A couple of my trees look like they have butts.

 

 

 

This is fitting, as animals appear to use them as toilets.

 

 

Those are pictures of the inside of each hole.  That is disgusting.

 

I had a guy out to the house this summer to give me an estimate on trimming up the trees on our property.  The price was $3800.00, and I threw up a little in my mouth when I heard that.  The gentleman was extremely knowledgeable on trees.  I actually watched his face light up with excitement at the prospect of climbing the oldest tree on our lot, which has a 5ft diameter.  Every boy loves climbing trees.. I suppose it’s not surprising that some men don’t let that go. 

 

Anyway, I took the opportunity to pick his brain on some tree-related questions I had.  One of these was what to do about holes in trees.  He said I could just fill them in with Great Stuff, so I picked up a few cans the other day.  When I went outside this afternoon to work on leaves, I decided that shooting large quantities of expanding foam into massive butt-like voids sounded much more fun.  So I did.

 

 

Each void took 1.5 cans.  I called Dad about this shortly after finishing it, and he had bought some cans of Great Stuff the previous weekend for the exact same purpose, but had hesitated, thinking it might be bad for the trees.  He’s since done the same thing.

 

  

 

As it expands, it will fill up whatever space is available in there. 

 

I had a little extra foam left, so I shot it into the void through the brick left from when we removed a derelict vent pipe during the kitchen renovation.

 

 

 

I left some room to cap it with mortar in the spring.

Read More

The original section of the house still has the original doors from the early 1930s.  This means they didn’t come pre-hung, and the frames around them are by no means perfect.  I can see daylight through them.  They also have keyholes all the way through that allow some mean drafts.

 

 

I replaced the original doorknob this summer after the deadbolt stopped working. 

 

Well, it’s getting cold outside, now.  Hard-nipples cold-toes cold.  As I’ve mentioned previously, we spend far too much money on heating oil for the boiler.  I’m hoping the kitchen radiant floor Dad and I installed last winter will help this year, but I need to find other ways to hold in the heat.  One way to do this is to seal up those drafts. 

 

I bought some Insulation Tape and headed outside.  It was a windy day, so I was able to feel the drafts before and after to see how well it worked.

 

This stuff was easy to work with, pliable, and inexpensive.  It will definitely pay for itself this winter.  After I installed it on the two doors,  I went inside and felt for drafts.  None! 

 

  

 

Now I just have to get it into the dog’s brains that they can’t stand by that door to be let out.

Read More

Do you know what happens when you put a frozen turkey into a large container of boiling oil? 

 

This.

 

How NOT to fry a turkey

 

That is awesome.  I did not know you could do this.  A deep desire of my heart has been to try a deep fried turkey.  Some various factions of my family have tried it, but they seem to have made a coordinated effort to do so when I am not around. 

 

The year of our Lord 2010 was the first time we have hosted a major holiday event.  We have a (mostly completed) nice new kitchen, now, and putting it to good use was the whole reason for doing it, so we pestered my in-laws until they surrendered their turkey-hosting hats. 

 

Eric asked if he could fry a turkey.  I didn’t have to think too hard on that one.  Eric is a fan of Alton Brown, and had seen his technique for frying a turkey.  We chose to do it the same way.

 

Things You Need

A ladder.

Some rope.

A pulley.

A fryer.

A turkey.

Peanut oil.

A chump to do the work while you take pictures.

 

First, assemble a Turkey Derrick

Using a latter, some pulleys, and some line, create a scaffolding-like structure from which to lower the turkey into the deep fryer.  This is a pretty critical safety concern, as you likely know after watching that video.

 

 

 

Eric tied one end of the rope to a rung on the left side of the ladder, and passed it through a pulley tied to a rung on the right side of the ladder.  Click the pictures for a close-up.  We have a tarp wrapped around the top because there was a chance of rain this Thanksgiving. 

 

Second, prepare the turkey

Some key points, here.  First, check out the recipe we used for more bird-prep instructions.

