Learning Curve to Rock to.

While many people probably think this isn't true, I've learned something important in the past year of living with Hayley (in sin!). I've learned that we like to learn things in 2 very different ways. I like to try to figure things out with as little outside help as possible. She likes to have her questions answered so she doesn't have to figure things out.
I get this from my dad. Any time I had to ask him a question about something, he'd typically reply with something like "how do you think you should do it?", "how do you think it works?", and the like. He'd guide me along the way, but he really wanted to make sure I was using my brain to figure it out on my own. And I'm very thankful he did it. I learned quite a bit about how to figure things out and how to reason things. Probably the reason I became an engineer.
However, Hayley doesn't appreciate that. If she asks how something works, she wants to be told how it works. She doesn't want to spend time thinking it through and making guesses and what not. And no, she doesn't appreciate guessing incorrectly. (yes, I've officially crossed a line here and probably won't walk away unscathed at this point. So I might as well just finish the job...) My feeling is this comes from her desire to not be wrong. I'm not saying she's a no-it-all that always has to be right. Far from it. But she does enjoy being right and doesn't like being wrong. It's hard to get her to guess at anything for fear that she'll be horribly wrong in her estimation. Oh, she claims that's not the answer, but we both know it is.
Hmmm...I thought I had somewhere I was going with all of this. Learning...different styles... I don't know.
I've been giving the task of assembling the CDs to be used during our cocktail hour and the band's breaks. Hayley has given me some songs she wants to be on it, and does have veto power, but I feel I'm putting together one hell of a great set. I want to bring the rock for the cocktail hour, mellow it out during the breaks. No, that doesn't mean I'm bringing any metal to the party, although some Chimaira would really kick things up a notch. Some of my choices will seem a bit odd, but that's because I do have some random songs that I wanted to get in. Songs that are meaningful to me and I want played. I might be the only person who'll look up at the speaker and say "awesome" when they come on, and that's fine with me. It's my f'n wedding and I can do what I want to. Our wedding. It's ourwedding. My bad. And I've never been one to go with convention at any point in my life. Why should I stop just because I've been saddled with a ball & chain?! Pssshhh, that thing can't stop me; it can only hope to slow me down a little bit. And yes, I'll have copies available to anyone who'd like one.
Man, 12 days from right now I'll be married and partying down at the reception. At least I hope so!! I feel like I should be doing something more single-like than blogging and watching "Two and a Half Men". I have 12 days to go and I'm not putting it to any kind of good use. Kinda sad. Eh, whatever.
Oh right, I remember where the learning thing was going to go. I've also learned that we both fall prey to the game of "(S)he Said/(S)he Heard". Case in point...Friday afternoon I did something to my lower back, which is apparently made of some kind of cracker, and couldn't really walk so good all weekend. Yet the lawn really needed to be mowed. Hayley said, "Do you need me to mow the lawn for you?" I heard, "Would you like me to rip off your testicles and give them a quick spin in this food processor?" It hurt, but I mowed it. And then I laid down for a bit. Not cause it hurt alot, because I was tired. That's all. Just tired.
And no, I don't really want to know what Hayley is hearing as she's reading this. I should probably start working on an apology...

When 97 is Better than 117

I came to some good pondering yesterday while taking a shit and consoling myself after a brutal Cubs loss (12-7 to the Reds). I uttered to myself, “oh well, you can’t win ‘em all and it’s not like we’re going after 116.” 116 being the MLB records for wins in a season, set originally by the 1906 Cubs and tied by the 2001 Mariners. This then got me thinking about how those teams have done. I remember the Mariners getting bounced quickly by the Yankees in ’01 (4-1 after going to 5 games in round one vs. the Indians) and remember other teams in other sports get embarrassed in the play-offs after waltzing through the regular season. In fact, of the 14 best MLB season records of all time, only 5 ended up champions. So it would appear to be a detriment to walk through your regular season without any real challenges.

Even though at first that seems counter-intuitive, that makes perfect sense to me. I’m going through a similar thing right now with hockey. After not playing any live, competitive games for 11 months due to my surgery, it’s hard to stoke that competitive fire right away. It’s like you forget how to really focus and buckle down. In the case of baseball, when you’ve been a lock for the division for a month, you don’t really go balls-out in a losing game. Why risk hurting yourself when the only thing you’re chasing is a record that doesn’t mean much? So when you’ve got your back put against the wall suddenly in the play-offs, you struggle to really get moving and do something. You get sloppy and make mistakes. You get over-matched by players with ½ the talent.

