Quick Update (Or, Where Did They Go?)
So it’s been quite a bit since we’ve updated our little blog – all apologies! Life has been busy lately, but we’ll be better, promise. Anyway, here’s the poop on what’s up with our lives latey:
- School / Work Jeremy finished off the semester near-perfect with a 3.7 GPA, achieving A’s in almost all of his classes, including his Senior Seminar, during which he wrote and presented his thesis, which dealt with early 19th century agriculture and politics in Idaho. It was fascinating, really! Seriously. Sara also made progress toward her degree and did really well this semester! Jeremy has about a year left until he gets his degree and can’t hardly wait. Sara is still working at Westmark Credit Union, paying the bills and making possible the thrills. Jeremy’s at a local place called Hard Hat Steakhouse. It’ll do for now. He’s also pulling double-duty at another place, a sports bar called Iggy’s.
- The House We’ve made tons of progress around the house, including painting the walls of the home theater and installing new laminate floors. Pictures coming soon! Next, we need to install molding, baseboards, install a riser for one row of theater chairs, build a bar (or purchase one from IKEA, which is sounding more and more like the better idea), and we’ll be nearly done! It’s been a wicked long, hard project, but will be well worth it once it’s all done. Then, it’s on to the master bedroom – we’re moving it to an adjacent room and converting the existing master suite into a walk-in closet. After that, we’re converting a dusty, nasty old bedroom into a music and recording studio for Jeremy and his work-in-progress Zombie Rock Opera. More on that as events warrant.
- Everything Else We just got back from Salt Lake City, where we saw one of our favorite bands ever, The Cab. We caught them in this crazy little venue called Kilby Court, which was a garage and has been converted into little courtyard with a small area for bands to play. It was a cool venue, but the ***hole sound guy cut the show short because the band played a Rhianna cover that the manager of the venue didn’t want them to play. Ridiculous. We had planned to see Brad, Steph, and the baby, but it seems they were in Manti. Hope you had fun, guys.
Anyhow, that’s enough for now. Talk at you later.
Update on the Home Theater Project
We’ve been hard at work lately, here’s the proof:
We’ve finished the drywall sanding, installed lighting, and started painting primer on the walls!
Our lighting – two 4-bulb track lights with spotlighting. It looks awesome!
Today, we’ll be painting the far wall there and getting the floor ready to install our hardwood floors, which we recently picked up from Salt Lake City.
More updates as progress merits!
Progress!
We’ve spent a lot of time recently getting some work done on our home theater project, so here are some pictures!
Yay progress!!
So my brother in law came over to help us finish hanging the rest of the studs. We then wired for HD components and stereo wires so our basement is fully capable for our theater idea. Last came the insulation, which made our house significantly warmer. Here are some pictures…
Look at our beautiful girl …
We (mainly I) decided that Isabella needs to have the long hair that is typical of the Shih Tzu breed. We’ve been trying to grow her hair out but she just LOVES to play outside and get dirty. This means we give her regular baths and have to blow dry her hair to make her pretty. Today she finally had enough hair to put into a top knot. It is the cutest thing I have ever seen so I had to share the pictures of my gorgeous baby girl.
Enjoy …
Never remodel any part of your house!
That title might be a *bit* of an exaggeration (then again …).
Jeremy and I started the destruction phase of our basement remodel a few weeks ago. Our basement started with some butt ugly fake wood paneling, dog pee stained carpet, and horrible cardboard-like ceiling tiles. Oh, and how could I forget the rusted iron wood-burning stove surrounded by a lovely rock wall – ya know, cause everyone has a rock wall in their basement. You can’t imagine how wonderful it felt to tear all that shit out.
Here are some in-between pictures:
Then, after being given very bad information from a guy at Lowe’s, we started on the task of building studs to hang drywall. We soon discovered that our basement must have been built to double as a fallout shelter because there is a metal plate about 3/4 of an inch behind the concrete. This, as you can imagine makes it impossible to screw the studs into the concrete.
So, with that, we had to do more destruction and more figuring out what to do. This weekend, my stepdad and brother-in-law came over to help us start building a false wall for to of hanging drywall and also fixing some interesting WTF’s that the previous owners did with electrical outlets. We got one wall done and will hopefully be done with the other this week (I’m keeping my fingers tightly crossed).
So, wish us luck that we don’t run into anymore SNAFU’s.
