Nothing exciting to post about today, just wanted to get used to sharing thoughts, plans, etc., more often.


This weekend is another busy one. Fixing up things around the house & yard + we have Amy-Renee's wedding to go to tonight! :)


MG & Miriam are out studying right now while Elias & I are cleaning up, fixing up and (well, Elias at least) playing in the yard.


We have a lot of projects coming up, some of which we'll post our experiences with here.


Most importantly, our 55+ year old house has horrible breathing in the attic. Ideally, you want your attic area the same temperature as the outside (within 5-10 degrees F). When we had loose fill fiberglass insulation blown into the attic, we told them we wanted soffit baffles installed so that the insulation wasn't blown to the edges of the attic. Did they? Nope. :(


On top of that, the house doesn't have soffit intake ventilation or any outgoing roof ventilation. It only has two gable vents, one each on the north and south ends of the house. That's it.


The general rule of thumb for ventilation is to take the square footage of your attic and divide by 150 to get the total amount of ventilation you need. Split the needed ventilation between the incoming and outgoing. Our current ventilation is woefully inadequate and is causing a number of problems, as you can imagine.


Ridge ventilation would be nice. Our initial plans are to move the loose insulation away from the edges and install soffit vents. Next, we'll either install a ridge vent or a solar powered exhaust vent in the north side gable vent. The north side is sunny while the south side is shaded all day.


As we go forward, hopefully we'll be able to put pictures, steps, etc., here for anyone interested.


We also have to fix leaks around the exhaust vents for the gas water heater and the fan in the 2nd bathroom, fix the gutters and the ends of the gutter drains (including regrading some of the landscaping around the back edge of the house), redo the air conditioner's PVC drain line (it comes down, goes up a little bit and then goes back downhill before even leaving the crawlspace), patch up some ducts in the crawl space, remove all the cursed privet in the back yard, etc.


Exciting.

Bonnaroo 2009

Having been to Bonnaroo once, in 2004, I was a little better prepared this time around. However, unlike in 2004, I volunteered with Kingdom Promotions through Beau Armistead in exchange for a wristband for the weekend. I met quite a few people on this trip, a number of whom lived in Birmingham and were volunteering as well. (hello Lee, Taylor, Alex, Stephanie, John, Tuesday, Travis, Kelly, etc.)

I ended up working the VIP tollbooths on Thursday, some of it during the rain. Amy Grant, a friend of hers, and their daughters, made their way through. She knows my cousin and that side of my family, so I said hello & tried not to get too chatty while helping them sort out their RV upgrade, decal, etc. (if you ever read this, hello Amy! :))

There was a lot of great music this year, too much to see all that I wanted. I took a few pictures and some video, though I didn't carry the camera or my phone around much because the weather was so iffy. Friday night there was a huge storm heading our way with large hail & 40-50 mph wind, so I left everything at the car during Phish's late night set...and, of course, the storm never made it. The skies cleared by 11:30pm.

Here's a panorama I took down in the front of the pit of What Stage just before Phish came out Sunday night to wrap up Bonnaroo:

Panorama of Phish: Bonaroo 2009: pre-show on CleVR.com

See pictures from Bonnaroo 2009.

Here are some small clips of Phish on Sunday night.
(I haven't uploaded all of the videos yet, but hope to soon. Once they're all up, I'll edit this post to reflect that.)

It was a great weekend for great beer. :) Several beers made their debut in AL this weekend (I wish Sweetwater's Happy Ending Stout would've shown up!) and a number of high gravity beers made the selection the best yet.

I forgot to take a picture of every sample I tasted, but here are all but 14 of them.

The brewfest sold out before the event started, but the logistics were handled much better this year. Looking forward to next year.

Speaking of anticipation...I'm volunteering at Bonnaroo this year. MG & I went in 2004, so this won't be too new, but there are a large number of great bands there including two nights of Phish. Volunteers work a couple of shifts, get some food, close camping & free entrance! :)

Even if it rains, it promises to be a great time...

Since it's almost Friday, I thought I'd take you on a little journey to some of the places I've lived over the years. I'm using Google Maps' Street View so you get a first hand shot of how it looks today (well, recently, at least). Each place will show the city followed by the year in which I first lived there:

(some places are not shown, b/c they're not on street view, including the past few places I've lived)

Auburn, AL 1976:


View Larger Map

Anniston, AL 1978:


View Larger Map

Auburn, AL 1985:


View Larger Map

Birmingham, AL 1987:


View Larger Map

Anniston, AL 1988:


View Larger Map

Birmingham, AL 1989:


View Larger Map

Auburn, AL 1995:


View Larger Map

Birmingham, AL 1998: (also where a friend had a wreck)


View Larger Map

Birmingham, AL 1999:


View Larger Map

Birmingham, AL 2000:


View Larger Map

Auburn, AL 2001:


View Larger Map

Washington, D.C. 2002:


View Larger Map