played by what appear to overdeveloped, underaged girls, wearing next-to-nothing. A disclaimer was given at the end of the commercial - this video rated "M", for mature audiences only. Hm. Naturally, I was curious to see what elements this game had to offer a mature adult such as myself.
I checked out the game's description on the company's website. The basic premise is that a handful of girls have been summoned to a private resort island by a rich patron. The girls are actually characters from another of the company's games, "Dead or Alive", which is a violent fighting game - pointless male violence always attracts beautiful girls as spectators, doesn't it? In the game, you choose a girl character and take her through a 14-day vacation on the island. One of the biggest elements of the game is shopping for things like skimpy bikinis, jewelry, handbags, hair clips, shoes, wristbands and hats. So of course its important to get to know your character's inner-most secrets, like her favorite color, her hobbies, her most embarrassing moment - all of which is available on her profile page. Once you get to know her, you take her shopping and then dress her up for her big day at the beach, playing volleyball with the other girls.
And that's.... pretty much it. You do this for 14 days, and then you start the game over and do it again. So it made me wonder, just exactly how mature do you have to be to play this game? And that made me wonder about the audience for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart".
And that made me wonder about me.
A laundry room in the master bedroom closet takes shape. New electrical circuits, water lines, drain lines. HVAC vents relocated. Totally insulated for sound. The only thing remaining is the drywall and baseboards, and a dryer vent line to go through the gaping hole I drilled through the floor, into the basement and out the west foundation.
The students and the faculty are excited to have a laundry room on the main floor. The Headmistress and I are allowing them to bask in their delusions for the time being. That will make it all the more satisfying when I finish the room and we break the news that the new laundry room is OFF-LIMITS to the students and the faculty. Ha! Its the small victories that bring such pleasure.
The only question now is, will two full laundry rooms be sufficient to support the mountain of laundry the Academy produces each day? hm... doubtful. Perhaps a full laundry in every room?
Strangely enough, and most unfortunately, completion of the laundry room is on the critical path of the Academy's Christmas tree. This is due to the rather large washer and dryer that currently occupy the floorspace where the tree is to go, and the fact that there is no other place to store them.
Maybe if I drag this project out long enough, I won't have to put up a tree this year? Let's float that one and check the reaction of the Headmistress (and Uncle Myron). Fasten your seatbelts... 
This is the artwork produced in one day by the Academy's Art Department. The following advertisement was placed in the local newspaper.
Wanted: Large refrigerator, 12 feet tall, 10 feet wide, standard depth. Must accept magnets. Pre-stocked with India Pale Ale is a preference.
One of the things I REALLY like - timed circuits. Feel the love, people, 'cuz this stuff makes life so, so, simple.
One of the benefits of a whole-house rewire is getting the opportunity to plan out every switch, every circuit. And we designed three timed circuits for the Academy - one dedicated to the pool filter pump, and two dedicated to timed lighting.
Pool Filter
This circuit controls the, well, pool filter. It shuts off pretty much all night, which allows for water circulation during the hot, daylight hours, and conserves energy at night.
Low-Voltage Lighting
This circuit controls all the landscape lighting in the East and West campuses. This consists of staked walkway lighting, staked up-spots, and suspended down-spots. I set the timer, and forget it.
Line-Voltage Lighting
This circuit controls all the spotlights on the campus, and the entryway sconces. Some are switched, some are not. This allows me to switch certain sconces and spotlights off when I want. Some are also on motion-sensors. The sensors stay off during the day, and come on with the timer, at night. And some are on a dual-motion sensor - this means they come on at half-wattage when the timer activates, and then come on full-wattage when the sensor detects motion. You gotta love that.
My life is so much easier now. I only wish I'd spent some more time designing the timer unit into a subpanel, so that I could run ALL that stuff off one timer, rather than three. Then, they'd all be precisely coordinated, and when the power went out, I'd only have to reset one timer. Live and learn.
This is a lousy picture, but I couldn't find a good way to approach this herd of deer without scaring them off. There were seven of them lying around the leaf pile in the back yard. As I approached, they bolted up and ran - two kept going, and five stopped to check things out.
And this is the growing mountain of construction debris that will sit and rot until Spring, when I can get a rolloff dumpster into the back yard to clear it out. The kids have been building forts among the twisted pile of scrap studs and paneling with rusty nails. We're livin' on the edge, baby.
The headmaster got precious little sleep last night. So many things to think about. During the day, the chaos at the Academy has a numbing effect on the brain. After cutting through the fog of another day, the mind wants to dock and run amok in port.
hm, I feel a strange urge to use maritime metaphors this morning.
Anyway, occasionally here at the Academy we announce a "School in Bed" day. On these days, which are precious few, we will lie in bed reading, discussing, and reviewing.
Can you guess which kind of school day we're having this morning?
We declared tonight "Faculty Night" and set up camp in the courtyard of the West Campus. The idea was that all adult staff would sit 'round the fire pit with libations of choice, while the students relaxed quietly in their quarters.
