Tag: lowes

home improvement

with the flick of a switch…

by  •  • 5 Comments

Our not so fantastic kitchen overhead light cut out a couple of weeks ago, and after buying some new bulbs for it, we discovered that the lamp had crapped out, and needed to be replaced. So, we headed to Lowes this weekend to just get a replacement, when we started to think about options… why not get something better? Why not get something more interesting? So here’s what we came up with:
new lighting, we have it.
It is one of those track kits that you can “easily” bend into “any shape”, and you just add the bulbs that you want. Well, I figured it would probably take about a half an hour to install, but it ended up taking close to 3 hours, and I cursed through most of it. The attachment point was out of whack, and I had to “adjust it” (meaning, screw long ass screws in it), and it took forever just to get the housing up in the ceiling. Then, I had to bend the “easy to bend” track into what I considered to be a bright idea; a swirl. Well, it looks “alright”, but there are parts where it isn’t perfect. Fuck it. It’s up there now. We also had a hell of a time with the dangling bulb in the middle; it just didn’t want to work, and we had to exchange it for another one (which also didn’t want to work, but I twisted its arm, and now it works).

Overall, I am still on the fence about it, mainly because it is so different from our other fixture, but partly because of the fact that the swirl isn’t perfectly bent. It was close to impossible to get it perfect, but I am a perfectionist, so there. What do you think? Do you like it??

It definitely makes the kitchen bright… in fact, it is so bright that I may install a dimmer switch this weekend.

all about me, flickr, happenings, hmm interesting, photography, the catch-all-egory, wtf?!

first class, free drill, and a huge fucking owl!

by  •  • 6 Comments

Recently (yesterday), I booked my flight for a trip I am taking to NYC in July, and I decided I should use those sky miles that I have been holding onto for years now. Well, I had no idea, but if you book with sky miles, you fly first class. It wouldn’t even let me choose a seat outside of first class. Sweet!! Now that was a great surprise, and I am looking forward to flying first class… for only $5!

James went to Lowes to get us a new trash can and some odds and ends, and thought he should pick up a new corded drill, because every time we need the drill we currently have, the batteries are dead. Well, when he got home, he pulled out the receipt, and noticed that the drill was not listed anywhere on it. Ladies and gents, we have ourselves a free drill, courtesy of the not-very-detail-oriented cashier at Lowes! Is it bad that the only thing I said to him, upon finding out that he didn’t pay for it, was “you know, it would only suck if we needed to take it back for some reason”? Yeah… free drills acquired through no fault of your own are pretty much a gift as far as I’m concerned.

it's an owl!Finally, last night, I was playing Xbox 360, and James went out to go to the store. As soon as he gets outside, I hear him screaming my name, but since he is always over-reacting to things, I took my time to get up and see what was going on. Turns out, it wasn’t typical James shenanigans, but instead, there was a HUGE owl sitting on top of his car; which was parked about 5 feet from the house in the driveway. Now, for those that don’t know it, we have a koi point right in front of the front porch, to the left of the driveway (if you are looking from the porch to the road), and there are always squirrels and other small critters trying to nab our fish. We have a “anti-pest” net on top of the pond, but occasionally, we will see a cat or a squirrel scurry away when we come out onto the porch. Well, I can honestly say that last night was a first; the owl was sitting on the top of James’ car looking down at the water. It was freaky that it was so close to us!!! I ran inside to get my camera, and sure enough, the batteries were completely dead. Nice. Well, I managed to get the back up battery pack in, and even got a picture of the thing (which I didn’t know until today that it actually came out… click on it for a bigger version). It was so big too, and the freaky thing, was it just kept looking at us the whole time it was sitting there. It flew back and forth to the tree at the end of the yard a few times, each time, coming back to the spot on top of James’ truck. We are going to try and feed the fish at night and see if it brings the owl back, because it goes without saying that the owl encounter was pretty freaking cool… I would also like to get a better picture if I can; even though I am elated that the ONLY one I took actually came out pretty decent!