Hanes Pink Desgin-A-Tee Contest

Hanes is holding a design your own t-shirt contest to support breast cancer awareness.  Please vote for my t-shirt http://www.hanespink.com/gallery#/design/8113  I design it with in mind what I want to say toward those who have breast cancer or effected by it.  Those words really comes from my heart and mean every word of it.  I hope you guys can take a minute out of your day and vote for me. 

I'LL COULD HAVE DIE FROM CARBON MONOXIDE!

I wasn't feeling well today so I stayed home.  Did some research on my computer and took a nap in between.  Little did I know there was something wrong with my burner in the basement.  Apparently, the guys who were here yesterday did not clean the burner well enough (again, because they did a bad job the first time causing smoke to arise through out the house).  Now, this time carbon monoxide was leaking back into the house slowly.  I didn't notice it because I was on the second floor with my door closed.  When I got out of my room to cook dinner I smell something little bit weird but, didn't think much about it because the carbon monoxide detector in the basement didn't went off plus, I thought probably there was still some odor trap in the basement from the previous night.  I was only there in the kitchen for one hour or so but, I already started to feel a little bit dizzy and discomfort in breathing. 

Then, out of no where I heard a knock on my front door.  I open the door and surprise to see a fireman standing on my front porch telling me to get my jacket and come out of the house immediately.  I asked him what was going on.  He quickly explains to me a neighbor from across the street thought my house was on fire.  I gasp for a split second out of totally disbelief of what I just heard.  Fire, what fire?  I thought to myself this man must be joking or mistaken my house for one of my neighbors!  If there was a fire I think I would have known about it since I’m in the house.  As much as I don’t want to be seen wearing my pajama in public in front of all the fireman, fire chief captains, and my noisy neighbors, I did what I was told.  As I was walking out to the drive way, I saw three fire trucks park in the street right front of my house and fireman running pass me towards the opposite direction.  They asked me is there any other way to get into the basement besides the front entrance.  I say no.

Once I turned around facing towards the house, the guy who I was talking to when I open the door (Chief Captain?) pointed to the black smoke coming out of my chimney.  It’s not like anyone can miss it.  You can see it couple miles away.  Unfortunately, I stayed inside the whole time and looked like a complete idiot for not noticing this.  Then, two of the fire man came out of the house telling Chief their carbon monoxide reading in the basement was 40.  If I have stayed there any longer  I could have die from carbon monoxide poison!  Lucky, I had stayed most of the time in my room closed door.  If I had not, I’m easily gone and they would come too late to rescue me.  Shocking, yes!  Then Chief Captain made me get check if I was ok by one of theirs EMT.  It was so embarrassing because I was used to volunteer as an EMT for one year and half during my college days.  Now, a few years later, here I am in my pajama.  Luckily, this ambulance belongs to the fire department and not the ambulance corporation I used to volunteer for.  Still, I was mortified to the point I want to dig a hole in the corner and hide.  It was funny I answer all the questions before he even asked me.  Hahaha…I guess they never change the same old routine.  What made it worse was this EMT guy was really cute.  He told me everything looks normal except my pulse was little bit high.  *cough*  Did I told you he was very cute and I’ll was wearing my pajama (and not a very flattering one I might add).  Now, I know how my patients felt when I made them leave to go to the hospital in their pajamas.

I'M BACK!

