All there but the stairs

Getting close. Everything is done except the stair railings and the stair fascia. And then there is a few trips to the dump worth of clean-up. It looks pretty good.

Deck progress

After taking the railings, decking and stairs off the deck, it was time to prepare to put everything back. I had decided that I could make the deck really nice looking if I used one of the semi-new undermount deck systems. I had to screw down 120 plates, each with 10 screws. These attach to the joists and will later attach the decking from below. Simple math would say 120 x 10 = 1200 screws. Yeah, but I am an idiot and I put some on wrong. I had to unscrew 200 and put them back in again.



The railing posts are now bolted in place and with dad and Colleen's help, we got the decking on and screwed down. This is 29 boards, each with 32 screws, all done from the space under the deck.



The good news about having done all these stupid screws is that I end up with nice, long Trex boards with no visible screws or nails. Nothing to pop loose or catch a foot on. God I hope this lasts a very long time!



Now on to the stairs, the fascia and the railings. It's the home stretch.

A bit of stone, inside and out.

The tile guys have been busy. This is in one of the guest bathroom showers.



The first signs of the external stone. It is probably hard to tell, but the stone has a lot of lichen on it. Should that be lichens? Any way, it gives it that natural look we wanted.

This week's (month's) project

We replaced one deck in our back yard with a screen porch. The older deck was really looking bad. The decking boards were splintering and pulling up. The railings were warping. Therefore, the project is redoing the deck. Fortunately the support boards are in good shape. I am going with Trex decking, which is a plastic composite. It looks nice, mostly wood-like, but last forever without having to be treated. Yeah!!

Some views of the outside

Nothing too much to see other than the color and the style. Still lots missing until all the stone goes up. The last picture will be the patio under the deck. It is covered and has a tongue and groove ceiling. Keeps the snow off the hot tub. Yeah!

Drywall in the Park City house

Our builder was kind enough to send some pictures of our houses interior. The drywall is just about complete and the insulation is in. Actually, I guess we are justing trusting that the insulation is in since we can't see it.

This is the view of our living room, looking from the kitchen.



This is from the kitchen, looking out the dining room window.



This is downstairs in the family room. You can see part of the fireplace and down the hall to some bedrooms.



Our lovely garage. Above and to the left of the windows is a drop-down. This is where they hid the four 250,000 BTU boilers for the snow melt system for the driveway. That's a lot of heat.



That's all for now. Tile work is starting and the cabinets are about to go into production. The siding and stone are going up on the outside. Perhaps we can get some pictures of that sometime soon.

Visiting the farm

I started Ganymede Software with three friends, Tim Huntley, John Walker and Peter Schwaller. Tim was chosen as our president because of his serious interest in the business side of the business. Now that we have left Ganymede and NetIQ, we have all gone separate ways. I would have to say that Tim has diverged the most, going from hard driving financial negotiations to a private farm on 10 acres.

This week Julie and I went to visit Tim, Jenny, their two boys, and their farm animals.

They have three goats, two babies and a one year old. This is a picture of Clover (on the rock) and Ivy (on the ground). Little goats are like little puppies. They are lovable, follow you around, and pout if they aren't given enough attention.



This is a trick the goats taught Jenny. They get Jenny to get down on all fours and Ivy hops up on top. Tuck, the oldest, is getting in on the game.


Tim, styling in his official farm dude straw hat, is walking back to the barn (he built by hand) to milk the goat. "Tim milking a goat" is a phrase I wouldn't have ever believed I would say.


Can't have a farm without chickens. They have eighteen chickens and a rooster. Each day they get about a dozen gorgeous eggs. Because the chickens aren't fed all the processed crap the would get on a big chicken farm, the eggs have a very different color, an almost orange yolk.



While I didn't photograph all the produce sections, they have fruit trees, blue berries, lettuce, tomatoes, and many other things. We had an excellent vegetarian dinner included sweet potatoes, lettuce and asparagus, all from the gardens. Delicious!

Construction in the spring

Well, at least they are working inside now. After a wave of days in the 60s, another snow storm hits Park City.

Heading for home

Well, spring is here and it is time to head back to Raleigh. After a lot of snow in late February, we basically switched over to May weather. We had almost no snow and temperatures that were a lot warmer than normal. For Julie and I, this meant very little skiing. It just isn't much fun in the slush. Perhaps the worst thing was the picture in today's Park Record. People coming down the town lift in Park City were told to take off their skis and snowboards. There wasn't enough snow at the base to safely get off the lift. The Park City golf course opened yesterday, several weeks ahead of schedule.

The house is moving along well. So much of the progress is inside, which doesn't show well in pictures. Here is one of the outside. The big changes are that the fascia is up and the roof is shingled (or will be today). Makes it look more like a house, but the big jump should be when we return. The house will be sided and the stone will be up. We shall see.

Off to Raleigh!!

Tony and Colt Hudson come visit

Tony and Colt live two doors down from us back in Raleigh. They came out to visit and to see some snow. Unfortunately, we have been having a long run of warm temperatures and no snow. More like May then March. Just the same, we found some for Colt that you could never run across in Raleigh.

After meeting them at the airport we went for a visit to Antelope Island. This island is 18 miles long, 3 miles wide and rises thousands of feet out of the Great Salt Lake. We did some hiking, saw some bison, and found a really cool skull of a deer.



On our most structured of the snow days, we took Colt to one of the local tubing hills. The warm weather meant slushier trails, which meant slower tubing. But it was fun! Why they don't open the tubing hills first thing in the morning is beyond me.



We needed to find Colt some deep snow. He had built two forts using what we had left in our back yard, but that was pretty meager. We headed up to Guardsman Pass, right beside the Deer Valley Bandana ski run. The snow was several feet deep and Colt spent about four hours on each of two days, digging a massive tunnel/igloo. Quite impressive. While he was busy working, Tony and I threw snowballs to Jasper (the dog). The dog played fetch for four hours and still wanted to play more as we walked back to the car.



This is the Park City sign up at Guardsman Pass. From here, you can see miles in all directions. In summer you can pop straight down into Big Cottonwood Canyon, but in winter it is for snowmobiles and skiers only.



Tony and Colt went to visit with a long time NC friend who also lives in Park City. They did more snow digging and then headed indoors to Kamas for a pool with a big slide. I think a good time was had by all. Just wish we could have offered our normal depths of snow without having to drive hunting for it.