Adventures in Hardware Land

So, I suppose I need to recap the last several days, since I last wrote on Thursday.

After work, on my way to the new house in Reston, I was nearly involved in a serious accident. Some bastard was either speeding or running the red light -- it's hard to say. I had a left arrow, which went yellow as I was going into the intersection. Since there was a car turning left across the intersection, and it's at the top of a slight rise and since I thought I had a protected turn...I just didn't see the other guy. I stopped with literally six inches to spare. Thank goodness for good brakes.

I was very shaken, and my first thought was "oh my god, I almost died". After I had time to reflect, I realized that since he was going very fast and since he would have hit the passenger front corner...he would have spun my car into HIS driver side. I'm sure I would have been hurt, but I doubt I would have died. It was more like the bear scare or the snake incident. Both were scary and could have resulted in harm to me, but I probably wouldn't have died. (Rattlesnake bites are only rarely fatal, in actuality)

We did a lot of work on the bathroom at HC that evening. The sink needed leveling, and of course that involved a trip to Home Depot and made the process take all night.

On my way to work on Friday (I didn't actually go in, I stopped at the other building to pick up my check...slacker that I am...OK, so I did some work at home), a truck to the left of me on the toll road going 75 mph was unable to keep to his own freakin' lane. Luckily, the lane to the right of me was empty allowing me to swerve into it. I saw him do the same thing to some cars ahead of me a few moments later.

I don't know. Maybe it's a bad week for driving. Fedward's experience seems to bear that out.

On Friday, we went out to Front Royal to do the fixture count. On Saturday, the tile subcontractor called bitching about the tile we chose. It's hard to explain here, but it's very standard mosaic tile. They claim they couldn't grout it. Um...if the tile's that tight on the netting, then it's defective. The tile sub is also the tile supplier, so if it's defective, it's also their problem. They wanted us to use different tile. If we wanted different tile, we'd have CHOSEN different tile.

On Friday night and all day Saturday (and I do mean ALL DAY), we bought light fixtures. Four came from Restoration Hardware and the rest came from Home Depot or the fancy Home Depot "Home Expo" store in Fairfax. Basically, all the non-RH fixtures are tracks. We figured they were general enough to do anything with. The other ones are fairly distinctive, so we didn't want to overdo.

Later that night, I went into the District to see some friends who were here from Canada. I also got to see a few more folks that live a lot closer than that but that I hadn't seen for a while. One of them even showed up with a new girlfriend[1] who seemed pretty cool. I didn't talk to her much just because of circumstances. It was pretty fun overall.

As I was leaving the district, I couldn't help but notice that EVERYONE on 14th street with me had Virginia plates (last bridge out of town, thattaway). Also, DC has put up these ridiculous signs that say "No Gridlock (please)" in a red circle with a slash. Please? I'm all for the NYC idea of charging a $500 fine for blocking the box.

Please?

We delivered the fixtures today, and some of the bathroom tile was down, and it looked fine. It wasn't grouted yet, but it looks like mosaic tile. I have no idea what their problem is. The HVAC people were apparently there also since a furnace and air conditioning unit have also been added since Friday.