Got heater working on Chrismas day

The contractors decided not to work on Christmas Day. (They originally said they did not mind continuing the work. But it was perfectly fine. It's Christmas after all.)

I checked the heater again, some of them seemed finally heat up after one night. But that was not right. At first we suspected the new pipe was somehow clogged and causing water to flow the wrong way, even though still felt strange about the assumption. Finally, my bf went look at the hydraulic system, and read some vague descriptions on it, then suggested we might just not have enough water inside the pipes for the compressor to reach enough pressure to heat up the system. So we opened the incoming water valve briefly. The heater immediately started the 'heating sound' and the water pressure meter went up too. But we did not know what the correct pressure should be, so we just shut off the water value quickly and waited. After a while, it seemed the pipes were flowing hot water as they should be. I called that an end for now.

Kitchen Remodel --- Day 3

Day 3 of remodeling, technically speaking, it's day 2, since no work was done on day 1.

Tough morning to start with. As the outlets were placed differently than planned, my boyfriend insisted they should do it right, as we (mostly 'I') have spent a lot of effort into designing and planning. We should not compromise on their 'forgot about it'.

So I told them when they got here, and asked to restore to original plan. We even had some alternative solutions that they could use. They were unhappy and raised their voices. Unpleasant it was. Since they did not speak English, I needed to translate between them and my bf. They finally agreed to change it. In fact, they did not bother to take out sheet rock wrapping at all, but said they would cut a hole into the 2x4 post for placing outlet box inside later.

Ironically, yesterday they were unwilling to do that, they told me it would weaken the post, hence the supporting structure. They offered a quick and dirty way of letting the outlet box sticking out from the dry wall, which I did not like. That was why we changed the layout plan. And now that we insisted they do it according to original plan and insisted it stay pretty, they reverted back to do things they were unwilling to do at the beginning.

So far I felt it took certain skills to get the best out of them. They could do the job well, yet they seemed to try to avoid extra work if they could get away with 'quick and dirty'. And they easily resort to self defense when proposed plan has potential to add a bit more task. Yet when they saw other alternatives actually add even more efforts, they would come to agree with the lighter one. Everything is negotiable?

So they re-routed the wire a bit to have them come out from the correct spots -- funny, it only took 20 minutes, yet they were unwilling to do it yesterday. Then they mixed dry wall compound and stared first layer of finish. I was told it would take a few layers to complete.

Another main thing they did today was to move the base board about 4.5 feet away so that I could place side board and base cabinets over where the heater was. They changed the plan as they looked further around the piping, and decided to extend the water pipe and just let cabinets go on top of them. Well, it was not ideal either, just the easiest way. The main issue was these base board were hydraulic system, they run hot water through to heat up the space. So all the pipes needed to stay connected. They first shut off the water main line, then emptied the existing water inside the pipes before they proceeded. Experience learned from the first day, as water ran out like a small fall when they cut the pipe.


At night I found the heating system had problems. The pipes did not get hot as they were suppose to :( And the engine kept making pumping sound from time to time... I wonder what went wrong, all they did was extending the pipe... I did not think they changed any other setting.

Kitchen Remodel --- Day 2

Second day, I was up at 9 am, expecting my contractor team. I made coffee and toasted bread and ate them and checked the stock market and read my emails... no one showed up. Not feeling good, yet not too surprised either. I did not expect things to go I even expected some mistakes along the way, and some decisions later I would say, "I should have done it the other way." It was too much pressure to expect everything perfect, wasn't it?

Finally they showed up around 9:50 am and unloaded material got from Home Depot. I guess that was why they were late, as they went shopping first.

So the real things started by cutting base board heater pipe first... soon they put extra 2x4 around the post area and cut sheet rock to size, nailed them together... When I looked at it, I suddenly noticed, where were the electrical outlets that were suppose to come out from both posts? oops, they forgot :|

We went through some hassle of debating if there are enough empty space inside the wrapped up posts and whether we could install outlets. They told me it would stick out a bit, I certainly did not like the idea. It would look like a job poorly done.

When I finally compromised by moving the lighting switch from post A to post B, and one outlet on post B only, they complained about not enough wire left. But then they were able to make it happen afterward. I think they were just reluctant to do extra to fix mistakes.

