Progress on the Basement and Maddux Retirement

Sundays can be tough to come up with a topic, so I'll rehash last week's news: Greg Maddux announced his retirement. Most likely a first-ballot Hall of Famer, he retires with 355 wins after 23 seasons. That's an average of over 15 wins a season, not too shabby.

He also won 18 Gold Gloves, four Cy Young awards and the World Series with the Braves in 1995. I guess you couldn't ask much more from a career than that.

I was fortunate enough to receive a ttm success from him in 2003. He signed two cards for me after only a nine day wait in July of 2006.


I made some progress on my basement renovation this weekend. I got two coats of paint up and assembled my Ikea wardrobe, finishing just moments ago and almost in time to watch the Simpsons tonight.

Here are some before and after pictures of the portion of the basement I have completed. I have a long way to go but I like the color of paint I chose (I don't think my wife does). Anything is better than the bright white that's been down here for years.

My white basement before painting (and after I took down the shelving that was on the wall):



Now after two coats of paint and the wardrobe:



You can see the mess in the foreground of both pictures which is partially the painting supplies and partially my messy desk. My desk is the next project to be tackled. It's an L-Shaped Sauder computer desk from Office Max (or Office Depot, I can't remember). I'm getting rid of it and replacing it with a small antique desk made from quarter-sawn oak that I bought near Luverne, Minnesota last June. I'm trying to downsize my entire basement footprint by replacing my old CRT monitor with a flat panel, and replacing my printer and separate scanner with an all-in-one unit.

Once I get all the furniture figured out and the whole basement painted, I'll start hanging my signed photos and cards on the wall.