More House Stuff

I've lost track of the number of days we have remodeled. This week has been fairly slow week for remodel. After doing it for a month and a half non-stop I think we are just taking it slower. The house isn't going anywhere and yes we do want to finish we also want to be able to enjoy the house also.

Today we had some tree trimmer comes by and trim down some of our pepper trees.. I guess during the winter the winds really pick up and if you don't trim the trees they tend to blow over. At least this is what we were told. We are still learning about the area but the trees were over grown we could see that but after the trimming they look so bare.

I also cleaned up the deck. I was getting tired of all the crap just sitting out there the past month. So I cleaned up everything and made it look like a deck again. It's also suppose to rain and I didn't want everything to get soaked.

The last thing we did was build the Ikea furniture that we purchased last night. Harry and I sat down and knocked out two night stands, one sofa table and a coffer table in a few hours. They look great and take a step closer to finishing our remodel. I don't like putting stuff together but the Ikea stuff are very easy and and come with great instructions.

Shopping and Unpacking

Today we got up and started to clean off the Deck a bit, the past month the back deck seemed to be the catch all for all the crap that we didn't want in the house. I wanted to clean it up because of the treat of rain.

We first brought the rest of our clothes to the house. There were like 25 hefty bags full of our clothes. I was getting tired of wearing the same things over and over. Now I just need to find the time to unpack them and hang them. Once we did that we drove Harry's truck over to the garage and put all the kitchen and bathroom boxes on it and then drove it to the back door where we unloaded the boxes and put them in the appropriate rooms. Once that was done we I loaded up the truck with all the crap and trash (that we would have to get rid of at a later date) into the truck and drove it back to the garage and put it in the spot where we removed all the clothes and boxes earlier. There was still stuff I wanted to do on the deck but we really wanted to get to Ikea to look for side tables, night stands and other accessories. So we grabbed some lunch at El Pollo and then spent the next three hours walking around Ikea buying up stuff.

In the end we purchased two night stands for our Master bedroom, a sofa table and matching coffee table for our living room, two hanging organizers for the master closet, curtains and rods for our guest bedroom, mater bedroom, pantry and office. We spent around $700 but we got some pretty cool stuff. But the one thing about Ikea is that you have to build all the stuff yourself so that is going to be my day for tomorrow.

Knights of the Guild Ep 8 pt 2

Knights of the Guild Ep 8 pt2

• October 10th, 2009

Show Notes:

Here it is Episode 8 part 2 of Knights of the Guild. We hope you enjoy it.

Today’s show features:

• First up we have our monthly Vorkism.
• Our location today is my new house were we are trying to upload The Spiers of Dragonor.
• We talk about Behind the Scenes for Season 2 Episode 10 - Socializing Sucks
• We have a wonderful Fan Interview with Markus

• We then have a very long Fan Feedback section with some audio comments
• Then we have our final words and we say goodbye.
• We also have a very cool Contest happening with a wonderful online cookie store called GeekyCookies. Here are the details below or go to their website at http://www.Geekycookies.com

We at GeekyCookies have teamed up with Kenny and Jenni of the Knights of the Guild Podcast to give one lucky Twitter follower a free dozen cookies of their choosing from the GeekyCookies catalog! Entering is as quick as logging into your Twitter account!

To enter:

• Log onto your Twitter account (or sign up for one).
• You must be following BOTH @GeekyCookies AND @KnightsofGuild.
• Once you’ve successfully followed both accounts, tweet the following:

  “I want FREE COOKIES from @GeekyCookies #GeekyCookies”

• You must enter within the contest period, starting Saturday, October 10th and ending Wednesday, October 14th 12:00AM PST
• And that’s it!

ONE (1) Winner will be selected at random from participants who live in the U.S. and meet ALL the above requirements. The winner will be announced on Thursday, October 15th at 5:00PM PST. Winner will then be contacted privately to retrieve the necessary information to send prize. Good luck to all those who enter!

Please send your audio or written comments to knightsoftheguild@gmail.com or you can leave your comments in the comment section of this site.

Thank you again for all your support, we do this podcast because we are fans and more importantly for the fans.

Kenny & Jenni

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/
• Knights of the Guild Fan page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Group on Watchtheguild.com http://community.watchtheguild.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/knightsoftheguild
• Follow us on twitter @knightsofguild

• Knights of the Guild Cafe Press Online Shop : Where you can buy KOTG T-shrits, magnets, buttons and so much more. http://www.cafepress.com/KOTG

Cleaning Up Day 2

Today I got up around 7:30am and started to edit my Knights of the Guild podcast Ep8 pt2 as I said it would be released today. Finally got done cutting it all together around noon and started the process of leveling out audio levels and converting the file twice. Was done around 2pm and finally was able to upload it.

