Flooring

I have some water damage on my hardwood floor from a few weeks ago when I flooded the bathroom. I've been looking at my options, and have been considering replacing the entire floor. Since I moved in, I always believed that my living room floor is a laminate and never thought anything more of it, and I was planning on going out tomorrow to buy new replacement laminate. However, I looked more closely at the flooring tonight, and it's actually engineered hardwood. It has a top layer of real wood 2 mm thick on top of a 10mm thick backing. It appears that it might be glued to a 1/4" plywood base. It's hard to tell if it's floating or glued down.

I'm definitely not replacing this with laminate, and so now sanding and refinishing the floor might be an option to get rid of the warping. I never liked the colour of the floor anyway, so this might be an opportunity to stain it darker.

This is also an opportunity to get rid of the electric fireplace and replace it with a wall-mounted TV. I already pulled the fireplace out of its enclosure and just need to remove the enclosure and finish the wall behind it. I've attached a picture of the enclosure without the fireplace insert. The wall behind is finished, as is the floor. The enclosure is glued on the inside and caulked on the outside to the wall, so I will need to fill any damage to the wall from removing it, and then paint the wall the beige colour seen around the enclosure. I still have some paint left from when I painted the apartment in 2006. Once the fireplace enclosure is removed, I'll gain about 5-6 sqft of space that is presently wasted by something I'm only using as a stand for my stereo.

Walking to work

Today was the first day I came to work without my crutch. I took the bus in, but I plan to walk home.

The first time I rode a bus without the wheelchair (using a crutch) was the Saturday of Chinese New Year back in the spring.

Coming soon: CellThis.net

Check out CellThis.net - Canada's marketplace for cellular contracts for a preview of what's to come. This is a side project I've been working on for the last six months.

Seattle Lindy Exchange

I spent the long weekend in Seattle for SLE 2007. I had an awesome time. I was in no condition to go last year, so I'm very glad I was able to make it. I spent the entire weekend walking around without using my crutch. I felt much freer without it, and there was always someone around to help when I got to a flight of stairs. At this point, I'm fine walking around without any aid, and my balance is almost there for walking down stairs, but I still need to use something to get up stairs. I've also walked around downtown without the crutch a few times during lunch. It still is good to use the crutch as a visual cue so that people around me can give me a bit of space.

The turnout this year seemed to be lower than previous years, but personally, this was the best one yet. Some of the nighttime highlights included coming across a water fountain foam party during a late night food run, going for a swim in Lake Washington at 1:30am, and coming across a moped gang at a 7-11 on the way to the after hours venue.

The next big event in Seattle will be the Emerald City Blues Festival in November. I also missed that one last year.

Gym

I've been focusing on my lower body in the gym for the last few months, primarily on the stairclimber. The improvement has been huge and it really shows each time I traverse a set of stairs. I'm now at a point in which I can walk around safely without a crutch, but still need it for stair climbing. For small sets of reasonably spaced stairs, I can step down them without holding on to something for support. I'm still working on getting up the stairs; that will still take some time.

As my strength has improved, I've been spending more time away from home at night and haven't been going to the gym regularly enough. Last night, I did some upper body exercises, and it was a challenge to lift the same number of plates that I was doing a few months ago on the triceps pulldown and chest press.

One year

Monday, July 17, was the day I transferred to GFS last year. It's now been more than a year since my hospital stay.