MichaelandChrissy.com

There was a particularly bad storm last night, which made it difficult to drive home. The rain was blowing horizontally, and the radio said that a tornado was heading into East Chicago — while I was driving through downtown East Chicago. I managed to make it through town and get to the Cline Extension, where traffic had slowed to a crawl due to the zero visibility (but it was wide open to a crazy person like me).

When I got home, Chrissy was upset because the downstairs TV had stopped working and there was a burning smell coming from my office. Luckily, my computer was not fried, but I did lose my computer speakers. The UPS system came in handy this time. We had the nephews over for the night, and the TV died right in the middle of a round of Dragon Ball Z on the PS2. I was more upset at the lack of distraction that a missing PS2 would bring with the boys over.

At the end of the night, it started to get really hot in the house. It turned out that we also lost our air conditioning. Glenn came over and told us to have an AC guy look at our furnace. The outside temperature was at a nice 90 degrees, but there was still a good breeze blowing. We opened up the windows for the night. Chrissy called the AC guy the next morning. Happily, the AC was restored by noon the next day, but it cost us $480.

Chrissy’s baby shower was Saturday at her mom’s house, so she came out with three car-loads of baby shower gifts. I was at home, helping Uncle Marve put in the shower faucet handle, so I helped carry in the wave after wave of baby paraphrenalia.

Everything looks nice in the nursery now. Chrissy has all of the baby clothes sorted by age (0-3 months, 3-6 months, etc.) and put away into the new dresser drawers. Her sister helped her build the stroller and the baby bouncer. Things seem to be coming together. All we need now is a baby…

We got the call from DirectBuy that our nursery furniture arrived in the warehouse over the weekend. It was back-ordered for three months, so it was about time! Chrissy and her mom drove out to Merrillville in the mini-van to pick it up, but ended up making two trips to get it all. Chrissy’s dad helped me carry everything into the house from the garage (where Chrissy’s mom put it). That stuff was heavy!

So now we have new, dark mahagony furniture in the nursery. There is a dresser, a baby-changing station with a hutch, a nightstand, and a crib. The crib… If ever there was an ultimate reminder that there will soon be a baby coming, a crib in your house is it. Once we got it assembled, it sat in the corner of the room as a herald of sleepless nights to come.

Overall, the nursery looks really good. We painted the room “Baby Roo” (khaki color) awhile back and Glenn just finished the oak trim and the crown molding in there. The furniture isn’t the last step, but it does make the room look habitable now. All we need to do is decorate with the appropriate baby stuff.

Glenn put in a the upstairs toilet on Saturday, so I removed the downstairs toilet after he was done. We needed to have at least one operative toilet in the house, but Chrissy prefers the upstairs one since she hates going up and down the stairs to use the bathroom.

Once I put a second coat of paint on the downstairs bathroom, I installed the bathroom toilet. So by Sunday afternoon, we had two working toilets. No sinks yet, though…

Uncle Marve will be coming over tomorrow to help install our sinks. Or rather, let me help him install the sinks. We already have the vanities and countertops in place (a huge slab of Corian upstairs and cultured marble downstairs), but the plumbing isn’t in yet.

I made the trip out to Fort Wayne for the Iacon One convention today. I was far from impressed. I think that there might have been a hundred people there, and that would include vendors and staff. About a dozen vendors were there, but by the time I got there (at noon), two of them were packing up to leave and a third was about to bail out.

The day would have been a total waste if not for the voice actor panel. Scott McNeil, David Sobolov and Venus Torzo were there. David Sobolov had never been to a convention before, and I wondered if he was disappointed. Scott McNeil once again entertained everybody (especially Venus, who couldn’t stop laughing at him). Even Swavek was laughing.

I met David Willis for the first time. I’ve seen him at conventions before, but he always looked busy. I talked to him a little and bought a t-shirt. He doesn’t so much talk as much as spill out mumbled, half-finished thoughts that the listener is left to interpret. He seemed annoyed that I had no clue what he said or meant, and moreso when I asked him to explain what he was talking about, but he seemed like a nice enough guy.

I got a Takara re-issue Starconvoy for only $55 from TFSource. When these first came out, they were $90 online, but I was tempted to get one even then. I also got the Robot Masters RM-17 Black Victory Leo set from TFSource. I bought an Energon Shockblast and an Energon Slugslinger (both loose) from another vendor. Not a bad haul for such a small vendor turnout — I plan to visit TFSource at Botcon (when they’ll be set up for credit cards!).

Work on the upstairs rooms continues. Glenn is replacing the trim around the doors and the windows upstairs, but there is a problem. The new oak trim is about a half inch less wide than the old trim, so there will be a half-inch of exposed drywall when the new trim goes up. In most cases, there is also paint buildup around the edges of the old trim that needs to be scraped away. We found this out the hard way downstairs when we replaced the family room trim.

I was able to spackle around the windows and the door in the family room and then carefully prime and paint around the new trim. Upstairs, I had the chance to do all that work before the new trim goes up. The problem is that I had to do it all in two days. I managed to finish by working on it all night on Friday and then waking up at 6:30AM on Saturday to work on it until 6 PM. Glenn was working on the doors during this time, so at least I wasn’t slaving away all alone.

I finished painting around the doors (in the hall and inside the rooms) by the time Glenn got to hanging them. They look pretty good now, except for a distinct lack of texture around the new oak trim, since I sanded the spackle down to a flat surface. No one will notice that but me, I suppose…