Random thoughts, organized and categorized for your consumption.
House
Work and the normal things I do to have a place to go after the work day ends.
When Drones (Ants) Attack
Jan 24th
Since we’ve entered Season One (cold and wet) of the Northern California weather cycle it must be time for the ants to enter the house and disrupt things. And that they did just 24 short hours ago. Seems that ants don’t like to float around out in the windy, rainy weather we’re having so they decided to make a straight line into my humble abode. Not only that, but they decided the best way in was via the second floor, across the carpet, down the stairs and into the living room. Odd, I would have thought coming straight in one More >
The Hoopty DTV Antenna
Dec 15th
If someone ever wanted to know what lengths I would go to in order to get high def TV programming, this is it. With a large helping of PVC pipe, fittings, caps, a half mile of coax, an indoor FM antenna, a UHF/VHF combiner, some bolts, wing nuts, washers and a bonafide real antenna (DB2) I have produced this monster eyesore on my patio deck.
It points toward Sutro Tower where most of the Bay Area’s HDTV transmission antennas are located and it doesn’t do half bad, considering I’m more than 50 miles away. It’s reasonably weatherproof and it doesn’t cost More >
The Earthquake
Nov 1st
I can now say that I’ve fully lived through an earthquake. This week a 5.6 magnitude trembler rolled, quite literally, through the house at around 8pm. Furniture moved, things swayed, and dishes clanked. And it was all over in about 30 seconds. I’ve certainly been through earthquakes before, but strangely never at home and not one this big.
Nothing was ruined and only a few items fell out of place. Best of all there wasn’t a sense of real panic or desperation, just a feeling that something was going bonkers and that I should probably find a spot where things won’t More >
Holiday Downtime, Drivers, and Renewals Oh My
Jan 1st
After a short 3 days and change in OK, plus a day and a half in Tahoe, I get a short rest in San Jose for the next week. Well, that isn’t really true, as I must now scramble to get all of the work done to make it to CES this coming weekend and all next week. But at least for today it seemed a bit more subdued than usual, or maybe I’m just not sure what to call the time you have outside of work.
What did get me wondering about stuff is the temperature at the house, which is More >
Good Flights, Bad Disposal
May 2nd
As the ski season has drawn to a close, I switch my attention to aircraft again. This past weekend saw both of the airplanes up and flying again after the winter weather kept them indoors. I was a little rusty, but quickly found my skills coming back after some circuits around the field. That is good news, to be sure, since it means no need to quickly replace another airplane (or all the parts that go with it) in the fleet.
On the down side, my under sink disposal unit decided to go belly up. For those who have not had More >
One Step Closer to Wired Bliss
Feb 7th
Tonight (or this morning) I took one small step toward hardwired ethernet and phone line goodness in the house. I’ve now wired the spare bedroom directly into the downstairs office, eliminating what I hope will be the last of the connectivity problems with the remote PCs.
There is still stuff to do, like cleaning things up, painting and patching walls, and the like. But with the connection now working up and downstairs, it seems like things are on the road to networked utopia.
The Zen of Cable Pulling
Jan 29th
Some progress forward was made today in correcting a job around the home that I started a few weeks ago: putting a network and phone cable up to the room above my office. Thanks to Don, Lisa and Natalie (but mostly Don and Lisa) I learned the fine art of tearing out a chunk of wall to drill down between floors, then pull cable, and then carefully put the wall back together again.
Things are pretty now, but I hope to have it all up and fixed soon. I’ll post photos once I recover from all the drywall dust.
More >My First Craigslist sale
Nov 17th
I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out, but I sold my first item via Craigslist: the component rack. I got $49 for it, even though I posted the ad at $60. In the end, it was something I wasn’t using so I’m glad to be free of it.
I’ll consider this money towards the new equipment and car, although the scale is off by a little bit.
HDTV Arrives
Nov 11th
It took me a while to finally decide to jump into the high quality content pool and get an HDTV display. It’s a big one (50″), supports CableCard, HDMI inputs, and it goes all the way up to 1080P. High def programs look fantastic on it. DVDs look pretty good. Standard TV? Not so good, I’m afraid. It eats up a good chunk of the wall, but wow is it cool.
If you want more information on this monster, you can find it here: KDSR50XBR1
Newer Furniture
Aug 15th
What’s better than existing furniture? Why… new furniture! As I’ve been upgrading to new furniture around the downstairs of the house I’m weeding out the older, less desirable furniture. To my surprise I found this bookcase that looks like it now belongs. Here it is:
It fits so precisely that I’ve lost access to the power plug adjacent to the space. That’s why there are so many power cables running off to the side of the photo. When I get a chance to set my camera up correctly for low light I’ll be able to show you what all of those More >