About an hour later I got message on my twitter about issues with the audio. I checked the cut and it sounded fine. The complaints continued and I checked the MP3 I uploaded and was shocked to hear many audio glitches. I immediately pulled the podcast and spent the next six hours trying to figure out where the problem was. Around 8pm I finally figured it out and was able to level it once again and convert it twice before uploading it. I think the final product was up around 9:30pm, that's 14 hours after I started.. I can say that was the longest it's ever taken me to get a podcast up.

Between uploads and conversion I worked on cleaning up the Master Bedroom. Got rid of all the trash and bed plastic. Harry and I finally brought he dresser in from the deck and put it in our master bedroom closet. I also cleaned up the kitchen a bit. This place is finally starting to feel like our home.

Cleaning Up

Today I pretty tried to tidy up the rooms. Everything is still all over the place. I started with the Guest bedroom. Cleaned out all the trash and empty bags. Then brought the TV and direct tv box in. Got the room looking good. Now we just need some curtains and this room will be complete.

Once Harry got up he started painting the trim to the guest bathroom. About mid day we went and picked up his truck.

After that we just did a few things around the house.

Catching Up On Life

Today I didn't do much of house stuff.. We had a bunch of stuff we have been putting off because of the house and the move... First we had to get up early and take Harry's truck to the dealer for an oil change and maintenance update. After that I came home and started prepping for my Knights of the Guild podcast. Both Jenni and I have been so busy and have fallen behind so we were going to do three of the podcasts, each one takes about two hours to do and require a few hours to prep. While I did this Harry removed the door from the guest bathroom and started to paint it.

Jenni got her around 3:30pm and after the tour we got to work. We had three interviews lined up. My buddy Matt from England and our friend Tabz and finally Brett who is a cast member of The Guild. Matt's interview was great, I don't know what it is about British people but they are all so very charismatic. After Matt's interview we started Tabz but kept having audio issue until finally we lost her, by the time she came back we started our interview with Brett. He was awesome and funny and we talked him into starting a twitter account and then spent the next hour explaining how it works and what he can do with is.. we had a blast but we really needed to start doing the podcasts. After Brett's interview we tried once again to interview Tabz but once again has major issues and decided that we would try again at a later date.

We then moved on to record KOTG Ep8 pt2, then Ep9 pt1 and finally Ep9 pt2. We were finally done around 9:30pm and we were exhausted.. now I just need to edit them. One is due Oct. 10th, the next Oct 15th and the last Nov. 1st. My job has just begun...

Remolding & New Phone

Remodeling Day Thirty-Four

Today our contractor Danny was back to finish up the Guest Bathroom. He started with finishing up the grout work. Next he changed the size of the vent, so that the vent would fit into the new vanity. The next thing he had to do was to change the plumbing to make it work with the new vanity. Once that was completed he put up the mirror. After he was done with that he had to head out to Home Depot to pick up a wax ring, since that ring had been missing since the house was built. So it was a good thing that we decided to remodel the guest bathroom. While Danny was at Home Depot he also picked up a Drum Auger (plumbing snake), that Harry and I needed to deal with our plumbing problem. As soon as Danny got back he installed the toilet, did some clean up and was done. With the guest bathroom completed the Phase Two of the remodel for our contractor is completed. Harry and I still have a few odds and ends to complete and we still have ton of unpacking to do but things are coming along. And one of these days hopefully in the near future we will be done. At least done enough were we feel that we don't have to get up and remodel or paint something.

Since Danny got us the snake Harry started to take apart the kitchen sink pipes. He cleaned out the U pipe and put it back on but we were still having issues so I got in there was the snake and after some finagling I got the snake to go down the pipe for 15 feet (the length of the snake). It didn't seem like we unclogged anything but when we got everything back together and tested it the water went down fine.. so yay for us.

Later in the day we drove out to the AT&T store in Palmdale to buy me a new phone, since I was going crazy without mine and knew I had lost it forever. I was looking at a LG Neon with a text pad but the employee showed me another phone that was nicer, with a bigger screen and was a better deal so I went with the Samsung Impression... And I love it. My plan still has 6 days left on it but the manager allowed me to get the phone at a discounted price. We tried to get Harry one because I knew he's been wanting a new phone as well but his contract isn't up until January.. but that's only a few months away. After that we went to Home Town Buffet to grab some lunch and I have to say we were the youngest people in there. It was around 3:30pm and the place was packed with older people and I figured it was their dinner time. After lunch we went Bed, Bath & Beyond to return the super soft bamboo sheets that we had gotten yesterday, since the sizes were messed up. We hoped that we would find a bigger set, but they had sold out of them so we just got a refund. I do know I'm going to look for other Bamboo sheets in the future. We then checked out Ashley’s furniture store for accessories, but didn’t find any night stands and coffee / cocktail tables that we both were in love with. So, guess we will have to find those items somewhere else.

