Castleberry Hill is hip

Good story on my neighborhood. Everything would be even better if more 'pub-like' restaurants would come in instead of the kinds of places where the food is more like artwork. . .

AJC article on Castleberry Hill

So much to be thankful for. . .

We often go through life and don't take the time to thank those that have come before us for all that they have provided us. I'd like to take a few minutes to thank some of those people.

Let me start by thanking prehistoric man. He ran around killing animals and using his charm to woo the ladies. Sometimes there was a length of time between killing the animal and finding the right lady to share it with. He quickly realized that stinky meat is no way to a ladies heart so he discovered the power of snow. By packing his meat in snow, it would keep longer. By the time he located the right lady and 'convinced' her to come home with him, his meat was still nice and fresh. Little did he know he had set a path for enjoyment for all.

I would be remiss if I did not thank the Mesopotamians. Way back in the 7th millennium BC, these guys decided to get the party started right. Possibly before bread was even conceived, this fun-loving group of people invented beer. While certainly nothing like the fine beers of Sweetwater and Sierra Nevada we enjoy today, it was beer nonetheless. I could take another couple of hours to thank these guys, but alas, beer isn't beer unless it's cold, so let’s move on.

Jacob Perkins, an American inventor, was a big fan of keeping things cool. Word on the street was that his lineage went right back to the prehistoric guy I mentioned earlier. The 'natural ice industry' at the time was too large to overcome and his 1834 patent for a refrigerating machine didn't garnish much interest. Jacob eventually gave up on his grand plans of world refrigeration and went back to England to pursue other ventures. Fear not Jacob, your work will not go to waste.

Not long after Perkins' failed refrigerating machine idea, a journalist by the name of James Harrison moved to Australia to further the cause. Australia was too warm to harvest their own natural ice and was in dire need of some coolness to keep their kangaroo meat nice (I made this up). By 1856, Harrison had a working refrigeration machine and the world rejoiced. But even more importantly, he secured a contract from a brewery to build a larger machine that would cool their beer. The kegerator was born. (kinda)

Finally, we have one more person to thank: Kelly. Kelly is the person responsible for giving me the green light to secure my own piece of history. She has wisdom beyond her years and can see the immense value from owning a kegerator.

Without further ado, I present the latest item soon to be seen on the Taylor deck: The Craigerator. . .

PS - I also thank Wikipedia for all the useful information on beer and refrigeration

Big brother is watching

For a long time, I would often look at google maps to see if their satellite imagery had been updated to show any progress on our rooftop deck. Sadly, it always shows the same and looks like this:



Well, we were checking the weather the other day to see how many layers of clothing would be needed to work on the deck that day. I saw a new feature of weather.com that had radar maps. As something new, I just had to check it out. I clicked and found that it's using Microsoft's Virtual Earth technology. Anytime something uses satellites for images, I just have to check out our place. To my delight, their images are more updated than google's!

Check this out:



We've finally made our mark! Now this photo shows only the framing of the i-beams of our deck. Judging by flickr, this places this photo around February of 2006. So it's pretty old, but it's very exciting to see that our changes can be seen. :)

We'll probably just have to wait another couple of years to see the completed project! Of course we'll probably be in a new place by then, but oh well. . . .

The dishes are done, man.

Oh my, what a milestone. We now have all of the deckboards down!! Does this mean we're done?; no, of course not. :)

We are now working on the planters and benches that will be in the raised seating area. We will also be shopping for hot tubs, sourcing some countertop and railing materials. With all of that done, we can call our electrician back who has surely forgotten about us to get all the lighting run.

It feels like we're in the home-stretch now and I am estatic. I will love this thing when it is finished but will probably love not getting up every weekend to work on it. I envision myself laying in a lounge chair sunning myself while enjoying a nice, cold beer. These are good visions.

No, I still don't have an ETA, but think everything should be wrapped up by summer. Stay tuned for an eventual party. :)

Happy new year

No comment.

Craig/Deck Update

Ok, it's been forever since I updated this. We've been super-busy working on the deck. Pretty much every minute of weekend daylight has been used to get this monstosity finished.

I also learned in October that my job was going away. Well, my entire office was going away, but unless I wanted to move to LA, my job was going away as well. Since I don't want to move to LA, I decided I best find another job so that I could continue to eat.

It was good of my company to basically give us a two month notice. It gave everyone at my office enough time to look around and find some good places to go. I was able to look around and find another place where I could continue to work as a Web developer. Yeah, I said that. Despite the way this blog looks, I *actually am* a Web developer. So it's very good to know that I will officially have an employer at the beginning of 2007.

As always, more pictures at flickr.

Progress

Ok, work on the deck continues. We've mostly finished the raised seating area, finished the kitchen area and are now working on the area between the two breaker boards.

We're taking care to make sure no boards stick up to be tripped over. We're also taking care to make sure all the boards line up properly. So it's time-consuming, but will worth it when it's all done.

Speaking of all-done, not sure we're going to make our Dec 31 deadline anymore. This breaker board area is just taking so long to get right. . . .

More pictures at flickr.