oh yeah ... happy halloween!

This, umm, took a little bit of magic to create but it was all in good fun (carved while watching Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin on Hulu).

I quite like it.

entertainment.

So I have been enjoying the Mac Mini as A/V hub. I figured out a few things that bugged me -

• How to control the Mini (running 10.6.x) via my Powerbook (running 10.4.11) - had to install a VNC client (I used Chicken of the VNC) on the Powerbook but OS X (from 10.4 and onward) has included the VNC server configuration built-in - just have to enable it (albeit differently for the different OS versions) in the System Prefs
• How to fit the screen of the Mini to my 42" LG - turns out you have to disable 'Overscan' in the Display Prefs and change the LG's resolution to 'Just Scan' instead of 16:9
• Fiddled w/ the Mac OS DVD Player app to get it tuned up to play DVDs (trying to rid myself essentially of everything besides the Mini and my receiver) - I'm not sure it's up to par with a stand-alone DVD but I haven't done a comparison yet - just my initial thought

Oh, and I also finally went through the process of doing the configuration of the surround (I had manually set it up a while ago) - using the supplied mic I attached to myself and let my Pioneer receiver run through its thing (it calls 'MCACC') to determine the ambient room volume, speaker types, distances from me, each other, etc. etc. etc. It did make a pretty big difference - an improvement - over having manually set the distances and speaker sizes. Sweet.

So I kicked back -

Then went to test out running the VNC client -

(which I subsequently set up on all my other Macs - especially nice for the G4 server I have running with all of our music on it).

The speakers I bought when I was in high school (after doing months of research, making a test CD and bringing it to various places to listen with on different speakers to which I had narrowed down the search) are still cranking out awesome sound. It was fun cranking some stuff on them through the Mini. And I messed with all the different surround options on the receiver - sounds awesome, too.

Ah - good times. Trouble is now I won't have much to put in that Gator case I was going to get ...

stairs finally finished.

Yea. I can't remember when I tore out the stairs but it was a while ago. Probably July. So it'll be nice to have some again. No more having to leap up onto the front porch. That was getting old.

So it was pouring down rain today. A guy walking past on the sidewalk said 'just in time for Halloween huh?' and I replied gotta get it done. Started in the garage putting the stringers together -

That took a bit but wasn't bad. Then I had to attach them to the porch. The 2x6 that attached to the porch that then the stringers attached to was tricky - I forgot that they hung pretty low on the porch trim so I figured out drilling at a 30º angle would get the screws up in place -


I predrilled them so that then I could just drive them into the porch trim. Checked the level before doing so -


Then drilled in the pocket hole screws to attach the middle stringer that I added (wasn't on the original stairs - they only had two). Then I was finally able to put the assembled stairs on - check for level lengthwise -

and front-to-back -

All was good. And level. So screwed it in to the 2x6. Then it was just a matter of screwing in all the treads -

And wallah - front stairs again -

Yea!

And just for fun this is what they looked like with the original bent/warped/unlevel stairs after I had finished building the first porch railing way back when -

I painted the ends of the 2x6 treads today - but now it's raining so I'll probably have to repaint. Oh well.

Oh, and one funny thing - I was searching around McLendons today looking for something to spend their 50% promo coupon on when I came across an aisle that had a huge assortment of drawer storage things!

I looked at a few stores but couldn't find anything - been wanting something like this to store all my assorted screws and nails and stuff instead of in the boxes they come in stacked all on top of each other. Good times.

Now ... all I need to do is figure out what to do about the mail slot. Build one to fit the one I got from Rejuvenation or just return it and seal it up for good using a piece of siding I had ripped off above the porch ...

And then - take a picture like the one I took so long ago and Photoshopped - except this one won't have any Photoshop (well, maybe I'll 'Shop the front door in cos I haven't replaced that yet).

uhh, side stairs [finally] finished.

Hmm, let's see ... I started a post back in (hold on I have to check) July about the stairs. So back then, before I tore them out but after I built the sidewalk they looked like this -

Yep.

So then I painted the house. Installed new lattice. Got a new porch light. And finished building the stairs ...

Nothing radically different, but I opted for two 2x6s per tread instead of what the other folks had used (a single 1x12 which bowed cos it got wet over the years) - spaced them out 1/8" so there is room for the water to drain in between them. Hopefully they don't bow. Added roofing felt to the bottoms of the stringers where they rest on the concrete footings I built. And at least now this set of stairs is up to code what with having railings and all. And much more solid than the previous ones, which pretty much moved when you looked at them. Oh, and they're level now, too.

