cashby and dashby

Valentine's Day Visitor

2011-02-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

Things at the Ashby household have been pretty low key.

The pups have been enjoying the warm weather.

Our rock-awesome neighbors gave us a fire pit for Christmas, so we've been enjoying s'mores in our own backyard. Love this!!

Dave recently decided to re-wire the house with Cat 5 Cable--totally out of my department. All I know is that the office floor used to like something like this:

Now it looks like this:

So I'm definitely happy. It makes this stuff all over the house for the last few weeks worth it:

Finally, a cute little cupid showed up for Valentine's Day this year :)

whirlwind of a week

2010-09-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

i've decided that since summer never came to the bay area, i am exempt from blogging about it. the past few months will just have to live in oblivion.

so, i will start fresh since it is essentially fall now.

a couple weeks ago my sister, steffanie, came to visit and it was an awesome, action-packed week.

the day after she got here we wasted no time, and left at 5am to hit yosemite. four hours later, we were in the valley taking in all the sights.

the sights happened to include one of these; which, btw, is on my "scares-me-to-death" list.

after going aroud the valley, we decided to hike up to the top of vernal falls.

we still had a ton to see, so once we hit the top we didn't linger very long. we literally ran down, so we could rush to glacier point. when we got there, you could see where we had just been.

next on the list was mariposa grove. steff had never seen "big trees", and these did not disappoint.

by the time we were done in the grove, it was getting dark, so we headed home. after another four hour drive, we were home around midnight, and ready for bed!

day2

oakland temple, half moon bay, pescadero:

half moon bay was a bit of a bust, but we got some awesome artichoke bread in pescadero...totally worth it.

day3

point reyes:

our timing wasn't perfect--apparently the light house is closed on tuesdays and wednesdays, but the day was incredible. no fog! the view was crazy amazing. from chimney rock you could see point reyes, and the golden gate bridge.

day4

san francisco:

we did all the major tourist stuff which included a cable car tour of the city.

day5

monterey bay aquarium and whale watching:

once again, we left early and drove down to monterey to go whale watching. we'd never done it before, and it turned out to be pretty fun--despite freezing the whole time.

we saw lots of dolphins

tons of these funny guys

and we managed to find some whales to follow

day6

steff to the airport and candace taken' it easy.

unfortunately the taken' it easy part was mostly because i was feeling sick, but i'll take it.

just so you know, i'm giving myself props for posting a picture like this of myself.

plumber for a day

2010-04-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

so, the other day dave asks "will you pour some drano down my sink". i respond "sure".

however, being the compulsive person that i am, i knew that wasn't going to solve the problem. i wanted the problem fixed. so, i fixed it. gross-out alert!!

seriously, this is one of the grossest things i've ever done!

i don't get paid enough for this. then again, i don't get paid enough to have someone else do it. oh well.

on another note. we recently fit two cars into a two car garage! we cosidered it a miracle.

tales of tahoe

2010-02-15T17:38:00.000-08:00

SO, a couple weeks ago, a friend called me friday morning and said..."we booked a room in the lodge at sugarbowl for tonight and tomorrow, and won't be able to make it. would you like to take it?"

and i said, "of course! that would be great!"

unfortunately, dave was working on a project, and could not go; but suggested that i enjoy myself and go. so i did....for the most part.

on the way there, just past auborn, i encountered a 20 mile backup due to an 8 car pile-up. i sat on the highway for 2.5 hours, without moving. i left the house at 2:30pm; by the time the accident cleared, it was 9pm.

by this time, it was snowing quite heavily, and i began to be a little concerned about the chain control check-point. luckily i bought chains on the way there, but had NO idea had to put them on. i am from florida. i'd never even seen chains in my life!!

good thing: there were men you could pay $30 and they'd do it for you. bad thing: i didn't realize i needed to do that BEFORE the check point. so, the po-po made me exit the highway, drive back 2 miles (which had taken me 2 hours to get through), get back on the highway, and then go through the chain line again!! at this point i called dave and cried. by the time i got through chain-control, it was 12:30am.

now with chains on, and only able to go 30mph max, and with another 30+ miles to go, i finally made it to the exit i wanted around 1:30am. and unfortunately from here, google maps gave me the wrong directions. sigh. i had no idea where i was going. thank goodness for a pg&e guy working late who gave me directions after hollering at him out the window.

i finally made it to the lodge at 2am. yeah!! i hadn't eaten in 12 hours, or tinkled in 6 hours. i was truly grateful that i didn't have to pull over on the side of the road, alone, and improvise!

