My favorite toy in the house...

... is huge!

A few years ago I took a small bit of a bonus that I received from work and bought a homer theater in a box. It consisted of an Onkyo receiver, 7 speakers and a subwoofer. It changed my life. Movies just came alive - and it was complete immersion. In fact, I can barely stomach watching movies without having surround sound. I highly suggest that people should buy a smaller TV and get a nice sound system rather than going without surround sound.

So I have been wanting a new sub for our new house. The space is much larger and it was time to grow out of a $300 complete setup - however nice it was!

So I bought some RBH speakers on EBAY for a crazy good deal, and have been dreaming about this SVS subwoofer for a long, long time. It was expensive, and I just couldn't fork out that kind of money with the house being in the shape it is. The other day though someone was selling one. It was only 8 months old in prestine condition and still under warranty. I click on it just for kicks and WOW - it is half off the retail price! Amazing! They prefer local pickup - RATS. I plug in the zip code and it is Oakland, CA. I was going crazy inside. I email the guy saying I am interested and he responds saying, you can have it if you pick it up. He didn't want to ship it. The sub is huge - it weighs 175 pounds, and is quite big. How big you ask? Well see for yourself!



Here is a close up! Even without calibration, the thing sounds so sweet. I can hardly wait to get the rest of my speakers installed, everything calibrated, and watch some really cool movies.



I am so happy!

Anyone want a fried cat?

Allison grabbed a shot of our cat Carmen just sleeping away on the griddle. We did have to clean off her fur as she was full of oil from the pancakes we made earlier that morning. She did not enjoy that at all.

More house progress

We keep plugging away at the house. The kitchen is completely sheet rocked and now all the screws are covered and most of the joints are taped as well. Take a look =)

One day our house will be beautiful...

... Or at least livable.

I have been breaking my back working on the house. This weekend we put in sheet rock. With the help of my father-in-law Jim we put in the ceiling in the kitchen. We also started on the kitchen walls. Naturally the kitchen has a lot of outlets and pipes and stuff like that so it makes the sheet rock very slow going.

Then we also decided to put in tile around the entire kitchen, so there is an 18" stripe of Hardibacker board that goes around the entire room. This stuff is hard and heavy to work with. And wouldn't you know it - most of the outlets fall in this "stripe" of pain.

I also moved the door from the garage to the kitchen yesterday. We just need to buy a new fire door and frame it in. I already built the wall out.

Things are progressing - I am going to work every night this week on it so we can get it inspected and then get our cabinets in.

I have some pictures, I'll edit those in later.