Demolition Girl!

Hi everyone. Back from another hectic (but fun - and filled with people I love) weekend. I'd love to tell you all about it, but I really owe a post about the kitchen! So I'm sure you remember it in all its dingy black-and-white glory??? Well I'm proud to say that's totally gone. In its place? A large, cavernous dust cave. How appetizing! Now, if you're even 1/2 as obsessed as we are with HGTV (honestly Mike Holmes is like a god in our house), you will probably assume, as I did, that demolition is this fun little activity that never takes more than 20 sped up seconds to complete. You will then stand in the middle of your clean empty space and admire your work without a speck of dust on you. Biggest. Lie. Ever. So far our demo activities have been progressing for OVER A WEEK now! It doesn't help that the old owners were the kings of band-aid solutions. B spent a whole day just removing the disgusting paneling and cabinets, only to reveal multiple layers of "kitchen" themed wallpaper and plaster walls. He also discovered a "secret door" (i.e. a doorway that had been paneled over for convenience). So far we have removed:

• All cabinets, counter-tops, and appliances
• The entire ceiling - drop ceiling installed 15-18" below horse hair plaster with slats
• 3.5 of the four major walls (one wall is being completely removed and the living room side still has to come down, hence the half) - paneling, three layers of horse hair plaster with slats down to chair rail height, with hard wood wainscoting below.Oh, and there were even two layers of backsplash... total hack job!
• The entire floor - 4 layers of linoleum, and a layer of hard wood (and no, the hard wood is not salvageable *weeps*)

I don't have all my pictures with me, but here are a few. 

Did I fail to previously mention the incredible spaghetti pile of electrical wires? My bad. 

The doorway on the left edge is the secret doorway. The doorway on the right is the former kitchen entrance. Good view of what the inside of a horse-hair plaster wall looks like. Hopefully this wall (the final frontier) will be down tonight.

I will have to draft a second post with more pictures for you when I get home. Till then, put on a nice clean white t-shirt for me, and go dice some veggies in your nice clean kitchen. ;)

Flashing Lights, lights, lights.

Wow, what a great 4th of July weekend. The weather cooperated in a major way as we got a weekend of beautiful sunshine and a light sea breeze in Falmouth. I even managed to swim in the ocean, you know it must've been really warm (see below for proof!)

I believe this picture was taken just AFTER Josh got in trouble with the lifeguard for a flip contest with the little girl on the platform. Perhaps Dinna and I scoring them wasn't helping either. Needless to say, B was seated firmly and securely on the beach with Mrs. Levy, SCAREDY CAT!

The barbecues were indeed plentiful and delectable. A huge shout out (again) to the Levy's for hosting us, and being so generally awesome. So glad Ando and Shazam could also join us for the occasion. Here are a few more shots to sum up the great time...

 Being "pink" with the ladies next to one of the fanciest Oak Bluff mini-houses EVAH!

 Strange grown up prom picture of us!

Renovations and Celebrations!

I guess its not looking good for this blog so far! A week with no posting :-(  Anyway, in celebration of another great week here in MA let's talk about some exciting upcoming activities...

• July 4th!! Yes, this means cool beer, hot BBQs, and the beach. The weather report seems to be lining up well for the occasion. B (my better half) and I will be guests of the lovely Levy family! Josh and his fiance are some of our most awesome friends, and after spending a weekend with his parents last year I can see where he gets it from. I'll attempt to take some pictures and post them early next week. Until then, you can find us at Shucker's in Woods Hole. 
• Kitchen Renovation!! For some reason unbeknown to us, B and I apparently have an affinity for gutting various parts of our house on major holidays (a future post will surely show our bathroom, which was ripped out last Thanksgiving). I'm guessing this phenomenon is due in part to the vacation time from work, and our collective inability to sit still for very long. Below you can see some pictures of what it looked like before I left this morning (and for the preceding three years). 

• Why yes, that IS the cheapest ugliest linoleum HD offers for sale! What a great eye you have for the aesthetically unpleasing :-) Also, please note the washing machine that is doing double duty as a countertop.

• See that big white wall of paneling there? And that ugly commercial drop ceiling (completing the black and white look)? I anticipate the disappearance of these items by COB today.  Eventually EVERYTHING will be coming out, and I can't wait to update you on our progress. But for now, I'll just let these ugly images burn your retina's for awhile. 

Well folks, gotta break for now, but I promise to be more diligent in my quest to update the world with my doings!

Geek Fest!

So it's only the first week and I'm already skipping blogging days. :( 

But if you're one of the over 1 million estimated happy new owners of the iphone4 (like me), I do believe you'll forgive me. Frankly, most of yesterday was spent "dealing with" iPhone in many steps.