Yes, I'm back!  It has been a long time since I have written anything new on this blog.  Hehe...sorry about that.  For my defense I...was...busy.  You know, the home improvement projects and helping out my brother's wedding stuff.  Speaking of the home improvement projects, guess what is finally finished?  The bathroom!!!!  Oh, yeah!  The joy of having running water and able to take my first relaxing victory bath in this new, fixed and improved bathroom, all the money in the world can not put a price tag how happy I felted.  I did not realize how much work and time needed to be put into remodel this bathroom.  Originally my brother and I thought we can get it done within 2-3 months.  If only I knew it will expand over the period of 8 months, I might not agree to start this project.  However, I'm glade we did because there's no more leaking pipe behind the wall and the room is much warmer.  Besides that, I got to spend some time working with my brother.  We rarely do anything together nowadays except for these type of things and helping him working on his car.  I know me and fixing car!  Hahaha...that's the last place you expect to find me.  Strangely, enough I found myself not hating the entire experience of fixing his car.  In fact, I even learned how to change the oil, filter, and brake pads.  Hey, this is what happens when you have a brother as the only other sibling.  His interest in sci-fi, computers, technology, God, and ski, in some little way or another rub onto me.  The other day he got me hook on the TV show "Heroes".  Now, it's one of my favorite TV show.  If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend you should.  Oh, yeah start from the first episode, if not you will feel complete lost of what's going on.  So, if you think I'm a total geek, you now know whom is the cause of it all. lol I like hanging out with my older brother but, sometime I wish we don't have to do only things that he likes.  It wouldn't hurt him if he tries to see what type of things that I'm into and experience with me.

After, the bathroom project was done I sort of started another home improvement project on my own.  Guess what it is.  Don't have a clue?  Give up?  Well, I tear down the wallpapers in my bed room and painted it pinkish purple.  Actually, there is a lot of more work involved between tearing down the wallpaper and painting the room.  The wall needs to be smooth therefore, after tearing the wallpaper for two weeks I smoothing the wall using a sander machine.  Next, I wipe the wall with a wet sponge to get rid of the dust. Then, fills the holes and uneven wall with multi purpose joint compound (did this a few times to built layers on top of each other so the wall is now even).  Besides tearing the wall paper down, I personally think putting up joint compound is even harder.  So, tedious and took so much energy to make it perfectly smooth.  I'm a perfectionist so; it practically drove me insane to get it right.  Then, I sand it down with a joint compound sander (there are made for sanding down joint compound and it's a sponge like material wrap around with fine sand paper).  Wash the dust of the wall again with a wet sponge.  Saw something uneven, did some touch up using joint compound, sand over that spot, and wipe it down.  Finally, I prime painted the wall white.  Took me 7 hours to paint my room.  I'm serious, not kidding!  Next day, painted the outer coat and second coat the day after that.  Each time took me 7 hours.  The whole project took me about 6 weeks.  During this whole time I didn't get a good enough sleep because I slept on the living room couch.  Almost roll off the couch couple of times and the noise from the refrigerator and clock kept me up the whole night.  I remember being so tired but, wasn't able to go into deep sleep.  I'm pleased with the outcome and so as my family.  However, they want me to take a long break before even wanting to start another home improvement project. hehe...manily because they can't stand me being cranky all the time.  This is what happens when I don't have enough sleep, highly stress, working long hours and can't think anything but the project itself.

DEAR BODY,

//EDIT: Sometimes you guys crack me up.  I mean what's with the "cake" comment?  Of course, I have cake on my birthday.  I can't think of a reason why not.  I love cake.  What bring you guys to ask such a odd question?  Did I implied somewhere in my blog that I will not have cake?  Anyway, if you guys want to see pictures from my birthday check out my other blog.

UPDATES ON MY BATHROOM PROJECT

Well, for the past few months my brother and I have been working on remodeling my parent's bathroom non-stop.  Ok, not exactly "non-stop" because we were busy with other things too but, we did work on it once or twice every week (that's a long time since we have started around April).  We have come a long way consider we have started out nothing near like a professional plumber, carpenter, and electrician.  Now, the bathroom is starting coming together and so far it looks pretty good.  In fact, I can say it with confidence I think a professional can not even do it even better themselves.  The bathroom is about 75% done. 

Recap what I did so far:

-Bathroom demolition.  Torn down the tube tiles, dry wall through out the room, and taken out the tube & sink.  This has been the most fun part of remodeling the bathroom so far.

