Category Archives: Friends

Alexis, Baier, Becky, Carla, Derrick, House, James, Jason, Jay, Jeff Daniel, Jen, Jesse, Mom, Monica, Nader, Sara, Shannon, Teresa, Yin

Primary Painting Day

March 3, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

Although Carla and Alexis did a wonderful job of taking pictures, one of the downsides of not having taken any pictures myself is that I didn’t get pictures of everybody that helped.

So thanks to my incredible painting crew on Primary Painting Day:

Jason Stensland
Carla Stensland
Alexis Stensland
Jason Baier
Jeff Daniel
Amy Yin
Jen Gorshe
Derrick Gorshe
Sara Junck
Teresa Kahler
Monica Henning
Nader Parsaei
Jay Janson
Jesse Howard
Shannon Bardole
Becky Perkovich
James Strachota

I’m sure I’m forgetting somebody. They all did a wonderful job and if it wasn’t for the stupid moisture, I’m sure we would have been completely done on that day. With everything except the kitchen cabinets.

My mom also cooked up a wonderful lunch and supper. I think a good time was had by most.

Some pictures from that day in no particular order:

The Master Bedroom

The Office

Roger taking the tile out to make room for a shower.

Shannon painting the entry way.

Jen working in the kitchen. Notice the swanky green color that kitchen cabinets used to be before the horrible antiquing.

Jesse, possibly high on something, working in the kitchen.

Jesse doing some primer work in the kitchen.

Sara and Alexis toiling in the kitchen. I do not know what I am doing.

Alexis and I painting the living room wall. It might be the accent wall, but I’m not sure if it is still considered an accent wall if you paint two walls that color.

Carla painting in the master bedroom. To the left of her is the family heirloom, our Grandpa Bennett’s painting stool.

Painting the living room. Jesse, Alexis, Me and James.

The guest bedroom.

Jason painting the living room.

Jason and Carla came over on Sunday to do some more painting.

Jen came over and did quite a bit more work in the kitchen as well. I just don’t have any pictures of that.

Alexis, Becky, Carla, Eric, FNSC, House, Jay, Jesse, Linda, Scottie D., Shannon, Teresa, Willy

Friday Night Paint Prep Club – Part B

March 2, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

More pictures from paint prep night.

I got those green chairs from my Aunt Linda to with a sweet white table she was throwing away. Those chairs are surprisingly popular. That is also Shannon showing off her taping skills.

Carla painting the bathroom.

Life Lesson: When working on a ceiling fan, don’t ask for the fan to be turned on when your heads are still in the blades.

Eric dumping out a bucket.

Eric taping it up.

Willy, Jay, Me, Becky, Shannon and Alexis.

Alexis and Teresa washing walls.

Becky and Teresa in the basement.

Teresa and Becky priming the cupboard doors.

Becky on curtain duty.

A stack of cupboard doors.

Another health amount of work had been accomplished. The house was ready for painting day.

Becky, House, Jay, Jesse, Scottie D., Shannon, Steve, Teresa

Friday Night Paint Prep Club – Part A

March 1, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

Day 3 of home ownership consisted of paint prep and lots of it. Her are some pictures in no particular order from that night.

Teresa eating.

Shannon would want me to point out one thing in this picture. Well maybe two things. One she is a master taper. Two she did an incredible job taping around the rounded corner of this wall.

Suzie showing off her taping skills.

Taking down curtains in my bowling shirt.

A good supervisor/leader takes time out from ruling with an iron fist to get to know the people on their staff. As opposed to this looks like I’m not doing any work.

Jesse working on the living room ceiling fan. This ceiling fan did come with a remote.

Shannon, Becky, Teresa, Jesse, Yours Truly, Suzie and Scott.

Jesse and Scott got shocked on more than one occasion. I noted their ability to take a shock, in case I ever need somebody to jump in front of a taser for me. I think I have a couple of candidates.

Jesse and Scott hanging plastic.

I was blessed with a phenomenal prep team.

Alexis, Carla, House, Jason, Jesse, Mom

Day 2 – Things Start to Look Different

February 28, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

Day 2 at the house involved a ton of work on the cabinets. Carla put a coat of paint on the bathroom walls. The carpet removal team started their work.

I don’t remember the actual name of this color, so we will call it green.

I respect Carla and her painting ability, but I will always think that she is a coward because she didn’t use the family heirloom (she used that fancy yellow stool) to do her painting, but I will get into the family heirloom in more detail at a later date.

Jesse and Roger ripping out the hideous green carpet that was in the office. The wood floor underneath this carpet was a little rough, but nothing too bad.

Jesse working on carpet removal.

Jason, Jesse and Roger starting the carpet removal in the living room/dining room.

