"How is the house coming?"

Hello all.
Ever since I made the mistake of telling my friends that I had bought a small house in San Francisco with the goal of converting it into a dream home for me and my beloved, every conversation has included the inevitable query "how goes the construction?" or words to that effect. Normally this would be a perfect excuse for me to unleash a torrent of good news about the rapid progress of the project, but the glacial pace (we are talking before global warming) of the various agencies in San Francisco and construction in general has turned this into a question I have come to dread. So I am starting this blog to document the construction of the house, and go back to talking about the weather, the war, taxes, and other depressing topics. We'll see how it goes ...