Archive for May, 2008
Friday, May 30th, 2008
I decided to follow Joe’s advice. He has never led me down the wrong path before.
This morning, I received my new APC Back-UPS XS 1500. This is the best one Circuit City offered and it looks pretty good. I am not going to give all the specs here…I’m sure you can do a search for the model.
I am using this one for my system upstairs in my office and moved my old APC battery backup downstairs near the router and all that. Now, all that stuff is protected.
This one’s got all the gadgets. The interface tells me how much power I am using and the load on the unit. Also, the new APC PowerChute software is really neat.
There are tons of options and settings. I think I like it.
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
I took a little stroll outside this morning. Of course, I had my coffee in hand. I didn’t have my camera with me, but after what I saw, I ran back inside to get it.
Here we go again. It’s picture taking time in the Northeast. Let me know what you think of the latest flower photos.
Apparently, there is more than one type of Iris. This one is yellow. I am used to the purple ones.
This is a purple and white iris.
Here is another, just in a different spot.
I believe these are Primrose, but I am not sure.
I know I had these in another post, but I totally forget what they are.
And I never knew what these were.
This is a really cool flower I noticed growing the other day. I saw the one flower, and then a bunch more popped up.
These have got to be Purple Azalea.
These are really nice. I am guessing they are some sort of rose.
This is my prize winning shot of the day. I can’t identify it, but the photo sure came out nice. I am going to make it my pic of the week.
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
I just (accidentally) came across the coolest website.
This dude, wo may just have won the lottery, is building a house out in the moutains. He is making this bad-ass house, with solar panels and a wind turbine. You have to check out his pics.
Take a look here.
Click the “Photo” links at the top of the page for all the photos.
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
I am going to put this one out to the masses. I recently became stumped with what to do with the basement floor. Unfortunately, the stump”ness” came about after I tore the whole thing up.
If you don’t know me all that well, I oftentimes shoot first and aim later. At first, I thought this was bad, but later on, I realized that by doing this, I don’t mosey around over-thinking the whole thing. Since many of my projects come out very decently, I intend to stay this way.
Ok, here goes. We have this finished basement that is very dry. It has a concrete floor that used to have carpeting covering the majority of area and those linoleum tiles covering the rest. There is a dehumidifier downstairs keeping any moisture in the air down to a nice level.
Yesterday, I decided to peel up the linoleum tile and carpeting. This took me a few hours, but it’s all nice and clean now. I cut the carpeting up into squares and took up the underlayment. Everything is now out in the garage. As for the sticky goo, underneath the tiles, I used mineral spirits and a brush to get that up. Then, I used Simple Green to clean the entire floor.
Why did I do all this? Well, for one, I don’t really like carpet. I like hard wood or tile. Dogs like to pee on carpets and dust mites like to live in them. Also, I never like to think about what’s growing under a carpet, especially in a basement. Even thought basements feel dry, there is always moisture coming through the concrete. That doesn’t sit well with me.
The basement floor is in very good shape. It’s dry (as I mentioned above) with no cracks. There is one small hairline crack, but it’s hardly noticable. There are gaps between areas where they poured the concrete.
My initial idea was to tile the entire floor. We pretty much had tiles all picked out. Then, I started doing a little research on the internet. That may have been a bad move. One guy says, “Yeah, go ahead and tile right over the concrete.” The next guy says, “Sure, you can tile down there, just use cement backer board.” The third guy says, “You can’t use cement backer board on concrete.” This goes on and on across any number of websites. It seems like no one knows what in the world they are talking about, but love to give uninformed opinions. I am going to call the tile guy who did the old house for advice.
Since my reading, I have had some other ideas. I thought that we could put down a bamboo floor or laminate. I promised myself that I would never use laminate again, so that’s going to be hard.
What I am looking for is ideas and advice. Will those gaps in the concrete affect the tile? Will temperature differences from outside to inside make the tile crack or pop up? There is going to be a pellet stove down there too, so the temperature will be quite different from outside, especially when it’s a cold January night.
By the way, we don’t mind a cold floor.
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Thursday, May 29th, 2008
We made a visit to Home Depot yesterday (we are going to be buying from Lowe’s from now on). I wanted to go shopping for shrubs. Maybe I can just cut this, and the following posts short. You can just read all the other ones about shrubs I have written through the years.
I had a bunch of stuff on my list, but mainly items from the garden area. Here is what I got:
- 1 Blue Hydrangea
- 4 Holly bushes
- 2 Rhododendron
- 1 25 lb. bag of grass seed
- 2 Tomato plants
and some other stuff. Maybe I’ll write about that later.
Laura picked out the Hydrangea and made sure it was blue. There are a few others around here, so it should fit right in.
There are a lot of areas I need shrubs. I really like shrubs at the ends of driveways. I don’t know why, but I do. Therefore, I needed shrubs to put at the end of this semi-naked driveway. I put the Holly and Rhododendron there. There is room for a lot more though.
I also did some seeding yesterday. I went through the whole bag in about two minutes. The spreader settings needs to be high, so it really shoots out fast. I raked the seed in some bare spots in the lawn, and just spread it out on the areas up near the road. If the birds eat it, I’ll just get more.
What’s really exciting is our new tomato plants. These are hybrid something-er-others. They are supposed to produce nice big tomatoes. I like tomato sandwiches, so I am hoping they come out nicely.
