11:30 PM – just up from the basement. I got the right hand side (from the stairs) sheetrocked in; the box containing the stairwell is boxed in and looks pretty good, actually. I got everything done across to the window opening- the upper left side and the way it went together is still bugging me. I have no real way of framing it out or covering it over, and that is going to bug me for a long time. I’m stumped. I did put a brace over the base opening for the window at level, so I can drop a set of planking across it for a real nice windowsill.
Today at work was pretty good- I was able to focus on the interface enough to realize that A. the color choices I made for amber worked equally well as copper, and B. when I added some noise at a 30% screen in the background, it really looked good as copper.
I got some more sanding done in the basement last night, and was able to run the feed from the new computer circuit into a junction box mounted on the wall and up to the second floor office. I’m going to leave the circuit turned off until I can install a new box behind the drywall in there and add a plug. I got some more drywall installed and used the last 4’x4′ sheet, so tonight I’ll buy 3 more sheets, the junction box inserts for the new wiring, another tub of mud, several more 2×4’s, and three large lighted rocker switches for the lighting down there. I’ll probably try to focus on the front window tonight and build the box setup for the enclosure (that should take a while) and maybe get some drywall installed.
I talked to my Mom last night; she was mainly trying to get her iMac online and get the e-mail set up so she could send/receive again (Dad, who is frightened like a little German schoolgirl at all things Mac, got on there the other night and futzed the whole thing up) so I stepped her through the process and got her back online again. After 6 months of her paying for Earthlink modem access while Dad paid for a cable modem sitting in the next room, they finally ditched Earthlink, got her back up on his network after I suggested they buy a DSL/cable modem router like the one I have. Sometimes they drive me nuts.
Yesterday I found an archive of old Commodore 64 games, and found a pair that were listed that reminded me of days gone by. One was a game called ‘Impossible Mission‘, and featured a quote of an English guy saying, “Destroy him, my robots…” in a bad Bela Lugosi impersonation. That one took me back. The other one was a game called Mail Order Monsters, where you could build monsters and equip them with different items of varying deadliness, then drop them into an arena and have ’em fight it out Gladiator-style. I also found a copy of Skyfox, which for its day was a pretty cool game and had me entranced for about a month before I mastered it and it got boring. There was a clip of the IM theme music and a ROM download of the game; I also found an emulator for the PC and a great site to download more ROMS. Maybe if I get super-ultra bored I’ll fire it up and play a round or two. Maybe. This all served to remind me that I need to get back with Stas and see how he’s doing.
Found this site on PriceWatch- the Kodak 3400 is $279. A 48 MB compactFlash card is an additional $40 as well. I’m gonna look in the ol’ bank account and see what’s in there right now.
I’m back, and I have the cash, but I’m not buying it. Must focus on the basement. All I’d be buying the stupid camera for is to take pictures of the basement right now anyway.
This still doesn’t change the fact that I want a digital cam very badly.
Found this article on the Kodak website- i love this place, I have always been fascinated by it ever since I saw a GEO Magazine article on it in 1982, and I want to go to Arizona to see it.
11:30PM – Just came back upstairs from the basement- my back is aching, but in a mildly pleasant ‘I just did 4 hours of honest good work’ kind of way. I bought 3 2x4x10’s, 3 sheets of drywall and the adapters for the steel junction box, which got installed; more drywall up on the inside of the closet- there’s just a spot on the inside right wall that needs to be done and then it just needs a finish mud. The plug went in OK and all I need to do now is test it out tomorrow evening. The left wall of the closet is, in hindsight, about 6″ too close to the side of the furnace, preventing easy access to the humidifier unit, but I’m installing an access panel in the corresponding wall that will allow entry and replacement of the filter. The steel edging is up and 1/2 mudded on the left wall, and most of the inside is sanded. All in all, a good night’s work.
Here at work with no Greycube server- Dan is out of touch and I can’t reach him. His cellphone is not picking up.
1:35PM. Server is back up and running. I got 10 IHC-Digest notes but nothing else from anybody this weekend. Feeling sad about that. Let’s see here- Jen and I went thrift-store shopping again this weekend, and bought some plants as well; I got a set of Martha Stewart sheets fo’ the bed at K-Mart as well- they are nice. I like my clean white sheets. Sunday Jen helped me in he basement and we got the rest of the window wall framed out; I’m going to have to get creative above the window with where it meets the ceiling- that whole section is a bit messed up right now. I’m also gonna need to add a bit of insulation up there before I close it up so that the ductwork stays dry and cool/hot. We put up more drywall, and I’m going to have to go out and buy at least another two sheets or so to finish, but I’m going to make a major push this week to get it done.