In fact, you see a similar effect when teams have a long lay-off b/t playoff series. If you sweep in team in 4 games, then have to wait a week while the other guys go 7 games, teams are often noticeably sloppier in that first game. Some teams are affected more than others, but you can see it in pretty much everyone if you know to look for it.

On the flip side, you don’t want to have to scratch and claw your way into the playoffs right up until the last day. While your players are well versed in playing under pressure and finding ways to win, that’s a lot of stress on everyone and you start to wear down. In addition, you can’t take a week to get your pitching rotation. And that becomes very important in a 5-game series. If you have to use your ace in game 162 just to make the playoffs, you may only get to use him 1 time in your opening series. And all of your bullpen guys and position players are going to be tired and stressed from the race to the finish. Ideally you like to give your big guys a day or 2 off in that last week so they’re fresh. Not too many days, which should be obvious by now. (Re-read the previous paragraph if you don’t know why.) You want fresh arms, fresh legs, and fresh minds going into the playoffs. Fresh, but still knowing what it means to battle for a close game and win.

In case you’re wondering, as I was, how dominating the ’08 Cubs would need to be to tie their franchise’s own record…they’d have to go 61-9 the rest of the way to get to 116. So after winning at a 0.598 clip thus far (on pace for 97 wins), they’d have to jump to a .871 clip to tie their record. I don’t see that happening. Nor do I want that to happen. I want them to cruise to a comfortable NL-best record for the #1 seed, allowing them to give guys some needed rest, without losing their drive. I really don’t need a repeat of last year, and this year the playoffs won’t coincide with my sister’s wedding. That gave me a welcome distraction from the agony last year.

And everyone mark October 14 on their calendars. That’s the official 100 year anniversary of the last Cubs World Series Victory. I can’t give you an exact time yet, but I’m working on it. Seems they didn’t keep highly detailed box scores back in aught-8.

AL Pitchers Aren't Men

Nope, AL pitchers are apparently not real men. And while I've always pretty much believed that, it's finally been confirmed by an AL owner. Hank's Rant. And since reading is for suckers, let me be a bit more specific. Hank's feelings on the NL not using the designated hitter (DH):

"I've got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He's going to be out. I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."

5-year-olds playing t-ball can run the bases without getting hurt. Position players do it thousands of times a year without getting hurt. Do some suffer freak injuries doing it? Sure. But it's a very small percentage. Like 1 guy every couple years.
And to his "rule from the 1800s" jab, the vast majority of baseball's rules are from the 1800s. Let's see if we can examine a few from the original rules published in 1845:

1. The ball must be pitched, and not thrown, for the bat.
2. A ball knocked out of the field, or outside the range of first or third base, is foul.
3. Three balls being struck at and missed and the last one caught is a hand out; if not caught is considered fair, and a striker is bound to run.
4. A player running the base shall be out, if the ball is in the hands of an adversary on the base, or the runner is touched with it before he makes his base; it being understood, however, that in no instance is a ball to be thrown at him.
5. Players must take their strike in a regular turn.

Those are all rules that are from the 1800s and haven't changed a bit. Have you ever heard Hank complain about the "3 strikes, you're out" rules after someone Ks to lose a big game? Or if someone is out at first on a routine ground ball because of rule #4? So why target the lack of a DH in the National League when the DH is the latest rules change to baseball, and put in to address the "dead ball era" and generate more offense. That was addressed via a change to the height of the mound in 1969, and through modern advances in strength training and bat technology. Batters today work out year-round to work on their baseball skills, as opposed to having normal jobs in the off-season as in days of yore. Modern bats are lighter and stronger than ever before, meaning they can swing faster and the ball jumps off of the bat like never before.
I've never liked the DH rule. It just seems silly that 1 player on a team is allowed to become a 1-trick pony.
It's not football; you don't have a 2-platoon methodology. I recently heard it put even better: "No player should be allowed to show up to the ballpark and not even need a mitt." Yeah, these guys can hit. And yes, most pitchers can't. But some are actually pretty good hitters. And the majority of the rest enjoy going up there and doing what every other player on the team gets to do, even if they aren't so good.
It also adds a whole new level of managerial skills to the game. If it's a close game in the 7th and the pitcher's spot is coming up, do you pinch-hit for him and go to the bullpen? Or how about when you bring a reliever in mid-inning. If you know the 9-spot is coming up your next time at bat, you could insert the relief pitcher somewhere else, substitute for a position player in the 9th spot to replace whomever was in the spot the pitcher is now. For you AL guys, it's what's referred to as the double switch.
I understand Hank is frustrated at losing one of his best pitchers. But don't shit on what amounts to baseball ethics because your players are girl. Check that, even girls can run the bases without getting hurt. I guess he feels his pitchers all deserve to be in the Special Olympics. Those are really the only people I can see regularly hurting themselves jogging on flat, manicured ground. But hey, who am I to criticize someone who's put together far and away the highest payroll in baseball to build a 3rd place team.
Done and done.

