My big home renovation project for 2010 was tiling the kitchen floor.  If you have read previous posts, you know I dabble a bit in home improvement.  But, I think that this is the first big project that I have taken on.  I honestly never really set out to tile my own floor.  The original idea was just to demo the existing linoleum and then hire someone who knows what they are doing to tackle the rest.  But when getting estimates, we seemed to get two types:  (1) a cheap estimate from a guy without insurance, or  a (2) ridiculously high estimate from a company with insurance.  I really did not want to take a risk on option 1, and I didn’t want to triple my budget for option 2.  So, I was left going the home handyman route.

Luckily, I had a bunch of family and friends that knew what they were doing.  I got help from the wrangler, two brother in-laws, and one soon-to-be father in-law.  They basically set me on the right path and helped with a lot of the work.  If you have never tiled before, there are really just 5 steps to the process:  (1) demo the existing floor, (2) lay the backer board, (3) lay the tiles, (4) grout the tiles, and (5) seal the floor.  Out of these steps, I think that step 2 is really the most time consuming.  This really surprised me.  In all the videos, it seemed to be the most straight-forward step.  But, in reality, this took a lot of time.  In our kitchen, we were installing the tile around existing fixtures, so we had to make a lot of cuts.  Surprisingly, this was easier with the tile, because of their relatively small size.  With the backer board, it seemed like we were always making crazy “L” shaped cuts to get it the board to fit.  We used a jigsaw for most of these cuts, and the board really teared through the bits.  After we got the backer board down, the rest of the process went pretty smooth.  I did run into a few problems with tiles not being the same size (1-2mm makes a difference).  But, I rectified this by measuring the tiles before laying each and throwing out the inconsistent ones.

Before laying tile, I got a lot of good advice.  Such as (1) don’t worry if it looks a little off before grouting, because the grout will make it look better, (2) make sure to seal the floor with a good 30 year sealer, and (3) take your time.  I would add to the list, (1) make sure to clean the dried mud from the cracks really well before grouting and (2) prepare to spend a couple weeks on this if you are not doing it full time.  I honestly thought that this was a weekend project and it turned out to take a couple weekends to get it complete.

So, with all of that said, here are the results.

Before (after demo):

After:

Some nice transition details:

Man, this was a busy weekend. I attended a wedding shower on Friday, went to my Sister’s and brother-in-law’s barbecue on Saturday, and hosted a small family barbecue on Sunday. I ate tons of good food and even got to see some Final Four action. Speaking of the final 4, I won the “Loser’s bracket”—an annual bracket hosted by Nick—by picking out 3 of the final 4 teams, and successfully picking the final 3 games. My coup d’état was picking Michigan State to go to the finals against the unstoppable force that is North Carolina. If you were wondering, my prize was $0. It is impossible for me to win a bracket that I actually put money down on, so this win seems about right.

If you were wondering what that picture is above, that little surprise was awaiting me when cleaning out my grill on Sunday.  I jumped about 10 feet in the air when I opened the door.  Her tentative name is Weber.  But, I think I scared her about as much as she scared me, so I do not think we will see lil’ Weber for awhile.  I spent nearly 2 hours cleaning the mess, so I hope she doesn’t find her way back into her makeshift apartment.

Anyways, that is about it for the weekend.

Finally, we had nice weather in St. Louis and I tried to take full advantage of it.  To start the weekend off, I took a half day on Friday.  It is impossible to concentrate on the first nice Friday of the year anyways.  I started the afternoon with a good workout, then went with my girlfriend to a local fish fry.   We ended the night at the Royale—a nice little south city bar with a great patio area.  The Hoff was in attendance, along with Mike and a few other hooligans.

Saturday turned out to be another nice day.  My girlfriend and I headed up to the park for a jog.  I managed to eek out a little over a mile while coming to the realization that running outside on an uneven surface was a lot harder than the treadmill.  Later that night, I headed to the Wrangler’s house for the first barbecue of the year.  That barbecue turned into a night at the Mack in South City (sorry, no website for the Mack—email me if you are interested in setting one up).

Sunday, I woke up a little groggy, but, I managed to get some quality time in with the family.  My niece—little Addy—said my name a few times.  She still pronounces it closer to “Map” than to “Matt”, but I like that better anyways.

So, that is about it.  Got a weekend wrap-up in, and was able to advertise my virtually non-existent, free-lance website development business.  That is a good wrap-up.

If this works, this will be my first entry from my Nokia e71. I am testing an app called Scribe. while I don’t think a smart phone is the ideal platform for blogging, it certainly provides a lot of flexibility. I am sure it will come in handy when I am down in Austin next week. Note: the photo above is the first photo I took from the phone. I am still trying to figure the camera out too.

Weekend update—So, I forgot to write a weekend update this week.  And, it actually was a pretty good weekend.  I went out to eat for my Birthday (Chevy’s…delicious), hung out with Mike and some college kids on Saturday (after Mardi Gras…I didn’t go…too cold), and went to a family party on Sunday.  What I learned from this weekend is that apparently “everyone has a Blackberry” or so the college kids told me.  I had no idea.

