Squirrel Net Redux Turns out I did "capture" a squirrel in the attic. I can hear him up there but he cannot get out...which probably means that none of his buddies can get in...which was the point.

Now, I just have to wait for him to die...not a happy thought but it would be the nature of the thing.

Hopefully, he has not stored a bazillion nuts in my attic and can wait out the siege.

I would like to get the extra insulation in this winter.  ¶ 14:55 4 comments

  Squirrel Net For a while now Kate and I have heard squirrels in our attic. At least I assumed they were squirrels. I had seen at least one go into the attic through one of the exhaust vents on the roof. While a bit annoying while trying to sleep, I really did not have any real grips about them living there.

But then I was talking with Chip and he mentioned that they could chew through some of my electrical lines in the attic and since I do not want to have to replace any of those I had better take care of this problem.

So yesterday after I ran Charlotte over to the doctor's for a weighing (she now is 4.2kg) I made a quick trip over to Lowe's to pick up a little wire mesh to cover the vents.

After about an hour on the roof and quite a few cuts on my hands I got all three of the vents covered. Hopefully they are well enough covered that those clever squirrels cannot get in again.

The biggest issue is if I happened to trap any squirrels in the attic, but dead squirrels in the attic are better then damaged wiring.

And once I am sure that I no longer have animals in my attic I am planning on blowing another 30cm of insulation up there. Now that we have the baby and the house really should be a bit warmer it would be nice not to lose quite as much heat out of the roof.  ¶ 10:59 2 comments

  Adidas Jose +10

Last week I watched the movie "Once In A Lifetime" about the New York Cosmos of the defunct NASL. It was interesting to see who soccer almost become the national pastime in the USA in the late 1970s. A lot of great European players came to play in the NASL at that time. One of them was Franz Beckenbauer of Germany. This past summer Adidas ran ads of Jose+10 in conjuction with the World Cup and in that ad then took video footage of Beckenbauer from 1974 and digitally added him to the modern players that the kids pick for their teams. As an American I did not pick up on this over the summer but as I was reading about the players on Wikipedia I came across that bit of trivia. So here is the ad. As you can see the current German players are rather astonished to see Beckenbauer.

  ¶ 20:49 0 comments

  Beat Michigan Week 2006   ¶ 22:01 2 comments

  Home with Baby So I have now been off work for over a week. It is so nice. I have barely even contemplated the idea of work or all that it entails. Considering that I do not have to go back until...well, my birthday I am pretty happy. The last time I had three weeks off Kate and I spent that time in Europe. Sure that was also great, but I was not quite so unhappy with work at that time and I did not have a new baby to hang out with.

So I have been thinking about things to get Kate for Christmas...and while I have a list of ideas I also have been thinking about maybe something grand. I am not sure which way to go.

I have also been thinking that since I have so much time at home I could do some reading. Any suggestions from those of you out there?

I hope that now that I have picked up all of the leaves and there are no more on the trees that I am done for the season.

I think that my Mom is going to come up for Thanksgiving and we will celebrate at Kate's Mom's house. When my Mom comes up over the holiday she will get 4 days to hang out with Charlotte.

I have also been reading a lot of wikipedia. Kate doesn't like it because it is editable by anyone, while I love it because there really has never been more info so readily available.  ¶ 20:57 3 comments

  Got Other Plans? So what happens when you've got other plans? Usually something unexpected. In this case though it was bound to happen someday, Kate and I just did not know when. So after having a grand old time at NTAFTHBD we came back to GR. Dinner did not seem like a something we wanted to cook ourselves so we had dinner at GRBC. We came home and started to watch the movie "American Dreamz" (which was not very good). After deciding that it was too bad and we were too tired we went to bed. You can read Kate's account of the rest of the events here. I would make a couple of corrections for accuracy but it is 97% accurate and therefore I will not take anything away from her account.

She is super cute and in general so far has been rather well behaved.

Kate, of course, has the majority of the work but I have been busy also. I cannot do anything about the feeding, but I have been taking care of the things that here not quite ready when she suprised us. Sure, when I say I feel tired it is nothing like the tired that Kate is...but I am still tired.

You can check out pictures of Charlotte here.  ¶ 19:34 2 comments

  NTAFTHBD I am sure that you all are aware that that stands for:

National Teach A Friend To HomeBrew Day.

I am also sure that you all are aware that NTAFTHBD is today!

Chip has organized quite a to do out at PJ Hoffmaster Park in Spring Lake, MI. There will be several award winning brewers and even a professional. There will be over 10 different styles of beer on tap for sampling.

This is the link to the event.

Chips is running Site 20 which can be found under the other catagory.

In addition to the event today I am planning on a brew day tomorrow. I will save the detail of that for a seperate post.  ¶ 09:19 0 comments