 

1.  The turkey must be completely and utterly thawed.  We bought a never-frozen one and kept it in the fridge to avoid any chance of frozen pockets.   You can go watch that video again for a refresher as to why this is.  Go ahead, it’s fun.

 

2.  Don’t get a turkey that is too large for your fryer.  The one pictured was 13lbs, and we wouldn’t  have been comfortable going any larger for this fryer. 

 

 

3.  Test the volume the turkey will take in the fryer.  Be sure to include the platform the turkey sits on when you do this.  Place them together into the fryer and then fill it with water.  Leave some room on top for the boiling action.  Once full, remove the turkey and platform, and mark the outside of the fryer with a marker or tape at the water level.  This is how much oil you will put in.

 

 

4.  Empty the water, fill with oil, and place on the heat until 250F.  Carefully lower the bird into the fryer using the pulley-system on the turkey derrick. 

 

Eric stood a bit close to the ladder for comfort at first, but you get the idea.  Once it’s in, turn up the heat and get it to 350F.  Maintain 350F until the center of the bird is 150F.  Pull it out and let it sit for 30 mins prior to carving..

 

 

 

Enjoy it!  Ours was delicious.  We had a 22lb roasted turkey and the 13lb fried one.  I’m still enjoying the leftovers.  Oh, and we used the carcasses to make soup!

Read More

I just finished watching some Doctor Who, and now I’m typing with an English accent.   Please read accordingly.

 

Fall is my favorite season.  It is likely not coincidental that my favorite colors are those of Autumn. 

 

 

993327 is a particular favorite.  I may have to find a home for it in the blog’s color palette.

 

Now, to the matter at hand. 

Do you see this picture?  This one right here?

 

 

This was taken a mile or so from me.  It’s pretty, right?  My favorite colors. That’s a nice reflecty thing going on, there.  Some nice driftwood, I guess.

All of you reading from a locale that is not graced by God with 4 seasons are insanely jealous.  Well, let me help you out there.  Autumn is a total lie.  It is over in about 42 seconds.  You know what you get then? 

 

 

You get ugly poop-brown leaves all over your yard.  Leaves are shaped like sails.  Sails catch the wind and move gracefully curved vessels lithely over the surface of the water. Not leaves, though.  Leaves feel the (artificial) wind, say “Screw you” and stay stuck to the remains of the Hostas the deer slaughtered with the single-mindedness of a fat kid on Halloween. 

 

I spent near 3 hours blowing leaves today.  Let’s cover some ground:

 

1)  Tool Review, as promised. 

I picked this up a bit ago and said I’d review it.  The Craftsman Professional 79400 backback blower kinda blows (see what I did there?).   It did fine when blowing the driveway, and it even did well on moving around larger quantities of leaves in the yard, but it just didn’t have the power to get those clingers, or behind the bushes, and it dragged out the whole ordeal longer than it needed to be.  But, it was rather inexpensive, and considering the cost of the tool that I know will get the job done, I’ll suck it up and use this one  a few days a year and be happy for it.  If you have a half-acre and 4 old trees, I’d say it’s good for you.  If, like me, you have twice that… well, you might look elsewhere.

 

2)  Leaves on Roof

Some advice.  Don’t let leaves sit in the corners of your roof too long.  They hold moisture and will shorten the life of the shingles.  Plus, the longer they sit, the harder they are to get off. 

 

 

While I was out there, I remembered a project that I bought supplies for and never got around to doing.  I’ll tackle it shortly, and grace you all with the results.

 

3) Mind the Poop

Occasionally, when they’re not busy sleeping, eating, drinking, or nudging me because they want something, my dogs will take 5 minutes to sniff around the yard for that spot that is to be graced with their poop.*  And, since I’m too busy sleeping, eating, drinking, or nudging my wife because I want something, I don’t typically get around to picking it up.  This was a problem when we lived in a townhouse and had a postage stamp of a yard, but not so much anymore.  We have an acre for them to poop on, and they are dead set on finding a spot they haven’t yet pooped, and using it. 

