Joe and Jamie's Blog

Jamie and I are having a tough time deciding where to go for our summer vacation. We want to go someplace new this year. We narrowed it down to Rhode Island or Virginia. Last year we took a trip to Boston after making a stop in Cambridge, Mass. The Delaware shores and Baltimore where among the list this year, but we for some reason are settling more towards the shores of Rhode Island or Virginia Beach, the more touristy areas since they tend to have more to do.

My friend Jay just recently posted some pictures of his Memorial Day tip to Point Judith, RI. He has been to Block Island before and recommends it. You can see some pictures he took and if you take a gander at the comments he has more from older posts.

Basically we need your help. I want to book the hotel this weekend before prices go way up and nothing is available. Right now Hotels.com is running a special on a free $50 gas card if you book more than three nights between now and Labor Day. We’re planning to go July 17th though the 28th if that helps with the decision making.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there. Today we planted some new annuals outside to spruce up the backyard for spring. It’s what we do every year for mother’s day weekend, it’s what my mother considers her present. I have some pictures below of all the nice flowers.

On top of that, Jamie and I painted some more in the attic (finally did more with that project) and also my father and I ran the electric from the basement to the attic so we could splice in the line up there and add a second breaker. We first had to drill the hole between the walls and get it downstairs, following a CAT-5e wire we ran a few years ago as a guide. We miscalculated the first hole by half and inch and put a hole in the corner of my sister’s ceiling, but we patched that with some Plaster of Paris and re-painted it.

We used Romex SimPull 600VA wire to a 20 amp breaker, pretty standard for a bedroom load. Apparently the idiots that wired this house put 1/2 of two rooms on the second floor and the entire third floor all on the same circuit breaker. You’re talking 3 air conditioners over 5,00 BTU’s, 2 TV’s 3 computers/laptops, clocks, lamps, monitors, laser printers, etc, etc all on the same breaker. PRETTY darn silly, but not our fault. We discovered this last summer when my sister got her air conditioner. She never had one before so once she had hers on, plus the addition of my laser printer and it’s spooling, the breaker tripped whenever you tried to print a page. We had to remember to turn off the lights or the a/c before printing. But this is all rectified now. Oh and while we were at it we pulled a backup CAT-5e line just in case I ever need it if I remodel the house network or put some storage servers in the basement.