Even More Garage Mods

Over the weekend Jen requested that I make some shelves in the garage to help organize the place better. I wanted to make a space for the outdoor furniture cushions. I am fortunate enough to have a good amount of wood that I scavenged from the work sites' waste bins in the development.






As you can see, everything fits nicely and the cushions are out of the way. Pretty soon we'll be able to park a car in there. :) Let me know what you think.

More garage mods

The other weekend I had a gentleman install and mount my HD (UHF) antenna on the roof and run a cable into the living room. I had planned to do this myself but for the price it was worth paying the gentleman to do the work. Plus I'm afraid of heights.

My goal in this project was to move my router, cable modem, and VoIP phone unit to the garage. This has allowed me to clean up the area behind my TV in the living room. The "cable guy" ran a separate line for my cable modem to the garage.

He also ran my Ethernet cable to the living room to accommodate my HTPC.



I wired my home phone lines to a block then connected my Power Phone unit to feed the house lines the phone connection.

Once the cables were connected I was able to scan for channels and with my antenna I found 30 channels. I installed a 2 gang electrical box on the wall. The four plugs are just enough for the units plus a feed to strip on my work bench. I mounted the strip in front of my bench which makes it easy and accessible for my power tools, etc.


My ultimate goal is to run my HD antenna into the TV tuner in my HTPC. Then run MythTV. I'll be able to record TV in HD and watch from any PC in the house. Then I'll run the cableTV line into the TV for live TV watching.

MUTEMATH weekend

The long awaited MuteMath weekend has come and gone in a flash. Jen and I had the best time seeing our favorite band on Friday and Saturday. Some thoughts: Rush has a song called Limelight where Neil Peart writes "I can't pretend a stranger is a long awaited friend." That may be true for Rush but not for MuteMath. I have never seen a band connect with their fans on a personal level before like MM does. Of course it's smart marketing to get to know the fans and be accessible, further solidifying the bond that is already made through the music. In my opinion MM is the type of group that doesn't patronize us. They really do want to meet and get to know the fans. We have seen the group more than a dozen times over the last 3-4 years and they have gotten bigger and bigger going from driving from venue to venue in a van to traveling in a tour bus complete with roadies to setup and break down. Each time giving the fans face time after the show to sign autographs and answer questions. I'm not sure how long it will last, as they keep moving up a notch but we'll definitely take advantage if it while we can.

Halloween Pictures

This year Collin wanted to again be Link from the Legend of Zelda video game. The last time (2yrs ago) I used that seaming tape that you iron together seams. It came out awesome but Collin wanted a costume sewed so he could wear it after Halloween too. (Cosplay?) The Shield and sword were made at my friend Brian's house because he has a ton of awesome tools for woodworking. The sword has a laminated handle and a piece of lattice wood for the blade. Collin helped design and sand the pieces. Conner drew the graphics on the shield and Jen painted it. I was impressed with Conner's ability to draw the Ocarina of Time shield from memory.
Katelyn and I sewed the the tunic. Yes, I did use a sewing machine. I'm surly secure in my masculinity.


Conner went simple this year and was a pumpkin. There's not much to say about C0nner's costume but I'm glad to only have made one this year.

Jen's just pretty. Did anyone notice the pumpkins there on her chest? I did.


Katelyn was Marilyn Monroe and won a contest for best costume. She starte to sew her own with a pattern but that was getting too involved. She got this dress from one of Jen's coworkers. It was an old wedding dress. My Mom and Kate modified it. She looks awesome. I'm glad JFK wasn't at the party she went to.


Jen is my little sunflower. Hot glue guns are awesome. What a fun costume.

Katelyn Rocks

Now that Kate is 15 and has her drivers permit, she needs to know some basics about auto maintenance and repair. This weekend Kate and I changed the front brake pads and engine oil. When I told her what we were doing this weekend she wasn't very excited. She's smart though, and knows who's boss. And who has the car keys. She did very well with some coaching. I believe she learned a lot and it was nice to spend time with her doing this project. In case anyone doesn't think that a girl can work on cars, here's proof.

Garage Clean up

I finally got the garage cleaned up with some help from Jen and Collin. I made a base to an old entertainment center to give me something to put my tools in. I have pictures of the progress.

I'm a mac and I'm a PC.........Apples and Oranges

I was just thinking about the advertising spot that Apple (Mac) has been running where the cool hipster (Mac) is compared to the geeky guy (MS Windows). This is very misleading to uninformed users. To me, it's comparing apples to oranges. A Mac is a computer and Windows is an operating system (OS). When the regular Joe goes into a store and asks to buy Windows they are escorted to the software section of the store. Frankly I don't think that its fair to compare the two. I'm definitely not a Windows follower. I prefer the value that Linux brings to the table. After getting frustrated with Vista I've installed 2 Linux boxes at home.

If you look at what Mac has done then you can see that they've created a Unix base OS (Mac OS X) to run on specific hardware in which they sell. If you get the hardware married to the OS and only sell that combo then you'll have an immensely stable system. To get that in a Mac you have to spend an immense amount of money. Windows doesn't have that luxury since it runs on so many different hardware components. I'm not sticking up for Windows but just showing the poor comparison.

I'd like to see Mac and Windows try to compare themselves to Linux. Some might say that Linux is hard to get set up and administer but that's just not true. Get the right hardware and you'll have a very stable system with everything a casual user needs.

How much does Linux cost? Try $0.00. I like that price. The real price I pay is the time it takes to tweak the OS to work with my crappy hardware. I've got all the software that I need available to me for free, from the open source community. I even heard that Mac OS has access to the same free software. Wow. You can pay $0.00 for an OS and for the same software that Mac users can get? It's sounding better and better. If you want software for Windows you'll almost always pay for it.

For me it comes down to price and for my money I prefer Linux.