Timber (part 2)

I thought this view is kind of neat for showing the scale of the tree..

Some more general pictures of the removal process..









It's a bit hard to align the text and pictures in the editor, so if my description doesn't Bunches of stuff piled in the front driveway waiting to be chewed up.. And here's the stump grinding machine at work..

The couple of replacement trees that the city demanded that I plant :) So tiny by comparison, but also coastal redwoods.. So perhaps in 30 years they be the mighty redwoods that are no more in my backyard..

Mighty Timber! (Part 1)

Hope I don’t get any hate mails as a result of this posting. But today we started cutting down the 2 redwood trees in my backyard. I took a couple days off to “supervise” the work. I really didn’t have to, but I think it keeps the crew on their toes when someone is at the property watching over them and it actually really somewhat fascinating to see them work. Well, to me anyways, others could probably careless. I’ve always found construction / heavy equipment curiously interesting. It’s certainly not something I would do myself though even if I knew what the proper techniques are, which you definitely have to, in order to cut down 75~80’ tall trees that are right up against the house without damaging them. My brief 2-3 weeks working as a “College Pro Painter” one college summer has convinced me outsourcing hard manual labor is the smart thing to do!

9:30 AM

Their progress is super fast, seems their powerful gas chainsaws cut through the wood like tofu. It makes me envious with my puny electric chain saw which tends to break down when I even just try to tackle an occasional fallen branch.

So far the crew has been excellent. They showed up early, around 8:35 am when they originally said 9 am, so I’m glad I got here early 8:00 am. I wanted to get here early to post the signs (the tree removal permits has to be posted close to the sidewalk) and to take some pictures of the “before” scene. My original intent was to make sure if something does go wrong, I would have picture proofs and things. Hopefully I don’t have to use the pictures for that purpose. I am taking plenty of pictures though and it’s going to make some great blog material. Anyways, been watching them work the past half hour or so before stopping in to write things down in the blog. They’ve already got a good chunk of the branches trimmed off one of the redwood already. Time for me to head out to the backyard and survey the progress!

10:55 am

The crew has basically cut down one tree completely, and is working on cutting the pieces into small enough pieces so they can remove it. It appears that they’re planning on just hauling away all the stumps as debris, which is a bit of a shame, as they’re probably quite valuable, being redwood and all. But alas, so it goes, it’s not possible to fall the entire tree in the setting, and without the trunk available in long pieces, it’s probably not useful to anyone except perhaps craftsman/artist. By the way, I’m glad I did take the day off completely, as I’m trapped here with no way to get out of the garage. Tomorrow I’ll be smarter and not park inside the garage but somewhere along the side streets. Also getting rather hungry, looks like time for me to walk over to Jack in the Box or something.

12:35 pm -After lunch

The crew took only a short break and has started working one tree number 2. I think by now I’ve seen enough to describe the process:

The whole process/method is very interesting. There are 4 persons in the crew, one guy is the main tree climbing/cutting dude, and another guy helps him with the ropes/pulley. Then two more guys are at ground level, pulling away the cut down branches and hauling everything away.

To start things off, the climber dude goes way up the tree, I would say probably about two third the way up at least, where he sets up a pulley point. Then, his saw is attached to the rope and sent up to him. He then actually comes down to about only one quarter of the way up the tree, where the branches start to sprout out, and starts cutting from there.

Each branch is first attached to the rope (I have no idea how they tie/hook it, but somehow it doesn’t come loose) before cutting. The guy controlling the rope/pulley makes sure it doesn’t fall to far down and crash into things. Then the 2 others guys come and actually pull it out and away from the house, where the may do some additional sawing so that it can be hauled to the front where there is a big truck with the machine that chews up all the branches and even tree trunks, provided they’re cut down to manageable sizes. When it’s basically all cut down, everyone chips in cutting the huge trunk pieces into more manageable pieces and hauls them away to be wood chipped.

2:25 pm

I just watched the crew work for another 25 minutes. Tony moved a couple more people over here, I guess he had some guys on another job in the morning and that’s done, so now I have 6 guys here working the tail off. I must say they seem motivated. It’s probably because they get paid the fixed amount, and the faster they get done, the faster the get to go home and relax. It might also be because they want to beat the rush hour, since my street is actually a pretty busy street during rush hours and having the huge wood chipper truck blocking half the street could cause a pretty big traffic jam.

3:00AM Midnight Owl again.. Just posting what I wrote while over there (before my laptop ran out of battery). Wait for part 2 for more details and the conclusion of this tree removal job!

