Sunk.

We had our kitchen installed in 2005, and when we speced it out, I didn’t know much about granite countertops or their installation. And as it turned out, the company that was hired to install it did a shitty job. So much so that I’ll call them out: Kitchens That Rock (interestingly, their BBB rating is still A+, but their website is nonexistent). They’re in Frederick. Avoid them.

What’s supposed to happen is: the countertop gets delivered, flipped over, channeled out for the sink, and clips are epoxied onto the bottom, which then screw the underside of the sink to the stone. What happened in our kitchen: they dropped the granite on top of the cabinets, tacked the sink to the underside of the stone with drywall screws and scraps of wood, and then it was Miller Time. I thought the scraps of wood were there to hold epoxy in place, until a couple of years later, when the sink had pulled away from the stone and started bowing in the middle and smelling funny, and I realized there was no epoxy. I called, and had a representative of the company come out to look at the job. He dicked around under the sink, farted around with the scraps of wood, told us it was fixed, and left. It was only then that I did some research and realized we’d been screwed twice, but I didn’t want those assclowns coming back into our house. So, shame on me.

Fast forward to yesterday, when a nice man from Milestone came in, looked over the sink, shook his head sadly, and got to work making things right. They drilled channels, installed clips, told us the sink we’d been advised to buy was made from too thin a gauge of steel, and left, for a very reasonable price. Hopefully the sink is fixed for good now, and we won’t have any more problems with leakage, mildew or funny smells under the sink.

Fullscreen.

When I was in high school, I had several friends who were audiophiles. This was back in the days of two-wire connectors, when an amp still had a dedicated set of input jacks for a turntable. We’d spend hours discussing the merits of one brand over another, with German names competing with the latest in Japanese technology. I always favored Teutonic simplicity over bell-and-whistle laden Asian design, but my pocketbook was never able to afford anything better than third-rate Taiwanese gear. I did, however, build my own speakers, with the aid of a book from Radio Shack, several catalogs (this was pre-internet) and a trip to Canal Street in NYC to find a pair of 8-ohm woofers. I’d studied, I’d planned, I’d done the math. I had boxes of cabling, the right crimping tools, and the know-how to dive into the back of a component–featuring the complexity of a passenger jet’s flight controls–and make things work.

Somewhere in the summer of 1995, after years of crushing poverty, I’d saved up enough cash to buy myself a big-boy TV to replace the alley-sourced B/W Zenith I’d been dragging around since college. It was a 23″ color Sharp with a remote (a remote!), and it fit comfortably atop my bass amp at the foot of the bed. And it was great! It followed me from house to house and served faithfully, hooked up to all manner of AV equipment, even though it only had a coax jack for input. It saw its share of dents and cracks; a year ago or so, Finn pushed the Power button so hard that it fell backwards into the casing, prompting the creation of some plexiglas shielding. At some point in the last five years it started randomly making a high-frequency whine for no reason, but has remained the largest screen we have in the house and thus our main window to the outside world.

At my first Christmas party as a full-time employee, I was given a $100 gift card to Best Buy, and due to the limited purchasing options therein, I earmarked it for a future TV purchase. At that time the den was still a distant dream and we had a newborn to care for. Fast-forwarding two years, I had two more gift cards of equal value in hand and a big empty spot on the chimney in a finished room. Doing some research, and based on experience with computer monitors, I decided to spend on a Samsung, and looked at 32″ and 37″ offerings. I was afraid a 32″ would be too small for the space, and after measuring out a 37″ the width looked just right– about 16″ inches of clearance on either side of the chimney. I found a real nice 37″ LCD on sale and took the girls up to look it over on Monday evening. After getting one of the Best Buy floor guys to load it on a cart, I had to wade through five different upsell pitches (Blu-Ray player, extended warranty, Best Buy card, Best Buy rewards club, and Monster cable) before I could slap down all three cards and watch the balance decrease. (Points to Best Buy for not deprecating the value of two-year-old gift cards).

In the time between TV purchases, I’ve been eclipsed by several different types of technology. Component, Optical, HDMI, DVI… This new TV has an ethernet port, for christ’s sake. So now, the issue becomes: How do I get signal from the FIOS box through our amp and to the TV? Our amp is a 10-year-old Onkyo, which predates HDMI, and only passes signal through one source (meaning one must start the chain with Component and end with Component, for example). Currently, the pathway is
FIOS box -> Onkyo -> RF modulator -> TV
but I think it will have to shift to something like
FIOS box -> TV
where the TV becomes the hub for all of the components (assuming, of course, there is even a place to put the amp and speakers). I don’t have money for all new audio components, so I’m going to have to make what I have work–which means I’m going to need HDMI or Component cabling in 25″ lengths or more. My preference is to go completely digital to preserve signal quality, but we can go with component if need be (it will still support 1080p).

The first order of business is to get the stand I’ve crafted back from the welder (sometime next week, hopefully) and drill cutouts for the cabling. Then I have to cut a hole in the floor (groan) to add a plug and passthrough for cabling, and finally install the stand itself.

And, apparently I can use Serviio to connect the TV to my computer (in absence of a MacTV, which will be coming at some point in the future), so I’m going to give that a try in the meantime.

Serviio requires Java 1.6, which is not offered for OS 10.4. Because my server is running on an older G5 tower, I can’t install anything above 10.4, and thus, can’t use Serviio. Oh, well.

Bubbly.

This morning was pretty rough. I walked over to my neighbors’ place last night with a bottle of Heavy Seas Big DIPA (10.5% ABV) and walked home a few hours later with a strong buzz and my keg of homebrew. I put it in the kegerator, pressurized the tank, burped out any oxygen, and let it sit at 10psi. According to this site, I’m doing it the right way, which is reassuring, given my prior attempt. If all goes well, I should be able to pour some tomorrow evening.