 

 

So, when the un-picked-up poop is covered with poop-brown leaves, and the blower being used to move said leaves has a tendency to leave poop-colored clingers behind, grasping to the grass in defiance, it results in a sort-of leaf-blowing poop-watching dance.  Just like every other stupid dance, I don’t know how to do it.

 

So, yeah, I stepped in some poop. 

 

* Sometimes, I like to imagine that Koa (one of our Danes) has a whole internal monologue going.  And that the voice of that monolog is Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.   “This looks like the perfect place…. for me to poop on!”

 

PS… I said ‘poop’ 11 times in this post.  That’s a new personal best.

Read More

We used one of our Fire Starters over the weekend.  A couple of weeks ago, we made them from common household items.

 

 

They work great!  To quote the great American hero John "Hannibal" Smith; I love it when a plan comes together.

 

What simple project have you found satisfaction in?

Read More

We had some pretty high winds this year, and a couple of shingles managed to wiggle loose.

 

 

Thanks to a friend’s extension ladder, I was able to quickly fix them.  I grabbed a hammer and a couple of short, wide-head nails, and pounded them into submission.

 

 

 

We’ve had some serious issues with vultures, recently.  Nearly 50 of them have been sleeping in our trees, and their poop is everywhere!  I think it must be because we’re the highest point in the area?  I snapped a picture while I was out.

 

 

 

Do you have any annoying wildlife on your property?

Read More

This is the second post in a short series on our Entertainment Center.  You should check out part one first; Mounting a Flatscreen TV.   Today, I’m going to cover the contents of our Media Closet, how the various pieces work together, and how we control it all from the couch.

Disclaimer: If this makes it sound like we watch a lot of TV; we really don’t.  We do watch a fair amount of movies.  Honestly, the main motivation to do all this was monthly cost saving.  That, and fun factor.  I had a lot of fun putting it all together.

When we were touring this house, I noticed this odd door in the back corner of the Family Room.  It turns out it was full of shelves and had an outlet in it.  Perfect for a Media Closet!


 

This is the current state of it.  From top to bottom, we have:

1. Home Server
2. Wii and Media Center
3. iPod Dock, Modem/Router, and Blu-Ray player
4. A/V Receiver / FM Receiver and IR Broadcaster

Home Server
The server is an older computer I built for my wife a few years ago.  It’s now running Windows Home Server and has a couple of Terabytes of storage.  It’s supposed to come on each night from 0200-0600 to perform nightly backups of my computer, my wife’s computer, and the Media Center.  It still has some quirks; mainly because it’s older hardware.  I plan on updating it with some newer, low-power components soon.  Overall, I’m very pleased with WHS.  I don’t use many of the features it offers, but I do use TV archiving (explained below)

Media Center
I love the Media Center.  It is a low power ITX computer running Windows 7.  It uses Western Digital Green Drives, which spin less often and slower than normal HDs, saving energy.   The motherboard and CPU are also low power users.   The Antec MicroFusion case has an IR receiver built into the front of it; critical for using a remote to control the whole thing.  I’m using two USB HD tuners connected directly to an antenna on the roof, from which we get broadcast TV.  Cancelling our cable has saved us a cool $70.00 a month.
The Media Center boots directly into Windows Media Center.  Once there, we can access NetFlix streaming, Hulu, live TV, and recorded TV.  Since we have massive amounts of storage, all the shows we record get archived to the Home Server after we’ve watched them, unless we delete them first.  In this way, we’re building a library of past seasons of some of our favorite shows.  We also can browse our collection of pictures and listen to our music library.  The music library is shared by all the rest of the computers, which run iTunes and point to the Media Center box for their libraries. 



The picture shows my custom Autumn WMC theme with the Guide.  It’s all free, and easy to use. 

