James E. Lee's Personal Blog

Here's a "photo summary" of some of the updates  and changes we've recently made to our home; new lamps, resurfaced kitchen tile, new appliances, & nicer decor for our guest room.

I want to try to generate photo summaries on a regular basis, since they're a good, fast way to look at highlights of a given time or activity.

Posted by James E. Lee on Friday, 22 Apr 2005 | Permalink

If you have tile on your kitchen counters or in your bathroom, and it doesn't look as nice as you'd like, you may want to consider Miracle Method tile resurfacing.  After having it done, I think the name is totally appropriate, but the pictures speak for themselves!

Before

The tile and grout on our kitchen counters hadn't been maintained well previous owners, and by the time we bought the house, the counters were extremely tough to keep clean.  The thin grout lines made cleaning especially difficult; only bleach & scrubbing helped, but even then, the counters didn't look very good.

I wanted to make a reasonably fair comparison for before & after, but in the "before" picture below, I did not bleach & scrub, since we knew we were resurfacing, and they said not to bother because they do a rather extreme clean/prep.  I did use a whole lot of spray cleaner, but as you can see, that didn't help much.

After

Now, there's no grout to get stained; everything is covered by the seamless Miracle Method coating.  They also did our kitchen sink, repairing a couple of chips in the porcelain; it looks like a new sink, especially with our new faucet.



We chose "Kohler White", a semi-gloss, but not shiny finish.

Posted by James E. Lee on Friday, 22 Apr 2005 | Permalink

Dave, Ania, and I had a nice lunch at the Rutherford Grill in the Napa Valley, then drove up Howell Mountain road to an orchard we know that, if you're lucky, may be found ablaze with thousands of poppies.  Unfortunately, there were only a very few in bloom that day, but Ania made a pretty crown out of some of the other flowers there.

We headed past the town of Angwin out Pope Valley Road, then turned left along the southwest shore of Lake Berryessa, taking what eventually became Morgan Valley Road.  It was definitely the long way, but it was a gorgeous day, and we weren't in a hurry.  We ended up in Clear Lake, walked around a bit, then headed home via 29 past Calistoga and down the Silverado Trail, a shorter route.  Ania had a blast driving the curvy roads, and when I wasn't holding on for dear life, I captured some of it on video.

Posted by James E. Lee on Saturday, 16 Apr 2005 | Permalink

We took our friends, Ollie, Anna, & Zabie, that Ania used to take care of, to the Exploratorium and had a great time, then went to the Beach Chalet for lunch.  The restaurant overlooks a decent beach, where we flew a kite (it was really windy!) and built a sand castle.

Posted by James E. Lee on Sunday, 10 Apr 2005 | Permalink

My wife Ania's mother saw the Pope 5 times during his life, and went to see him while he lay in state in Rome.  One day, perhaps she will tell our (future) children about the journey.

Whatever your position on religion in general, or his views in particular, the Pope made a significant impact on human events, and the celebration of his passing reflects that.  Watching his funeral tonight, I was stunned at the several moments when absolute silence covered the square; this was the world paying respect.

I am not a Catholic, but my wife is, so I have a direct sense of the impact the Pope had on many people.  The memory I will carry with me is of what he gave us through his passing; a reminder that we can in fact, all come together and get along, even if it's just for the space of a few brief moments of silence during a funeral.

Posted by James E. Lee on Friday, 08 Apr 2005 | Permalink

We grabbed a burrito, then some coffee, and went to see a movie, (I can't remember which movie, since I'm writing this on the 22nd, but I've set the post date to the 1st); it was a fun Friday night!

Posted by James E. Lee on Friday, 01 Apr 2005 | Permalink