Katsucon 2018 Recap.

  We might have started later than planned, but a ton got done anyway.  We picked up one of Bill's friends and braved the tiny hail to head to The National Harbor.  I was glad Bill was driving because the traffic was crazy.  All the parking lots were full and I'm sure a bunch of the people on the road were trying to circle while new people joined them.  We were told we had to park at the MGM Center and that there was a shuttle we could take back.  It was close enough to walk, but the hail/rain/snow encouraged us to find the shuttle.
  They were out of lanyards when we checked in, but at least there was no line.  We did a lap of the Dealer's Room while trying to see where people I knew were.  It was time to meet people for dinner by the time we out of the Dealer's Room.  It was a bit slushy out, but not too bad.
  While still trying to locate people we did a quick look through Artist's Alley.  It was smaller this year and didn't take too long to get through because I was looking for a certain person and I didn't see their booth.
  We were finally able to locate people!  Kat hadn't had dinner, so we went to Nando's Peri-Peri with her.  I just got a drink while the guys got some snacks.  It was so fun.
  After we got back we found more people and hung out until way too late.

  Sunday was a quick one.  We saw Kat and John before they had to head back home and kept an eye out for anyone we knew who we had missed on Saturday.  It was also the day when we bought everything that had caught our eye the day before.  I may have bought too many sets of shard dice, but I couldn't pick a color.

Now on to the few pictures I took.  Kat and I were talking about how there used to be a lot more hallway shots taken than are taken now.  I have noticed that I also tend to take less, so I'm not helping change the situation at all.  It is just interesting to see how things have changed since my first Katsucon back in 2001.

  I actually saw the person in the next picture first, but she looked busy and I didn't want to bother her.  I figured I would see if she was still there when we looped back.  When I saw her the second time I also saw this person dressed as Vex from Critical Role.  She looked so good and I'm kind of sad I didn't get a picture with her Trinket in it.  She told me that she learned how to hold her bow and arrow that day and was so glad she no longer looked like a dofus in pictures.

  This is the Keyleth I saw and then was starting to kick myself that I didn't ask for a picture when I first saw her.  Luckily she was still there and then the timing led me to see that Vex.

I've considered making this dress and being Morrigan from Dragon Age II.  It had been intimidating to me, but this one looks amazing.

  This picture was kind of funny.  I saw the Mimikyu and wanted a picture.  They were facing the line to get into the Dealer's Room, so I was trying to take it between people.  I had to try three different gaps before I could get it.  When I looked up I saw my friend Bailey to my left in line.  We both said a slightly surprised hello to each other before the line moved.

  I was so excited when Bill pointed these two out to me.  I chased them down the hall before I could catch up and get a picture.  Nott and Jester are my two favorites from the new characters of Critical Role.  I'm always glad when cosplayers have cards so I can find them later online.  Nott is being played by turnfolio cosplay and Jester is being played by ArmariaSeole.  They mentioned that they were Vex and Vax the day before, I'm sad I missed it!

  I did get to see a Vax though.  Everyone else I talked to about seeing Critical Role characters had all seen a few Vexs and a few Keyleths, but I only got to see one of each.
  Now I might have exploded if I had seen a Pike in person, I have since seen a few pictures of some that were there.

  This was exciting.  I like seeing people cosplay from a series they love that isn't always the newest thing.  Xena and Gabrielle were unexpected, but made me happy.

  Kim Possible was another one I wasn't expecting but was happy to see.

  I personally don't see the appeal of posing with the people in costume, but I also don't see why people pose in pictures when they are on vacation.  However, other people are all about it and these guys were so happy after posing with this Halloween Mercy from Overwatch, so more power to them.

  Also, as it always happens, I brought my knitting and didn't work on a stitch of it.  I'm not mad about it, I got to see a bunch of people and had a great time, but just wanted to make a note about it.

Day 4: The Finale.

9:02 am

  There was some confusion from our project manager.  He told us that the door and gutter people would be working on Friday, which worked a lot better for going to Katsucon.  Turns out that he thought that Friday was the 17th.  He then checked his notes and told me that the 17th was Monday.  I told him I was pretty sure it was Saturday and he told me he sometimes gets his days mixed up.  I think he was thrown off by the fact that we finished the fascia and soffit replacement two days early.  At least I got to sleep in some this morning before the door people rang our bell.

9:12 am

  While I still liked our back door, the wood around the bottom was rotting.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but we were told it would work out better just to get a new one.  We are keeping the handles I picked out because we replaced the old ones when we moved in and they are still good.

