Renovation update 06/06/2007

Scope creep hits every project… 🙂

We were so pleased with the new toilet (Gerber EF-21-312) in the master bathroom that, on impulse I decided to replace ALL of our toilets with the same model. Apparently slabs are known for their less-than-enthusiastic sewer drainage. These new ones I swear push whatever’s in them all the way to the waste water treatment plant in one go!

Also, the 1/2 bathroom next to the garage has a small window and no ventilation fan so we decided to update that too. We don’t really need one for the usual reason of removing moisture but rather to aid in guest’s vanity to try to remove any evidence of what was going on in there. Hopefully this will end that odd practice of lighting matches and other bizarre behavior folks do to hide being human… Mich pointed out (after I had ordered a new Panasonic (FV-08VF2) WhisperFitfan from Ira Wood & Sons) that we probably wanted a noisier fan just to mask any noises coming from that room 🙂
Anyway here is how the updated 1/2 bath looks

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With the fan.

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This morning we also worked with Tommy to figure out where the mirror and the new lighting for the guest bathroom should go

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The electrician came back today and wired up both the fan in the 1/2 bath and replaced our old 3 gang with a 4 gang switch in the guest bath

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The can lights were installed

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and the pancake box for the lighting fixture was installed.

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Mich still needs to find the right medicine cabinet – she had found it at Lowes earlier but had decided to get a smaller one and now they are sold out of the one she wants. Tommy has one at home that he thought she might like so we’ll check that out tomorrow.

Beware iTunes 7.2.0.34 update!

**Update 4:00 pm**  Shut down my soundbridge and doppler and then restarted iTunes. Then I attached my iPod and *presto* my audio files reappeared. Of course the “Sync movies” option was unchecked as usual so I checked it, hit the “Apply” button and now I’m synching my 17+ Gbytes of video content… again.

**End Update**

**Update 8:30 am** When I got to my car I realized that, even though iTunes was showing all of my songs/podcasts as loaded on my iPod. Nothing was accessible to be played. Of course I always keep a backup audiobook in the car for such “emergencies” 🙂 but it is annoying nonetheless. This is telling me that I need to disable Apple’s auto updater so that I can run it only when I have time to fix any mess that it may create.

**end update**

My iTunes updated itself overnight. For some reason, every once in a while (I’m pretty sure it’s after an update) iTunes stops synching my video content. It’s *really* annoying since it dumps it all and then I have to re-select the video content in iTunes and it needs to copy all of the files back over again.

This morning iTunes is at 7.2.0.34 and I see that the video tab is simply gone. After synching I get the dreaded “Some of your content was not synced because your software is too old” garbage message and all video content is gone. I don’t even have the option to correct this and now I’ve got to get to work. 🙁

If you use the apple auto updater, beware!

Renovation update 06/05/2007

This was largely a grunt day. Larry was head down in the bathroom with no windows on a high eighty-degree day priming and prepping the walls, door and vanity.

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Finally the wallpaper is gone

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A quick view above the shower head

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and another view into the attic (never ceases to amaze me).

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Tommy was meanwhile doing finishing touches on the master bathroom and loads of finicky finishing things (Thanks for mounting the radio in the shower!).

Minimalist Stick Figure Theater

Minimalist Stick Figure TheaterI stumbled on this web comic a few months ago and have been slowly working my way through the archives. There is a little philosophy, a little insight, some playfulness and a whole lack of detail in these comics that make them very appealing to me.

The main character is a quasi-cynical quasi-loser – to over-use the “quasi” thing – who shall remain nameless (really!) encountering a rich array of secondary characters. There is continuity of experience from comic to comic which I greatly appreciate and which lends a sophistication to it that has me always anticipating the next offering.

Be sure you read the author’s note at the bottom of each comic. Often the insights are as amusing or revealing as the comics themselves.

Check it out – Minimalist Stick Figure Theater

Renovation update 06/04/2007

Arrrgh! I can’t *believe* that I forgot to take a “before” picture of the guest bathroom before we started work on it today!!!

We are not going to be nearly so bold with this aspect of our renovations as with the other bathroom. But we are removing the false ceiling, replacing the flourescent lights with can lights, updating to a better bathroom fan and replacing the counter, sink, faucets and medicine chest.

Add a little new wallpaper and paint and the project is nearly done 🙂

Here is the project just after Larry pulled out the ceiling and medicine cabinet

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Larry is sporting his camera-inspired “The Shining” look… 🙂

You can see the framework for the fan and light support over the counter here.

