Emily’s Nursery
Well, it had to happen at some point — Emily's nursery is finally put together to a point that it is usable. We still have not determined where we are going to hang the quilt and we still need to pick up a small bookshelf, but if we had Emily tomorrow, we could use the nursery if we needed to. With that said, for convenience sake, we probably will not use the nursery for the first few weeks. It would just be too much of a hassle to hike up and down the stairs to feed and change the baby every two hours. So, we will likely be bringing the pack-n-play downstairs so that we will not be navigating stairs in the middle of the night. Once she starts sleeping a little longer, we will move her upstairs to the nicely finished nursery.
It’s Delicious, Part II
I finished cataloging the books in the master bedroom this morning. Here are the current stats:
- 252 books scanned.
- 155 books are mine (61%).
- 97 books are Ashley's (39%).
The upstairs will be a beast. Two full-sized bookshelves full of books, plus all of Ashley's textbooks and many of my technical books on the computer desk. As a comparison, neither of our downstairs bookshelves are full-sized — they are only half-height shelves with storage underneath.
It’s Delicious
Much like Misty, I started cataloging all of Ashley and my books into Delicious Library. So far, I have processed the bookshelf in our dining room. Here is the breakdown so far:
- 170 books scanned.
- 95 books are mine.
- 75 books are Ashley's.
Today, I did not care to start scanning books again — that is an arduous task. Perhaps later tonight I will start on our bedroom. Instead, I started playing around with the export capabilities of Delicious Library with the ultimate goal of getting our library linked as a page off of the site. Basically, Delicious Library exports the entire library as a tab-separated file with the field names as the first line and each following line containing the information for one scanned in item. While that file could be linked off of the site, it would not be very pretty. So, I wrote a small python script to munge the data into XML so that an XSL file could generate a web page from the data. That is working fairly well so far.
I have also found that Delicious Library stores all of its data as XML. So, I am considering just writing some code to transform that file into one containing only the data I am interested in. Either way, expect a new link off of the sidebar soon containing our library contents.
The Haunting of Creekmore House
Every day and every night, spirits would communicate with us by flickering the lights in the house, sometimes so much that the fluorescent lights would cut off momentarily. Daily, the faint *beep* *beep* *beep* of the UPS could be heard from the office as the spirits tried to communicate using the computer. Unfortunately, the 1998-era technology was just too much for them — the lights downstairs would just flicker more with their frustration. The haunting had been going on for the better part of three months.
Bound and determined to figure out the cause of the flickering, I scoured the house searching for an explanation. I came up with obvious, logical hypotheses: the water heater is shorting out, the new heat pumps are having problems, my UPS is defective. None of these hypotheses turned out to be true, so I decided to call in the experts. Either the power company would find a problem with our feed or our house was truly haunted.
The first time I called, I waited and I waited. Eventually, I forgot about the call and weeks passed by. At my wits end with the spirits inhabiting the house, I called again two weeks ago. Apparently, the foul demons did not want to be driven out; they had gone so far as to erase any record that I had ever called the power company and put in a maintenance request. However, this time the maintenance request went through and I had two service representatives on the way out to the house. All I had to do was meet them there in a half hour.
I make it to the house and the demon decides to intervene. “THOU SHALT NOT DRIVE ME OUT,” it exclaimed angrily. Minutes later, I receive a call from the power company saying that it has been unavoidably delayed by an emergency call; they will try to be out to the house as soon as possible. Cursing the demon, I settle in for what turns out to be a three-hour battle of wills until it weakens enough to allow the service representatives access to the house. However, the demon was still too strong to be beaten; it blinds the service representatives with ignorance and disbelief, clouding their minds against the true cause of the problem. They insist that the problem is not on their end; I must hire an electrician to battle against the demon inside the house.
Help in the form of the Electrician arrived around noon on Halloween. The Electrician is a powerful force for good in the world; the demon had no power over it. He easily disproved the web of lies and deceit that the demon forced the service representatives to utter. The Electrician determined that the problem was not in my domain, but rather that of the power company. Only they had the tools to successfully drive the demon out of the infernal transformer at the edge of our property. Working as a powerful advocate, the Electrician convinced the power company that it needed to come out and look at the transformer as soon as possible.
Later that night, service representatives once again appear at the house. The demon quickly clouds their mind with disbelief of everything that I relay to them. Even staring the evidence in the face, they dismiss the claim that the problem could possibly be on their end. At that very moment, my neighbor arrives and confirms that the demon has been active in their house as well. Reluctantly, the service representatives agree to shut off the power and trying to exorcise the demon from the transformer. A short time thereafter, I got out to check on the progress off the service representatives. They admit that the demon has defeated them and that they must remove the infernal transformer and replace it with a clean one.
Fast forward several more hours. It is just after midnight on All Saints‘ Day when the power goes out. After a furious battle outdoors, the power comes back on forty-five minutes later. The power company has replaced the infernal transformer. It has now been several days and there appears to be no sign of any spirits or of the demon. Our house now appears to be clean.
One step closer to chilled
Well, it took us about three weeks, but Ashley and I finally decided which HVAC installer to choose to replace our faulty heat pumps. The installers are coming out Monday morning. Given the time estimate, they should be finished by mid-week next week. Thanks to everyone who has loaned us fans to use while the A/C has been out!
Update: Our A/C replacement was finally finished Wednesday night! Our house is now cool again.