Death of a Garage
Video – Niaz pulls down the garage with his truck
I am pleased to report the death of my garage. It’s been a dilapidated eyesore since we moved here 7 years ago. My contractor Niaz pulled it down yesterday with his truck – turn up the volume and watch the video! He’s also going to tear out most of the driveway. The garage was in the middle of the backyard, so the driveway cut through the middle of the yard. We always park on the end of the driveway near the street anyway, especially in the winter (as it’s enough to shovel just that much when it snows). So when he’s done, I’ll plant some grass where the driveway was, and we’ll have a much nicer yard.
We’ll keep the slab the garage was on. We’ll put a shed on it, and it’ll be a place to stack firewood (we burned through 4 cords last winter).
He’s also going to cut down the tree in our front yard, replace the sidewalk blocks that were torn up by its roots, and put a new silver coat on the flat part of our roof.
Shashin Error: unable to retrieve photo thumbnails.
$400,000 Bathrooms at 69th St Station
Check out the price tag – $408, 692 – that’s for one men’s room and one women’s room
The sign pictured here went up last month at 69th St Station. Check out the price tag: $408,692 to remodel the men’s room and the women’s room. My nice large house in a good neighborhood isn’t worth that kind of money. The station’s men’s room is a modest size – two toilets, two urinals, two sinks. Presumably the women’s room is similar, so we’re not talking about large facilities. And the sign says “refurbishing and renewal of existing public restrooms,” which doesn’t make it sound like major demolition or expansion is involved.
Usually when you see a sign like this for a public project, its for something like a bridge, and most of us don’t have the kind of experience needed to readily understand all the expenses involved. But most homeowners can relate to the cost of remodeling a bathroom. So I’ve been trying to imagine where all that money is going. Trying to be generous and fair, here’s my best guess at what the cost should be:
- Let’s start with the price of remodeling a non-luxury residential bathroom. About.com puts the average remodel price at $16,000 to $17,500. Let’s round that up to $20,000.
- Double that for 2 bathrooms: $40,000.
- These are public restrooms that require heavy duty fixtures. In the old men’s room, the sinks, toilets, and urinals were stainless steel. The toilets were designed without seats (as the designers assumed – probably correctly – that some jerk would just tear them off) and the mirrors were reflective metal instead of glass. The sinks are probably designed to handle drunken idiots dancing on the counters. There’s also two of every fixture in each bathroom (two sinks, etc., but minus the showers and tubs in a typical residential bathroom). So given the need for heavy duty fixtures and two of each kind, let’s double the cost again: $80,000.
- Now let’s add in the premium for union labor and the cost of compliance with regulations such as the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). That’s harder to guess at, but I think doubling the cost again is generous: $160,000.
So that doesn’t even get us halfway to the actual price being paid with public funds. What is the rest for?
UPDATE: The SEPTA Watch Blog has picked up this post, and has reached out to SEPTA for more information.
UPDATE 2: septawatch.com got an answer: it turns out the cost is for renovating 4 bathrooms, not just the 2 implied by the sign. So if you take my generous $160K ballpark estimate and double it again (for going from 2 to 4 bathrooms), that’s $320K. That’s still almost $100K shy of the actual $408K cost, but if you read the septawatch.com post, it sounds like they’re actually doing more than just “refurbishing.”
Tonight’s Unplanned Project – Dealing with a Broken Shower Head Pipe
 The shower head broke off in my hand, so I had to take the pipe for it out of the wall to fix it
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 A piece of the shower head pipe was left behind in the wall pipe, so I had to get it out without damaging the threads. I cut about halfway into it in several spots with a hacksaw blade
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 After gingerly weakening the metal in a few spots with the hacksaw, I pried it out with needlenose pliers and screwdriver
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 I got out all of the old pipe without damaging the threads, then I scrubbed it clean
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I had a rare evening planned tonight – doing nothing. My plan was foiled when the shower head suddenly broke off in my hand when I tried to adjust it slightly. I couldn’t put off fixing it, because it’s our only shower. A piece of shower head pipe was left behind inside the pipe where it connected in the wall. I was actually lucky that whoever did the original plumbing didn’t do it correctly, because the pipe in the wall wasn’t attached to the framing. I was able to turn it freely where it connected to the tub’s pipes, and pull it out of the wall. So at least I didn’t have to cut a hole in the wall.
