Boston!

Well, as I had to go on a work sanctioned bridge inspection training seminar, I thought, what better place than Boston? So, I told the little lady about my plans and she was excited. Turned out she really liked Boston. So, she flew out with me to go on a mini vacation. It took me a while, but I found a very affordable (<$125) a night right in the Back Bay area! Pretty nuts!

Here's the flat. Buckingham Business Apartments. Very spacious spread.

We went on a historical tour and had a cool guide. This one's at Reveres grave.

Ok, is that just about the neatest house or what? Obese people need not apply.

For a town the size of Boston, not much in the way of breweries. Ol' Sam Adams kinda has a monopoly it would seem. We hit up Harpoon Brewery on a Monday thinking it would be slow. Wicked (as people out here like to say) busy with young twenty-somethings who were generally ignorant in the ways of beer. Not much going on with Harpoon, not very impressed.

A neat church in the middle of the downtown area.

Sarah's visit to the Art Museum yielded a ton of glass blowing exhibits. Pretty cool stuff.

Me schmarfing my face with a delicious cupcake.

All in all, a pretty cool trip! Weather was abysmal with drizzle/rain/drizzle/mist/downpour every day until the day I left on my way to the airport. I also went to a Red Sox game after Sarah departed. I snared a standing room only ticket for a princely sum of $25 bucks. Pretty good deal.

Prost!

Chicago

Well, obviously still backposting here. Went went on a cool trip to Chicago and met all of the in-laws (Sarah's side) in Chicago for a mini-vacation over Easter. I'll explain it pictorially, with some minor verbage.

The first thing we see in Chicago, a Montana tourism bus!!!

Yes, that's a look of fright in Sarah's eyes. On the dreaded Chicago Ferris Wheel!

At the Hopleaf in Chicago. Amazing beer selection!

The Green Mill. An epic blues/jazz bar.

The Chicago skyline from the aquarium.

Jellies!

Our first Chicago dogs!

Ol' Sue the T-Rex about to attack.

Me doing my best primate/early human.

The river & skyline.

Could be us, eh?

The view of us looking into the Noodle w/skyline in the background.

At Goose Island Brewery.

One of the haunted mansions from our Ghosts Tour, pretty neat.

A straight tequila, nope, double IPA night!

At the Cubs game, pretty chilly!

Me comforting Sarah on the skydeck.

Skyline from the womens bathroom at the Hancock building.

Northwest MT Brewery Tour and Homebrew Stand

Sarah and I went on a Northwest MT beer tasting, staying in Bigfork one night and in Whitefish one night. We were able to sample brews from Tamarack, Flathead and Great Northern. Tamarack - OK, Great Northern - Blech and Flathead- Delicious.

Me at Tamarack. Typically I don't get the sampler trays, but I was feeling adventurous.

Sarah at Tamarack. Nice Venue and Brewery.

My new homebrew stand. I order the steel angle pieces from a warehouse online, used a steel chop saw and assembled. This resulting in me not needing any welding. I also purchases two kegs for boil kettles from a Cidery north of Hamilton.

Tree & Deck Removal

So,

You may ask, what's the point of a blog if you never update it? I know, I had some reservations when I got started and apparently they were not entirely unfounded. I am backlogged about six months. Let's start from the beginning. In April, I cut down the tree/bush next to our house using rudimentary hand saws and finally had the gumption to track down a chain-saw, which made short work of the tree. As you can see below, the deck is still standing, which I'll get to shortly.

As you can see from the previous photos, the deck was in pretty bad shape. After three trips to the dump, she was gone!

Spring!

Well, after a long winter, looks like we are finally seeing signs of spring. There are finally buds on the trees and the grass is getting green.

We've traveled a bit in the past few months. Went on a Northwest Montana brewery tour in early April and went to Chicago two weeks ago. We've got an upcoming trip to Boston next week, looking forward to it as I haven't been out to Mass-a-two-shits before. That's the correct pronunciation right?

Anywho, I've taken down the old deck and the tree in the backyard. That was a bit of chore. Still have some stump grinding to do. I'll get photos of those up on the next post.

We've got grandiose plans for the backyard, but not planning to do much this year.

Gotta finish the second bedroom and then finish the floors, put up the fence and get a new water heater. Anyone want to donate some cash?

Prost!

Hey avid followers. Not too much going on with the ol' house these days. Just doing a bit of spring cleaning & organization.

I did install some carpet in the small bedroom downstairs. I got some remnants on a smokin' deal & did the installation myself. I think it turned out pretty good. That is, much better than the cat piss ridden & stained shag carpeting that it replaced. :)

We purchased a new 40 gallon gas water heater to replace our old trusty water heater from 1993. I'd say a twenty year useful life is pretty durn good! Installation should happen sometime soon.

We got a few projects coming up. First on the priority list is gutters. We're suffering from some drainage issues along the rubble foundation via seepage. We're thinking of going w/ seamless gutters. Ideally in the future we'd like to install rain barrels for our future garden. Second, we're going to finally finish up the second bedroom. We've been silently ignoring it for the past few months. We've got a ton of projects on our list, but those are the top two at this point.

Also got some fun trips planned. Going to Chicago in April, possibly Boston in May, visiting w/ the parents + grandparents in July + August, Disneyland in September for a Half Marathon, a weeklong trip to Colorado via Red Lodge for the Great American Brew Fest in early September, Tucson for Thanksgiving, Phoenix in January for the Rock n Roll Marathon, and Patagonia in February/March. Should be a pretty eventful year!

New Furnace & Fireplace!

Hello all! Merry post-holidays! Thought I would throw a few photos up of our exploits in the past month or so.

The first bit o' news is that we recently had a 95% efficiency Trane Furnace installed to replace 'The Beast", our 1950's bulky furnace. What a difference! We actually have warm air with force! It blew out decades of grime and some trash that escaped into the ducts. I have a sneaky suspicion that the kids of the previous owners used the grates as trash receptacles...

This is 'The Beast' before she got replaced:

This is the new Trane!

The second bit o' news is that we had a natural gas fireplace insert installed. We had a working wood burning fireplace, so transition to the new insert wasn't too difficult, we even had a chimney sweep come and clean!

Before the gas insert:

The new gas insert:

We've been chugging along with the upstairs renovation. Ryan removed the carpets, tack strips and hundreds of staples in the living and dining rooms before Christmas. To be honest, the Douglas Fir floors in the living room are in a bit worse shape than I was expecting (mainly furniture drag marks) and a shoddy patch (that needs to be redone).

Here's the living room's new paint job w/the existing carpet:

Living room with carpet up w/pad still down.

Flea looking into the living room with existing Doug Fir floors.

We topped off the living room by putting in a new light fixture from Restoration Hardware.Defined as Arts & Crafts, we think it brings the room together.

Here's me post wiring doing the install:

The dining rooms floors consist of a very early Maple engineered hardwood floor. The floor is in respectable shape, however, there is some cupping/discoloration and another shoddy patch.

Dining room post paint with existing carpet:

Here's the dining room with Maple floors exposed and our Indonesian formal dining table (Thanks Mom & Dad!)

Well, that's about all we have going on right now. Planning on doing some sanding on the floors in March and finally finishing up the second bedroom upstairs!

I'll leave you with a parting view of our backyard (currently 0 degrees):