After that we headed home and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Shopping for Accessories…

Today we took Harry's truck in for an oil change, the dealers is out in Canoga Park. So we left around 11 am and drove to the Dodge dealer. Turns out that they had to perform some additional service steps that have mostly to do with the guarantee on the car. They wanted us to leave the truck and of course we couldn't do that so we made an appointment for Thursday. It sucked that we wasted time and gas driving over there but what can you do.

So we headed back to Santa Clarita to go shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond since we had coupon for 20% off the the entire purchase. To prepare us for the shopping trip we went to Chili’s and we both had a delicious burger for lunch. After lunch we walked through the entire store and checked out a lot of stuff. And with most things there were just too many choices to choose from. We purchased place mats and napkins for the dining room. Next on the agenda were new bed sets for the guest room and the master bedroom. We looked at a ton of bedroom sets and finally decided on a very nice set in earth colors for the master bedroom. We weren’t quite happy with the tread count of the sheets that came with the bed set so we opted to buy a second set of sheets made of bamboo.. they were so soft. Once we were done with that it was back to the bed sets again, as the guest room gave us even more trouble than the master bedroom. We finally decided to go with a rather bold color choice, a mostly black bed set that’s set off with some white. Harry thinks that the green guest room can easily take the black of the bed set, especially if you counterbalance it with white curtains. I on the other hand wasn’t so sure about that. But we ended up buying it. We also picked up 4 additional pillows, since the pillows we’re currently using have definitely seen better days.

After that we went looking for curtains. Well that is easier said than done. We either couldn’t agree on the same curtain, or when we did agree they didn't have our size. So this was a pretty frustrating experience. We decided to pick up curtains later as we were tired and just wanted to get home. We then relaxed in one of the massage chairs… and since we really liked them we decided to purchase one of those massage units. After that we bought a welcome mat and a trash can, that is supposedly “doggy” safe… but we will see how “doggie” safe that trash can really is. We ended up with alot of stuff and a bill of about 470 bucks and that's with the 20% off.

When we got home I noticed that my cell phone was gone. We tore apart Harry's truck and retraced our steps to the house but no luck. I know I had it on our drive home as I was checking my tweets. The only time I got out was to get the mail at the entrance to our street. But both Harry and I went back there looking for it and still couldn't find it. I don't have a clue what happen to it. I did want to get a new phone but not like this.. I lost everyone's numbers and feel totally lost without it.

Trying not to feel horrible about losing my phone we moved on to unpacking and setting up both the master Cal King bed and guest Queen bed. When I went to put the fitted sheet on the Cal King I noticed that it was coming up way short. It looked like it would fit a double but not a Cal King. The flat sheet was okay and the pillow cases seemed a bit small for king pillows.. I'm bummed because this was the only one they had at that Bed, Bath and Beyond since they were clearance and 50% off. Guess will try and BBB in Palmdale and see if we can exchange them.

We finally get to sleep in our brand new Cal King Bed tonight...

Remolding - Day Thirty-Three

Today we had the delivery of our mattress scheduled in the time between 11 am and 3 pm. We hoped that the mattress would be here early so that we could take Harry's truck for a oil change, as this needs to be done ASAP. Of course nothing ever works out as planned. The mattress delivery was a little after 1.30 pm and we didn’t want to do the oil change after that since we didnt' want to get stuck in traffic. So guess the oil change will have to wait until tomorrow or Wednesday.

We also got word from the VET that Daisy is ok. Apparently she didn’t eat the rat poison after all. That’s quite a relief. Now she has to stay on Vitamin K for the next 2 week. After that period we have to go back to the VET and have more blood work done, to see that everything still is ok. Until then I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best!!

After we went to Palmdale to go shopping at Lowe’s and Target. First we stopped by Lowe’s to pick up Dowels and Wood Glue to fix the issue with the Cal King Bed. We also had to pick up Drain Cleaner because our kitchen sink is draining very slowly. It was slow when we moved in but has gotten worse since we moved it.. might be the fact that we have been cleaning out our paint brushes in there. Guess I shouldn't do that anymore.

After Lowe’s we headed over to Target to shop for End-tables, curtains, sheets and other accessories. While we were looking at all the accessories it hit us that we could get a lot of that stuff at Bed, Bath & Beyond and we have a 20% coupon for that store. But the coupon was in Harry's truck and we had brought my jeep. So we decided to get the accessories tomorrow. We just bought an end-table for the TV-Room and a 1 quart Ice Cream Maker that can make ice cream without salt and ice. Now we have just to find a few recipes for dairy free ice cream...yum!!!

