I think it'll be fine if the rest of the bathroom is neutral and understated.

Yeah, some of my friends have said the same thing. It was just sort of shocking when I walked in.

Feeling a little frustrated about this whole thing.

Reasons.....

1) It's just taking a long time and I'm eager to get moved in
2) I've put a lot of things on hold, financially and otherwise, until this gets done
3) It's costing me about $2,000 extra a month now

Haven't heard from Rob in over a week. I sent him a "please update me" email and he didn't reply.

Now you are in it. I mean it is to late to change the decision to do this remodel. You invested so much in this. Money that you could use for your retirement, and effort, and energy.

I would try to get iron grip on Rob and everyone who does the work. I have actually no idea how it works in USA with all handy- remodel- repair- businesses. But you have a contract? Right? And there is a time line in this contract? Can't you put pressure on them to keep this time line?

I'm somewhat sympathetic here. I've been through this local bureaucracy nonsense before. It can be ridiculous. At the same time, it seems like they could be doing something, although I'm not sure what. They can't get the electric, hvac, or framing inspection done until this is sorted out. If they can't do that, it's not realistic that they can do much else.

It's just frustrating.

I haven't heard from Rob so I asked for an update. Apparently they are going to bite the bullet and just do what the city is asking them.

I'm still not amused about this extra charge for the floor installation. I don't have a number yet so we'll see.

At least we appear to be moving forward again.

A recruiter called me Tuesday about a job. He found an older resume of mine floating around in cyberspace. Nice guy. He submitted me today and already got a response that they want to do a phone interview.

I did some research on the company and they get really high employee reviews. Like off the chart high. The benefits are about the same as what I'm getting now. 2 extra days of vacation per year. The pay is slightly lower but that's not a big issue for me.

The downside is, it's in Sarasota. That's almost a 2 hour drive from where I am now. It will be about the same distance, though, once I move so that shouldn't be too bad. No work from home. I can live with that.

I'm completely getting ahead of myself because no offer has been made but there is a really big downside. The timing couldn't be worse. Trying to get moved in with a new job where I won't be able to take time off will be super difficult. And for a period of time I'll probably have to just stay in a motel during the week. However, I should just look at the long term. The work environment appears to be much better so it might be worth it.

That would be soooooo cool! I mean a job that you like at least a little bit. Something less frustrating than your current. With moving.... It will be busy time, but it is totally doable.

Your current job sounds so bad. You should definitely look into the possible new one.

Yeah, I'm hoping this works out. Thanks.

I just got back from my weekly condo check. Quite a bit of work has been done but it's sort of that frog in the well thing. They are redoing stuff that was already done.

It looks like about half of the ductwork already had drywall above it and half didn't. So they are tearing out what they need and leaving the rest. It doesn't look like they needed to reframe anything.

They finished tiling the floor of the guest bath. I'm super happy with it. The pic doesn't do it justice. I'm still sort of skeptical about the master bath. The marble is sort of crazy too and I think the floor is going to be too much. I'm actually considering pulling it all out.

They also ran the dryer duct.

Here are some pics.

The next two pics are the ductwork in the living room. If you look at the first pic you can see they tore some out and left some. The stuff the left (on the right) is new and was already run beneath the existing drywall. The stuff on the left and the second pic is where the old ductwork was.





Master bedroom ductwork



Guest bath ductwork



Clothes dryer venting





Guest bath floor tile

I am in full-blown boat fever mode.

The main reason I moved here was to be near the ocean where I could fish and just be on the water.

I bass fished when I lived in Austin and had a nice bass boat but since I fished so much with so many people there I knew what to look for. I am a little overwhelmed with the saltwater boats. I'm not even sure what to look for.

So, I went to a boat show 2 weeks ago and sort of just picked the brains of the dealers there. I found some I liked but I was still unsure what I really want.

After that show, I did some more homework and I think I know what sort of things I want. One of the big things for me is livewell access. It's surprising how many of the boats make it difficult to get to the livewell and how many only had one. Obviously, other things like storage, etc. And comfort and ease of getting around.

I went to another show today and was able to zero in some more. I really liked the Skeeters. Skeeter is an extremely popular bass boat and everyone I know that has one loves it. So I felt comfortable with the brand. They were laid out pretty well but they are definitely more expensive than other brands. You pay for the name.

But the one I really liked was a brand named Epic. It had everything I wanted. It had trolling motor wiring already (many didn't) and seat posts in front and back like a bass boat. Livewells were well designed. Seemed comfortable.

I couldn't find a good pic of the model I looked at (23ft.) but here's a good pic of a 25ft. to give you an idea of what sort of boat I'm in the market for.