11:30PM. Just came upstairs from the basement; I got half the wall in the closet done, and the bottom sheetrock around the bottom front of the room. I’m down to a 4’x4′ sheet of drywall, so I need at least 2 more to finish, probably three. I was able to tape and mud the joints in the front corners, the area where the closet meets the wall, and the inside front edge of the closet. There’s a LOT more taping and sanding to be done, but it should go quick once the final drywall is up. Now the only big obstacles are figuring out how to finish off the ceiling above the front window, and installing a junction box by the computer circuit to run upstairs.
Got an email from a guy tonight who says he has a Scout:
I just came across your Scout website. I have a 1978 Scout II with 90K Original miles on it, that I am trying to sell. I was wondering if you knew anyone that might be interested, since you look like quite an enthusiast. I live in Bowie, MD (Annapolis, DC area), and Eric Foor has done work to my Scout as well. He replaced the floor boards and some other rusted areas when I first got the truck. I’m asking for $1900/ OBO. Basically, I’m just looking for someone to make me a decent offer. The truck runs fine but minor tune-ups could be done to make it run better. Also, there is rust damage. If you know anyone who is interested in buying a Scout, please pass along my personal email and phone number to them.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Well, let’s see. This weekend Jen and I went thrift store shopping on Saturday and were able to find a bunch of very nice clothes for very cheap- I found a few Banana Republic shirts, brand new, for about $4 total. Jen also found me a great hipster short sleeve button down shirt, probably about 30 years old, for $2. I found a beautiful tuxedo jacket and pants that fit me well (well, not the pants) for $70, but I couldn’t justify the price. Also found a Revereware fry pan for camping for $2 and a few books- $1. Jen found a few real nice blouses for work, but we didn’t stop to pick up her jeans, so there will be another trip down to Laurel in the near future to get some pants for her work wardrobe. Saturday night we went to see The Others with some old friends fron Cidera; it was a lot better than I thought it would be. Very creepy, good story, and a kicker ending.
Sunday Jen and I hit Hope Depot to pick up my window, and I found a Honeywell programmable thermostat for $50 on sale. I need to do some more work to see if the rumors that it blows up furnaces is true. We got back to the house and I was able to install the window up front in a relatively short while- it was really easy and went in quickly. I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get the old one out in time, but it came out without too much fuss. I need to go and buy some nonexpandable foam to seal the edging, and some vinyl or metal flashing to cover the wood box I installed it in. It’s really cool to have a window up front that is level and new- I think it’s going to really cut down on the cold air up front too.
I managed to blow up Slann last night trying to install the 3dfx Voodoo 3 card; they got bought by nVidia, and don’t have a complete list of drivers online for the card, so I installed the 2000 drivers and rebooted. Now the box just continues rebooting itself; it gets to the NT load screen and then restarts. Repeatedly. So I’m going to ask Jeff here at work to look at it. I might have to buy a card after all. I did find new drivers for it though.
Let’s see. Here’s the first thing I found worthwhile on the Binder Bulletin this morning. A list of parts up in Pennsylvania.
Here also, is a picture of the lifted Traveler I looked at over in Ellicott City. It had reasonably good parts on it, but A. was a Traveler, meaning I couldn’t swap the frame with my Scout, B. had fiberglas fenders and quarters, only the fenders of which would fit my Scout (and weren’t even in that good shape- lots of bubbling and waving), Bushwhacker flares, which were in good shape, a springover conversion that was done poorly, and loads of rust. I figured that for all the work to pull the fenders off, I’d destroy them and negate the cost of buying the truck. Somebody paid him $1300 for this thing. The rockers were gone all the way up to the seat bases, and the pillars were totally shot- worse than my truck.