Nokia E71—I have finally decided on my first smart phone.  By the lead in, you probably guessed that it was the Nokia E71.  No, I am not planning on moving to Europe.  I chose this phone for a couple reasons:  (1) I love the candy-bar QWERTY form factor, (2) it was unlocked, and (3) it seemed to get great reviews across the board.  Before choosing the E71, I narrowed my choices down to three devices: the Blackberry Bold, the Samsung Blackjack 2, and the E71.  The Bold was my first choice, but I was unsure on whether I wanted to sign a two year contract and did not want to pay $600 for the unlocked version.  The Blackjack 2 looks pretty cool and came unlocked for around $230.  I was almost swayed by its multiple appearances on Fringe, but after comparing the reviews and watching a bunch of videos on Youtube, I thought that overall the Nokia E71 was worth the extra $100.  So, I guess I am going a bit Euro and trying out my first Nokia S60 device.  I will post my impressions later.  I am still waiting on Amazon to ship the device.

Lost—I am two episodes behind.  I hope to catch up tonight.  So, no one tell me what happened…seriously.

Mizzou Basketball—Apparently, the Tigers are pretty good this year.  I had watched a couple games earlier in the season, but have not seen a whole lot of games lately.  It does not look like ESPN (or the other major networks) have been picking up their games yet.  I had a feeling Mike Anderson would turn the program around, but not this fast.  So, congrats are in order for the Tigers and Anderson.  I am really looking forward to March Madness now.

Following on what Eric and Nick wrote, here are my personal goals in no particular order:

1. Graduate with my MBA—This is a real short term goal of mine, as I am on currently in my last class.  But, I figured I would add it to the list.

2. Develop a tangible skill—Given that my undergraduate is in Computer Science and I will soon have a business graduate degree, I figure that my professional career for the foreseeable future will revolve around these two fields.  But, I have always wanted to develop a tangible skill outside of my career to serve as a creative outlet.  In the past, I have tried my hand at art (drawing, painting, etc) and woodworking.  I would like to pick both of these up again and really work at crafting these interests into a skill.

3. Learn more about home improvement—I have dabbled a bit in painting, construction, and electrical.  But, I wanted to improve my knowledge in all areas of home improvement.  Part of the reason is because it interests me, but a secondary reason is because I am considering renting my townhouse and would really like to know the basics of construction, electrical, and plumbing to help control costs.

4. Marriage, kids, pets, etc.—As I continue to get older, I continue to want to have some more stability in my life.  I do see marriage, kids, and pets in my future.

5. Travel—I would like to travel some more.  I have yet to go to another country (other than across the border in Mexico).  So, I think that would be a good experience.  If I had to pick one place to visit, it would be England.  I have always enjoyed products of their culture (music, movies, etc.), and would like to see the country in person.

So, there you go…5 goals.  That is much more than I thought I had earlier in the day.  Thanks for tagging me Nick.

Today I turn 29 years old.  Fittingly, I plan to spend the day at work and then going to class for 3 hours.  I do plan on taking a day off for my birthday, but not today.  At 29, I have a great girlfriend, family, and group of friends.  I have a good job that I enjoy.  And, I am approximately 12 classes away from graduating with my MBA.  I own a car and a house.  I stand about 5′11″ and weigh nearly a buck-eighty-five.  My main hobby (unfortunately) is going to school—it takes up a lot of time.  But, when I am not doing that, I spend a lot of time working around my house.  I have painted nearly all of it in the last 3 months (with the help of my girlfriend) and have even built a desk (with the help of my dad).  I also spend at least some time working on my computer (although, admittedly a lot less than I did in the past).  This year, I built a computer (assembled would probably be a better word) and created this blog.  Looking forward, I really have not set that many goals for the upcoming year.  Of course,  I want to graduate.  But besides that, I would like to learn a little bit more about woodworking and home improvement (electrical, tiling, plumbing, etc.).  I would also like to learn more about grilling and other forms of cooking.

Anyways, that is enough self-indulgence for today.  Happy Birthday, me!

This weekend seemed really short.  I would have really liked to have a 3-day weekend for President’s Day, but unfortunately I do not.  Despite its seemingly short length, the weekend was a lot of fun.  I hung out with Eric and Mike on Friday, my girlfriend on Saturday (of course, it was Valentine’s day), and got a lot of shopping and work done on Sunday.  So, good times were had overall.  I will wrap this post up with a bit about tanks and TV.

Tanks—On Friday night and Saturday morning, I fed my new addiction to Tanks on Wii.  My fellow combatant—the Hoff—helped me out on Friday, and I flew solo the next day.  The game is actually a lot tougher with two people because you only have 1 chance per board, wheareas in the single player version you actually get 3 lives.  Both times, I got stuck on level 10(?) where your enemies have bouncing rockets.  I get really intimidated by those things.  Tanks is really a great game.  I need to introduce it to the Wrangler.  It is like a classic flash game on Wii.  Although, I think that if he played it once, we would not see him for 3 months.