The next day, i was both wired and exhausted; however, the skiing was awesome!

the snow was amazing! and everything was beautiful!

i had a great time!

now i just had to make it home...

and being the silly florida girl that i am, i thought i could handle the chain removal myself. ha.

so, 20 minutes after leaving sugarbowl, i find myself on the side of highway 80, with the chains caught over the axle behind the two front wheels; laying under my car on the muddy, snowy, road alone and, well, lots of other emotions.

so, not ashamed to ask (or beg) for help, i flagged down a random blue tahoe in hopes that someone could or even would help. fortunately for me, what must have been the 3 nephites, stepped out of the tahoe, took off my tires, removed the chains, and sent me on my way. and from there, i was home in no time...though very gross and dirty.

moral of the story: it's okay to go alone, just do it in a truck!!

the handyman can

2010-02-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

i am always complaining about the sliding doors in our house. the reason: they don't actually slide. it's like pushing a brick wall out of the way.

so the other day i came home from work to the smell of paint thinner in the garage. when i opened the door to go inside, i was greeted with this:

dave had managed to take the entire door out and fix the problem. of course moxie assisted.

now the door slides like it's on air...it's WONDERFUL!

one down, two to go. how nice to have a handyman around.

moxie's obsession

2010-01-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

for whatever reason, moxie has always loved the laptop; as such, she has developed amazing talents when it comes to utilizing the laptop.

after sending any unintended or random emails, she enjoys pressing buttons to perform functions that i dare say even the finest of silicon valley's tech gurus could not accomplish if they so wanted.

after such hard work, moxie often takes pleasure in a quality nap with the laptop.

if one of her humans would like to use the laptop, she makes sure that we are well chaperoned.

moxie is a very good dog, and always looks forward to conference on the laptop.

she even enjoys the laptop's company when it's not on.

and finally, just to show that she is not limited to an electronic medium; moxie is also a fan of tolkien.

the kitchen: the saga's outcome

2010-01-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

sorry it took so long to post an update--what's a couple years here and there? so, here are updated pictures of the kitchen for those of you who haven't seen them (apologies for those who have).

More joys of home ownership

2008-03-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

Our story so far. . . .

In November 2007, we looked under the kitchen sink and noticed that there was water coming through the sheetrock. It turns out the drainage line had ruptured and water had been seeping out for some time. We initially thought it was a minor problem—we just needed to fix the break and dry it out. Turns out that water had run into the walls and under all of our cabinets and the hardwood floors. Long story short, we had to tear out the entire kitchen. Opening the walls exposed framing and wiring that stunned/horrified the city inspector. Though only some of the framing had water damage, nearly all of the framing had to be taken out because it was so bad. After about a week of work, Candace called to tell me that there was a new disaster: in reframing and re-plumbing, our sewer drain from the kitchen snapped off in the hands of the workers. We had to cut a trench into the slab to go back to a section of pipe that was good. We also had to replace a major conduit into the electrical box because the old conduit was not nearly what it should have been.

Sorry that this has basically turned into a home renovation blog. Just to mix it up, we do have a new dog….

This is the "framing" that was holding up the corner of the house.

The offending pipe...

A-town v. Ducky's

2007-07-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

It's so much easier to write posts when things are going wrong. The bathroom plumbing situation is (hopefully) taken care of and the contractors have been finished for a couple of weeks. Their departure hit home that we finally own a home: before it had felt more like an apartment with contractors and subs coming and going all the time. We even lost our last roommate a week ago. After about a month of visiting, Trey (my parents' dog) packed up his bags and took the long drive to Utah with my mom.

