Hardwood flooring acquired. Hopefully it will be installed on Wednesday!

After much discussion, Emily and I have decided to go with the darker of the flooring options. If all goes according to plan, I should be able to pick the material up this weekend and it can be installed on Wednesday. I’ll be sure to post pics when it’s completed. Thanks for all the feedback!

First Dark Knight Rises Image (It's Bane!)

Unbelievable story about how the first image from The Dark Knight Rises got released this morning:

Fans had to work Friday morning to reveal the first official image of Bane fromThe Dark Knight Rises. Along with Thursdaysunexciting press releaseannouncing the beginning of production onChristopher Nolans highly anticipated third part in his Batman trilogy,The Dark Knight Rises, Warner Bros. also launched the films official websitewww.thedarkknightrises.com. Originally, if you clicked over there, it was just a black image with some really weird chanting. A fan was able to look at the visual spectrum of that audio file and in it wasa Twitter Hashtag. You cant make this stuff up. The hashtag,#thefirerises, when tweeted, slowly revealed, pixel by pixel, some kind of image on the site.

Click over for the rest of the story and the full official image.

Help us choose our new floor material. Do you like the light or dark cherry?

At the Mariners game after our Easter service at Qwest field. There’s nobody here, it’s crazy!

This week we got the cabinet frames painted and put new paper on the shelves. It’s really nice having everything put back in its rightful place (with some organizational changes made by Emily).

The doors, however, are another matter. I totally messed them up. I primer’d them too heavily on the edges and it dribbled to the underside, forming some nice thick latex patches. Needless to say more sanding had to be done. They’re currently leaning against a wall in the bedroom with primer on them. We had to get the place ready for community group on Thursday so the cabinets are door-less.

I did install a new track light fixture from Ikea, too. We both really like it, and it changes the ambiance in the kitchen a lot. See for yourself!

Last night we launched our new community group at the condo. We had 13 people show up, including my old coach (Jeff) and my new one (Ed) and his wife. It was a really cool night of establishing what a community is and what I’m supposed to do as the leader.

Best part of the night: After prayer and cheesecake we had some amazing conversation. I definitely see God leading us to becoming a family who is open and transparent with each other. Hopefully that will also grow us as a group and keep the movement going.

Meet my new monitor.

This last week has been filled with much work in the kitchen by Emily and me. Thankfully when we’re done it will transform from this:

To this:

I kid, I kid. Actually, we’re just painting the cabinets, but that has turned into a much larger ordeal than I imagined it would be. Sanding has been so much more of a pain than it should be. I’m hoping that they can get done soon, and that they look pretty decent when they are done. We are going for a dark chocolate color with brushed silver hinges and adding handles to the doors/drawers.

I already replaced the lighting with a nicer track from Ikea, and that was really simple. It’s so stressful having all the cabinets empty with dust everywhere. At this point, finishing will be a really nice relief.

The best part of the experience has been slowly turning the condo from my bachelor pad to Emily’s and my future home together.

mrgan:

Its not easy coming up with the best anything ever, but a joke I first heard ten or fifteen years ago still wins today. Here it is, the best joke I know:

Guy walks into the doctors office with a duck growing out of his head.

My god, says the doctor, how did this happen?

Well, the duck says, it all started with this thing on my foot.