I spent a good chunk of this Thursday night in the basement sanding kitchen cabinet doors so that they could be primed and then painted. Maybe some of you don’t know about sanding, but when you get into the “zone” you can’t stop. You can’t be disturbed.

On about cabinet door #25, I hit the sweet sanding zone. It was at this time that Alexis came down to the basement and told me that I was needed upstairs.

I politely explained that I was in the zone and I was to be left alone.

She went back upstairs. I returned to the sweet bliss of the zone.

3 or 4 minutes went by and she returned.

“They really need you upstairs. Robowood says he needs you.”

“I don’t know anything about Robowood. Tell them I am in the zone.”

Alexis left and I returned to the sweet bliss of the sanding zone.

5 minutes later Alexis returned.

“They say they really need you upstairs.”

“Did you explain the zone to them?”

“I told them, they say it is an emergency!”

“Of course, they don’t know anything about the zone, tell them I will be up in a moment.”

I finished the rest of the doors and went upstairs to find the first real major hiccup of the new homestead.

Those who know me at all or at least pretend to know me know this one thing, I am a big fan of wood floors. One of the big selling points of this house for me was the wood floors that had been tragically hidden by ugly carpet.

My carpet removal team (consisting of Jason, Robowood and Uncle Roger) had ripped into their job with a great amount of zeal. Perhaps too much zeal.

They had ripped up and cut the carpet in the dining room without looking at the wood underneath. This turned out to be a problem because the wood floor underneath the dining/living room turns out to not be finished.

Turns out I have a summer project I wasn’t counting on.

The carpet removal team turned into the carpet taping back together team.

Putting the carpet back together under the watchful eye of Mom.

It was a pretty good day’s work.

Alexis, Becky, Carla, House, Jason, Teresa

More Day 1 Fun

February 27, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

I have not touched any of my cameras since I left the resort in Arizona. Luckily for me Carla and Alexis did a fair amount of documentary photography on the work that was done on the house.

Day 1 consisted mostly of swapping out light fixtures and starting the nightmare that was to become the kitchen project. A project that is almost done.

I hated the kitchen cabinets that were in the kitchen. They had this ugly antiqued finish on them and I wanted a clean white finish. So the plan was to paint all the kitchen cabinets white. Change the hardware to a “chrome” finish. Replace the existing appliances with stainless steel appliances and paint the walls Cranberry Punch.

It sounded simple enough, but the kitchen turned out to be more work than I was expecting. I would not be exaggerating if I told you that I’m guessing that over 300 man hours have been spent on that kitchen.

It all started on Day 1 when we took the kitchen cabinet doors off and began knocking the trim pieces off of them.

Jason working on the new light for the office. This light blast out illumination at the equivalent of 200 watts of incandescent power. Only it isn’t incandescent. It is two ballasted fluorescent bulbs. It is so bright in the office you practically need shades to work in there and I dig it!

Jason and Alexis working on the master bedroom ceiling fan. The master bedroom ceiling fan is a Hunter. It doesn’t include a remote.

Jason and Alexis working on the master bedroom ceiling fan.

The bathroom before the upgrades.

The bathtub, before the shower.

Becky cleaning up a mess underneath the entry way register.

Carla tinkering around in the kitchen. The drawers that she is playing with were eliminated to make room for a dishwasher.

The only definition of Hell that ever made sense to me has been “separation from God”. A close second might be removing the stupid nails in these kitchen cabinet doors. Although Teresa seems to be enjoying it.

Jason knocking the trim of the cabinet doors.

A look at the kitchen before the work began.

A fair amount was accomplished on Day 1.

Family, House, Sara

The Adventure of Home Ownership Begins

February 26, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

On Wednesday, February 25, 2009, I officially became a homeowner.

I arrived at the office of my Mortgage Broker and signed papers with a lawyer for about 30 minutes. I fully intended to count how many times I signed my name and put my initials on the bottom of other papers, but after about 5 minutes I truly lost count.

After all the papers were signed, the lawyer and Tracy (the mortgage broker) congratulated me.

I remembered perhaps the strangest congratulation that I received during this process. It came from Sara and for some reason I said what she had told me.

“When I told my friend Sara that I was buying a house she told me, ‘Congratulations! You’ve never been closer to foreclosure in your life!'”

Although Sara is frequently witty and often funny and almost always amusing, this joke didn’t go over so well in a room with a mortgage broker, a real estate lawyer and a real estate agent.

Lori gave me the keys to the house and she took a picture with my phone.

I went to pack up some of my purchases of the previous month and took them over to what was now my house with the cute backyard.

Jesse, Music, Work

Arizona Day 7

February 23, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

Day 7 in Arizona was the final day of work.

I spent most of the morning talking to a Native American Flute Artist by the name of Travis Terry. He both made and played flutes.

