October 23, 2003
Like a phoenix...
...my basement has risen from the...well...it was water not fire, but you get the point. Everything is restored and it looks better than it has in a while. I think now is the time to buy a couch. I really want a semi-circular couch with ottomans in the middle. Unfortunately, the room is only eleven feet wide. I may have to compromise.
I went out to Thai food for dinner last night with my mom and my uncle. I hadn't seen him in a while and he had shaved his beard. I can't remember the last time he didn't have facial hair. It was amazing how much he looked like my grandpa. My mom recommends the movie "Mystic River", which I had coincidentally already planned to see with a group of friends this weekend. Let's see if it lives up to the hype...
October 21, 2003
Disaster narrowly averted
On Friday, I woke up to the sound of dripping. I thought maybe I hadn't turned one of the faucets off completely or something innocuous like that. So, I checked the bathroom. No drip. I checked the kitchen. No drip. Wait. I can hear a drip, but it's coming from the...oh no. The basement. Where all of my electronic equipment is. My home theater. My network equipment. It turns out that the tube that delivered water to my the ice maker in my fridge had come unattached and was leaking all over. The floor was soaked and a couple boxes were sitting in the puddle. The water had flowed under the wall and part of the carpet in the main part of the basement was sopping wet. Luckily it didn't reach any electrical equipment or my LoveSac. The insurance company sent a "disaster mitigation team" over. They lifted the carpet and cut out the wet padding, then they put down air movers and a dehumidifier to dry out the carpet and drywall. So, I had these machines buzzing all weekend drying out the basement. By Monday everything was bone dry. Today I came home to a clean carpet. Tomorrow they reinstall padding and re-stretch the carpet. By this time tomorrow, the basement will be as good as new. Maybe this will give me the motivation to finish the basement -- and maybe re-pipe my house when I remodel the kitchen.
October 20, 2003
Remodelling
I'm remodelling my kitchen. This means I spend an inordinate amount of time looking through magazines and books for ideas. It also means I get to spend a lot of time at Home Depot Expo. In fact, I think I logged about six hours there this weekend. Here's an experiment:
- Make sure you're a single male
- Make sure you go to Home Depot Expo alone
- Optional: Dress in jeans and an old t-shirt
- Try and find someone to help you
I don't know if every step of that formula is completely necessary, but picking two out of the first three will almost guarantee that you'll be ignored even with a notebook, pen and checkbook in hand. Not only that, but two out of the three times I've been there the person who finally helped me seemed like they were trying to shake me off their leg as soon as possible. Thankfully, I found someone very helpful on my last visit who was new to the cabinetry area. She spent a couple hours going over my options, and was good about telling me where I could save money, if needed.
Here's a picture of my kitchen right now, for reference:
Apparently, the only guy at Expo who goes out to customer's houses to do measurements for cabinetry is backlogged by a month. Then, it takes six weeks to deliver the cabinets once they're ordered. So, I'm already two and a half months out at least. I'm guessing it's going to take until February to finish things up, at least.
October 17, 2003
HFS+ on XP?
So, this is related to my last entry. Back in the halcyon days when I was in posession of a Mac and iTunes had just come out, I went and bought a 120G FireWire drive to rip, mix and...well rip and mix all of the 800 CDs I've purchased throughout the years. Then, I no longer had a Mac but I ended up with an XP machine with FireWire capabilities. Unfortunately, XP doesn't read HFS+ natively. I made a half-hearted attempt at finding some kind of software that would allow me to do this, but came up with nothing that worked. What do I do? Yep, that G5 is looking reeeeeeeal nice about right now.
October 16, 2003
iTunes - It isn't just for Macintosh anymore!
Apple released iTunes for Windows. Isn't that one of the signs of the Apocalypse? Now, the fact that I can buy tunes from the Apple Music Store is great, but I have other reasons for being excited about the announcement. See, I used to work for Apple and while I was there I got a really great deal on one of the original iPods. The bad news is that I never bought a Macintosh because they provided me with a laptop (well, a series of laptops...) that I carted around with me. So, I didn't need to buy one. Unfortunately when I left I no longer had a computer to update my iPod. So, I've been listening to the same damn music for months now. I can now enjoy the full support of iTunes and the Apple Music Store without buying a Mac. I think. I haven't actually tried it with my vintage iPod. Well, I'm coveting one of those Dual G5s anyway...
October 15, 2003
What's in a blog?
I decided to begin this blog completely by accident. The company that I work for is considering the use of MovableType for its corporate site, and I was asked to install it on the server. I installed MovableType at the kerf.org domain to test out things on my own. I've been reading a number of very well written blogs for some time now and liked the idea of having one of my own. It was always a question of what to write about.
I like the idea of having a sort of online journal, especially to keep far-reaching friends and family up-to-date on what's going on. The problem is that I'm not a particularly public kind of person, so the really interesting stuff would have a tendency to be left out of this public face. What happens if an old entry comes back to haunt me?
The other apprehension that I had was that most blogs come across as self-important at one time or another, and who wants to sound self-important? That one's easy to rationalize by realizing that it's most like that when it comes closest to being a journal. The more people get involved, the more diverse the topics become I suppose.
So, in the end it was just too much fun playing with the new (to me) technologies involved and I decided to put Vis a tergo up. I'm sure that the more entries I write, the less reservations I'll have about committing to a blog.
October 14, 2003
A big ole bear dog
Here's my dog. My friend Scott took the picture while we were at "Dog Days of Summer" in Pac Bell Park. The Giants lost to the Phillies, but the atmosphere with so many dogs at the park was incredible. Two whole sections in the bleachers were full of people and their dogs. Tanner (my dog) and I got to sit on the end, which was fortunate since he weighs about 130 lbs. and wouldn't fit beneath my feet nor in my lap.
October 13, 2003
The old jalopy
...and here's Ole Reliable. I'll keep her around for awhile. It's possible these could become collector cars someday. Only 13,879 were produced in the U.S. From what I can find with a little research, it sounds like the C32 I just bought will have even lower production numbers per year at about 3500.
It's a NEW CAR!
Yes, I'm the proud owner of a new car. I hadn't bought a new car in a decade. It's amazing what technology has done in the intervening years. New Car Smell is even better.
October 12, 2003
Turkey and Cheese on sliced sourdough
Sliced turkey
Extra Sharp Cheddar
Sliced Sourdough bread
Mayo
Mustard