A Week At Home

Posted on by Jordan

This past week, like many weeks this summer, we didn’t go out of town. To be honest I have really enjoyed it. Once the baby comes we may feel like we don’t have a choice in the matter, and maybe I won’t feel the same way, but for now it is really relaxing.

This is not to say we were bored!

Heather and a neighbor who is also expecting around the same time attended some sort of baby themed open house at the hospital where both of them will be giving birth.

I shot in my second ever pistol match. Not particularly well, but I had fun.

Heather and I walked over to the mall to listen to the  Dueling Piano act that was playing in the little amphitheater area there.

It was a really nice way to spend Sunday evening!

The only other thing of note this week is that the construction across the street demonstrated what it looks like when you hit a water main:

We were only without water for a few hours, so I can’t complain too much 🙂

-Jordan

 

 

State Fair 2012

Posted on by Jordan

Another year at the fair and another failure to capture a picture of noteworthy food on a stick!

The fair featured a whopping fifty-seven items on a stick!

While we didn’t get any pictures of the food on a stick, Heather and I did go to the fair. Not for a real long trip, but long enough to eat some festival type foods and to remember how overwhelming that many people wandering around can be.

They also had a moose made of chocolate:

I mean, that’s worth the price of admission right there! 🙂

In other news this week:

  • I finally fixed the HeatherAndJordan.com front page.
  • Heather took baby pictures for a friend
  • Heather took two-year pictures of a friend’s child
  • I ordered a compound miter saw from Amazon  — best “I can help you with this project if…” deal to date! 🙂
  • Heather was, for the first time 100% sure she felt our baby kick.

 

It’s been a fun week!

-Jordan

Java!

Posted on by Jordan

I have a personal goal to not post with apologies regarding my lack of posting, sadly this may veer distressingly close to that line…

Interesting things have been happening in our lives, I just haven’t had a lot of time to pull together posts on such.

Things eating into my time include the fact that our church is in the process of moving to a new location. The new location just needs a near total demolition and remodel before we can move! I have had the opportunity to smash drywall and disassemble an industrial grade HVAC system that has been hanging from the ceiling for several decades 🙂

Most recently I spent the weekend at a Java developers conference here in Des Moines commonly referred to as “No Fluff”

The event lets you pack about  eleven 90-minute sessions plus a keynote and some breakout time into a single weekend. The majority of the sessions I attended were what you could call information dense. I learned a lot about subjects as specific as Spring configuration, as “hey look how cool this is” as a tech-demo of Spock or Ratpack, or as theoretical as a talk entitled “The complexity of complexity.” I can honestly say every single session was worth my time to attend.

While I can’t begin to pass along what I gleaned from the sessions, I can share a video made by a speaker and MC of the event. I don’t know how much context will help this make sense, but “Maven” is a tool used by programmers to automate the process of taking all the little pieces of code and “building” them into an actual program. It’s a useful tool, but like most tools in this space it has it’s detractors.

 

-Jordan

Another Busy Weekend

Posted on by Jordan

Disclaimer, as always I am falling behind on posting, so this may not discuss last weekend, so much as a weekend I meant to post about. 🙂

 

Friday night, Heather and I had a quiet evening at home. The evening got a lot quieter when the power failed.

I quickly discovered that Heather’s love for scented candles makes us well prepared for this kind of event. I have been careful to keep a few flashlights handy, but we only used those to get some candles lit, and then we had plenty of light.

It was a great reminder that I need to get moving on that emergency preparedness kit I have been thinking about from the day I rejoined the scouts. If I let myself get a blog post or two out of it, I might actually get it together 🙂

About the last thing I remember before falling asleep was marveling at how quiet our building was without power, and then hearing fans and motors kick in as the power came back up.

The next morning, Heather’s parents came for a short visit. We took the opportunity to teach them how to play St Petersburg; in the hopes that it was something people who weren’t already inclined to enjoy board games would have fun with. I am pleased to report that, despite our less than ideal introduction, they enjoyed the game.

Later we took advantage of the fact that it was somehow over 50 degrees in February, and headed up to the “High Trestle Bridge” trail. The bike route we take is 11 miles, but there is a nice trail-head only a little more than mile from the bridge, giving us a nice walk out to a great view of the valley.

I encourage people to come visit us, but chances are your going to be playing a board game and then walking on one of the many trails around here. It isn’t glamorous I suppose, but everybody seems to enjoy it.

We finished up the day with dinner and a movie.While we were out, Heather and her mom both managed to independently pick the phrase “it looks like a hearse” to describe a vehicle we were interested in. I still can’t explain how they arrived at that.

Sunday was more food, and more boardgames. Don’t let the lack of a long description here lead you into thinking it wasn’t enjoyed, I just don’t think I can produce interesting reading by recapping.

