Merry Christmas

For an animated version of this card click the link below:
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=1709951249578&source=jl999

Turbines

It's been almost two months since I started my new job with Alstom Power Turbomachines Group. I am enjoying it very much. The HR Director (my boss) is a great manager and he has put together a great team. We're super busy and working well together. I can't yet explain to you what this is a picture of but someday I expect I will. Right now, my best guess is this is the interior part of a turbine in the process of being built.

Part of our responsibility is to learn what our company, and specifically, our division actually does. We'll take info from wherever we can get it. One of those sources is from the National Geographic channel. Since it's available online I thought some of you might like to see a glimpse (along with me) my world at work (sort of). This episode of the "World's Toughest Fixes" (in the link below) highlights the replacement of a turbine in a nuclear facility. The new turbine they put in is one kind of turbine that we'll be making.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/worlds-toughest-fixes/3342/Overview#tab-Videos/05748_00

I don't expect everyone to watch this... only those really interested. Here's a cut-away of a turbine. The photo below gives it perspective.

Precious Rain water!

Larry has been very busy lately.

For a long time now I've been looking at water barrels. Rain water is good for the garden. The plants like chlorine free water. Also, rain water is free! We can go weeks without rain sometimes and the garden gets very thirsty. I don't like to water because our sewer bill is based upon water usage, so if I use a bunch of water in August, I may pay all year long in higher sewer bills.

So, when I saw 250 gallon water tanks for sale on Craigs List for only $40 I showed it to Larry. To make a long story short - he purchased three of these tanks and installed them on the north side of our house - a side that has no windows and no appeal visually. It's also a side that's on a slope which elevates the tanks over the garden which will create a little water pressure for watering. All good stuff.

So... he gets them installed and that night it rains. It doesn't just rain a little... it rains over 2 1/2 inches! The tanks were full the next morning. Sadly, we got 2 inches the next night and I wasn't able to capture any of that. If it were practical I would like to install a whole bunch more! The good news is, our rain is spread out through out the year - more or less - so I'll have a good bit of water to put to use.

Here are some photos. They're worth a thousand words. I'll be planting something around and over them to help obscure them. Right now they stick out like sore thumbs!

Bathroom remodel update

Back in May (you can look back if you want) Larry started our master bath remodel. I am happy to say it is all done. I'm also happy to say that Larry did a wonderful job. It took a long time due to financial constraints but it is done! In the May blog entry I said I didn't have any before photos. Well... I was wrong. I remembered that I had taken photos of the house before escrow closed - back in 2006. Therefore - here are some before and afters.

The before shot, on the left, is looking through the bedroom door into the master bath "dressing area". Now - as shown in the photo on the right - the dressing area and closet are gone as is the wall that was separating this space from the bathroom. Now, there is no dressing area and the bathroom is one bigger room.

We took some square footage away from our extra large bedroom and Larry added closets with more space than we had before. I didn't take photos of that yet because they're waiting for doors and door jams. We'll save that for another entry (maybe).

The old combo tub/shower has been replaced by a whirlpool tub. See where the window is in the before and after photos? The window is above the tub, next to a wall ,because on the other side of this new wall, Larry put in a new laundry area. So - in essence, the new tub is where the toilet used to be and the washer and dryer are where the old tub had been.


The vanity used to be on the same wall as the tub/shower. Now, in that place is our toilet. See the cabinet above it? That passes through to the laundry area so I can wash & dry the towels, then fold them and put them on the shelf (from the laundry side) and wa-lah!, there are towels ready to go in the bathroom.

And finally, here's the dining room difference.

Before.., just a wall. Now, a laundry area. Sorry; I took the photo from a different vantage point. The fireplace hearth which you see in the before photo is just out of sight to my left in the after photo. Where the towels go is a can of paint so it's not 100% functional yet but that's a small thing. There are bi-fold doors there that are hard to see so the washer and dryer can be hidden from sight.

One more really great thing is a laundry "chute" from the bedroom to the laundry hamper. Isn't Larry clever?