Pix – Page 13 – lee-lawmaster.com

Season One

I started working on ROX because of a passion. This show is one of the few things that let me get away from the craziness and feel free from the uncertainty that was my life.

When I “rediscovered” the show in my late teens, I began going to the MCPL and getting my hands on as many episodes as possible. VHS tapes were extremely cheap at the time, and I thought I would eventually do something with that collection. While I’m unsure of how many episodes I currently have, it has to total more than 50. Little did I know that an infamous hurricane would run me into a crash course with the shows’ producers.

I had just built an amazing computer at the time, and I wanted to condense all of those VHS tapes taking up space in our apartment. So I made a DVD set of the first 6 episodes for the shows’ creators. This would start an ongoing collaboration to stabilize the archives of this show.

Four years later, I seemed to be at an impasse. After buying a home, going to school and having a child on the way, I didn’t seem to have any free time to even relax – let alone work on a “hobby.” In that time, we had re-worked my original creation into a product that many fans have purchased and enjoy to this day. I had also done hundreds of hours of work to try to make some damaged episodes of the show up to par.

I have begun work on authoring the DVDs that will become the season one set. Preliminary results show it will be an 8 disc set. Due to packaging constraints, it will be split into two volumes; sold as one. I’m not sure on the price yet, but I expect it to be in the $30 range. With 25 episodes, and a few extras – this was a much larger undertaking than the 7 episodes of season zero.

With season zero, I was wet behind the ears. For season one, I’ve sharpened my skills.

I hope to have all of the preliminary work done within a few weeks. I’m sure editor b will make some announcement when the time is right.

A special thanks goes out to “roxfan” who sent me a few episodes on DVD. Without the kind generosity of people like him, this project would still be stalled. You will be the first to receive a set. I just need to find your address. If you read this, leave me a comment and I will get back with you.

These sets are a completely non-profit project. All charges are for cases, discs, ink, inserts and all other associated costs. The biggest of the costs being ink. We might setup a bartering system, to help eliminate costs.

Half a Decade

Five years ago tomorrow, I became a husband. While I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into back then, I actually appreciate it now. Five years really doesn’t sound like much, but it’s an accomplishment in today’s world.

Throughout these years, Rachel and I have accomplished many things together. We bought a house, she got her master’s degree, I lost my job and now our newest adventure, our first child.

Our lives before each other were as different as night and day, but our beliefs have kept us close in many ways. I think it’s the core reason why our bond has lasted. It’s a case of opposites attracting. Our bond has done nothing but grow closer over time, something I hope doesn’t end anytime soon.

We will be celebrating our 5th anniversary with a trip down to French Lick. We’re going to spend a night at the French Lick Springs Hotel and perhaps do a little gambling. The traditional gift of the 5 year anniversary is wood. While the trip is our gift to each other, I have to break the rules and buy a present. While I can’t say what it is yet, I know she will be pleasantly surprised.

I hope to get a chance to relax, as I haven’t had much time to do that in a while. School starts back up in 11 days, and I’m back to work at TS full time right now, but that will be scaled back to 24 hours a week at the end of the month.

Today is my father’s 58th birthday as well, I called and left him a message this morning. I hope he got it. I love you dad.

August is a very busy month for us. My father’s birthday on the 13th, our anniversary on the 14th and Taylor’s birthday on the 26th.

Winding Down

My summer is quickly drawing to a close. My last class for the summer semester is tomorrow, I start working at TS again on August 10th and the birth of my second child is becoming more imminent as each day passes.

I’ve been pre-ocupied with class and remodeling the nursery. I don’t feel like the progress is coming along like I wanted it to with the nursery.

This is the first room that will be “complete” in the house. While we have painted, installed doors, ect. One thing we haven’t done is change our trim from stained to painted. This room will be. Once little one is born, we will take a remodeling break and then change the trim, each room at a time.

I’m very happy that I was able to take a break from work this summer and focus on my studies. While I only have one grade posted thus far, I believe I’ll have 3 A’s and a C. The C is due to some weird quizzes that had wrong answers! The professor would sometimes throw a few points our way, but nothing that made up for the loss. I now have a greater appreciation of what it’s like to be a college student. If our finances could support it, I’d like to continue going full time until I complete my degree.

My computer’s power supply died again, at least it’s still under warranty. I took it into PC Max, but it will probably be a couple of weeks before its return due to Antec’s slow warranty claim process.

