Category: Home Improvement?

Our New “Roomie”

We have a new guest in our home.  He only comes out about once a week.  We like to call him our “roomie” but his real name is Roomba!

We are all very surprised at how well the roomba picks up dirt and debris.  We are even more surprised at how well he picks up pet hair.

The cats don’t know what to think of this new guest in “their” house, but we like him lots.  The operation of the roomba (model 4160) is simple enough a child could do it!  You press the power button, and then the clean button.  When the roomba is done with the area, it simply stops and plays a delightful tune!

Even better, when the battery is low, the roomba will even make it’s way to it’s charging base station and charge itself!  How cool?

A couple of years ago it was all about the dyson, and we tried a friends.  To be perfectly honest, it did not impress me at all.  The roomba does though, especially at half the cost of a dyson!

Nothing Fits

So much has happened since I last posted.  This will be a mish-mosh if you will, of thoughts, ideas and updates.

Personally this has been a trying week for me.  I had an interview at IU for a position, but due to the weird hours I currently work, I accidentally overslept and missed the interview.  It was a way out of this crazy lifestyle I am currently living.

We have a new problem with the house, flooding!¬† The last couple of weeks has been very rainy in Bloomington.¬† We knew the house had flooded when we purchased it, but thought it was a one time deal, we were wrong.¬† I called some “waterproofing” companies.¬†¬†That was¬†a joke.¬† The first company said that they would rip all of our concrete block walls out and replace them, plus they would sell me some backfill rock that is “patented and revolutionary” for only $5995.¬† I can understand this in extreme situations, but this isn’t major flooding.

I had my dad get a hold of my step-uncle (long story) to take a look at it.¬† He did, and told me he thought it was leaking at the point where the water line comes into the house, which is directly under our front door.¬† I ripped out everything in the vicinity and did not find any significant signs of a place for water to come in, but cleaned the area and sprayed some “stuff” on it.¬† I guess after tonight we’ll see the results, as it’s been raining all day.

I have met a kind spirit at work, something that is lacking majorly here.¬† His name is C.J., he’s a very interesting man, who happens to be the same age as my father.¬† He is into the same things I am, and we always have something to talk about.¬† The other day he gave me a video monitor he no longer used (an upgrade I needed badly).¬† I will miss him when I leave.¬† I will make sure to give him all of my info when that happens though.

I received a new client for my video business.¬† He told me over the phone he has over 80 tapes he wants transferred to DVD.¬† I received his first shipment last Tuesday and have been working constantly on them.¬† I sent him a shipment of 8 DVD’s today.¬† I hope he enjoys the care and hard work I put into his family’s memories.

I have learned that I do have some limitations when it comes to transferring video now, so I am hoping to correct these issues as soon as the funds become available.¬† The current plan is to build another computer, using some of the available parts I have on hand, and moving some from my current computer.¬† I don’t need a power machine, just a decent one.¬† So I’m checking out my options.

Yesterday I shut off my computer and did some wiring work, installed a new surge protector and my computer wouldn’t come back on.¬† Turns out my power supply had went bad.¬† I was somewhat scared because this was one thing I hadn’t done on a computer yet.¬† $42 later, I have a bigger power supply installed (by me).

I must say something about Editor B’s speech.¬† I was not there, and only saw a snippet from Anderson Cooper 360, but I’m sure it was amazing.¬† After watching almost every episode of ROX, I have a good idea of how he spoke.¬† I hope XY got it on video?¬† It’s still hard for me to understand how it is taking so long to recover.¬† All I have to say is Andrew, how long did it take Florida to rebuild and recover?¬† I know I’m merely speculating, but come on, without New Orleans, this country wouldn’t be anything like it is today.¬† What do you think made westward expansion possible?¬† We the people need to remember that.

We Already Have a Dishwasher, Me

The inevitable happened last night, our dishwasher finally gave out on us.  It still works, but water leaks everywhere!  After some in depth viewing, the leak is actually coming from inside the door.  It’s old, probably around 30+ years.  Luckily, we anticipated this, and asked that everyone purchase gift cards for us to help with this purchase.