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Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
As I mentioned in the post below, we took a quick cruise out to Narragansett, RI on Memorial Day. We didn’t stay very long, but long enough for me to grab a few pictures.
I have been to Point Judith in the past…it’s the place you need to get on the ferry to go to Block Island. It’s a really cool “vacationy” area. The next time we go, I am going to dig for clams in the shallow water. I think there are crabs too, it my memory serves me correctly.
This time, we visited the Lighthouse at Point Judith. Now, the lighthouse was ok, but what I really like is the way people were just chillin’ out enjoying themselves. There were people sitting in their lawnchairs, reading. I am always envious of these people because they are able to do that. I can’t seem to sit still long enough to do anything. Oh well, I guess that makes me me.
Here are those photos I was talking about.
Now, I am aware that these photos arent of anything in particular. I thought people might get a kick out of them. If you are anything like me, you enjoy real life pictures of just the area.
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Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
On Memorial Day, we took a cruise out to Point Judith, RI (above). I took some photos of that, but wanted to post some pretty funny pictures here in this post really fast.
For some reason, these are funny. They are of the entrance of Fisherman’s Memorial State Park in Rhode Island. It’s out near Point Judith. The reason it’s funny is because we went camping here when we were kids. I remember something about that little house in the front. I can’t seem to remember what though. It was part of some joke or something. Something with my brother, Jeff. I know this means nothing to most of you, but perhaps my family can fill me in.
Here, take a look…
This place is really cool. I remember there was a little ranger’s office with a bunch of fish tanks. Also, right in the back of this campground/park, you can roll up your pants and go clamming. My friend Craig says that he goes clamming with a bottle of hot sauce. He just grabs a clam from the sand, opens it, sprinkles some hot sauce on it and sucks it down. Can you imagine being that clam just out for a tan one day? Holy cow.
There is a lot to do around this area and it’s a great place for a vacation. It’s very “beachy.”
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Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
We took the leap. The leap to Costco (finally) up in Enfield, CT…near the border of MA. We have been meaning to do this for a very long time, but never got around to it.
Back at our old house, we were members of Sam’s Club, which is just an extension of Wal-Mart. We got pretty sick of it and didn’t renew our yearly plan. It seemed like there was some sort of stagnation with its stock. My father kept telling me that Costco is much better. I remember Costco from the Danbury location and it was pretty good. My father and I are a little different when it comes to shopping at Costco though. He likes to look at tools and equipment, while I like to look at the heads of lettuce.
One of the main things I was looking for was high quality food, mainly produce, and a big store. We visited BJs in Willimantic earlier in the week and were disappointed. It seemed like an older store and was much smaller than the others. I like to feel like I am in a stadium.
The Enfield Cosco was built in 2004, which means it has all the latest perks, groceries, tire changes, pharmacy, etc…and for those people who need to have dessert while they go food shopping, there is a fast food place. It’s almost sad.
Anyway, membership is $50 and good for a year, so we did it.
Yes, that is the actual Enfield store.
We filled our cart up last night and made out like bandits. I got a 2 1/2 pound bag of spinach and a huge box of veggie burgers, among other things. The prices were pretty good, but you can never really tell. On some stuff, they are definitely better. On other stuff, it’s a little tricky. The good thing is that we don’t need to keep running out to the grocery store for every little thing, like we used to. Now, we just load up the trunk and that’s that. Of course, we are still going to have to go to the regular grocery store for some stuff, but this place helps out a bunch.
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Monday, May 26th, 2008
101 Everyday Uses for Twitter
The simple dictionary definition of “Twitter” is “microblogging/social networking platform that places a 140- character limit on each individual post/tweet.” However, describing Twitter thusly would fail to encapsulate the power of this new omnipresent medium. So, instead here are 101 examples of how Twitter members regularly use the service.
Community Powered Local Search – This Could Actually Work
I found a site last night that claimed to be the “Easiest Local Search Everâ€. My reaction to this: “Oh reeeaaallly.â€
10 Cool Websites We Recommend
A list of 10 websites that are either useful or entertaining. Personal favorites: Cooking for Engineers (self-explanatory), thesixtyone (safari for music junkies), and Rentometer (save money on rent).
GigaOM Favs: 10 Blogs You Should Follow
Om Malik shares the comprised results of a twitter survey and personal contributions of his team members. The results are definitely useful!
Finally the definition of Web 2.0 & 3.0
One of the most misused buzzwords finally gets defined. Now we can stop people from labeling everything on the internet as Web 2.0. Please stop the madness.
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Sunday, May 25th, 2008
There are actually two different bird nests under the back porch. I look at them almost every time I walk by. The parent birds like to whiz by my head to scare the heck out of me. Actually, I am just writing that for entertainment, I really don’t get scared by birds, even if they are whizzing by my head. Now, Crows on the other hand are scary. When there are hundreds of them all screaming at the same time, it’s a little freaky.
I took a nice picture of the birds living under the porch this morning. Tell me if you like it.
That’s an up-close nature shot. I kept thinking the momma bird was going to dive bomb me from behind, but it never happened. I wouldn’t have been scared if it had.
Just a few weeks ago, these little birds were much smaller. I could hardly even see their heads. One time I saw all of the beaks wide open, sticking straight up in the air. I said to them, “No little birdies, I don’t have any worms for you” and I walked away.
That’s a “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey” line if I ever saw one.
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