One of them started cutting part of the counter top and rip out the cabinets below. After things were cleared out, they found there was no dry wall at the back of the cabinets. They were quite amazed and said they have never seen it built like this before. I more and more understood why sometimes things came up during the remodeling process, because no one knew what was behind where we could see before we opened it up.

Kitchen Remodel --- Day 1

Christmas week, I started my kitchen remodeling, well, if I didn't count half of the demolition I did myself more than a year ago.

My contractor arrived around 9:30 am. That was a bit late than scheduled (9:00 am). I was pretty much expecting a crew, and was surprised to see him showing up alone.

Since it was about 2 weeks ago we talked about the plan (verbally, no written documents), we briefly recapped where to start and what prep work we could do before cabinets arrive in a month. Since I found matching tiles for the floor (yay!), the plan changed accordingly. Plus I decided to remove the baseboard heater underneath the kitchen island (to be built).

20 min. later, his partner showed up. Ahhh, they were a team of 2 seemed like. After we discussed the plan change, my contractor said he did not bring the proper saw to cut the pipe, as he did not expect the change. Without it, he could not start wrapping the posts. He concluded they would start tomorrow instead. Well ... ok ... I guess we could start on Tue. instead. Yet I could not help wondering. That was kind of odd, hmm... I heard some stories for remodeling that your floors got knocked open, and the workers were gone for weeks or even months, then insects, small creatures, even animals started moving in with you (into the crawl space) ... I hope nothing like that would happen to me.

(The photos shown were demolition I did last year. I removed the cabinets, tiled counter and knocked down the wall between kitchen and living room to make an open space.)

Trip to Bedrosians

My kitchen has remained half demolished for more than 18 months now, really can use some remodeling. After talking to a couple of contractors and cabinet stores, it's finally on the go.

I needed some floor tiles to patch up a small area, yet could not find it at Home Depot. After some searching, I found Bedrosians carries same brand. I decided to take a piece of mine and see if I would be lucky enough to find it there.

The showroom was pretty. Lots of stones and tiles, bath and kitchen demo... Only if we could easily make our own homes like that. There were a few people sitting in the customer service area when I walked in, yet no one bothered to ask me what I wanted. Perhaps they learned most customers would like to help themselves around? Well, it did make me feel more comfortable as there was no pressure. So I just went straight inside and toured myself. After I wandered around and praised the beauty of lots of stones, I finally came back to the customer service area.

By that time, only one guy left there. I showed my tile and asked if they had the same one. He raised his head from his desk, glanced over the tile, then said "Monticello, it's discontinued." with a flat tone, without any delay either. On one hand, I was awed by his immediate response, he did not even take the tile from my hand and take a closer look, yet he recognized the tile instantly. The tile did have random pattern and color gradient going on. On the other hand, I was very disappointed to hear "it's discontinued."

After a second pause, I said, "I only needed a few pieces to patch a small area." He asked me how big the area was. (Sense of hope started to rise.) After a quick calculation, he said for that small area, it shouldn't be a problem. Woohoo! I found my tiles :) He then took me right to the display area where my tile was hung and made sure it was the same one. I could not help but told him how amazing it was for him to recognize the tile right away. He said, "well, you got trained, after working here for a while." Probably, yet still quite a pleasant shock to me. I wish all customer services had memories like that. It certainly would make things more efficient!

It was a good visit and I was certainly happy to find my tiles. Perhaps I should secure a couple of boxes just because they are discontinued...

Unexpected fire social

Last night before I went home from work, I stopped by Safeway first. By the time I got home, it was around 7:30 pm, which was a bit later than usual. Dark and cold. Since I stopped by Safeway, I turned on to the street where I live from the farther end. As soon as I turned, I saw heavy smoke with fire into the sky closer to my house. Fire trucks, flashing light, bumper to bumper police cars on the street... From a distance, I could not tell which house was on fire, but my heart started pumping faster and faster as I drove closer and closer.

Finally I arrived in front of my home, the fire truck was a few feet away from me, and I was so relieved to see my home was still safe and sound. The fire was blowing higher up on a tree with cables. I could not tell if anyone's house was burning, or it was just the trees.

