Work and the normal things I do to have a place to go after the work day ends.
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
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 cables are for.
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 so predictable. In my complex 4 other water heaters failed this month. The complex is only 14 years old, so it seems like that is the max lifetime for water heaters, or at least A. O. Smith 50 gallon versions like I had.
I’ve been told to expect the HVAC and garage door opener to go next. Just when I was happily expecting to save some money here comes the home issues to eat up that savings.
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.
I’ve learned two important things this weekend, both quite different from one another:
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.
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 was when I got here:
Now, what it is today:
I can almost feel the property value going up as I write this.
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.
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 frames, additional room painting, furniture, etc) it could go up from there. So much for saving money by buying a place.
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 sit down and take stock of what was going on. It seems that in my desire to hurry up the re-install of each of the light sockets, I left on an adjoining breaker that shares the wall box with one of the switches. As I was putting the new switch into place I got a significant jolt, saw a spark, then heard the breaker snap off.
When I regained my composure I discovered my newly “fused” wiring on the side of the old light switch. It took me some time to figure out that I had the ground hit the side of the other switch’s neutral wire, giving me the jolt and blowing the breaker. Needless to say, after that incident, almost all the breakers on the first floor went off so I wouldn’t do that again. The install is all done for the switches so I think I’ll take a break from AC wiring for a while.
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 after. I can’t ask myself if its worth it because I know it will be… it’s just the pile of crud that awaits removal that makes me think otherwise.