Sandy's Parents' Visit

Sandy's Parents wrapped up their visit on Sunday. Hopefully they enjoyed their time off from their normal routine and had fun here. I know Sandy and I benefitted from their visit as they have been quiet helpful around the house. Sandy and I really appreciated their care =) Some highlights include:

Grandpa Chang have been very active helping out in the yard, doing a bunch of yardwork and making the yard look nice and tidy. It's been very helpful since I have been limited in the things I have been able to do in the past month or so due to the knee injury. We also laid down some new grass seeds and loosened up the soil in the backyard, as there were big patches where the grass had died.. I'll try to send a couple photo updates when the grass has fully grown out :)

Grandma Chang helped with food preparation, kitchen and general cleaning and maintainence around the house. Sandy has been relieved of her cooking duties during her visit and I no longer have to wash dishes, so we both got to relax!

Hmm.. I hope they're okay with being called grandparents :) Anyways, just wanted to say that Sandy and I really appreciated the help and care they provided during their stay.

Update from the belly

Here's an update of the "belly". Still not noticeable at all yet even if you know.. However, Sandy says some of her pants are now too tight, so I guess she knows the difference...

Side profile from a month ago can be found in an earlier posting:

http://little-wuster.blogspot.com/2008/01/haha-everyone-wants-twins.html

By the way, this picture is Sandy at 10 weeks while last picture was taken just about a month ago, when Sandy was about 5 1/2 weeks pregnant.

Oh yeah, Sandy says I'm about 12 weeks pregnant compared to her 10 weeks based on my belly.. but I'll spare you of that photo.. Should be able to exercise again soon :P

包子 part 2

It was quiet a success.. the food turned out great.. And everyone enjoyed it except poor Sammy, who is still trying to get a bite of it :P

Making 包子 is actually pretty interesting.. Even I took part in it, unfortunately, I was too forceful when rolling out the dough and broke one of Shuhan's dough rollers! Fortunately, most of the work was already finished at that point. We made 2 types of buns, and 銀絲卷. Oh yeah, we also had some other tasty food that Shuhan had prepared earlier at home (獅子頭, 雞湯).. We saved the chicken soup for later for Sandy since we already have enough food for everyone else (Chicken sooup is supposed to be good for pregnant woman).

Poor Sammy is still wondering where's her share of the buns..

Making 包子 (Chinese Buns)

Shu-Han and Joe dropped by today and we're going to have a 包子 Fest! They brough bread machine, various materials from dough to stuffing. Shu-Han is teaching Sandy how to make various 包子 from scratch.. Err.. Unfortunately, Joe left because I was taking a nap (I tried to take a catnap right before they dropped by so I'd have more energy, but..) or else I suppose we'd probably be playing some Wii right now. I guess it gives me time to write this blog, and Joe should be back in another hour or two to enjoy the results so it's all good still. Will try to have another posting tonight and report on the fruits of ShuHan and Sandy's labor...

Just some of the tools of the trade on display here....

Even Sammy detected something is going on and came over to investigate...

cards :)

Valentine’s Day

Well, time sure flies and how things have changed over one short year. Last year this time, I was nervously wondering when I should propose to Sandy (I ended up proposing about one week later, Feb. 20th last year, Sandy has trouble remembering this date, maybe because I didn't exactly do anything fancy with the proposal, hehe). Anyhow, it's amazing that in one year, we got married and this time, we’re busy planning to usher a new life into the world.

As there will be no proposal dilemma this year so I can just focus on giving Sandy all the best! Actually, not much is planned, I’d say our bond has grown so much that I’m going to risk a Ho Hum Valentine’s Day! Not really doing anything mostly because I’m not exactly Mr. Romantic but also in small part because Sandy really hasn’t been feeling well at all lately. Would be bad to drag her out and make her suffer through a 3 hour dinner :P

Anyways, it’s not so much the gift, or the fancy food, and what not as they are all just superficial. They’re what marketers work on to try and make us feel is a necessary part of the ritual. However, this is a day to show that you appreciate all the little things your significant other does for you and how much they mean to you, in case you have not been doing that on a regular/everyday basis.. (hmm.. maybe I should do something after all?)

Anyhow, I did get Sandy a GPS device, which she thought might be useful, but it might be too practical to be considered a Valentine’s Day gift, besides, it won't arrive for another day or two. And Sandy got me a free burrito from Chipotle with her receipt. http://www.chipotle.com/email/08-all-001.htm

Used it, and it was yummy! Hehe, actually, we basically told each other we don’t need anything special other than each other so hopefully, she is not going to surprise me with anything and make me feel like a total slacker!