Men are from Mars, Lesbians are from Lesbos.

Seriously. There is a Greek island, Lesbos.
I first heard about this via Opie & Anthony a few weeks ago when the citizens of said island were complaining about the direction their name has gone. How about you feel if your nationality shared a name with the potentially hot homosexual pairing?! But alas, my memory doesn't really work yet when I'm driving to work so I forgot all about it. Until today! I forget when and where it came up, maybe lunch, but it did.

Since I know most of you only read enough of the wiki page to figure out if I was full of shit or not, I'll fill you in with some details. To try and keep things clear, I will use the good English practice of capitalizing Lesbian when talking about the nationality and won't capitalize lesbian when talking about the sexual preference. Yes, this is just so I can make the easy jokes.

Now it's not a completely random association between the island and female homosexuality. Seems like quite a few of the poems penned by Sappho, who was a Lesbian, showed some strong sexual feelings towards other women. This Lesbian might have been a lesbian!! And so the link b/t Lesbos and woman-on-woman action was formed. Much to the demise of the Lesbos' current residents! Seems they're getting a little tired of it. The pilgrimages by lesbian couples, the laughs and taunts, the mocking from the other Aegean islands.
In fact, they're so sick of it, they've decided to sue lesbians to stop them from using their name! Lesbians vs. lesbians They claim that allowing gay women to use their nationality to reference themselves is insulting to their identity. Even worse, how do you explain that to a small child? I'm sure most children are going to get curious about why all those strange, non-Greek women are calling themselves Lesbians. Or is it lesbians? To quote one of the Lesbians involved in the trial:

"I have a hard time explaining to my daughter that we Lesbians are not homosexuals. My mother, my sister and my daughter are all Lesbians and it's incredible the amount of ridicule they suffer because of this,"

So true! So very true.
Lucky for everyone involved the court is committed to getting us a verdict within 2 months. Which then creates a pretty sizable problem of policing their decision, should it go against the lesbians. How do you stop the rest of the world from using it? I still say WWF when talking about the wrestling organization, and that's much less entertaining than thinking about young, sexy lesbians! Do you walk around handing out tickets to everyone that uses lesbians? Will people still click on spam emails advertising hot, soapy, Lesbians? I'm sure the island does have some lookers, but probably not what they need to have to support a porn business. Anna, you reading this? What is the legal precedent here?
And what's next? Is someone going to go after NAMBLA next? How would you even find members to sue? They aren't exactly an "out-there" group.
But don't fret people. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on how it goes. Is anyone interesting in creating a Lesbian vs lebian betting pool?

Wrong on so Many Levels

I'm finally ready to share a disturbing event I was a part of last week. It was early in the day. I had just gotten to work and went to my yahoo home page. There was a headline of a story that implied there were pictures of the Pussycat Dolls dressed inappropriately. How could I resist?! So I go there to check it out and sure enough there was. But right next to them in the gallery was a picture of a...portly girl clearly taking her turn on the 'red carpet' at some event. She is apparently some big name in rock, yet I'd never seen her. Beth Ditto.
I proceed to do what any normal person would do and I see if wikipedia can help me out at all. Of course it does. Singer of a band Gossip. Lesbian and outspoken activist for gay rights. In a relationship with a "transman". At this point my brain realizes that we may be in trouble. Yet in my pre-coffee daze I stupidly keep reading. Mark isn't on GoogleTalk yet, so what else can I do?! Until I get to this mind-stopping quote:
"Ditto posed nude for On Our Backs, a women-run lesbian erotica magazine. "It was a big moment in my life," she told Curve magazine. "It was kind of a radical thing to do. I got my period just 10 minutes before we got there, and I was totally bleeding. I was doing it with my tranny boyfriend, who I’m in love with, and I was totally bleeding — how radical is that? — and I’m a fat person, and I’m a femme. It felt really good."
After recoiling in hour at what I had just read, Mark finally showed up and said 'hi' at the exact wrong moment. And after I share that lovely quote with him, he decided to fire back a shot of his own. This:


Touche. I proceeded to stare blankly at my screen for a good 30 seconds while my brain rebooted enough for me to get that awful image off my monitor.
Oh, did I mention that she also doesn't shave her pits or wear deodorant? Cause somehow not wearing deodorant is a feminist thing. Smelling like a bum in summer when you're out in public is her way of showing that she won't be oppressed by men.
And of course there's the issue of her weight. I'm thrilled she can be confident and happy even those she's at an unhealthy weight. That's just awesome. And she smokes. Even better! Why she needs to flaunt that, I really don't know. If I were to put on my psychology pants, I'd say she was over-compensating or she realizes that without doing that no one is going to give 2 shits about her, save for her friends and family. But certainly no media coverage for her activism. But maybe that's just the pants talking. They are known to do that. Why she can't maintain a healthy weight and still maintain her identity, I'll never care. But here we are. I'm no model, nor do I want to be. There's no way I can eat and drink the things I love and pull it off. Not until I can score a high-paying job that let's me work out and play sports all day. While those do exist, I'm horribly under-qualified for them. But what I can do is eat well and exercise and not keep myself at an unhealthy weight. But I think we've covered that ad nausem already.
So yeah, that was the opening to a morning last week. What morning I'm not sure. I've really tried to forget as much as I can. But alas, enough lingered that I had to find alternate outlets. I'm a wizard when it comes to ignoring and burying bad emotions. (does Jack ring a bell to anyone?) Why am I sharing this now? Cause I like to spread the pain around. You hurt me, I'll hurt a bunch of my friends.
ENJOY!!

Cubs-Dodgers Musings

So I made a few observations last night while watching the Cubs game (10:40p start) and having a few...adult beverages.
Juan Pierre, ex-Cubs CF, current Dodgers LF, is built like a human version of a Cheetah. Seriously. He's got a tiny head, long skinny body, and he's fast as all hell. All he really needs is to grow a tail and start chasing down and eating live gazelles. Wouldn't that be some funny shit to see on the field.
Bob Brenley, in all his wisdom, right after watching some defensive high-lights from the previous game: "Cubs are in the low middle in the league in fielding %, but they make lots of high-light reel plays. " That's typically the way it goes for both players and teams. Alot of the guys that win gold gloves and make SportsCenter all the time just tank some easy plays. Their raw numbers are usually not that great. But everyone lets them off the hook because 'they try to make plays on balls that the average fielder can't even get to." Same things with teams in general. The ones you see making tons of amazing plays are never the ones leading the league in percentages. And they usually blow a bunch of games when they boot some easy plays or make an error trying to make some hero play.
Cubs pitcher Sean Gallagher's name is a palendrome with 'her' on the end. Just something I noticed.
Jeff Kent looks like he'd be a terrible hitter. Stands there pretty much straight up, standing virtually still. Just an old white guy with a mustache standing in the batter's box like he couldn't hit a little league fastball. And then next thing you know he cranks one over 400ft away. It's eerie. He's the opposite of Ken Griffey Jr.'s sweet graceful swing, and yet the results are pretty much the same.
Len, after a replay of the BoSox-Rays fight: "Looks like Crisp was getting pounded by more than just 1 Ray!" Same thing was probably true later that night. Just swap "Ray" for something more...masculine.
Later in the night when Jeff Kent came up, the stadium guys played Santana's "Oye Como Va". This for a guy has been accused quite a few times of being a racist. Bonds did it back in the day, other team-mates have made the same hints. Seems like an odd choice of music choice for him. I'm not saying he is or isn't, just that maybe they should have thought that out a little bit better. Maybe they could have gone with some Skynard, or maybe a little country-western piece. Just saying.
But alas, the Cubs ended up losing the game 3-0. Not a great showing, but the LA pitcher did seem to be really on his game. Made our guys look pretty bad. But hey, even the best team in baseball has to lose a game once in awhile. When you're riding a 9-1 streak, you're bound to drop to 8-2 at some point. But today is a new day and should be another win. We've got Zambrano going against Lowe today so I feel pretty good.
Done and done.