Whenever a camera is attached to any computer in the house, the pictures automatically go to the Media Center.  The same is true for buying music on iTunes or ripping a CD.  Because of this, the Media Center has to be available all the time.  This is why it is such a low power box… it is never turned off.  It has an HDMI-out port, which is how I get all this magic to the TV.

iPod Dock / Router / Bluray Player
Nothing too special, here.  The dock is to allow guests to hook up and play music, or ourselves to do the same if we don’t want to have to turn on the TV and browse the entire music library looking for an album.
I ran Cat5e (Ethernet cable) to the office, so that my computer, the Home Server, the Media Center, the Wii, and the BluRay player are all hardwired in.  Just the iPhones and the wife’s laptop are wireless.
The BluRay player can also access Netflix streaming, albeit poorly.  Once I upgrade the Media Center by adding a BluRay drive to it, I’ll be moving the player to a different room to allow us to stream Netflix to another TV.

A/V Receiver
I’ll admit it; this thing was pricey.  The Onkyo TX-SR608 is pretty awesome, though.  And, I needed a solution that allowed me to connect a lot of HDMI and Component devices to one source and output a single HDMI cable to the TV, as I had a long way to travel.  Going into the receiver is the Media Center, Wii, and BluRay player.  It also had the Cable Box before we cancelled cable.  We still have room for any future additions, too.  The output from the receiver goes into the basement, through the rafters, up into a wall, and out to the TV.  The DTS is amazing, and as we’re only using 5.1 channels right now, we still have 2.1 available for another room at some point in the future.  The subwoofer sits in the mini-closet beneath the bottom shelf.

How to Control it All
This one is actually easy to answer.  The Logitech Harmony 890.    I got a refurbished one for just over 100 bucks.  It’s worth it.  Without this, my wife would never allow the Media Center to be our primary source of TV, Movies, and Music in the house.  If she presses “Listen to Digital Music”, it turns on the TV and the Receiver, sets the inputs correctly, and loads the Music Library for browsing.  If she presses “Watch a Movie”, it fires up the Bluray player.  The software makes configuring the remote pretty simple.  The other big factor with this remote is the RF.  It broadcasts button-push signals in the FM spectrum, which are received by an FM receiver in the Media Closet, translated into the IR spectrum, and spammed out to all the devices.  This means we can have that closet door closed and change channels from the couch (or another room entirely) without any awkward over-the-shoulder remote pointing.



So that’s it!  I’m happy to answer any specific questions, and I’d love to see your Entertainment Center setups!

Read More

Disclaimer: I did this project before I started this blog, so I don’t have any in-progress pictures.  Sorry!  To make it even worse, I had 3 hours of commuting today, so prepare for a humorless lecture on how to do something with no pictures provided.  And you’re still reading?

No, I’m not done ranting about this commute thing.  Why are there bus stops every 25 feet?  I’m barely exaggerating.  I was behind a bus that was picking up kids standing in their own driveways!  No wonder they’re all so fat.  Also, the left lane is the passing lane, people!  My wife told me once that she was never told that in Drivers Ed.  What?  Seriously, Maryland? 

Ok, ok, enough.

If you were to view my browser’s history, you’d learn pretty quickly that I
have a soft spot for tech.  Some of the sites I check daily include Lifehacker and Engadget.  I’ve been building computers since I was a kid; it’s always something I’ve enjoyed.  Ok, stop viewing my history.  Stalker.

With that in mind, I present a series of posts on our Entertainment Center.  It’s another in a long list of unfinished projects, but at least this one is really close.

Up first is the TV.


It’s a Sony Bravia 52” LCD.  The story of how I ended up getting this is long, involves a Mac Pro, and isn’t worth repeating in its entirety.  Suffice it to say that I’m quite pleased with it.  I got it on Amazon, and it included free shipping... the price was good. 

Other supplies needed here included:

• A 40ft HDMI cable.  Do NOT overspend on this thing, but if you are going for length, make sure you get one that meets the current standard; which I believe is 1.3C.
• A wall mount.  They also make ones that pull out and swivel, but for my purposes, stationary was just fine.
• A wall plate/outlet cover that has a cable pass through.  I got mine at Home Depot. 

