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Wednesday October 28, 2009

working non-lethal mouse trap

I went out last night after dark to drop the kitchen compost in the earth-machine. I must have left the back-door open a crack, as a tiny field mouse ended up inside. It wasn't until shortly after I came in that I startled it from where it was perched up on the curtain rod. It came spiraling down the curtains, and disappeared somewhere into the corner. It was already almost midnight, and I thought I was heading to bed.

The mouse ended up booting in under the kickboard below the cupboards next to the dishwasher. Me and Lance poked around down in there, but to no avail. He must have creeped fully out of sight behind the dishwasher or the range. *sigh*

By the time I crawled back into bed, Charlotte was up, and heard me and Justine talking about this midnight mouse caper. Charlotte rather liked the idea of a little mouse living in our kitchen, and perhaps we should just let it be. Well, we advised her that little mousey probably had a family out in the yard somewhere, and would it not be a good idea to re-unite them ?

While I was thinking of a standard mouse-trap setup (SNAP!), we'd set the stage for a much more civilized opportunity to trap the critter alive, so as to ensure a rodent-family reunion.

Luckily, Mommy did the research today, and found this non-lethal mouse trap setup, and she set it up in the middle of the kitchen floor. While we were watching SYTYCD on the PVR this evening, mousey managed to wiggle into the tube, SCAM the bait and disappear back into his kitchen hide-out! Bummer - he didn't tip over into the bin! So, we re-baited the tube, and balanced it a little more precariously over the edge of the chair. While I was sitting here contemplating this blog, I heard the unfamiliar sound of a mouse-loaded cardboard tube landing in a pile of shredded newspaper, coming from the kitchen. I decided to go check it out at once!

I peeked into the bin, and there I saw the mouse, with just his face peeking out of the edge of the tube, wondering no doubt what was going to happen next. I opened the front door to hasten my exit with the loaded trap, and went to pick up the bin. The mouse jumped out of the tube and started to dance around in the newspaper a bit - certainly a frisky one. I put the bin down for a second to let him mellow out, and re-convince myself that there was NO WAY he was going to skitter up the side of the bin and escape.

I took the bin out onto the gravel in the side yard and tipped it over. Out darted the mouse, quickly running along the fence line. Luckily, I can tell Charlotte that our mouse has gone back to find his family in the backyard....

00:11:54 on 10/28/09 by coreman - Home -

Thursday June 25, 2009

the day the king died

I was just 6 years old when Elvis died, but still have some memories of that day. My Dad got home from work, and came in to the kitchen. He told Mom that Elvis died. As they talked about this news, I recall wondering "Who was Elvis?". Was it someone they knew? I wish I could remember their conversation, but my recall isn't that deep. I just remember that this event was so notable, that Dad and Mom had to talk about it as soon as Dad came in the door. It must have been quite a shock. I didn't really know until years later that Elvis was this cultural icon, and that we had some of his LPs downstairs next to the turntable.

It's strange sometimes, the things that make lasting memories for a kid.

I heard about Michael Jackson's death this afternoon via a Twitter update that asked "Is Michael Jackson dead?". I thought, well - if he is, then it will be one massive news story. I didn't follow up to verify this news until I was leaving the office. It was true.

While I was walking home, I thought back to that night when Dad got home, and wondered if I should go in, and tell Charlotte that Michael Jackson died today. She'd probably wonder, "Who was Michael Jackson?". She's only 3. In her world, Michael Jackson will never exist. Maybe one day I'll sit with her and play some cuts from my Dad's Thriller LP that I have kicking around here somewhere. I'll think back to what that phenomenon was like for all of us in the 80s. Maybe I'll even go out there somewhere online, and find some cuts from the Thriller video, and show her all the dance moves. She likes dance. Maybe Justine will share with her what it was like when the Thriller video debuted on Friday Night Videos, and there was such a massive build-up for it because they were going to play it, all 15 minutes, without commercials.

When I got home just after 6 PM, Charlotte had already gone to bed. I grabbed Wolfe up in my arms and turned on the news. Sure enough, there was lots of TV coverage. It is quite a shock. But my kids won't remember this day....

23:18:18 on 06/25/09 by coreman - Home -

Tuesday March 31, 2009

on this day

I was having a parental moment during the dinner hour, while I was on my hands and knees, down on the kitchen floor. The dinner hour is usually full of challenges, and this evening was starting out no different. Wolfie is learning how to feed himself these days, and this sometimes leads to a scene we call "the feast on the floor". Tonight it was some lentils, spinach, and onions strewn all about.

