Pix
This is a picture of my dog:
This is a picture of my gun:
Now don’t y’all say I never gave ya nothin’.
-
Inside
Friends
Links
-
RSS Feeds
-
Meta
-
last.fm
Aw hell.
Can you believe, after all that crap in the last post several months ago, that I have yet to finish the basement theater room or even really get close? There’s only a few things left to do but it might as well be thousands since my motivation level is terribly weak these days. I guess it can wait until the weather turns cold again since there’s other things to do when it’s warm out, but I am certainly missing my aquariums and getting the basement done is on the critical path.
Lately I guess I’ve had an excuse since I messed up my back this week pulling a tree off of the tailgate of a truck. Careful with those trees, kids, they are heavy and can do some damage to L5/S1 which basically sticks a toothache in several spots in your leg. The weird electrical feeling zapping down your leg is nice too.
Haven’t really taken too many pictures either. Like I said above, I’ve been a useless lump. Here’s a few random ones out of the small amount that I like, however:
Well, that’s about it. Careful with those trees, ya hear?
Basement To-Do List
This is my to-do list for the basement home theater:
- Finish soffit
- Reinforce wall to joist and wall to floor — 1/14
- Mount electrical boxes
- Mount speaker boxes and conduit — 1/17
- Install PVC for speaker wire to closet
- Insulate
Following all that I need to find a drywall installer and finisher and then we’ll be ready to paint and get carpet. Fortunately the hard work phase is just about over for me anyway. After the drywallers do their thing it’s just trimming.
Update 1/15:
Plan for screen is 119″ 16:9 aspect. This is 58″x104″ which will give me approximately 2 ft clearance on each side of the screen.
Update 1/17:
Finished all of the electrical boxes except for 2 wall sconces and the ceiling outlet for the projector. Hoping tomorrow to finish placing the boxes and get the wiring started, if not finished.
With that done all I’ll really have left is to readdress a couple of issues with the soffit and then insulate. I still don’t have any clue how all of this is going to turn out though, which is kinda weird. It’s always that way with version 1.0 stuff. If nothing else it’ll be a good place to sit down and watch a movie which is all you can really ask. Plus, it’s going to be relatively flexible for future upgrades.
20 Taco Challenge
Andy had been talking for years about his ability to consume tacos. Twenty tacos in one hour, in fact.
Finally the time came to put him to the test. This was the result:
I like this picture.
Hey, I actually took a photo I liked:
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and that your turkey thaws successfully and safely.
Weird.
Testing from Steve Sheldon on Vimeo.
Fishies
Fridays and Saturdays don’t feel as fun when you’ve been off for a week and have to go back to work on Monday.
I’m just finishing up my last week of rolling layoff and realizing I’m going to miss it. It’s been kind of nice to have a few weeks here and there where you’re really off of work to the extent that you can’t work … normally my vacations are semi-working as I’m not very good at disengaging from things.
Of course, Monday I’m going to have a whole bunch of stuff stacked up.
Not a whole lot has been going on other than working on stuff around the house. Built some shelves for the basement this week and Sue and I worked on getting my office in order and decorated so it is a bit more inviting. Prior to this week it was sort of the holding area for all my random hobby crap, guitars, amplifiers, cameras, photo equipment, old computers. A little organization goes a long way.
I’ve sort of lost the photo bug recently so I haven’t taken too many pictures. Last major thing I put up was the Pumpkin Festival, but there really hasn’t been much to post other than that. Last picture I’ve taken that I really like is this flower:
I guess I have a few weeks worth of pictures on the camera that I haven’t gotten around to post processing yet, so maybe there will be something interesting in there.
Most of my random updates have been going on my Facebook page. I’m not really a big social networking fan, but that’s probably the best place to see my occasional pithy ramblings rather than on here.