We bought a new car, well new to us. With the impending arrival of a new member of the family, we needed a more family friendly vehicle. I didn’t want to trade in my truck, but I did due to it’s much higher trade-in value than the Kia. We bought a 2007 Chevrolet HHR 1LT. We’ve rented them on two occasions and love them! It looks small, but has a lot more room than you would think it does.

Once I get some time to coordinate my thoughts, I’ll write something with more focus. In the meantime, if you’re my friend on twitter or facebook – I’ll keep you updated.

A New and Improved Space

We officially finished the remodeling portion of our basement area over the weekend. Rachel, Taylor and I applied the epoxy basement floor coating on Friday night. It required 24 hours to fully cure, so by the time her family arrived on Sunday we were able to give the first full tour of our proud accomplishment.

Here is what the space looked like when we purchased this place. It was dark, dingy and uninviting.

Until now, we mainly used the space as a place to “put stuff.” We didn’t use or utilize it for any meaningful purpose. We knew the time would come when we would have to use it, and that time came quickly.

One issue that we weren’t sure about was if we had any structural issues. The downstairs would get water when it rained heavily. The first step was to take out all the old paneling and carpet and get the space down to its bones. To our luck, there were no visible issues. We corrected a majority of the water issues with a repair to the gutters.

We had many decisions to make, all of which were extremely difficult. We needed to decide what to cover the walls and floor with, whether or not to install new cable and phone lines. Many of these decisions brought on major arguments-in which we were able to bring to the surface any issues we had with each option.

In the end we decided to go with new paneling, an epoxy basement floor coating, and to add some electrical outlets and completely rewire our homes phone and cable lines. We decided to add a wired LAN as well.

The only step left is to connect all the new phone, cable and LAN wires, which I plan on doing this week. I will then officially move my office to a space we have dedicated for that purpose.

The other area, which I am calling the “Den” we have purchased and placed 2 futons and added an area rug. We needed a space for guests to stay, and this space is perfect.

We did not remodel our fireplace, as all aspects of fireplaces are very expensive. The things I want to do are not major, but are expensive. I hope to have that complete within a couple of years. There’s nothing more comfortable and calming to me than laying by a fire listening to music or reading.

I now have a bedroom to remodel for our growing arrival, baby girl Lawmaster!

Continue reading “A New and Improved Space”

So Far

So far I have mostly completed the office area of the basement, it just needs new paneling, paint and the floor coating.

I have begun on the other side of the basement, beginning with the removal of the hideous ceiling fan. It worked, but did not fit the look or atmosphere we want in our home. I had a fun time trying to wire the replacement light fixture we put in it’s place, as it had a remote switch wiring scheme.

I have not completed much work on the other side besides the removal of the paneling and replacing the one fixture. From what I can tell, our walls are sound. We did have a slight worry since we have a pine tree about 10 feet away from that corner of the house.

We recently had the corners of our gutters repaired, which I think may have been the root of our water leakage issues.

There is one issue that I’m still trying to wrap my brain around, and that’s how I’m going to run new cable, phone and LAN lines to the exterior wall in the living room. I had believed that there was a line directly going to the corner of this room, as the label on it said “attic.” I was wrong. Access to this particular spot is difficult due to the placement of our fireplace. This particular spot is almost just above the fireplace. I’ve always wanted a fireplace, but for this particular instance I do not.

My concrete repair work started out slow, but is going much better now.

When I attempted this method of repairing, I came into many issues. When my sander would contact the patch, the patch would fly out of the hole. So I changed my game plan, and just filled the hole and not the surrounding areas as well. This method has went so well that I would like to do the whole basement, but Rachel will have none of that. She just wants the rooms done.

Our next few weeks are booked, so the time I have to dedicate to working on this is little at the moment. I have basically the same things to do on this side as I did in the office. The key difference is there is less wall area to renovate. I guesstimate that with only 2 or 3 more weekends, I will be ready to put new paneling up.

Repairing the Floor

I have everything completed in the walls of my office. I have one more thing to do before I can move on to the other area downstairs.

This is just a sample of what the perimeter of our basement floor looks like. The floor originally was covered with carpet. As a part of carpet installation, tack strips were put down on the perimeter of the floor. Since the basement does get some water from time to time, we are not going to put a floor covering down that has the potential of being damaged due to water. We have decided to either stain the concrete or apply an epoxy coating.