10:24 am

  Our house looks so much more open with a big hole in the back.  Poor Tank got to see the hole when he was being moved from the bedroom and got super excited before he got locked in the mud room.  I wanted to make sure that if he had to use his kitty-box he would be able to.  He also had not been served his canned food for the day.  Not a good morning for him.

10:32 am

  I heard some sawing and it seems the gutter people have arrived.  Soon after I took this there was a knock on the front door so we could open the garage and get them some power.

10:39 am

  They have been doing a good job at checking the door as they have been installing it.  Bill thinks the old door was also a spot where we were losing a bunch of warm air, so hopefully this new door will fix that problem.

11:18 am

  The original plan was to have only one of us stay with the crew and the other was going to head to Katsucon.  However, when I was mostly ready to go, Bill mentioned that I should bring my big camera.  To do that I had to empty an SD card and make sure I had at least one charged battery.  That took some time and I figured I would hang around until the job was done.

12:18 am

  I was working on typing up this section of the post when Tank got relocated again.  Bill thought he might like a change of scenery.  I think Tank was glad that he was trapped forever in a room with someone else.  He kept resting his head on my hands while I was typing until he saw one of the ladders go up.  He then growled at the workers and ran to where he could keep an eye on them without getting too close.

12:19 am

  I was informed that the gutters were all done.  It is interesting because the down spouts go into the lower gutters and not just to them.  Bill said we were told about this, but I didn't remember that fact.

12:52 pm

  Finishing touches time.  The paint above the door was also a bit marred, bit it looks like the trim they put at the top covers that nicely.  Tank was upset that I left him alone in the computer room.

1:02 pm

  David is the one cleaning, and we told that he would be out every Saturday to clean them for us.  I like that they can joke around like that.  It makes everything more fun.
  A few minutes later, they were all cleaned up and headed out.  Not too long after they left, about 20 minutes, tiny sleet started to fall.  Good timing for us, less so for the next person they were installing a door for.
  Now hopefully Tank won't lick the caulking while we are gone while it is drying.  He's done weirder.

Day 3: Start of Phase 2

8:09 am

  We had a slightly later start today.  There are also a lot less stuff in my driveway.  In fact, there is currently only a truck, some tool belts, and my old gutters.  I was told before that the dumpster for this group was going to be delivered at some point yesterday when I got a call on Sat, and I was told that they were going to be bringing one with them this morning.  Hopefully one shows up at some point.

9:13 am

  Still no dumpster, and it looks like they are putting new wood up.  This makes me hope that they don't really need to take the sections down that have the dentil molding, but I'm also making sure to not get my hopes up too much.

10:19 am

  Edwin is the one in the picture.  Looks like the molding is down.  Luckily Bill helped me get a rough estimate of their size before he left for work.  They are about 1" thick and 2.5" wide and tall.  Some are a bit taller than others, but they are evenly spaced apart.  Bill thinks I should try and live with the house without the dentil molding for a bit before I start getting people out to get quotes.  He points out that I will still have it around the front porch and that might make it more special.  I tried looking around in their pile of discards to see if I could find any of the squares, but I didn't see any.

11:19 am

  I think they are using their second truck to take away the garbage.  There is still no dumpster and the piles are made of different things than they were before.  It is really interesting to see that where the squares were there are now holes, so that must have been what helped hold them on.
  I'm hoping they get a lot done today because I won't be around for most of the day tomorrow.  I have a busy day and I don't know if I can get Bill to take as many progress photos.
  I will have a small sample to show from the knitting class I'm teaching in the early afternoon.  I'm hoping the New Member Orientation doesn't go too long because I don't want to miss any of the new Critical Role.

  I got brave and talked to one of the workers.  It sounds like they won't be pulling the wood off of the front of the garage.  I asked if they could save me one of the blocks and he said they were just going to put the aluminum over that wood since it was still nice.  So that means I'm not totally losing my dentil molding, but it will be hidden.  I think it will look interesting to see how the bends look.

12:24 pm

  Their design also has more details than I had assumed.  I thought it was going to be just a flat right-angled thing.  I like the little edge it has that gives more dimension, like the molding did.  This means that Bill will get to tease me for being so upset about the dentil molding and not believing him when he said everything was going to be okay.

1:18 pm

  I'm not sure if they are on lunch or what is happening.  Two of them are not around but the other three are still working.  Maybe the two are getting lunch for everyone and they will eat when they get back.

2:20 pm

  Looking that what it looks like from this angle I think the holes I saw were for ventilation and not what was holding the dentil molding on.  It looks like they built the front down some and added the aluminum on top.  Comparing the space between the bottom of where the dentil moldings were and where the bottom of the new ledge is leads me to believe that they are still under there.

