I'm at home today, sick with the flu. This sucks. For the past week or so my quads have been really sore, but now my whole body just aches.

The best part was the inch thick layer of crap in my mouth this morning,

Today is buying everything day. We're buying the drywall, counter tops, cabinets, lighting, hardware, plywood, paint, and any miscellaneous supplies that we need.

Should be interesting.

Well the Purdue game sucked but we still got done some stuff around the house.

Our old cabinets and sink are gone; we donated them to Habitat for Humanity.

We also cleaned up the last bits of wall that we're removing.

Here are some before \ after pics to show what we've done so far. Guess which is which. Also, in the after pic the stove is pulled out into the center of the room, which makes that half wall seem much smaller than it really is.

That's what she said.

I saw this headline this morning : "U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers"

Great. That's exactly what is needed. Let's just pour more money down the drain of failing companies.

Breaking news! Mom and pop polish restaurant in Nebraska is losing money. Government to step in with billions!

When will it end? When will they listen to me? LET THEM FAIL! They're freaking failing for a reason. Be it that they made poor bets (as in banks), people are not patronizing them anymore (as in newspapers), or other reasons (they're irrelevant and they suck.)

Nothing in this country is "too big to fail." Absolutely nothing. When the weak fall away, the strong remaining competitors get stronger. That's how it should be.

The last part of the wall we removed came down tonight. We're almost done with the electrical but it's a real rats nest in places. I wired one particular outlet 3 times before it worked. Twice the ground came detached when I put the outlet back in the box.

There's a lot of wonky crap going on in there, that's for sure.

We're going to buy the cabinets this weekend and hopefully get some drywall up.

We finalized our new cabinet layout and picked out the new cabinets tonight. We still need to determine our counter tops, but I think we've got that pretty much figured out also. The last few things we need to do that aren't actually putting the kitchen back together are picking a paint color for the walls, picking out the pendant light fixtures and pendants, and deciding if we want to paint the cabinets or stain them.

We'll most likely start buying the cabinets this week or this weekend at the latest. The last remaining part of the wall we're taking out is coming down tomorrow night. Then we'll hopefully finish the electrical so that we can start the plumbing.

I was able to remove half of the counter tops last night and one of the base cabinets while operating solo. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the remaining base cabinets (that now have no counter) out. I removed about 45 screws from the things and still they won't budge.

Cleveland State laying the wood on Wake Forest. Way to go Vikes!

Removed some of the counter top but can't get the rest of it. So many screws and all of the hidden. What the crap!?!?

Last night we finished everything that was on our list to be completed by this weekend. We have now taken down all of the upper cabinets and the microwave. We have removed all of the brick and the drywall from the soffit. The tile back splash has been removed. We have removed all of the drywall from the applicable walls in the kitchen.

Tonight I'm going to try to get a jump start on the lower cabinets. I'd really like to get the counter tops off and all the lower cabinets removed tonight, but I don't know if that's likely.

Here's the progress for tonight.

Sealed off the living and family rooms from the impending dust cloud.

Took more cabinets down. Removed some tile backsplash but I'm worried we'll have to re-drywall if I take more down. May have no choice either way.

Demolished the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Removed the brick and drywall from the soffet on two sides.

Took down the baseboards. Removed all but two of the upper cabinets.

Need to take the microwave down before we can remove those cabinets. Want to keep the microwave up for a few more days to use though.

Done for the evening.

Kitchen remodel is in full swing. More than half of the upper cabinets are down. All of the under cabinet lighting is removed. The rest of the upper cabinets and the above range microwave will come down tomorrow most likely. We should start the demo of the wall that we want to take down tomorrow too.

The hard part now is finding places to put all of the stuff that was in the cabinets while making sure that the dog isn't going to get into it.

We're figuring on a 4 week time frame. This weekend we're going to be framing out the pantry area and maybe running electric to where the new bar is going to be. The plumbing for the dishwasher should get done as well, but only if we get all of the counter tops out and at least half of the lower cabinets. The wallpaper will probably come down this weekend too.

As long as we can get the upper cabinets and microwave down tonight and the demo of the wall done before the weekend then we'll be in good shape.

Went out to Melt tonight. So good. Mmm Melt.

Heading to Cinncinati tomorrow for a wedding. We'll be coming home on Sunday.