Family Dinner

Tonight, we had a big family dinner in part to celebrate the Chinese New Year, and in part to welcome little wuster, since we leaked the news out on Thursday.
Aunt Caroline and Uncle Gary organized the dinner (it was at Azuma's, a Japanese restaurant close to Vallco Mall) It was great to see the many Aunts/Uncles/Cousins as we don't get to gather around too much due to everyone's busy schedule. In fact, Aunt Susan, Uncle Jimbo, and Uncle Steve as well as Jean/Brion, and Michael, Jenn, and family were not able to make it to the dinner. Forgot to bring my camera to take some photos as I had originally planned, or I could be posting some pictures right now. I'll just say the food was very yummy and I ate way too much..

Wednesday night, Aunt Rounda and Uncle Steve are also planning to have a gathering at their place. Not sure if Sandy's busy schedule will allow for it, since she also gets tired more easily now a days, but I guess we'll find out on Wednesday.

Picture!

our precious 小豆豆 (little bean, since that's what little-wuster looks like right now).

一生兒女債,半世老婆奴, 小豆豆 will be my boss for the rest of my life :)

Haha.. everyone wants twins!

Original Post Date 1/17/08 - Updated 2/7/08

But who will help out with the babysitting :) Anyways, lost the previous poll results when I changed the format, but it seems the new option of twins is winning handsdown. I doubt it'll be twins though as there's been no family history of it

Added some other random gadgets to the site as well just for fun. Nothing much to update today but I figured I'd start on Sandy's side monthly profile tracker.. Well, I'll try to keep it monthly anyways..

So, I bugged Sandy during her precious "TV" time and interrupted her from her cozy sofa/blankie arrangement to get her to pose for me :) And ta da, here's Sandy showing no signs of external change yet.

UPDATE:

Well, we found out that it's not going to be twins, so I'm taking off the poll.. The final voting was 3 for boys, 2 for girls, and 6 for twins. I would put up a boy or girl poll, but I found the polling really slows the blog down as it has to go to an external source to fetch the polling results. Anyways, sorry to disappoint some, but no twins! We're not ready to handle two anyway :D

Sandy's First Prenatal Checkup!

Today is Sandy's first prenatal check up, so we're both very excited. It happens to be right on Chinese New Year too, so that might be a good sign. Not sure if they'll be taking any sonar pictures, but if they do, I'll definitely post it up :) It should be a good informative session for us. Even though we've both been reading a lot about pregnancy, there are still many questions especially as it comes to the prenatal care offered by the hospital and the procedures that the books just can't go over. Probably not all of it will be covered today either, but it'll be a good start at least. Well, I'll have a lot more to update after the exam I'm sure.

1 hour after the prenatal exam..

Good news and some dashed hopes! Sorry for the drama.. it's all good news actually, but there's no twins, haha.. According the check up, the pregnancy is estimated at 8 weeks and 5 days, with the due date at 9/13. The doctor said it might change again because at this early stage the measurement is not 100% accurate, but it is a good estimate and more or less matches our expectations.

Also time to start selectively leaking out the news, hehe.. so exciting..

Superbowl Part II

Not much happening, but I figured its time to give an update and superbowl is a good topic especially since we got some photo of little Linus.

The picture to the left is Max (who was at our wedding as a groomsmen) and his son Linus, who is about 9 1/2 months old. And below we have the whole family with mom Rosa as well. Linus can almost stand on his own! Seeing Linus was probably the most exciting part of the day for Sandy :)

Anyways, the game itself was a pretty good one and I'm certainly glad to be able to watch it with some friends over at George's. He and Elaine were great hosts and provided lots of food and drinks as will as some superbowl games (superbowl squares and superbowl picks games) for all to play along in case it was a bad game, but turns out the game itself provided all the excitement needed. Well, at least the 4th quarter as I presonally would have liked to see a higher scoring game, but you can't really ask for anything more than a competitive game and that's what we got so I was happy.

There was a downer to the day though.. Sandy's pregnancy related symptoms appear to be increasing and she actually threw up.. Not in front of everyone fortunately but in the bathroom so she didn't make a mess nor reveal our secret. These nausea seem to come and go, and she ususally feels better shortly afterwards, but hopefully they'll go away entirely in a few weeks as she moves into her 2nd trimester. Oh yeah, it was also a bit awkward not being able to tell people about it in a social setting, but that'll change soon too :)

Superbowl Sunday!

