by srhuston

Less Wisdom

It’s been a while since I posted something, probably because this is the first time in a while that I’ve not only had interesting stuff to share, but actually time to sit down and share it. Most interesting is that I finally broke down and went to a dentist – and then an oral surgeon – about my teeth. I’ve had issues with them for a while, and have put it off entirely too long. Since the dentist I found is very nice (and very good), when I explained that I knew I’d done wrong things but wanted to make it better, he instead of berating me for what I did wrong sat down with me and outlined a course of action to a healthier mouth again. I was quite happy with this! First thing on the list was to get the wisdom teeth pulled, and one other molar that was pretty much shot. So that happened this past Friday, and I’ve been in and out of drug-induced hallucinogenic states since then. Today is actually the first day I didn’t wake up and take a Vicodin right away, which is good. But I’m still not quite on solid food yet, a big part of that may be less of a physical issue keeping me from it and more my own mind saying I’m not ready yet, even if my mouth is.

Also picked up a couple new toys over the weekend. Lowes was having some sales, and most importantly their deal of zero interest and zero payments for a year, if you bought something this weekend. So I researched and found that one of the lawn vacuum/chipper/shredder units they had was the one that I wanted, and we went and got it. Man does that thing work nice! Since last year I ended up doing a lot of extra work to get rid of the leaves, I’m looking forward to it this year. Plus the brush pile next to the house will be going away too, since I can chip up all the branches there and get rid of them. And last, we picked up a shed to put the vacuum, and the mower and other yard power tools into. This way they’re not taking up precious space in the garage, and need to be moved out of the way all the time. Since we had a perfect “dead spot” where I could put it – next to the walkway beside the house where the trash cans were sitting – it doesn’t even take up any space in the yard that we would’ve used differently. And it looks nice!

Last thing. I setup a web-based IRC system, which you can see here. IRC is like the predecessor of all instant messaging and chat programs, and yet is still in fairly wide use today in some circles. Now you can just go to this site to see how it works and connect to the IRC server that I run. Enjoy!

[At some point, I’ll probably come back and throw a lot of links in this post. Right now, I’m just tired, and wanted to get the words out.] [Edit 2007/09/06 – Hey, there’s a few links.]

by srhuston

Ceiling Cat

Many people have seen the photo of Ceiling Cat before.  Usually the caption is something like “Ceiling Cat is watching you masturbate”.  It’s a photo of a cat peeking through a hole in a ceiling.  Kinda cute, especially with the captions that some people generate.   Well, I’ve been adminstering a Tremulous server for a while now, and one of the regulars refers to me as Ceiling Cat, since I will chat with people via the console if I can’t fire up the game.  And today, he posted this on our forums:

Rocinante ceiling cat

by srhuston

Quivering, Quaking Or Shaking

While that may be the definition of “Tremulous”, that’s not what I mean. Instead, I’m talking about the first-person shooter that David went and got me hooked on. Tremulous is based on the Quake 3 engine, and was originally a mod for the game. When the engine was released open-source, Tremulous became a standalone game which is free for all to download and play. With clients for Windows, Linux and the Mac, it’s quite easy for anyone to join in and have fun. And that’s what I’ve been doing lately. Met a few friends by hanging out on “DarkLurker’s Lair”, a server that David helps to maintain and has a lot of good people that come and go throughout the day. And one of them, Mexel, mentioned that his clan was disappearing. So we started one called The Deft…

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by srhuston

Phase II Begins!

You may remember discussion of Phase I from before (and if not you can click that link to see it).  Well, the time has come, 90% of the needed equipment is here (waiting on the bracket to mount a patch panel to the plywood), but there’s no reason I can’t start by making some holes in the walls.  So this evening that’s just what I did.  As of right now, the first wallbox is half done.  Still one more in the office to do after that, then there’s the living room and shack.  And that’ll be about 90% of the house wired for Ethernet :>  I’ll also want to replace the one phone line in the kitchen, and may want to eventually run one or two wallboxes to the kitchen/dining room, and I’ll definitely want one in each bedroom.  But the upstairs ones can wait longer, since they’ll be more difficult and there’s no real need for them yet, as can the kitchen/dining room.  So that initial 90% figure will be about 100% of the ones that I really want to have done anyway.

Pictures will follow when the job is complete (in fact, I haven’t taken any yet, but not much has happened so far except a hole in the wall and 3 CAT5e cables coming out of it).

by srhuston

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

I’ve got a wash tub. Last night I finished up the plumbing for it, and this morning I picked up some brackets (actually the clamps you use to secure BX cable to a stud) to hook it onto the standoff I built behind it. So only a year after we moved in, I finally got a utility sink in the basement for washing up after working on the trucks – which I also did today. Oil change, air filter and new serpentine belt went quite well, but the planned changing of plugs and wires was canceled on account of my arms not bending that way. Decided I’d rather pay someone else to do it once every 100k miles than deal with the aggravation and frustration of trying to reach in there myself (especially when two of them appear to be behind the evaporator coil). At least I checked the brakes, and they’re fine – and just in case I needed to loosen the back to get the drums off, I picked up the tools I’d need to do a brake job anyway, so I’m prepared when they finally need replacing.

