Practice makes perfect

Today was one of those cold rainy gray winter days. It never stopped raining and it never got out of the 30s. I was up at 7am hoping to see snow but I was disappointed. Most the snow was melted by the rain that was falling. It rained all day.

After I woke up from my afternoon nap I headed up to Wally's. Wally and Carol had a beautiful sun room built on to their home this summer. All it needed is a nice HD set in it. Only Wally and Chris are home. Carol is out of town on a business trip. She gets back tonight. So boys being boys we decided to install an HD set before she gets home and surprise her. Nothing like going on a business trip and coming home to see a 42 inch LCD hanging on your wall. For sure it's every guys dream!

Wally picked out a wall mount before he picked out the TV set. The mount needed to allow the set to tuck into the corner of the sunroom. Wally got an UCL Articulating Wall Mount at Costco a couple months ago and then started looking for a set to use the mount. Turned out he found a 42 inch LCD HD TV also at Costco and had it delivered today.

This is my third large flat screen install and 4^th wall mount of a large screen set. I didn't like the 1^st place I put my 50 inch set so I moved it. So by now I've gotten good at mounting these things. Of course Wally and his son Chris did most of the work. I was just the guy who drilled the holes in the nice smooth walls for those great big lag bolts.

Anyway I think we did a good job. Notice no wires… Also in the lower right of the frame you'll see the wall mounted heat pump Wally and I installed in October.

Boy is Carol going to be surprised!

Toaster gets new window vents

I installed the window vents on the toaster Thursday while I was cooling down from my run. The vents are 'in channel' type. I had to hunt for those. They fit in the groves that the window slides up and down in. The in channel design makes for a very clean seamless look. The vents stick on using 3m VHB tape which means there is no taking them off.

In the case of the toaster they are for more than just looks. Twice last summer I left the windows cracked and it rained. The 1^st time the seats were wet I just figured the wind blew the rain in. But after the 2^nd time having wet seats and a puddle on the floor mats I realized that the nearly vertical windows and the way the door seal is that any rain that comes off the top will just flow directly into the open window. The in channel design should allow the rain to just drip off the edge of the vent.

It takes me about 20 minutes this time of the year to cool off and stop sweating after I run. I heat the garage to about 55 degrees so it's a good place to cool off without getting uncomfortable during the in process. In the summer it takes like an hour before I cool off. The AC in the garage and the fan I have out there help the summer.

I use this cool off time to clean up whichever vehicle I drove last. I have a California Car Duster and it keeps them looking good between washings assuming I avoid mud and wet roads. I've been known to stay home and not go somewhere because the roads were wet. I really like a clean car and I have to say it pains me if my car gets dirty too quick after I wash it. I clean the brake dust from the rims also during the cool down time. I tried some of that wheel spray that is supposed to prevent the brake dust from accumulating. Nope still accumulates. I also spray the tire black stuff on then clean the over spray from the rims. That one cleaning takes care of both the brake dust and tire spray.

If by chance I have not drove either vehicle then I use the cool off time to put up tools and do general garage clean up. I'm way behind and I really need to be spending extra time cleaning the garage before JB gets here next week. 4-5 hours should put the garage right.

What is your Power Song?

I used my new Nike + iPod for the last two days. I have to tell you I LIKE IT! If you have an iPod Nano and you run (or walk) for fitness or training you need to get one. For $30 it's a winner. At first glance it you might think you need to buy a pair of Nike+ shoes. But after reading Nike+iPod FAQ you'll see any old shoes will work. People (and vendors) have come up with creative ways to attach the sensor to any shoe. Some folks can knit and Nike+iPod Shoe Hack made a little cozy to hold the sensor. Some floks used duct tape. You can see Nike+iPod Shoe Hacks and Accessories for the ideas others came up with to attach the sensor to their shoe.

Me? I used a coin wrapper, a couple staples, and some tape. The sensor just needs to be secure and not move around. You can always shell out the $$$ for a pair of Nike+ shoes which have a compartment designed in them for the sensor. But that takes all the fun out of it.

OK so it attaches to any shoe, but why do I like it? It's small, wireless, and just plain slick. That white stub on the end of my iPod is the receiver for the shoe sensor. It's also easy to use. Best of all it keeps you company by talking with a sexy female voice as you run. And that sure helps me run! She tells me how many calories burned, time, or mileage depending on the type of workout chosen. You can choose a male voice if you want. I already knew about how far I ran, and about how long I run, so I chose calories. I entered my weight and how many calories I wanted to burn and started running. After a bit she reduced the song volume and told me "50 calories burned so far." She then brought the volume back up so I could hear the music. She repeated the process again and let me know "100 calories burned so far." She keeps it up every 50 calories until the last 50. For the last 50 she cranks up the volume and counts out every 10 calories until I reached my goal of 600 calories burned. She then told me the distance, and work out time. You can get her to tell you then workout status at any time by pressing the iPod center button. If you hold the center button for a couple seconds she plays your power song so you get that extra kick to get up that big A$$ hill. NEAT! You can buy workout playlists and even training sessions from people like Lance Armstrong if you want.