Well, today is the day of the much anticipated Superbowl.. Sandy and I are going to George's place later to watch the game. George's place is only about 1/2 mile away from our house, so it's actually within walking distance (if my knee wasn't banged up). This is a picture of George and Elaine at our wedding, and by the way, George recently got engaged with Elaine and will be getting married later this year!

Congratulations George and Elaine!

We should be seeing Max's baby, Linus, for the first time today also as he plans to drop by with Rosa and Linus to watch the game at George's place also (George is Rosa's brother). In fact, Sandy says Linus' appearance is the only reason she is going to the Superbowl party so they better show up :) Hopefully I'll remember to bring my camera and get take some pictures of baby Linus. It should be an interesting game to see whether the Patriots can go 19-0 and have the perfect season.. I'm kind of rooting for the underdog Giants but I'm also interest in seeing history being made.

Knee Injury

I banged up my knee pretty good the other day.. actually a while ago. I first injured it on Jan. 9 playing basketball, and then reaggrevated it again on Jan. 22. I had thought I was healed up enough and played a bit more basketball and this time, it really hurt :(. Anyways, I ended up seeing the doctors (I don't think Sandy would have allowed me not to see one, plus it was quite painful), and it turns out I have a partial tear on my MCL. Fortunately, surgery will not be required and it'll just take maybe 6~8 weeks to be fully healed.

Didn't tell the parents right away as I didn't want want them to get too worried about it. With Sandy's parents arriving in town in a few days, I can't hide it any more so I guess it's time to blog about it :) It's healing ok, and I can walk without crutches now although still not quite normally (heavily favoring one leg), but that's pretty good since it's only been 10 days and it's suppose to take 2 months to heal.


In addition to seeing the doctor, I did some research on my own through various websites. The websites describe 3 degrees of tear, from partial to complete tear. My injury is diagnosed as a second degree tear so actually it may be even faster than the 2 months the doctor mentioned. The website seem to suggest 1 month should be enough and I suspect that's probably the case.


Here are a couple links:
Ask a doctor
MCL Injuries


One thing I wonder about this type of injury is that how a 3rd degree (complete tear) of the MCL can heal without surgury. Wouldn't surgery be required to reattach the ligament? From what I know, they don't just grow back if it has snapped. Or is that tendon while ligaments do grow back? Anyways, I guess I can learn more about it next week from my Father-in-Law about this when he visits next week :) Hopefully I'll be able to walk almost normally by then.


Oh yeah, One last thing that I learned from this injury is that some drugs can indeed be quite powerful.. I'm taking 2x Naproxen at 500mg strength and it's rather upsetting to the stomach.. (compared to OTC drug, Aleve is the equivalent at 200mg 2x a day). I've learned that I need to constantly eat every couple hours or else I feel like I'm getting stomach ulcer :( I first found this out waking up at 2 AM in at night with the stomach just feeling foul until I ate a piece of plain bread.. As a result of the eatting and being somewhat immobilized, I'm gaining some bad weight :( In fact, Sandy commented that I look more pregnant than she does :P I guess I'll have to under go some aggresive rehab later to not only get my knee/legs back in shape but also to lose the excess weight that I'm beginning to gain.

Sandy's Food Cravings and Aversions

Here's a short list of some of Sandy's food cravings and aversions.. I'll continue to update this post and move it towards the front as I think of them or she gets more of them :)


Cravings:

• ShengKee white bread
• Chicken Noodle Soup
• Grapes
• Bananas
• Cereal (flakes)
• Orange Juice (actually not a craving so much, but she used to not drink it at all but now she kind of likes it)

Aversions:

• Bean sprouts
• Broccoli (this is a weird one as it used to be one of her favorite, in fact, she says it stinks.. does broccoli even smell?)
• Apples (also a former favorite)
• Oranges (another former favorite food bites the dust, but now she likes OJ)
• Fishes in general (not her favorite to began with, so not too surprising)
  

Almost Time To Tell Everyone!

Sandy will have her official prenatel exam Feb 7, which just happens to be Chinese New Year. It's the year of the rat but I like to think of it as more cuddly type of rodent like guinea pig or ground hogs. Even with these cuter pictures, Sandy still does like the looks of a rodent though :(

Anyways, I think after here exam, if there are no special issues, we'll be informing all our friends and relatives in short order. It will be so exciting that I can hardly contain myself.. If not for the outlet of writing these blogs, I'm sure the news will have already accidentally (or not so accidentally) slipped my tongue. In fact, I'm half hoping that my friends would stumble upon this blog and find out, but of course that's basically impossible. My mom sent me an email saying she cannot wait either, I guess when you get good news, you just want to share it with everyone you know!