Even the best laid plans have to have some problems, right? Like wanting to update this blog every week =). So, no update from last week, but I did get a small home project done. I added a motion sensor light above the back door to the garage so that Kari and I have light when we walk out of the house and to the garage. That project slowly was moving its way up the priority list as we both were getting more and more frustrated fumbling with keys at the door.
I’m still eyeing the project of adding the medicine cabinet and after my slight foray into the world of electrickery again, I’m a bit more confident I can re-route the power that I’ve spotted running through the 2x4 where the cabinet is supposed to be installed. Maybe I’ll do that one next weekend. This is a relaxing weekend. I can have one of those every once in a while!
Kari is going to be going on business travel next week. I think this is good news. If the company wants to spend money on her to travel just to get her job done better, it means they're investing in her future. All around good in my opinion.
School started last week as well. I’m taking Digital Circuitry (3rd year physics course) and a social history course focused on early modern Europe (mid 14th to 18th century), which should be the last of my peripheral classes supporting my major that I need to complete. Well, there are two more math classes and the other six will be computer science courses. But, I’m not concerned overly much about the math classes. Those are just fun and besides, I’m opting for the harder of the classes offered (4th year classes over the 2nd year ones) because they satisfy the last of the requirements for the math minor and if I decide to go back for a master’s degree, I may go for mathematics over computer science. We’ll see. I’m just happy that I’m getting closer to finishing. Ten courses left and I’m in two of those right now. I can only hope that the schedule for the classes they offer over the next couple of semesters allow me to take more than just two classes a semester. Of course, if I decide to continue on and get my physics minor as well, then I’ll need to take two additional classes. I’ll see how “burnt out” I am at that point. I may just want to get out with my diploma and go back after taking a semester or two off. There are only seven classes after the BS in Computer Science to get the MS in Computer Science. That doesn’t seem too bad, but then again, there’s that whole thesis project/paper. I’d have to check with the math department to see how many classes I’d need to take to qualify into the graduate program for math. Something to look into I suppose.
Thanks for reading and I’ll try to be a bit more timely on my updates here.
Oh, and HDTV rocks!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Romans, Water, and Gas
Well, this last weekend saw a couple of minor improvements to the home. Nothing that will boost its market value mind you, but something that will build wife-equity nonetheless.
The beginning of the weekend started with a nice little D&D game with friends and some beer. After the past week at work, it was a very nice time. Saturday I visited my past with a friend whom shared that past. I went and talked with the leader of my former Roman war band Sean Richards (Siridean to those in the SCA). Seems the reasons that I left the group many years ago have continued to act as a cancer within the group and the gather is a mere shell of what it used to be in the glory days. Well, we're trying to see if we can get those days back and I'm set to discuss more with Sean tomorrow evening. I'm still a bit apprehensive based on prior feelings and experiences, but we'll see. I'm open to the idea at least and will to see where it leads. There seems to be more of a focus on reenactment and historical accuracy which is fairly exciting.
Sunday saw my foray back into the world of home projects. I/We had taken some time off due to the holidays and busy schedules. I had a few projects to choose from including installing a much needed medicine cabinet in the bathroom, relocating the shelves in the entryway closet, wiring up a motion sensor light over the back garage door, run a line from the reverse osmosis filter system under the kitchen sink to the refrigerator, and dismantling the gas dryer hookups so it's actually up to code.
I started Saturday night but researching what I may be getting into if I actually cut a huge hole in the drywall of the bathroom. Because it I didn't get the medicine cabinet in for some reason (usually ignorance of what I'm getting myself into), then I would definitely lose wife-equity with the gaping hole there until I could a) patch it, b) install the medicine cabinet safely, or c) buy her something pretty. It turns out that I need to find out if the wall I'm going to carefully hack apart by needing to remove a portion of the stud is load baring or not. I'm not a structural engineer and have no idea whether that wall is or not, so I'm postponing that little upgrade until I can get some more information and not risk caving my house in.
I started with the easiest one that I could think of on Sunday morning and worked on removing and relocating the shelves in the entryway closet. I've come to realize and get more confirmation with every project I work on in this house that the prior owners put in things half-assed and without much care. So I now have a closet that the shelving is actually useful and you can actually access most of the space. The only drawback is the prior mounting location has the closet walls looking like so much Swiss cheese. I'll add the patching of those holes to the project list. After replacing all the items in the closet and having a bit of lunch I decided to dive into routing the water line for the refrigerator. This could have been a very frustrating experience but I was clever (if I do say so myself) about routing it. I was prepared to drill a 3/8" diameter hole in the bottom of my cabinet to route the line but found a 1/2" space between the kickboard and the cabinet that I was able to run the line. Great! Now the line won't be inside the cabinet and get banged around by the pots and pans. The next hurdle was to get it past the dishwasher and into the sink area. This was going to be the big challenge. The hole from the sink to the dishwasher area is only about 3-4" and the line I have is in a tight coil and is not going to want to cooperate getting through that hole. Going the other way I wouldn't be able to reach the line from the sink from the other side of the dishwasher as I would be trying to cram myself in the cabinet. This is where the clever comes in. I grabbed a wrapping paper tube and, from the sink side, fed the tube behind the dishwasher. Looking from the cabinet side, I could see the end of the tube. I was able to stretch and get the water line into the tube and starting feeding it into the tube. A few seconds later it popped out of the other end and into the sink area. Viola! The rest was the fairly mundane task of stopping the cold water, bleeding the reverse osmosis tank in to some water bottles, installing a T-junction in the line from the tank to the faucet that would supply the refrigerator with RO water and then just plugging everything in.
