October 2005 Archives

Last weekend my dad returned again to further help on the basement. He arrived about 5 PM on Friday. We went out to Lowes to get supplies for the next two days. We started with trying to figure out which sump pump to buy. Then we spent at least an hour talking through how and what pipe to run from the pump well to the new drain outlet. After deciding on the piping particulars we went to get a solid core door and some more plywood. We bought a pre-hung door, the only problem with doors of this type is that often they are in bad shape even at the store. They aren't held together that well so if the door isn't handled well the frame can easily be damaged. The plywood we got was higher grade, that way I could just paint it and not worry about textures.

Saturday we got up about 6:30 AM and started about 7. We started by running the new pump outlet and the piping needed for it. After the initial piping we started on the first wall of the day, the small section of wall from the outside door to the stairwell. Then we did our best to mount the door properly, it didn't work flawlessly, but I think came out pretty good. The next wall we built was the section parallel to the stairs and connecting to the main theater area. That wall was interesting since it had the plywood backing and then it went in the steel i-beam in the basement, the last strangeness was the space for my recessed rack. The last wall we built was the wall between the fireplace and the back of the house. This one had a window in it. It also was the first piece to hide the pipe we ran down the wall and to the sump well. We cut the base at 45 degrees and then added some blocks to lift the end stud. This allowed for the pipe to feed out underneath the wall. We quit about 7:30 PM.

Sunday we got up again about 6:30 and started about 7. We started with the last section of the back wall that went from the outside door to the side wall. This wall had a window in it as well. It was also further complicated by the existing sump pump pipe. We next built the small wall section of wall that goes between the fireplace and the front wall. This wall has a heat/ac duct and water shut off valve for outside in it. We basically had to build the wall short on one side. This is where we stopped for the day. I had to go to work and my dad needed to leave to get home, he can't drive at night any longer.

At this point there is only one section of wall about 12 ft left to build. This section has nothing special in it, but it does have another water pipe above it.

I was reading this posting and also the story it references in the Boston Globe. There were similar concerns raised in the last two weeks at my school. While the reactions were quick I am glad that they weren't so over the top as the ones in the Boston Globe story. As Mr. Thompson advocates we used the occasion more as a teaching opportunity rather than a punishment. We found that in many cases the blogs were being used for nothing more than relationship building. However in some cases they had gone farther than one would like. This is where the teaching came in. Hopefully we helped instruct the students in what should and shouldn't be put online.

Even if Scoble puts his cell number on his blog, it might not be the best idea for a <18 year old girl.

Also the idea that a school can tell students what and where to post online is a little dubious. Trying to enforce such a rule is a near impossibility. There is just no way to police every possible location on the web for posting, and further the students will simply become more anonymous.

Friday night I spent the night cleaning to prepare for my parent's visit. I continued Saturday morning. When my mom arrived she however continued cleaning while my dad and I worked. No matter how I clean it isn't quite enough. That is a mom for you though.

My dad and I spent the weekend working on the walls in the basement. Everything went pretty well except for one small snag. While securing a wall my dad managed to drive a nail through and through the main water pipe line to my house. It was a bit of mess and made worse by the fact that the house shut off valve didn't work. My neighbor helped by first shutting it off at the street and then patching the busted pipe. Neighbors rule.

We continued working on the walls on Sunday as well. My dad is even coming back next weekend and we may be able to finish the wall. You can read more details on my HT Blog.

Ed Bott asks the question about Apple's response to Media Center Extender. This brings up a post I did specifically talking about my theory on what it could be in following up a Robert X. Cringley post. I still think an AirPort Express with video outs is a distinct possibility. It seems to make perfect sense. The only other piece to add would be a remote control interface, which I imagine would just be exporting the FrontRow interface from the host machine. If they can fit what they need into an iPod they can definitely fit it into a new AirPort.

After reading and hearing about my earlier entry my former roommates gave me lots of encouragement (harassment) to get up on roof without concern. With this new found courage I decided to try the antenna again. I did it the way I originally had thought of, by placing my shorter ladder on the deck and getting on roof. Then I walked the length of the roof to get to where I wanted to mount the antenna.

What I realized was that the absolute worst part of the whole experience (for me at least) was the getting off ladder onto roof and the reverse. I didn't exactly love the rest of the whole roof thing but it wasn't all bad. By the end I was almost comfortable moving around up there.

I only had to redrill one set of holes since I didn't line up the upper and lower bracket properly. Also I only dropped one tool (on accident) which was my socket wrench I was using to tighten down the lag bolts. In many ways mounting the antenna while on the roof was easier than it was standing up on 15' tall ladder. I just lay down on roof and reached over the edge. The one part that was much easier was the actual placing of the antenna. Last time I had a 10' long pole with the antenna on one end just swinging around. This time I placed one 5' pole in the braces and then just placed the antenna mounted on the other pole on top of it. Much easier this time and no tangling in the electrical wires.