I got down there to sweep up this feast pronto, while the lentils were still whole, and before anyone could step on them, grinding them into the hardwood. I find that dried peas and beans that have been squished into the floor usually take a bit more effort to chip off and sweep up.

more...

23:26:00 on 03/31/09 by coreman - Home -

Thursday March 19, 2009

the washer dryer news

king size
Thrifty Foods recently held a fabulous contest on their Web site, where they were inviting web site visitors to enter online to win the fabulous prize of a new Kenmore Super-Capacity front-load washer-dryer pair. I am happy to announce that we are among the winners of this fabulous contest, and will soon have our new laundry appliances installed in the James Bay shack!

I'm doing most of the laundry these days, and am doing quite fine with the existing Samsung front-loaders that we have now. They are certainly not super-capacity, and we've recently been talking about getting a larger pair, so we can decrease the number of loads we're doing. This could be one way to make that effort more efficient.....however, buying a new pair is not exactly in the budget at this time.

Editor's Note: are you sure you wish to blog about laundry ?

Anyhoo, will get those units installed next week, thanks to Thrifty's. Looking forward to it....luckily, our really tall-and-skinny laundry room should be just big enough to fit those babies in stacking style....

22:47:32 on 03/19/09 by coreman - Home -

Friday June 13, 2008

in this blog....

..on each of the last 2 June 13, we have been on a return road-trip from Tofino. Not this year, though. I did take the day off work, and do an irrigation project in the back yard. Pictures to follow...and Little C helped Daddy with the pipes and tools.....good girl!

18:32:35 on 06/13/08 by coreman - Home -

Sunday June 08, 2008

apprentice mom dot com

I told Justine I would link to her blog at apprenticemom.com, if she got 10 posts. Ta Da! So, she is blogging lots about diapers and knitting these days, but there is lots more than that! Check it out!

I just told her that she was a top-tier blogger because she was blogging on the LAMP-stack. Huh?! Yah. Her blog is powered by Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, all the cool stuff that she has no idea about. She is also indexed in Google already! Yay!

23:01:12 on 06/08/08 by coreman - Home -

load of records coming down

Just got back from Mom's....she wants me to have all of Dad's records. Mostly 33 RPM...mebee a few 45 RPM if I dig around a bit more up there. Lots of good stuff from the 60's I can spin. Will do.

I've always wanted Dad's records. And Dad's old stereo. He had this Sansui receiver/amplifier. Ever since he got his new stereo, I wanted the old one as a hand-me-down. You know, because I was a student and needed an amp for my pad. I could "borrow" it. Nope - he told me I couldn't have it. I guess because he was really attached to the unit. And so was I. Because I grew up listening to records on it. Oh well - I ended up getting a unit like it down at the Value Village for like $40. And part of the left-channel was hosed. Didn't matter. Played lots of tunes on it. The back-light glowed green, and it had this sweet tuner with a heavy knob that rolled really nice. That treated me right - until the back-light burnt out, and I had a bit more trouble tuning in my preferred FM-band stations. No biggee.

Somewhere along the way, I secured a number of the albums - I must not have advised my Dad that I was taking them down to my place to spin them. Some of my favourites from his collection. Some of the Beatles albums that I wanted - but not all of them. This turned out to be quite a shame, because Dad had some of his records stored downstairs in the rumpus room, behind the bar, next to the bar's beer fridge. Somehow, my folks had a fridge accident a few years ago, and it caused a small flood around the back of the bar. Ended up soaking the jackets of a bunch of the albums. Like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. And the so-called "White Album". And the Magical Mystery Tour. The jackets, formerly in used-condition, are now in a sad condition of being soaked, dried, and mildewed. I've checked out a couple of the platters, and I think I can save them, as long as I clean them properly. I'll talk to Guy about that. Luckily, other titles have been at my place for a while; Abbey Road, Revolver, Let it Be. They're OK.

Let it Be.

Mom chose that track to play at the Service in April. Yes, Dad liked that track. And here we were, approx. 450 folks on that day, listening to this track, over the glorious sound system that had been installed in the church. It was to be surrounded by, immersed in, and enveloped in the sound. I recall feeling like I was cloaked in song, feeling in a state of suspended emotion. It's a track I've heard so many times - and played on vinyl at my place. My Dad's vinyl.