I went inside without lingering around to watch 'the show', since I did not want to add inconvenience for their fire-fighting job, besides, it was cold and dark. I took some photo from my yard, well, too dark to capture much. I then turned on the heater, making myself comfortable, got ready to cook. Suddenly it went quiet and I was in complete darkness. Lights went on and off a few times, then gave up. I found my flash light through sensing and searching in the dark.

I turned on my laptop, for a moment, I thought, 'cool, at least my laptop has battery', before it was on, I remembered there was no internet (cable down of course). Before I decided to light up some candles, I saw people walking towards my home, with flash light. They asked me to leave the house immediately, just for the sake of precaution. They told me to grab warm clothing and door key. I left like a refugee.

They asked me and my other neighbor to stay on the other side of the street, said it wouldn't take long... Remember, it was c-o-l-d... Luckily, our neighbors on the other side of the street took us in.

For more than an hour, I sat by the fire, with candle lights around, hearing stories... I learned neighbor couple A worked at Google and Cisco, they moved in early this year and have done a lot of remodeling to the house, including completely remodeled the kitchen, growing orchard in the back yard (cut down a big big tree), and now are converting garage into an in-law suite... neighbor B was adopted as a baby, always felt a pity with no brothers and sisters, 60 years later, which was last year, his family found him, and he's got 3 siblings and his mother was still around... I also learned there will be about 17 + 15 guests visiting neighbor C and D on Christmas day, guess the parking situation would be gloomy... In return, they now knew the 2 lovely kittens that went astray sometimes belong to me.

It was certainly an unusual night, luckily, things went back to normal in less than 2 hours. And I did not suffer standing in the cold much. I probably should make some cookies to thank my kind neighbors who provided warmth and lighting in the cold cold night.

Scary housing market

I wrote a blog about an open house I visited back in Nov. I have not checked much about how the market is doing for a while, since it's gotta be depressing. Today by chance I looked it up, and that same house was still not sold, and has taken another price drop to $699,000 now (When I visited it, it was asking for $768,000). From $850k to $789k to $768k to ... to $699k. It has happened to quite some houses these days. It also reminded me of an article I read, the biggest mistake of selling a house is over-price. Buyers do not like houses on the market for too long, and if price drops, they feel there is something wrong with the house. In other words, dropping the price makes houses 'not appetizing'. Human nature ? --- good hot stuff should be gone as soon as it's available, right? (Not that I agree, just saying it's a general phenomena.)

Some of the common scenarios selling a house in this market :

1. keep dropping the price until it's low and enticing enough that someone finally can't resist;
   
2. change the listing from 'for sell' to 'for rent', trying to get through the tough time through rental income (better than vacant forever);
3. take it out of the market and wait until better time to come (if you can afford staying);
4. short sale;
5. foreclosure;
   

4 of the above have happened to my close neighbors recently. One dropped from $945k to $899k to $850k to $825k, and finally somebody offered. Another also asked for about $945k (house prices in silicon valley are notorious, aren't they?), yet they took it out of market after a short period of time when getting no offer. I did not see they drop the price at all. The third one, after a few months no sale, I now see they are listing for rent ($2500 per month). The forth one went into foreclosure and was auctioned (don't know the result). Isn't that scary? They are all within 0.3 miles from me :-S

What to expect for 2009? There is prediction saying the inventory would drop, but house price will not go up. The reason for inventory drop is seller tired of making huge cut on selling price, they would rather take it out of the listing if can't sell within 90 days. So the decrease in inventory will not be a good indicator on housing market in this case. Buyers will remain reluctant to offer more than base price, and most of them are still bargain hunting. I think inventory decrease is nonetheless a better sign than seeing 'open house' everywhere. At least that means less people are desperate and panicking. Emotions are highly contagious, just like emotions drive stock market, they do the same for housing market. Too many people get into panic will only cause unnecessary disorder. Worse than hibernation :|

Looking at economy is truly depressing. No wonder the new daily reminder to be happy these days is, "keep your smile, and don't look at your 401k."

Economy is so bad...

Economy is so bad that we will just laugh with Jay at Tonight Show...