Now this weekend I get to finally finish the front stairs after, uhh, a few months of not having any stairs. Yea!

(Although that means the solicitors may be back - having no stairs and a three or four foot high front porch sort of kept them at bay)

front porch light.

Whoo boy. It always seems so simple. Case in point -

I wanted a front porch light.

So I bought it a few weeks ago from Rejuvenation (of course) cos they were running a porch sale (of course - I've only ever really bought anything from them when they had a sale or a promotion or I found it in the scratch-n-dent section). A simple thing to hook up, right? There was a beautiful, previous porch light after all ...

Well, haha - not so much.

But time to put on my electrician's cap (uhh, and belt) -

I knew the old light had been powered with the last of the original knob and tube wiring (the only remaining circuit to use the stuff was #11 - the ceiling lights, most of which I had ripped out long ago cos ceiling lights in general suck - like in bedrooms and stuff). So I knew I'd have to deal with that. I didn't know the extent of it until yesterday when I headed up to the attic.

I knew there was new Romex running out of the panel cos the whole panel had been upgraded (to 60A) at some point. So that meant somewhere (the key being 'somewhere') there was a splice where the Romex and the knob and tube were patched together. The trick was finding the splice. Fortunately, there was only that one circuit that still used the knob and tube so I could trace it with a tester since it was the only live knob and tube wire (since there was a mess of the stuff snaking all over the attic this was a huge help). But this still meant basically crawling over insulation all over the attic following the live old wiring to find the splice. But after maybe half an hour - hallelujiah! - I found it!

And then I remembered it - I had put that junction box in back when I rewired the kitchen cos whoever did the splice just had the bare wires (well, with wire caps) hanging loose in the attic. I shut off the circuit back at the breaker, disconnected the splice, switched the power back on and tested the Romex on the left side - power! And no power on the knob and tube. Meaning that was indeed the cable coming out of the box that I could splice into with new Romex cable and run to the front porch.

The next challenge was to figure out the wiring schematic for a circuit that was to have multiple lights (I am putting all ceiling lights on this circuit) all controlled by their own switches. After searching the web (and not finding much) and then a call to good ol' McLendons I was able to figure it out and draw up a diagram -

I love electrical stuff (as I've mentioned I think) but sometimes it's confusing as all get out. Once drawn out though it made sense - it's a mess of wires in each box but both the hot and neutrals loop through the circuit in series from box to box and the extra 14/2 cable to each fixture then is what turns each of them off/on (while maintaining hot/neutral over the entire circuit). And anyways, I had just bought a new 250' spool of 14/2 cable so I was good to go. So I headed back up into the attic to run the cable. Had to drill holes through the joist headers in the walls and run my (priceless) fish tape down to the hole I had cut out for the new electrical box, then back up and pull the cable through. A few times.

And then - just for fun - I decided to turn one of the living room outlets into a switched outlet. So I had to crawl under the living room through the crawl space (uhh, thank goodness my house sits high so it's pretty roomy under there albeit a bit dirty) and drill up - hoping not to drill through my living room floor and instead actually make the mark inside the wall. I was apparently blessed with some good luck cos everything worked okay and I got the new cable strung from the new box by the front door (with the new front porch light switch) over to an outlet on the side of the house without issue -

And after all of that - up and down the ladder to the attic over + over, under the house over + over, etc. etc. etc. stringing cables through insulation blah blah blah it all came down to one moment (the moment I love and dread at the same time) - turn the circuit back on and flip the switch.

(hold breath ... )

Boom!

It worked!

Ahh, good times. Now I still have to finish the circuit though - hitting up Julian's closet light (which while I'm doing that I'm going to replace it with a recessed can), the Jack and Jill bath lights (two wall sconces, a recessed can above the shower and a fixture above where the medicine cabinet will be) and my bedroom lights (since both of those rooms are stupidly on the same circuit as the fridge).

coffee table.

So this past Friday I braved the yuppy-laden Bellevue Square to pick up my coffee table - driving up there in my beatup old Toyota pickup (love you Stuart!) to pick it up. Apparently I've had my eye on this thing for years (yes, 'years' = plural 'year') and finally it went on sale a couple of weeks ago. So I ponied up for it to add to my rather sparse collection of furniture (it's a slow process but someday I will also own an actual dresser) -

It serves as a good footrest and place to put the collector's edition coffee issue of Seattle magazine.