Boston, Day 4
Sorry this post is so late – we got home and were pretty exhausted from our trip. Especially the last day. More on that in a bit
Anyway, the last day in Boston was RAINY. And New England rainstorms aren’t like normal rainstorms in the normal world. They are wicked. But we trekked on anyway, visiting North Boston and Chelsea, the Bunker Hill monument, and the USS Constitution.
That’s good advice, kids.
So it appears that Northern Boston and Chelsea are super-posh and metosexual and such, and we honestly didn’t really enjoy it all that much. Every block looks the same. Rich and big and pretty. We stopped at a corner deli and had some decent cheesecake and Stella Artois. Oh, and found time to record this video outside the Bunker Hill Monument (you can’t really see it in the video, but the monument is quite like the Washington monument in Washington, DC.)
Oh, and yes, we are totally (okay, mostly) sober:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v217/jeremyplothow/?action=view¤t=007.flv
A few shots of the walk over and of Bunker Hill:
By the end of the trip, we were kind of tired of taking pictures. Anyway, we ended our sojourn into madness by having dinner at Wagamama, a really great Japanese place at Quincey Market. Then, we hit the pubs. Hard. It was our initial impulse to do a pub crawl, but we just felt so much at home at the Black Rose that we ended up staying there for about 4 hours and made friends with a bunch of wild folks from New Hampshire or something. We drank Guinness and Irish Car Bombs and watched Eugene Byrne on stage again. He was, as before, amazing. We clapped and sang along, and had an amazing, perfect night in that pub to end our trip.
We left Boston the next day with a heavy, heavy heart but a desire to come home to our humble house and our friends. However, we fell like we left a piece of ourselves in Boston, a chunk of our heart which will always be waiting for us when we return. I can still smell the bay, still taste the fresh-poured Guinness, still feel the humid air on my face in the morning. Boston seems to own a piece of my now, and I’m okay with that. I’ll return someday to reclaim it.
So that’s our trip to Boston, much in its entirety. I am convinced that it is the greatest city in America, and can’t wait to go back! Next time, I’ll take along a few more friends and show them what kind of party Boston can throw.
Until then … Get Charlie off the MTA! Toora roola rai!
Continuing along the historic Boston tour, the previous photo is another section of the tile laid into the Boston sidewalk.
A statue outside the old Latin School.
That Ben Franklin was a smart sonofabitch.
Things got really interesting when we visited the Boston cemetery where John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin’s parents are buried. Oh yeah, and Paul Revere. The headstone above isn’t really anything important to anyone but people who have studied colonial architecture. The Death’s Head image reflected a depressing outlook on life – it’s a symbol of death always lurking around the corner, and the cemetery became a symbol of the fear of death.
Peter Fanfuel, for whom Fanfuel Hall is named. And no, Fenway isn’t named after him. 
Fenway is named after a series of marshes that run alongside the area where the park is built – called fens at the time it was built. So it’s fen way park. AMAZING.
John Hancock’s grave marker. OH COME ON. You know he knew exactly what he was doing. The man buried himself under a giant penis!
The humble graveston of Sam Adams.
We then hung out on Boston Common, ate some fried dough, and just enjoyed the beautiful day.
The Civil War monument at Boston Common.
Then we returned to the hotel room to get ready for the Rock and Blues Cruise! Wooooo!
We left Long Wharf at around 8pm, and immediately started putting down some Red Stripes and Sam Adams. The cruise actually wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and we were really glad that we didn’t pay for the tickets – the band turned out to be COUNTRY. Good God. Good thing there was a full bar, which we took full advantage of, downing beer and whiskey for a good three hours while trying to ignore the awful band. Good thing beautiful Boston offered some breath-taking views:
The incomparable Boston skyline at sun-down.
And I guess we weren’t the only ones who hated the band, because there was a mutiny. Actually, that’s no mutiny, it’s an impromptu game of FLIPPY CUP! Awesome.
That’s what we look like after too much country music and just enough whiskey. In all, it was a wicked fun night, and although we wouldn’t do it again, we had a great time and were glad we boarded the cruise.
Tomorrow, a report on our last day in Boston.
We leave you with a quick video from the booze cruise – warning: contains mild language, ass-shaking, bad country music, and bad cliche movie references!
Boston, End of day 2 and day 3
Hello again from Boston, Mass., new home to Jason Bay! Welcome, sir. Enough politics, on to the fun! We spent the night before last hanging out at local dives and pubs, mainly at the Black Rose and Bell in Hand.
