Anacronyms Revisited

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Archive for category Chez Entropez

An Update On the No-Soap Thing

Sep 1

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez, Life | 2 Comments

Way back in early June, I stopped using soap or shampoo in the shower. I also stopped using anti-perspirant (mostly). At the time, I was pretty nervous about it. We have been raised with the mantra that people who don’t use soap are dirty, smelly hippies and immigrants.

This is a three month report. I have been largely soap-free for the last three months. For those just coming to this story the first time, some clarification: first, I haven’t stopped washing, but when I shower, I don’t use soap or shampoo. I use water, a washcloth, and a brush. Second, I still wash my hands with soap. Quite often, in fact. After using the toilet, before and during meal prep, and before meals, among other times. Third, I am almost, but not quite, 100% antiperspirant free.

After three months:

  • My skin is generally less dry. My elbows, which were dry and scaly, are now just wrinkled. My back doesn’t itch – it used to drive me crazy. I have noticed no increase in skin blemishes.
  • I don’t smell. I wondered whether I would be able to get through the heat of the summer without antiperspirant, and I have mostly. I put it on twice, I think, when I was going to something where I would be hot and in close quarters. But in general, if I stick my nose in my own armpit, I can smell myself. Occasionally, while I am actively perspiring, it is stronger, but I am assured by those closest to me that even this is only noticeable if you get close, and it stops as soon as I stop actively perspiring.
  • My feet don’t stink. This is probably more due to the fact that I go barefoot as much as I can, but still, a good scrub with water and a brush seems to be all I need to keep my feet clean.
  • My scalp seems to have normalized. I have always had oily skin, and my face and scalp in particular are oil factories. After a shower, my scalp would feel clean for three or four hours, and then it would start to get oily again. By the next morning, it was very oily. Since I have stopped using soap, it has evened out, and now it seems to be lightly oily all the time. It doesn’t itch the way it used to, either. Since my hair is so short, I don’t know what my hair would look like, but I suspect that merely brushing it in running water would be enough to keep it softly shiny and clean.

In short, as long as you bathe regularly, soap is actually counter-productive. It causes your skin to overreact and overproduce the thing you are trying to control, which is the natural oil that traps dirt.

A Long Overdue Update

Aug 31

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez, Family | 3 Comments

Happenings around Chez Entropez in the last while:

  • I bought us a new desktop computer. The old one was purchased in (I think) 2005, so it was about time. The new one is a 6 core with with 6Gb of RAM and the base ATI video card. I will have to upgrade the video card at some point, probably next year, but so far the new machine is NIIIIICE. I also got a 21″ monitor with a webcam and microphone – not because I wanted them but because they were included in the monitor that was the right size, prize, and resolution. I used them to try out Google’s phone, and I must say I was impressed.
  • We hauled ourselves off to the PNE last Thursday. We had intended to get there in the early afternoon, but what with various people needing, losing, and requiring new prescriptions of various things, we didn’t get there till 3:00 or so. For the first time evar, we turned the kids loose with ride passes and a little money for snacks, and Christine and I wandered around the rest of the fair enjoying ourselves. Our enjoyment was tempered by Christine’s discomfort, however. A tooth that she had just had filled had become infected, and so she was in some pain.

    It was a cool day, midweek, and so the fair wasn’t crowded. The kids got our money’s worth with their ride passes, and we learned a lesson: don’t depend on 14 year olds hearing a ringing cell phone at a fair. We will be going back next Saturday, because HouseApe 2.0 is dancing, and we will arrange times and places to meet.

    There will probably be a post with some pictures and things, but I haven’t processed any photos for a while, so…

  • On Flickr, there seem to be a huge number of people who post nothing but pictures of what look to be expensive huge-eyed dolls as if they were real people. See here and here and here…
  • I don’t like John Lennon’s music.
  • My stress these days is ubiquitious, and I am snarly as a result. There’s the good/bad low-level stress of trying to sell the house and all that that entails – trying to keep the place so that it can be showing condition with an hour’s notice, uncertainty about the future, schools, etc. And then there’s work, which has become such a maelstrom of douchebaggery that I have started to disengage. Nobody talks to me much any more (it’s not because I’m me, it’s because nobody talks to anybody any more) so I just sit at my desk and work on things I think are important. Right now, this involves providing huge amounts of data to somebody who is attempting to remedy a colossal bout of douchebaggery that caught up to the company a couple of months ago, but that is a stressful occupation all on its own – the people who want the data don’t understand the difficulties in querying tables with more than a billion rows in them, and people who want other things done and who are used to just dropping by are just dropping by.

    I am not snarly with the children, but at work I can feel my blood pressure rise when people get in my way.

Gaaaah!

