Screw the Giants.

So Wednesday has come and gone and unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to last weeks Toastmasters meeting so I wasn’t able to get the DVD of my presentation. I’ll get it at the next meeting however.

• Awesome Song of the Moment: "You Give Me Something" by James Morrison

I finally got around to delivering my Ice Breaker speech for Toastmasters. I had been putting it off for entirely too long. I also responded to two table topics questions since no one seemed interested in going up and saying something. I’m actively trying to get over some of the nervousness that goes along with speaking. There were definitely some aspects of speaking that I still need to work on as addressed in the evaluations that I received from other members of the club, but overall it wasn’t too bad and I think that by the time I get around to giving my sixth speech I’ll be more seasoned. I hope to finish the manual by early next year at the latest.

I’ll get a DVD with my speech on it at the next meeting in two weeks. I’ll rip it and put it online for all to see when I receive it.

• Awesome Song of the Moment: "Show Me" by John Legend

The dawn of a new year and the end of an old one. 2007 had it’s ups and downs just like any other year is expected to have. I graduated from college and am employed. I’ve finally been abroad and on my employer’s dime. Some other stuff happened and then the year ended.

As we all know, it is traditional to present resolutions for the new year. A nice list of all the fun things that we want to do this year to better ourselves and so I give you mine.

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• Awesome Song of the Moment: "Burn My Shadow" by UNKLE

I’m finally finished, for various definitions of the term “finished”. I’ve got the bulk of the paper off my walls. It took all day, but I managed to get the remaining two walls done today.

I’m exhausted now. I could just fall over and not wake up until some time tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately, I have some clean up to do before I can pass out. Some time during this week I’ll have to take a utility knife and a scraper around the edges, around door frames and such (because the intelligent person who painted the door frames had never heard of using painter’s tape and so they got paint on the walls and so now there is a lot of latex mess around the edges of the room) and spend some time getting the paper from around outlets and such. And then I can hopefully move on to the next step: patching the cracks in the plaster and applying the skim coat.

• Awesome Song of the Moment: "Passing By" by Zero 7

This has been a most excellent day. I managed to do an entire wall in about four hours instead of all weekend. I’d continue, but like last weekend I have plans later tonight so I’m going to clean up a bit and get ready to head out. I expect that tomorrow I’ll be able to strip another wall, possibly even a wall and a half if goes fast enough and there are enough hours in the day. There are a couple of pictures after the jump.

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• Awesome Song of the Moment: "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley

This past Tuesday I volunteered at the Prison Book Program, currently located in the basement of the United First Parish Church in Quincy, MA. Prisoners from around the country send the program letters asking for books on various subjects. The volunteers read the letters and attempt to choose books that meet the prisoners’ criteria. Unfortunately, it isn’t always possible to give the inmate what it is they looking for. They sometimes pick subjects that aren’t commonly stocked in the library which consist entirely of donated books.

Another really interesting aspect is the church that this organization operates in. The United First Parish Church is the church that the Adams family, as in the second U.S. president John Adams and sixth U.S. president John Quincy Adams, the first father-son presidential family, attended. Their tombs are actually located under the church. While there one of the members of the Prison Book Program gave us an impromptu tour, but during the Spring, Summer, and Fall they have regular tours through the church which expunges greater detail about the history of the Adams family and the United First Parish Church.

I definitely suggest taking the opportunity to participate in the Prison Book Program and visiting the church.

• Awesome Song of the Moment: "Think (Instrumental)" by Curtis Mayfield

I very rarely run into people who are absolutely pathetic at basic math. Last night on the way to a volunteering engagement, I stopped by a coffee shop to get something to tide me over till the event ended. So my total comes to $3.14. I hand the cashier $20 and then I check my wallet to see if I had any change. What luck! I find 15 cents in nickels in there so I hand them to the cashier. The cashier had already pushed the tender button on the register so it displayed that I was owed $16.86. The cashier then proceeds to count out 86 cents. So I try to explain to him that he should give me $17 back instead of the $16.86. We go back and forth for a bit, he continues counting out random amounts of change, I keep trying to tell him to just give me $17. I eventually admit defeat. He gives me my 15 cents back and counts out (again) 86 cents and gives it to me.

The sad part was that he didn’t appear to be an American. So that leaves me a bit dumbfounded. I would be more accepting of an American having this issue based on my experiences in the US public education [sic] system. Oh well.

I’m not sure what is more upsetting. The fact that I would be “okay” with an American having this problem or the fact that someone who clearly doesn’t have coherent math skills is manning a cash register.

• Awesome Song of the Moment: "Hell No" by Sondre Lerche & Regina Spektor

It took me an entire weekend to steam one wall. I was hoping to at least get half of the room done by end of day Sunday, but between the technical difficulties yesterday, my friends birthday party, and my being really tired all day today there wasn’t much of a chance to really get down and dirty with the wallpaper. Well, next weekend is looking to be less eventful so hopefully I can make some significant progress.

I’ll put up some photos of my progress when I get closer to finished.

• Awesome Song of the Moment: 3s and 7s - Queens of the Stone Age

I wish that I could go back in time and find the person who invented wallpaper and beat him/her with a crowbar.

I rented a wallpaper steamer and I was thought that, “I’ll get there when they open so I’ll have nearly all day to steam and scrape” and of course Murphy’s Law decided to show itself. Apparently someone thought it’d be a good idea to crimp the hose shut. I thought that the pan (the big thing with holes that you hold against the wall) was blocked and I drove back to Watertown to get a new pan, but when I returned and the same lack of steam was occurring I realized that it was in fact something wrong with the steamer. So I drove back to Watertown again and the guy at the rental place fixed the hose and I could come home again and start steaming. All in all, four hours wasted. I didn’t finally get around to getting something started until about 2:30-3:00 and I didn’t have a whole lot of time since my friend’s birthday gathering is taking place later tonight. So, I’ve managed to get about an 18 inch strip of bare wall. That took the better part of an hour to do. This is definitely an all day project, so hopefully I’m not hung over tomorrow and I can get up fairly early and have it done. If not, then I’ll just have to try and finish it the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The upsetting thing about this is that the underlying wall isn’t in the best shape. It’s an old plaster wall and it’s quite pockmarked with divots and holes and what not. I feel that the only way that I could paint over it and not see all the holes would be to basically cover the entire wall in a layer of plaster. I am not enthused about doing that, so that leaves me with…putting…up…more…wallpaper. It will be on a bare wall, though, instead of on probably 50 years worth of old not-well-adhered wallpaper.

• Awesome Song of the Moment: The Pot - Tool