The drywall crew came out Wednesday morning and nailed up the ceiling!
I went ahead and let the contractor take care of the wallboard squares I cut out for the speaker wires and data cables:
Next step is for the paint guy to do the tape, bed, and texture job. After that’s done, I can remove the plastic sheeting separating those rooms from the rest of the house!
Since the ceiling is out, I wired up the den for speakers.
Our TV is in one corner, and the couch is on the opposite side of the room. My wife never wanted to drape cables around a wall, so I figured that since the ceiling is out, it’s the perfect time to run speaker wires.
The whole job took me about 3 1/2 hours, not including patching wall holes.
Even though I only have a dinky 5.1 speaker system, I wanted to be wired for 7.1 channel surround sound setup just in case I luck across such a system some some day. That means I needed to run 4 pars of speaker wires between the walls. Add that to some category 5e network cables, and that would be a hassle!
Home Depot sells a single sprinkler system wire bundle with ten 18 gauge wires. An uncle in the audio business me that 18 gauge solid is plenty for unpowered speakers, so this 18/10 sprinkler wire is what I used!
Installation took a few steps.
A drywall cut for a junction box and to poke a hole through the fire block:
Cuts through the fire block:
3 cuts on the opposite wall:
Yes, 3 cuts. I made the first cut at the traditional fire block level because my stud sensor said something was there. Opening it up, I found nothing!
When I fished the wire from the top, I ran into something about 1 foot down. It turns out some 2×4s are stacked laterally at that point to support the wide opening to the left. Cutting above that, I found that I could slip the wires between an opening between the 2×4s.
Then about 1.5′ from the floor, I ran into something else! Cutting right above that point, I found a traditional fire block and had to cut through it.
Here’s my speaker cable handiwork:
Since the sprinkler cable had 10 wires (5 pairs), and since the speaker connector QuickPorts came in packages of 5, I went ahead and hooked up all five pairs.
On the suggestion of a neighbor, I ran two cat5e cables to the TV area. Supposedly the complexity of media center stuff would appreciate the availability of the two ports. And if I ever got a cable modem, I could head it back behind the TV and run its data to a router or switch in a hall closet.
Can you tell it has been 8 years since I last punched a RJ45 jack?
Don’t worry, I cleaned up the wires before installing it.
Here’s the connections behind the TV:
The other side of the room looks the same except for one less data port.
There wasn’t much noteworthy about the way I ran this through the ceiling except that I tried to distance the network cable from power wires:
My recollection is that fluorescent ballasts are the biggest signal killers, so this may not have made much a difference.
Since I was in the attic anyway, I took a long exposure picture:
I’ll never get this view any more unless, heaven forbid, the ceiling collapses again!
This update is delayed by the flu and a business trip
The carpenters ended up replacing almost all the joists:
You may notice the recessed lighting. We figured that since everything is apart anyway, we might as well get some recessed lights installed.
Here’s a view looking forward:
We got 6 lights total, all of which will be in the den area of this joint den/dining room.
Here’s a detail of one of the lights:
The sheetrock should go up this week.
Since everything is so exposed, I will run some data cables before the sheetrock goes up. My plans are:
The other end of these cables will terminate in a hallway closet.
I will punch the ends of these tables in the den/dining room, but I’ll leave them exposed for now in the closet.
After 16 days, I changed my Lent fast.
A diet minus “trashy carbs” is a painstaking adventure in ingredient watching. Instead of being an effective spiritual exercise, this fast put undue burdens on others, dramatically increased food spending, and often left me feeling malnourished.
It was too much an exercise in legalism.
I have reverted to prior years’ Lent fasts: no bona fide dessert foods.
I came down with the flu over 4 days ago.
I am so thankful for Tamiflu. The drug cut way back on the symptoms.
I felt like “crap” instead of “death.”
We were even able to get out of the house and go shopping yesterday, but that wore us out! (And Sears won’t haggle on closeout lawn mower prices. No sale!)
Tonight I feel 95% better. Appetite is back, and I feel fully human. About all I am lacking is the stamina to do a workout.