That is all.

For all the talk about commodity prices dropping, my water and electric bills have doubled this year...

Good news on the work front. Even though there's a wage freeze for the next year, the bonus program is staying intact. That's really good because I have a feeling if it was taken away for a year it would've never come back.

Does it logically make sense to freeze wages but keep giving quarterly bonuses? Nope. It sure doesn't, but I'm glad they're doing it anyway.

Cleveland State, sadly one of my alma maters, defeated the Butler Bulldogs tonight to punch their ticket to the dance. Congrats to them. It's their first trip since 1986 when they went to the Sweet 16.

We officially started our kitchen remodel yesterday. It's slightly concerning because of the economic situation, but it's something we've wanted to do for a while and we're definitely working within a budget.

Is the greatest speaker in the history of the world [note sarcasm], by whom I obviously mean President Obama, really a good speaker?

From this article, it would appear that he's not. When the media starts talking about using a teleprompter as a crutch, it's a problem. Especially THIS media. Obama is a media darling, so to be criticized for your speaking ability by THIS media is really a big deal in my opinion. The article mentions that "Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small. After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches.

In a break from his routine, Obama did not use a teleprompter during his pre-Inauguration speech at a factory in Bedford Heights, Ohio — and his delivery seemed to suffer. He paused too long at parts. He accentuated the wrong words. And overall he sounded hesitant and halting as he spoke from the prepared remarks on the podium.

The problem is, he never looks at you. He’s looking left, right, left, right — not at the camera. It’s almost like he’s not making eye contact with the American people."

That's an interesting take. So the big question is, does Obama write his own speeches? Are the words coming out of his mouth really his, or is he just mouthing someone else's thoughts and beliefs? Based on the evidence presented here, I'm concerned that he's just a puppet for someone else. When he has the teleprompter telling him what to say, he sounds confident and comes across as a good speaker. When he has to rely on only himself, he sounds halting, hesitant, uncomfortable, and unskilled. Hmm.

Ultimately this gets right back to the campaign.

What are you going to do Senator Obama?

"I'm going to bring about change. Change!"

What kind of changes exactly will you make?

"Change!"

He was elected simply because he wasn't George Bush and he wasn't a Republican. He inspired people to believe in him because he never actually told anyone a single thing that he believed. It's easy to imagine someone believing what you believe when that person doesn't actually stand for anything themselves.

I like guns. - Charleton Heston
Change! - Obama
Great! He wants to make guns better! - Heston

I hate guns. - Ghandi
Change! - Obama
Terrific! He wants to ban guns! - Ghandi

52 people were laid off yesterday at my plant. We're down from a high of over 800 employees 4 months ago to just over 500 now. Really sucks. A lot. And it might not be over. Our customers keep cancelling orders left and right. Looks like we lost over 16 million more just this week.

I was able to get up close and personal with Coach Sanctions at the Cavs game tonight. Apparently his sole responsibility (at least as far as I can tell) is to coach Charlie Villanueva. He's the only player that Sanctions was talking to all night long.

I have some pictures from the game, but I don't know if any of them turned out well.

Joe Alexander, of West Virginia fame, didn't play at all. I was surprised by that, but in hindsight I shouldn't be because he sprained his ankle last week (which I didn't even realize until just now.)

The Cavs never seemed to really get it going tonight, with Z and J.J. Hickson shooting especially poorly. Every time I'd look at the scoreboard though, they'd be up by 10 or 14 or even more. No chalupas for us tonight, but they won by 18 and it wasn't even close after the first quarter.

Lastly, they clinched a playoff spot tonight. As LeBron put it though, they don't care about clinching a spot. Their goal is to win the championship. If they hadn't made the playoffs it would've been a catastrophe.

We're going to the Cavs game tomorrow night. We're sitting 6 rows from the floor behind the visitors bench.

You'll know it's me because I'll be the guy raining threes from the stands.

The past two games the Cavs have found a way to win instead of finding ways to lose. That's very encouraging to me as we near playoff time.

Tonight I watched the latest Mummy movie. Something about Revenge of the Emperor of Suck or something close to that anyway. In a single word: craplicious. It's like there's a party in my mouth and everyone is throwing up. Some of the effects were good but everything else was horrendous.