Once we got back from shopping the first thing we did is poor half of the drain Cleaner into the kitchen drain and hoped for the best. Meanwhile we went to deal with our Cal King Bed. We started connecting the one post of the footboard that had missing thread for the screw and then we glued the 2 dowels into place and left the footboard untouched. While the glue was starting to harden, we turned our attention to the headboard. We connected the headboard to the 2 remaining posts and then connected to 2 sides as well. At last we connected the the footboard to the rest of the bed. Once we had completed the assembly we put the box spring and the latex mattress into the bed. It's as finished as it can be for now. Tomorrow we’ll be buying sheets for the Cal King and finally be able to sleep in our new bed.

After that we went back to the kitchen to check on the progress of the Drain Cleaner. Well it was pretty much what I expected… not much improvement at all. So we put the second half of the drain cleaner in and hoped again for the best. And again it didn't work.. so now the only option left is to take the drain apart. Harry was very excited as this is something he always wanted to do…

Owning a house is fun and keeps you ‘entertained’ all the time…

KOTG Microcast #10 Quest for PAX

The Guild’s Marketing Guru Brian went to PAX last month along with Kim Evey, Sandeep and Jeff. He sent us a little report as to what happened as well as interviewing a guildie who dressed up as Codex (McKenzie Eakin).

Hope you guys enjoy it,

Kenny & Jenni

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/
• Knights of the Guild Fan page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Group on Watchtheguild.com http://community.watchtheguild.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/knightsoftheguild
• Follow us on twitter @knightsofguild

• Knights of the Guild Cafe Press Online Shop : Where you can buy KOTG T-shrits, magnets, buttons and so much more. http://www.cafepress.com/KOTG

• The Guild http://watchtheguild.com
• Geekerdome Network http://geekerdome.com
• Between the Lines Studio Podcast Network http://Betweenthelinesstudio.com

Promo’s played during the show this week:

• Rick Moyer’s “Stargazer” CD
• Tuning into Sci fi TV
• Upsidedown Happyland
• Awkward Pictures

Doggie Scare

Today Harry and I took the day off from painting or doing anything to the house. Instead we were going to have a nice relaxing day. We did plan to go to Home Depot to pick up some wooden dowels to fix our Cal King bed as the mattress where being dropped off today.

Around noon I went into the kitchen to make some lunch and I noticed an empty box of D-Con rat poison pellets. When we moved in that box was full and since it was in the pantry it never crossed our mind that our Dog might eat them. Well a few days ago we took the door off to be painting so that room was open for a few days and sure enough the full box of pellets were gone. Immediately I thought that Daisy ate the poison and ran to my computer to look up what to do next. Everything on line said it's most likely fatal and the dog won't show signs of sickness for 24 to 72 hours and Daisy has been fine. I called our contractor to see if any of his workers spilled the box and dumped the pellets but he said he wasn't aware of it. I think called our vet and once I told them what happened they said you need to bring her in immediately. So Harry and I grabbed the dog and headed down to our vet.

They took her in right away and a vet came out and asked me what happened. I explained the situation and she left. She came back and said they gave her a large dose of Vitamin K. They also drew blood and would know for sure tomorrow if she actually at the poison or if something else happen to it. They also gave us some vitamin K pills to give to Daisy for the next two weeks. I asked the vet if she is going to be alright and the vet said if she did eat the poison a few days ago she is showing no normal signs of being poisoned and with a few months of the vitamin K treatment she should be fine. So it's still a wait and see but things seem to be okay. It was a scary moment thinking we might lose her, she's a pain in the ass sometimes but she is still our baby.

Of course this little interruption caused us to not go to Home Depot and we had to reschedule the mattress deliver to tomorrow. Oh and this vet visit cost us over $450, but she is part of our family and worth every penny.

Remodeling - Day Thirty-Two

Today I was up once again at 7:30am.. not sure what it is but I can't seem to sleep past that time, maybe it's because I know how much work we still have to do. Well I was up and I jumped right in. Our contractor Danny was coming today around 8:30am and I needed to get the painting done in the guest bathroom so he could put the sink, vanity and mirror in. So I started with a layer of the deep red color. As last night Harry and I decided that we would be one large wall in the deep red and everything else in the yellow. So I got one layer on, at least where the sink and stuff would be going. I then went to the kitchen and started to paint above the island where we removed the set of cabinets to open up the kitchen. I started painting yesterday and wanted to finish it. I did a bit of painting there and then went back to the bathroom to do another coat. While that dried I went back to the kitchen island and painted some more. This island area is really sucking up the paint.