Turns out that in recent months, Reg had taken quite a liking to the film Across the Universe. She keeps telling me he watched it 10 times over the winter. I'll need to see this film.

I've got the records now. And I imagine my Mom will soon be cleaning out the rumpus room, and want to get rid of that old Sansui receiver/amplifier. I'll gladly take it, even though the FM-tuner section is fried. My Dad doesn't need it now.

20:53:39 on 06/08/08 by coreman - Home -

Thursday May 29, 2008

Soil Building Systems - Cubic Yard Calculators

Thought I would like to this great Cubic Yard Calculators, that also includes a "soil settling" factor in the calculation. Good stuff.

09:02:23 on 05/29/08 by coreman - Home -

Saturday May 03, 2008

the sounds of silence

Kind of having trouble picking things back up online here again. Don't really know where to start with an update. April sped by, punctuated by a series of ups and downs. Lots of downs. It really hits me when I go home and spend time there, hanging out with Mom.

Last Monday night I drove up there after dinner, a drizzly and grey sunset drive over the Malahat. The sun came out as I neared Cobble Hill, making the rest of the drive a little more pleasant. Mom and I went for a walk around the neighbourhood, checked the mailbox, then went home for a glass of wine, and sat together in the dining area off the kitchen to review the latest round of sympathy cards to arrive. A great number arrived at home over the month. We stayed up past 2 AM that night, talking about all sorts of things, which was good. In the past, Dad wouldn't usually join us in these late-night gab sessions, preferring instead to hit the sack well before us. So, on this evening, it was not unusual for Dad's chair to sit empty at the table. However, the house now has such a tangible feeling of emptiness to it.

Tonight, I'm doing the usual Saturday eve routine. Much of the world is still the same - but so much of it is now tainted with a loss of spirit. I've got Randy's Vinyl Tap on CBC, and am cleaning up the kitchen. We just got Charlotte out of the (bubble) bath and she is now off to have story-time. Randy has just covered some songs that hit #1 and #2 on the Billboard charts in the early 70's. I'm thinking that Dad must have been listening to these same tracks back then, when at work then at Safeway in North Van. I know that my Dad always liked to have pop music on the radio at work at our store. I want to call him up and ask him if he used to listen to tunes at work back then. Just a simple thing to do - to phone him up - like so many times before. I thought we'd have a Spring and Summer to hang out. More years, more opportunities. But I can't phone him up. I remember the last phone call I had with my Dad. But I don't want to write about that now.

20:22:37 on 05/03/08 by coreman - Home -

Thursday April 10, 2008

the days following

Dad out fishing
We held Dad's memorial service this past Tuesday in Duncan. It was a very well-attended event, with over 400 people coming to share with us in their thoughts of Reggie. The church was full, and the service was very nice. Our good friend Naomi played the piano during the proceedings, and Norm Sowden led us through some thoughts and prayers. Bill Keserich shared with us some great recollections of Reggie during their long friendship. Grant and I spoke about Dad, and that was hard for both of us to do. Uncle Peter shared his memories, and cousin Scott also spoke briefly. Larry G. also made it up to the podium to share some of his favourite memories.

The tea reception following was very nice, and allowed many of us to shed a few more tears. Many old friends, customers, and familiar faces were there to share their thoughts with each other, and us.

Flowers, food, cards, and letters continue to arrive at the house in Cowichan Bay. Many people have phoned and left their thoughts.

One of Dad's old colleagues found this picture of Reg, and sent it on to us yesterday. Thanks, Clive. Reg loved to go fishing, and Clive took this shot of Reg hooking a salmon while they were both out in the boat off Schooner Cove near Nanoose sometime around 1984.

10:24:44 on 04/10/08 by coreman - Home -

Friday January 18, 2008

fresh blueberry muffins

Just pulled some blueberry muffins out of the oven. Mmmmmm. Due to a recent shopping error, I am now making homemade muffins every couple of days it seems. You see, Lance recently bought a couple of litres of buttermilk by mistake - should have been 1 percent milk. Not great to put in your tea, so I made a batch of buttermilk muffins - using a Deborah Madison recipe. MMmmmmmmmmm. Well, they were a big hit with Charlotte, so I made another batch or 2. Blueberry, banana, apple...easy to add in whatever fruit yummies are laying around.