I want to repair all of these chips to make the floor visually appealing, and smooth. I have no experience with masonry or concrete, so this will be an adventure.

With anything I have no experience with, I first search the internet for any available information to try to learn as much as possible before undergoing a project. While there are many articles and how-to’s on how to repair a crack in a concrete sidewalk, or a missing corner from a concrete sidewalk, there is absolutely nothing on this particular issue. I’ve searched endlessly as I don’t want to mess this up. I hope my trial and error can help someone out in cyberspace.

I purchased some masonry crack filler that comes pre-mixed in a 1L bottle. It seems like the proper patch tool for the job. The first step was to remove all of the existing nails, and clean the area thoroughly.

I then poured the filler in to the holes, making sure to overfill each hole.

I tested it out to see if I could sand this filler to make the patch perfectly smooth and level with the rest of the floor. It seems to sand very well. There is a cancer warning for the dust particles that come from this, so I will be wearing a mask whenever sanding.

The patch is still drying and my Monday is booked. I am planning on sanding this section down on Tuesday night. I will update my progress then.

So It Begins…

We officially began remodeling our basement on Saturday. Rachel and I removed the trim to all the paneling. Sunday I got ancy and removed the paneling and installed a new light fixture. What was waiting for us was shocking and interesting at the same time.

First surprise: Ants!

What you are seeing is not dirt, it’s ants. They must have been living behind the paneling for years. When I removed the corner pieces they just came flying out. We hosed them down with some mean stuff that we have. It was very surprising to me that they could live behind there without coming out. There isn’t much behind the wall except for wood, insulation and concrete blocks.

Second Surprise: Pepsi Bottle!

Behind the hollow wall that our utility room shares was this bottle. We’ve traced it down to being made between 1960 and 1967. The puzzling thing is that our house was built in 1974. Not being alive during this time, I’m not sure how long glass bottles stayed in circulation. My dad told me that it’s possible that this bottle was still in use during the construction of our home. We cleaned it up and will give it to my father-in-law the next time we see him. My dad collects these things, but I think it would be more special to Joe.

This is where my progress has ended as of now. I haven’t removed the insulation on the walls yet, but from what I can tell thus far it is in good shape. If there is no mold on it I will reuse it and add a vapor barrier.

We have split the downstairs into 2 seperate areas for remodeling purposes. This makes for 2 smaller jobs versus 1 bigger one, thus making it more manageable. I have some re-wiring work to do as our home was constructed “pre-cable.” It has plenty of flat antenna cable, but not RG6 (what is used for cable and satellite TV). I am also re-wiring all of our phone outlets, as right now they are shoddy at best. I had to re-wire them to make our DSL connection work.

Once all the backend work is done, I’m going to put the paneling back up. I’m hoping to save as much of this as possible, but much of it is rotted or has big holes in it from 30+ years of living. I’m going to call my “daughter’s mother’s step-dad” to put the trim back up. He’s a master carpenter – someone needed for some of the complex angles this has.

After that’s done twice, we will paint the paneling to lighten up the area. There is only 1 window for the entire downstairs and it can be a little creepy down there. Then onto the floor. The first step is repairing the surface. There was carpet in there originally, and after removal of the tack strips it has caused little chips to be removed. Shouldn’t be a hard problem to solve. Then onto the finish, we have been discussing 2 viable options, concrete stain or epoxy coating. I’m a fan of concrete stain, as it gives a very nice appearance. Rachel is a fan of epoxy coating as it’s a bit cheaper.

After all this is over I then have a bedroom to re-do. This bedroom is where I’m writing this right now. It has a shelving unit that was crudely attached which I’m removing. After repairing the drywall there isn’t much work to do except paint and a new closet door.

Those are the plans, but I’m sure there will be some bumps in the road. I’ll be writing as often as I can to document the first “real” remodel of our home. I can’t wait to see my Home Office / Man Cave become a reality!

Goodbye Baby Tat

Baby Tat (named by Taylor) was originally named Olivia and then named Baby by our friends Jeff & Sara who we got her from. They have numerous cats (8 or so) and she didn’t get along with another alpha kitty in their household. We decided to take her from them to possibly give her a better living environment.