The trick was getting the piece of broken shower head pipe out of the wall pipe without damaging the threads. I was able to do it – see the pictures. My neighbor is a plumber – I gave him a call and he happened to have an extra shower head pipe in the back of his truck to replace my broken one, which was especially nice because Home Depot was already closed. So it’s all fixed now – not exactly the relaxing evening I had in mind, but it could have been worse.
Weekend Projects
We returned from Prague on the Friday before last, and I still need to blog about the last half of the trip. We got back just in time for Philly’s first serious heat wave of the summer, and we spent that weekend getting over jet lag and putting our kitchen back together. Before I left to join Maria and the boys in Prague, I managed to get as far as re-installing the sink and the major appliances, but everything that goes in the cabinets was still in the basement, I hadn’t treated the new countertops yet (they’re wood butcher-block and need to be oiled before they’re used), and I had an electrical circuit to finish. There were still a lot of little things for me to finish in the kitchen over the course of the week as well, and the intense heat and humidity didn’t help. But I’m happy to report that Maria is pleased with our new kitchen 
Ed and I built a wall where his garage door used to be (yes, we’re going to take down the basketball hoop too)
Yesterday I built the first of three firewood racks that I’ll need for this winter, to store 2 cords of wood. Popular Mechanics has a very simple and sturdy design plan for them. We had a Hampton HI300 wood burning stove installed earlier this summer, and we’re planning to use it as our primary heating source this winter (I got tired of $400+/month energy bills just to keep our house at 62 degrees, and these modern stoves burn very efficiently, putting out an amazing amount of heat and much less pollution than older stoves).
After the heavy rain last night, I had an unpleasant surprise when I turned on the ceiling fan in our top floor room this morning – it sprayed water all around the room. Fortunately there’s no visible water damage to the drywall on the ceiling, but I’m definitely calling a roofer tomorrow (after a friend of mine who’s a contractor fell off a roof a few years ago and broke his back, I’ve sworn off doing any roof work myself).
I spent today at my friend Ed’s house, framing a wall in place of the garage door we removed a few weeks ago. It all went fairly smoothly and we got it done in a day, including the door and window. Ed can pay me back in a few weeks when it’s time to install the flooring in our sunroom 
Almost Done with the Kitchen
With Maria and the boys in Prague this month, I’ve done nothing but work on the kitchen, aside from my job. But I’ve actually really enjoyed it so I’m not complaining. I was hoping to “finish” before leaving to join them in Prague, but I’m leaving in a few days, so I’m going to have to settle for “functional.” Over the course of last week I painted and did electrical work. On Saturday I installed some cabinets and put up the microwave with help from a friend. On Sunday I finished installing the cabinets, cut the countertops to fit, and installed them (my neighbor helped me carry them, as the big pieces are very heavy). Getting everything level, plumb, and square with the cabinets and countertops was a challenge, as the floor has a substantial slope (more than 1″ over 6 feet, in two directions) and none of my walls are straight. Then today after work, I installed the sink and dishwasher and did some yard work. I also noticed I have a small gas leak in the line for my stove, so I shut it off and I have a plumber coming to take care of that tomorrow (since natural gas can explode, that’s one thing I tend to seek professional help with).
I’m thrilled to just have running water in the kitchen again (no more washing dishes in the bathroom!) and to finally have the refrigerator no longer constantly in my way, right in the middle of the kitchen (it has such low-profile wheels I couldn’t roll it anywhere off the tile floor).
Here are some more pictures. Maria picked the color and I really like it. The contrast with the wood grain of the cabinets and the living room color works really well (but it loses something in the pictures).
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More Kitchen Remodel Pictures
I’ve been working like an obsessed fool every day on the house since Maria and the boys left. Monday was the craziest – I put in 8 hours straight after coming home from work, and almost as many hours yesterday. I’ve been doing electrical wiring inside the walls, and putting up drywall. Today a couple guys came to tape and apply joint compound to the drywall. That was the main reason for my working so frantically – I had already delayed them one day, and I couldn’t delay them any longer without having to reschedule for another week. My last minute decision to wire the kitchen for speakers in the ceiling didn’t help
The most interesting part of the work was adding the entryway from the kitchen pantry into the living room. I did the initial cut on the living room side with my jigsaw. I wanted it to match the shape of the entryway on the opposite wall of the pantry, so I made a template of its curved top that I then used as an outline for my jigsaw. Then on the kitchen side I opened up the wall more, so I could add framing support around the new opening. I had to then chisel out the excess plaster on the inside of the wall cavity, so that I could fit in new 2x4s. In this case it’s a good thing modern 2x4s are actually 1 1/2 by 3 1/2. The original framing used actual full 2x4s – since the new ones are smaller, it made it possible for me to wiggle them between each side of the old lathe in the walls. I then attached every 5th piece of old lathe to the new 2x4s (with shims to make up for the slight size difference) to make sure the old plaster doesn’t come loose over time.
