May, 2009

I’ve been meaning to share my spring/summer project on this blog for a while now but hadn’t downloaded the progress photos from the camera until now. I’m renovating our 24′ x 24′ (oversized) two stall garage… adding electrical, insulation, drywall, and storage. I’m doing this because the garage isn’t as usable as it could be.. and I like to improve things. Storage space has consisted of “throwing it up into the rafters” and winters are not kind to the garage. From time to time, condensation drips off of the nails in the ceiling and during cold spells, water and ice build on on our vehicles and on the garage floor. Drainage problems abound and I find myself each spring wishing I didn’t have so much clean up after four or five months of winter. Here are the steps I am taking/have taken:

1. Chalk baseboards and drafty building seams

2. Add another exterior light to enhance visibility in front of the garage and on street corner (on a light sensor circuit)

3. Insulate walls with R-13

4. Add electrical outlets above future workbench

5. Add thermostat-controlled heater

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6. Add electrical outlet for Christmas wreath (on a light sensor circuit)

7. Insulate ceiling with R-19

8. Groove cement floor to manage water drainage

9. Epoxy/coat garage floor (hired service?)

10. Drywall walls, ceiling (hired service/lots of friends)

11. Add organization components (Gladiator 6′ workbench, modular tool drawer, gear locker, 2x 30″ cabinets.. also looking for some soft of metal handing shelf for sides of garage.. any ideas?)

When all is said and done, I’m going to be maintaining 40 degrees or so in the garage during the winter.. allowing all ice to melt and all liquids and tools to stay in the garage during the winter (instead of being moved to the basement of the condo).

Trip to Lowes for new exterior light

After first or second day of chalking/insulation work

Exterior light, installed on a light sensing switched power line

More work done today.  Last night Kellie and I tore off all the drywall on the back wall so I could insulate and chalk it.  Workbench is also gone…

My electrical work.  Wired in an in-wall heater I picked up at Lowes and added two additional outlets.

All nice and insulated (except for the corners – see far right).  Wiring came next.

Now all the wall insulation AND wiring are done.  Tested everything and it all works.  Check out how dirty the cars and bikes are from all this work (really just from the drywall teardown).

I’ve taken two Fridays off now to do all this work and will probably need another two or three to finish everything. Then I’ll have to figure out what my next project is!

Sometimes something unexpected happens that totally alters the course of your day (or life!). That happened to me today when I purchased a new Buell motorcycle. Yes, that might take a minute to set in. I’m an advocate of buying used vehicles and only buying when necessary but I broke both of those rules today. Here’s how it happened.

I was on my way to Grand Rapids Harley Davidson with the Buell Blast this morning to get a spring tune up and oil change when something just didn’t feel right near the end of the ride. Rolling to a stop in front of the dealership, I knew by the shaking what was wrong.. the motor mount bolt had snapped. Again. Frustrated, I confirmed visually that the bolt was gone. Damn.

The same bolt was replaced last October.. about 250 miles ago. Here comes another large repair bill and being without the bike for a week.. and I’d have to call Kellie for a ride home. This just ticked me off to the point of irrationality.. so I started looking at what other bikes they had available. I knew I wanted to upgrade eventually.. and by golly this might be just the thing I needed to push me over the edge.

This bike caught my eye and never let go. It’s the model and color that I’d dreamed about many times before and they finally had one tucked away at the back of the sales floor. It’s a 2008 model Buell Firebolt XB12R.. in midnight black. After a little haggling, I traded in the 2002 Blast and rode out on the Firebolt with a big grin on my face.

I’m filing this one under both fitness and entertainment because this video employs some great sound effects. Don’t tie granny knots!

Despite the ultimate trifecta of rain, wind, and hills, I still managed a great run at yesterday’s 5/3rd Riverbank run. I pulled out a 1:58:43… qualifying me for the under 2 hour club. This if the first time I made it under two hours. The last (and only previous) time that I ran the race back in 2007, I came in around 2:07.

So I totally gave up waiting on MSI to release their Wind 100 Plus, 110 Eco, or 115 Hybrid. I really wanted one of those machines because they feature the new Intel Atom N280 processor and are very battery friendly. In doing a little research last week, I happened upon the Asus Eee PC 1000HE which had just been released a little over a month ago. To my surprise, this model had everything on it the upcoming Winds will have.. so why wait? I went ahead and ordered one and so did my wife.

Mine arrived last night and I spent several hours after class playing with it and setting it up. I’m very impressed thus far… it’s zippy and very friendly to use. Here are a few points worth mentioning:

1. The LED screen is awesome! I had heard that LED backlit LCD panels were not ready for prime time yet but this seems to defy that stereotype. Not only is it crystal clear, evenly lit, and very colorful.. it’s also very bright. So bright in fact that I run it about 1/5 full brightness. While being easier on my eyes, it also saves on battery usage.

2. Fn keys are very nicely integrated. Each of the Fn keys provides on-screen pop ups that let you know what you are changing and what mode the laptop is in. There are buttons for sleep, wireless and Bluetooth, screen brightness, touchpad enabled, led backlight off, task manager, hybrid power mode, and a bunch others that I’m leaving out. Each is easy to use and I’m glad there are easy shortcuts to each.

3. Built in webcam and mic array work well. I loaded up gchat web client and installed the talk applet that lets you do video conferences. A quick test with Derek proved that video chats are something to look forward to in the future. It adds a new dimension to a phone call and it’s nice to have it all packaged into a small, ultra portable laptop.

4. Battery life and power usage is awesome. I had the unit plugged into my P3 Kill-A-Watt all last night and noted the maximum draw is 40 watts. This happens when the battery is severely drained (as the battery comes in the package) and the unit is also running. With the unit off, about 28 watts are used. Once the battery is charged up, the real computer usage is very low. I averaged 10 to 11 watts with wifi and camera enabled, bluetooth disabled, and screen brightness at 2/5ths. Unpluged, a full battery clocked just short of 10 hours according to windows. I used the netbook for two hours this morning and drained the battery down to 79% so that sounds pretty accurate.

For comparison:
My work laptop, 42 watts idle, 53 watts playing L4D.
My home PC, 140 watts idle, 200 watts playing L4D.
My home PC monitor, 80-100 watts.

That was a big reason for moving to netbooks.. to conserve electricity. There’s no reason to be burning 240-280 watts just surfing the internet for a few hours. I’ve got some other plans for the desktop computer that I’ll write about later.

I’ll be the first to confess that I really don’t understand what this is but it seems to be some sort of tribal dance. The big guy front and center is Uwe Lange, a very nice gentleman from Rosenheim, Germany who I work with on a pretty regular basis. Enjoy!

The bulb in our Toshiba 57HM167 blew last week Wednesday with a loud pop as Kellie and I were settling down to watch the latest from Netflix. Careful inspection indicated a deceased bulb.. so we ordered a new one. The new bulb arrived today and I installed it easily. Accessing the service menu, I noted that the previous bulb had only 847 hours on it (Low Power 226 and High Power 621). It had been turned on 539 times. That was somewhat depressing as the bulbs are supposed to be rated for 6000-8000 hours. We didn’t even make a thousand. Then again, the bulbs are also rated for two to three years and we bought the TV in late April/early May of 2007. Doing some quick math, that means we’ve used the TV on average just over an hour a day – and given the 539 power on times, an average of an hour and a half each time. We’ll see how long the next bulb lasts.