What Did You Do This Weekend?

[crokett]

I reworked the plumbing and finally got the shower fixtures installed in the new bath, went and got 24 80lb bags of concrete and the beams for the shop foundation, set the lines for the foundation, dug 12 12" wide by 24" deep holes (actually wider than that so the sonotube would fit), and mixed and poured 4 of the piers. I have the day off tomorrow so will mix the rest tomorrow after I mow the lawn.

[Uncle Cracker]

Cooked... ate... drank some beer... ate some more... drank some wine... picked up some wood for pen blanks... drank some tequila... ate some more... worked on a couple of pens... set up the router table for some stuff I'm gonna do this week... napped... drank some more beer... my life sucks...

[LinuxRandal]

Had two days off in a row, for the first time since xmas. Saturday, dropped off a package at work that was delivered to me (stuff for both places), went to help dad move an old chair out, offered to help him with his landscaping (mulching, he didn't think he was going to do a very big area). Left when he said no thanks, went and picked up my grass seed, got home, raked/dethatched (1 whole section and lots of spots), added some top soil, seed and spagnum peat. Other area's used the mulch with the green stuff (patching), manually edged. Tossed a dead black snake in the trash that didn't get out of its old skin. Dug up and transplanted grandma's old tulips (never been divided), which ended up being way more then I thought. (got sunburned) Headed out to my brothers farm, saw his new pc (his first build), disassembled and cleaned out three of his pc's (including one that was WAY too hot to begin with, and looked like they shipped it with a dead cat in the cpu fan). Rearranged his network, went to bed about three. Got up this morning, home, mowed, watered (again) the new seed. Came over to mom's for Easter/Bday dinners, had a nap.
This week, is only going to be more of this.

[smorris]

Since LOML is playing nurse Rachet the shop is off limits for a couple weeks. So, I sat around and started playing with Sketchup and the cabinet package I bought called CabinetCruncher (I'll write a review on that later). I was able to make a drawing of the kitchen as it is now, then I started modifying it with the cabinets I'm building. The wife liked being able to see what it was going to look like. We did find a few problems and were able to alter the design to overcome them. Of course the downside is that now she wants to play around with the whole design and mentioned things that would require knocking out or moving walls.

Then today we had the family over for dinner. I didn't feel like eating but did enjoy seeing everybody together.

[MikeMcM1956]

My day was pretty much like Uncle Cracker's, except we went to church in the morning and ate out for breakfast and dinner. And contrary to what he said, it's a good life ....

Mike

[LCHIEN]

paying uncle sam

[Kristofor]

I spent parts of both Saturday and Sunday at my parents helping to totally remove and rewire all of the low voltage wiring for the 1950's vintage house (phone, video, data, audio, etc). They're having their basement significantly remodeled (floor busted up and new concrete poured, new bathroom, multiple walls moving/reframed, gas piping to new fireplaces, etc.) and by next weekend many of the walls/ceilings would no longer be open so Easter weekend wiring it was (SWMBO did not appreciate this choice very much).

Anyhow, my parent's house is an old 5 bedroom rambler that's about 80' long and 30' wide. It had "character" in its wiring plan... The previous rule of thumb was when in doubt daisy chain... To get to one phone jack in the Kitchen with the old wiring required a trip equal to about 2.5x the length of the house with 2 trips into the attic and 2 into the basement... There were no fewer (and we may have missed some when we abandoned RG59 under cellulose insulation in the attic) that 18 coax splitters of 1-6 port variety. Since we could not figure out where 2 of the cables were connected (neither my dad nor I opted to trace through the attic) I think it's even possible they had a coax loop 50 feet across. Ugly state of affairs, and clearly part of the reason for poor reception in 3 rooms. I'm surprised what they had in there before worked at all...

Now everything is a nice clean home run to a (more or less) centralized location. And the new basement theater area is good to go for 7.1. In total we put in ~1200 feet of coax, ~1800 feet of cat 5e, and ~700 feet of speaker wire. This of course includes connections to "dad's" bathroom, and the garage. Easy work for the most part, but tons of up and down 2-3 steps on ladders, the usual fun with fiberglass insulation, and working in one stretch where there is plumbing, hvac, and new framing was a real PITA for my (apparently massive)hands!

Kristofor.

[BobSch]

Cleaned all the winter tree branches out of the yard and layed down the first fertilizer of the season. THIS year we're going to have a yard if it kills me.

[pelligrini]

Had a playoff match with my dart team Friday night. Drank a whole, whole lot of Guiness. Got home at 4:45 Sat morning. Woke up and made breakfast around 10:00. The all day hangover didn't kick in until around noon. Alternated between a couch potato and my office computer. Did some reading on workbenches, and a little CAD design. It rained Sat night & Sunday morning. Too wet to really play in the shop/shed, so I did a bunch more designwork on my future bench. (Still kind of hungover too) A buddy brought over a fish that had been terrorizing all of his. I did a little fish tank maintenance, and placed the 5" banded leporinus (but postponed all the hard work).

[dbhost]

Cooked and did laundry as LOML was sorting, cleaning, and purging 20 year old junk from the closets. Non junk, junk got posted to Ebay... (A few collectibles, etc...)

[bthorne]

LOML and I went to my parents' place, where we installed a CM 4228 UHF antenna in the attic and ran the coax for their new HDTV on Saturday. Sunday, we went to a sunrise service and spent the day building a 4' x 55' raised garden bed and watching the Masters before returning home.

Next time we visit, we'll be repaid for our labor with fresh veggies!

[cgallery]

LOML and I went to my parents' place, where we installed a CM 4228 UHF antenna in the attic and ran the coax for their new HDTV on Saturday. Sunday, we went to a sunrise service and spent the day building a 4' x 55' raised garden bed and watching the Masters before returning home.

Next time we visit, we'll be repaid for our labor with fresh veggies!

Planting the seeds for future trips, I like it.

That is a good sized garden. How did you construct the raised bed?

[ironhat]

The youngest daughter and husband drove in from 1.5 hrs away just to spend a rainy day inside with us two old buzzards (we're both 57). Too wet and cold to do much. Sunday to church and layed around after kids left after church. THe other daughter's family is in Alabama seeing 'his' sister. Man, the thought of that drive with four kids between 3 and 13 just makes me shiver!

[bthorne]

Planting the seeds for future trips, I like it.

Ouch... Nice pun!

That is a good sized garden. How did you construct the raised bed?

We laid out the bed, removed the grass and leveled the edges where the timbers would be. Used 8 ft landscape timbers stacked two high with overlapped joints to build the sides. Drilled 1/2 inch holes through the timbers and staked them into the ground every few feet. It's probably a bit over-engineered, but it's sturdy and level. We filled it with soil amended with some good compost, and it's ready for planting.

[leehljp]

There was a weekend? What is that? (Intended in the context of LinuxRandal's unending work.)