I wanted to do all this myself because a contractor would have started by just ripping down a big section of the wall, so as to avoid all the nuances. But the original plaster is in good shape, and I wanted to preserve its appearance as much as possible, especially in the living room.
Drywalling the inside of the curve along the top was a challenge, as drywall doesn’t bend much. I used slightly thinner drywall (3/8 inch instead of 1/2 inch) and then cut a series of slits along the back of it, about 1/2 inch apart. This allowed it to crack on the slits, but only on the back side, presenting a curve on the front side. The guys who came today messed up part of it though. When they added a corner bead they lost the curve on one side (it’d be more acceptable if it was at least symmetrically messed up!). They said that the right way to do this is with plaster, not drywall. They’re probably right, but paying a lot for someone to come do a small plaster job like this doesn’t make sense. I’m hoping I can work with them tomorrow to fix it (they did a decent job on one side, so it’s not impossible).
So here are some more pictures of the kitchen work, with detailed captions (click to see them). Pictures of the living room, sunroom, and landscaping are coming soon…
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Mr. Toppa, Tear Down This Wall!
Maria left for Prague with the boys last week. She’s teaching a class there this summer. They’ll be there for 7 weeks, and I’ll join them for the last 3 of those weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been busy destroying the house.
In the evenings after work I’ve been dismantling one side of the kitchen, piece by piece. We’re taking down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, and replacing it with a bar counter. So I’ve been taking down the cabinets, packing away all the dishes, food, and appliances, and removing all the electrical wires from the wall. Today a contractor came to start taking the wall down. He’ll also put in proper structural support to make sure the 2nd floor doesn’t come crashing down on us . It doesn’t seem to be a load bearing all, but the house was constructed in an …unusual… way, so he’s playing it safe (the 1st floor ceiling joists are parallel to the wall, but then there’s a wall above it on the 2nd floor, offset by about a foot, and the 2nd floor ceiling joists run in the opposite direction; I’ve never seen anything like that before, and neither has my contractor).
I’ll use the 3 day weekend to do a little demolition of my own – I’m adding a doorway on another side of the kitchen, leading into the living room. With all the changes to the walls, I also need to re-configure most of the electrical wiring in the kitchen.
The kitchen is actually one of two projects I’ve got going. The other is remodeling our sunroom. Pictures of that coming soon.
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Plumbing Nightmare
 The cracked waste pipe in our living room wall, coming down from the second floor bathroom
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 The waste pipe where it connects to the toilet, with the cement that encased it already removed, viewed from the living room below
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 The old toilet, removed
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 The clamp that we attached to the vent section of the pipe, in the 3rd floor bedroom
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 We had to cut open the bedroom wall to attach the clamp to the pipe
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 The pipe with the clamp attached
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 Jimmy cutting the cracked section of the pipe in the living room
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 After we replaced the cracked pipe, we made a temporary PVC connection for the tub drain so we could at least use the shower. You can see there’s no framing at all to support the toilet
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 In addition to being poorly framed, what framing was near the toilet was rotted, so it all had to go. Bye bye to my new tile floor
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 New framing in place, as seen from below. Working around all the old pipes was a challenge.
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 The new subfloor, matched to the height of the existing subfloor
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 The finished framing and completed plumbing work. The shims are for lining up new drywall with the existing ceiling
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 The new waste pipe. I took the opportunity to put in new insulation too
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 The new subfloor, with the waste pipe roughed in (and some mortar to patch the gap on the side)
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 Setting the new tiles. They blended in nicely with the existing tiles
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 Eidan trying out the new toilet
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 The finished floor and new toilet. The blue pad at the bottom is something we picked up in Japan – for catching little boy pee.
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Like many other horrible things in life, it started simply enough, with a small, barely noticeable water stain on the living room wall. It was near the bottom of a window, and the downspout above that window was clogged, causing water to pour down on the glass during heavy rain, so I figured it was a window leak. I took the downspout apart and cleaned it, and put some extra caulk around the window. But the water stain only grew bigger. That spot also happened to be below the toilet in the 2nd floor bathroom, which got me worried.