Oh, and I guess one semi-interesting thing is I finally caught up to the millennium and got a cheap little flash memory based camcorder thingy. FlipVideo HD I think. Coupled with iMovie which is the NLE packaged with the iLife suite, it’s pretty easy to complete crappy little movies without a whole lot of fuss. I’ll probably put a few of these up in the future.
Yeah, and I’m not ready for winter yet. Hard to believe we’ve been back in Illinois for a year. Sure doesn’t seem like it. Let’s hope next year is better than this one for everyone.
Sloth is not a virtue.
I just realized that I haven’t updated this site with any new posts for about three months. Pretty much that’s me lately in a nutshell, if you mapped out my general vicinity using the GPS tracker in my phone, probably 95% of my time is spent within the same 10 yard radius. I live a life of intrigue.
Not much is new. Since the last post here, we’ve gotten most of the move stuff together … it’s amazing how long those things drag out and you can throw an exponent on it when you’ve lived out of boxes for basically the past five years. Hopefully we’ve got it locked in here for at least more than a couple year stint this time. Hopefully. I don’t want to open any more boxes than I already have.
Still have a list of things to do on the house, obviously. Despite the extra time off this year (due to the rolling layoffs) I’ve still got a bunch of pretty significant things I want to get done. The past couple of layoff weeks were spent building a 16×20 foot deck off the back of the house which was more work than I expected but worth it in the end. I think. It’s a nice place to sit, anyway.
I’d like to get a room finished off in the basement as a future movie theater and an area to at least store all of my photo gear. Seems like a good project for the colder months. Originally I’d considered turning that into a “studio” of sorts for photography, but I’m having second thoughts because I really don’t like using strobes that much and obviously having it in the basement would necessitate me getting better with artificial lighting.
One interesting note, as I was reading through some of the usual suspect photo sites, I came on a name that looked familiar in the context of some of the best pro photographers out there these days. Turns out a couple of folks that I knew way back in the dredges of my misspent youth have built themselves quite a rep in the photo industry. Pretty impressive work, I must say.
Little did I know I was in the presence of future genius back then! Good on ‘em.
So, let’s see. I finished the deck. Got my work area sort of organized by building a couple of workbenches. Got my boat back and went fishing a couple of times. Went to Chicago a time or two to see the Coob while they were still relevant, and hit a gun show in Indianapolis. Went to work repeatedly. Oh, and we finally got grass planted today, so maybe the neighbors won’t want to torch our house for the dirtyard/weedyard.
Guess that’s about it. I haven’t really been taking many photos lately, not sure why. Of the ones I’ve taken in the past few months, I like this one of Millie (and Andy) probably the best:
It’s nothing special (especially if you’ve visited the VGallery link above) but for some reason I sort of dig it.
More posts when conditions warrant. Over and out.
Random Update
Got moved in through the use of the pickup parade. Much love still for Budget Truck Rental — but it helps to have friends with pickups and luck into a (clean) horse trailer type thing at the local equipment rental place.
Still a bunch of stuff to do. I just managed to get the electronics hooked up last night, still have to finish the workbench in the basement and get all the blinds hung. Been too lazy lately to finish the workbench in the evenings even though there’s not that much left to do.
Budget Truck Rental Sucks
So, you have a move date planned and call a month in advance to reserve a truck, right? Give ‘em your credit card numbers and all that.
Let me tell you, it’s nice when they call you 16 hours before your move and say, “Uh, that truck you rented, yeah, we couldn’t get it … we don’t have anything for you. Sorry.”
Yeah, sorry. Oh and it’s also the end of the month and the last day of school so everyone else is moving out of their crappy rentals too. Which means there are NO trucks to be found in a 60 mile radius, except for, perhaps one that “might” be available at 4pm. A small one.
Let the pickup parade commence, I guess. At least we got most of the boxes moved out of the basement.
Once more so maybe this gets picked up by Google: BUDGET TRUCK RENTAL SUCKS. But I’m not bitter.
Pics of the new house soon.