The trees' birthday

Jordan's class celebrated Tu b'Shevat, which they call the Trees' Birthday, with a charming seder featuring fifteen different kinds of fruit and two different colors of juice.  What's not to like?  I attended and it was pretty entertaining.  

Boulder visit

Last week I spent two days in Boulder, at the university, helping out with a site visit for the National Task Force for Excellence in Physics Teacher Education. (I was the non-Task-Force member of the site committee.) Boulder does all kinds of terrific stuff to turn out qualified physics teachers, and we went to learn all about how they do it. We interviewed everyone from undergraduates to chairs to deans to the Provost and the Chancellor, who, remarkably, knew all about the great physics education research that my colleagues there are doing. It was fascinating to get such a vertical slice of the university system. And it was entertaining to be treated like a visiting dignitary.

They kept us very busy, but we had time for a laugh in between meetings. Here I am with Monica Plisch of the American Physical Society (left), and my buddy Valerie Otero (right), who is faculty in the School of Education. It's her office we're in... see the mountains out the window? Boulder is staggering. If you can tear your eyes away from the mountains, you gaze out over the Great Plains, stretching out like an ocean as far as the eye can see.

Our new home!

The inspection was today, and it's solid! This will be our new home! What a glorious feeling. We are totally delighted. It was so easy to hang out in there while the inspector looked at every little thing, and it was such a pleasure, after the Greenlake debacle, to have him turn up plenty of good news. The foundation is poured concrete, solid as a rock. The roof and the furnace are both great, new and high-quality, and those are big-ticket items. He was also impressed with the basement, which seems amazingly dry and fresh and has great headroom. The house is move-in ready -- there's not a thing we need to do to it to enjoy living there, and none of the work that needs doing is urgent. There are some systems that have not had the updates that are due to them, and we need to plan for that in the coming years. Probably half the plumbing is steel that is nearing the end of its lifespan; the wiring is mostly the old knob-and-tube stuff; the ventilation and insulation in the attic are not the best; and the deck is an amateur job that is not holding up very well. We hope to live in this house for a long time... we want to take good care of it (and hope we can find the funds to do so). It was good to feel like the inspection was about getting to know the house and its long-term needs, rather than finding out that it was a falling-down rathole.

Jordan and Aaron's school is just a few blocks away, so as the inspection was winding up, I went and picked Jordan up early and showed him around. He was nervous, which I think is to be expected; moving is a huge change, and hard to imagine. But this was a start.

Here are the walkthroughs, one inside and one out. Enjoy!

Missed a cute one

No, it's not snowy here now, but I neglected to post this photo then, and it's so cute.

Construction walkthrough

We thought we'd share these little movies of the condition of the exterior.

Construction update

We have flooring in our entry today, isn't that great? It's been torn out since December 11. The new stuff doesn't match the kitchen flooring, but never mind. The two lights in the entry area and the front hall are still inoperative, the door has no trim around it, and we've put paper towels up in the entry window for privacy, since there's no blind there now.

At least the door doesn't have a breeze blowing around or under it now. For a while there were visible gaps around the framing, and even holes that an animal could get through. (The pictures below were taken on Dec. 16.) During that period there was also no ceiling in the entry - they put up plastic to provide some insulation and to catch drips (picture from Jan. 8).



The drywalling day was pretty intrusive (Jan. 16 - yes, for my birthday I got drywall). Of course they had to block off the entry for the day. We were home with Aaron, who was having is puking week, so we had to block him from that whole area with a baby gate. It was loud, and obviously we had no privacy. When we wanted to go out, they cut a big slit in the plastic for us to pass through.

When they were done with that, there were visible gaps around the door again. We notified the management and they filled them in with something.

Another oddity is in Jordan's room. It looks like some of their exterior work maybe became interior work accidentally, because up in the corner there are holes that appear to have been sawed in the drywall. Debris falls through or from them onto Jordan's toys.

The boys' favorite construction activity is when they haul large objects up to the roof with ropes that run up the side of the building. Dale caught a sheet of drywall going by; the rest is scaffolding, 8x8 beams, that kind of thing. The stuff whacks against the siding and the windows on the way up, which like I say thrills the boys but greatly disturbs me. It also leaves muddy rope marks on the windows. (Pictures from Jan. 13 and Jan. 21.)

All this is a drag. The real scare, though, was the other day (Jan. 20) when Dale was off to school with the boys as usual, Aaron walking by himself to the elevator, and as he goes around the corner, there are no railings. No plywood barriers, which substitute for railings where there's construction. Nothing. We live on the third floor. I don't even like to think about it. I understand (and hate) that they sometimes have to take down the barriers when they're actively working on something, but this area was unattended for hours. I complained repeatedly.

Almost home?

I said we were not going to fall in love with a new house every weekend, that we were going to dedicate ourselves to a longer-term process, that we were just dating, but we couldn't help it: we found a house, fell in love, put in an offer, and it's been accepted! Now we're waiting on the inspection (scheduled for Thursday). We are very hopeful that this one's going to be clean, and we think we're looking at our new home!

It's a great place. It's got a floor plan like the Ugly House, but the work is all done. It's PRETTY. It's farther north than we had envisioned, on a street with no sidewalks; but it completely won us over. Sensible floor plan, decent size rooms, updated kitchen, windows, really nice fixtures, vinyl siding, good roof, poured concrete foundation (whew!). Awesome yard -- big enough for kid soccer, with a deck and raised beds too. Carport. Big unfinished basement. Walking distance to the boys' preschool; one block from a good elementary school; six blocks to Thornton Creek, the alternative K-8 that my colleagues' kids go to. Completely quiet flat street, wide open feeling, not loomed over by giant dark pacific northwest trees. Walk around the corner for a glorious view of the Olympics. Two blocks from a big grocery store and a Rite Aid; three different bus lines that shoot down to the U. There happened to be an open house while we were there, and wow, the realtor could not have hired more appealing neighbors if she had spent a thousand bucks on movie extras. We clicked immediately with a family with two young boys; they live up the block, said they wake up every day filled with gratitude for having found such a hidden gem of a neighborhood. Lots of kids around, great schools and playgrounds, convenient, and just a great neighborhood feeling. How cool is that?

You can see photos if you go to the Windermere site and search on the address: 3045 NE 86th St, Seattle, 98115. Cross your fingers for us!