Janicek.com

If you haven’t already and find yourself with the opportunity to install hardwood flooring in your home, here is some advice I’d like to offer as an experienced hardwood flooring installer. First, drive to the nearest Ferrari dealership. Purchase the car that you like best and the car that the salesperson is pushing you to buy.

Next, drive to the nearest proctologist. Have him/her give you a once-over with a fist full of razor wire and some Tobasco sauce.

What I thought was going to be a quick Saturday afternoon adventure in installing hardwood in the guest bedroom turned out to be an all weekend event – with a $650 price tag to boot. And to add insult to injury, the flooring that I bought doesn’t match the existing hardwood in the rest. It took me a few rows before I realized that the color or style didn’t completely match. The floor is from the same company that manufactured the existing floor – same color too – gunstock. But it’s different. I don’t understand. I’m chalking it up to experience.

I came home from work today at 6 p.m. Work has been very stressful this month. We’re behind – big time. My boss and I decided to shift labor and promote from within to handle certain tasks which now involves a management structure that umbrellas fulfillment and marketing. That’s a big deal for our newly promoted Production Manager (we’re not big on titles but that’s what I’ll probably use in reference to said newly promoted). There’s a big learning curve involved that I’ll have to manage until she can take over and delegate. Short term that means a lot of work for yours truly but will really help out in the end. That will eventually free up some time for me so I can start working closely with my boss again.

Anyway – big stress.

To add insult to injury, Elise and I got home around the same time and decided it was time to stock the pantry and fridge. We went to the grocery store and got home around 9 p.m. I went out to the garage to throw something in the trash. As I was walking through the garage door, I noticed carpet shreddings. I turned on the hall light and saw that the carpet in the threshold of the guest bedroom was
torn all to hell. Our housekeeper accidentally closed the guest bedroom door after cleaning this afternoon and locked Annie in all day. Her only escape route: under the door. She obviously couldn’t make it but she sure did a number on the carpet.

This weekend, Josh is learning to rip up carpet and install hardwood flooring. A prime opportunity to practice my profanity.

I’ve been catching a lot of flack for not updating the website, so here’s a quick overview of the past two weeks…
Labor Day weekend started out with a bang. I was afraid that the Metallica concert was going to suck on Friday night but it turned out to be one of the best yet:

Blackened
Fuel
No Leaf
Clover
Creeping
Death
Frantic
King Nothing
Turn the Page
St. Anger
Kirk Guitar Doodle
Fade to Black
Master Of Puppets
Battery
I Disappear
Melbourne
Nothing
Else Matters
Sad But True
One
Enter Sandman
The Four Horsemen
Seek and Destroy

Needless to say, I could barely speak afterwards (singing screaming along with James Hetfield). It was awesome to be able to take Elise to a good Metallica show. A lot of old music that really pleased the crowd.

After the concert, Elise headed home because she had to work on Saturday. Victor and I burned the midnight oil. We met up with Philip and went out. After closing a bar, Victor and I caught an early breakfast at IHOP. I think I got home somewhere around 4 a.m.

Saturday morning I got up and went for an ear lowering. Tommy came over and we headed to the SoCo Festival to people watch. We met up with Philip and Chris. Chris started feeling ill so we made our separate ways. Tommy and I went to Applebees for some grub. Tommy went home, I hit the hay around 8 p.m. ( I was still exhausted from Friday night).

On Sunday I took Elise to buy a new pair of tennis shoes at Academy. After that we headed over to Philip’s apartment for a
Labor Day barbeque.

On Labor Day, Elise and I went shopping. Before we hit the mall, we had a nice lunch and the Bombay Grill. Elise slammed her fingers in the truck door when we were getting in the truck to leave the restaurant. If you’ve ever slammed your fingers in a car door, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, don’t. We next stopped at Foleys to look for bedding. We wound up buying your humble narrator 6 new work shirts for a steal. Next we went to JC Penney where we didn’t find bedding, but we did find two mighty nice king-sized Sealy Posturepedic pillows that we scooped up.

