Amelia + Chocolate = BFF
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Jul 282011
The worlds most useless device evar!
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Jul 222011
Seriously you have to watch the video all the way to the end.
Master bathroom is complete!
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Jul 212011
It’s probably no secret to anyone who visits my site or is a friend on Facebook that I’ve been working on our master bathroom since forever. Between getting married, having kids and life in general the project just kept getting pushed back and back. Not anymore though…I can say with 100% assurance that after 6 years, 2 months and 5 days the master bathroom remodel is complete!
It all started soon after we moved in. We noticed a wet spot in the downstairs guest bathroom and figured out there was a leak from the master bath shower. I did my best over the course of the next few months but could never figure out where the actual leak was coming from. Even after replacing everything I could think of, re-caulking, even replacing the drain. So we were really only left with one option….nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
This is what our bathroom looked like before we started anything:
To say that the layout was idiotic would be kind. To get to the shower you had to open a door, step in next to the toilet and then close the door and swing open the 32″ shower door. It made the bathroom on our honeymoon cruise look well designed and spacious by comparison. Not to mention there was a huge amount of cubic space just wasted between the tub and the shower. Point is the bathroom was obviously cookie cutter built with off the shelf parts.
So…a little remodeling later!
First up the old door got swapped out:
With a new pocket door to maximize space:
Next up we have some recessed medicine cabinets again to maximize space:
Replaced the union valve with a new model:
Did a little drywall and painting:
Installed a new customer shower pan using the Schluter Kerdi system and tiled the hell out of it (notice the Schluter Ditra system on the floor):
And here we are today with everything complete:
HUGE drug bust in Maplewood
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Jul 182011
You wouldn’t believe the size of it!
Erin Evermore MP3's
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Jul 132011
So a long time ago I posted a question “what ever happened to Erin Evermore?”. Back in the early days of MP3′s her song “Girls Love Sex” was everywhere. Heck I even ordered her Babyphetamine CD (still have it I think…scratched to living hell though).
Anyways I thought her music wasn’t to bad but she just dropped off the radar. Since she’s no longer hosting a site or performing I’ve been meaning to share the MP3′s I have of hers. This of course is only being shared as a fan and not for profit (I don’t even have ads).
Erin Evermore:
1. Loose To Come
2. Love It
3. In The Extreme
4. Girls Love Sex
5. Did He Do It To You
6. Animal Child
Algonquin raising garbage sticker prices again
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Jul 012011
I wrote this email to the Village Trustees who are going to vote on July 5th to most likely increase the price of garbage stickers up. It would be nice if they didn’t and listened to residents (who only found out via a third party on a little blurb in the newspaper):
Good Afternoon,
I am hoping that you won’t mind me reaching out to the village in this manner. Generally I frown up on emailing such a large group of people as it can be considered spam and makes any conversation muddled but wanted to share my concerns as a resident of Algonquin with all of the Trustees.
I heard today through second hand information that garbage stickers would be increasing soon as a result of contract negotiations with Waste Management. I can say that I wasn’t necessarily surprised with the news, however, I was taken aback by the amount and the methodology. When the stickers were last renegotiated in 2006 the change from $1.80 to $1.95 represented only an 8.33% increase with what I considered to be improvements to the service (I am a fan of the big blue recycling bins vs. the old yellow bins we had).
In contrast though this increase represents an increase of 31% over the life of the contract! In a time where house values have plummeted, yet real estate taxes have increased this is somewhat of a slap in the face. I love the sound of the new services (battery recycling and CFL especially) but this is almost economical punishment for people wanting to have and grow a family in Algonquin, IL. I myself have three children all under the age of 5 and while we do our best to reduce our garbage out I just don’t see the logic in raising prices when families are already having a hard time. Not only that I can only imagine this would lead to an increase in “theft of services” situations where people dump garbage in unsecured dumpsters (which ironically if I read correctly the current misdemeanor is being adjusted).
I hope you can see my point of view and respect it. I’m not saying that $30 dollars more a year is going to result in my feeding my kids canned beans and living in a cardboard box. On the other hand though I find myself wondering why I just spent a grand in landscaping just so the front of my house looks prettier when the Village isn’t going to be sympathetic to the costs of me and my family. Especially when I cannot find any information on this proposed vote or minutes from past meetings covering the details on the algonquin.org website.
Dennis Judd
Algonquin, IL