Aug 14

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez | No Comments

4 teenage girls. 1 8 year old boy. 2 frazzled adults.

Annual kid’s vacation on Mayne Island – underway as we attempt to get 5 kids who stayed up too late last night packed and out to the ferry at 7:00 AM.

Oh, and we have to leave the 1200 SF townhouse in showing condition.

It Is…

Aug 13

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez | No Comments

35 degrees here right now. That’s 95 F. Even I, the most heat-hardy resident of Chez Entropez, am finding it warm.

Ish.

Safe As Houses

Aug 9

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez | 2 Comments

We haven’t had a lot of action on the house. The market in Vancouver (metro), red-hot through last year, has cooled off. Since we are moving up-market, this works in our favour, since a 10% correction on a $400k house is more in absolute dollars than a 10% correction on a $200k house.

We went to look at a three listings yesterday.

The first was a major downer. It was listed at maybe 5% below comparable houses nearby. From the street, it looked rundown but not terrible. As we walked toward the rear of the house, however, it got worse. Much worse. The concrete driveway was broken and had weeds growing through. The carport had been closed in by someone with only the barest of building skill.

Inside was worse. The family hadn’t bothered to get out during the showing, nor had they made even the barest pretense of cleaning up. The place was dirty and neglected – holes in doors, mold, missing trim, everything run down and falling apart. When we left the downstairs, we decided that there was no point in looking at the upstairs – we might consider it if we were rehabbers and the place was priced 50k lower.

Depressed, we went on to the next place, listed at $370k. It was vacant, and we could make it work, but it had some not-inconsiderable problems too. It had had new flooring and paint, and even through that you could smell the old smoke that had seeped into everything. The flooring and paint had been done fast and cheap, and only passed a superficial inspection. Looking closer, there was a lot of work to be redone. It had the remnants of a basement suite to be removed, and walls would have to be added to create a second bedroom downstairs.

However, we walked out thinking that, for $10k and some time, we could make it quite workable for us, and it was in a good location.

The third was much better. It had some recent renovations, including flooring, and had been properly painted in the recent past. The kitchen had been opened up and the layout was nice. Perhaps most importantly, the downstairs could be converted to 2 bedrooms with a shared bathroom with only minor renovations. The yard and location were nice.

Drawbacks included the fact that it had a carport, not a garage, although that could be closed in, and there are only two bedrooms up. It is also a pie shaped lot, and the driveway is only 1 car wide. Thus, when we acquire a trailer, it won’t have anywhere to go.

But we left the last house encouraged. It has problems, but we could make it work, and work well, for us.

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Back At Work

Jul 26

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez, Family | No Comments

We will probably be babbling about various aspects of this vacation at various times in the future, but eh, it’s our blog so y’all will just have to deal with it.

The vacation was broken into 4 distinct phases.

Phase 1: acquisition of HouseApe 1.0, and frantic final preparation of Chez Entropez for listing for sale. This phase was marked by Dean’s wrinkled brow and by remarkably good teamwork.

Phase 2: car and motel in Nelson BC, to meet Dean’s brother and his 5 HouseApes. This phase was marked by a disorganized mob of 8 HouseApes all getting along well and being barely seen by their parents.

Phase 3: staying at Chris’ parent’s place in Vancouver and doing Vancouver touristy things. This phase was marked by escalating fatigue on the part of Dean and Chris (or Chris and Dean, depending on which side of the family you are on) – having fun is tiring on parents. But still fun!

Phase 4: back at Chez Entropez, and trying to get ready for people to go various places such as work or Science and Lego camp, and to The Lion King next weekend.

Some phases have pictures that go with them. I will include only 1, unaltered, from Phase 3.

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Tired

Jul 13

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez | No Comments

We have had a tremendously busy and stressful three days.

Saturday was hot, and it was the day that HouseApe 1.0 and I arrived. Due to the nature of HA1’s mother, we had not told her beforehand of the change in residence. HA1 is now nearly 14, and under BC family law this means that she writes her own ticket and lives where she wishes, but her mother can be difficult to deal with and so we deemed it best to avoid any possibility of drama by informing her after HA1 had come down for a regular visit. As part of this, HA1 wanted to bring her fish down, so in order to avoid arousing suspicion I got one of those big Glad food containers and put the fish in that and sneaked him out of the house in my overnight bag.

Sunday it wasn’t quite as hot, but still pretty warm. We worked on the house all day – we rented a van and took the last of the big furniture off to the storage locker, and the degus off to Chris’ friend Luiza for safekeeping. As part of that, I had to assemble a bottom level tray out of aluminum sheet, as they had chewed the plastic one to shreds.

