Ed Icionsub

The kitchen sink has been giving us some trouble the past couple of weeks. The faucet does not shut off completely. So we have been trying to stop this irritating drip every time we use the faucet in the kitchen.

Sometimes it stops if we turn the handle slightly to the right as we push down on it. Sometimes that doesn’t work and I have to push on it very hard. But that seems risky – what if we push it down too hard and it totally breaks?

So I’m thinking about a do it yourself kitchen faucet replacement, I saw some new faucets in the Lowe’s flyer this morning that are not too expensive. I think I’ll stop by Lowe’s one of these next couple days and take at look at what they have in stock.

My mother has a nice condo downtown. I like it because it is laid out all on one floor and is conveniently located near a small grocery store, a Walgreens and a variety of delis and restaurants.I was over there last night helping her with a small problem with her wall mount mailbox. I thought it might just need a little repair work and a squirt of WD-40, but I think she needs a new one, as the hinge is actually broken.

I like the way her condo unit uses wall mount mailboxes instead of a common mail box area where you have to get out of your car and spent several minutes retrieving your mail from a kiosk or wall of boxes. I think having the box right next to your front door is a little safer, even though she lives in a good part of town. I worry about those moments when people get distracted and become easy victims of muggers and other small time criminals. The routine time spent accessing your mailbox, taking your trash to the dumpster, and getting into your car in an underground parking lot or poorly lit surface lot are the time when most people let their guard down. I’ve talked with her about this several times and I hope she is more aware of her surroundings than the average person.

So I’ve started looking around at the house mailboxes of her neighbors. All of them are very tasteful and attractive. So I’m even more determined to replace her old rusted mailbox with a broken hinge. I’ll just order something nice from online and surprise her with a new mailbox in a week or two.

My kids thought it would be a good idea to buy me a lap desk. I’m not sure why they decided I need one, but with great fanfare last night I was presented with a lap desk that they bought for me.

The desk has a pillow encased under a flat surface with a little strip of molded plastic on the edge to prevent a laptop from slipping down off the flat surface. It also has a little gooseneck lamp that uses a series of LED bulbs to light up the laptop keyboard in the dark. That is cool, but the placement of the gooseneck base is wrong – it interferes with my laptop power cord. I could be wrong, but I believe it is an industry standard to have the power cord situated on the left side of every laptop computer.  So why would they place the base of the lamp there?

Anyway, it was was nice gesture but I don’t really like this laptop desk. It is too small to accommodate a mouse and the pillow makes the whole thing very unstable. It needs to be a larger work surface, and they should use beans instead of a pillow.

The wife agreed to discretely take the thing back to the store and get the money back for the kids. It was a sweet gesture and all, but I don’t really like this model and if I find something better then they can spend their money on a better product.

As Construction Manager, I try to keep on top of new styles and trends that can be incorporated into our stores. I like walking through new buildings and model homes to see what is new in the building materials and design worlds, and glass tiles are starting to show up everywhere. Tiles are a great way to add architectural interest to a home or commercial property by using shapes, colors and textures.

Bathroom tiles can be used in a variety of ways, with different sizes, borders and patterns. But they can be used in just about any room, and I have even started seeing glass tiles inlaid with brick or stone on walkways and patios. There was an article in a major magazine about their dream homes that featured glass tiles in a garden pathway. That was inspiring!

The biggest new fad for kitchens is the use of Subway tiles on walls that surround countertop work areas, sinks and cooktops. These make a nice nostalgic reference for anyone who has lived or worked in New York City. Other cities have subways, too, of course. But we have a lot of people in Nashville who moved here from NYC because of the entertainment industry, and I know they are especially interested in finding small touches that remind them of home.

Reading Micah’s profile on Facebook, I see that he has moved with his family to North Carolina. He’s a lucky man to have IT skills in demand wherever he chooses to live. So if North Carolina has all the quality of life offerings that he’s looking for, then finding a job there should be a piece of cake for him.

I’m always keeping Wilmington NC real estate on my bookmarks and I check it every once in a while. I want to get a feel for any real estate trends in that area, as it seems like the perfect spot for me and the wife.

I have friends all over the state of North Carolina. Two good friends live in the Charlotte area, a former boss and colleague from the old computer manufacturing company in Virginia recently retired to the Asheville area. It appears that Micah has moved to Greenville.

I have been all over North Carolina and I consistently feel good about the Wilmington area. The local Century 21 real estate office has a solid inventory of available properties. I search Wilmington NC real estate for new listings about once a month. When I find the perfect house, I’ll pack for a nice long weekend and head east with the wife to take a look.

There was a story on the news last night about a man who was shot during during a home invasion robbery. I suspect that most people heard that headline and thought, “Oh no, another homeowner becomes a victim of crime.” I really thought that they were reporting the homeowner got shot and the burglar had come to the home armed.

As it turns out, it was the burglar who got shot. He came in the house and had made enough noise that the homeowner was alerted, went to get his gun and then shot the guy. I don’t blame him a bit, in fact, I applaud him for taking action to defend his home and family.

Its no secret that changing demographics and the bad economy has forced a rise in the crime rates here and in a lot of other cities. That is why I am glad we have the gun laws in place and the regular citizens have the means to protect themselves.

In addition to responsible gun ownership, a good security video camera is an important tool for protecting your home. Along with bright lights in key locations, you can still sleep in peace and be prepared for any trouble.

There are signs in different parts of town, such as people installing metal bars over the doors and windows of the ground floor of houses, installing fences, getting large dogs for the back yard, etc., that some areas are fighting back against the crimes.

All of my neighbors have a home surveillance system, lights and dogs. That’s what I call the triple threat and recommend to friends. I’m pretty sure we all have guns, too. Although we don’t have a formal Neighborhood Watch program, we all know each other by name and have each others phone numbers. We look out for each other. But the security cameras are the first line of defense for a homeowner.

For those of us who are deadly serious, we’ve bought a backup battery and equipment guide, and we never leave the house without locking up and setting the alarms.

Everyone on my street went over the county line and spent a lot of money on fireworks this year. We all headed outside around 9:00 tonight and started shooting them off in front of the house. There was no traffic on our street to worry about. What a lot of fun. All these guys running around making loud noises and setting off explosions. This is a rednecks dream holiday!

Spring fever has all my neighbors outside planting gardens, painting shutters and trimming trees and shrubbery. It is almost a contest among neighbors to see who can be the most creative and diligent about making their yards the nicest on the block. The latest craze is ecco mailboxes.

The original mailboxes that came with the houses when the subdivision first launched are long gone. Over the years, everyone has replaced their mailbox with new posts, new boxes and borders around the bases.

My next door neighbor installed her new ecco mailbox over the weekend. She hired a crew of latinos to come do some yard work, which included replacing her old mailbox. They put in a new post, the box and a stone border with mulch and petunias.

When she put in the new box, she told me about the web site where she got her new mailbox. I looked at a new style of box, the ecco e8 mailbox, which is a tower style instead of a post and box.I’m not sure that the tower will look right in front of my house. I’m going to think about it for a day or two, and if I decide to get it the web site has different colors and finishes, so I can get exactly what I want for my home’s curb appeal.

I have never seen deer this close to the house before. There were 6 doe and their fawns just a couple of blocks from my house when I left to run errands this afternoon. It was hard to get a good shot of them because of the late afternoon lighting, but if you look closely you can see them all.