My parents sold their house in about a week and did remarkably well given they bought the house about 18 months prior and we are in a housing "downturn." My mom ending up closing things out on this end (with a little help from her progeny) and only hit one bump in the road: she left her planner at Ducky's Car Wash in San Carlos after having my dad's old car detailed for sale. She left Ducky's around 6:15 (15 minutes after it closed) and returned around 6:20-6:25 when she realized she had left her planner. No one was around when she returned. The planner had ~$400 cash, credit cards, checks, driver's license, etc. Candace and I arrived shortly after and looked in the windows, but the planner was not on the counter. My mom left a message that night and called early the next morning. The manager immediately went on the defensive and also lied about a worker's schedule. My mom went to Ducky's where she talked to the employee who had been working the night prior and the manager. After the employee threatened to call the police on my mom (yes, you read that right) for accusing the employee of stealing the planner (a crime I'm not familiar with), my mom called the police and had them come to Ducky's. The San Carlos police were not very helpful.

Late that night, my mom got a call from Barbara, a neighbor who lives in San Carlos, saying that the Atherton police had found her planner. The Atherton police had stopped a car near our old house with two men who said they had found the planner by the Albertson's (across the street from Ducky's) and were returning it (sans cash and some gift cards.) The officer took the planner, but couldn't contact my mom because her driver's license wasn't up-to-date. The only number they could find was from a check that Barbara had written my mom.

Props to the Atherton police; they solve crimes for current and former residents whether the crime occurred in Atherton or not. A-town!

"Mom!", or The Heiress and the Heirless

2007-06-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

Paris Hilton and I had something in common today: when things fell apart, we called for our moms. The only difference is that my mom took care of business and dropped some fools (and I didn't throw a hissy fit.)

We continued to war with Able Home Inspection (I'm using the name to try to warn off any would-be customers) to pay to so that both of our tubs and our shower didn't leak. Song, the Japanese plumber who came out, found a number of problems, including on the hall tub that Able's guys supposedly fixed. His bill was upwards of $900 and included problems with a jacuzzi motor power switch. Ralph from Able told us that we were on the hook for half the bill since the switch was electrical, not plumbing.

Angry and irritated as I drove to work, I called my mom, our realtor on the deal, and sent her to do battle. Despite stonewalling by Able, she got a copy of Song's proposal and reviewed each item on it with Song (I have no idea how she did this over the phone since his English is very limited.) Verdict: ALL of it was related to leaking, including the switch. My mom called Ralph back, and despite his efforts to weasel out, got him to agree to pay in full. . . before I was done with lunch.

Ralph's last throes of denial were saying that we couldn't find an inspection company in the state that would guarantee everything we were getting them to cover--well, they weren't stupid enough to mess with my mom.

Song should come tomorrow to fix all of the leaks. Knock on water-damaged wood, that will be the last of it.

Thanks, Mom! We couldn't have done it without you.

(Oh, and congrats Paris for making our blog--I never thought you'd make it on here. Since you've got some time to think in jail, your koan for the day is Don Henley's lyrical lament: "This year notoriety got all confused with fame.")

WATER!

2007-06-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

Things were clipping along nicely on the remodel when we hit a small snag. With most of the upstairs finished, the contractor was ready to put the downstairs ceilings back. He asked us to do one more water test of the shower and tubs before we did. Monday night, we filled the master tub and shower up to their overflows and ran the various whirlpool jets. Water went all over our living room floor from both. This was particularly disturbing because during escrow we had paid a home inspector that the sellers’ agent highly recommended to certify that these fixtures didn’t have leaks.

I called the home inspection company, Able Home Inspection, and told them about the problem. The next morning they called to say they were sending an inspector out. Two guys with little to no English ability showed up to water test. El Gordo went upstairs and turned on the hall bath (which we hadn’t even gotten to testing yet.) El Bajito stayed downstairs with the Dewalt flashlight he could barely hold up. After approximately 10 seconds, he turned to me and said, “No leaks.” I told him that he needed to fill it to the overflow drain before he could be sure. He shook his head and said “No leaks.” I spoke more slowly this time, asked him if he knew what an overflow was, and used hand gestures to indicate that the water needed to rise to the level of the overflow. “Yes, overflow. No leaks.”