After leaving the mall we met up with Erin and Cyndi at Zuzu’s to plan John and Christine’s baby shower. I sat there and drank 2.6 gallons of Coke while the girls hashed out the details.

Elise and I went to Bed Bath & Beyond after meeting with the girls where we decided on pillow shams and a comforter for our new bed.

Long, but much needed weekend. We had a lot of fun.

That week: Work. Sucked. Big time. Muy grande. That’s French for “don’t slam your fingers in a Japanese miniature pick-up truck”.

Spiral down to this past weekend…

On Friday I came home from work and played on the Xbox for most of the night. On Saturday I woke up and guarded the TV. I watched Jaws 3-D and a few episodes of season 5 of the Sopranos. Elise was at work for most of the afternoon. We reconvened and John and Christine’s baby shower. Much fun was had. I cooked a ton of hamburgers that Erin’s mom hammered out for me. We played a few games that guys aren’t used to seeing how guys usually don’t find themselves at baby showers. Great turnout and great company.

On Sunday Elise and I headed out in time for lunch at Hickory Street Bar & Grill. That was so-so. I had something that I think was called the banana fire chicken sandwich. It was a grilled chicken breast topped with Buffalo hot sauce on jalapeno bread. Elise had the brunch buffet.

After lunch we headed to the Austin Museum of Art for the Ghost Stories: The Disembodied Spirit exhibit. Very cool. There were some very eery photos, paintings and multi-media displays. We both really enjoyed the exhibit but were both more impressed with the Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba Memorial Project videos.

JUN NGUYEN-HATSUSHIBA
Memorial Project Vietnam — Two Videos

September 10 — November 28, 2004

Japanese/Vietnamese artist Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (Jyun Nú-win Ha-tsú-she-buh) creates graceful and otherworldly underwater films. This exhibition features two films which explore current events and cultural traditions of Vietnam and are remarkable for their underwater setting, saturated color, choreographed movements, and hypnotic soundtracks.

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba was raised in Japan and educated in Texas, Illinois, and Maryland. The artist now lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His work
has been included in the Yokohama Triennial and the Kwangiu, Venice, Sydney, and
Sao Paolo Biennials.

This exhibition was funded by The Rockefeller Foundation and LEF Foundation. Happy New Year-Memorial Project Vietnam II was produced by the MATRIX program at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California, with assistance from The New Museum, New York.

This is my late night post interpretation/recap: The first film consisted of an underwater cyclo race. The second was an underwater interpretation of the Vietnamese new year. I’m so tired right now and would love to write about my initial interpretation and how I was way off after reading the exhibit program, but I’ll find solace in knowing that I had my interpretation and the memory of the experience. Anyway – go to the Austin Museum of Art (if you’re in the vicinity) for these two exhibits. Both are truly awesome.

After being cultured, Elise and I played our role as consumers and swung by Four Hands in south Austin to finally decide on an Indian rosewood dining room table that weights 48 billion pounds. We had our next door neighbors come over on Sunday night to help up put it together.

So that’s it for now. Work is beating the hell out of Elise and I both.

It takes a lot to piss me off. What has pissed me off today is Dell. It’s like pulling teeth the get a decent sales person on the phone who works for Dell. I’m assuming the sales staff at Dell aren’t on a commission-based pay structure. I don’t want to think about it anymore but I’m pissed at Dell right now. That is all.

On another note. Elise and I are going to see Metallica at the Frank Irwin Center in Austin on Friday. The last three Metallica concerts that I’ve been to have been let downs. I bought these tickets the day that they came out only because I wanted Elise to experience a Metallica concert. So Metallica, if you’re reading this (which I know they are because they’re big fans of mine): give us a good concert. Lots of energy, lots of old music.