I am pleased to report that the students all cooperated beautifully..... NOT!
They came to the door at least 500 times, with silly questions like "How do you clean up a gasoline spill?" and "What is fire made of?". All designed, no doubt, to get us to come back inside. I wasn't biting. One after another the questions came, like a pajama parade. To the point that I had to spray the door hinges with some WD40 to stop the squeaking. They simply couldn't stand us being outside, and them being inside. At one point, a female student began appearing at the door with only a shirt on, trying to shock us into shutting the party down. Sorry honey, I've seen all the Girls Gone Wild videos."
So, at precisely 29 minutes into "Faculty Night", and only one day into our "Holiday Shopping Season", we officially kicked off Christmas by offering one of the gifts as a bribe - a brand new "Justice League" DVD was unwrapped and spun up on the dormitory television.
That worked for 10 minutes. Giving in, finally, one of the faculty went inside to keep the students in line while the Headmistress and the Headmaster continued their vigil 'round the campfire, drinking all the more heavily.
I can't wait for "Student Night". Revenge is sweet....
The photo of the firepit was taken from directly above, and a photo of the 5-day, waxing quarter-moon (courtesy John French, Planetarium Production Coordinator, Michigan State University) was superimposed.
On this Thanksgiving Eve, with the smells of pumpkin pie emanating from the cafeteria, the headmaster is thankful for much. Especially the Madeleine Peyroux CD that came in the mail today. The Academy's music director added to the entertainment of the first spin by strumming along with some improvised chords and licks.
If you look real closely, you can see the headmaster's Raccoon Gun sitting against the wall in the corner. Yee haw.
I used to love the Far Side cartoons that featured the occasional bird. The situations were hilarious. In one of my favorites, a woman reads on a park bench, while her baby lies bundled in a stoller several feet away. Wide-eyed with expectation, the baby boy stares back at two birds having a conversation over him. One says to the other: "Its still hungry, and I've been stuffing worms into it all morning."
I love birds, and I love kids, so I guess that's what makes this particular cartoon special to me. Here at the Academy, there is certainly no shortage of kids, or of birds. Or of squirrels feasting off the handouts of the former, and pillaging the outdoor pantry of the latter - no matter how many times I scare them away, they're back at the feeders within minutes.
Each of the students at the Academy is required to keep a birding journal. They are quite thin just now, but we plan to focus on them a bit more as the weather gets colder and the birds are more visible. We made our own journal template, which includes date, location, time, weather conditions, size, color, beak, behavior, elapsed time, identification, and field notes. We have several copies of the Peterson Field Guide "Birds of Eastern and Central North America", and its companion two-CD set "Birding by Ear". The students use the field guide to identify their bird, then use the CD set to make notes about the bird's call and song. I'm surprised how much they've learned about birds, with just a couple of sessions.
Today the students observed an American Goldfinch and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. The former was simply feeding at the sunflower seed tower, and the latter was observed taking sunflower seeds, one at a time, and sticking them into a hole it had pecked into the bark of an oak tree. We obtained a ladder from the maintenance department, and climbed up to peek. It had quite a collection going in there - behavior that I had never before seen in a bird.
Here is the list of birds that frequent the west campus. I love them all, but the Gray Catbird is my favorite - they love to perch, hidden from sight, and watch me work. I love their songs. To me, they're almost like pets.
Mourning Dove
Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Pileated Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Red-Bellied Woodpecker
Norther Flicker
Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
Tufted Titmouse
Black-Capped Chickadee
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Red-Breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Carolina Wren
American Robin
Wood Thrush
Veery
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Blue Jay
Cardinal
Grackle
Black-and-White Warbler
Eastern Towhee
American Goldfinch
House Finch
White-Throated Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Dark-Eyed Junco
Red-Winged Blackbird
European Starling
I need to check myself into the Rosalynn Carter Clinic for remodeling and redecorating addicts. I just don't know how to simply live with a house. I feel the need to change everything. And I mean, everything. Sometimes twice.
I modified every square inch of our last property, from floor to ceiling, end to end. I built the kitchen from scratch, including cabinets and countertops, replacing every appliance. I replaced the furnace the A/C, the water heater. I rewired the entire house, replacing aluminum with copper. Every outlet, every switch, every fixture was new. Every hinge and doorknob. Every room received the same molding treatment, with crown, fluted casings, rosettes, custom plinths, window sills, and custom door capitals. I replaced the roof, the siding. All upstairs bedrooms received the same cherry hardwood floor. All downstairs rooms received the same wide maple plank flooring. Every doorway was outfitted with a solid pine, 6-panel door and nickel hardware. Travertine tile in all baths. All new imported bath fixtures. The list goes on and on. The house sold in one day, but to tell the truth, I'm lucky if I broke even.
So now, here at the Academy, we've got twice the property. When I look around at what needs to be done, I am completely overwhelmed. I think I've taken on more than I can handle. The list seems endless. It doesn't help that most of the construction around here appears to have been completed by Larry, Moe and Curly. The good news is, the kitchen cabinets in this house are good to go - nothing required except maybe refinishing the doors at some point. The other good news is.... well, I guess there really is no other good news.