Yesterday it was blessedly much cooler. We started the morning with Starbuck’s coffee and a team pep talk, and the team responded. In the six hours we had before the photographer showed up, we rehung two cabinet doors, cleaned everything, cleared all counters of everything, hung new drapes, and cleaned and tidied the carport and the yard. As the photographer arrived, we were just finishing madly stuffing odd bits and pieces into boxes, but they are apparently used to this and went about their business.

They finally all left around 3:30 and I went to the store and bought some beer. Then we all went out for pizza and Toy Story 3. I’m still wiped out this morning.

That Change I Have Been Hinting At

Jul 11

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez, Family | 4 Comments

I recognize that this is not big news to most of you, but it is huge to us. 12 years of waiting and ferry trips and gas and biweekly trips and constant separations from one person or another are at an end. HouseApe 1.0 has come to live with us, and where we were a family of 4, we are now 5.

Instant fraternal twins.

This is the reason that we have been so stressed and tired lately. While this is a good change (a very, very good change), it is a big one. We have to sell our townhouse and find something bigger. This has been a huge amount of work that isn’t yet complete – the next two days are ones of labour – but this work is probably the most worthwhile of my life.

Everything is new again.

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Wordpress 3.0 Is Out

Jun 29

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez, Site Notes | 1 Comment

I really should upgrade.

I’m a bit too busy right now.

- paint kitchen

- get expenses to lawyer, the estate stuff is finally winding down

- continue to box stuff up and haul it away

That’s enough for now, quite enough for now.

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An Update On Things

Jun 18

Posted by Dean in Chez Entropez | 1 Comment

We are working frantically to get the current location known as Chez Entropez ready for sale.

Chez Entropez is well named. There is a local increase in the the entropy continuum that reaches a peak somewhere just inside the front entrance of the house. Also, there was a small flood earlier this year.

So we have been packing things up and moving them out, and I have been fixing the floor. We opted for a new type called groutable vinyl: the tiles are peel+stick vinyl, but they are thicker (about 3/16″) than a regular vinyl tile, and they have rounded edges. I replace the kitchen, bathroom, entranceway and hallway tiles with these. This was a lot more work than I thought it was going to be.

  1. Heat old tiles with heat gun. Pry with scraper, pull, pull, move the heat gun, pull… and stack.
  2. Pull up toilet in downstairs bathroom.
  3. Once 10 sf or so has been pulled, cover old embossed (and very sticky) vinyl roll (good lord it is ugly!) with leveling compound. Wait for leveling compound to dry.
  4. Smooth out high spots on leveling compound.
  5. Place new tiles and press down firmly.
  6. Repeat until entire floor is covered.
  7. Grout. I thought this step was going to be fast, but it wasn’t.

I have to say that the only fun part of the whole thing occurred when I pulled the toilet up. The seal was a little battered and looked non-standard to me, so I wanted to take it to the hardware store with me. I called out to HouseApe 2.0, who has somehow someway turned into this girly girly 13 year old with the nails and the hair and the clothes.. anyway, I asked her to bring a big ziplock bag. When I held out the seal and asked her to hold the bag open, she started saying ‘Eww! Eww!’ and when I lowered the seal and it got near her hands, she started dancing up and down and the ‘Eww!’s went up a good octave.

Anyway, the floor is now done (it was finished last week) and the baseboards are reinstalled. I fixed the wall where the sheetrock had been cut away to get at the plumbing. I installed new closet doors on two downstairs closets: the doors were taken out when the water-damaged flooring came out, and they were so beaten up that I just replaced them. In the case of the hall closet, this required a lot of fiddling around and the manufacture of patches made from plywood, as the old sheetrock where the screws had been put in was effectively powder.

But all that is done now and the kitchen, entranceway, hall, and small bathroom all look great, except for the paint on the kitchen cabinets. We got a quote on it from a pro, because they can do it much faster than I can, but he can’t come until July, so we are now going to try someone else.

I had a home staging consultant in (actually a pair of them arrived) and they had many good suggestions. Their pithiest one was to edit, edit, edit. ‘Nothing out that isn’t decorative,’ they said, over and over again. We will swap the piano and the computer desk, move the couch, remove an end table, move a carpet, move some pictures… I got 2 1/2 pages of notes as well as some paint colours for $125. Money well spent, I think.

As a result, last night we went to HomeSense and got a white duvet cover, two table lamps, a set of white towels, and a white shower curtain. The duvet replaces our blue one, the lamps will frame the bed, and the white towels will live in a box to be taken out and put on the bars when there is to be a showing.

Still to do: get the painters in. Replace the blinds on the kitchen and master bedroom windows. Move HouseApe 2.0’s bed. Move the Rat Creatures upstairs to HouseApe 3.0’s room. Rebrand Rat Creatures as ‘gerbils’.

Edit. Edit. Edit.

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