I finished the bathroom area just in time for the contractor to show up. Of course I found out that they pushed back the installation of the sink and stuff for another day but at least it's done now. They went to work on laying the rest of the baseboard in the kitchen and pantry and then moved on to finishing the tile in the guest bathroom.

Harry got up and joined me in the Kitchen and started painting the trim of the pantry door. I finished the area above the island and it looked AWESOME. I then moved on to finishing the fireplace mantel. I added another coat of polyurethane and let it dry. Then Harry and I did trim here and there in various rooms.

When the contractors left I went to the mantel to pull off the painter tape and of course there was bleed through of the stain on the new tile so I had to clean that off. After a few minutes I finish the fireplace and mantel and I have to say it turned our WONDERFUL. This is my favorite thing we have done to the house.

After that Harry and I put up the wood blinds in the Living room and put the finishing touches on the Living Room.. one more room that is complete. Well almost we still have to buy some accessories.. and speaking of accessories we purchased a area rug from Home Depot online that we saw yesterday. It will go nicely with the living area.

Once that was done we went into our guest bedroom and set up our old Queen poster bed and moved our mattress into that room so we would be able to build of Cal King poster bed. We got everything out of the boxes and after a brief moment of thinking we were missing parts and instructions we got to work on building it. But our first attempt failed as the very first post we started with didn't have the thread inside the hole for the screw so we couldn't put the bed together with one missing post. We were both frustrated as we really wanted to get this done and we got the bed from Living Spaces and it was the last one they had so we couldn't take it back for a replacement... I'm sure will come up with a way of getting around this.. but for now we don't have a bed and our mattress are arriving tomorrow.

After the bed fiasco we took a break and jumped on our computers. While Harry facebooked (he's new obsession) I cleaned up the Dining Room to match our newly finished Living Room. We then had dinner and watched to TV to finish up the night.

We got a lot done but there always seems to be just a bit more to do. So as of now our Office, Living Room, Dining Room, Kitchen, TV Room and Guest Room are 90% done, leaving our Master Bedroom/Bathroom and Guest Bathroom to complete. I know will get there but even when this is all done we have to deal with the outside and then there is my toy room/garage conversion.

Remodeling - Day Thirty-One

Today Harry and I were determined to finish our Master Bedroom as we would be receiving our Cal King Bed on Sunday. So I tackled the tedious and very frustrating touch ups. Since we are using two colors you need to make sure nothing bleeds from one to the other and have straight lines. Well you tape off one color and paint the other then pull the tape off and because our walls are textured the color bleeds under the tape so you have to then do touch ups to your touch ups and soon you say screw it.. it looks good enough. Harry started his day with another tedious job, door frames. He worked on the Master Bedroom closet doors. You get the same issue of bleeding and doing touch up on touch up.

While we were busy with that Danny made great progress in the Guest Bathroom. He finished texturing the walls in the Kitchen and Guest Bathroom. Once the texture is dry we can paint those walls again. And I say again because we had already painted the walls before we decided to do some remodeling. This is where pre-planning saves some time. After that our contractor started laying the tile in the Guest Bathroom, he managed to finish the majority of the tiles. Once that was accomplished Danny continued to work on the Baseboard in the Kitchen and Pantry. It turns out that we were short by about 15 feet of quarter round. So it looks like Harry and I are heading back to Home Depot again tonight.

Around 1 pm my buddy Will stopped by to visit us and help out a little. Will is the first of our friends to visit our new house, in fact he is the first person other then our contractor to visit. We took him on a tour of the house and then chatted for a bit. We then started sanding down the DVD Holders. Our plan with the DVD Holders is to sand them down and spray paint them black. That way they will fit better in our new TV room.

After Will had left Harry did some touch work, while I started re-painting the wall above the Kitchen Island. Once that was finished we headed out to Palmdale. We had to stop by at Home Depot to pick up another 16 or 18 feet of quarter round for the Baseboard. We also ended up getting a few paint samples for the Master Bathroom, since we still haven’t decided what color we’re going to paint the Master Bathroom. While we were waiting for the paint we walked through Home Depot and checked out several rugs for the Living Room. We found one that we really liked but couldn’t find any pen to fill some form, but Harry read that you can also order the rug online. So that’s what we’re going to do. On our way back from the rugs we picked up the paint samples and also picked out two Screen doors. Once we were done with that we headed back home for some dinner and TV time.