If you don’t already have an outlet high on the wall behind where you will mount the TV, you’ll have to put one there.  This is actually a pretty easy job.  I had an outlet at ground level right below where the TV would be.  First, I put a hole in the wall at the correct height.  Then, I turned off the power to the outlet below where the TV would be and took it out.  I used a fish tape to run two new pieces of Romex from the hole in the wall down to the outlet box.  Make sure you get the right kind of electrical cable.  For a 15 amp circuit, get some 14-2, and for a 20 amp circuit, get 12-2.  While you can technically use 12-2 on a 15 amp circuit, you probably shouldn’t.

Why two cables?  Because you have to put the outlet in the daisy-chain that is the circuit, so you need one to bring power up to the outlet, and another to bring it back down to the box.  Once the cable was spliced into the circuit correctly, I went into the basement and bored a 1 inch hole through the base of the wall into the wall cavity I had just added an outlet into.  I was then able to run speaker wire and HDMI cable through the basement ceiling over the to the Media Closet, which I’ll cover in a later post.  If you will be leaving your Cable Box, etc, in the front of the room, you won’t need to worry about this step.

Time to mount the TV!  Using a stud sensor or the time-tested “knocking on the wall” technique, find the studs you will be mounting to and mark them.  Follow the directions from the wall mount to correctly install it, making sure it’s level.  If your instructions include words like “wall anchors”, ignore them.  You don’t want your nice new TV hanging by plastic anchors in drywall.  You need to hit studs.  Once my TV was mounted, I plugged it in and ran my long HDMI cable to the ground and hooked up a Cable Box.  This was temporary until I could get the Media Closet set up.. which you’ll read about in my next post! 

Read More

I decided I liked the idea of a logo.  This is the one I’m currently playing with.  Any thoughts?

Read More

My wife has a knack for lighting fires, and I don’t.  There, I said it.  As a man, this is embarrassing. It’s made worse when she mocks my lack of fire-starting ability.  Don’t get me wrong; I can get a fire going.  But it takes a little effort.  And if a little effort doesn’t work, I may, on occasion, resort to using a little gasoline.  Ssshhhh don’t tell. 

Well, those days are behind us, now!  Or so I hope.  I came across this great DIY page on making fire starters from stuff around the house, and so I’ve been setting things aside until a good time to do it presented itself.

Over the weekend, Jessie (who was of great aid in the kitchen) came by so we could catch up on each others lives, and I decided that a great thing to do while we talked would be to make a batch of fire starters for the winter.

I went in the basement and collected a bunch of dryer lint we’d set aside, and then lined a cookie sheet with wax paper. 


I didn’t want the wax to damage the pan, and it made cleanup easier.
Then, we shoved the dryer lint into the carton with some fragments from the carton lid.  We melted the wax (candle chunks) by cutting an empty 2-liter bottle in half and placing it in a pot of boiling water with the wax inside it. 




Once a good amount of the wax had melted, we poured it on top, trying to let it seep into the lint as much as possible.  Once we had poured as much as it would take, we let it cool, and we’re done! 




I’ll follow up once we use one and find out how well it works.  This was a first-attempt, and I suspect that they will get better over time.

Read More

Our church does an event called “Trunk-or-Treat”.  The basic idea is that members decorate their cars in the parking lot of the church, and kids come and trunk-or-treat from car to car in a safe environment where they’ll know most of the people.  Let’s set aside the decline of the American neighborhood for a moment, and just bask in the awesomeness that is Scary Cat Jeep.



I was in a rush to put it together after work in time for the event, but basically, it’s black construction paper for ears, white poster board for eyes (black construction paper irises), poster-board for teeth, and two red plastic table cloths for the inside of the mouth and the tongue.  I used a piece of the table cloth taped around my work light to give the red glow from the mouth.  It looked better than the picture can show.
The event was a huge hit, and a lot of kids showed up.  We were out of candy in about 45 minutes.  Thanks to our zebra-Jeep neighbors, we were able to replenish for another 30 minutes.