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

I'll probably need to change my sn to biggerwallet.

Had my phone interview today. I don't think I aced it but it wasn't horrible. It's really hard to explain why you want to leave your current job without bashing your current job. Sometimes I just want to answer honestly lol.

Interviewer - Tell me about your current job. Why are you leaving.
Me - Just imagine if you did every possible thing wrong in an organization. That would be where I work.

Not sure what happens next. I am having lunch with the recruiter tomorrow. Nice guy.

Of course now I'm sort of overthinking my current job. My boss has almost just disappeared. I almost never see her. She and the tech lead have been in full scale nuclear war so she's been occupied with that. The project I was picked to lead was given to another group and I have been directed to not help anyone with anything on that project. So, I'm sort of not doing much - coming in late and leaving early. That with one day work from home and I really don't have much to deal with. The down side is they might find me expendable tomorrow.

Interviewer - Tell me about your current job. Why are you leaving.
Me - Have you heard of a comicstrip with the title Dilbert?

I had lunch with a recruiter today. Really not worth mentioning other than no recruiter has ever made this sort of effort. Nice guy.

I found out today that our tech lead, who got thrown under a bus, was systematically and purposely thrown under said bus.

There is one particular manager, fairly high up, that completely lacks any ethics.

Talked to Rob today. I mentioned tearing out the master bath tile and redoing it. I'm pretty sure he wants no part of it but he said he would look into it.

Why exactly? Wasn't it that grey tile? Yes, it was.
Is it esthetic that you don't like or is there a problem that you have to redo it. I mean is the tiling gonna fall down of the walls after a month, if you don't redo it?

I think it looks very minimalistic and masculine. Metallic accessories in white metall and it is gonna be really stylish, and I think, pretty well correlated with your personality.

The installation is fine. It's just so...... busy. The tile in the showroom was mostly whitish with wisps of color. These in the bathroom are mostly color. I'm also worrying because the marble I chose is busy as well. The whole bathroom is just going to be crazy.

I've attached the two tile pics and the marble choice. The marble picture is not good. It was hard to get a good picture where the warehouse is. Note that a sample of the bath tiles are next to the marble. The one on the right is the master bath tile. When I leaned them up against the marble they all looked good. Note how light that sample tile is. Great color matches. But, once again, I'm concerned about the business of it all.

It's good to hear another opinion. I tend to be overly critical about these things.

In a shocking turn of events........

I've been given every indication that everyone on our team failed miserably last year. Although my final appraisal was "meets", when you read it, it just doesn't look good.

Today they passed out year end bonus statements. I got a raise and a full bonus.

I'm stunned. Very happy, but confused at the same time. But very happy.

Talked to Rob. He is trying to get the entertainment center figured out but he's confused about how all the cable is wired so he asked that I get the cable people out there to wire everything the way I/he wants it. Better to do this now than wait for all the drywall to be up.

Called the cable company and they will get someone out there Saturday which is perfect.

But the even better news is they have a contract with my condo association which is covered by my condo fees. It isn't going to cost me anything for them to come out and I'll be getting upgraded service (from what I have now) for $50 less per month. WOOT!

I've been thinking more and more about the master bath tile. It might end up working out ok but I think the chances are very high that I'll never be happy with it. I'm almost positive I'm going to have them remove it.

Main thing is that you are happy with result.

I mean from your posting, I would say that you aren't really happy, but are also kind of... not so sure. May be you can show it someone, who is good with design, has good feeling with colors and so... and knows you well? And if you tear it out, how do you ensure, that whatever you do afterwards makes you happy?

I think it is rather the opposite of crazy. When I look at the marble and the tiling, thing I find slightly irritating, is that the tiling in the master bath room seems to be slightly yellowish, compared to the tiling sample, in the marble picture. But it can be also just the different lighting. This that you wrote, that the sample was more white and in the actual tiling there is more color..... I mean the color is grey.... So it is not really crazy...

But it is just my opinion. The main thing is that you are happy with whatever you decide to do.

I met the cable guy at the condo. Not much to report there.

It looks like they are just about done with all the ductwork redo but they haven't done much else.

When I looked at the bathroom tile today it didn't seem horrible. But after looking at the marble picture again I'm pretty sure I'd rather go with a plain tile color to show off the marble.

When I took a closer look at the tile, I noticed there is a gap between the tile and the backer board. It might be hard to tell in the picture but you can actually put you finger in that gap. No idea what they use for adhesive. It seem like there's just a thick glob in the middle of each tile. I've never seen tile applied like that. Zikzak, what gives?

The second pic is the redone ductwork.