Day One Hundred and Ninety Four

I ordered the Ipe hard wood decking yesterday afternoon.

I moved 10,000 empty All-Clad boxes into our storage cage on the 3rd floor of the high rise this afternoon.

But I completely failed to get my Mac to talk to Emily's scanner - so I couldn't order the railing for the deck (they need signed documents, etc. etc.).

The railing company is based on Bainbridge Island, Washington - which is a lovely coincidence because we celebrated Emily's mother's birthday last October in Seattle and Bainbridge Island is just across the Puget Sound; 'just across' in American terms means a 45 minute boat journey - you could probably get from London to Sweden in that time.

This is the only image of the railing I have.

Am I alone in knowing that the baseball season opened today?

Day One Hundred and Ninety Three

A working post.

The external wall lights that Emily has chosen don't have an automatic dusk-to-dawn capability, so rather than attach a bulky sensor to each unit the better solution is to have the timer inside the building.

So, by working post I mean photos that are out of focus because of the primitive photography conditions in Home Depot in Parkesburg - unbelievable, the least they could do is to provide a separate, hermetically sealed, multi-communication studio with lighting by Paramount for customers to take photos of their products in. This is America! What is happening over here?

Emily?

The last one is obviously the best of this selection, but could we do better?
We need to know; perhaps there is a small, really small company 20km outside of Tallinn in Estonia, who have struggled through untold years of wicked winters and endless dinners of mushy root vegetables in the pursuit of the perfect minimalist internal/external light timer switch. You know I know that you need to know...

Day One Hundred and Ninety Two

If Emily wasn't minutes away from getting on a flight to London, our new apartment would be a Bacchanalian scene of party streamers, silly hats, frothy fruit cocktails, the occasional left-over Christmas cracker going 'crack!' and Charlie Rose really blaring it out in the background - much joy - all caused by not only choosing but actually buying an entry door for the art gallery.

Here it is.

Hurrah! I'm going to let off a party streamer on my own, put on a silly hat and cook dinner.

And because it's Tuesday and the weekend is far away, here's the view from the new apartment.

Day One Hundred and Ninety One

Day One Hundred and Eighty Nine

Today's events;

1. The English cricket team lost to Sri Lanka in the quarter final of the One Day International World Cup played in Colombo.

2. The English football team beat Wales 2-0 in a qualifying match for Euro 2012 in Cardiff.

Obviously other important stuff happened, but compared to past English sporting achievements (think hard and you may get lucky) we squeezed out a result today. As there are only 4 fit people in the entire country the very fact we managed to field two reasonably healthy teams and win one of the games is the equivalent of NASA shooting for Neptune and hitting Saturn - not too shabby.

The electrics.

PECO, the local electricity company, moved the wires from the front of building - why, simply oh why, would anyone have the wires on the front of a building? - ...

to the rear...

That wire poking out to the right of the front door is for the small light that will gently guide the lost traveller into the art gallery.

These are the electrics for the switches that will operate the Royal Albert Hall like illuminations.

And this is the tracking for the sliding door between the reception area and the conference/projection room. Buster Keaton. That's the first film to be shown. I think.

Day One Hundred and Eighty Eight

Day One Hundred and Eighty Seven

These photographs from last week are in no particular order - just visual proof that the shockingly lengthy amount of internal wiring we requested for our very small office is now installed. Every wire is important.

And English and American beer for the guys.

It is looking so bloody good. I mean the office - obviously the Union Flag on a bottle of beer looks good.