It still took me about 4 hours since I was going slow and careful. Mostly I couldn't carry everything up at once so there were many trips back and forth. One of the hardest things was drilling the hole through my outer wall to get the wires through. It was tough concrete that took a while to break through, and then the hole was just barely big enough to get the cables in. Luckily everything worked perfectly once I hooked it all up.

The only downside is that I was hoping to be able to get the DC stations. I can't seem to get a whiff of them. I was able to get the Baltimore stations in Alexandria so I was hoping the reverse would be true. I even bought a bigger antenna in hopes of helping, but no dice. It is so nice to have HD again though, football, lost, CSI, er and everything else.

This weekend in DC/Balt there was a rather large storm. It started late Thursday / early Friday and continued until late Saturday / early Sunday. In that time at my house 7" of rain fell, which is a lot. In other areas there was as much as 10". Sometime during the night something concerning my sump pump did not work quite right or quite keep up. When I woke up Saturday there were puddles on the floor in the laundry room. I should have known something was wrong when Zeus came up with wet paws, however I couldn't quite put it all together.

I spent a while trying to figure out what happened or went wrong. I noticed that the two extra floor tiles had floated across room which meant there was a good amount of water. I didn't find any leaks in the walls, they were dry. Which meant that the patches and dry lock paint seemed to work. I couldn't find any other leaks either. My best guess is the water came in too fast initially due the dry ground Friday night. Most of the water was gone by Saturday morning which was good. Also the pump kept up through the remainder of the rain.

The one positive is I found out that the floor I put in did its job. The edges were a little damp but the tops of floor weren't. Which means that if something like this happens again once there is carpet in the basement it won't get wet. I am going to install a water sensor as well so that I can catch the presence of water in the future before it is any problem at all. I was going to do it before but the total lack of rain for last two months made me lax. It can be believed as well that the instances of 7" of rain in less than 48 hours will be rare in future and I will be better prepared.

After the three hours of cleanup I did eventually go and hang out at the HoD for some turkey.

I was watching Threshold tonight and there were a few things that are mostly nitpicks but still bothered me.
1. One character was playing Halo (2) and it looked like multiplayer. Another character suggested a way to deal with the Jackals? Come on just say the Covenant.

2. Part of the episode took part in Baltimore. They talked about the Subway system and how federal employees take it to work. It is called the Metro and it barely goes anywhere in Baltimore let alone connecting to the DC Metro system.

3. They showed the Subway, in New York. It is very easy to tell by the train design and the spray painting. The DC and Baltimore Metro's may not be great but they don't have any spray paint on them.

Tonight my newish TV that I got for myself for my birthday had a weird problem. It is a Westinghouse LTV-27w2 that I bought to tide me over until I get basement done. Tonight the TV stopped responding to both the remote and the buttons on the TV. I had to pull the plug on the TV to get it to reset. It seems fine now, but weird anyway.

After finishing the upstaits wiring on September 11 I finally started putting the basement back together again. I finished pulling nails from the ceiling on September 24. It took me about 4 hours to do that. It was all the nails that were holding the dywall up. I also did some small cleanup in prep for the new floor.

I had bought 160 2'x2' sheets of dricore at the end of July. They have been sitting and waiting. On Sept 28 I got started with the floor. I did a couple of rows a night. I got a bunch done on Oct 1. Then I finished it on Oct 4 on my day off. The amazing thing is I used all or part of 158 sheets. I dare say pretty good calculation on my part. I had parts of 5-10 sheets left, but only the 2 totally unused. I would rather have two left than need two.

I finally got my new HDTV antenna today. I put it all together and got ready to mount it outside. A slight problem developed however. My ladder is about 10 ft too short to mount it at the peak. This of course sucked.

At this point I thought ok I will climb up on roof from the deck and then walk over to the peak. This brings up my semi fear of heights. I am not really afraid of heights, I am afraid of heights when I feel unsafe. Somehow walking on an angled roof just doesn't seem safe to me. Also I am woried about crashing through the roof into the attic. I shouldn't be worried about this since the inspector walked around on it and the satellite installer did too. I just get scared on unlevel heights with no railings.

My last idea was to try and use a wall mount instead. However there doesn't seem to be anything behind my siding to securely mount it to. Also there was the problem with darkness as I continued to work. Either I have to find someone with a long ladder or I have to get comfortable walking on roof. We will see what happens. Hopefully it doesn't end with me falling off roof.

Ed Bott mentions the story that a French Microsoft executive confirmed the intention of creating another service pack for XP. While I firmly believe that such a service pack is on the drawing boards I have great doubts that it will ever exist. I think it will go the way of Windows NT 4.0 SP7 and Windows 2000 SP5. Both of which made it past the Beta 2 stage and I believe to the RC stage before being killed off. In both cases the reason was that customers asked MS not to release it. Instead in both cases we have security roll-ups instead. If you search the MS knowledge base you can see refrences to each of the ill fated SP. I have a feeling sometime in early 2007 there will be a similar story come out about XP SP3 and how a security roll-up will be released in its place. There will also be other upgrades like avalon released, just not a mamoth (300 MB) patch. Just my guess.