• Economy is so bad that people used to eat macaroni and cheese, now they have to choose macaroni OR cheese
• Economy is so bad that eBay is put on eBay
• Economy is so bad that Hollywood stars are forced to raise their own kids
• Financial experts are saying we are entering a new chapter in the American economy. I believe it's Chapter 11.
• Man, things are not looking good. I opened the business section of the paper today. It said, "You Don't Want To Know." That was the headline.
• Give you an idea how bad the American economy is -- Mexico is now calling for a fence along the border.
• President Bush had a press conference today outside the Oval Office to talk about the economy. He would have had it inside but, you know, the bank has foreclosed on it.

Photo documenting my making oatmeal bars

After my first successful attempt in making oatmeal raspberry bars, I liked it so much that I was ready to make second batch, since most of the first batch went to coworkers and my next door neighbor.

I made small changes for the second try. I reduced the brown sugar just a bit, added extra 1/4 C. of instant Cappuccino mix to the base, used apricot jam, with reduced amount.

Photo 1 : making the mixture with a dinner fork --- not easy, quite labor intensive, I had to use hand to break it down in the middle ...

if I have a big working surface, I would try using a pastry scrapper, which I do have :But unfortunately, I didn't have spacious counter top, perhaps I should get a pastry blender (dough blender) first, at least I could do it in the bowl then :

That should reduce the amount of time and efforts. Most of all, if worked too long on the dough, it would warm up the dough, melt the butter, and causes the base to to lose the flaky texture :| (to compensate for this, I slided my pan into freezer for 10 min. while waiting for the oven to ramp up to 375 degree)

Photo 2 : mixing oatmeal into the dough base --- pretty straight forward


photo 3 : press the dough base into my baking pan (actually it's a handsome cooking pan :)


photo 4 : spread jam across top --- I did not measure how much jam to use, simply spread it, which was a mistake. I could have used a bit more.


photo 5 : spread walnuts, rest of the dough, sprinkled some shredded coconuts, ready to bake :)


photo 6 : Finished product --- I forgot to take a photo of it, this one was taken previously when I made the raspberry bars.


This time, I buttered up around the wall of the pan as well, and left jam out of the edge intentionally, so there was no sticking :) And the benefits of using a stainless steel pan was that I could cut right into it without worrying destroying the 'non-stick' coating (i.e. if I used a non-stick baking pan). Well, I have not tried other baking pan yet, so far my All-Clad was giving me even baking result. Satisfied enough.

Room to improve for next time (yes, there will be next time ;D) :

• reduce flour by the same amount if adding cappuccino mix;
  
• don't work on the dough for too long (try a different method);
• use more jam (1/2 C at least I think), which prevents the base drying up
  
• bake 20 min (leave oven unopened), 22 min is a bit long
  

that's about it ... going to enjoy my bar cookies now ...

Oatmeal Coconut Raspberry Bars

I have not baked any dessert (cookie, cake, pie etc) for many years, and recently was inspired by Elliot (my coworker who brought homemade cookies one day), plus the holiday spirit, and some unexplainable crave maybe? I paid my visit to Safeway, got quick cooking oatmeal, sweetened shredded coconut, Ghiradelli bitter sweet chocolate, all-purpose flour... with unsalted butter in the fridge, all was set.

I found this recipe from epicurious.com . I was specifically looking for oatmeal bars with toppings. I made some variations to the recipe :

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
• 3/4 cup raspberry jam --> try reduce it next time
  
• sweetened shredded coconut (sprinkled some on top)
  
• walnuts (spreaded on top)
  

I skipped the 1/4 C white sugar called for in original recipe (I almost always cut sugar when I follow dessert recipes, they seem often too sweet to me), and only srinkled some shredded coconut on top, instead of 1 1/2C and I added walnuts which was not called for.

The recipe looked simple and I tried to follow it by using food processor to mix the dough. I have seen people doing that on TV show, but maybe my food processor was not designed the same, it did not do a good job for that. Perhaps next time I would try using a mixer or just a folk instead.