After this successful project, I decided to get involved in something more serious, dirty, and aromatic. The gas dryer line as originally installed upon dryer deliver wasn't that safe, definitely not up to code and causing me to lose wife-equity. So, I measured (twice) the lengths of iron pipe and all the fittings I'd need and purchased everything a couple of weeks ago. Iron pipe work is very dirty, I must say. I was able to replace the 15- to 20-year old installation of piping with something a bit more modern and definitely up to code. There was no cleverness in this project, just a matter of the time, inclination, and the matter of getting dirty.Next project will be the motion sensor light so we can see in the back yard when we come home and try to get into the house from the garage.
This morning, I checked for leaks everywhere in the water and the gas hookups and I'm happy to report that I now have homemade automatic ice in my ice cube tray and the garage doesn't stink from the natural gas works.
If I brave the wall-cutting project, I'll be posting pictures.
The beginning of the weekend started with a nice little D&D game with friends and some beer. After the past week at work, it was a very nice time. Saturday I visited my past with a friend whom shared that past. I went and talked with the leader of my former Roman war band Sean Richards (Siridean to those in the SCA). Seems the reasons that I left the group many years ago have continued to act as a cancer within the group and the gather is a mere shell of what it used to be in the glory days. Well, we're trying to see if we can get those days back and I'm set to discuss more with Sean tomorrow evening. I'm still a bit apprehensive based on prior feelings and experiences, but we'll see. I'm open to the idea at least and will to see where it leads. There seems to be more of a focus on reenactment and historical accuracy which is fairly exciting.
Sunday saw my foray back into the world of home projects. I/We had taken some time off due to the holidays and busy schedules. I had a few projects to choose from including installing a much needed medicine cabinet in the bathroom, relocating the shelves in the entryway closet, wiring up a motion sensor light over the back garage door, run a line from the reverse osmosis filter system under the kitchen sink to the refrigerator, and dismantling the gas dryer hookups so it's actually up to code.
I started Saturday night but researching what I may be getting into if I actually cut a huge hole in the drywall of the bathroom. Because it I didn't get the medicine cabinet in for some reason (usually ignorance of what I'm getting myself into), then I would definitely lose wife-equity with the gaping hole there until I could a) patch it, b) install the medicine cabinet safely, or c) buy her something pretty. It turns out that I need to find out if the wall I'm going to carefully hack apart by needing to remove a portion of the stud is load baring or not. I'm not a structural engineer and have no idea whether that wall is or not, so I'm postponing that little upgrade until I can get some more information and not risk caving my house in.
I started with the easiest one that I could think of on Sunday morning and worked on removing and relocating the shelves in the entryway closet. I've come to realize and get more confirmation with every project I work on in this house that the prior owners put in things half-assed and without much care. So I now have a closet that the shelving is actually useful and you can actually access most of the space. The only drawback is the prior mounting location has the closet walls looking like so much Swiss cheese. I'll add the patching of those holes to the project list. After replacing all the items in the closet and having a bit of lunch I decided to dive into routing the water line for the refrigerator. This could have been a very frustrating experience but I was clever (if I do say so myself) about routing it. I was prepared to drill a 3/8" diameter hole in the bottom of my cabinet to route the line but found a 1/2" space between the kickboard and the cabinet that I was able to run the line. Great! Now the line won't be inside the cabinet and get banged around by the pots and pans. The next hurdle was to get it past the dishwasher and into the sink area. This was going to be the big challenge. The hole from the sink to the dishwasher area is only about 3-4" and the line I have is in a tight coil and is not going to want to cooperate getting through that hole. Going the other way I wouldn't be able to reach the line from the sink from the other side of the dishwasher as I would be trying to cram myself in the cabinet. This is where the clever comes in. I grabbed a wrapping paper tube and, from the sink side, fed the tube behind the dishwasher. Looking from the cabinet side, I could see the end of the tube. I was able to stretch and get the water line into the tube and starting feeding it into the tube. A few seconds later it popped out of the other end and into the sink area. Viola! The rest was the fairly mundane task of stopping the cold water, bleeding the reverse osmosis tank in to some water bottles, installing a T-junction in the line from the tank to the faucet that would supply the refrigerator with RO water and then just plugging everything in.