The shopping err was a couple of weeks ago - and I'm still in the muffin business. Last night I mixed the batter before going to bed, and popped them in the oven this morning around 0700. Charlotte is still sleeping.....she has a bad cold right now - and a bad cough. She'll like a warm fresh muffin when she comes down.....

07:36:34 on 01/18/08 by coreman - Home -

Tuesday January 01, 2008

Happy New Year !

Made it through midnight this year, which is an achievement in itself. Last year I think we hit the hay around 10:30 PM and missed the hooting and hollering out in View Royal. This year, the boats down in the Harbour all sounded off their horns, and various neighbours were outside whooping it up....

00:52:00 on 01/01/08 by coreman - Home -

Tuesday December 25, 2007

Christmas day audio accompaniment

Merry Christmas to all readers on this most festive day! We're at home, playing with all our new toys, and getting ready for that first cup of coffee. We've already spun our favourite XMAS LPs, which include the Sounds of Music, and Christmas with Nana Mouskouri. Poppi wants to know where the heck Papa Mouskouri is. We'll be sending him out onto the Internet to find that out. We are now listening to CBC Radio 2 Christmas programming, and are now tuned in to the Christmas Sing-In from Montreal....

The folks at Radio2 have some nice content online under Concerts On Demand. They have some of those on every now and again at night. The other night I listened to the Bruce Cockburn concert, and it was really good. Been doing a lot more radio at night lately, when I am in the kitchen doing my nightly kitchen cleanup chore. I'm cooking a lot less now in the new domestic arrangement.....

10:45:19 on 12/25/07 by coreman - Home -

Monday December 24, 2007

Charlotte's view of dinner

feast
From Charlotte's high-chair, this is about how this evening's dinner was looking. We picked up a 19 lb. turkey this year, down from last year's whopping 22 pounder. Among the experimental efforts today were Lance's mashed potatoes (milled then mashed), Justine's stuffing, and Momo's corn-bread. I chose not to experiment too muchly with the gravy, except for we ground up a bunch of the trimmings the turkey was cooked with, and sent those in with the flour. The brussel sprouts were done up nicely with some chestnuts (not roasted over an open fire, and Jack Frost not here to nip at our noses).

Mmmmmm.....all was quite yummy. Oscar had a few treats too, although he had to wait for his meal until we were done.

We will now fast until tomorrow's grand feast up at Nana's!

19:17:33 on 12/24/07 by coreman - Home -

Thursday November 01, 2007

many pumpkins

Halloween 2007 pumpkins
Good times last night here in James Bay. Charlotte was dressed up as a fairy princess, and with her pretty wings, she fluttered about the neighbourhood filling a small pouch of treats.

We had about 30 ghosts and goblins show up at the door. We had 5 pumpkins out there, and our pumpkin-lights to light the path to the side door. Justine had loaded up on candy, expecting a cast of thousands at our door. So, we'll have to poke away at the left-overs in the weeks to come.

The Unix-trick-for-treat give-away at work went OK. We still have some candy left, so tricks coming in for the next few days should get a treat.

07:28:20 on 11/01/07 by coreman - Home -

Tuesday October 09, 2007

about 50 per-cent

Ugh. No energy. Cold-symptoms now - not feeling great. Stayed home this AM. We're all at various stages of being sick, so helping each other out. Charlotte is a lot better than last week, but still got sick once today. Blah.

I got online this PM to work from home. I was on fire. I set out to attack that pile of trouble-tickets that is weighing me down. Managed to work over 40 tickets in about 3.5 hours. That is like lightning. Feeling like I'm getting caught up. It's a challenge.

21:18:00 on 10/09/07 by coreman - Home -

Monday August 06, 2007

27 boxes of stuff

Yes, the 50 pounds of blueberries were going to be bagged and frozen in the deep-freeze. 2 cups per ziploc bag. Momo did that action item today. The other important action item this weekend was to activate the deep freeze. It got moved into the back corner of the studio, and there it has been sitting since the (dreaded) moving weekend.

Only problem with getting the freezer fired up was the 27 boxes of STUFF piled up on it, or NEAR it in the studio. Grrrr. Haven't had the time, and don't really have a place for all that stuff, so what to do. Well - need to freeze the blues so had to do something.

