Once again it’s been quite a while since my last update, and I figured I’d best write something to make sure those who read from afar don’t think I froze to death (or got abducted by aliens or something…).
This winter I started bandying about the idea of transitioning to vlogging instead of blogging.
My thinking was that video might be a better way to show the various projects that we’re working on and more comprehensively than photos and text descriptions can. That, coupled with the fact that blogs are getting a bit passé (after all who wants to read when they can watch a video?!…), as well as my inclination to try new things piqued my interest in vlogging.
This past month I started shooting a fair amount of video instead of taking only photos (so you’ll find this entry lacking in photos).
It’s not the first time I thought about making videos about our home projects. A couple of years ago I shot a lot of video of my tree climbing/cutting exploits (including helmet-cam video), but after starting to edit it together found it was taking so much time that I never finished.
On the down side I’m not that photogenic nor inclined to be in the spotlight. That’s clearly demonstrated by my YouTube soldering video that was shot from the neck down (that by the way currently has 1,193,000 views!).
Admittedly I could just shoot the objects/projects and leave me and my mug out of it as much as possible, but even I don’t think that would be very interesting (with how-to videos being the obvious exception of course).
In addition, as mentioned above, I’ve found video editing to be quite a bit more time consuming that blogging (but something that I assume I’d become more proficient at if I did it more). I suspect that editing 5-10 minutes of video together for a vlog would take a lot longer than the couple of hours I usually take to assemble photos and write a blog entry.
I’m also a perfectionist, and unlike the text in a blog that can be anything I can write, with video I can only put together what I’ve shot, and I’ve found that often the video I shot isn’t that great.
So I’m vacillating and neither blogging nor vlogging.
As for projects, we’re vacillating on those as well.
The flooring project in the house was delayed when I realized I would have to put down floor leveling compound. But then somewhere along the line Kim decided she wanted to save the flooring we bought for that area for a permanent project later, so we’re back to trying to find a temporary floor covering to finish our mortgage refinance.
That means the flooring needs to be moved out of the middle of the living room where it’s sitting. The logical place to put it is in the new building, but it’s still so muddy around the outside of the building that that move will have to wait until it dries out more.
We’ve done very little work on the new building due to both financial constraints and the cold.
The radiant heat system is now just running in my workshop area, and it seems to be working fine. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to replace the pumps in the other two heating zones (the ones that froze and I later drained), but I don’t think (hope?) we suffered any major damage otherwise.
The warmer weather has made it more comfortable to work in my workshop in the new building so I’ve dabbled with a few projects there.
Now that it’s warming up, I’m also preparing to do more work on the new building. I’ve got electrical, alarm system and video surveillance wiring to run before the walls get insulated.
Then once the temperatures aren’t dropping below freezing anymore (due to the water we’ll have to use in the process), the concrete floor needs to get cleaned, then stained and sealed, and then we’ve got a lot of walls that need to be framed and drywalled.
But most of the work still is waiting for funds that we’ll get from our refinance (if that ever gets done).
Now that I’m 6 months away from my retirement eligibility, I’m trying to buy some toys I want that I might not be able to justify buying and/or afford after I retire.
My short list is a big (60-80 gallon) two stage air compressor for the shop and a plasma cutter, neither of which I really need.
I also had been thinking it was about time to replace my desktop (gaming) computer. I didn’t really need to replace my existing desktop computer either, but it was 4 years old, and in computer years that’s ancient, especially for someone like me that uses the computer so much.
An additional justification was that I would need a decent computer down in the new building at some point too, so I decided it was time to build a new one for in the house and move the old one down there.
When some computer components went on sale last month I started buying and just recently completed the assembly of my new desktop computer.
The new rig is built around an Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge. As with any new build I’m still working out a few bugs – namely I’ve had some USB problems. The new machine supports USB 3.0 and I’ve had some problems getting my existing USB 2.0 hubs to work with it. Since all my peripherals are USB it’s a critical problem.
Eventually I found that buying newer USB 2.0 hubs and replacing the old ones corrected the problem. It’s pretty clear that something in the USB 2.0 hub hardware changed in the four years since I bought my old hubs, especially since I had three different brand hubs and none of them worked properly.
I assume that this computer will last me as long as the last (the last one got two video card upgrades that contributed to its longevity).
One of our projects a few weeks ago was locating a new washer and dryer for the dog grooming shop. Two years prior Kim had bought a new front loading Frigidaire set that eventually became inoperative when the doors would no longer close properly.
The washer door frame was made of plastic, and due to unknown causes (most likely being stressed while open and/or when being violently closed) the plastic frame cracked. Over time the damage got increasingly worse and recently got to a point where the door wouldn’t close at all.
The dryer door didn’t break, but wouldn’t stay latched closed. (I think the metal front panel the hinge attaches to got bent.) They had been using a bungee cord for the past six months or so to keep it closed.
Since they run several loads of wash a day (towels) at the shop the broken washer had to be replaced immediately. Although the bungee-corded dryer still worked, it was stacked on top of the washer, so to keep that configuration we had to replace both units with other stackable models.
This time Kim bought a used commercial washer and dryer set from a coin-operated washer/dryer company. Since they’re commercial units theoretically they should be able to handle more wear and tear, are easier to maintain, and have door hinges that are more robust.
They replaced the washer and dryer at the dog shop with the new (used) one and brought the old set home for me to fix. When I started disassembling it I was amazed at how much damage there was on the washer door and hinge assembly.
Not only were the inner and outer sections of the plastic door broken but the cast metal hinge was as well. Replacement parts are going to cost in excess of $150.
While I realize that residential appliances aren’t made for the kind of daily use that they see at the dog shop, the damage to the washer door and hinge that I found exceeds anything I think would be caused by what I would consider normal use…
Either that, or the door and hinge assembly was very poorly built to begin with.
When the washer and dryer do get fixed they’ll probably end up in the house, as they’re nicer than the washer and dryer we have there. The only problem is that it’s a gas dryer, and we don’t have a gas line run to the laundry area.
Considering we don’t even know for sure where the washer and dryer are going to be after the house remodel, it probably doesn’t make much sense to run the gas line before we commit to an indoor layout.
Finally, it looks like winter is (finally) winding down. Much of the snow had melted (save for the snow piles and areas in the shade north of the buildings) and the weather had been fair, but yesterday we got enough snow yesterday to cover the bare ground again (that was forecast to be rain).
Happily the snow was gone by the next day.
But this coming week looks like we’ll gravite back towards more winter-like weather (with daytime highs in the mid 30′s and freezing temps at night as well as some snow).
It’s been a long and trying winter that I’ll be glad to see go, but unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s over yet.