Now every major appliance in the house has been replaced except the stove, and it’s on it’s last leg.  A few months ago the oven just quit working.  We tried and tried and tried to get someone to repair it.  Someone even came out, and told us what the problem was.  They said they would order the part and return to install. That date has yet to come!  We have called, and even visited their shop, to no avail.  A couple of weeks ago, my mom came up from Louisville.  As I was explaining the stove situation, tada it started working again!

I guess the garage will have to wait a little while longer.  I want to just get it done, but have had little to no time due to my constant job search and the weird hours I am available to anyone now.

We have started a log of changes and repairs we have made to the house.  A great idea of my wife!

Hopefully the house will start to look different.  Rachel (and Taylor maybe) will start tearing the wallpaper off today.  Isn’t it hideous?  After some drywall patching we will paint, finally!  The original plan was to do it right after we moved in, 5 months ago.

This Crazy Little Thing Called My Life

I said goodbye to Big Red Liquors yesterday, and said hello to FirstLease today.

In some ways, this job at FirstLease is a dream.  I get to drive Tractor/Trailers, a.k.a Rigs.  In 2001 I went with a buddy of mine out on the road for 3 weeks, and loved every minute of it!  He let me drive a few times, not long, but enough to be addicted.  I cannot drive a rig due to my epilepsy, but I would if I could.

 

 

I must say I enjoyed today tremendously.¬† The only bad part was the weather, which in Indiana, changes like a womans mind.¬† The main tasks of this position are fueling the tractor and trailer, checking fluids, cleaning the inside of the trailer and parking them.¬† That’s it!

There is only one thing I don’t really like about this job, and that’s the hours.¬† After I am fully trained, I will move to 3rd shift, 12am to 8am.¬† I will work every weekend and have 2 days off during the week.¬† It’s¬†a decent paying job, so I can’t complain¬†that much.

Now a little update on my garage renovation.

My father called a “friend” who “knows his stuff” about electricity in to take a look.¬† He told me the best thing to do was to rip all the wiring out and start fresh.¬† So that’s what I did.

To quote J from episode 91, “we have some anal leakage.”¬† The main drain line for our upstairs bathrooms is leaking.¬† I called in the plumbers on this one, they recommended to replace a whole section of line.¬† I’m glad we got that home warrantee.

After we get the leakage stopped, I will start actually remodeling our garage.¬† Something I’ve always wanted, a nice garage.

I have almost everything picked out, or purchased for this renovation.  The only new things left to purchase are insulation, OSB and new light fixtures, I believe.

Home Improvement?

It all started with my wife. Not saying it’s her fault, she just wanted to park in our garage(I don’t blame her).¬† The key problem was our garage door openers and the lights.¬† The openers are as old as the house (1974), and the lights in the garage¬†are a very complex and complicated situation.

I found a really kewl website for all of you out there who enjoy making your home hi-tech.¬† It’s called Smart Home.¬† I found devices that made it possible for my loving wife to open the garage doors with a remote like all new openers, without buying a new one!¬† I also found something called an “occupancy sensor.”¬† In the short of it, it’s a motion detector that turns your lights on when it senses motion and/or heat.¬† I thought I would install these items and we would be on our way.

I thought wrong!  When I went to install the occupancy sensor, lets just say I got in WAY over my head.  I ended up disabling all of our lights in the garage, now our only means of light is daylight from opening the doors and plugging a fixture into an outlet.  The way the circuit was wired for the lights is very strange and I cannot figure it out.  I am probably calling an electrician in to fix this.  To help lower the cost, I am removing everything covering the wiring, so he can trace the wiring and I can be on my way.  My plans are to cover everything with OSB (Oriented Strand Board) aka Plywood or Chipboard.

Our homes’ previous owner did not maintain this place like he should of, and because of that, many things need 10 years worth of maintenance or replacement.¬† In this adventure I have discovered mold about knee high on the drywall backing.¬† Much of the insulation is moldy as well and needs to be replaced.¬† So in the end, it seems the first room we are renovating in the house is the garage.¬† A surprise to me, but it needed done.

As B is finishing? his basement, I am beginning on mine!

What a Week!?!

I’ve been so busy, tired and just plain confused to even think about writing for a while.¬† I have “some” free time, so I thought I would vent.