Stacked the 27 boxes of stuff in the middle of the backyard on Sunday afternoon. Various treasures, junk from the old desk, 1 stereo, a TV, lots of books, some art, vacuum bags, photo albums, pottery, pictures, tennis rackets, kitchen utensils, etc. etc. Just lots of stuff - some of which has yet to be unpacked from the move back over from Vancouver.

Did I mention that our last house was SO BIG that we could just pile boxes of stuff away FOREVER and never have to worry about it?! Yah.

Anyhoo......it wasn't raining this weekend, so I felt great about leaving all that stuff out there overnight, under the many stars in the sky.

Managed to get through 3 of those boxes on Sunday....only 24 left to go.....

more...

21:20:00 on 08/06/07 by coreman - Home -

Sunday June 24, 2007

closet kit showdown

Grant and Darlene are expecting twins. Not sure if I mentioned that yet to the world, so there you go.

So let it be written, so let it be indexed!

They've got a few things to do around the house to prepare. Grant called me up the other day, and asked if I wouldn't mind putting together his closet-organizer kit. Yah, he figures I'm way up the learning curve on this one, and that is likely true. Turns out that he got the solution from Rubbermaid, which I have yet to assemble, and wouldn't you know it, but : there's this closet-consumer part of me that would like to compare and contrast that kit with the Closetmaid kits I used around our shack.

So.....after home-made pancakes, we bombed up to their place in Mill Bay, and while the girls played upstairs, Grant and I started slamming his kit together. Being a realtor, and it being Sunday, Grant got called away fairly soon after we started to show some property. So I continued solo, and was done his 7'6" wide closet in just under 3 hours. As pictured on the box, a typical configuration has your double-hang section, long hang, shoe-shelves, sliding baskets, and 2-foot shelves. As usual, the time-consuming part is getting organized for what you're going to do, and the assembly goes pretty quick. Both kits provide a similar end-result. I'd say ClosetMaid has way more support for you on their web-site, and they make the planning part of it a richer experience with the provided photo gallery, and planning tools online.

more...

23:28:00 on 06/24/07 by coreman - Home -

Saturday June 23, 2007

this little toddler went to market

pilot to coho, pilot to coho
Another sunny Saturday morning, so got Charlotte into the backpack, leashed the pup and headed out for a walk. Mommy stayed home for a sleep-in. Started out along Dallas Road waterfront, where we saw one of Charlotte's favourite boats : the Coho. And the Coho doesn't do nurnie. No-NO, COHO. I knew the coffee stop was gonna be at the Market, so we headed down Menzies to get there. Oscar was quite pleased to get to the Market, and proceeded to to roll around doing a big-doggie-grass-scratch right there in one of the booths.

Nice.

Roxy
The live-music had yet to start, so we headed down to see the neighs at the corner. Ruby wasn't there yet, but Roxy was there, so we grabbed a picture of her here. We had a nice chat with Melissa about what the horseys were going to be up to this weekend, so that it's good to be in the know on that front. Last night we all went out for a walk after dinner, and ended up down at Ogden Point looking at the 2 cruise ships that were in. The sun was going down about the time that all the horses were getting brushed and loaded back into the trailers, so we stayed and watched about 11 of them all get loaded up. That was neat for Charlotte to watch.....

Returned to the market, and the live-music was happening, in the form of Her Sweet Time. The keywords describing this performer include "Canadian, folk, female, acoustic, singer-songwriter". We really enjoyed her solo, acoustic gig, and decided to buy her 2nd CD, storm dancing. In the summer, I'm always looking for some sort of music that represents 'the sound of the summer', and this may be it for Summer/07.

more...

22:02:00 on 06/23/07 by coreman - Home -

Saturday June 16, 2007

let there be vinyl and light....

show me the way
Alone in the house here for a bit....so am spinning some vinyl while I unflatten these flat boxes from Sweden Way....you'll note the sunbeam coming down on the platter here....it is only temporary....while the Saturday afternoon sun passes over the skylight in the living room.....

Kind of makes me want to issue today's Fromage du Jour : "Have you ever seen the light.....while spinning your vinyl.....?"

Sorry.....couldn't resist.....oooops, side 1 is ovah....going to flip it now...

