Todays word of the day is PODER: To be able
Yo Puedo comer pollo para cena.
I am able to each chicken for dinner.
Popularity: 16% [?]
Well, actually, we have mail box. Send us our first piece of mail!
Summer and Stefan Rest
P.O. Box 697
Rincon, PR 00677
Popularity: 19% [?]
The Spanish word for today is Sentir meaning; To be sorry
Lo Siento: I am sorry
Yesterdays word was Construir meaning; To construct
Yo Constuio una casa bonita en Rincon Puerto Rico: I am building a beautiful house in Rincon Puerto Rico
Popularity: 18% [?]
We completed 4 major tasks today.
1. Pour the concrete Power Pedestal.
2. Dig a 3ft trench 280 feet from the pedestal to the house.
3. Rough in the downstairs bathroom.
4. Purchased 1200 feet of PVC Pipe
Good News about our Electricity
While we were preparing the trench to lay our two “2 inch” and two “1 inch” PVC pipe to run the electrical, Nelson stopped by. Nelson is a somewhat retired electrician who worked for the electric company for 30 years . He is going to complete our electrical as a favor to Jerry. We got a confirmation from him that we will pass our electrical inspection (thanks Brian) after he runs the main line giving juice to the house. He did a walk through of the house and was very impressed with the “American Style” wiring and forward thinking (he actually said “muy preperado”). The forward thinking comment was because we have already hooked up an inverter to the main breaker that will allow us to plug in a nice quiet Propane Generator that will power the entire house if if there is an emergency or the power goes out. He is going to come on Thursday and run 1/0 cable to the house from the pedestal. We are going to run a #6 ground wire with each 1/0 wire…since we are going over 150ft we are upping the gage of the wire to avoid brown outs when we fire up AC units or whatever AMP draining appliance we are turning on simultaneously.
Even better, Nelson was the man in charge at the electric company here in Puerto Rico. His territory was the West side of Puerto Rico. With that said, Nelson is telling me that he will pull some strings and get the power company out to the house at the end of this week or early next week to install the poles, hang the power lines, hook up our meter and sign off on the pedestal. All of the other time frames we collected along with estimates were putting us out at least two months before we would get power. Many thanks to Jerry, who introduced us to Nelson (everyone knows the Vargas family), and made this all happen. Oh, wait, AND the electric company only charges about half the price of what electricians charge for the same job. Stoked!
Pouring the Concrete Pedestal
Josh, Jerry, Mark and I spent the morning finishing the form for the Power Pedestal and filling it up with concrete. We mixed about 8 bags of concrete with a couple wheel barrels full of rock and sand and mixed it all right on the concrete road at the end of our driveway. Once we got the concrete mixed, we filled 5 gallon buckets by shovel and passed the buckets on down the line, half way up the ladder and then Jerry poured the bucket full of concrete into the form we created. I would say we carried about 30 buckets of concrete in 90 degree sunny hot Puerto Rico. With the extra couple of buckets we had left over, we poured a little concrete slab to stomp the mud off of our feet before going into the house.
June, the backhoe guy, showed up about an hour after we finished pouring the concrete and dug a 3ft hole through from the pedestal down to the house. 
Interesting geography going on in our yard, we have very rich soil on top and slate and granite underneath of us. He broke up so many rocks, Josh came up with the idea of enclosing our outside shower with a stone wall from the rocks that were in our front yard. His three house cost me $80. I know, after digging the 4ft by 5ft hole for the pedestal that it was $80 well spent.
Hoche, the plumber, showed up bright and early at 7:00am this morning. He brought a helper and a hammer drill and chipped and chipped and chipped away at the walls in the soon to be laundry room and bathroom downstairs. It looks like he has finished about half of the room. You can see where he has chipped in the septic for the washer, toilet and shower in these pictures. The sink is going to be located on a wall we are going to erect to separate the laundry room from the bathroom. He will be returning tomorrow morning to continue the laborious task of chip chip chip. 
Popularity: 3% [?]
I am over at the office (Marks house) picking up Mark to make him put in an honest days work. 
