Sharks - Game 7

So for the second time this year, I won HP's lottery for tickets to the Sharks game, but this time around it was WAY better. I was notified on Monday morning that I had won 2 tickets to Tuesday night's game 7 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I had a bunch of people emailing me to see if I was going to go to the game, and :cough, cough: if I'd give them the tickets if I wasn't. Needless to say that was a silly question, so I grabbed Iain and headed to the game.

Because I had to work that day, we were a little late getting there, and the line was the longest I'd ever seen at 'The Tank', but it worked out well and we took our seat just in time to see the puck drop. The first and second periods we're really close and exciting, but by the 3rd period the Sharks had pretty well put it away.

I have to say that even though I'm not a Sharks fan, even I got caught up in the moment rooting them on. (That and the fact that they had to win if I wanted any hope of seeing the Avs play in San Jose this May) The noise level inside was just crazy by the end, and I heard that people stayed around to celebrate for close to an hour after the game ended. Iain had school the next morning, so we hurried out to get him home, and he was so tired he slept in the car on the way home, but I think we both had a really exciting night. Oh yeah, I think the Sharks liked it too.

New Flooring

The carpet has finally had it, or to be more correct we've finally had it with the carpet. When we moved into our house back in 2003, we had all the rooms painted, and we laid new carpet throughout the house. Sadly, a few things conspired together to make the carpet only last for 5 years.

1) Because of the layout of our house, the dining area was on carpet. If you've ever had kids, you know that's a recipe for disaster, and I think it may be part of why Faith is always overwhelmed.

2) I love our Dyson vacuum cleaner, but I think it may be a little too good. In the commercials, they say it's the only vacuum not to lose suction, and I think they're right. In our case the suction was so great that the carpet began to ripple wherever there was a seam.

3) My allergies weren't great, and they've only gotten worse since we moved to Morgan Hill. One of the problems is likely the residual dusts and pollens that are trapped in the fibers of the carpet.


So all of these factors have led to us ripping out the carpet and laying in wood floor. We did some shopping around, and actually found that Builders Flooring in Merced were willing to come over and install here, and since the market for new home construction has ground to a halt they were able to start almost immediately.

We also found a really great product which is a laminated flooring, but it comes in variable widths, and the edges of the planks are beveled like traditional engineered hardwood. The color we chose is something called "Salted Lapacho", which I'd characterize as somewhere between a cherry and a walnut finish. Oddly enough, now that it's down I think it looks more like a hardwood floor than our living room floor which actually is hardwood.

The family room was completed last Friday (the before and after pictures to the right) and the installer is coming back on Wed-Fri to do the same to entire back of the house including all the bedrooms and hallways. We get the privilege of camping out in our family room for those days, which I'm sure everyone will thoroughly enjoy. (yes, that was sarcasm in case you missed it)

When it's done we'll have nothing but wood and tile throughout the house (except for the laundry room, but I don't count that) and hopefully my allergies will be much the better for it.