16:00:35 on 06/16/07 by coreman - Home -

hanging in the "neigh"bourhood

Took Charlotte out this morning with OTP to let Mom have a sleep-in. Charlotte has been quite a handful, so it will be nice for Mom to have a break. She was in the back-pack, and pups on the leash. We went down around Fisherman's and along the waterfront towards downtown. Nice morning, lots of planes out. Charlotte knows that a lot of them go to "Van-Koo-Koo".

We stopped and viewed the "neighs" (horses) down at Menzies St., where we met Roxy. That is Ruby's sister. One of only 5 female horses working the streets these days, apparently. We've also met Molly and Kitty. One more to go. Ruby is Charlotte's favourite, and is on the night-shift tonight. Yes, in this neighbourhood, you get to know the horses working the streets. Now that's not really unusual for this day and age, is it?

I needed a coffee pretty bad, and couldn't exactly find an open window anywhere to park the dog, so I was glad to hit the James Bay Market. Coffee stall there next to the dude with the crepes. Oh yeah. Hot coffee. There was also live music down there - the Children of Celebrities were down there playing their folksie-acoustic set....featuring cuts from their blockbuster initial release of "Middle-Aged Wasteland"....

We bought a few goodies at the Market, then went home. We timed our arrival for just after Mommy went out to the village, so me and Robin continued to entertain our wee one. Sometimes as long as Charlotte doesn't actually see her Mommy she'll forget she has one....

13:59:00 on 06/16/07 by coreman - Home -

Thursday June 14, 2007

fence coming together

cedar fence
We've been away since Monday morning effectively, and things have been happening around the shack. We hired Kevin's team to build the fence, as there was no way Lance and I were going to get it done in a timely fashion. We've got other stuff to keep us busy. In the past 4 days, the boys have been working away on the cedar fence for the front yard, and it is looking just like so.....

20:02:00 on 06/14/07 by coreman - Home -

Monday June 11, 2007

looking for a programmable doorbell

Been out looking for door chimes. So far, so lame. I was talking to Randy (our electrician) about maybe a user-updateable door chime, so you could upload your own sounds in MP3 format, or something like that.

"Good call!", he says, and then reminds me that we didn't run any CAT5 to the door chime location above the hall closet.

"Hmmm.....", I thought, as there was no way I was thinking of running ethernet to the door bell. Like, as if!!

more...

00:31:52 on 06/11/07 by coreman - Home -

Sunday June 10, 2007

another closet complete

Small road-trip and closet construction today. Started the hall-closet this PM, but did not finish before going up to Mom and Dad's for dinner, and to celebrate Dar's birthday. Got back, and continued putting things together, wrapping up near midnight. Wanted to get done before going to Tofino tomorrow. At last, all the shoes are no longer a tripping hazard in the middle of the front foyer, and all the coats are off the floor in the office.

23:33:00 on 06/10/07 by coreman - Home -

Saturday June 09, 2007

quite yucky rain

That forecast was right. Lots of rain today. We all went out to do some errands and shopping. And to get a coffee. We picked up some more closet components. Yes, I'm going to do another closet. Already got it all planned out. I may not bring you all the details here, though.

19:10:00 on 06/09/07 by coreman - Home -

Friday June 08, 2007

added living space

salvaged trike
Charlotte eventually came out to try out her new tricycle, that Mommy salvaged the other day from down near the beach. I cleaned it up for her and got the seaweed off. This unit must have been doing some time right down there in the surf. Charlotte did a couple of short laps of the upper terrace. And then she wiped out.



23:54:00 on 06/08/07 by coreman - Home -

Friday fun in the sun

OOooooo, very nice rays out there today. Nana came down for breakfast, then we all went out for a nice walk along the waterfront, and through the meadow. The forecast is not great for the weekend, so some outside time was in order for today. Charlotte fell asleep somewhere down near Paddon St., so we wandered through that end of James Bay before ending up back in the village for a coffee. Doing lots of coffee out and about on this holiday.

Charlotte had a good nap this PM while I finished scrubbing the deck upstairs....

18:00:00 on 06/08/07 by coreman - Home -

Thursday June 07, 2007

outside living

We got this wonderful upper terrace down here. Haven't really been able to use it since moving in as it collected a lot of dirt and debris during the construction phase. So, I got out there this PM to start the clean-up process. Cleared the junk away, then swept, mopped, and scrubbed the vinyl decking.