Clone Wars Season 2 Premiere

I have been looking forward to this since the season 1 completed it's run. This is such a great series and so much fun to watch. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, in fact it's what started my whole life of Geeky goodness as well as collecting action figures. And this show is just so well written, acted, and animated and is a great addition to the Star Wars universe.

This season is being called Clone Wars: Rise of the Bounty Hunter. At the end of the last season we got a glimpse of a bounty hunter named Cad Bane and this season it seems will be revolving around him and other bounty hunters. First two episodes premiered tonight and they were AWESOME. There was some audio issues with the HD version on Cartoon Network but it really didn't take away from the fun experience. I can't wait to see how this season rolls out. If you're a fan of Star Wars you need to be watching Clone Wars.

Magic Jack

This morning I got up and decided I would set up our new magic jack. Both Harry and I have cell phones and haven't had a landline in a few years.. but since our cell phones can suck sometimes we figured we would get a landline again but we didn't want to pay a ton so we opted or this instead. Setup didn't go at planned I kept having issues but finally got everything installed and then it was time to pick our number. We planned to have a vanity number but everything we tired was taken. We tried for over an hour with 50 or so names and numbers and nothing was available.. finally I got frustrated and would just get a random number. But when I clicked on that it gave you the option of paying $3 a year and you could pick your first three numbers and then pick from a set of available last four digit numbers.. in the end we didn't get our cool "geekyguys" number but we got a number that will be able to remember and is kind of cool. So now we have a landline just in case our cells don't work.

Remodeling - Day Thirty

Today I started my day with the mantel once again.. now that we got the stain to our liking I need to polyurethane the entire thing. The mantel is going to be a real stand out piece in our house.. glad it's turning out so well.

If you guys remember yesterdays Blog Entry, one of the French Doors was damage. So when our contractor showed up today, we asked him if he could take a look at it and see what he could do. In no time at all he had the issue with the trim and separation of the one corner of the door fixed. Shortly after that the issue with the alignment of the French Doors had been fixed as well. After that Danny started fixing the walls over the kitchen island, as there was some damage to the wall after he had removed a couple of cabinets.

After that our contractor continued the work in the Guest Bathroom. There was in issue with the sink we purchased, as the old sink/cabinet had a vent coming out the bottom of it and our new sink/cabinet is four inches smaller then our old sink which means the vent will be sticking out.. which of course we don't have so we decided to turn the vent sideways and have it come out the side of the cabinet but of course there is an issue of the vent itself being too long so in the end I asked if he could just cut four inches off the vent and have it come out the front of the cabinet and that's what we plan to do. Things never go as planned but luckily this was a fairly easy solution. After that Danny started with fixing the walls over the kitchen island, as there was some damage to the wall after he had removed a couple of cabinets.

While all that was going on Harry was dealing with the door of the Pantry. He removed the hardware and spray painted it in a metallic silver color. He finished painting both sides of the door with two coats of a ultra white color.

After our contractor had left Harry and I went to Palmdale to do more shopping. First we headed to Sit and Sleep and picked out our new Cal King Bed, Michael the sales person was great and showed us many different ones but in the end we picked out a bed made of latex and soy. We manage to keep it within our budget of $2000. I know that's a lot for a bed but getting a good night sleep is very important and the older you get the more important it is. So after Sit and Sleep we went to Lowes to exchange the broken entry light. This time we took it out of the box in the store to make sure there were no cracks.. all looked great. Next was Best Buy to pick up a Magic Jack. For all of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it's a device that enables you to use your regular phone via the internet, without having to pay the phone company. You just pay a one time yearly very low fee. After that we headed to Home Depot and picked up paint supplies and about 22 feet of quarter round for the Baseboard in the Kitchen and Pantry. Which I have to say was a strange experience. Quarter round comes in these very long 16 feet sticks and in the aisle there is this table with a measuring tape and saw and you can cut down what you need. After Home Depot we stopped by Baja Fresh and grabbed some dinner and headed home and watched some TV before calling it a night.

Remodeling - Day Twenty-Nine

Today I got up early and continued to stain the mantel. We wanted it a little darker so I put another coat on. Harry worked on doors and door frames again.

While all that was going on our contractor, Danny, had finished dismantling the entire Guest Bathroom and started putting concrete board on the floor. After Danny was done with the concrete board he started putting up the lights for the hallway and entrance. He finished the entrance and turned it on and called me over to show me a crack running down the glass dome. You couldn't see it when it wasn't lite up because the crack was between the glass. So we had him take it down and will exchange it at a later date. He did manage to put the light up in the hallway but we didn't have a bulb so it's up but not currently working.