-Jordan

Family And A Warning

Posted on by Jordan

We had a busy weekend (like most it would seem)

A bunch of my family was in town to attend a gymnastics event that three of my cousins were competing in.

I am continually impressed by the feats they are able to perform, and by the extent to which they more or less shrug off the ability to do said feats.

We didn’t take any pictures. Primarily because we just looked like we had been siting in bleachers for eight hours, and the events were too far away and moving too fast for our gear to capture. Also, I don’t think I would want to be holding a camera with that many pre-teen girls in leotards running around… It just seems like asking for misunderstandings that involve addressing someone as officer.

Speaking rule enforcement, I now think of our new building as the “see no evil” condos. Exhibit one:

Perhaps the building manager intended a different meaning than the one I read. Just to be safe I don’t look at the neighbors dogs. Probably shouldn’t have a camera in hand ether, who knows what kind of penalties that might entail. 🙂

 

-Jordan

Staying Busy Before Christmas

Posted on by Jordan

It’s probably a bad sign that every time I sit down to write a post now, I have to fight hard against the urge to spend a paragraph explaining why I am so late in getting the post up…

Anyway, remember that pile of butter from before?

We baked it into hundreds of cookies, and then invited friends over to help decorate!

The event quickly demonstrated we could probably use more variety in Christmas themed cookie cutters, and decorating widgets. On the other hand, Christmas cookie accessories more or less match the “only get used once a year” type of thing I have been known to complain about storing (and moving). I could probably make an exception for things cookie related however.

I did make it clear that there were lots of cookies right?

Everyone took home a heaping plate, and we still had enough left over to represent the Nelsons in two cookie exchanges!

The following weekend, Heather and I made a quick trip down to the KC area for a wedding shower. It was a nice shower, and I wound up having some really interesting conversations with a number of the guests. All the same, if you are planning a shower don’t worry about hurting my feelings if you made it girls only. I am perfectly content to entertain myself 🙂

Because we were going to be in the area Sunday, we headed over to Liberty MO. to meet up with some friends and attend their church. In a rare turn of events, we were running way ahead of schedule when we parked the car in Liberty. I had seen a few of these on the way in:

It was a beautiful old neighborhood, so Heather and I both were eager to walk around and explore… if perhaps for different reasons. You will have to indulge a small tangent here so I can comment on the fact that it was a beautiful day, worth noting mostly because I don’t know how many weekends in December lend themselves to walking around outside for fun.

Back to the mysterious silhouette! A few blocks down the road we found a former presidential mansion!

It may be impossible to see in the small picture there, but the plaque explains that this was once the home of Harry S Truman. A few blocks farther and we were in the historic square and downtown area. It would be difficult not to notice the signs of decline creeping into the area, but it was clear that large amounts of energy have been expended to make the square inviting to walk around in. They have historical site markers and plaques explaining the significance of the area at a density unrivaled by any town square we have ever toured.

Near the far end of the square we finally encountered the man himself:

Then it was back across the square, back to the church, and then back to Des Moines!

-Jordan

Moving Again!

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Ok… so I am about a week slow getting this posted. Our big end-of-June news was that we are going to move again!

The Independence Day weekend was jam packed with activities, so I didn’t manage to sit down and write up even a quick post.

Back to the move, Heather and I purchased a condo in West Des Moines. It isn’t nearly as sudden as it may seem, as we have been looking for quite some time, and trying to purchase this particular place for months.

Almost four months to be exact. You have heard of “short sale” houses? Well, don’t let the name mislead you, it’s a slow process. When people in real estate hear that we were able to close in under four months they say “well that’s a lot faster than I would have expected.”

I write this about twelve days after we closed, but it feels more like a month. The place needed only minor renovations, and yet it’s been completely exhausting to get those taken care of.

Heather and I have learned a lot during this process. The number one thing we have learned is that we cannot build a house… ever. Even the relatively minor work we are doing (and having done) to the condo has caused incredible stress at times. I think we are also learning at lot about each other, and how to work as a team… but it’s going to be 20 years before we have those lessons learned well enough to consider a project the size of building a house.

Aaand that was probably more on that tangent than I should have shared, but it’s worth noting.

The short version is that we are in the process of preparing a condo that we own such that we can move in.

(and besides, I have lived in this apartment for nearly two years! It’s overdue to move again! )

-Jordan

Laminate!

Posted on by Jordan

I really need to catch up to current events, but I didn’t want to skip this one…

So a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to help a friend from church install laminate flooring. We were helping out because another member of the church was dealing with life-threatening asthma in one of his children, and needed to get all the carpet out of the house ASAP.

