Over at simpsonsmovie.com you can (among many other time-wasting activities) create your very own Simpsons avatar. It was so much fun that I decided to recreate our entire office. Unfortunately, once you’ve created your avatars, the only option is to print it out. No image download option, no myspace embed code, just print. So, I printed each avatar as a PDF and then imported all of them into Photoshop for a group portrait:

Five easy steps!

1. Grasp sledgehammer handle with both hands.
2. Stand in front of the cabinet you want to demolish.
3. Lift sledgehammer head above cabinet.
4. Slam sledgehammer onto cabinet.
5. Repeat until all cabinets are in tiny pieces.

See how easy it is:

Over last weekend, Ames and I installed a support beam in the attic and removed all the old lower cabinets with a lot of help from my friend Tom (as seen in the video). We also cut out a wall and pulled up all the layers of linoleum in the main kitchen area. This week has run a lot slower than the weekend though. We ran the electrical for the oven but we may have bought the wrong type of box so we haven’t installed the 240v outlet yet. We cut out a 4’ x 8’ section of the floor around where there was some rot, but having to sister the joists with some extra support pieces, fitting the new sub floor around the plumbing and getting it into place taking more time than expected. Amy also did a lot of sanding and spackling of the old walls, but we still won’t be able to prime and paint until all the drywall is repaired. It seems like there are a lot of jobs right now that are relying on each other, and until all those things are done, we won’t be able to start bringing the cabinets in. We definitely have a lot more work to do, but we’re both very happy with the progress we’ve made so far.

As I was perusing through my Google Reader Feeds today, I noticed and clicked on the “Trends” button for the first time. I wasn’t too surprised by the number of items read in the last 30 days, or the time of day that I read the most items, but when I clicked on the “Day of the Week” tab, I was blown away by what I saw:

I don’t check my feeds on Tuesdays?

When I thought about this for a second, I realized that this really is an accurate graph of my average week. I come in on Monday feeling detached, so I tend to catch up on everyones blogs and get reacquainted with my current projects, but I never feel like I’ve gotten enough work done on Monday. This usually leads to a self-imposed sense of urgency by the end of the day Monday, which in turn leads to a distractionless, work-focused Tuesday. By Wednesday I’m feeling confident that I can meet all of the necessary deadlines and try to catch back up with the outside world. Thursday brings the realization that I overcompensated on Wednesday so I buckle back down and get a reasonable amount of work done while still taking enough personal time to stay connected. In an ideal world, every day would go like Thursday. It’s the perfect balance between productivity and social awareness…but then comes Friday. Friday tends to be the day everybody want to go out for lunch, or walk to Starbucks, or hang out talking about weekend plans. It’s a fun day in the office, but somehow I manage to read just as many feeds on Friday as I do on Monday. You can just imagine what that does for my productivity.

So what about you? If you use Google Reader, what does your trends screen say about your average week. Discover any interesting patterns?

Ames and I have done a lot of DIY home improvement projects over the last couple years, but we’re just now about knee deep in one of our biggest projects yet, a full Ikea kitchen remodel. We’ve had our entire kitchen mapped out using Ikea’s kitchen planner tool software for several months. We bought most of our stainless appliances back in November at Lowe’s amidst the unbeatable Black Friday deals. We’ve had the slate-like tile for the flooring stored under our porch deck for well over a year. We didn’t actually get started on all this though until June 2^nd when we drove the 3½ hours to the Atlanta Ikea in a rented cargo van to bring home all the cabinetry.

Since then, our non-work life has been a whirlwind of cam locks, hinges, and drawer pulls. As of last night though, we’re finished with the majority of the assembly, have removed all the old cabinet doors and it’s time to start packing everything in boxes. Once that’s all done, it’s popcorn scraping, sawzall cutting, sledgehammer demolition time. As you may have guessed, this is the part of the project that I’ve been anticipating the most and I’d like to get started this weekend if possible. My wife (and super project coordinator) pointed out though that as soon as it’s all gone, we’ll be without a real kitchen until all work is finished; so we may end up delaying the sledgehammer slinging until the following weekend. Either way, it’s going to be beautiful when it’s all done.

In other news, The Principles of Beautiful Web Design still seems to be selling well even after its place at the top of the Sitepoint books page has been taken by The Art and Science of CSS. Although I’ve really been looking forward to this book I still haven’t bought my copy, but I’ll have to wait as it seems the first print run has already sold out! Congrats to Cameron, Jina, David, Steve, and Jonathan!

And last by not least, I’ll be speaking at this year’s Webmaster Jam Session on September 21 & 22 at the Adam’s Mark in Dallas, Texas. From what I heard about last year’s event, I am both excited and humbled to be a part of this year’s Jam Session. I also can’t believe the list of confirmed speakers that I’ll get to meet up with. Some of these folks have been an inspiration to me for a long time, and I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting a handful of them in person so far. Should be a whole ton of fun.