So I cut a small hole in the living room wall, and could immediately see that the waste pipe from the toilet was cracked. My neighbor Jimmy is a plumber, so I asked him to take a look. “Cut the wall open from floor to ceiling!” he said. I did that and then brought him back again – he made some ominous sounds and then said “cut open the ceiling under the toilet!” The crack ran most of the length of the pipe, and the connector to the toilet looked like its days were numbered too.
I spent a day with Jimmy, removing the cracked section of the pipe. Before we could do that though, we had to cut a hole in the wall in our 3rd floor bedroom, so we could put a clamp on the pipe (it continued all the way to the roof – once above the toilet it serves as a vent). Otherwise it would have collapsed down on top of us in the living room when we cut it.
What ended up taking a long time was removing the section of pipe in the ceiling that connected to the toilet. The entire pipe was encased in concrete, and we had to be careful chipping it out because the water supply line for the toilet ran right above it, and was also covered in concrete. It was like an archeological dig, except over our heads. To make matters worse, once we removed the board that was under the concrete and finished removing the concrete, there was nothing to support the toilet anymore.
It was too much work to finish in one day. We replaced the cracked pipe, and at the end of the day made a temporary connection for the tub drain, so we could at least take showers until the rest of the work was finished (we only have one shower in the house).
The joists in the floor around the toilet were rotted – I could tear out pieces of them with my hands. I ended up having to completely tear out a 3ft x 3ft section of the bathroom floor/living room ceiling. I tried not to cry as I smashed up the new tile floor I had put in the bathroom just a couple years ago 
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Putting in the new framing wasn’t too difficult, but getting the subfloor in was a huge pain. I had to get it dead even with the existing floor, and work around where the new toilet waste pipe would be, the existing water supply line for the toilet, and two pipes from the radiator system. I’m proud to say I got it exactly right: the only thing distinguishing the new tile from the old tile is that the new grout is a fresher shade of white.
We took the opportunity to put in a new water-efficient Toto toilet. It has two flush buttons, one of which uses half as much water as a regular flush. Our water bill has dropped significantly since we put it in.
Now I can get back to the project I had started just before all this happened: tiling the fireplace and hearth, and installing a new fireplace mantle.
3 Months Later, the New Tiles for the Bathroom Floor
Before:
 The tile floor put in by the previous owners – blech!
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 There used to be a closet here. It had a vinyl floor, which I removed, and there was nothing under it but the subfloor.
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 The super-cheapo vanity installed by the previous owners
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During:
 The slab under the tile. I removed the old tile with a rubber mallet and brick chisel.
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 I had to build up the floor in the former closet area to match the height of the slab
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 I applied a floor leveling compound to get the height in the closet area to exactly match the slab
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 Starting the tile pattern – I had to start at the entrance, to make sure the pattern looks good when you first enter the room
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 Continuing the pattern – the tricky part was the curved corner of the tub
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 This is the section where I had to level the floor – it came out nicely
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After:
 The finished floor
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 The new vanity, from Ikea. The side cabinet still needs a small counter.
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I finally have pictures of my bathroom floor tile project for you. I did this work back in July. Maria was in Newport with the boys for a couple weeks, so it was the right time to put in a new floor, since we only have one full bathroom in the house. I was away on the weekends, so I worked on the floor after coming home from work each day, for about 10 days. It was quite an undertaking, but it all came out nicely.
Removing the hideous old tile turned out to be not very difficult (it took several hours with a rubber mallet and a brick chisel, but it could have been much worse), but I didn’t know what I would find underneath. It turned out be a massive concrete slab. I excavated a corner to see how deep it went – 2 inches of concrete over 3 inches of gravel. I was amazed to see such a thing on a 2nd story. As yet more proof that you can find anything on the web, I used an aggregate tonnage calculator to get a rough idea of how much it weighed. It worked out to almost 2 tons. Now, in terms of framing, there is no direct support under the bathroom – that is, there aren’t any walls, posts or pillars directly under the floor. The living room beneath is a large, wide open room. 2 of the bathroom walls are exterior walls, so they’re supported directly on the foundation. One of the interior walls is supported by another wall directly under it on the 1st floor. The 4th wall has nothing under it, other than the floor joists. I figured it’s been there for at least 80 years and hasn’t fallen down yet, and it would be an absolute nightmare to try to remove the slab. So I decided to leave well enough alone. But I’ll be sure to never put a waterbed in the bedroom that’s over the bathroom!