At this point, I called the office and told them these guys didn’t seem to know what they were doing. Ralph indignantly told me that this was what these guys did every day and that they were perfectly capable--I guess he asked them when he picked them up from the Home Depot parking lot. I told them they hadn’t even filled the tub to the overflow; Ralph told me he would call them. El Gordo and El Bajito then got on the phone, but still seemed utterly lost. So, I filled the hall tub myself. Shortly after the water got up to the overflow drain, El Bajito came to tell me that the hall tub was leaking and Able was sending an inspector out (which is amusing since these guys were supposedly inspectors.) Now I have three leaky fixtures. El Gordo and El Bajito then went and sat on the lawn for two hours waiting for the inspector.

Ralph called me and said that his company NEVER worked with whirlpool tubs. I told him that they had water-tested and certified both of our tub and shower, both of which have jets. He said that was impossible because they never did that kind of stuff. I told him that I had the final copy of his report that said there were no leaks. He said that was too bad, they were only going to fix the hall bath overflow. I verged on going nuclear: we paid $500 to have these guys certify no leaks and had bought the house based on that. But, every fixture they guaranteed leaked. They had even given us an estimate for putting the sheetrock back in place.

Two more “inspectors” showed up and the four of them fixed the issued with the hall tub overflow. They then left saying they weren’t going to fix anything else, even though at least some of the problems were basic plumbing, not the whirlpool jets.

I called my mom (who had been our realtor) and put her on the case. Then I talked through options with my contractor and dad. Basically, we decided we were going to have to get the thing fixed ourselves and then sue. Late in the day, Ralph called to say he was turning the case over to Don, the company owner, and that my mom had left a “stern” message. Candace and I both took heart at this because it was the first time it seemed like something had rattled Able.

The next morning, my mom called to say that Don had called her. Don had talked with the sellers’ agent, Anne, who said that the buyers (i.e., Candace and I) had told Able only to water test it up to a point. My mom told him this was ridiculous: why would a buyer ask that something not be fully tested? Don said it sounded a little weird, but said it was what he had heard. Regardless, out report had no qualifiers or limitations on it—it said the units didn’t leak. My mom got Don to admit Able was going to have to pay to have this fixed and Able sent over an affable, elderly Japanese man who is apparently an independent plumber. He spoke very limited English, but seemed to understand plumbing and wanted to take a methodical approach. These are both big steps up from El Gordo and El Bajito.

The plumber returned Thursday. Within a couple of hours he was stunned to note at least four leaks and he was still testing.

To be continued. . .

"A Government of Laws and Not [Garbage] Men"*

2007-06-03T01:31:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures post-demolition. It was about this point that we turned things over to our contractor.

The stack of debris is probably twice this big despite us trying to throw away everything possible. We had a little showdown with the Sunnyvale garbage company the first week when they left all of our garbage. The note I found blowing across our lawn said our cans had construction material, were too heavy, were the wrong size, etc.

I called up the company and was told they didn't take concrete. Great, because there wasn't any concrete, just drywall pieces. Then they said they wouldn't take drywall or any construction materials, despite this not being on the website. I then talked with a supervisor. She said they DID take up to 200 pounds of drywall in the biggest can. I told her that our cans were within the posted weights. Her reply was that they wouldn't take it, regardless of the weight, if the garbage man thought he would hurt himself lifting it.

What happened to the rule of law? If you post maximum weights, that should be the standard, not the garbage man's subjective take on weight. After discussing this at some length, they agreed to send a special run to get our cans, but cautioned that they wouldn't be taken if too heavy. We used another can to reduce the load of the initial cans and waited. Not surprisingly, the garbage man who showed up was an elderly gentleman with white hair and mustache. He ambled over to the can, looked at it, and, without touching it, decided it was too heavy. He told C he wouldn't take them because they were too heavy for him when C raced out to meet him. CANDACE then carried the cans to the truck and threw them in. Apparently guessing weight by sight alone is in the job description, but lifting is not, and our "Unlimited" garbage pickup plan is DIY.