As Keith would say, “This thread is useless without pictures,” so have a look at the utility sink. The truck looks the same, no photos of that 😛

by srhuston

Wife’s Website Workover

Hey, you think of a word that starts with ‘W’ and is a synonym for redesign or revamp…  Anyway, Stephanie decided she wanted to have a WordPress site of her own, so now she does.  stephaniehuston.net has been changed over, and once she finds some of that copious free time we all look for (or a couple tuits, preferably round ones) there will be more content there too :>  She also uploaded some new stuff to the gallery, so check that out too.

by srhuston

No More Drips

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, about an hour or so after I put it up I got a call back from the plumber.  They came out in the afternoon, and the three guys had a look at what I had done so far, and what wasn’t working.  Right on the truck they had the right part to fit where the one I had bought didn’t quite make it, and installed that with this tar-like sealant around the outside and inside.  Small piece of 2″ PVC into that, reducer down to 1-1/2″, then compression fit adapter for the trap.  All told, $140 later (which worked out to around $10/min for how little time it took them) I had the right parts and the job done properly without having to get my hands dirty again.  If anything, I’ve learned two lessons from this: 1) Don’t mess with the cast iron piping if I can avoid it, and 2) If the job requires messing with the cast iron piping, call Lou Gottel Plumbing instead of dealing with it myself 😛

by srhuston

$h!tty Weekend

This weekend saw a lot of things done, but not much of it was pleasant. Saturday my father came down and we cut up the old oil tank and got the pieces bagged and outside so they can be disposed (and one and a half 5-gallon buckets of slop that was in the bottom of the tank). Lots of arm shaking with the reciprocating saws, and I went through 6 of my 5 batteries (one had recharged during the time we were working). Also replaced the kitchen faucet since we bought a utility tub for the basement, and I wanted a faucet for the new tub that has a sprayer on it instead of the standard two valve things that come with the kits – you never realize how handy it is to have a sprayer on those things until you don’t have one. So the kitchen faucet now is one of the models where the end of the faucet comes out and turns into a sprayer, and Stephanie is quite happy with it. On Sunday, we went back to Lowes and picked up the parts I’d need to install the tub in the basement, including some things to go into the 2″ hub in the cast iron pipe that is where the old tub was located. That’s when the fun began.

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by srhuston

Oh Well

Then I go and post nothing in May either.  Oh well, been busy lately.  Still haven’t had time to get the APRS antenna mounted, but now I’ve got a ladder sitting in the garage (on loan from my father) which I can use to get high enough on the house to mount it.  Think I’m just a 3/8″ hole saw away from finishing that project up, and having full use of the charcoal grill again without first having to turn off the APRS radio and move the magmount.  Speaking of the garage, I picked up some shelves on Friday evening and put them together in there, and got all the stuff that was littering the floor onto them.  Between that and some organization kits from there, all the yard tools are hung up nicely on the walls now, and I even made a spot for the lawn chairs so I’m not tripping over them either (nor are they falling over if I bump into them slightly).  Finally, for the first time in.. 5 years?.. I got all my tools organized and put away into the toolbox.  When we moved from Mays Landing to West Deptford, I never bothered to do it since they hadn’t moved around too much.  But when we moved to Ewing, they definitely got jostled and I just didn’t bother at all since I rarely used any of them.  Kinda hard to work on a car in a parking lot when your tools are on the second floor, and I didn’t have stuff around the house to fix either.  Now there’s a place for just about everything, and the shelves that were already in the garage are almost cleaned off.  Maybe tonight or one other night this week I’ll vacuum the junk off of them, and then I can start pulling them out to put down the second shelving unit we purchased as a workbench (instead of stacking the two halves on top of each other, they also suggest putting the units side by side as a workbench).  I’ll have to measure things out, the wood currently used as a top for the old shelves might make a good workbench top for the new ones so it’s sturdy and consistent across the two units.  After that, the pegboard on the back wall will probably come down, and either go back up with spacers or get replaced, as well as expanded.  Then a lot of the hand-type tools that are in the toolbox currently will go on there, and I’ll have more room without needing another toolbox yet.

The basement hasn’t had much done lately, though the oil tank is on end and ready to be cut up into pieces – both to get it up out of the basement and for easy disposal.  Quite a bit of stuff has collected down near the work bench though, and I really need to get down there soon and clean things up so there’s room to work again.  Stephanie wants me to make some benches to go in the dormers upstairs – one cedar lined, and one regular – and I’ve also got to fix up a couple of the dining room chairs.  Need to grab a couple large clamps for those, and though people have offered to loan them to me, I’ll want them around anyway, so I might as well buy them :>

Finally, in one of our last trips to Lowes, I realized that copper has come down in price considerably.  I think I paid around $79 for 250′ of 14/2 wire, and $119 for 12/2.  Now 14/2 was around $49, and 12/2 was $79.  A 10′ length of 1/2″ pipe was $10 and change, and the best part was a 1000′ spool of CAT5 cable for $80.  The last of that list came home with me, so once the NJ tax return comes through I’m going to pick up the patch panel, switch and the last of the stuff needed to do the home network and new phone wiring so I can get started on that.  Since the office (2 drops) and shack are the most “important” ones, followed by the living room, I can probably do all of that in one weekend, maybe even one day.  The two upstairs drops will likely be the hardest, but they’re also the least important, so whenever they eventually happen is good enough.  Probably not until we rip the rooms apart to insulate them.