Our other cats, Furby and Oreo were mixed on the addition of a new roommate. Oreo loved it, and we eventually started calling the two “lovers.” Although they couldn’t consummate their relationship they acted very much like a couple. Furby is the embodiment of a “grumpy old man.” He is an alpha kitty as well. The two would sometimes get along, but most of the time fought to the bone. Those fights would sometimes rattle the house.

Baby Tat has been showing her distress by leaving bombs all over the house. When I say bomb, I really mean feces. We know there is nothing physically wrong with her, but nothing we tried to do would help or solve this situation.

Out of frustration, we gave her a new home. A gentleman came over Sunday to meet her, and they seemed to make a connection. She stayed in his arms (which she wouldn’t do that long for any of us.) He grew up with a cat and missed the companionship. He doesn’t have any other animals at home either, which is a big plus for this princess.

Although the house is a bit quieter, and there seems to be an empty hole where she used to be. I believe she will be better off.

We miss you Baby Tat!

Pre-Occupied

Lately I have been pre-occupied with many things, which have diverted my attention away from accomplishing a single task. So I’m going to merely list some updates as to what’s been going on since I last posted.

Hope is in sight: My truck is still broken. We got a deal on a complete fuel pump assembly on eBay. It’s brand new and OEM, so I’m not too concerned about it working. Last Saturday I tried to install it, but this job is meant for someone who either works on vehicles all the time, or has power tools. Since I am neither, I couldn’t do the job. My dad called last night and my step-uncle agreed to do it for me. My dad is having it towed to his house today and I anticipate it being completed before any bad snowfalls occur.

Family Memories: My mother-in-law gave us some priceless family photos to scan into the computer. Some dating back to 1906! I’m not sure if she knew it, but many of these “old” photos were actually scanned and printed out by someone already. Who that is I don’t know. Some of these pictures need some help, as they have cracks on them or have pieces ripped off. I hope to sharpen up my photoshop skillz and fix ’em.

There are several “cards” which I find quite moving. They are what I would call “death memorial” cards. They were given out (by the church?) when someone died. My wifes’ family is from Dubois county, which is rich with German heritage. This card is written in German and Latin. I find the artwork on the back quite moving. What do you think?

Music, Music, Music: I finally caved and bought an iPod. I refuse to pay retail for one, so I went second hand on eBay. I got a nice 30gb model, which is big enough for what I need. I didn’t buy this iPod for personal entertainment, but to convert all of our CD’s into electronic media. This way we can get rid of the enormous space they take up. Once everything is done, we’re going to put them into storage.

I have imported them all into iTunes and discovered one interesting thing. CD’s over time, with scratches and other defects can sound like old LP’s. Some of the tracks I have imported have that “scratchy” sound made infamous by LP’s. Now I have a monumental task of going through roughly 2500 songs and re-importing the ones whose quality doesn’t meet my standards…ugh

Once all is complete, I won’t be lugging any CD’s on trips anymore. Just an iPod and a FM transmitter/docking station. It’s a dream come true.

Continue reading “Pre-Occupied”

Down and Out, For Now

Sunday as Rachel, Taylor and I were heading to my grandma’s for some delicious vegetable soup, my truck died. I was able to get it re-started to get it turned around and on the way back to our home. It stopped about 50 feet shy of our driveway, and in the middle of our road. We tried to push, but it wouldn’t budge.

An argument ensued, and I decided we leave it there for the moment and enjoy some soup to warm our souls. We would return to move the truck soon enough.

When we returned, we couldn’t get the truck out of Park. It just wouldn’t budge. I don’t believe it’s my ignition switch again, cause we can crank the truck and the steering wheel isn’t locked up.

All in all, there are 2 problems affecting my truck that if taken to a shop will cost around $1,000 to fix. My fuel pump has bit the dust, and some safety device which prevents the transmission from coming out of Park.

With the help of my neighbor Bill, I removed the drive shaft and we pulled my truck with Rachel’s Kia.

I can save myself about $600 by installing the fuel pump myself. There are many “ifs” in this situation though. I’ve never replaced one before, the weather is not conducive to working in the cold, did I mention it’s cold?

Rachel wants to just get rid of the truck, but it’s imperitive that we have a second mode of transportation. Should I get a job somewhere not on the IU campus, I will need a way to get there.

With the trucks’ current condition, we would have to give it away. Something I’m not willing to do.

I hope the truck isn’t still broken down by the time we need it, such as 6+ inches of snow.