The only baking pan I had was an 8x8 glass container. (Obviously I was not baking much, was I?) I decided to try using my 12" All-clad stainless steel pan instead. It turned out to be a great size for this recipe. I buttered the pan at the bottom lightly (simply used the original paper wrap for the butter stick I used out), then pressed in about 3/4 of the dough (I really did not measure it carefully) into the pan using a dinner fork, spreaded the jam across the top using the same folk, spreaded walnuts generously by hand, sprinkled the rest 1/4 dough, then sprinkled some shredded coconuts.

It took about 22 minutes at 375 degree using 'convectional oven bake' mode (I did open the oven to check it a couple of times, that might have dropped the temperature a little). I baked it until the coconut shreds turned slightly golden brown. After they were cooled for half an hour at least (the All-Clad pan probably slowed down the cooling process) , I then tried to cut a piece and it was delicious:) I managed to bring half to the dinner party tonight at my boss', everyone liked it. It did not matter if they were being extra nice or told the truth, I myself really loved it ;)

I am definitely going to make it again. Next time I would reduce the jam to 1/2 C or so (as long as it spread a thin layer on top, that's enough). Perhaps lightly butter around the pan could prevent the jam gets stuck to the pan. (No sticking at bottom, it was great.) Or perhaps I should have taken it out of the pan when it's still luckwarm, instead of all cooled down, which causes the jam to become hard.

Roasted turkey leg

I made it twice recently. The first time, I only roasted 2 legs with some onions. I used my counter top infrared toaster oven. After 40 min., they turned out nice, moist and juicy. I marinated them for about 2 days in BBQ sauce. They tasted so good that I definitely had to do it again.

The second time, I added extra 2 wings, 2 potato, 1 carrot and more onions. So I had to fire up the big oven instead. It took about an hour of baking; the color and smell were wonderful, however, I think it was over done a bit --- not as moist as last time, too bad. But my boyfriend still ate the whole leg in no time :) Well, the nice thing about turning on the oven in the winter time was the bonus heat around the home anyways.

Turkey dumpling surprise

Cooked turkey kimchi dumplings, sprinkled with soy sauce, sesame oil and green onions... yummy ...

I also liked (actually preferred) 'steamed' dumplings, which were made of different type of wraps. The wrap dough would be made from hot water + cold water, similar to those that I used when making green onion pie. The dumplings I made this time was from cold water only, so they had to be cooked in boiled water.

However, I found it interesting that by cooking less inside the water pot, and microwaved for 2 min. at the end, the skin got firmer from losing moisture, formed texture similar to steamed dumplings. Nice surprise :)

Making turkey dumplings

Thanksgiving was so much about turkey and pumpkin pies... I bought pre-made whole turkey meal from Safeway before, it was not bad at all; this year I bought uncooked ones and no surprise that we were going to eat a lot of turkey for days. I did not plan to roast or deep fry the whole turkey, as many did, that would be too much trouble for me. In fact, I have never done that in my life :P Instead, I separated different parts and made the followings (so far) :

• turkey soup noodles (turkey broth made from all the bones and unused parts)
  
• Thai green curry turkey with cabbage
• turkey spaghetti
  
• hot turkey sandwich, sauteed with mushrooms, onions, red pepper and bacon bites
• Japanese style yellow curry turkey with potato
• roasted turkey legs and wings in BBQ sauce
• turkey breast sauteed with sun dried tomato
• pasta with turkey breast, mushroom in white sauce
  

Yesterday I made turkey dumplings with kimchi. After all, turkey was just one type of meat and I was sure people would come up with all kinds of ideas on how to eat it! :) I used diced onion, red cabbage, some chili, kimchi and turkey breast. I did not use food processor, and it took me a while to cut turkey breast into small pieces :( I made my own dough for dumplings wraps. The freshly handmade dough wrap always tasted much better than machine made, and it was a lot easier to manipulate when doing the wrapping since it was elastic and flexible -- less likely to break, easy to seal even if it did.

I lined them up on cookie sheets with some flour at bottom to prevent sticking, before I put them into freezer, I sprinkled some water on them so that they would freeze better without drying up quickly and developing cracks. Now it's time to feel great to have a BIG freezer, which I happen do. Sliding 2 cookie sheets of dumplings into freezer was a piece of cake for me :)