Wayne and Erika Pfeiler

So I'm a bit slow to post this, but that's ok.

The weekend before Labor Day, we took a trip with Michelle and Phil to Carolina Beach State Park, just south of Wilmington, NC. It's about 2.5 hours from Raleigh along I-40. We got to experience the end of I-40, which was interesting... You're driving along and signs say the interstate is about to end, but the road doesn't. You just start to see traffic lights and the road become a four-lane highway.

Anyway, we got to the park and had a little confusion about how to rent a campsite. Erika and I had both separately called the park to get camping info, but we each were told a different story. The CORRECT way to do it is drive into the campgrounds, choose a site with a green numbered tag hanging on the post beside it, and bring that tag to the marina, where you can pay the $15/night fee. For the record, Erika was right, and I wasn't. We pay the fee, buy from firewood, and were probably the last customers before the marina shop closed for the night.

So of course, it's dark by now, and we need to set up the tents. I drive our car close to the campsite and leave the headlights turned on to give a little light. The tents go up, no problem. But it took a while to set up the tents, and I notice the beams from the headlights on the car look a bit more yellow than normal. So I try to start the engine, and sure enough, the battery's too low. Fine, we have jumper cables, we'll worry about it in the morning. We're all pretty tired so we get to sleep pretty early.

The next morning we load up the dogs and drinks and drive a little to the beach. They have lots of pay lots within easy walking distance. So we stop and pay $5 for one lot and walk out. Unfortunately, we should have read the sign first before paying to park, because this part of the beach doesn't allow dogs. Drat! So I talk to a lifeguard and find out there's another beach close by which does allow dogs. We drive over there and unload our stuff. This part of the beach was intended for car and trucks with a high ground clearance and four-wheel-drive. As we walk out there, we see a bunch of cars parked and people basically tailgating at the beach. It's kinda cool.

We get out in the water for a while, and give the dogs a chance to jump around in the water. Annie was at first interested, but I think the waved scared her. Erika carried her out once or twice and Annie just ran/jumped back ashore. I tried snorkling, but the water was way too murky green to see anything, and there were lots of kids surfing and not watching out for anybody else. I tried letting Annie walk up to the water on her own when Erika was wading. Annie got pretty far out (relative to her height) and then a lot of water came in and Annie was suddenly swimming. She seemed to do just fine - we'd never seen her swim before - and she headed back to the shore and proceeded to roll around in the sand.

It was pretty hot, so we didn't stay at the beach too long. We went back to the campsite, got some lunch and rested a while. Later we went on a short hike and saw some cool stuff, including a really big spider. We cooked dinner and stayed up late talking around the campfire.

The next day we cooked breakfast, packed up and headed home. It was a fun trip, but I'd suggest taking it when the weather's a bit cooler. Take a look at the rest of our pictures.

Posted by Wayne at 04:17 PM | Permalink

The Counting Crows with the Goo Goo Dolls came to town and played a great show at Alltel Pavillion in South Raleigh. I found out about it some time near the beginning of summer, so I was able to get tickets with several friends.

A little about the venue:
Alltel Pavillion has a deal called a family four-pack where you pay a little extra for their lawn seats, but the ticket includes free parking, four $10 food vouchers and four lawn chair rentals. It works out to be a pretty good deal, especially if you don't want to pay $15 per car for parking. They also don't let you bring in your own lawn chairs if the seat is more than 9 inches off the ground. You can bring in unopened water bottles and cameras which don't have detachable lenses. This was a point of question with my camera. The security guy thought it looked too fancy, but I assured him the lense wasn't removable, and I was ok. Beers are expensive. I think a $9 24-oz miller light was about the best deal there. They say no alcohol in the parking lots, but we saw tons of smart fans pre-partying and tailgating there before the concert.

The Goo Goo Dolls played a good act. I remeber they played Name, Iris, and Broadway, but I didn't write out the set list.

The Counting Crows played really well. Their set list was:
Anna Begins
Hard Candy
Omaha
Catapult
Colorblind
Yellow Taxi
Miami
Perfect Blue Buildings
Time and Time Again
Long December
Hangin Around
-Encore-
Mr Jones
A Murder of One
Holiday in Spain

They set up video screens like most bands do now, with stylized video suiting the songs they played. They also showed a closeup of the stage so people on the lawn could see the band better. Apparently, they're collecting canned food to give to the hungry at the show this tour, but we hadn't heard anything about it. If you're going to see them play this tour, you can probably still bring something.

Posted by Wayne at 11:34 PM | Permalink

Since we bought the house in Fall 2004, I've been talking about installing recessed lighting in our living room downstairs. Finally, on Sunday I decided the time had come, and we took a trip to Home Depot and bought four straight down lights and four eyeball lights, 100 feet of Romex electrical line, some wiring nuts, and eight light bulbs. It's annoying, the light fixture kits only cost a dollar or two more than the light bulbs do. Hopefully both will last a long time.

With all the supplies in hand, we planned where to install the lights and cut the first hole in the ceiling. Then I realized a problem. The space between the ceiling was different than what I was used to in my parent's house in Tennessee. In their house, the upstairs floor was supported by a 2x6, and then there was a gap below, followed by a 2x4 supporting the ceiling. In our house, there was only one huge 2x10 that supported both the floor and ceiling. This meant I couldn't just pass the wiring through a gap that I'd imagined should be there. That brought work to a halt for the night, as I planned what else to do.

I had several ideas, some better than others. I thought we could pull up the carpet and flooring up stairs, and access the space to drill holes through the joists to run the wiring. That would require a lot of work. I thought we might be able to pass the wires through the ceiling box between the living and dining rooms, but that didn't work out either. Then I read a nice page about installing speaker wire into a house, and they showed tips on how to work around joists in the walls or ceiling. This usually involved sawing a small hole in the sheetrock, notching the joist, running the wire, then repairing the hole. It sounded like my best option. Then I had a realization. We have crown molding all around the ceilings downstairs. I could remove that, and cut a narrow hole in the sheetrock that would be covered by the crown molding, repair the hole, then replace the crown molding. This way, people would never even see the evidence of a hole.

So over the course of the next few days, I carefully removed the crown molding and made those holes. Then I ran the wiring to a twin set of light switches already there. One switch turned a receptacle on and off, and the other did nothing. That always confused me. Why install a switch if it doesn't do anything:? But anyway, this worked out great for the way I planned to control the lights. I ended up using all 100 feet of the wire, so my estimate was spot-on. I wired the lights and tested them out before clamping them into the ceiling. Everything worked. I was so excited that I woke up Erika (past her bedtime) to come see everything working. She gave a sleepy smlie and seemed happy with everything.

So now we have new lights in the room, and we're able to move the floor lamps somewhere else. I'm also happy with the way everything works. The grou outside corner eyeball lights are controlled by one switch, and the four inside straight-down lights would be controlled by the other switch. When we want lots of light in the room, we turn everything on. The inside four lights give plenty of light for reading papers or working on things in the room. The outside four eyeball lights are turned away from the center of the room, so they work to accent the bookcases and fireplace. They're also great for when we're watching tv after dark, and we don't want light glaring in our eyes or the tv screen. Hooray!

Posted by Wayne at 02:31 PM | Permalink