Read More

One day, when I was about 12 or so, and my Dad was still a garbageman, he came home from work really excited.  Dad would often find things of great value out on his route.  Hey, one mans trash is another mans treasure.  My brother and I had 3 functional Nintendos because of that.*  Anyway; this particular day he came home with a very large torque wrench.  It was broken.  He was excited because it was a Craftsman tool.  He told me that Craftsman tools have a lifetime warranty.  That weekend, my Dad, my brother and I went to Sears and the clerk gave my Dad a 130 dollar in-store credit from that broken torque wrench.  His excitement was contagious, and we walked around throwing wrenches and screwdrivers and other tools of all sorts into the cart until we used up the credit.  I learned that day that a Craftsman tool means something. 

 

I’m a Craftsman Club member, and most of my tools are Craftsman tools.

I present to the court Exhibit A: My Craftsman C3 Collection

 

 

From left to right we have:

Planer, Work Light, Fluorescent Light, Right Angle Drill, Reciprocating Saw, 1/2 Driver Drill, 1/2 Hammer Drill.

 

There’s also Craftsman wrenches and a hammer in that shot. 

 

Deep inside, I know that a lot of these things are sub-par, now.  Sears has decided to capitalize on the name and lower the quality of the tool, knowing that sentimental fools like me will buy them anyway.  That reciprocating saw has let me down on a few projects.  The batteries are definitely not as robust as I would like.  But, on average, for most home-improvement jobs, these things are great, and they are reasonably cost effective.  If my budget allowed it, I'd get some DeWalt tools on that wall, too, but for the most part, I’m content.

 

Today I bought this.

 

It was on sale, and I got an extra 20 bucks off as a Craftsman Club member.  I have a large number of huge trees, and the leaves are overwhelming.  My Dad and my Father-in-law both have Stihl Backpack Leaf Blowers, and sing their praises, but I can’t afford to drop 500 bones on a single yard tool.  Hopefully I won’t regret this purchase.  I used it to blow off my rather sizable driveway this afternoon, and while underpowered compared to the Stihl, it did a fine job.  I’ll review it after the fall season.

 

Between visiting the wife at work and running around shopping for a blower, I didn’t get too much done under the sun today.  I did 10 feet of fencing.  Once the sun went down, a friend and I did a little project I’ve been wanting to knock out to prepare for the cold evenings at home, but I’ll post about that tomorrow. 

 

* Another related story: do you remember Pepsi Stuff?  Oh man, did we get a lot of stuff from that catalog; and all thanks to people not recycling.**

 

** Please recycle.

Read More

I started on one of the projects I teased a couple of weeks ago; the range hood.  I worked on this Saturday night, and then Sunday after church.  My wife was getting a tad bit nervous, as we were hosting a Ravens party (they won!)  I’ve got to sing her praises, though, because she let me work on it until the 5 mins before the first guest arrived, and we finished cleaning up before kick-off. 
We got the Cavaliere Euro 36in wall mount from here.

I did a lot of googling to try to find reviews for this unit, and they were few.  The ones I did find were very positive, though.  I’m not totally satisfied, but for the money, it’s a great buy.  The screen doesn’t look right unless you look at it from just the right angle, and there is little in the way of mounting points.   It definitely moves air, though.

When we redid the kitchen walls, we installed a new range hood vent, which I’ve already blogged about.   I had to extend the venting up to accommodate the chimney-style upwards venting. 

  

That 90deg elbow stuck out too far from the wall, though, so I ended up having to extend the in-wall ducting all the way up and then put in a hole and adapter. 

   

This is not ideal, as it doesn’t afford a smooth air path, but it will have to work.

Here's some key points from the install.

• Installing the ducting piecemeal was difficult, but the better option, as it allowed me to secure it to the stud better.
• The recommended height (32-36in) seemed ludicrously low, but I didn't want to go so high as to make it ineffective.  I ended up at about 45in.
• I cut myself about 5 times; once badly.  Wear gloves.

I’ve since mounted the hood, but I’m not totally happy with it, so no pictures yet.  I decided to use some spacer blocks behind the hood to put it about .75in off the wall.  This is so it won’t look sunken when I eventually put the stone around it. 
Still to do: hardwire it in, mount it better, install the chimney cover, and install the (as-of-yet-unpurchased) stone veneer.

Read More