The section of the bathroom that used to be a closet was not covered by the slab. It was lower than the slab, and incredibly warped. So I had to put down a couple pieces of plywood of different thicknesses in different parts of it, to get it roughly equal to the slab (that’s the 2nd picture). Then I had to use about 60 lbs of floor levelling compound to get it completely smooth (that’s an awful lot for a 3′x4′ area, especially given the plywood is doing most of the work). I also ended up having to move the light fixture in the ceiling! Raising the floor a couple inches in that area resulted in our Ikea closet unit coming close enough to the ceiling that there wasn’t enough space between it and the ceiling for the light. Overall, I probably spent as much time working in this tiny section of the bathroom as the rest of the room.
We decided to go with in-stock tile from Lowes – it all cost less than $300. Even the cheapest special order tile would have cost 3 times that. The plain white tile was boring, so we decided to jazz it up by running it diagonally, and putting in a black border. To make sure the diagonal cuts looked good in the entryway, I had to start in the front of the bathroom, which is the opposite of what you’d normally want to do – the mortar takes 24 hours to set, which can make getting out of the room a challenge! But I discovered I could leap into the hallway from the tub, so it turned out to be not much of a problem.
I’m probably most proud of the tile cuts around the curved end of the tub. I figured out how to do it with an electric wet blade tile cutter, which is intended only for making straight cuts (call me and I’ll tell you the secret technique ). The grout work was probably the most boring and labor intensive part. I’ve worked with small tiles like these only once before, and I forgot how much more work they are to grout than the big tiles!
After I finished the tiling, we had a contractor refinish the tub. He did a good job, and had a nice technique for putting the finish over the caulk as well, so we’ll never have to worry about leaks in the caulk.
For installing the faucet for the new sink, I learned how to do cold pressure welding. The faucet had a specialized flex line, and it didn’t reach the valves. I went to my local hardware store to see if I could figure out how to patch another flex line to it, but the guy who worked there considered that an unacceptable solution and simply wouldn’t let me leave without agreeing to do it the “right” way! So he explained cold pressure welding, drew me a picture, sold me the stuff I needed (which ended up being cheaper than the stuff I was planning to get), and sent me home. I had a couple false starts, but after I got the hang of it, it came out nicely.
No Longer the Scary House on the Block
A year and a half ago, I posted some exterior shots of our house – it was after we had replaced the windows and ripped out all the old, overgrown shrubs, but before we had painted. If you’re too lazy to click the link, here’s one of those pictures:
Last fall we had the house painted. I didn’t do it myself, as it would have taken me forever, and because I try to avoid spending time on tall ladders (it comes from knowing more than one person who’s been seriously injured falling from a ladder or a roof). We picked the same colors that we used on our house in California. We spent a fair amount of time picking those colors, and since we painted right before we moved, we never got to enjoy them. Even though our house here is quite different from the California house, we felt the colors would work just as well. We also had the front door replaced and shutters installed.
Last month I planted the small shrubs you can see there. I would have done more, but that’s all I had time for. We figured we’d get the “big” plants in now, so they can start to grow in, and we can put in smaller plants when we have more time in the future (yes, I know, that imaginary future that has “free time”).
If you’re wondering about the bright, garish flag, it’s for the Japanese May 5th holiday, Boys’ Day.
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Mike's Tweets
- I've never heard of this band, but they have an original and good interpretation of a certain favorite song of mine: http://bit.ly/cjNmfP 2010-07-16
- The real reason we went to Tokyo: Ultraman, Gundam, and Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers) http://twitpic.com/242jvh 2010-07-10
- Read "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea" on the flight home. Amazing and terrifying. Here's a good review: http://bit.ly/cBjujO 2010-07-10
- Back on the east coast after a long but not too horrible flight. Just uploaded more Tokyo pictures http://bit.ly/9EkFMA 2010-07-10
- Last meal in Tokyo :-( some delicious ramen http://twitpic.com/23hhq9 2010-07-08
- More updates...
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Random Pictures
Eidan at the glass making cottage
Kai and James riding a mini bike in Denver -
Flotsam
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Random Posts
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- 27 Jan 07 - Living in the Future, Traveling to the Past
- 08 Jun 04 - Revamped Big Country pages
- 14 May 04 - Followup: Nation Building on the Cheap
- 02 Jan 08 - Happy New Year, With a Margin of Error