Next, I want to know how to pour some out and transport it (given that I’m not bottling anymore). I have a growler I bought from DeGroens about fifteen years ago, and I’ve been dragging it from house to house ever since. Apparently, it’s the perfect vessel for this job. There are two methods of pouring, top-fill and bottom-fill, and both require turning gas pressure down to 2psi. I think the bottom-fill method makes the most sense, and a short length of tube should be an easy purchase.

Regulated.

I got a little package in the mail this afternoon with a blue box of wires inside. It’s a Johnson Controls A419, and it will keep my beer ~38° without slushing. After putting Finn to sleep, I hooked it up to the freezer, fed the sensor inside, read an inscrutable instruction sheet, and plugged it in. Within about five minutes it was hovering comfortably at the target temperature, so I cleaned out the inside, dropped the rest of my bottled beer in on the shelf, and closed it up for the night.

I’m going to try and shoot for brewing my next batch of ale this weekend in order to get another batch ready by the middle of February. Brian forwarded me a weblog post featuring a homemade hot/cold temperature controller, which he’s going to be using for controlled fermentation, but which could also be used for kegeration.

Meanwhile, I’m a mess. My neck, which has been giving me problems for a few months now, is in the advanced stages of stabbing with icepicks, made all the more painful after curling up next to Finn Wednesday night to ward off bad dreams. And being away from the keyboard for a couple of days has wreaked havoc on my wrists; I feel like they’ve been sat upon for a couple of hours and then thrust into chilled water. Apparently the neck thing has something to do with an orthopedic pillow and the vertebrae being pinched, so I need to consider some PT at the little Polish guy down the street and a special pillow for sleeping.

All of this leads me to my next problem, which has been how to fit time for regular exercise into our family’s schedule. I’m acutely aware of my age and the fact that I’m living on borrowed time—given the history of heart and circulatory problems in my family tree, I want to add 1/2 hour of cardio to my daily routine. The issue I have is that I need to get it in either before Finn wakes up or after she goes to sleep, and it has to be quiet so that I don’t keep her up. And therein lies the rub.

The Painter.

Four Generations

Grandpa and Finn

Happy New Year.

Well, another Christmas is mostly in the books. We’ve still got the second half to go, but the heavy lifting is done—presents are bought, tree is up, Santa has come and gone. I had a week off from work between the two holidays, and I swear to god I have no idea where the time went.

Christmas itself was lots of fun; we gathered at the Lockard compound to wait out the fat man and eat lots of food, and he was very generous to us all. I got some boots that needed to be returned—Dr. Martens in a size too big—and some pants that don’t double as catamaran sails, as well as a new beer kit. Finn made out really well, with musical instruments, a digital camera, and a toy piano among other things. Jen’s composter is on super-backorder but should arrive sometime in the next week or so.

We bought Jen’s dad a dishwasher to replace his ancient model, and I spent the better part of Monday pulling the old unit and installing the new one. After some confusion about hoses and connections, I got everything sorted out, leaks tightened up, and a test load running before we left.

The roof and gutters on the Estate are finally done, and I wrote a Very Big Check to pay for the whole thing on Tuesday. My apprehension at seeing my bank account dwindle was mitigated when it started raining 1/2 hour after the roofers left, and we could see actual water emptying out of the downspouts, as opposed to pouring out of the middle of the gutter on the back of the house. I added some extensions to the downspouts and adjusted a few things, and hopefully that will move more water away from the house quicker. Tuesday was also PJ day for the three of us, and we took great relish in sitting around and doing absolutely nothing for the whole day. Mama and I finally caught up with the final Harry Potter movie after Finn went to bed, and we enjoyed it, but we’re sad to see the series come to a close.

Wednesday I crawled back into the coal cellar and finished installing studs, then insulated the entire outside wall. It feels warmer at the edges of the room upstairs to a pair of stockinged feet (and Tuesday evening’s sub-artic temperature was the real test). I’m glad to have that done—and my back is, too.

Thursday and Friday were spent cleaning the house in preparation for the Unbirthday Party, which was a qualified success. Jen specified Afghan food for the meal, and everyone stepped up to the plate to provide very tasty food. After dinner, we sat in the living room around the fire, drank, laughed, and had a great time with everyone. Saturday was another day of rest after the party, and we stayed in our PJs as long as we could.

Sunday I went back to Chestertown to continue working on the Scout bumper, which is documented in detail here. I also tacked our flat-panel mount together and dropped it off for final welding while I was out there. It’s a 1.5″ length of box steel that stretches from floor to ceiling, and two feet at the top and bottom will provide mounting points. I’m going to cut a hole in the back and at the bottom to feed cabling inside so that it will be out of view.

Kegging

That picture is of a batch of IPA going into a freshly cleaned keg, which is now sitting in a newly constructed kegerator in the basement. There’s a tank of Co2 hooked up to a brass splitter and two shutoff valves, which will eventually feed two kegs. The brew I put in this afternoon is getting force-carbonated and should be ready by Monday afternoon. I’m currently without a temperature controller, but switching the keg on and off manually works just as well until I can get one.

For about eight months I’ve been unable to use Flickr’s built-in posting tool to add photos to my website. The content showing up on my site would be code minus the HTML symbol markup, so every post looked like Finn had started bashing on the keyboard in an open text field. The fix was to install this small plugin, which resolves an issue with the libXML2 version my hosting provider is running (and thus mangling my posts).

I Wish My Brother George Was Here.