I was able to keep with my Lent fast.
Even though we proactively got flu shots in the fall, my wife came down with the flu on Tuesday evening.
I got it Wednesday evening.
Alec is showing symptoms as of Thursday afternoon.
It turns out that in 16% of flu seasons, the flu shot does not cover all flu variants. This is one of those years. (link)
I last got the flu 11 years ago. It was awful–I was laid up for several days, barely able to function.
This time I have Tamiflu. Probably thanks to this drug, both my wife’s and my flu have been comparatively mild. I’ve been somewhat productive on computer work, something I can’t do during a regular cold.
Since we started my son on Tamiflu before symptoms began, he may escape with little more than a runny nose and a little fever.
Tamiflu works by blocking a viral protein function, thereby preventing flu virus reproduction. All the virons already in me will still live, but they are unable to reproduce. Supposedly this reduces the disease’s severity and duration.
So far I have been able to abide by my Lent fast, but I am very tempted to indulge in some ice cream. Normally when I am sick like this, I have little appetite, so I go for foods that are calorie-dense.
I can’t wait for this to be over! I can’t believe I am saying this, but my work team and I are in the middle of a lot of bog, influential projects, and I hate having so many unplanned days away them.
Since last writing about my ceiling collapse, I’ve had a little progress.
I completely cleared out the room:
Looking backwards:
Notice the new joists? The restoration work has started! I signed the contract with the contractor 8 days ago. The carpenters replaced 5 joists that were obviously sagging, but in the process they found that several more joists have sags and that the stiff back is not really installed properly. They are coming back this week to replace the entire stiff back and replace about 8 more joists.
I put all the damaged furniture by the curb last night for heavy trash pickup:
It was all gone the next morning! I feel sorry for the dopes who will deal with the insulation.
I got that picture by setting the camera to ISO 80 and a 16 second exposure. No significant lighting faced the furniture, so I lit it up by waving a flashlight back and forth during the exposure.
As of December 2007, my doctorate coursework is done! I have completed 66 hours of graduate coursework, including the 30 hours earned for my Master of Science in Computer Science (they used up my doctorate electives).
“School’s out forever”? Not by a long shot!
If something happened and I needed to quit now, I could walk with a Master of Science in Engineering Management. As tempting as that sounds, I need to push on.
All that sits between me completing my Doctorate of Engineering in Engineering Management is the praxis. A praxis is a giant research project that’s equivalently difficult as four graduate courses. But before I do that, I still have to assemble my supervisory committee and passing a qualifying exam.
I will meet with my research adviser soon to discuss next steps.
My wife and I picked a difficult Lent fast: giving up foods full of junk carbohydrates.
Junk carbohydrates are a feature of foods with disproportionately more carbohydrate content than other healthful substances. Example junk carbs include simple carbohydrates (enriched/white flour, white and brown sugar, corn syrup, honey, et al), fruit juices, and white potatoes. Disallowed foods include:
Foods with junk carbohydrates only as accents are OK. Generally, I want to see the junk carbs follow behind an ingredient that I intuitively know is sparsely used in the food. Examples are a sauce thickened with a little flour, 85% dark chocolate in moderation, or salted peanuts that have a little corn syrup. Even Nature’s Own Double Fiber Wheat is OK in moderation: it has more wheat gluten (4th ingredient) than white flour (5th ingredient)!
Even though junk carbohydrates are counterproductive in a human diet, it is hard to give them up! You don’t know how addicted you are to them until they are out of your diet.
UPDATE: I got a letter similar to this published in the Dallas Morning News! (link)
Dallas is about to harass and annoy motorists with its own “me, too” cell phone law.
As I blogged earlier, several studies affirm that hands free phone use is as dangerous as handheld phone use. Dallas’s proposal prohibits one but affirms the other. What sense does that make?
Is goal is to punish those too poor or feeble minded to have a hands free unit? School zone safety correlates to drivers’ social status or nerdiness?
Now distracted motorists must have both hands on the wheel. I feel safer already.
Thanks, city council!