Rain, rain don't go away!

You know what's weird? Now that I'm trying to grow grass I find myself rooting for rain. If I had my way it'd rain pretty much every day during the week. Not the weekends, cause I've got baseball to play every Sunday! But I was sitting at work and looking out the window watching it rain and actually said to myself, "Huh, this should be real good for the grass. Nice long, slow rain." Hopefully it'll keep this up from time to time so I don't have to water so often to keep the new grass from getting burned up. Summer is going to be a real challenge.

In the words of Mark: "Never trust anyone driving a ZipCar." Why not? cause these are people that don't drive very often and are typically REALLY bad drivers. Bad even when compared to the rest of the drivers here in Boston! I bring this up after almost being hit by a damn moron in a ZipCar SUV on my way to Target today. They were in the left-turn only lane but apparently didn't really want to be there. Oh yeah, and they got really deep into the intersection, even on a red arrow, before deciding that they needed to be in a straight lane. So what do they do? They just decided to floor it and try to squeeze in b/t me and the UPS truck in front of me. And yes, there was a median on the other side they had to dodge. Putting themselves in a position to hit either me or the median doing about 30mph. If I hadn't swerved over towards the right lane a bit at the end, they would have clipped my left-rear quarter panel pretty solidly. And of course they act like I'm the jerk. They don't know how to drive and follow really simple traffic signals, and clearly can't just wait for 30 seconds when there's an opening to change lanes into and I'm the jerk. But that's just kinda how it goes out here. People are just entitled and self-absorbed and just can't be expected to show any respect or consideration for their fellow man. But what can you do.

What I'm going to do is drink a few (dozen) beers and watch game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals! Featuring a fellow Bison , Bret Lebda. Well, 1/2 Bison since he only was there for 2 years before moving to Ann Arbor. The NW suburbs of Chicago isn't exactly a hot-bed of hockey, so that was a good move. Former NHL-er Bubba Berenzweig made a similar choice our sophomore year and moved to CT to attend a hockey-based prep school. Paid off well after he was later a captain at UMich, won the Ken McKenzie trophy in 2000 as the best American-born player in the IHL, and played a few years in the NHL. So now I've got 2 reasons to root for Detroit to win. Lebda and ex-Blackhawk Chris Chelios. 3 reasons if you include what the Penguins did to the Hawks in 1992, which I do.

Ken McKenzie Trophy

Okay, just something short and quick cause this article kinda pissed me off:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24920462/

And people wonder why it's so easy to fool the average American consumer. I'm not saying people have unlimited amounts of money to pay for gas. But anything you put in 1 week and don't use will be just sitting there in the tank for you next week. It doesn't magically expire Sunday night and go back to empty. So come on, take the extra $4 hit and buy an extra gallon. If you don't use, you can just buy 1 less gallon next week and save $4 then. The article mentions the potential damage to your fuel system if you're running dry. What they don't mention is the fees that AAA charges to come out with a tank of gas. Not only do you have to pay a premium for the gas they're putting in (probably $5-$6/gal), but you also have to pay their service fee for driving out there. So while you may think you're saving money, you're just royally screwing yourself by taking the risk. And a seemingly silly risk for the reason above regarding roll-over gas (for all you people that only understand cell phone-speak).
{Jarod decides to skip roughly 18 comments that all center around properly budgeting your money. But since they're all things that have been said already in previous posts, he just walks away to start working on dinner.}