TV—Last night, I finally got to catch up on some TV watching.  The two shows I watched of note last night were Lost and Fringe.  Eric provides his thoughts on his This Place is Depth wrapup, so I am not going to go into too much depth.  What I did find interesting is that Jack’s father was in a casket during the first crash on the island and he now represents Jacob, and it appears that Locke will be brought back to the island the second time around in a casket.  I wonder if he will assume the roll of Jacob in future episodes.  Overall, the show continues to get more-and-more interesting.  On a similar note, Fringe continues to get better-and-better.  The last episode tied Walter to the technology manifesto which seems to be the background for all of the events.  I had a feeling that he would prove to be pivotal in explaining all these events.  But, it looks like now he did not start the events through his experiments, but rather,  he observed what was happening and possibly tried to stop it through his experiments.  Overall, I found the underlying story of the manifesto (the idea that there are two dimensions pitted against each other for survival) quite interesting.  Fringe is slowly turning into a great show.

Man, I really need to stop starting weekend wrap-up posts half way through the week.  The last weekend (plus a few days) has been relatively productive.  I have been doing a lot of reading for school, went out to eat for the first time in 2+ weeks, installed Windows 7, been productive at work, and even painted my kitchen.  Overall though, not too much elaboration is necessary, so I figured I would wrap this post up with a breakdown of diet and my first impressions of Windows 7.

Diet Wrapup—This morning I weighed myself and I weighed 185 for the first time since early last year.  That means that I have lost around 15lbs. over the course of the last 3 weeks.  As of last Friday, the diet is officially over.  I am now focusing on creating healthy eating patterns inspired mainly by the low GI theory—that certain carbs raise blood glucose and insulin levels and contribute to weight gain.    I am hoping to continue to lose weight, but am not going to focus on it.  As for my other goals… last night, I went to the gym and was able to bench 185.  I am pretty confident that over the course of the diet, I have not lost any strength.  So, this helps meet one of my original goals.  Also, I ran a little over a mile last night.  My goal for the diet was to be able to run 2 miles, so I am still a bit short of that goal.  While I have not met that goal, my mile is much faster than it was in the past.  So, I am encouraged by the progress but will need to do some more work to be able to build my stamina.  So, that is it.  Overall, it was a good experience.  I really do not want to do it again, because it was a lot of work and a bit stressful at times.  Hopefully, I can create some lasting change in my dietary habits to allow me to continue to move toward a healthy weight.

Windows 7—Last night I finally got everything in place to be able use Windows 7.  My first impression is Wow.  I remember seeing Vista for the first time in Best Buy and thinking that the OS was cool, but not a huge departure from XP. Windows 7 is completely different. Windows 7 extends on a lot of the eye candy of Vista and actually makes it useful.  The new taskbar combines the simplicity of the OSX dock with the productivity of the Windows environment.  After using it for an hour, it is really  hard to go back to an XP or Vista machine.  So overall, I have been very impressed by the beta.  Now, I just hope I do not have to wait a long time for the full version.

That is about it.  On to another week.

I am back from a two week hiatus.  I have been pretty busy with the start of my final semester of graduate school.  Overall, the last two weeks were pretty normal.  I went to work, did a lot of homework, worked out when I got a chance, played a game of football, and began painting the bottom level of my house.  So, this two week edition of weekend wrap-up will probably be short.  With that said, if I had to apply two themes to my last two weeks, they would be:  the diet and football (more specifically, the Superbowl).  So, without further delay…

The Diet—I have been on the Hoff diet (no carb, multiple servings of vegetables per day, and caffeine prior to working out) for 15 days.  Honestly, the beginning of the diet was pretty tough.  It was hard to break from my regular eating pattern.  I even had periodic headaches for the first day or two.  But, after that everything seemed to shape up.  I have already lost over 10 pounds.  I started between 200 and 205 and now weigh between 188 and 192 (depending on the time of day).  Overall, it has been a positive experience.  I have noticed that I have more energy, fewer stomach issues, and more motivation.  Whether this is related to the diet or is psychological, I cannot say.  But overall it has been a positive experience.

Superbowl—Lets start with the negatives.  If everyone can agree on one thing, it was that the Superbowl was a horribly officiated game.  The missed block in the back on the Harrison run back, the questionable “no-review” of the last play of the game, and not throwing Harrison out of the game for beating down an o-linemen on (inter-)national TV are just a few examples.  Honestly, if any of these calls would have went the Cardinals way, they would have won the game.

Now, on to the positives.  This was a good game.  Two years in a row we have been treated to quality football games.  Both Warner and Roethlisberger played great.  And, the receiver’s duel between Holmes and Fitzgerald was fun to watch.  The great debate on St. Louis radio is whether this game is one of the greatest to date.  While I think this is very subjective, I would have to say no.  Most people will remember the catch, but I think a lot of people (specifically Cardinal fans) will remember the horrible officiating.  That memory probably will not have lasting appeal.

So, that is about it.  On to another week.