I had a chance at really making my mom & pop operation a real business!¬† Indiana University requested I give them a bid for a HUGE DVD transfer job.¬† It was going to be 250 or 500 DVD’s.¬† Luckily I had some inside information because my wife works there.¬† I tried to undercut everyone, which I think I did.¬† But in the end, the company who produced the video to be transferred received the job.¬† Better luck next time I suppose.¬† It’s nice to be considered though.¬† If I could only get my foot in the door.

Business has taken another one of it’s on again cycles.¬† My first customer had me transfer 19 VHS tapes, another co-worker wanted a tape transferred onto 2 DVDs, one in NTSC (American TV standard) and the other in PAL (a different TV standard).¬† It was a very interesting job.¬† Now the person who sits directly across from me wants me to transfer 12 VHS-C tapes into 3 DVD’s.¬† Something is better than nothing, I just hate this feast or famine stuff.

Then I had a slight computer melting problem.¬† For some unknown reason, a power connector to my video card sparked, and melted the connector.¬† Luckily a local computer shop gave me a pigtail to replace the connector and I’m back in black.¬† With as much DVD transfer and ROX work I’ve been doing, I’m seriously pondering replacing my case and upgrading to a dual-core processor.¬† From what I’ve read and researched, it would be a seamless upgrade.¬† The benefits would highly outweigh the costs.¬† For example right now it takes 2+ hours to render a ROX episode.¬† I could cut that time down to a little bit more than an hour with a dual-core processor.¬† So we’ll see I guess.

I got some interesting news today.¬† “ROXFAN” sent me an email saying he had copies of episodes 8&9 of ROX.¬† He said they are in decent shape.¬† Hopefully I will be getting a copy soon.¬† Maybe season one will get done before Christmas?

Mish Mosh

I’ve been having some connectivity problems lately with my PC.¬† It was built for speed and doesn’t like this “win” modem that I installed merely as a backup to broadband.¬† So I am not online like I used to be.

I have been doing a lot of work on our house lately.¬† Today my father, wife and I trimmed trees and moved them into a pile.¬† This took a lot of time.¬† The former homeowner did not maintain things as he should of.¬† The feng shui of my yard is starting to really flow.¬† I am starting to feel a positive vibe about it.¬† The only major¬†”to-do’s”¬†left with the yard are the remains of the pool and the trench in our yard from connecting to the sewer system.¬† They should be corrected by next year.

I am working on a 8mm to DVD job as well and found a nice feature of the software I use.¬† I can actually flip, rotate and reverse video!¬† It seems like something so small, but it’s huge.¬† I had a reel of film that was upside down and backwards, so it made it easy to fix.

I have changed e-mail addresses as well, all of you who know me got the email.¬† I am tired of juno, they seem to of sold out to “United Online.”¬† What happened to the good old dayz?

I will get to meet all of my neighbors in Sunrise Estates tomorrow for a neighborhood meeting.  A trailer park next to us wants to expand, and we are all meeting to discuss and try to supress this from happening.  I think it would be okay if this were a decent trailer park, but these trailers are not kept up, and are quite old.  Neither is the area the trailers are in.  There is no order to how they are placed.  One here, one there sort of thing.  Hopefully we can argue a happy medium. 

Until next time…..

The Joys & Struggles of Home Ownership

In almost a month of being a homeowner, my wife and I have done the following.

Replaced:  Refridgerator, Range Hood, Garbage Disposal, 3 Light Fixtures and 3 Sink Traps.

I have had to repair many other things.  And while I actually enjoy doing these sorts of things, it has really cut into time allowed for my business, and my freedom it seems.

The sad part is that we haven’t even started on the things we really wanted to change yet.¬† Don’t get me wrong, the house is very livable.¬† It just doesn’t have the “look” we want yet.

For instance, this weekend, I wanted to demo our garage and put up new coverings for the ceiling and 1 wall.¬† Well I can’t because the utility room is a disaster area.¬† I spent all night last night repairing the toilet flange.¬† Now the valve running to the toilet is leaking.¬† So when I leave work guess what I’ll be doing?

I guess it’s a good thing that I have a background in home repair, right?¬† We could be blowing thousands of dollars by calling contractors out to do a lot of this stuff.

It seems so weird, but I almost feel as if I’m living ROX 91 & 92.¬† If I only used my camcorders to actually tape stuff.

I’ve made my spheil, so until next time.