Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
We went on a little field trip up to West Hartford, CT yesterday.
Laura’s sister and her man are in the area for about a week, so we all thought it would be nice to meet up and have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in West Hartford. We have never been to this particular restaurant location before, but we knew damn well that the Cheesecake Factory is an awesome place for lunch or dinner.
I didn’t know where I was going, but Laura put the restaurant address in the GPS and off we were. We took the same route we drove on when we visited this area a few years back. When we arrived, we were kind of shocked at all the construction that occurred since the last time we were there. Apparently, someone put up a new little mini-town in West Hartford when we weren’t looking. It’s called Blue Back Square.
I gotta tell ya, it’s pretty cool. The area has been open for about a year and is full of restaurants, stores and even apartments. I took a few photos for you.
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Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Looking south
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Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Looking east towards the library
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Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Looking north
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Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Barnes and Noble
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Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Cheesecake Factory
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Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Whole Foods Market
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Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Yesterday was pretty fun. I met the tile installer at Tile America in West Hartford. I picked out the tile for the basement and the grout color. I like the grout to match the tile, so the floor doesn’t look like a big checker board. We also ordered up the thinset.
I bought 473.44 square feet of 13″x13″ Classic Wheat commercial grade tile. That’s a lot of tile. I also bought 60lbs of Avalanche colored grout. Lastly, I bought 100 lbs of Ultraflex polymer modified mortar.
The tile guys are coming tomorrow to start the installation. The nice thing is they are going to pick up all the materials before coming here in the morning. They have a truck…I don’t. If I did, trust me…I would be at Home Depot getting the 67 cent per square foot tile. Oh, the price I pay for delivery. I had actually contemplated installing all the tile myself. Then, I thought better of it. I think I would do a good job, but then again, who is going to do my computer work for me that day? I prefer to work at what I do and let others work at what they do. The door installation validated that.
Last night, I had a few small things to take care of in the basement. I had to trim up the bottoms of the door mouldings and apply a crack prevention membrane on parts of the concrete floor.
I used my Dremel and cutting disk to cut through two and a half mouldings. The first two went very well. About half way through the third one the Dremel started sounding like popcorn. I looked down and smoke was pouring out of the motor. The whole thing felt so familiar. Man, it stunk!!! Yeah, I guess I blew up my Dremel. I will have to check my receipt to see if it’s still under warranty. To finish the job, I used my reciprocating saw, which I should’ve used the whole time. It worked great.
After that, I gave the whole floor a nice cleaning. I swept and vacuumed. If there are any cracks in the floor, you need to use some sort of a membrane. I have actually heard of people using tarpaper for this, but I chose to use RedGard. I got two gallons at Home Depot yesterday. The other option was to use Schluter®-DITRA, but I didn’t think I needed that. The only thing that is wrong with the floor is a hairline crack about five feet long. You can hardly notice it. I tried to stay on the safe side.
RedGard is very cool stuff. It has the consistency of yogurt and can be applied with a brush, roller or sprayer. It goes on pink and dries red. After it dries, it’s like a layer of plastic. People use is for a crack membrane and waterproofer. I am sure you can find other uses for it too.
I basically needed to use it for that one crack, but decided to put it around all the concrete expansion joints too. I believe that you aren’t supposed to tile over expansion joints. You tile up to them and keep the joint. From what I am reading, people tile right over everything, while using no preparation and the tile floor lasts for 100 years. It’s only us who analyze the thing to death that have issues. I am going to see what the tile installer’s experience tells me. After all, he is the expert with the picture book of hundreds of jobs.
I’ll take some pictures tomorrow of the installation.
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Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
Today was another day of running around. I had to head up to Tile America in West Hartford to meet the tile installer. After that, I had to go over to Pat’s Power Equipment in Tolland for a new backpack blower.
I am sure I will write all about the tile in another post. Now, I would like to share an awesome new tool I got today…the backpack blower. When I bought the pressure washer, I wasn’t too enthused. I mean, yeah, I’ll use it when I need it. The backpack blower on the other hand, is something I will actually enjoy using when I need it.
Take a look…
This is the Stihl BR 550 backpack blower. It’s the second most powerful one they have. I just used it on the driveway and the walkway and am very happy I got one so powerful. I have recently heard good things about those hand-held ones, but was skeptical. I used to use a commercial backpack blower and knew what it was capable of. I couldn’t imagine me trying to blow leaves out of the gardens, come Fall, and me not getting wicked mad at one of those hand-held machines.
Here are the specs:
DISPLACEMENT: 64.8 cc (3.95 cu. in.)
ENGINE POWER: 3.0 kW (4.0 bhp)
WEIGHT: 9.7 kg (21.4 Ibs.)
FUEL CAPACITY: 1400 cc (47.3 oz.)
AIR VOLUME:
With tube: 900 m3/h (530 cfm)
Without tube: 1490 m3/h (877 cfm)
AIR VELOCITY: 89 m/sec. (199 mph)
I think the things people look at are the “air volume” and the “air velocity.” Those are the two things that actually move stuff.
I like getting Stihl power equipment. When I do so, I never have to worry about if I just bought junk or not. I know it’s not.
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