After the work out you can dock your iPod and it will upload (for free using iTunes) to nike.com the work out data and you will get a nice graph. Here is the graph for my run today. Across the top is the workout distance, time, pace, and calories. The curve bents down at the end because I stopped running and left my iPod going while I took the pictures. The dots along the graph are the mile markers. If the mouse hovers over the dot it shows you the time for that mile. The red towards the right is when I pushed PowerSong. You can set goals and create challenges for yourself. Also you can have a private running club and see your others club members runs, and challenge them - "1st one to 100 miles this month gets a free beer" - stuff like that. It's all free and easy to use.

The iPod itself stores the last 1000 workouts. You don't have to use iTunes or nike.com. You don't even have to listen to music while you run. It has a 'no music' option. You can even tell it that you are walking and it'll keep track of that activity. The only complaint I have is with the music blasting I can't hear the beep of my heart monitor watch. If you want to know how it works read EETimes article Runners get iPod virtual trainer.

So "Satisfaction" by the Stones is my power song what's yours?

Good things take a long time...

I spend a few hours watching the NFL playoffs and playing with JBs scanner. In some ways I'm impressed with the film (aka negative) scanner. I'm not sure exactly how good the scanner is. I would say it it does beat scanning a print using my flat bed scanner. But it took me 30 seconds to scan the print using my flatbed and it took 5 minutes to scan the negative. If you have selected negatives to scan then the film scanner could be the way to go. But if you are wanting to scan a few thousand negatives then this is not the way to do. Even the preview scan takes a minute. I'm retired and I'm not willing to spend the next year scanning negatives.

So here is a sample quality comparison. The image on the left is scanned from a print. The one on the right from the negative. I did not correct or post process either. I let my flatbed scanner software to its thing and ditto for the negative scanner. Yes the flatbed scanned picture is darker. The print was dark to start with and that's how it scanned. But notice the tie. You can't even tell that the tie is a paisley tie on the left, but it's clear on the right it is. The negative has more range of exposure, and finer detail. I would say the negative scan is a bit over exposed. I remember that suit. It was a light gray-blue with a slightly contrasting weave. About one notch darker than what the negative scan produced.

I have a lot of negatives that I don't have prints for, and some negatives that are not with their prints. It's hard for me to look at a negative and tell if it's one I want to scan or not. I'm going to see if I can just put the negatives on the flat bed scanner and scan them in mass. Then invert them and see what they are. Pick the ones I really want to scan using the film scanner and ignore the rest. In effect create a contact sheet. The film scanner came bundled with PhotoShop Elements and I think it can invert. Stay tuned.

Well I caught up last night on my reading. Maybe tonight I can actually get ahead.

Sweet Adelaides ...

Today I did a bit of plumbing. At Home Depot yesterday I got a new shower head. One of those with the shower head on a flexible hose. Actually it has two heads. A 'normal' head and the one on the hose. Both heads can be used at the same time for double the fun. Neat!

I went for my run about noon and I was sort of surprised that I only saw one other person in the park. It was nice out today. 60 and sunny. When I got home I had a phone message from Larry my friend and neighbor. My iPod pedometer was delivered. I have packages delivered to Larry's house because my drive way seems to cause box delivery trucks to stay awhile. They usually stay a couple hours until the tow truck get them out. I returned Larry's call and he suggested I come over about supper time and pick up the package. I said he had steak for me if I would like to join them for supper. U bet I would. Nice, hot, juicy, and pink in the middle...yumm...that's how I like my steak.

Well the steak was very good as was the wine, but it was the after diner coffee and desert that I REALLY liked. Larry's wife Toni got out her Dark Chocolate Adelaides. Yummy! Two of those babies was plenty.

Larry and Toni sent me home all warn inside and well fed. I settled into my recliner, and watched Green Bay handle the Sea hawks. I had DVRed that game and the New England game which I'm watching as I do this post.

It is suppose to rain tomorrow so I plan to check out the PrimeFilm PF3650u film scanner JB ordered and had delivered here last month. He asked me let him know before he heads this way. No use of him bring all his slides and negatives if it's no good or too painful to use. I'll let you all know also.

There is still hope I'll finish the book. One page read in three nights. I just can't keep my eyes open. There is no motivation for me reading in bed. If I wanted to do something in bed other than sleep, reading would not be my first choice.

Who's phone is it anyway?

Well today was odds and end day. I did a bit of shopping at Home Depot, Office Depot, and of course my favorite store Wal-Mart. I dropped my my auto insurance agent's office and let them know I'm retired and no longer drive "more than 10 miles to work or school" so I'll save $60 a year.

