POnderings

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June 22, 2005

Tubular Tissue

Ever need to blow your nose in the bathroom? Toilet paper works as a good substitute for facial tissue. So I did so.

My toddler see this and immediately exclaims.

No, paper not for nose. Paper for BUTT!

Posted by moochie at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Was this month wasted?

Well, it all over, except for the driving. The entire family, except for me, trucked themselves over to a grandparent's house to hang around for a month. The stated major reason was to give me time to do some major construction on the house.

Major construction without children getting into dangerous situations, or breathing in any foul things that I have to use. A laudable thing. So... what have I gotten done with my time?

Instead of listing ALL of the things that were not touched at all (The wish list is rather large) let's just go over the things I DID do.

• Rochester HamfestOther than getting a pair of $500 server-grade UPS' with dead batteries, a complete failure and waste of 2 days. Granted that with new batteries I'll wind up paying $130 total for $1,000 worth of UPS, I'm not very happy with the entire experience. Lots of people looked at the Compaq 1600, pair of Next "pizza boxes" and amazing expensive old oscilloscope, not one of my big items was bought.


• Massive Dangerous Pine TreeThis is basically done and a success. With my father, brother and his girlfriend's help we took down a huge pine tree that was threatening the house. It was planted 10' from the house. BUT it was only 40' tall, just a little taller than the house, no big deal? Actually, it had previously lost at LEAST half of it's height in a distant storm. No top. Huge tree. Huge PINE tree with shallow roots and a huge set of wind-catching branches that would easily take out the entire house when (not if) it falls.
  This was actually a success! It went down perfectly. All of the brush has been cleared, all of the small pieces have been stacked. I just need to split the logs sitting in the back yard, and to cut the huge log still sitting in the front yard.


• Nursery CeilingAgain, with family's help. Complete success! Check out the pictures in the usual location.


• Nursery WallsThe never-ending project. It's like an episode of Monster House or This Old House, every time I open a wall I find a bunch of extra stuff that I need to do because I now have the opportunity. I've gotten hit with insulating the outer wall, re-doing any wiring that I find, adding 3 more outlets and finding a tiny attic crawlspace with it's own bunch of insulating and wiring that need to be done. Yes, I could have ignored ALL of these extras, but it's work that needs to be done anyway.
  

  What HAS gotten done is: Attic crawlspace insulated, new wires dangled and ran to where I can find and use them later and a new outlet run to the landing on the stairway; outer wall insulated, outer wall covered in drywall, window frame sealed against drafts and one wall stripped of wallpaper.
  

  But I still have to remove the molding off of 2 more walls and strip the wallpaper off of them. Not too long a job, actually. But then I have to fix any damaged plaster I find, scrape off residual wallpaper paste, flatten the plaster and drywall with mud to make it nice and even and then prime everything with a couple coats of Killz. Not to mention replacing a broken window, cleaning and oil-treating all of the expensive Mahogony trim in the room; caulking the windows; cleaning and painting the ceiling molding; and repairing and sealing the plaster in the closet. After all of that, I can finally paint the room, replace all of the trimmage and do something with the floor.



• GarageI've been able to poke around a LITTLE bit in the garage. There is now a flourescent fixture with a plug that needs to be permanently wired, and some re-arranging. But I have a lot more I need to do.


• BasementDitto for the basement.


• ServersI actually got an amazing amount of work done here. Everything has been transferred and configured to the new hardware here in Syracuse. We now have a business-class connection (768kbit upload speed) with a true static IP that I own. AND I've found and modified a rack to fit in the basement. Now I just need some shelves so that I can transfer the hardware to it's new home.


• Desktop ComputersNow this one was a waste of time. I haven't rebuilt Melissa's computer yet. And the children's computer won't boot off of a CD and doesn't believe that floppy drives exist. Yes, I have bought a new IDE controller card for it. It may arrive TODAY. In shipping you can have either cheap or fast. Guess which option I picked?


• HousecleaningAt least this is mostly done. Almost everything has been picked up, so it isn't messy. But it really isn't baby-proof yet for the newly-crawling baby. All of the downstairs floors have been cleaned as well as the stairway. Laundry is done. Two bathrooms are clean. But there is still a lot to do.


• TruckI haven't gotten any of the shop maintenance done at all. And yesterday when I tried to change the oil I wound up rounding off the lousey oil pan plug. *AURGH* I have a brand new one sitting in my pocket right now. And a channel-lock is waiting at home... it is hungry for the old bolt. There WILL be a fight under the truck tonight

All-in-all, I'm tired. Nothing is completely done. I am very tired. And tomorrow at "0-dark-thirty" I drive 18 hours to pick everyone up again. Did I mention I was tired?

Posted by moochie at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)