At this point, because she talks so loud on the phone, I know that Amy here at work does not like her landlord because she is afraid he is videotaping her secretly. Spooky.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Had a very productive night last night. I went shopping for a new video card, but found the cost to be prohibitively expensive right now. So I bought a sound card for the home NT box and got it installed with minimum fuss-thank god. I also got the drywall in the basement sanded and second-coat mudded; it’s coming along pretty well so far, but I need a few items to continue properly:
- more mud
- another good sanding sponge- those things are cool
- a pack of 150 grit sandpaper discs for the orbital
- a length of coax cable- 50 feet should do it
- more steel edging for the corners
- a tube of liquid nails
- probably five more sheets of drywall
- and I need to pick up the window- Home Depot called about it Monday.
Have I mentioned that Toadnet sucks big moose butt? They’re down again. Major big smoking, feces-covered moose butt.
A couple of weeks ago, I did a search on Google for Gamma World, a role-playing game TSR came out with in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I spent one summer completely immersed in this game, in between 7th and 8th grade, when a few guys from my new school got me into D&D and other RPG’s. I got a copy of Gamma World and D&D for my birthday, I think, and Mike P and I played these games constantly. He went on a two-week vacation that summer, and I obsessed over the game and creating new maps and worlds based on what I knew (which was, pitifully, nothing.) Being trapped on the side of a hill in Ridgefield with nothing to do but swim, eat and play Gamma World that summer, naturally all three blurred into each other. I dug out my Gamma World books that night (yep, still got ’em) and read through each one; it took me back to a two-month period where I was completely lost in my imagination.
That fall, I went to the Ridgefield Middle School, where once again, the gods of bitter irony prevailed and I wound up in none of the same classes as anybody I had become friends with that previous school year. I went through 4 months of total isolation there, and then we moved to Mahopac, where I went through another year of isolation before I made friends with anybody.
Jesse is going to sell me his old Voodoo3 card fr $20, so I’ll have something better than an Apple 8/24 in my PC at home; This Is Good. Now I can concentrate on saving up for and finding a good 19-inch monitor, or a reasonable 17-inch LCD display for the NT machine. (side note: new Voodoo3’s are going for about $40 online- bonus.) Additionally, I may be heading to his place for 3D Max lessons on Sunday- a BIG opportunity to get some knowledge for cheap- a 12-pack of Guinness might do it.
Saw an ad for an ’80 Scout on the Binder Bulletin site for $1300. 345, 31’s, 2″ lift, automatic. I’m gonna call and see if this guy still has it, and go out to take a look. I wonder if it’s the ’80 I saw about 5 years ago up in Ellicott City with that guy Mark- that thing was a beast but very rough.
Let’s see. I got 5 sheets of drywall for the basement and began installing- there’s sheetrock on the walls up each side, on the east wall of the closet, and on the right side of the closet door. I also got sheetrock up on the framework above the stairs and began to spackle it. I need to straighten out the bottom panel but otherwise it’s looking good, and more importantly there will be no more dust down through the stairs onto the basement floor. I’m still waiting on the window for the basement, and that will be coming it at just the right time- this weekend coming up I’m spending a day installing that, and then I have to figure out some fucked-up way of finishing off that front wall. That should be entertaining.
Unfortunately I’m thinking that the basement will be at least another month in finishing, but my ultimate goal is to have it complete by the time the fambly comes down for Thanksgiving- should be plenty of time between now and then. Really, the next steps are pretty easy, with the exception of the window and that front wall. The only other major issues outstanding are:
- creating (or buying) access panels for the water and gas meters
- painting all the uncovered or unpainted drywall/wallspace/ceiling
- building and installing the shelf under the window
- installing the closet rack
- and installing the carpeting.
- I also need to run and clean up the cabling for the network, and run cable down from the back bedroom.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Online again after network outages-Charmnet got walloped by the train accident and has been down up until about 3:30 or so. The BreakAway connection is slow at work- so it’s actually easier to go home and use the Internet. Sad.
The basement is done, and damn, it’s good. I’m very happy with it, even though I’m aghast at having my bank account drained $1600 in two days. I need to go back on starvation rations for a few months and make the shortfall back up- I want to be back where I was pre-layoff in about 3 months (yeah, right.) I need to pay off the Texas trip pretty quick too- I’d like to have the credit card back down to $1,000 or so in a month or two. Then, I think we work on either getting the second mortgage paid off or we look at that Scout in Wisconsin.
