Originally Posted 11/18/2004

Living in Sacramento has some advantages. It's centrally located. To the west you have the Bay Area (San Francisco, Carmel, Monterey). To the East you have the mountains (Lake Tahoe). North heads towards Oregon and Washington. Ok, south there's not much, unless you drive down about 7 hours to Los Angeles. The best thing about living in Sacto (as some of the locals call it) is it's Downtown. Most downtown areas in cities (although calling Sacramento a full-on city is a bit of a stretch) are nothing but a large business district.

Sacto's downtown has it's business structures as well, but the real beauty is most of downtown is full of old brownstones and old victorian homes. Now being a former grid dweller myself (the grid is the section that most use as a guideline for where downtown begins and ends. Ex: from 16th st to Alhambra is within the grid.) Most homes and apartments downtown are graced with the beauty that is hardwood floors. As some from the city by the bay can attest to, hardwood floors are magical. They can breathe new life into an otherwise ordinary humdrum house. When the light shines onto the floor in the morning, I become a little envious of my two cats curled up basking in that light as the floors warm beneath them. Living downtown was great, but I wanted to buy my own house because I was tired of throwing money away. Now, to buy a house downtown you need one of these two things:

1. A lot of money
2. A family member who will give you their house when they die.

Of course I had neither so I had to look elsewhere. Fast forward a few years and I have my nice starter kit home. Not too big or too small. It was our Goldilocks house. With one problem. It had carpet everywhere. Nasty beige 1970 'What's your sign?' carpet. Needless to say this had to go immediately. Hardwood floors was the answer. But I did not have the funds to take on such a project. Enter Matt Cable. Matt is a friend of mine from Arizona. We got to talking about what I want to do with the house. You know, repairs, upgrades, etc. The subject came to floors. (Originally my wife and I had set aside some greenbacks to either do something inside or re-do the backyard. The backyard is bad. It's our dirty little secret. I suggested hardwood floors.) Matt said he had put in floors for a few of his friends and that he could do it within two days, three at the latest. So, I said "I'll pay for your flight out here if you do my floors." He agreed with the stipulation that his alcoholic intake while "visiting" was to be paid by me. I said I would. I mean how much could he drink? A lot it turns out, but that's an entirely different post. So the week came and he arrived ready to work. I had to work the entire week, so I could only help after returning home from my desk jockey gig. We decided to go with Pergo since that is much easier to maintain (and less expensive) than real hardwood.

Now imagine your entire video game nerve center in total disarray during the time of year when it seems there's a new game being released every other day. I was like a junkie without a fix. Stuck in the middle of San Fiero with no gun, car, or homies to come to my call. No ball to roll. No chickens to toss, and the Chief right around the corner so you can see my dilemma.

I went the old school route instead. I reconnected (pun intended) with my glory days of gaming. It was quite a trip. I had almost forgotten how great these games were and still are. Anyway, I had made a bet with Matt regarding the timetable he had in his head for a finished project. As I stated before he said it would take him two days to finish, not counting baseboards. The gaunlet was thrown. We settled on a respectable $20. I was sweating a little by the end of the first day. He had one room totally done and only one room and a hallway left to go. Day two arrives and Matt runs into a few snags, but overcomes them with very little issues until......
With one piece left in the box and one piece left to place, it has become an issue of pride. The piece has to have two notches cut out to fit with the doorjamb. Nothing can be left to chance. Measure after measure Matt makes extra sure he has it correct before he makes his cut. As the table saw wails from the garage, I start to reassemble the living room. I did mention the San Andreas crack didn't I? Ok, as I'm running speaker wires a sound floats from the hallway into the living room like a lost balloon. "Oh....Fuck". Walking to the hallway; San Fiero forgotten for the moment, I'm thinking, 'Crap. Did he just slice his finger off?' or something much more messy. Matt looks up and says, "Well, I guess I owe you twenty bucks." I look at the piece he's holding and start to chuckle. He cut the notches on the wrong side. He felt so bad I didn't have the heart to take his money. Of course I'm not above laughing at him for about an hour afterwards. Well it all worked out and I love my house now. No more nasty carpet plus I get the bonus of watching my two cats slide from one end of the room to the other.