3:31 pm

  It looks like they are almost done.  The lead guy was joking with me that they will be out next year to do our siding.  He was also impressed that they got the roof done in two days.

4:04 pm

  I got a knock on my door and the lead guy told me that they were all done for the day.  We did a walk around and everything looked good to me.  He told me the guy to do the gutters will be out tomorrow.

  On the sides and back they did what I was worried the front was going to look like.  It is just flat.  I'm okay with it on the sides because the siding gives it some interest, and I don't look at the back very often.  I do like the little detail on the bottom at the corners.

  My neighbor put a sign on the basketball hoop that I'm pretty sure doesn't have an owner.  Some of the kids from further up the street use it sometimes, so it isn't totally unloved.  I'm also not sure why Ms. Jackie thinks the people who are coming out to work on my house would want a basketball hoop, but she's trying.

Day 2: The Loud People Are Back, but That's Probably Because we Are Paying Them.

  Bright and early at 7:20am, the crew was back.  Though it is still really chilly out, it looks like it is going to be a nicer day for them.

8:12 am

  Same story as yesterday, they are really getting it done quickly.  It is a whole lot louder and also a lot more vibrations going through the house.  Now I see why they tell you to move anything on a high shelf that might not be the most stable.

  This thing is so cool.  For the shorter sections they just had someone hand the plywood up.  That would be a lot harder to do on the main roof.  This little guy holds the plywood and quickly takes it to the top.  It also hauled the shingles and other things with ease right up.

8:15 am

  Here is a closeup of the little machine.  It just has some wheels that carry it up and down the ladder.  Easy and effective.

9:54 am

  So many pieces of plywood are needed to cover the top of our house.  I know it is because we do not have the traditional two sided roof with siding on it, but I really like our roof profile.  I've put similar roofs on the houses I have made in The Sims a lot.

10:30 am

  It stayed colder than would have been nice for them, but at least it stayed sunny.  I'm sure the sun didn't actually help them since it was so bright.  Hopefully it helped them feel a bit warmer. It made some fun silhouette shows for me.

11:10 am

  They took lunch earlier today.  A few of them also are using our lawn furniture we moved to the front tree.  I was surprised no one used them yesterday, they are in one of the sunny spots in my yard.

12:20 pm

 They are doing a good job taking everything off.  I think it helps because we are getting the wood replaced.  It means they are cutting the old plywood and pulling everything off.  There will be a lot less leftover nails found around the house later.  They are going around and putting down tarps and using magnets, but some will always be missed.  It's like when you drop beads, spend a while looking for them, find some more the next few days, and somehow still vacuum some up weeks later.

6:04 pm

  I went to work, hence the jump in time.  I was really surprised to see them still around when I got home.  I heard from Bill that they got really rowdy around 2:30 pm, that must have been when they were getting the shingles on.
  The crew tomorrow will be arriving later than the first phase crew.  They should be showing up around 7:30 am.  Goody.

Day 1: Rain, Rain, Go Away

8:45 am

  This is a really interesting process.  I was wondering how they were going to do a whole roof in the span of two days.  I was also wondering what they were going to do because it was supposed to rain and houses don't like rain getting in.

8:47 am

  They are doing everything in stages.  Guys were putting the new plywood on the back section while they were still pulling the old stuff from the front.

9:41 am

  They also got all the plywood on over the garage before they started anything else.  This is very nice because it means there is a minimal amount of rain getting in.

10:40 am

  I noticed there were more sounds of hammering and less sounds of breaking and sawing.  We've moved on to putting on the weather proofing stuff.

11:40 am

  While some of the guys are putting shingles on over the garage, the rest of the team had started pulling things off of the study/library.  I don't think we warned them that they might get to see our upstairs neighbors, but I didn't hear any yelling, so I guess there were no surprises.
  The color is looking pretty good too.  You can compare the two in the picture above.

1:04 pm

  This picture was taken right before they all climbed down for lunch.  I feel like they are really moving along.

2:18  pm

  Looks like there are only a few more touches needed to finish the garage.  The study still looks the same as of right now.

  These are the shingles from the little bump-out we have in our kitchen area.  You can see the color difference between the exposed area and the covered area on the old shingles.

3:28 pm

  I got to meet Steve, our project manager.  He confirmed what I had assumed, that they were going to get all the smaller roofs done today and get the big one done tomorrow.  He said they can usually get everything done in one day, but since we have so many sides and angles to ours, it will take a bit more time.
  Something interesting was that it seems that we have metal siding.  They had to cut some of it to get the shingles in, but they will cover it with bits of metal that is almost the exact same color as the siding.  They are also putting in the metal to seal around the chimney into the mortar and then sealing it.  That way if the sealant was to fail, the water won't be able to get in.