We have a lot to do today…pour cement (carry it up 12 feet to the top of the Utility Pillar we built, one bucket at a time)…chip away at the wall and foundation to add the plumbing for the new bathroom downstairs and frame off the wall for the new bathroom.
I need to take Mark home to watch the kids at 10am and go to the post office and bank (I need to pay my California franchise tax for Wise Medical Group, cut a check to some 1099 guys and see if we are off the waiting list for a PO Box in Rincon).
I’ll update some progress pictures tonight!
Popularity: 3% [?]
We sketched out the layout of the new downstairs bathroom with Hoche the plumber on Friday. Here are some pictures of it sketched…we’ll consider these the before pictures. I’ll post some more pic’s while we are working on the room. We are going to be drilling out the walls and chipping the floors to get out water and sewage run. We are also putting up a wall to separate the bathroom from the laundry room.
I have a whole bunch of news on the house, but I am a little too tired to tell you right now. We have been bending re barb, digging holes and framing in a 10ft mold for the past 3 days for our electric pedestal. We are going to be carrying about 7 bags of concrete, rock and water up the ladder in small buckets all day tomorrow. At the same time, we need to drill and use a chipping hammer to make room for new water pipes to our new bathroom/laundry room and frame off the wall. Busy day.
We also went to the electric company today to get a quote on installing the two utility poles and bring power to the property. I don’t mind using the generator to work during the day, but fans at night would be awesome.
I also had the propane guy and a dry wall guy stop by today in order to take measurements and give us estimates.
I leave you with a picture of some of the locals.
Popularity: 3% [?]
I was messing around with iMovie today and this is what I came up with:
Not bad for my 1st try, don’t ya think?
Popularity: 9% [?]
Okay, Conner, here’s a video walk through I did of the upstair on May 17th, 2007. This was done before we had the toilet or running water.
As you walk in the front door, you enter the great room. Straight out is the porch (which is unfinished, obviously). To the left is the master bedroom and master bath. To the right is the guest room, guest bathroom and kitchen. There is also a big hole in the floor to the right for the stairs.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Since Summer and I started looking for houses, I have emphasized to her that I want to have a kitchen (I am the cook) that is open to the rest of the house and not cut off from all of the festivities. I always remember hangin’ in the kitchen with my mom while she was cooking when I was a kid, and as I got older we always hung out in the kitchen because that is where the food and beer are…what else do you need?
When we found this house, my only real concern was that I didn’t like that the kitchen was closed off from the rest of the house with a normal bedroom sized door. The rest of the house was/is perfect with big open rooms and high ceilings…but the kitchen needed some love. So, what did we do? We busted out the wall going into the kitchen and put in a new header all the way across to the center load bearing beam.
Picture of the Kitchen entrance BEFORE
Picture of the Kitchen entrance AFTER
Now, when you walk into the house, you will enter the Great Room and see right into the kitchen, out the windows over where the sink will be and see the mango trees in our backyard. I am stoked.
Popularity: 3% [?]
It took a while for Stefan and I to figure out how exactly we were going to move our furniture and personal effects to Puerto Rico, but I think I have it figured out. I’ve been in contact with several inernational movers (even though Puerto Rico is not an international move, we need a mover that has experiance in shipping via boat, not truck).
So far, the best and most competatively priced movers that I’ve found are GLobex Shipping and International Movers. Both of these companies are BBB members, which is important. I’ve heard/read horror stories of bad movers, your stuff never showing up, movers holding your stuff hostage and demanding more money, etc. I spoke to Teila at International Movers today and she explained the whole process for me. Since we are shipping less then a full container, the movers show up at our house, pack our stuff into their truck, truck it to their warehouse in LA where they pallet and shrink wrap everything, wait for other peoples stuff to fill up the entire container (this can take 4 weeks) and off it goes via sea. Once the container ports in Puerto Rico, they truck it to our home and drop it off at our house. The whole process takes 4 - 8 weeks and costs $3000 for 300 cubic feet (300 cubic feet is 7′ x 7′ x 6′, which isn’t that big).
Since it’s been so long since I got my quote from International Movers (4 months), they are updating my quote and will get back with me tomorrow. If everything seems kosher, I’m going to schedule the pick up tomorrow.
Popularity: 18% [?]