-Plumbing.  It has taken us ages to get this finished.  Well, I did a little research around my local library on plumbing and check out a few books.  I learned how to; solder the pipes together, cut the pipe with a tubing cutter, remove the sharp metal burrs from inside edge of the cut pipe using a triangular plastic piece called reaming point from the back of the tubing cutter, sand the outside end of the pipe where it will be joint with another pipe and clean the inside of the pipe with a wire brush, apply a thin layer of soldering paste called flux to end of each pipe, make a hook shape with solder wire (silver wire rolled in a tube.  This is the actual stuff that melts btw pipes and holds them together), open the valve of the propane torch little bit and strike a spark with the spark lighter in front of the propane torch.  Once the gas ignites on the torch first adjust the flame if you need too.  Not too much and not too little just enough to see the blue flame.  Then with one hand take the torch and heat around the pipe where the two pipes are touching (where the pipes overlap and remember if the pipes are position horizontal heat from the bottom because heat rised.  If the pipes are position vertically in the wall then heat evenly around the joint of the pipes).  With the other hand, hold onto the solder (you know the silver wire that I had bended like the shape of an L hook before) and touch the pipe.  If solder melts that means the pipe is ready to be soldered.  Take the torch away and solder away!  You know, melt around the joints and if it sucks into the pipes (sometimes you can see silver inside the jointed area) then it means it worked.  If not you have take them apart and do this all over again.  Done that many times before when we first started.  It was no fun, trust me!  We also did a lot of other plumbing stuff but, I block all of them out.

I'm sorry if you do find the description under plumbing way too long.  I probably will forget all these stuff that I have learned within the next few months so, this is my way of jolting down what I have learned during that period of my life for later references.  Who knows maybe one day I need to refresh my memory how to solder copper pipes.  Oh yeah, I just remember soldering pipes that is shape like a T (runs in 3 different direction) was extremely difficult.  We find a trick to it after we repeat soldering the same thing over again for like 3 or 4 times but, seem to not able to recall what it was.  See, my memory is fading away!  Maybe, we heat each joint and solder one at a time but, fast.

-Stuffing the wall with that soft itchy cotton like insulator.  I forgot what the technical name for it is.  They supposed to prevent the room from loosing heat, make the room sound less noisy, and prevent molds from forming.  We brought two types.  One was more specialized on keeping in the heat from escaping and water  proof which we put on the wall facing towards the outside of the house and around the tube (and one or two where ever there are pipes).  And we place the regular ones through out the rest of the bathroom.

-Concrete Board and Dry Wall.  Besides the plumbing I think this is the hardest part of the remolding.  I had injured myself a few times putting up those walls.  Also, it eats up my energy and physical strength fast.  Sometimes after each task I have to take mini breaks to regain my strength so, I can go onto the next task.  We actually finish putting up the dry wall today!  In order to put up the concrete board (which is water proof placed around the tube) and dry wall (mold and water resistant) you have to do a lot of measuring.  First of all, you need to get a sense how big the room is and where the dry wall would fit into that picture.  Next, you have to measure where the beams are located vertically and horizontally on each wall so you know where to screw the screws in the wall.  Also, measure and note where the outlets and pipes that is sticking out of the wall located (like the nipple for the shower and pipes for the sink).  Then, take the concrete board and dry wall outside to do all the marking that you just had measured.  To know where the screw goes in you start 2" from the edge of the board and 8" space apart from there on.  Cut out the excess for that specific side of the wall if needed and cut out opening for the outlets and pipes for the sink.  Think of it this way, you are customizing each dry wall or concrete board so it will be perfectly fit like the pieces of the puzzle.

Later this week I will be cover the dry wall and concrete board with all purpose joint compound (sort of like a spackle) between the gaps where the dry wall meets each other and any where else where there is hole.  Next, placed joint tape on top of that and another layer of joint compound on top of that.  Then, spread the joint compound evenly through out the room.  Anyway, that's as much I know according to my research.  Maybe, there is more to putting joint compound on the wall but, that's my basic understanding for now.