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.
It's good to have hot water
Jul 19th
So the “new” house I live in is starting to show signs of its not-so-newness. On Friday the water heater died and I’ve been dealing with the impact of that ever since. What impact, you say? Well for starters…
- No showers because the water here is about 45F coming out of the tap - Dishes piling up because there is no way to wash them - Running out of clothes because there is no way to clean them
I never realized how much I was dependent on hot water. I also didn’t understand that the life cycle for water heaters was More >
New Furniture
Jul 10th
I recently added a new set of furniture to the homestead, this time in the form of a dining room table and chairs. They match my living room gear, more or less, and the table expands out to nearly double the size. It was good Scandinavian design and I’m glad to have it. Photos are below.
Of Bumps on the Head and Untrustworthy Toilets
May 22nd
I’ve learned two important things this weekend, both quite different from one another:
- Watching a cat negotiate its way down a slide is so much less important than making sure you don’t slam your head into a 2×6 board
- Installing toilets can be painful, and learning to trust that your own installation works without making a mess is even more painful
So for those keeping score at home: head vs. 2×6, 2×6 wins. Thinking vs. toilet install, well I’m still waiting to see who wins this one.
Tile Floor Installed
May 14th
The final touches are being put on the new tile floor in the master bathroom this weekend. This is the first big, costly upgrade to the place since I moved in last year. This should rectify the absolutely dumb setup that preceded it: carpet.
Strangely, when the carpet came up, there was at least one other vinyl floor beneath it, then the wood sub floor. Why people do this stuff is beyond me. Getting a toilet installed and tacking down the carpet is all that remains to get things back to work again for this newly upgraded room.
First up, what it More >
How Did You Spend Your Mother's Day?
May 9th
I spent mine (and Steve & April’s) pulling out and replacing 2 toilets at the homestead. It as one of the most horrifying experiences I’ve ever been a part of, primarily due to the cleaning and moving task it presented.
All of this pain was undertaken to kick off the re-do of the floor of the master bathroom, which for reasons unknown to me, the previous owners had carpeted. Hopefully that will soon be remedied, but until then I have the scars of the toilet removal that will haunt my every waking moment.
Long Waits and Big Bills
Apr 26th
I found out today that my chase after a sports car has ended before it began. After consulting with several dealers it appears that everyone is “allocated out” for the year. That means that no one can special order cars until the manufacturer decides to extend an offer to do so. Bummer for me, and stupid for the car maker, since I have money in hand.
On the other hand I’m headed into a mini house overhaul for the master bathroom. Conservative figures put the upgrade at around $4K, but depending on what else comes along for the ride (new door More >
Shocking Discoveries
Dec 13th
In an incredible turn of events, two relatively new hard disks have died on the same day — today. What is more incredible is that both were in different machines, on different interfaces, from different manufacturers. Both were protected via my APC UPS, so power was not to blame. Worse, one is a RAID backup drive for my documents, so I have to replace it soon. It just makes no sense that this would happen all at once.
On to the saga that is replacing light switches: I managed to give myself enough of a shock today that I had to More >
The Pit and Despair
Dec 10th
I have just completed the first phase of the X-10 light switch install. After two days I’ve swapped out 8 switches and now have all the stairway lights properly wired. It was pretty touch and go there for a while: when things don’t work and patience wears out you can do some pretty dumb things, a bad idea when playing with 110 volts.
In any case, even though it isn’t pretty, things are working. Now the huge task of mess cleanup comes next. I have boxes, wire cuttings, wall remains, and a whole lot of dust and muck to clean up More >
TV Cut-off
Aug 28th
It’s always a fascinating experience to hunt down and eliminate bugs. It is even more so when the bug is “no satellite info” displayed on the TiVo screen. So it was with great surprise and unhappiness that I found this message on my TV last night and no signal present on the TiVo.
I checked the usual suspects: tree branches blocking the dish, loose cables, a TiVo reboot, temperature check, etc. All of these turned up empty. Since it was late I went to bed and wondered what the problem could be.
This morning I trekked out to the cable closet at More >
Ethernet and Phone Additions
Aug 8th
I have a new found respect for electricians, builders, and those poor guys who pull cable when building a new home. I also owe a pretty large “thanks” and “yes, you told me so” to Steve. It seems that as good as hard-wired network connections are, they are a major pain to install after the home is built. Who knew?
Now its two days later, over $200 spent, countless hours burned, time researching alternatives on the net, talking to friends, and ultimately quizzing the OSH and Home Depot guys to get the job done. It is done, although not entirely to More >