Watching a band at the Black Rose. Live music and beer makes me super happy. We started the night off with a couple Irish Car Bombs, a Jameson and sour, and of course, Guinness!
These guys were super good! They did covers of some of my favorite trad songs (that’s traditional Irish folk songs for you heathens!) including Wild Rover and Whiskey in the Jar.
Me with Mr. Samuel Adams.
We had our Anniversary dinner at this little Italian place in North Boston, also called the Italian district. It was super good. I had lobster ravioli and Sara had the homemade gnocci.
DAY THREE
We started day three with lunch at Salty Dog’s in Funeil Hall (I’m not entirely sure how it’s spelled.) It was just alright.
The view from our table
Harpoon IPA, a local beer that I fell in love with. Not as bitter as most IPAs I have had, but still very tasty. Nice and smooth. In fact, I had some of the best beer ever on this trip. Bostonians know their booze.
After lunch, we started our long tour of historic Boston, kind of sticking to what the city has called “Freedom Trail”. It was tons of fun! A few shots:
Inside King’s Cathedral, the first church built by the King in Boston. It was originally part of the Church of England, but apparently it was later converted into a Huguenot church, since they essentially built it. It was sponsored by the Revere family and other protestant families.
Pew 33, Paul Revere’s pew. The booths were very cool – they were designed to protect against the cold Boston winter drafts during church services.
The plaques with Genesis and the Ten Commandments on the back wall were AMAZING and very beautiful.
A statue of another hero of mine, Benjamin Franklin, outside the old Latin School (America’s first public school – Andrew Jackson was a strong believer in public schooling and made it his mission as president to establish a nationally-sponsored public school system, despite constitutional provisions making education a state’s responsibility. Neat, huh?)
A beautiful tile laid on the sidewalk outside of the church detailing the history of the school. It reminded me of the wall tiles found in Italian cathedrals – the more things change, the more they stay the same!
So I’m out of time. We’re off to Legal Seafoods on the pier for lunch, then touring more of Boston. I’ll update tomorrow or tonight.
Thanks for reading!
- Jeremy
Boston, Day One and Two
Well we are sitting in our hotel room in Boston, Mass. after two days of insanity. Here’s a recap:
Day One
Here’s one thing they don’t tell you about Boston, Mass. – the subways smell like cinnamon. FREAKING CINNAMON. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. The subway (they call it the “T” here) from the airport to the tourist and economic centers smell like cinnamon and vanilla. The T in other parts of town smell like other subways around the world – piss and body odor. And the T stops around the aforementioned tourist spots are artsy and clean, architectural and bright. Around old town and Fenway park, the T stations are crowded, smell, and dark. Such is life I guess.
Anyway, the first thing we did when we arrived in town was attend a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway park against the Los Angeles Angels. The result was less than spectacular, as we witnessed the 2007 World Series Champions play like a bunch of 12 year olds. First, it was Manny Ramirez’s last game with the Bo’Sox. And you could tell – he batted like a child and didn’t bother chasing down a single pop-fly or drive toward left field. What a ridiculous child he is, and I hope the Dodgers know what they’ve gotten themselves into.
All that aside, though, it was wonderful watching the Sox at home. A few pictures:
We came home, dejected and defeated after watching our idols botch a game they certainly should have won, yet elated and happy as pigs in poop to have seen them play at home. To quote every Bostonian ever, “It ain’t the Sox if they don’t break your hawt.”
This morning, we got a late start an ate lunch at the world-famous Quincey Market. We dined on sushi and bubble tea:
She’s cringing and yet she didn’t have any raw fish. I did.
From there, we explored Quincey Market and the harbor area:
Sam Adams, a personal hero of mine.
Bell in Hand, America’s second-oldest running pub. I had a few beers here (very tasty stuff!) and struck up conversations with locals. One of the bartenders (she was a cutie) gave me tickets to a blues cruises tomorrow (basically a booze cruise with blues music … in other words, AWESOME.) So we’re very excited about that. She was such a nice girl.
Dick’s Last Chance bar, where apparently the waiters act like jerks and give you silly hats to wear. I’ve decided to eat there by the end of our trip.
We had dinner in Little Italy just now and are watching Batman Begins on cable before hitting the Black Rose, an Irish pub down the road from our amazing hotel (more on that later) for some Irish Car Bombs and music. Then, who knows? The night is young.
- Jeremy