Quiz

  I took a quiz that tells you what type of blog you should have.  They didn't give any list, so I wasn't sure if 'crafting' or 'charity' were topics that might be a possibility when I took the quiz.

A Lifestyle / Personal Brand blog best suits your desires and personality!
You are multifaceted, just like your future blog. You would enjoy blogging about a myriad of subjects and have many passions. That means you might blog about your life, beauty, fashion, baking, adventure, travel, etc. The best part is that there are TONS of bloggers who have turned their personal lifestyle blog into a full-time career!

  It is really going to happen.  It felt like something we were just talking about and mentioning as a thing that was going to happen in the future.  However, the materials have been delivered and are blocking my garage right now.
  I had a minor freak out about a few things.  How they didn't have our same color, so while the roof will still be a dark color, it will be a grey instead of a warm brown.  They also said they would not replace the dental molding.  I don't know if it is because they just don't want to because of the added cost, or if they really can't.  Either way, it is really annoying because the first guy didn't mention anything about that.

  The guy who dropped everything off was amazing on the fork-lift.  He got everything off and in place in less than half an hour and was zipping around on that thing.  I was really impressed.  I had even recorded video of it, but when I hit Stop my phone freaked out and the file ended up getting corrupted.  He also had a very nice beard.

  Knitting wise, I'm closing in on that green leafy pattern.  I did start the hat I warned you about because I finished my swatch on Monday knit-night and didn't have any of the actual project supplies with me.  I finished that hat and I had enough scraps to make another hat.  I knew the scraps would bug me, and I knew it would be a small hat, so it won't take very long.
  House wise, I'm still making some progress.  I keep getting distracted from organizing projects by knitting projects and making sure I keep up with my work.  Luckily the amount of work I need to do is slowing down, so I will have more time during the week to try and tackle the dining room and the living room next to it.  I also joke the the more I knit, the less I have to organise.  While it is partially true, I feel like I need to knit faster to make a real dent.

"You're bisocksual."

For the person who knits them from both top down or bottom up.  I'm pretty sure I've posted that joke on here before, but I couldn't easily find it, so hopefully it wasn't too recently.

  I decided to make a CC Beanie copycat hat.  It turns out there is a pattern to  make one on Ravelry.  I would just wing the ones I made in the past off the one I saw someone wearing in Eastern Market.  The decreases on this one was nothing like the one I saw.

  I decided to try and use the pattern for the second one.  I did the twisted stitches for the brim and then I tried the regular one-by-one ribbing for the body.  I liked the twisted stitches but I didn't like how the regular ribbing looked on the main body of the hat.  I was pretty sure that the hat I saw in the wild had brioche ribbing and I like the way it looks on the body of the hat better too.
  I tried to do the decreases like I saw on the original hat, but I think I wasn't as aggressive enough with them.  Next time I think I will try doing a p3tog instead of decreasing by the knits and only putting two together.

  Look, another hat!  I had planned on using this yarn and a lighter one to make a two colored brioche ribbed hat.  I ran into problems when I started working with it because it felt so much different than the other yarn I had pulled to use.  Luckily there was enough in the ball that I got a whole hat made out of it alone.  A regular one-by-one ribbed hat is still an awesome hat.

  Yet anoth- wait, something new.  It was interesting.  I cast on an amount that looked like it was a touch larger than my head.  I was hoping to make it into a man's hat and I knew it would expand some as I started working with it.  I finished the first two rows and it looked like it might be a touch too big, but that it might fit someone with a pretty large head.
  Looking at the picture you are probably wondering who I thought would have a head that large.  I'm pretty sure it is about half again as large now as it looked after the first few rounds.  It was kind of weird.  It seems to have calmed down now and has only been growing in height, and not width.

  I also know that I keep talking about a project that will be worked with green yarn and have something to do with leaves.  I also know that I keep making hats that are neither green nor have anything to do with leaves.  I need to make another test swatch before I can begin that one and I keep getting distracted by making hats.  I have my stitch pattern all printed out, so the plan is to make that swatch once I get the cowl off the needles.
  Depending on how long that takes, I have plans for one more hat before I get started on the green leafy project.  One of my friends made up her own method for decreasing and I really like it.  She typed it out for me and I want to give it a try.  The hat will only happen if I finish my swatch and still have time at a knit-night, otherwise it will have to wait.