Elise took a short vacation and flew up to Des Moines for five days. She’s inundated with work these days so you’ll have to wait until she has time to write about her trip. In the meantime, here are some photos.

I decided to work from home this morning.  Around 11 o’clock I went out into the backyard for a little break.  I walked over to the garden to check the tomato plant.  I felt something under my right foot.  It felt like I was standing on a sharp twig.  The longer I stood there, the more it hurt.  My internal pain response mechanism sent a memo to my lower right appendage stating: “Hey, maybe you should move your foot”.  I did just that.  A large red wasp flew up from under the grass where I had just been standing.  It flew towards my head.  I maintained my manliness by not shrieking like a little girl.  Instead I frolicked back to the patio and assessed the damages.  Nothing like a good ol’ wasp sting between the pinky and next toe to start off a Tuesday.  That hurt like hell.  Coincidentally, my boss, who is also a pharmacist, called shortly after the attack.  Remedy: vinegar.  The acetic acid in vinegar neutralized the sting.

I took Elise to the airport on Friday morning to spend five days in Des Moines.  I went to work for a few hours and left early to beat traffic and make my way east to spend the weekend with my parents. 

I got to Cat Spring around 6:30 p.m.  Mom, Dad and I went to Cross Roads for fried catfish.  We came home and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.  I had weird dreams last night.  I rarely remember my dreams.  In my first dream, a little Dachshund puppy was playing in a pond.  He was exiting the water and a large catfish came up from out of the water and swallowed the puppy up to his neck.  The catfish kept his head out of water and body in the water just enough to where I could see the little puppy’s head in the mouth of the fish.  The little puppy was shivering.  I woke myself up.

In my next dream, a little black and white kitten was playing near the same body of water.  A large crocodile came out the water and ate the kitten.

I didn’t sleep well for the rest of the night.  I can sort of understand why a catfish was in my dream, but not the small domesticated pets or the crocodile.

Today we all woke up early.  Dad cleaned the boat.  I took a shower and went outside and figured out why the depth/fish finder on the boat wasn’t working.

After that, we all hopped in the truck to drive to Katy to get a new TV for my parents.  My parents, after a lot of homework, decided on a 50″ Samsung DSP HDTV.  We went to Best Buy because they were offering a free Xbox with the purchase of a TV $1,500 or more.  So now yours truly has an Xbox.  Best Buy really did have the best buy.  The same TV was the same price at Circuit City, but no Xbox.  CompUSA and Fry’s were both $200 more.

Now we’re home.  I hooked the new TV up and Dad and I are watching the Texans play the Cowboys.  Tomorrow we’re going boating at Lake Somerville.

Tracy and Patrick came to the house for a visit last Wednesday with their new baby girl, Gianna. Gianna is gorgeous and a very well behaved one-month-old. I whipped up a grilled pork tenderloin with a chipotle, corn and cream sauce, jalapeno, cilantro and corn hash brown and an arugula summer salad with a light southwestern yogurt dressing dinner.

We had a nice conversation about parenthood and life in general. Tracy and Patrick left around 11 p.m. and I immediately checked the prices of used babies on eBay. No luck thus far. I’ll keep y’all posted.

A lot has been going on recently, even though it doesn’t seem like it.  Last week, Clyde (my TKD instructor) and Della went to Canada so I taught classes.  On Tuesday we reviewed patterns for the full hour.  On Thursday, Elena and Autumn were the only ones to show.  I reviewed their patterns and had to end class after taking a smooth kick to manland during free sparring.

On Thursday night our neighbors had a little community dessert/get together.  Elise and I walked over to their house around 8ish and were able to meet a few more of our neighbors.  It was great to finally meet everyone.

After a full day of work on Friday, I drove to Playland Skate Center to bartend for a catering Elise did for Accenture.  We worked until midnight.  We were exhausted.  Since we hadn’t seen much of each other that week, Elise and I went home and talked on the back porch until 3 a.m.

