While the wife's away: Showerbeer Vol 1

Amber had an overnight training last week which gave me some time to myself.  Aside from the aforementioned showerbeer it was a pretty mild time.  After work on Wednesday I had my first experience picking up a baby from daycare all by myself.  Me, picking up a baby!  Shattering everyone's expectations, I delivered the baby on time and unharmed.

My next pickup and delivery task was to ask Gigi if she was a bad enough dude to stay at Casa Dreese overnight, and she accepted with a lot of enthusiasm, which could have been confusing to her since I was holding her leash.  I now realize my rookie mistake.

With Gigi at the house I didn't have to worry about the cats making any sort of disturbance since half of our cat population is deathly afraid of Gigi, while the other tries to play it really cool and show the other one how brave he is.  

Since Gigi and I both share the fact that we're big both fat fatties now adays, I thought it would be a great opportunity to do the big loop around the house, which I've rode on my bike before, but not walked.  It was a gorgeous day so I figured why not.  It took us about an hour and 16 minutes to cover the 4.4 miles, which isn't too bad considering the elevation changes.

It was nice to have Gigi around to force me into taking her for walks, but at much as I love her it just further solidifies the fact that I don't think I'm ready for a dog now, nor do I think I will be anytime soon.

Drywall? More like took-you-long-enough-wall.

Contrary to my best efforts of dragging out the bedroom remodel as long as I can, I am one stinking piece away from being done hanging the drywall in what will be the baby's room.  All in all I'm pretty happy with how it turned out as a first timer.  Buddy Brian helped me with the ceiling and starting one of the walls, but since then I think I've done an adequate job not screwing it up too much.

Working by myself wasn't too bad though I could not have done it without one of these or these, I'd highly recommend them for anyone doing the work themselves.  My harbor freight multifunction tool also made cutting holes for the drywall super easy.  Maybe a little too easy, especially if you can't measure all that super good.

Tonight or tomorrow I should be getting the last piece of drywall I need and hanging it, then it's just a matter of time to get my finishing expert guy to help me out and curse me for doing such a lousy job hanging it.

Still to do:

1. Drywall finishing/sanding
2. Priming/paint
3. New pre-hung door
4. Closet jambs
5. Flooring
6. Wiring baseboard heater and thermostat
7. Hang closet doors
8. Fancy closet organizer
9. Trim, lots and lot of trim

Destination: IKEA

This weekend we went to visit Julie and Tim and take our very first ever trip to IKEA.  We had a good time checking out all the staged "rooms" in the showroom and didn't get enough time in the 1st floor that we decided to go back after we ate lunch.  At the end of the day we bought a dresser for the baby's room, a desk for the office, two lamps and some picture frames.  In contrast to the ride down to IKEA, we were all silently comatose on the way back, tired from mere hours of shopping.  Super rough life, I know.

After a long drive home Saturday night I was determined to assemble the desk while Amber played with the stroller and carseat that arrived on Thursday.  As you can see above Amos "the Shmameos" Dreese was trying out his best "I'm a baby, I swear" shtick that was oddly convincing given our levels of exhaustion.

As if disassembly of the old desk and assembly of the new desk wasn't painful enough, I bought a dump cart at harbor freight on Sunday and spent 2.5 hours assembling it.  In hindsight I really wish I would have just bought a used one that was already assembled, but at least it's done and now I shouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I was then able to slowly putt around the yard while the cart made a terrible racket bumping around over our uneven terrain, at least I know no one will be able to steal it and make a silent getaway.

Dan's Frugal Shaving Tips

As I was shaving this morning I thought I'd share some of my frugal tips for saving money while carving your face up.  As a bit of disclaimer I don't have a very full beard so what works for me may not work for you.

1. Wet shave - I shave while I'm in the shower.  This might waste water, but at the very least I find it more convenient than to shave in front of the mirror and then having to clean up afterwards, anyway.
2. Use hair conditioner as shaving cream.  I have a big bottle of suave conditioner that I've been using for at least 4 years now.  Granted, I only shave a few times a week, but at about $3 this has got to be one of the cheapest ways to shave there is.  It's not as full as it once was but I'm pretty sure I can eek this out another year or so.
3. "Hone" your razor blades using your arm hair, as shown by the creepy old naked guy in the video below.  I know this sounds really weird but I've been doing this since I bought a new pack of razors and it honestly seems to have really helped.  I'm guessing that since hair is actually very tough (which is why razors don't last that long), stroking the blade against the tough hair hones the edge of the blade.  I suppose I should qualify that using your arm hair means running the razor down your arm in the opposite direction that you would to shave it.  Please don't yell at me when you shave your arm hair off.