22:07:00 on 06/07/07 by coreman - Home -

network re-org in progress : the "before" part

ethernet, coax. phone
I skipped out on play-school this morning to clear out some space in the attic. We built a storage area into the attic in this place, that is accessible from the 2nd floor landing via (very cool) pull-down staircase. It's only about 4' tall up there, so a bit of a croucher - but lots of room to store seasonal goodies like the XMAS gear and the scary Halloween bag.

It is also the location for the network home-run, and it is currently a work-in-progress. So far, I have patched down enough CAT5 to keep a handful of ethernet ports online, and a few COAX for cable-TV. I'm using CAT5 for phone as well, and we got a few of those punched down. Luckily it was pretty easy to figure out what TIP and RING were, so the rest was easy.

The picture here shows the current state. You could call this the "before" shot. I hope to have everything tidied up soon, so I can show off a much cleaner looking "after" pic....

I decided not to contract this part out as it is a bit labour intensive, and it is so darn fun to punch all this stuff down yourself. I picked up an economy punch-down tool and that has been working quite well. I borrowed the COAX crimper and terminated the dozen leads up there. Am running around to various ports in the house and terminating them as needed....

Note the Nortel Jazz telephone on the wall. My favourite handset, been with me since '91. I just *had to* install a wall-mount phone in the attic, you know, for those moments of network trouble-shooting that sometimes have to happen when you are right next to your network rack. High geek-factor.

Also note the computer there in the tower-case. No, it is not doing anything other than acting as a shelf. I was thinking of powering up a laptop, and using the tower-case as a small desktop for it. That PC used to be legendary.....spinning dot-com era cycles.....but now it is just a shadow of its former self.....

21:34:00 on 06/07/07 by coreman - Home -

Tuesday June 05, 2007

day 12 - junk removal, stress relief

Play-group this morning down in the Village. This group is the one for little weeny kids. Charlotte is amongst the oldest there. Everything was quite calm and peaceful actually, very nice. Circle-time was fun, with all those great songs for kids. Fun stuff.

I got there a little late, as I was dropping the truck off at the shop for a tune-up. Ended up walking back from Rock Bay, and stopping to pick up some coffee and tea along the way. Needed some fresh bean, and leaf.

more...

22:30:00 on 06/05/07 by coreman - Home -

Sunday June 03, 2007

getting even more organized

temporary racks mounted time for a pint

Ok, so I decided to do another closet. This one is in the master bedroom. I took 3 pics. The left-most shows the temporary solution installed a few weeks ago - 6 feet of closet rod, and 1 6 foot long shelf. I tore all that out this PM, and mounted all the racks and shelving. Now we have about 2 feet of long hanging, 8 feet of short hanging, a 6 foot upper shelf, and 2 shoe shelves. Then, I loaded all our clothes back in. We got way more room in there now, and most importantly, room for more clothes....

No, I didn't experiment with another vendor's solution, as I was hooked on the same one as last time. Planning this closet was way easier than the 1st, as you might imagine. In fact, because I had already been through the web site, I knew there was a sample design there that I wanted to basically copy. So, I printed out the parts-list, went to the store, got the parts, and slammed it together.

22:52:14 on 06/03/07 by coreman - Home -

day 10 - started too early

woof I was up late last night, browsing online, into the wee hours. Oscar got me up at 0330 moaning about something. I didn't respond until almost 0400, and took him outside for a bit. Nothing unusual, other than he's too full of beans. Or full of something else. He eventually got sick in the hallway, and Justine and I both got up around 0430 to clean up the mess, and check him out. He's got another case of bad tummy. *Groan*. Justine decided to take him out for a walk, and I went back to bed.

Not feeling too great when Charlotte got up around 0600, and wanting Mummy, who was still out with pups. Apparently Mummy salvaged a trike that was down near the waterfront, and that was waiting outside when Charlotte and I went for a car-ride around 0730.

Mommy went back to bed while Charlotte and I went out to the big orange home centre, and the grocery store. Charlotte napped on the way home, and when she got up, Mommy suggested we walk downtown and go to Blue Carrot Cafe in Bastion Square for lunch. Good call. Marisa's is awesome!

So, after a very fine fried-egg sandwich, and wicked bowl of creamy potato cheddar bacon soup, we went shopping in Fan Tan Alley, then came home.

22:39:58 on 06/03/07 by coreman - Home -
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