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Fixed Bedroom Electricity
So, as I was going to bed last night, I plugged my laptop in the outlet by my mattress and poof, lights in the room went out. I thought I had blown the circuit, but then turned and found that the stuff plugged in on the other side of the room was still on. I went to the basement and found that the circuit was not blown. I figured that whatever was loose in the box that I put the cover on the other day, must have finally separated. Since it was around 11pm when I discovered this, I decided not to try to fix it immediately. (I don’t ever work on stuff when I’m tired because that seems to be when I make truly dumb mistakes.) I shut the breaker off to the room, just to be on the safe side and went to bed. I got up around 6am and decided to check the wires in the one box. After retwisting them together, I put the cap on and some electrical tape for good measure. When I turned the breaker back on, everything worked fine. So, small problem fixed.
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Removing the Floor
The last bit that I need to remove from the bathroom is the floor. Rather, the sort of vinyl top and plywood floor that’s over the subfloor. This is a royal pain. Why? Screws! The vinyl (it’s not really vinyl, but I don’t know what it is) floor is covering the heads of the screws, so it was really hard to get up. In fact, I only took up half the floor. I used my circular saw to cut it into pieces and then had to pry the pieces off. This was really hard and my back is pretty sore. It’s just proving to me how much better screws are at holding things than nails. Tomorrow, hopefully, the rest will come up and I’ll be done gutting.
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Electricity in the Bathroom
After a stupid mistake yesterday, where I learned a valuable lesson about rough edges in conduit and what happens when you cut through the coating on wire, I finally have electricity in the bathroom. (Lesson, MAKE SURE all edges on conduit are SMOOTH because if you hook a wire and rip through the coating, it’s a HUGE flash and will scare the bejesus out of you.)
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Empty Bathroom and Bad News
Here’s a shot of my completely gutted bathroom.
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Boneheaded Mistake
I still haven’t put the pictures of the bathroom up. I’ve taken some, but am too lazy to get the cable for my camera out. Anyway, I can describe the bathroom, it’s completely empty. I spent Sunday morning cutting the old cast iron vent pipe (that was connected to nothing on either side) to get it out of the wall. Tonight, I decided to move the electrical conduit that went across the ceiling and up next to the main stack. I did a really good job of bending the conduit, which was a little difficult because it wasn’t a 90 degree bend. But then stupidity took over. The way the conduit came up, it looked easy to just run it right into the cover of the box in the attic. So, that’s what I did. Then, as I was struggling to put the cover on (after I reconnected the 6 pairs (3 black, 3 white) of wire, did I realize that I forgot to put the little ring on the inside of the conduit. So, the conduit I just added doesn’t really stay attached to the box. Basically, I just ungrounded everything upstairs. So, tomorrow, I’ll be doing basically the same thing I did today, just hopefully, I’ll do it correctly.
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Bathroom Demolished
Thanks to my cousin Janet, my tub is gone. And just about everything else in the bathroom is gone as well. Pictures to follow…
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Back to Work…
…on the house, of course. I’ve just about finished gutting the bathroom. It was a pain because it was updated at some point. Whoever did it, didn’t remove the old plaster and lathe, they just put drywall over it. So I had to remove both the drywall and the plaster/lathe. Fun. And, as an added bonus, I no longer have anywhere to take a shower. But, one of the reasons that I joined the gym at work was so that I could take a shower there before work. So, this isn’t really a big deal. The coolest thing though is that I now have a window in the bathroom. I LOVE it!
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Ski Trip
I have recently returned from a nice vacation where I went skiing for the first time in my life. I went to Park City, Utah to Deer Valley Ski Resort with my sister Julie, my brother John and John’s Dutch friend Mark. We stayed at the condo of my sister Nancy’s friend Sharon. (Thanks Sharon!) I forgot to take my camera, so I don’t have any pictures to post. But if I get pictures from those who did bring cameras, I’ll put them up.
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Working with Ruby
To set up a new project: ruby cookbook (using cookbook as the project name)
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Working with Ruby
Now that ruby and mysql appear to be working ok, I need to set up a new database. First of all, look at the config/database.yml file. The root user password (or whichever mysql user that you’re going to use) must be put in this file. Then, the database must be created:
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Website Design
I need to do some major web design work, so I’m trying to decide how I’m going to tackle the project. I want to use a database and other dynamic stuff, so I was thinking that I’d use php and mysql. But after reading some webpages, I think I’m going to try to learn about Ruby on Rails. It’s more complicated to start off, but should do lots more of the things that I want. So, to get started, I’m loading it on my mac. First step is to load Xcode, then I have to fix the version of ruby that comes with the mac.