After this successful project, I decided to get involved in something more serious, dirty, and aromatic. The gas dryer line as originally installed upon dryer deliver wasn't that safe, definitely not up to code and causing me to lose wife-equity. So, I measured (twice) the lengths of iron pipe and all the fittings I'd need and purchased everything a couple of weeks ago. Iron pipe work is very dirty, I must say. I was able to replace the 15- to 20-year old installation of piping with something a bit more modern and definitely up to code. There was no cleverness in this project, just a matter of the time, inclination, and the matter of getting dirty.Next project will be the motion sensor light so we can see in the back yard when we come home and try to get into the house from the garage.
This morning, I checked for leaks everywhere in the water and the gas hookups and I'm happy to report that I now have homemade automatic ice in my ice cube tray and the garage doesn't stink from the natural gas works.
If I brave the wall-cutting project, I'll be posting pictures.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Introduction: Risk Taking
Not much of a risk, mind you, just a small one: the risk of riding the coattails into the blog-o-sphere of my friends. Kevin has been blogging his trips on his globe-trotting adventures and Bryon musing on being an aspiring author (I don't know if you can still be called aspiring if you've been published... interesting). Bryon just started blogging a few days ago and I've always been meaning to but never had, well, the time to be honest. I'm hoping my efforts here to share my occasional experiences will be of interest to friends and family.
Well, enough of the intro and I'll dive into my first posting here about what's going on with me.
Tribulations of Television
Kari and I have been trying to secure the purchase of a new TV for a little while now and have been saving up money. It came as a shock to us as we're usually accustomed to spending 300-500 dollars for a new TV. With the advent of HDTV and Plasma vs. LCD, those cheap TV days are experiencing its death knell as technology advances. So, using Consumer Reports as a guide we have (or I should say, I have) settled on the brand and model. Armed with this, I've been watching prices and I have been encouraged as I've watched the prices drop a few hundred dollars as Christmas was approaching. Those good times seem to have ended as just this week the prices went up either $100 or $200 depending on where you're looking. I had a verbal agreement from one salesman that I could buy my TV when they received stock (today) and indeed they did have them when I went in, but $200 more than when I was in the store just a few days before. I challenged them on this and they said that I would need to have had a raincheck in order to get the cheaper price. Bastards, I tell ya! So, now I'm confined to watching the ads again and I'm hopeful that the Superbowl is good for TV prices over the coming weeks.
Other news: School starts again in a few weeks and I'll be finishing up my stint in physics unless I decide to do the minor which would need two more classes. This should be the last semester I take something on the fringe of my major. I'll be back to the Computer Sciences courses soon! I've been contemplating the master's degree as it is only seven classes beyond the bachelor's. Interwoven into this is my desire to take more math classes too and possible get a master's in math. Beyond just the joy of more math (math is a four-letter word for fun as everyone knows!), it would allow me to skip out of the corporate world either through desire or once I decide to retire and I could teach at community college.
Random topic change: The house projects are coming along nicely and I'm starting to know exactly where everything is in the Home Depot and Lowe's near my house. Latest addition was the reverse osmosis system in the kitchen. I'm getting set to change the shelving layout in the coat closet, add the water line for the refrigerator and redo the gas line hookup for the dryer.
The bread pudding in the oven is starting to smell realllly good. Time to start making the hot rum sauce topping...
Well, enough of the intro and I'll dive into my first posting here about what's going on with me.
Tribulations of Television
Kari and I have been trying to secure the purchase of a new TV for a little while now and have been saving up money. It came as a shock to us as we're usually accustomed to spending 300-500 dollars for a new TV. With the advent of HDTV and Plasma vs. LCD, those cheap TV days are experiencing its death knell as technology advances. So, using Consumer Reports as a guide we have (or I should say, I have) settled on the brand and model. Armed with this, I've been watching prices and I have been encouraged as I've watched the prices drop a few hundred dollars as Christmas was approaching. Those good times seem to have ended as just this week the prices went up either $100 or $200 depending on where you're looking. I had a verbal agreement from one salesman that I could buy my TV when they received stock (today) and indeed they did have them when I went in, but $200 more than when I was in the store just a few days before. I challenged them on this and they said that I would need to have had a raincheck in order to get the cheaper price. Bastards, I tell ya! So, now I'm confined to watching the ads again and I'm hopeful that the Superbowl is good for TV prices over the coming weeks.
Other news: School starts again in a few weeks and I'll be finishing up my stint in physics unless I decide to do the minor which would need two more classes. This should be the last semester I take something on the fringe of my major. I'll be back to the Computer Sciences courses soon! I've been contemplating the master's degree as it is only seven classes beyond the bachelor's. Interwoven into this is my desire to take more math classes too and possible get a master's in math. Beyond just the joy of more math (math is a four-letter word for fun as everyone knows!), it would allow me to skip out of the corporate world either through desire or once I decide to retire and I could teach at community college.
Random topic change: The house projects are coming along nicely and I'm starting to know exactly where everything is in the Home Depot and Lowe's near my house. Latest addition was the reverse osmosis system in the kitchen. I'm getting set to change the shelving layout in the coat closet, add the water line for the refrigerator and redo the gas line hookup for the dryer.
The bread pudding in the oven is starting to smell realllly good. Time to start making the hot rum sauce topping...
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