I also got that fax sent today and added a couple more numbers to my Person-to-Person call interceptor database. This handy device shown in the picture is not for everyone, but it is for me. See I only like talking on the phone to people I like. I don't like phone spam which is what most of phone calls I get are. Well used to get. My phone rings maybe twice a week now instead of twice an hour. P2P will intercept calls and simply will not let the phone ring, or will route the caller directly to the answering machine. Only the phone numbers in it's database get to ring my phone. If you have outgoing caller ID blocked then I'll never even know you called unless you leave a message. It has a password that will allow the phone to ring if you happen to call from a unknown number. It can do time of day screening also so the phone will not ring during the hours you specify. All calls go to the answering machine during that time unless you know the password. I don't use time of day screening. Instead I just use the Sleep button which blocks all calls for the next 8 hours or until Sleep button is pressed again. Very handy for napping and when I want to sleep in.

It has other features like routing calls to certain extensions in the house. Handy for teenagers. Sends all the calls to their phone and the rest of the phones don't ring. It has a little gizmo (smaller item in picture) that you plug your phone(s) into for call routing. I don't use the gizmo. Calls come into my house on line 2 and go into P2P. Then P2P sends only the calls I want onto line 1 which is the line standard phones are wired to. Phones ring, sound, and like exactly like the P2P is not there. Even called ID still shows up on the phones in the house.

Best $129 dollars I ever spend. Check amazon.com if you are interested. I have no financial interests in P2P or in amazon etc. This is just my personal recommendation.

Mission Accomplished!

You might have noticed that I didn't post to my blog yesterday. First day I missed posting. Missing a day had to happen sooner or later. I was on a mission yesterday – I need to fax some documents and my fax machine (networked attached) is in one room and the network is in the other. Modesty and possible fire code violations prevent me from posting a picture of the temporary network strewn across my bedroom floor that allowed me access to the internet.

I like hidden wires. Notice I didn’t say I must have hidden wires. The design of the computer desk I have allows for hiding most of the wires, if a bit of engineering is applied. Using some scrap schedule 40 PVC pipe I started engineering. Schedule 40 is the heavy thick PVC not that thin schedule 20. I drilled holes for and installed super size cup hooks in the pipe and mounted it to the desk. I did this because the cup hooks threads don’t hold well in melamine which is what the desktop is made out of. I also didn’t want to drill through the metal desk frame. Using nylon cable ties captured between the desktop and the metal frame I secured the pipe.Why you ask? So I could mount my UPS which weights ~15 lbs and hang cords and those power packs from the hooks. The UPS has a bank of outlets that are surge protected only, and another bank that is battery backed. The surge protected only bank is what the power strips plug into. The battery backed bank of outlets only handle the cable modem, router, sip (VoIP), and the telephone handsets. You do know that most of the telephone handsets require power to operate? I have one old Western Electric phone line powered handset in a closet. The ringer on it can't be turned off, so I don’t have it connected. But I know where it is in case of prolonged power outage.

I mounted three power strips using the same captured cable ties technique, and screwed the super size cup hooks into the melamine. The hooks will be supporting a pound or two so the threads can grip the melamine well enough for that light load. As I’m sure you all know most electronic equipment now days use power packs that are wide and their width (or depth) means you get to use about one out of every three outlets in the strip. I solved that waste of outlets by using handy Y cords that I got mail order. You’ll never see these in stores because if they sold them in stores then they would reduce power strip sales by 75%. One six outlet power strip would support 12 power packs instead of three. I paid under $2 each for the Y cords.

One end of the desk is now very visible and that corner of course was scuffed badly.But my sister Gale on one of her visits introduce me to “Magic Eraser”.It’s one of those cleaning products that really work as you can see from the after picture. I’m sure this is not news for some folks, but just in case you didn’t know about them I thought I mention it.

Well the proof is in the pudding. Here are the before and after.


Here are the almost no wires showing.

The one small loop is a miscalculation on how far down the X10 appliance module descends. The X10 appliance module allows me to remotely turn off ALL the power strips without crawling under the desk or unplugging from the wall. I’ve used these X10 devices for years. Long before X10 became famous for using the pop up or under adds that we now have pop up blocks to suppress. The other wire is for the HI-LO-Off switch for my under desk heater which is the flat panel you see against the wall. This heater is one of those things I wished I would have purchased years ago. The front of the panel gets warm but the back stays cool so that you can mount it to the wall or desk. It’s in its stand right now until I use it enough to know exactly where I want to mount it and then I’ll mount it upside down so the wire exit the top which will then be hidden by the desk so that will be one less visible wire.

Well doing the office relocate allowed me to rearrange my bedroom so I can go on and get my new HD Flat panel for the bedroom. Just have to decide. Another 50 inch one or maybe a nice 5 footer?

While I decide I’ll give you a peek at the next indoor project - Garage cleanup. JB is coming soon and it would be good for him to have a place to work. I’ve finished one page in my book over the last two nights. I’ll need to catch up to get back to my 10 pages per night average.