I was afraid the lights wouldn’t provide enough indirect lighting to the corners, but there’s a light over the new laundry area (up against the back wall under the window), over the central part of the basement, in the ‘hallway’, and over the workbench. Plus, just having a light over the damn stairs is awesome- no more tripping and falling. I have to pull up the treads and kickplates to replace them now, though- the light makes all the gouges really stand out. And it’s great to have it double-switched so I can turn it off downstairs or upstairs (these are things that are standard in all new houses, but I don’t take them for granted…!) I can’t WAIT to start drywalling.
Today I lowered the boom on Renie-I told her I didn’t think Howard was the right guy for her, and she seems to be taking it quite well. She’s pretty chill about it now; we’ll see what happens when the rubber meets the road next week, when she has a ‘talk’ with him.
Electricians have come in this morning to work in the basement- they’re doing a great job so far, as of 10am this morning, and I’m happy with what we’ve got worked out. I also just had a stroke of genius: I’m going to avoid a huge cost for hooking up the upstairs office circuit (quoted at $250) by dropping a junction box in behind the closet, tapping into the clean circuit there for the servers, and running the power upstairs from there. Bonus! I wrote them a check for $500 today and hopefully they’ll be done by this afternoon- if not they have to come back on Friday.
Here I am at Breakaway, my first day at the new job. Looks pretty cool so far, although my temporary cube for the time being will be by a wall, and very dark. I’ll need to bring in a bunch of stuff to make it homier.
- A light.
- A power strip.
- The 4-port hub from Cidera.
- A few ethernet cables.
- My CD/Radio.
- A box for my junk.
- Some CD’s to listen to.
Robby told me Mike Coale knows of a guy who has an Arizona Scout he’s hauling up here and looking to sell. I might buy it if the price is good- otherwise I’ll let it go and save the shekels. I have a call through to Mike right now.
I also need to prioritize and purchase a few things to make life easier- that will be after I pay off the Texas trip tickets on the Visa card. I can continue to buy and install stuff in the basement but I’d like a few things to get bought to make my quality of life better:
| $200 | A CD burner, most likely for at work, so I can start burning copies of Robby’s CD collection and save money there. | |
| $70 | A Bikini top for Chewbacca, so that sunny day drives will be more tolerable. | |
| $170 | A CD player for the Taurus, now that she’s running good again. | |
| $1300 | An iBook. |
The burner presents the first hurdle, and is probably first on the list. I have the NT box at the house, but it doesn’t like sound cards. I want it to be compatible with my work 98 box and the eventual iBook so I can switch- because the iBook is way off in the future right now. I need to get all kinds of crap off the NT box at home (mostly MP3’s) and I’d like to be able to burn discs too while I’m here. Well, first, I need to get a computer here at work…
What else is going on? I talked the electricians down to $1,600, and hopefully that will get mailed out to me and be on the doorstep today. I need to stop in to Lowe’s (more money spent) and pick up a bunch of lighting equipment- two lights for the stairs, 5 monopoint lights for the main room, two for the closet, and four lesser lights for the basement rear (work area). I might actually go with a flourescent over the workbench and just put wide-spots over the other areas. We’ll see how that goes tonight, and what the damage will be to my pocketbook. More than I hoped for, but Jen did good and talked me down off the ledge- she pointed out to me that this work is an investment in something I own, and will only go to making it better, while other things I’ve bought-the shelves for the radios come to mind-were expensive but I didn’t freak out about buying them.
Got off the phone with Bill Tydings, the fellow selling (or facilitating) the sale of the Wyoming Scout. He says the owner is hoping to get $2,000 for it- Wow! I’m going to do some checking in to how much it would cost to ship the truck from there to here. Apparently it runs, it’s a V-8 Rallye (which means it’s at least a ’75+, I think) and it has 140,000 miles on the OD- pretty standard for a Scout. If I could get it shipped here for something like $1,000, I’d be ahead by a mile. Wow!
Some sites I found for quotes: The Express Auto or Moving Wisely – there’s a whole list there.
OK, the estimate came back in for the electrical work, and it was a shocker: $1,800. Jee-zus! That’s a lot of scratch. The guy was nice, and I have a call through to his voicemail to talk about lowering the costs somehow, but shit, man! That’s a lot of dough. He gave me estimates for the other work I requested- the quad outlet up here in the office, a light out in front of the house, and some other minor work, and the total bill was about $2,300. So we’re foregoing the other expenses and doing the basement stuff first; I’m hoping there are some things i can do to lower the costs- $1,500 wouldn’t be that bad. I was really hoping for somewhere around $1,000 or so, but there’s reality for you.