*John Adams, Massachusetts Constitution, Part The First, art. XXX (1780).

It is a period of civil war.*

2007-06-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, nothing quite that dramatic--if anything, it is anticlimactic: we are trying out a blog. That said, we probably need a brief crawl to get some of you up-to-speed. (Apologies to those who don't need the backstory for rehashing. Apologies to those who do need backstory for not keeping you in the loop.)

(SPOILER WARNING: C complained this post was too long. My response? Make it longer. . .by adding a synopsis for MTV-addled attention spans.

1. In California working.

2. Bought house that we're renovating so we haven't gotten into it yet.
3. Parents moving to SLC, so living with them and no furniture.

If your attention hasn't wandered yet, feel free to peruse illustrative pictures below.)

We moved back to the California last year after I graduated from NYU Law. I work at a law firm, and Candace is a personal trainer and teaches kids who can't read good. Despite the gloom-and-doom forecasts for the real estate market, we recently made by far the biggest purchase of our lives and bought our first house. Something about the lavender, yellow, blue, and mirrored walls and popcorn ceilings didn't quite match our aesthetic, so we immediately began remodeling--what else would a young, broke couple who just dropped a fortune on their first place do?

In our defense, several large chunks of the ceiling were taken out due to some water damage testing. (The brown areas in the pic are pieces of paper put over the holes--see if you can find all four!) We could have simply patched the holes, but (1) where we patched would have been obvious and (2) we hate popcorn, so we didn't want to put the stuff back in. Hinc, upon taking possession of the house (which is a story unto itself), we promptly began ripping apart our dream home. First, we ripped out several sets of cabinets. One of them was a 30" deep, 4' wide, and 8' tall (i.e., floor to ceiling) oak kitchen cabinet. We also took cabinets out of the living room, master bath, garage, and hall. Some of these beauties have been placed on permanent display in our garage to replace the 1960s kitchen cabinets that were already there; the remainder are stacked in our growing trash pile with the battered baseboards and shattered remains of the giant mirrored wall (see pic above). Next, we tore out a wall and lowered duct soffits that gave a large area of the house a dingy cave feel. Most recently we completed the arduous task of tearing out painted over popcorn ceilings which the prior owners installed in 1999 [stet!]. Around this point, we turned the work over to our contractor, Kevin. Given all this work, you may wonder why we bought the house. We like the area and thought/think the house has potential. My architect father's unqualified response after going through the open house: "It's weird." Thanks, Dad.

Perhaps the high point of our demolition came when we had ripped out all of this stuff and I was removing the last of the popcorn. Around 7:30 pm the doorbell rang. It seemed a little odd, since almost no one knows we are in the house. Who should I have the pleasure of greeting at the front door? The former owner. He was back in town from North Carolina and wanted to know if we had seen a tent. His first comment: "Oh! You took the mirrors out." This was followed by "You took the wall out" and "You took the popcorn out." Feeling very awkward, I tried to give some response, but quickly gave up. After walking though the demolished interior and seeing what we had done to the kitchen, he stopped remarking on things we had changed.

My parents have been kind enough to let us stay with them while we were searching for a place. However, my dad was recently hired by the Church to design temples, so they are moving to Salt Lake City. Sadly, our timelines didn't synch quite perfectly. All of their furniture and belongings are now in their new house in Utah and they hope to put their house on the market any day now, but we can't get into our house because of the work getting done. (We did sleep at our new place on an air matress amidst tarps and heavy drywall dust, but after only one night we begged to return to sleep on my parents' floor.) They are likely going to stage the house starting next week, and we are gently prodding our contractor to finish the master suite so we can stay there.

We've been staying in my parentals' unfurnished house for about a week. We scrounged in our still packed belongings (which are in our new garage in Sunnyvale) and found a pot which has served as a pot/pan/toaster/misc. I also brought back a camping chair which is now the only thing to sit on in the house.

*First sentence from the storyline for Star Wars Episode IV's crawl, for those not keeping track.