Home Ownership Year 1...Part 2

One of the biggest things I've learned is that there is a constant list of things that need to get done. And if anything is going to get done you have to do it yourself. There's no landlord you can call and no maintenance guy that's going to come do it. I personally like that. I've been waiting for a long time to start doing the things I watched my dad do growing up. I just didn't realize how long the list would be. Since we own the place, we can do whatever we want. So all those times I walk around thinking, "Gee, I really wish we had xxxx," means anything item just got added to the list. We didn't have a water spigot on the outside of the house. 1 trip to TrueValue, some masonry work, some copper pipe work, and several hours of sweaty work later we do. We don't like the size of our bedroom closet, that's on the list. No electrical outlet outside? List it. We don't like where the attic entrance is and the fact that we don't have a linen closet. List it. Cable TV wiring upstairs sucks. List it. The soundproofing b/t us and the neighbors isn't as good as we'd like. List it. The front and back yards don't look so good. List it. It just goes on and on like that. All the time. It's great that I get to do home improvement projects, I just wish the list wasn't growing so quickly. I just can't keep up. Granted I'm not the most motivated home improver you'll ever meet, so it's not like I'm killing myself everything weekend to knock things off the list. I like to use my weekend to relax, not busting my hump building closets over the stairwell.
I also suddenly feel like I'm a part of the community instead of just living somewhere. I want to get to know the neighbors. I follow the local town news. I make wild claims of becoming a fan of the high school football team (which I will do this coming fall!). I know stores and buildings and can notice when subtle things change and comment on it to myself. I'm not in the 'have you seen what they did to the old Davidson place' league yet, but maybe someday.
But all in all it's been great. It was just a great feeling to sign those papers and take those keys to your first house. It's a crushing blow when I look at the monthly mortgage statement and actually think about the number on it. It's big and it's only gets a wee bit less big every month.
Hmmm...this didn't end as insightful and memorable as I hoped it would. Oh well. Besides, I should probably get Hayley to help me label the circuit breakers while she's home and not doing anything work-related. Aka, cross something off of my list.
Done and done.

Home Ownership Year 1

Hayley and I are nearing our 1-year anniversary of buying our condo and I’ve been reflecting on everything I’ve learned over the course of that first year. Everything from failed projects to stunning victories, and there’s been plenty of both. So it’s time to start sharing some of those, probably over a few posts so none get too long. We’ll see. My short attention span might kill it after just 1.

Now that I have an actual yard (front AND back), I have a new appreciation for what goes into growing a nice carpet of green grass. As in, I haven’t quite gotten there even after all of my work to date. I’m far from a yard pro and didn’t really know anything about growing a decent yard when I started. And the former owner didn’t do me any favors by letting the entire front yard become nothing but crabgrass and the backyard become very thin and patchy (with a good dose of crabgrass). I have managed to significantly improve the backyard with constant re-seeding and watering, but resigned to just re-starting in the front. I raked out all of last year’s dead crabgrass, turned over the soil, and started from scratch. Now I’ve got a patchy collection of grass going up there, but at least it’s a start. It’ll probably be another year or 2 before it’s filled out and ready to battle weeds on its own. The back yard is slowly but surely getting better. There are still quite a few thing spots, but those are filling in little by little. I still need to rake out some dead weeds from last year to give the new grass a better shot at growing. Poor seeds can’t see any sun! And of course I spend lots of time pulling new weeds. Until the grass thickens up a bunch more it won’t be able to choke out weeds before they can get a foot-hold. But that gives me a great excuse to go outside and play in the grass on a sunny weekend afternoon. And I just scored a free electric lawnmower! Thanks again, FreeCycle Watertown! So now the taller weeds that could evade the “reel mower” don’t stand a chance. That means I’m much better equipped to prevent this year’s crop of crabgrass from going to seed.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is that every project takes at least twice as long as I/we think it will. Some of that is due to inexperience-driven estimation problems. Some is due to my still-growing pool of tools and skills. Growing up my dad instilled in me pretty much everything I needed, tool and knowledge, to tackle minor repair jobs and basic things. How to properly use pretty much any tool, painting, drywall repair, etc. But being able to apply those basic skills as a part of a much larger job is trickier. And many of those skills are a bit rusty from not needing them in years, or even decades. So while I know how to do various things, it takes longer than normal because I haven’t done it in so long. However, a very important factor I’ve picked up is that spending a little extra time planning and thinking beforehand pays of in triplicate later. Sometimes it’s hard to go slow and it seems like you’d be better off doing instead of planning, but you never regret that later. I learned that when my dad helped with the dishwasher install, and applied that with the hardwood floor install. Being very diligent about cutting and planning each row of flooring definitely paid off in the end. And it came in handy last weekend when I installed the water line to the fridge for the ice maker/filtered water output. No leaks, no mistakes, no extra holes in the floor, no busted pipes, nothing. Just clean, cold water and ice comin’ out the front of the fridge.

So until a possible next time….done and done.