Happy New Year!

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I switched my web site’s servers over the past couple of days. For the most part, everything went smoothly. Unfortunately, all of the photos that were in my posts are now gone. I’m not sure where or why they went, but they’re gone. I don’t intend to get them back. The ones that were hosted on other web sites are still intact, but mine are gone. The Photos page was unaffected because it’s just a portal to my Picasa pictures.

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Michelle and I went to Hiawassee for Christmas. It was the first time since I’ve started this job that I’ve had Christmas off. We love going to Hiawassee. We love it so much, that we’ve decided to move back at the end of March. We’re going to finish Michelle’s grandmother’s basement, and make it our home. The planned layout for the basement is pictured below. I used floorplanner.com to create it. The left side of the picture is the front of the house. That is the only wall of the basement that is underground. The basement is completely unfinished. The only walls are the cinderblock walls on the perimeter.

We plan on framing, insulating, dry walling, and carpeting. There’s only one bathroom in the house, and it’s upstairs. We’ll install a bathroom in the basement underneath the existing bathroom so we don’t have to do too much plumbing work. We may or may not put in a kitchen. We don’t plan on the basement being completely independent from the rest of the house, but it would be nice to have a small kitchen in case it was needed. The area in the diagram labeled “Storage” has no floor. It’s just dirt. Since we’ll be living on a farm, complete with vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, we’ll line that area with shelves for storing canned fruits and vegetables.

Click on the picture below for a larger view. Click here to take a 3D tour of the floor plan.

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I’ve always enjoyed a good cup of coffee. When I was little, my mom would make us what we called “coffee milk”. It was coffee, milk, and a lot of sugar over ice. Whether or not she knows it, my mother is responsible for my addiction to coffee. After high school I got a job at the Mystic Mountain Coffee House in Hiawassee. This only fueled my addiction. Not only was I introduced to a whole different world of coffee, but I learned how to prepare these coffees. 

Anytime I go into a store that has kitchen appliances, I always linger in the coffee maker aisle. I own a four cup coffee pot, a 12 cup coffee pot, an espresso maker, as well as an assortment of coffee presses. I’ve been intrigued by the single serve pod coffee makers. The idea of just popping in a pod, pressing a button, and having an instant cup of coffee seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately, the coffee makers and the pods were too expensive for my taste. Taste was another thing that I was worried about. How good would the coffee be? Would it be worth the cost-per-pod? I decided that I would put off on buying this new coffee toy. 

A couple of days ago I was at BJ’s Wholesale and saw a special edition Keurig. Not only was it discounted from its regular price, but it came with 88 pods. I did some research and found that Keurig makes a reusable pod. The regular pods are use-once-then-throw-away. The reusable one is basically a small filter that you use in place of the pod. The research (which was conducted on my iPhone) also revealed overwhelmingly positive reviews of the Keurig products. 

I’ve been very pleased with the purchase so far. The drinks have all been enjoyable, and it makes them incredibly fast. As soon as you hit the button, the drink begins pouring out. The water pump is a little loud, but bearable.

Michelle doesn’t drink coffee, but she was pleased that it came with tea pods and hot chocolate pods. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Daily Life, Website, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.