We were going to go tubing again on Saturday but it looked like rain.  I woke up at 7 a.m. and couldn’t really fall back to sleep.  I got out of bed around 8.  Elise woke up shortly after.  We went to Old Navy to get in on the Tax Free Weekend.  We went so Elise could get some new clothes.  Elise got a pair of pants that fitted funny.  I got a shirt, a pair of shorts and a jacket.

We went to El Arroyo so Elise could drop off a load list.  We had hamburgers at the restaurant.  El Arroyo has good hamburgers by the way.  After lunch we went to the ol’ HoPot and bought a new ceiling fan for the living room.  That took up the rest of my Saturday.  Installing a ceiling fan allowed for me to brush up on my profanity.  I even made up some of my own words.  That’s how frustrating the whole experience was for me.  I think it took me four hours to complete the project.

Elise had to work on Sunday.  I went back to HoPot and bought some monkey grass to edge the oak tree in the front yard.  I planted the grass in just enough time to miss the afternoon heat and humidity.  I went inside the house and took the old fan that used to be in the living room and installed it in the bedroom.  Luckily I had recently become a seasoned veteran in the field of domestic ceiling fan installation so this install didn’t take quite as long.  The funny part was when I tested the electricity before completely reassembling the fan.  I flicked the switch and pulled the pull on the fan prior to fastening the fan to the ceiling bracket.  When you pull the pull on a fan, the first pull is the high setting on the fan.  I did this and the motor started spinning on the fast setting.  That was hilarious.  Chains were slapping me in the face and the fan started crawling its way up to the ceiling due to the wires twisting.  Luckily I was able to harness my ceiling fan installation ninja skills and stop the motor from spinning before the possessed generator of wind escaped and made its way throughout the neighborhood.

After that whole ordeal I went back to Old Navy to return Elise’s pants.  I then went to CompUSA and picked up a copy of Doom 3.  I thought my computer could handle it but it’s looking like I might have to upgrade my graphics card (to the tune of ~$300).  So I’m thinking I might be selling Doom 3.  I could possibly turn a profit there because CompUSA had a 1-week $10 mail-in rebate for the game.  Or I could hold off and eventually upgrade the graphics card.  Or I could buy a Xbox and the game for a lot less than buying a new graphics card.  Or I could sell the damn game because playing it could get in the way of my aspiration to become a professional ceiling fan installer.

About the time that I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to play my new game, Elise called… “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” she asks.  “What did you do to my truck?” was my only response.  I had let Elise use my truck for a catering that morning.  She had a blow out about a mile from the house.  I drove over and put the spare on the truck so she could drive it home.

On Monday I spent half the day at Sam’s getting new tires.  I got up in the morning and went to the Sam’s near the house to find that the tires that I wanted ($30 each ) were at the north store.  I drove way the hell up to north Austin and paced the store for two hours while they installed my tires.  When they were done, I had the manager waive the installation fee since it took over an hour.

I finally got to work around 2:30.  I made some DNS changes to a handful of our clients’ websites and went home.  I went to put my new spare tire in its spot under the truck only to find that the spare was flat.  I borrowed my neighbor’s air pump and found out that the valve stem was cut.  I had to go back to Sam’s and get the valve stem fixed.

John called me yesterday evening and said something to the effect of “I swear I’m getting the flu”. I woke up this morning with a headache. I recall driving to work and feeling really out of it. My headache has progressively gotten worse. I’m sore. My head hurts. My legs hurt. It’s hard to stand up. My eyes
hurt. I’m still out of it. I’m hoping I’m not getting really sick. The iPod mini sold last night for $290 used. I bought it new in February for $249. I paid $299 for the new 20GB iPod. Not too bad. If it didn’t make for bad Karma, it’s tempting to buy up a bunch of the Live Strong bracelets a the local bike shop here in Austin for $1 and sell them for a cool profit on eBay.