I asked him how he learned to make flutes, expecting a story about his grandpa on the reservation.

The answer came back: “Long Beach High Shop Class.”

A little disappointing, but at least he was honest.

I bought one of his CDs and he gave me a friend’s discount. He was an interesting guy.

He is coming to Iowa to play this summer, I might have to go check him out.

After “working”, I spent the majority of the day sitting by the pool reading Six-Word Memoirs. It is a fascinating book that Shannon lent me where people try to sum up their life in six words.

After a couple hours and an extensive phone call back home, Jesse’s family arrived at the resort.

We spent about an hour swimming with Jesse’s nephew and then loaded up in their car and headed to the nearest town looking for edible food.

We parked right next to the World’s 2nd Largest Fountain. It was a thing of beauty. I almost wish I would have brought my camera into town so I had a picture of it to share.

We ate at a restaurant that was half Italian and half Mexican and 100% slow. We sat on the Italian side of the restaurant and waited over an hour for our food. On the positive side, the food was good when it came and I made the waitress’s day when I ordered some Mexican Apple Soda.

I don’t think that anybody has been that impressed with me since the flight attendant on our first flight out to Arizona.

After our food, we returned to the room for an exciting night of watching Man vs. Food.

We were flying back to Iowa in the morning.

Candid Portrait, Frank, Jesse, Nature, Night, Work

Arizona Day 6

February 22, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

Day 6 in Arizona was more work. At the conclusion of the work day, we were bused out into the “middle of the desert” for a “western roundup” party.

If you could get away from the cheeseball band that was lip syncing and playing to backing tracks, it was a pretty good time.

This was a costume party and I had made a deal with Jesse that if he paid for a costume, I would wear it. Well as it turns out, the costume did not fit, unless I desired to become a eunuch.

I do not desire to be a eunuch. Fortunately, no pictures of me in this costume currently exist.

Jesse’s bull costume, did fit and it was a smashing success.

Jesse bull riding.

Jim

Eric

Frank

Jennifer

After the party, there was only a half day’s worth of work left.

Jesse, Work

Arizona Day 5

February 21, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

At the end of Day 4 Jesse and I checked into the resort and begun the business of working.

On Day 5 I put away my camera and did not do much of interest besides work.

The resort we were staying at was on an Indian Reservation. The only attraction on the resort was there casino. Almost every restaurant on the resort was inside the casino. The casino smelled like an ashtray.

After working for the day, we determined that we were not going to eat in the ashtray. We hopped on a shuttle and rode the 5 miles to the nearest town to eat at an A&W/KFC combo restaurant.

It was worth the trip because we met a customer service superstar working there. We also drove by the world’s 2nd largest fountain. I did not take a picture of this fountain.

Art, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Christianity, Formal Portrait, Jesse, Nature, Politics, Ruins, Travel, Vacation

Arizona Day 4

February 20, 2009 Christopher D. Bennett

Jesse and I woke up in Coolidge, Arizona and made our way to a local diner for breakfast. This place was certainly McCain Country.

We sat at the breakfast counter and listened to a couple locals complain about the governor for “being nice” to Obama. They agreed that the governor was not going to be re-elected and what made her near criminal offense even more difficult to fathom – “And she’s even a Republican!”

As I sat down at the breakfast counter I noticed that staring back at us was an NRA poster. Next to the NRA poster was a poster of John Wayne in front of an American flag with the line:

“Tell me again, why the hell do I have to dial “1” for English.”

Although I wasn’t going to order a side dish of prejudice with a sprinkling of racism with my breakfast, I got it any way.

Next to the poster of John Wayne was a poster for a fundraiser that was related to Easter. The fundraiser was a raffle. The winner of the raffle won a Glock 9mm.

I guess that makes sense, if you recall John 23:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee: The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again, packing heat, perhaps a Glock 9mm.”

There was also some terrible artwork for sale in this joint.

I don’t know what is more confusing. The lighthouse, the clock or the reference to the comic stylings of Larry the Cable Guy.

Tag’s Cafe

The owners of this establishment did not like me taking pictures of their building.

It is probably for the best that this game has been lost to the ages. It would be just one more game that I would dominate.

Did you get a picture of a cactus?

Did you get a black and white picture of a cactus? Okay, nobody asked that question.

Cliche picture of a guy next to a tall cactus.

Hohokam ruins.

Jesse getting his learn on.

The Big House, not the one in Ann Arbor.

More mud ruins.

More ruins.

Jesse all tuckered out from a big day of looking at Hohokam ruins.

It should be noted that despite having a culture that runs contrary to my value system, Tag’s Cafe was easily the best meal I had my entire time in Arizona. Sorry Del Taco.