By the end of the day, much of the wallpaper was gone

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Here’s a nice view into the attic (above where the mirror used to be)

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A slightly more oblique view

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And here is the ceiling over the back of the bathtub (soon to receive a can light)

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and finally a view back toward the door (before it gets painted)

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Also, Sue from Atlanta Kitchen called and asked if we wouldn’t mind taking some pictures of our new master bathroom counter for them to keep in an album so I obliged and sent Hi res versions of the four shots below.

This one shows off the newly installed medicine cabinet cover that Tommy put in today. It needs a bit more work to protect the back of the mirror but it looks very attractive already.

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Pretty much all that’s left to do in the master vanity area is those medicine cabinets and to putty and stain a few nail holes in the mirror frame. Of course there are ALWAYS some other little touch-ups that need to be done but the end of the road is near.

It turns out that the mirror company ended up charging nearly 3 times what they quoted for the mirrors. Tommy will be contacting them to get that sorted out. I’ll need to get their name anyway just for my own records. I’ll let you know how that works out.

Here are the remaining pictures of the counter

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and

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and

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In my update from May 18th I mentioned that one of the Acrylic handles for the shower doors had arrived slightly mal-formed. I’m pleased to report that they (the company Maax) had a new pair of handles out to us within a week and the doors look great. Interestingly they sent us two handles which is good since one of them was slightly scratched. The other one was pristine.

Amateur Animal Kingdom

When I watched this I wasn’t really expecting much. Unless you have a LOT of time to wait or you go ahead and stage some kind of confrontation (or maybe just edit a bunch of unrelated scenes together) you are seldom lucky enough to capture this kind of footage.

It’s a little long at 8 minutes, but take my word for it, this is well worth watching to the end. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything this socially complex before in a safari-style video.

It’s kind of like “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” meets “Animal Kingdom” only with a Hollywood ending… of course I suppose that depends on who you’re rooting for… I won’t give it away.

**Updated 2009-10-10 **
The CollegeHumor version of the video mysteriously disappeared so I’ve “rediscovered” it on Youtube:


** End Update **

Trying OpenDNS

If you use the Internet, you’re using DNS (Domain Name System).

I heard about this listening to the Slashdotreview podcast a couple of days ago. OpenDNS claims that they can perform faster DNS lookups than can your ISP. They further claim they can correct typos (i.e. you type wikipedia.og instead of wikipedia.org) as well as protect you from known Phishing pages.

So I’m giving them a whirl. I’ve added the OpenDNS IP addresses to the formerly empty static DNS IP address section in my WRT54G router and am using it now.

Given the vagaries of the Internet, it’s not really possible to say immediately whether DNS resolution is faster than it used to be. I suppose that will end up being a qualitative judgment on my part after a few more days of use.

However I *can* say that the “type correction” feature is pretty slick. If you get the URL hopelessly wrong (i.e. leave off the extension entirely), rather than getting a “cannot be found” kind of error, you are directed to a search page that usually has the correct option very near the top.

I’ve played a little bit with the shortcut ability (i.e. I type “mb” on the address bar and it figures it out and sends me to https://marc-bourassa.com) although I *am* somewhat sketchy on how it know it’s *me* typing that shortcut. Dynamic IP addresses for home users is the norm. The FAQ doesn’t address this item.

Going to my other computers yields different results, my old Win2K laptop, when I type “mb” on Firefox’s address bar brings up wikipedia’s definition for “Megabyte”. On Mich’s laptop doing the same thing brings up the OpenDNS search results page.

Solution: It turns out that I need to be logged into OpenDNS. You have the option of remaining logged in until you explicitly log out, so that little mystery is solved.

I’ll play with this a little more and see if I have any issues.

One Care Live not updating AV and Spyware Defs

*Update 5/30/2007* Got home this evening and all appears to be well again…

I keep all of my systems up to date. This morning I noticed my One Care Live icon (in the system tray) was red and, on clicking it, I saw that I have an “urgent” warning that my virus and spyware definition files are out-of-date.

Clicking the “Update Now” button did nothing, nor did clicking the “Check for updates” hotlink to the right of the “Protection Plus” section.

Checking Microsoft’s web site (oncare.live.com) I see they have a community section where folks are discussing this issue . The last entry at the moment is the stalwart soul who has been on hold for over 104 minutes with MS’ tech support.

Interestingly, the laptop what was in standby overnight *seems* OK. I just brought it out of standby and explicitly checked for updates and it’s claiming that all is well. Maybe the issue is to do with the automated update (bad def file??)

I expect it’s a Microsoft glitch but I’ll be a little happier once the issue has been resolved…