Oh, and my National Parks coffee table book -

Oh, and my coffee -

It just needs some maps in the drawers. Or some music paper. Or both.

And about the footrest thing - the timing couldn't have been better as I spent some time this weekend in between crawling around the attic and under the house running electrical cables setting up the Mac mini (for which I can now prop my feet up on the coffee table and put the keyboard in my lap) -

Compared to the Xbox media center (running XBMC which the Mini can also run) the Mini rules - it is absolutely silent (the Xbox sounds similar to a small airplane taxiing down the jetway) and runs digital video/audio out without an adaptor (well, I have to convert the DVI out to HDMI but that's an easy $8 cable solution) whereas I had to get a special connector in order to run optical audio and component video out of the Xbox.

I'll keep the Xbox for playing the old video game ROMs (like Super Mario, Tetris, Raiden and the like) Julian and I do from time to time just for a hoot but the Mini will be the new media center. It sounds awesome, too - I had to get a tiny female optical coupler to put on the end of the mini optical cable out of the Mini cos my receiver is fresh out of optical ins (using the available ones for the TV, DVD and CDR) but it works perfect. I just unplug the optical cable from the TV (plugged into the receiver) and connect it to the optical cable with the coupler attached cos I do not need both of them connected at the same time (I have to admit it took me a little bit of a configuring headache to come up with that nifty little solution after I tried figuring out how to maybe move around the components between the optical and digital coax audio ins available on the receiver).

And for video we can now stream Hulu (episodes of The Office I'll never be around to watch when they actually air) and all sorts of network TV and other stuff (in addition to the LG that already streams our Netflix). No need to ever actually, um, watch traditional TV anymore (i.e. time to cancel our $15/month über-basic cable). Sweet. And no more headaches trying to convert stupid proprietary iTunes playlist XML files to .m3u files which was giving me a total migraine. To celebrate - the first thing I tested listening to was the playlist I tried to convert a few weeks ago but from which couldn't get the XBMC to see more than one song (of the 60+ in the playlist).

And - when the living room is finished there will be white paneling like this and the walls will of course be painted a beautiful Benjamin Moore HC fairview taupe and the LG will be mounted to the wall and ...

screens.

So now that the house is (mostly) painted it is also time to replace the crappy ghetto screens I built shortly after moving in.

Exhibit A (of said crappy ghetto screens) -


Uhh, yeah - but I didn't really have any tools back then and the house looked like crap anyway OK.

But for the 'New & Improved' design I was going to employ my new-ish table saw and (of course - duh) my pocket hole jig. I have mentioned I was going to get some mileage out of that thing. So I was wandering around the trim aisles of the Home Depot debating whether or not to spend $80 on four new sheets of beadboard for the porch ceiling while also looking for (hopefully) pre-primed 1x4s. Well, I came across something sort of cool - a vinyl 1x4 (x12'). No priming, painting, rotting, etc. of course. So I thought I'd give it a try.

So today I cut it up and put together a little sample to see if the pocket holes would hold in the vinyl and the screen spline I bought would work (who knew it came in so many different diameters - so I guessed) with the width of the table saw blade kerf -


(luckily it seems I chose wisely cos it did) -

Well, that was easy. And then from the front they'll look like this -

A slight improvement over the, uhh, previous design. Now I just need to decide if I want to use the vinyl stuff (which is about $1/linear ft) or just buy cheap pine 1x4 dimensional stuff and prime/paint it (much cheaper and I already have lots of primer and brilliant white Benjamin Moore left). I think I'll actually end up doing that cos I need to do eight windows and the difference in cost will probably be somewhat substantial - and the windows and trim are all wood so the vinyl actually looks a little off.

But at least now I know the design works.

ps - oh, and painting lattice sucks.

pps - Matt took back his stapler last week so that evening probably within the hour I went online and ordered one for myself (different than the one he had which shot an awful lot of blanks but I made sure it had a belt hook like his cos that was invaluable when installing the cedar). And, uhh, I am excited to get it. Yes, another power tool. Money. Can use it to hang up the lattice. Install the beadboard. Install the cedar on the garage next year. Any and all trim work I do from here on out. Etc. Afterall - I bought $80 worth of (5000) flippin' staples that I need to somehow use up.