After staining I tackled another big project. The French doors in the living room, they were green and we wanted to paint them the accent color, blue. We were afraid of removing them because once you do it's always tough to get the door to hang just right again. But we wanted a good paint job and I also wanted to paint the trim and this was the only way. So I removed the two doors and got to work. It was a long process.. lot's of taping off. And to make matters worse I was working outside and it was extremely windy. I finished one door and laid it upright against the side of the house. A gust of wind came and pushed the door over nearly crushing Daisy who was sunbathing. Luckily it missed her by a few inches and no glass broke. I worked on the second door and put is aside to dry and purposely angled it so no wind would be able to push it over... I we get really strong gusts of wind and sure enough it knocked it over and this time we weren't so lucky. A portion of the door started to separate from the rest. I managed to knock it back in place and everything seemed over.. other then a minor separation that Danny would be able to fix. After I finished the door Harry and I rehung them and of course the door that was damage pulled apart again just enough to make it so we couldn't lock the door. We manage to get both doors to shut and would be talking to our contractor in the morning to see if this was fixable.

Only manage to tackle two thing but man that took the entire day. By the end of the day I was exhausted and just rested in front of the TV.

And for some non-house news... I am starting my BTS piece for The Guild Season Three. I am in the middle of converting some video files for my piece.. hope to starting editing it in the coming days.

An Unexpected Surprise

When our contractor Danny started he had brought this tiny computer with him to check his email and such and since the mini's came out I have wanted one. I don't have a smart phone and don't plan on getting one so I wanted something to check my email when I'm away from home. I mentioned this in passing and today Fedex showed up with a package. Of course when I saw the box I knew what it was. Harry had told me that my birthday present would be a little late this year and the package was addressed to Harry so I knew this was my Birthday gift. Harry got me a Dell Inspiron mini. It runs on Windows XP which I love and he upgraded a few of the features. I can't wait to use it.

Remodeling - Day Twenty-Eight

Today I started to stain the fireplace mantle. I wasn't sure how many layers I would be doing but the first one I did was very light and I couldn't figure out why until my brush accidentally fell to the bottom of the can and when I went to put the stain on the wood it was super dark. It seems that I didn't mix the stain up and all the darkness went to the bottom. So I did another coat in the darker color and then had to wait for it to dry. While I was doing this Harry started taking down the door of the Master Bedroom. He didn’t have to paint this door since our contractor had already done that a couple of days earlier. So He just took off the hinges, spray painted them and the screws in a metallic silver color. While the paint was drying he exchanged the door knobs.

Around 10 am or so our contractor Danny showed up and started dismantling the Guest Bathroom and a few cabinets in the kitchen over the island. While that was going on Harry finished with the door to the Master Bedroom and put that door back in place. The next door he tackled was the door to the Master Bathroom. He took that door down, removed the hinges and spray painted them in a metallic silver color. Once that was done he put 2 coats of white on each side of the door. Once both sides were dry he replaced the doorknob and put the bathroom door back into place. While he did this I put a third coat of stain on the mantel as both Harry and I wanted it to be darker then the floors.

After our contractor had left for today, Harry and I went shopping at Lowe’s. We were shopping for sconces for the Entrance and Hallway. We also picked up a new light for the guest bathroom as well as a vanity (sink, facet and cabinet) for the Guest Bathroom. The vanity we had in mind was one with glass vessel sink. Although that vanity looks great… the huge price tag of about 500 bucks was a little downer. We then looked at a number of different vanities. In the end we had to choose between the glass vessel vanity and a vanity that cost about half as much but still looked cool. The price wasn’t the only decision factor, as the glass vessel vanity just didn’t go together with the rest of the house, since it is a little too modern for us. So we went with the other vanity. We also picked up some tile flooring for the guest bathroom.. we looked a few options but finally went with the same tile we did in the master bath. We just really like that tile and it feels great on the bare feet.

Shopping is so much fun but man it adds up quickly.

Remodeling - Day Twenty-Seven

Today I brought the Desks in from the Garage and started to assemble the first one. Harry got up by the time I started the second one and joined me. Once that was done we discussed several options on how to place the desks in the room. Most of these options just didn’t work, since we bought two fairly large desks. Funny thing is that the desk looked so much smaller at Staples or maybe we thought that our office was way larger than it actually is.

To make a long story short we finally figured out a configuration for the desks that works fairly well in the room. Now it looks like we are working in cubicles. But for the most part it works.

After we had decided configuration of the desks we brought all the boxes with our electronic and computer stuff in and started setting up the office. Harry's iMac was setup in no time at all. Then we went on the search for several cables and power cords. Once we were done with that we setup the Router and in no time at all we could go online. While I was checking my emails Harry used the time to give his Mac a good cleaning as that computer was pretty dirty.

