Deck refinishing, day 02

Started out today by putting more paint remover on a small section of our porch and letting it sit for a while. Then I used a paint scraper on it and blasted it with the hose. This was the result.



Better, but still less than desirable. I got really irritated with all that work for nothing, so I decided to go and paint the computer room blue.



It looks nice, but I also ended up dropping a (nearly empty) paint tray on the carpet. Got some pretty blue spots all over the corner, oops. I suck at home improvements. Oh well, we wanted to replace the carpet at some point anyway, this is just another good reason.

One of Joe's friends from work is going to let us borrow her power washer next. We'll see if that can blast off some of the paint. The porch saga continues....

Deck refinishing, day 01

Our back porch has been looking kind of shabby since this winter. When we moved in last year it was painted the same color as the house. The paint didn't stand up to the Portland rain, and has been flaking up ever since. Here's what it looked like before I started today.


We started off with some Behr brand paint stripper that was supposed to lift the paint in as little as 5 minutes. After waiting for a full half hour, we started to scrub the deck down with a push broom and blast it with water. This was the result a long time later.



I fail to see how this is better. It did take some of the paint off, but it was spotty. And I used a lot of water trying to spray it off with the hose. Not sure if it was our fault in our application or if it was the product's crappiness. And my skin did not like contact with the paint stripping chemicals, so tomorrow I'm going to go buy a sander. I heard that has better results.

Newly fixed car and hot weather

Finally got our car back this week from the 'hey welcome back from Alaska, here's a fender-bender' scenerio. Here's the before pictures.

Looks much better now with a not-smashed bumper and new paint!

In other news, we had a super warm weekend with Texas-like temperatures. The car read 101 yesterday when we were out. This is the way Jingle likes to lay around the house when she's warm. It's really funny looking.

OMG UNICORNS!!!

This awesome little deer was found in Italy. My childhood belief in unicorns has finally paid off. The news article can be found here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080611/ap_on_fe_st/italy_unicorn

crap.

Well....I was holding out hope for a game 7, and that hope came crashing down in flames last night.


The Pens lost the Stanley Cup to the Detroit Red Wings last night. Bah, I hate Detroit...stupid octopus-tossers.

Puppies everywhere!

One of the best parts about going to Alaska? There are a ton of great sled dogs everywhere!!! We found these 2 guys for sale when we stopped for the night in Tok, Alaska. They were super friendly and playful! Joe and I decided that if we moved up there, we would buy and name them Badger and Moose.


This lady raises sled dogs and had one of her new puppies. She brought him aboard our bus when we made a stop and let everyone pet him. He looked super sleepy.



One of our last days we took a trip to Jeff King's home, 4 time winner of the Iditarod race. We got to meet some of his champion racers and play with the new puppies. Below is one of the people who works there...the funny looking thing in front of her face is her microphone. I really liked the wolf-looking dog she was petting in this picture.

Here's one of the puppies I got to hold. He had really pretty eyes.



More pictures soon to follow.

Hold on, Pens!!!

Fresh back from my trip to Alaska (pictures to follow shortly), and the Pittsburgh Penguins are still scraping their way through the Stanley Cup Finals. Last night I stupidly thought they'd lost it all after the Red Wings gained a lead on them in the 3rd period, so instead of staying and getting angry at the game we decided to go to the movies and watch the new Indiana Jones movie. I really kicked myself when I got home and saw that the Pens had won in a triple overtime nail biter victory.


Still down in the series 3-2, I'm holding out hope for a game 7 victory.

On another note, the 4th Indy movie was kind of a dissapointment. Still had moments of that classic Indiana Jones movie fun that I love, but peppered with moments of, "uh....what were they thinking when they wrote this into the script??!?". Joe and I both wondered if those wierd moments came from George Lucas' writing. I think Mr. Lucas has really lost touch with what good entertainment really is.