None of that really matters, except to set the scene for why I was standing outside a house somewhere in Des Moines at 8AM on a Saturday, getting ready to work with a carpenter to install some flooring. The only detail is that neither myself, the home owner, or the guy who brought the majority of the tools had ever done laminate flooring before.

It turns out it isn’t that hard, although I am sure it helps when you are under the guidance of somebody who does quality woodwork on a daily basis. While not being really hard, it was time consuming. We finished two rooms a hallway and a staircase over the course of a day, but it took roughly thirteen hours to finish.

I would put a picture in here, except the only picture I took was of the miter saw, and I am guessing you have seen one of those before.

A few takeaways from the day:

  • Laminate flooring is surprisingly straight forward to install.
  • There are some specialized tools just for sliding the slats around with that are lifesavers
  • Having a good miter saw, and a good table saw also made a huge difference
  • (Sub note) I don’t work with those kinds of tools every day, but I have enough to be comfortable with them… watching the homeowner operate a saw was at times heart-stoppingly alarming
  • Estimating the needed materials to finish a job is hard
  • And… A final note (because this was written after the fact) It only took four days for my legs and back to loosen up enough so I could walk normally 🙂

Helping out was great for a number of reasons, not the least of which was learning how to install the flooring, but in the end it was fun just to get to swing a hammer and run a saw… Not something I manage too often these days.

-Jordan

Softball 2011

Posted on by Jordan

The calendar says it isn’t summer yet. Actually, having written that… the weather out side says it isn’t summer yet ether.

All the same, Heather and I are both on Softball teams. We are already into week two, seems like I was scraping ice off my windows just yesterday.

We aren’t on the same team, both our respective peer-groups at work wanted to put together teams, and the nights picked for each didn’t work for each other.

The team I play on isn’t coed, so Heather wouldn’t have been able to participate anyway. That might be for the best, we renamed the team this year (this being our second season as a team). I snapped this picture when I picked up my team shirt:

Last season we had a perfect 0-13 record.You might think we had nothing left to aspire to this season, but in our first game we surprised even ourselves by loosing by a record 15 points! We look forward to a great season this year!

Heather was unable to attend her first game, but I hear the team won, so clearly they are on a whole different level.

While Heather and I are not star players, being on a city league has become a sort of summer tradition for us.

And if you know anybody who helps organize the Des Moines men’s slow pitch league, tell them they need a less competitive bracket.

-Jordan

Cleaning (Not Quite Spring?)

Posted on by Jordan

Heather and I had planned to head over to Blair for a Gutschow pre-Christmas event. However our nephew picked up something novel at daycare and decided to share it with the family as a sort of holiday treat. Heather and I were sad to learn that the event was canceled. Then again, given the “up all night puking” stories we were hearing, we thought that a phone call was probably as close as we wanted to be associated with the majority of that group for a while.

We did manage a few Christmas themed events over the course of the weekend, despite the abrupt change in plans. First off we attended a performance of “A Christmas Carol” Friday night. The venue was probably the smallest possible for a semi-pro group to use, but it was a fun event to be at. The audience was seated on three sides of the “stage”.   The stage consisted of the open floor between the chars, and some backdrops on the fourth and final wall. I will say again that it was a really enjoyable show, although the venue probably should have a large sign reading “HIPSTERS WELCOME.” I didn’t quite feel cool enough to be there… but I guess it was fine.

So that was Friday night, Saturday started kind of early as we had planned to help clean the church before heading to Blair. We found out Saturday morning that Blair was off, but still had to meet our cleaning crew bright and early so we headed over. All that cleaning was just a warm-up though as it turned out. When we got home Heather was feeling inspired to really attack the apartment.

She also claims my (purely innocent) pointing out that the show “Horders” was on Netlflix streaming guilt-tripped her into the cleaning spirit. I suppose that may have a little validity, as I may have started an episode playing for her at one point a few weeks back. Whatever the reason, after some generic cleaning Heather dove into sorting through her clothes.

As anyone who was gracious enough to help us move (in ether of the two moves) may remember, there were a lot of boxes marked “Heather’s clothes”. The allocation of closet space here in Des Moines has, at times, been a point of contention as I suppose would be expected.

The process took quite a few hours, and I often heard things like “I didn’t even know I had this!” or (while holding up something I could charitably describe as scanty) “Could you ever imagine me wearing this?” In the end, I have to say, Heather was willing to hold a hard line and parted with quite a few things:

Yes, you are seeing that correctly… FIVE bags of clothes waiting to head out the door. To be fair, my clothes make up some of that total. All the same, there was a lot more there than I ever expected to see go out the door! Strangely enough, our closets in no way seem empty at this point… I guess everything just has room to breathe now. 🙂

-Jordan