Anyway, because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to break it down so it was more granular - more raw, stark, imposing. Its just the sort of thing I like to do for fun. I figured that I'd at least be able to see how much I'd accomplished in the year that we've been here. I've been slowly accumulating the list in a spread sheet, so it was easy to convert everything over to inches.
So here is my list of things to do to the house, expressed in terms of inches (linear, squared, cubed), and showing what has been completed thus far. I'd have done centimeters, except the Academy hasn't adopted international standards yet. I found that by breaking it down this way, I could easily determine that I am about 16.5 percent finished with the work. At this rate, I should complete the remodel in about 7 years.
However, it is important to bear in mind that this list does not include the roof, which requires some major reconfiguration and reshingling; the siding, which must be completely replaced and reflashed; the driveway, which must be repaved; the perimeter fence, which must be rebuilt from scratch; the swimming pool, which requires approximately $30k in repairs; the hot tub we want to put in; the rear covered porch, which must be torn down and rebuilt, including a new slab; the rear patio, which requires the slate to be delaminated and preserved, and the slab to be demolished and repoured; the pool deck which requires the same (not included in the $30k repair bill); or the barn, which we have envisioned as a quaint English-style garden cottage (take a wild guess at THAT number).
The list also doesn't include the outdoor lighting scheme, all on timers, that's already 50% completed. And it doesn't account for the daily jobs that keep me from accomplishing much - like cleaning the pool and the gutters, raking the endless leaves, mowing the lawn, tending the myriad trees, bushes and flower beds, schooling the students, etc. etc.
So, as you can see, the Academy's endowment is quickly shrinking, along with the headmaster's resolve.
| ITEM | TO DO | DONE |
| Hardwood Flooring | 188,513 sq.in. | 0 sq.in. |
| Carpet | 83,937 sq. in. | 23,409 sq.in. |
| Tile | 303,696 sq. in. | 12,096 sq. in. |
| Refinish Hardwood | 79,273 sq. in. | 0 sq. in. |
| Walls - Build | 427,06 sq. in. | 54,528 sq. in. |
| Walls - Paint | 966,480 sq. in. | 58,752 sq. in. |
| Insulation | 391,680 sq. in. | 138,240 sq. in. |
| Ceiling - Build | 241,058 sq. in. | 23,409 sq. in. |
| Ceiling, Paint | 383,067 sq. in. | 23,409 sq. in. |
| Casing | 11,786 linear in. | 554 linear in. |
| Custom Capitals | 1,278 linear in. | 0 linear in. |
| Baseboards | 8,546 linear in. | 612 linear in. |
| Rosettes | 198 sq. in. | 72 sq. in. |
| Custom Plinths | 2,580 sq. in. | 60 sq. in. |
| Crown Molding | 10,066 linear in. | 612 linear in. |
| Exterior Doors, New | 14,760 sq. in. | 2,952 sq. in. |
| Interior Doors, New | 51,660 sq. in. | 2,460 sq. in. |
| Thresholds | 1,120 linear in. | 30 linear in. |
| Window Sills | 1,352 linear in. | 192 linear in. |
| Custom Cabinets | 857,088 cu. in. | 0 cu. in. |
| Stone Countertops | 15,240 sq. in. | 0 sq. in. |
| Appliances | 258,541 cu. in. | 211,561 cu. in. |
| Windows, New | 65,808 sq. in. | 0 sq. in. |
| Copper Wire, 6, 10, 12 and 14 awg | 38,700 lin. in. | 38,250 lin. in. |
| Breakers, New | 695 amps | 695 amps |
| Skylights, New | 5,760 sq. in. | 0 sq. in. |
| Stone Fireplace Surround | 10,752 sq. in. | 0 sq. in. |
| Closet Configuration | 1,357,056 cu. in. | 255,744 cu. in. |
| Coaxial Cable | 4,800 linear in. | 4,800 linear in. |
| Ethernet Cable | 300 linear in. | 300 linear in. |
| Custom Soffits | 132,768 cu. in. | 44,784 cu. in. |
| Ductwork | 960 cu. in. | 320 cu. in. |
| Gas Line, New | 3,600 linear in. | 3,600 linear in. |
| Smoke Detectors, Interconnected | 3 | 2 |
| Carbon Monoxide Detectors, Interconnected | 2 | 2 |
| Light Fixtures, Permanent | 126 | 46 |
| Smart Dimmers | 41 | 30 |
| Wall Switches | 12 | 9 |
| Wall Outlets | 92 | 92 |
| Ceiling Fans | 7 | 2 |
| Exhaust Fans | 4 | 1 |
| Toilet Fixtures | 4 | 2 |
| Shower fixures | 3 | 0 |
| Sinks | 5 | 1 |
| Sink Fixtures | 5 | 2 |
| Disposers | 1 | 1 |
| Door Hardware (handle, hinge set) | 26 | 3 |
