2011 - The Year of the Sink Meat

This is how 2011 started: with browned hamburger and a beer can, New Years gifts from the former inhabitants of the fixer-upper that has now been fixed up! After that cleanup job the year just got better and better. I made friends with the best electrician and sandwich maker in the county. I've learned how to re-key locks, lots of them. I travelled to New York, Palm Beach, Tampa, St. Louis, San Francisco, Ames, New Brunswick and Minneapolis. I ate the best freshly caught Grouper that I've ever had in my entire life in Matlaiche, Florida. Dr. G extracted an unwanted canteloupe from my reproductives and I lived to tell the tale. We saw glowing waves from the spectacular effect of bio-chemical energy during the red tide. Eveline came to San Diego and we whisked each other off to Venice Beach and my favorite cafe, Intelligentsia. Our new room-moose is tidy, hilarious, and very chicken parmigiana literate. Last but not least and best of all my brother and sister-in-law had a baby, the first grandchild and the first nephew. Thanks to all of the ancestors, spirits, deities, jesus, god, sister agnes, friend, family, strangers, cats, birds, dogs and self-efficacy that made this year so abundant.

Se Renta

Available for rent 1/1/2012 - $1,795 + utilities, located in Normal Heights just threee blocks north of Adams Ave. in a quiet residential neighborhood.

• 2br, 1ba, 1100 SF


• Front house of a 2-on-1 property


• Spacious kitchen and bath


• Central Air conditioning and Heat


• 2 car garage included


• Shared patio


• Hardwood floors and tile


• No pets and No smokers

Note: Rear tenants have two large dogs in a private fenced rear yard

Last Summer in Venice

I just like this photo a lot. It's about how Eveline sees the world through sushi.

SAN to PBI

Despite delays, security lines and compressed seating, I still believe flying is a privilege. To move at such great speeds and linger amongst clouds is a wish granted. Birds know, we wish to have their earthly perspective. Not knowing impossibility, we have found it.

More before and after photos

I finally have before and after pictures of my second job which I still work on evenings and weekends. This is Phase I of our fixer-upper project which I'm doing on a shoestring budget acting as contractor and owner. The kitchen countertop came from my neighbor's backyard scrap pile. The polycarbonate sheeting lining the shower was in the discount bin at Ridout plastics. The hardwood floors were resuscitated with a rented drum sander from Home Depot. Most of the paint came from yard sales. I took out a double-sided wall heater and replaced it with a single-sided facing the hallway so the painted yellow stripes serves as a reminder not to put a hole into the heating duct. The best part of this construction venture was issuing my own certificate of occupancy in the form of handing keys to the new tenants. A big thanks goes out to the project team - Andrea, Mary, John, Shane, Dante & Deron.

stumps and blocks

The three lonely palm tree stumps have been put to good use as pedestals for our new house numbers. What's more fun on a Friday night than making numbers out of stray blocks? Wait, you don't need to answer that.

*Cutting by Deron's custom demolition saw

Area 51

It's incredibly satisfying to think of outside the box ideas and see them come to life. In this case, they came to life on the first attempt with the help of my expert fabricator, Deron Miller. I've always liked polycarbonate panels and all the shapes and cell sizes they come in. I picked up an 8 mm sheet in the scrap bin of a local supplier for $15 but had to buy two more sheets at the tune of $60 each. It's still less than one of those cookie cutter plastic shower enclosures. The most difficult of the installation was the scribing and cutting. There were no straight walls in this bathroom!