1. Purchase iPhone4: As I was unable to pre-order the phone on the first day due to characteristically BAD planning on the part of AT&T wireless (and YES I'm blaming them), pre-order for pickup on day 1 was out of the question. Sadly, so was pre-order for home delivery, as they will only ship to your billing address. Naturally, my billing address is still up in the woods o' Maine (thanks M&D for supporting my technology habit, I promise to pay you back for the service), which pretty much negated the whole point. So, after some inter-office "strategery", careful blog reading, and a couple of phone calls I decided to try my luck at... wait for it......... The Shack! That's right ladies and gents your local RadioShack will be selling Iphone4. To make a long story short I am the proud owner of 1 of only 5 iPhone4's delivered to my local Shack, and the only one that was NOT purchased on pre-order. Seriously, I expect to be struck by lightening as I'm sure I have now used up a lifetime of luck. 
2. Attempt to authorize iPhone4 on home PC. --> FAIL! turns out I have to update iTunes
3. Spend approximately 1 hour "off the grid" downloading and installing iTunes 9.2, as my old 3G had already been de-activated by signing the paperwork at said Shack. 
4. Restore old settings to the new phone: Actually went quite smoothly. 
5. Add music: slow but mostly a function of the computer, not the phone. another hour essentially "off the grid" while synching
6. Time to PLAY!!! I first tried the camera, one of the enhanced features I was most excited about. Worked great until I tried to use the flash. When using the Manual flash "on" pictures starting becoming terrible and totally washed out. Perplexed, I decided to look at some other things for awhile. Eventually my little brain managed to figure out that "doh!" the flash wasn't working properly due to the protective coating I left on the back. The LED was reflecting into the plastic causing a huge amount of glare. Needless to say, camera functionality looks beautiful now. Excited to get the iMovie app and really start playing around.
7. FaceTime: Luckily, another early adopter decided to stop by for a beer on the deck, and after finagling with the wifi password we were able to trial the FaceTime feature. Yes world, in words of Beyonce and Gaga, "you can watch me on my video phone"!!! Picture quality was a little grainy, but this could be due to the poor lighting on the back deck. I'm excited to see how users end up utilizing this tool in the future. I expect that until wifi is not a requirement the full effects wont begin to materialize. Again, I blame this on AT&T and the service issues. 

Alrighty gang, i'll pick this up with more overall impressions soon! 

The Daily Grind: How I contribute to a 16 Billion dollar corporation

Trust me, there are many days when working for "the man" feels like being a single sardine in a giant ocean. There are also many days when I simply marvel at the amazing cafeteria, in-house bank, and olympic-sized swimming pool. Today is a special day because its the one day per year that my company announces the work I do to the world! So, without further ado here is the EMC Sustainability Report http://www.emc.com/collateral/magazine/h7215-sustainability-long-bro-hr.pdf  **Cheat by going straight to pages 39-41 to see my team's contributions** While reading this morning, I felt a little twinge of pride... looks like I might care more about my J-O-B then I think!

First Post: Naming the blog

Hello World! If you made it here, congrats, you're only about two clicks from the end of the Internet!

I thought I would briefly introduce myself and explain the method of naming the blog. I'll post later on "why" I decided to start a blog, after I have a better understanding of exactly why that was.

About Me: I'm 25, live in Boston, and participate in the following (note: this list is in order of approximate time spent participating, not necessarily in order of things I love to do). 

• Engineering - well technically, product compliance for a large technology firm 
• Schooling - back at my alma mater for a graduate degree in Engineering Management, whatever that is
• Dancing - teaching dance to adults and children in Brookline at www.dancefitstudio.com
• Renovating - two gut-job bathroom reno's and an upcoming kitchen blowout
• Blogging - I HOPE! 
• Other random and occasionally spastic things I'm sure you'll here about in upcoming entries?

 Now that we got that out of the way... on to the blog name. I am insanely intrigued by Alice's concept of "losing her muchness" in the new Alice in Wonderland movie. For some reason, this idea that we lose a bit of ourselves, or the selves we want to be, as we get older seems to resonate at this stage of my life. It's funny (to me) because most "great" women who speak about their lives, talk about "finding themselves". Perhaps I still have a bit more of losing myself, and rearranging myself, before I can "find" myself. 

And Massachusetts? Well, I'm sure that seems obvious. What I found interesting though, is only now am I actually associating myself with this geography. Apparently sometimes it takes eight years of adjustment to realize a place is really your new home. 

Alright, I think this is a sufficiently long post number 1. Don't want to burn myself out on the first day.