Carl Hutzler's Blog

My buddy, Josh Sarubin, up in New York sent me a collection of photographs of his family from the past year entitled “The Year in Sarubin”. It was a great collection of shots from the year. Tough to believe his kids are so cute! (I love you, Josh)

Anyway, I happened to be putting together a set of images from the last year as well, mostly to print out and put into several frames in our family room. But Josh’s idea made me think about posting them online. So, without further adoo, The Year in Hutzler…

Don’t know about the rest of you, but my blog seemed to load very slowly of late. I tried a bunch of things but could not figure it out and started to suspect my hosting company (1and1.com). Being Christmas Eve and all, I decided today would be a good time to find out.

I went with Dreamhost and signed up for their yearly plan ($10 a month…same as 1and1 business hosting). I heard they were a good provider and I was hoping that the speed issue was indeed 1and1.com and not my blog set-up itself.

My blog was hosted as a directory off of my main site (carlhutzler.com/blog). I wanted to be able to move the main site (my photo business) and the blog as close to seemlessly as possible. I was a little nervous as I had not moved a Wordpress blog before. My website was simple…just a bunch of html files, but the blog had a MySQL database with all kinds of data in it along with my configuration settings and even a little .htaccess rewrite rules for the pretty URL stuff.

I read up a little on the subject and decided to go with the steps after the break… Read more

Rylan has always wanted a screened in porch. We have terrible tiger mosquitos in the back yard from about June 30th until mid October every year. They are just relentless in attacking you. No work I have done to ensure good drainage on the property has helped that much. So this year we decided to do it.

We are almost finished building a very large 22×18 screened in porch where our old deck used to be. And we added a smaller 20×16 open deck area for grilling, etc. The open part of the deck has an added cool feature in that instead of having four large windows which look out on the yard from the den/TV room, we are going to have one giant 16 foot double sliding door. So we still get the view, but it will open to the non-screened portion of the deck. Should be a fun change.

Denny Contracting is our contracting firm. They designed the deck with Rylan (and even I had some input). The owner, Jason Denny, put a lot of thought into the layout of the structure both in terms of engineering and aesthetics. Jason added in a number of very nice features like skylights, fans, specific door replacement styles, surface material (TimberTek) and so much more – without adding a lot of unnecessary cost. Jason really understands the products available in the market and the benefits and drawbacks to each choice. And he knows how to take fairly inexpensive materials and install them in a way that is really sharp and beautiful (more on that soon). He worked the project like it was his own house (which, by the way, is a beautiful remodel he did in Herndon, VA).

I will have more to say and show when it is complete in the next couple of weeks, but Rylan and I have been extremely pleased with the quality of work, excellent staff, and project timeline thus far.

Jake started viola lessons last week. He continues to enjoy playing and started making up his own songs tonight…and the melody of the one he invented just now was pretty cool. You can listen to it below.

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My family visited Rehoboth Beach again this year as we have for maybe 15 years straight and likely 35 of the 40 years I have been around. This year was similar to years past. Thrashers french fries, Candy Kitchen fudge and chocolate covered pretzels, Grotto pizza, and Funland rides.

We got washed out on Saturday thanks to Tropical Storm Hanna. The storm went almost over top of our location and it was pretty impressive to be on the beach during the height of the storm. 35-50 mph winds and rain driven into your face enough to hurt. And the sand got whipped up into your legs – not fun. And to think that this was a minor tropical storm. Imagine 130+ mph winds. Scary.

Sunday and Monday were beautiful beach days. We spent the time digging in the sand, swimming in the waves, and playing games. My mom and I played some Scrabble several times. She won a very close game (by 2 points on the very last play of the game using the word “Qi”!), but I won the rest (heh!). Jake out smarted me to win Settlers of Catan the moment before I was set to win, and the moment before Rylan was also about to win. Smart guy he is.

Some pix below.

Steve and Erin are some of our closest friends. Rylan hired both of them when she worked at AOL back in the 1990’s. They have an awesome house down on Lake Anna in Virginia and invite all the friends down for a weekend every year.

This year we had a blast swimming and tubing and water skiing and eating and drinking. Kids of all ages had fun and got along really well. And this year they did the downstairs so they now have more bedrooms (no more sleeping in a tent in 90° heat!) and a great game room with ping pong, fuse ball and air hockey.

I took a number of pictures and will put them up later today. But I really liked these of Jake and Anna

My birthday is in March….March 29th, every year. And if you read this blog you likely know I celebrated 40 years this time around by sailing the Caribbean with my family and then taking the kids skiing and hiking in Utah for a week. Pretty nice celebration.

It is now June. My birthday is a good 2+ months ago. But the weekend before last, there was something “up”

Every year on Memorial Day weekend we throw a backyard party complete with 60 people, tons of burgers and dogs, badminton, and maybe a couple of beers. This year was no different….or so I thought.

Uncle Joel (NYC) was standing in Phil and Jenny’s Driveway.

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I think this is the best portrait ever of my wife, Rylan. I love window light.

(click image for larger)

My wife did a great job representing our school to the school board who is considering how to cut budgets due to state-wide budget shortfalls.