There are other ways to shave cheaply (as in cost of the blades - but there does seem to be a bit of an up front cost), and some dudes really get into it and become these "shaving ritual fundamentalists", it just seems like way too much hassle for me.

I gotta give it to you, the kid's got balls

It's a boy!

Hey man, it's cool

Chillax, bro.  Just because I haven't been around ye olde websitey in a while doesn't mean I don't care.  I care, really I do.  It's just mostly I've been caring less about writing blog posts and more about... Everything that isn't writing blog posts.

Brass tacks time: winter sucks.  The weather sucks, it's dreary, snow happens a lot which then needs cleaned up, and have I mentioned the weather?  I mean, come on already.  Yea - we get it, cold and dreary, god!  Now spring has sprung, and that seems to mean nonstop rain.  Whatever happened to decent weather, anyway?

So what have I been up to lately?  Well, the spare room is finally slowly coming along.  Bri-guy was kind enough to come up and help me get the ball rolling with hanging the drywall, I've since taken over and slowly been finishing the rest of the hanging (Amos no doubt is a huge help).

A few weeks ago I've also reached a lifelong goal of becoming an atv owner with a not-so-shiny 2003 Kawasaki Bayou 250, just what I was looking for.  Due to some title issues the process took way longer than it should have, but it's now mine, ALL mine!

Along the lines of "I'm a child and refuse to grow up", Amber and I invested in the finest ping-pong table $100 at Sam's club can buy.  I've been thinking of going back to school to major in tabletennisology with a minor in "bugging amber to play with me".

Oh yea, and that spare room I was talking about - It's now the baby's room because Amber and I are reproducing.  You know, no big deal :)

The due date is September 16th and as of next week we should be able to hopefully find out the sex!

2010 Wrapup

With the lack of posts here thanks to my laziness, I've resorted to cutting and pasting my holiday e-mail to be forever enshrined on this blog that no one reads.

Greetings to my most faithful and loyal e-mail readers! As another year quickly comes to an end it's time for "that Dreese family" to brag about how rad they are under the clever guise of a friendly newsletter. No doubt you've been waiting with bated breath to hear of our tales of worldly travel, unimaginable fortunes, and maybe even some snake charming. So, uh, with the possibility of you being really disappointed, let us jump in.

July marked our first full year in our house. Aside from some excitement with a wasp infestation, a basement flood, furnace issues, and the never ending forrest of leaves, it has been overall very quiet and pleasant. Recently we've started our first big house project, a full remodel of one of our spare bedrooms (I'll try and keep that album updated as progress is being made). While it's a bit slow-moving at the moment, I'm hoping with some time off after xmas we'll be able to make some more progress. If nothing else it's been a fun (and expensive) learning experience. The next big steps are fixing/finishing the electrical wiring, running network cable, re-insulating the ceiling, re-framing the closet, and then probably drywall and all that stuff. I should be able to bust all that out in a few hours, eh?

Arguably our biggest news of the year been paying off Amber's student loans in full at the end of September! It took us just shy of two years, which was our goal. As you can imagine we're thrilled and all sorts of full of ourselves ;) To award ourselves we now have satellite TV so we didn't miss much of the football season. If you want to be nosey and read about the nitty-gritty details you may do so here. Since we're in polite company I decided to keep the tacky details out of my high-brow e-mail newsletter for monocle enthusiasts.

We had a nice week-long vacation in Emerald Isle, NC with Amber's family in June. We had a small condo right on the beach which was (as expected) really great :) My second trip of the year was to San Deigo for a work conference, it was my first commercial flight anywhere and it was overall a good time :)

Aside from that, it's been your typical everyday living going on. Work has been going pretty well for Amber and myself. We're still working at the same place so we continue to carpool to work and eat lunches together on most days. She's been settling just fine to her position as a supports coordinator and I've continued my reign as the (sometimes evil) database administrator. Amber continued with her assistant coaching of the women's volleyball team this year, and after some deep thought she decided 5 seasons of coaching was enough. In October she received the "Outstanding Athletic Alumni Award" for her role as a coach and a player during college. Speaking of volleyball, we still continue to play in weekly leagues and had a fairly successful season that wrapped up last week.

That's about it! I hope everyone has a safe and successful holiday season and just maybe we can keep in better touch! You know, if you want to. It's cool :) Thankfully technology makes this much easier these days, there are many ways to keep up on what's happening:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dandreese

Personal blog: http://www.3dollarbicycle.com

Automotive video themed blog: http://www.giveitthebeans.com

Twitter: @dreesemonkey