The Internet we get up here is free, since the Internet Tower is on our property and we pay for the electricity to run it. That said… the Internet isn’t quite that what we are used to. As long as you only intend to read emails and surf the web, you’re fine. If you want to watch streaming videos, your best bet is to let the entire video load and watch it after it has loaded, otherwise you’re really getting frustrated. We checked the speed of the internet… and it starts out with a decent speed but isn’t able to maintain that speed. Depending on how much money that tower takes in electricity it might be worth a consideration getting a decent satellite Internet solution. Guess we will have to look into that in more detail.

KOTG Microcast 9 Quest for Cosplay

KOTG Microcast #9 Quest for Cosplay

We have a very special Microcast this week. A few weeks back during Dragon Con a photo was floating around cyberspace showing fans dressed up as The Guild character Avatar outfits. I thought it would be fun to chat with them and see how they pulled this off so quickly, among other things. So Jenni and I sat down with them over skype and had a fun conversation.

We would like to Thank David (Bladezz far left), CJ (Vork), James (Zaboo), Lisa (Codex), Daniella (Dancer), Rogue (Bladezz far right), and Caitlin (Bladezz Groupie) for taking the time and chatting with Knights of the Guild. Also pictured above are Sidley (Clara), Beth (Tink) who couldn’t make the chat but we Thank them too for being awesome.

Hope you guys enjoy it,

Kenny & Jenni

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/
• Knights of the Guild Fan page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Group on Watchtheguild.com http://community.watchtheguild.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/knightsoftheguild
• Follow us on twitter @knightsofguild

• Knights of the Guild Cafe Press Online Shop : Where you can buy KOTG T-shrits, magnets, buttons and so much more. http://www.cafepress.com/KOTG

• The Guild http://watchtheguild.com
• Geekerdome Network http://geekerdome.com
• Between the Lines Studio Podcast Network http://Betweenthelinesstudio.com

Podcast Promo’s played during the show this week:

• Tuning into Sci fi TV
• Anomaly
• Take Him With You
• Upsidedown Happyland

Remodeling - Day Twenty-Six

Today started off with me cleaning and setting up the kitchen while Harry was painting the door of the Coat Closet and the the Door Jam. Once he was done with that he replaced the lock of the door and put new silver colored door knobs on. Then it was time to spray paint the hinges in a silver color as well.

Once all that was accomplished, we headed out to the Rental to pick up the stuff that we wanted to give to recycling and a few more bags that would be going to Charity (Out of the Closet). So we got there and found our landlord and his wife busy cleaning the Rental. We put the remaining bags into my pickup truck and then gave the keys back to our landlord. We then ended up chatting with Bill and his wife for quite some time. They are very nice people and we’ll be inviting them to our house warming party.

After that we dropped off the stuff for Charity and then headed back to our house. On the way we stopped in Santa Clarita to go shopping at Stater Bros. I haven't shopped at a Stater Bros since I lived in Corona as they don't have them in the LA area.. it was nice to be back to one, it was always my favorite grocery store. We bought a lot, we planned on stocking up a bit since it's a 20 minute drive to here. We wound up spending just under $500, which I expected but Harry thought we were be way over. We did have two shopping carts both full to the top. After that we headed home and unloaded the food and stored it in our new kitchen. After that we had dinner and watched some TV.

Cleaning the Rental

Today Harry and I didn’t get anything done in our new house, since we had to drive to the rental in Reseda and do some clean up. We had rented a steam cleaner at Ralphs yesterday and hoped to steam clean the office and Master Bedroom first. But when I tried in the morning, the steam cleaner just didn’t want to work. So we drove out to Reseda and exchanged the steam cleaner for a working one. Once we got to the Rental we moved the stuff that we hadn’t taken yesterday into the garage. After that was accomplished I started cleaning the laminate floors, while Harry gave the carpets a good vacuuming. Harry did a great job at prepping the carpets for the steam cleaning. After that Harry and I took turns steam cleaning room after room, when we were done the rooms looked fantastic.

After the steam cleaning we moved the stuff we no longer wanted to the curb. If everything goes according to plan that stuff should be picked up by the city on Monday or Tuesday, at least that what hasn’t been taken by people in the neighborhood. And as we were taking stuff out things were being removed from the pile. Our next door neighbors grabbed our dining table and chairs moments after we put them out there.

After we were done with that, Harry and I packed up my pick up truck with all the remaining stuff from the garage. The rest of the stuff that just didn’t want to fit in the truck went into my jeep. After that was done we drove out to our new house in Agua Dulce. Now all of our stuff has been moved. Tomorrow we will have to go back to pick up the recycling stuff and the stuff for charity and to give the keys back to our landlord.

It was a long and exhausting, but very successful day.