This and that

Somehow it’s been more than a month since writing one of these. I don’t have grand, overarching topic for this letter; instead, let’s just update on some of what’s been going on.

The deck is no longer “builder basic”. The screened and outside decks were stained, and we’re happy with the results. Now we just need some furniture.

Speaking of deck, I treated myself to a new grill, and, more importantly, an extension for our natural gas. No more propane swaps! And in the winter I can unplug the grill and connect up an outside heater for more deck time.

Sherri and I had to speed-race build the grill, however. There was a miscommunication between myself and the gas company guy. The work order for the gas line installers said they were to install and test the line on the grill… except the grill still sat in a box in our garage.

There was some hemming and hawing from them that maybe they’d have to come back another day and then that might delay the inspection by the town and yada yada but I wanted my grill connected so Sherri and I got to it and beat the gas guys by about 15 minutes. 🎉 To be completely clear, most of that was Sherri and her awesome building skills. I am good at computers.

The guest bed is ready! (This is it in compressed form — a Purple mattress). Unfortunately we can’t host visitors until COVID-19 is under control, but that gives us time to get nightstands and some proper blinds.

It’s finally starting to feel like home. We closed on June 10 and the first night was June 13 — on air mattresses and not much else. It was just this week where it started to feel normal for me, a mere 7 weeks later. :) Having a living room set up helped a lot.

Isn’t this a nice start? The TV, a couch and a chair, a lamp…

We have faux wood blinds on order but they won’t arrive until mid-September (!!). This ETA is in line with the blinds we ordered for our bathroom, too. Some sort of coronavirus-related blind delay. We need a nice rug there to really tie the room together but that will happen. And hoping for some nice built-in cabinets once we can get Greg or Don down here safely.

Lastly, here’s my office set up.

It’s woefully lacking in art on the wall (I’ve even received comments to that effect on Zoom calls). Thanks to LinkedIn for buying the office chair for me. Needs some decluttering, but it’s the same amount of clutter I had at the Sunnyvale office, so we’ll call it even.

Lightning struck the under-construction house two over from us Monday night, which was a hell of a thing. Even more spectacular: we were on our front porch when it happened. Yikes. Less exciting: it seems to have fried several parts of my home network in a way that I’ve never seen before. It’s as if the electricity traveled into the network and affected half of the ports I have things plugged in to. When I moved my devices to different ports on my switches, it started working! Never in my career have I come across that. Even stranger, we have fiber coming into the house, which isn’t conductive. It means I’m buying a few new network cards and a whole-house surge protector, which I should’ve done from the outset. I’m calling this a win in that nothing was permanently fried and I learned a lesson.

Lastly, I wish you all could visit us. We moved to North Carolina so we could be 1) closer to family, and 2) in a well-funded school district. We’ve been able to take advantage of neither due to COVID-19. We can’t wait to have you visit though, and hope that you’ll stay in touch over FB Messenger and FaceTime in the meantime. Take care of yourselves, stay safe, and wear a mask!