- Get the first floor bathroom in working order. That means fixing the toilet, painting the ceiling & walls, and installing the sink & vanity.
- Finish setting up the home theater. Everything has been disconnected to get the wall mount for the A/V components sorted out. Now I need to rewire my 5.1 system and, at a minimum, get all the cables run even if they will wind up exposed (for now). Later, I have to make the decision about installing a raceway or snaking cables through the walls. Right now, I’m thinking of passing all A/V cables from the PS3, Wii, and DirecTV box through the walls, but I probably won’t re-route power.
- When the office was painted, I sort of piled everything up on my computer desk. This needs to get reorganized and completely cleaned up from top to bottom. Clutter is the enemy!
Archive for the ‘Home’ Category
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To Do List
2009
07.01
07.01
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Home Office: Phase 1
2008
08.02
08.02
My home office after assembling my new desk
And yes, I know… I need to use all that cool cable management gear I bought with the desk. But hey, I just wanted to get everything put together, folks! Next up — I’m going to paint this room. Now that everything can roll about on the new desk, this will make painting the room a bit easier, while allowing me to keep everything up ‘n operational during the renovations.
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Holiday Accomplishments
2008
07.04
07.04
1) I ordered a brand spanking new Anthro computer desk.. I am done with the cheap Office Depot & Staples furniture I’ve gotten by on for years, and I finally decided I wanted a desk that could accomodate the way I work — which is that I constantly context switch between my laptop and a desktop.
2) I run VMWare Fusion instances of Windows XP and Linux so that I can mirror my customers’ environments. Unfortunately, I have so many virtual machines now that I can’t fit them all comfortably on my laptop’s 160GB hard drive. The problem? My MacBook Pro has a 7200 rpm drive in it, and I was loathe to give up speed for additional space. The solution? I ordered a Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7200rpm drive from Newegg. It’s on the way, and so that leaves me free to make a change I’d been thinking about for a while…
3) ..because I had a 320GB hard drive that spun 5400rpm that I was using in an external Firewire 800 case to “augment” my MacBook Pro’s internal drive. I’d thought about replacing the internal drive for a while with the slower drive, but never mustered the gumption to do it. Instead that drive is now in my Playstation 3, so now I have a 320GB Playstation 3 instead of a 60GB Playstation 3. Score! (I followed the instructions in this handy article from Gamespot!)
4) Did I mention I’m cleaning house? I become a slob during the work week, and I needed to do some much needed house cleaning. I’ve got a big house for a single guy (4BR, 2.5 Bath), and I need to reorganize a lot of the “stuff” I have stored from when my Mom passed away back in 2003. With any luck, I won’t have to make excuses like the one on that welcome mat next week!
5) I finished the Dune prequel trilogy: “The Butlerian Jihad“, “The Machine Crusade”, and “The Battle of Corrin”, each of which clocks in at over 600 pages a pop. Whew!
6) And most importantly: I’ve paid all my bills and got all my work-related stuff knocked out. I may do some work this weekend, but a lion’s share of it will be around the house!
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It’s not just a living room…
2008
03.23
03.23
Since the basement is now full of free weights while Barry and I go searching for the secret of steel, the “studio” had been been dismantled and scattered throughout my (unused) bedrooms. Since I realize songwriting is easier when hit by sunlight, I’ve decided to try an experiment: putting the music studio in my living room.
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Fire!
2008
01.07
01.07
Basically, I was chilling, watching “Syriana” (courtesy of Netflix) because I’ve had it for… six months and still haven’t watched it.
Then I noticed a weird odor…
(No, not my own flatulence)
I thought it may be one of the many electronic gizmos in my home theater rig overheating, since it smelled like roasted electronics with a hint of rubber.
Given how shitty my sense of smell is, it could have smelled like roast duck with mango salsa and I’d have freaked…
So I cut the lights on, looked in my kitchen and noticed a smoky haze in the kitchen.
I then proceeded to run around the kitchen (“like a chicken with its head cut off” as my dear old Mom used to say) looking to see if the oven, the cooktop or anything else might be on.
Nada.
I noticed the smoke was up to the ceiling in there, so I bolted upstairs, and checked all the rooms. Nothing burning, and the odor was not even noticeable up there.
So I dialed 9-1-1, told the operator what was going on, and got a visit from PGFD and Greenbelt Volunteer FD so quickly that I barely had time to move my car out the garage (because I sure as Hell was not going to let my precious car go up in flames… or get water damaged if they needed to put a fire out!) before they showed up en masse.
My boss may appreciate the fact that somewhere in the process of moving the car, I also threw my laptop and all my work-related stuff into the trunk because I love my job.
So the fire department ran around the place checking for the source of the smoke and discovered that something electronic failed in the (overly complex and, in my opinion, poorly designed) electronic HVAC unit that handles the heat in the house.
It kicked out a lot of smoke, tripped the circuit breaker, but the fans pushed the smoke throughout the house.
Joy. 
That said, I’m glad to be alive, glad that all the “things” I’ve got aren’t lost to fire, damaged, or destroyed. And I’m grateful to the fire department for getting out here so quickly, even though I caught one of the guys playing with an elastic ribbon I used while rehabilitating my ankle (why do I keep it? I don’t know!) to smack his co-worker on the ass.