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Bathroom Has Begun
I finally started working on my bathroom. I’m going to gut the entire room, fix any plumbing issues and then put new stuff in. The putting new stuff in is a little foggy right now because I’m really not sure what I want to do. So, I’m off to the bookstore to get some magazines about remodelling bathrooms, so I have an idea of what I want to do.
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I am an idiot
So, after running the migration assistant and copying all of my data, everything was fine except for X11. Since I use X11 at work on a daily basis, it was very important for me to get this installed. I decided that I would delete everything I could find from the old X11 stuff and install it new. Then, I also grabbed the latest updates from Apple. Reboot and NOTHING.
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New Laptop
My incredibly nice boss bought me a new MacBook Pro, which I just received today. I am now in the process of trying to set my new laptop up just like my old one. I thought I would really look forward to playing with my new toy, but I’m actually dreading it a little. My old PowerBook ran pretty much the same software, so things aren’t really going to be any different. I just have to schlep all my data from the old laptop to the new one. I did use the Apple Migration Assistant to move my programs and things. This worked ok. I still had to go through and delete old versions of things and old programs that I no longer wanted. My iphoto library has come over fine and I’m now waiting for my music library to come over.
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Gross House Work
This didn’t happen at my house, but it was still gross. My brother Paul’s sump pump broke right before Christmas. I went over to help him replace it. That was BY FAR, the most disgusting, smelly job I have ever done. Thank god my house doesn’t have a sump pump. Though, I’m fairly certain that I’ll have similar problems with my catch basin. With either one, though, YUCK!
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Repairing Mac Disk (not boot disk)
Command to use to try to repair a mac disk
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Using rsync on OS X
To use rsync to backup a directory on a mac, syntax is:
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Insanity!
So much has happened, I don’t know where to begin.
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Server Upgrade
The machine hosting this blog has now been upgraded to Fedora Core 6. Coldandheartless has been down for a few days because I’m having an electrical problem at home. Right now, my house does not have a main circuit breaker for the entire house. My entire circuit panel is scheduled to be replaced next week. Anyway, since I was making some changes to the computer, I thought I’d upgrade it as well. So, thankfully, the upgrade from FC3 to FC6 went pretty well. There were very few things I had to fix.
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Light at the End of the Tunnel
My one-year anniversary of living in the house passed yesterday. I did not meet my deadline of one room per year, but I am close to finishing. In fact, after these pictures, I’m not posting any more until it’s done. I’m basically just finishing up the trim, and the room will be done. The closet however, won’t be. But that’s mainly because I haven’t figured out how I’m going to use it.
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Awesome Gift
Since my birthday was this week, I decided to get myself a gift. I had planned on buying myself the Lego Mindstorms robot kit because it looked pretty cool and a lot of fun. But, now that I am so much older and wiser, I decided on a more practical gift. You know, something that I need. I was a bit depressed about this, but decided it was the grown-up thing to do.
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End of the Job in Sight
I finally have heat in the room. I put the duct in last week and finally connected it to the furnace the other day. Connecting ducts and putting them in was actually a fun job. I enjoyed it.
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ORANGE!
I finished painting the room and it’s orange. Somewhat of an odd color, but I wanted to try it and I like it. I know a couple of people think it’s nuts, but I can always paint again, if it ends up driving me crazy. Here’s what it looked like after I finished the trim.
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My Vacation
I just got back from a vacation to New York City. I went with my sister Julie and her friend Kate. We left on Saturday and returned today, on Wednesday. It was a great trip. Mainly, we went to go to the US Open Tennis Championship which started on Monday.
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Second Annual “No Wuss” Picnic
Today is the Second Annual No Wuss Picnic. A little picnic with my niece Emily and nephew Jack where we ride our bikes to a park and have some fun before they head back to school. It’s called “No Wuss” because participants HAVE to ride their bikes to get to the picnic. No one in cars are allowed because they’re wusses. The weather is beautiful and it should be fun. And my other niece Abby, who is two will also be attending for the first time this year. She can come because she will arrive on the back of her mom’s bike.
I’ll post pictures if I remember to take my camera.Here are the pictures.
