Month: July 2003

New Roommate Acquired. BBQ to follow, no doubt.

So, this week, I was supposed to do more drywall, but it was sort of stalled by the rather sudden appearance of a new roommate. To make some room for this hoser, we had to switch rooms a lot. The computers are now in the dining room, we are now in the computer room, and the new roomie’s in our old bedroom. Which means, unfortunately, that now the house is packed. Basically, what we need to do is finish the downstairs, then either the GF & I will move down there, or we’ll rent it out, and live like kings! Kings in a very cramped upstairs. Still, not too bad, all things considered, and it’s likely that the roomies’ situations are largely temporary, so it’s not likely to be crowded for tremendously long, though I wouldn’t particularly mind either way.

Got a pair of kites, after going to the kite festival last week. I ended up with a frameless quad-line stunt kite, the ParaStunter 1.4, and I got the GF a “SuperChute,” which turns out to be a small NASA Wing (dual line), which is kinda cool. Curious to see what sort of pull the PS has in reasonable wind. I’d hoped to get out and fly it during the week, but it looks like that’ll have to wait either ’till tomorrow night, or the weekend.

Replaced the spark plugs & wires on the Mini last weekend, and I’ve gotta change the engine & dashpot oil soon – maybe this weekend (though I sorta doubt it). The scooter also needs new oil soon. Man, though, the Mini’s engine compartment is *cramped*. I’m gonna have the A/C unit professionally removed – I’ve already got a taker, provided it doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount to have the unit removed, so that should be worthwhile – I just don’t need it out here, and I’d rather have the engine open, to be perfectly honest. Oh, gotta measure the carb opening for a new air filter (straight from England, no less (www.planetmini.com) this weekend.

In terms of the whole exercise thing, it’s really about time I made some sort of logical plan. It’ll probably go something like Monday: 20 minutes on the elliptical, Tuesday: Swimming in the morning, Wednesday: 30 minutes DDR Workout Mode, Thursday: Swimming in the morning, Friday: 20 minutes on the elliptical, Saturday: Swimming or misc. I want to get some sort of weight center/resistance dealie, like a Crossbow/Bowflex, but frankly, we don’t have the space for it. Now that we’ve got another renter, I’ve actually got enough $$ to potentially spare for it, but there’s nowhere to put it. 😛

Ah, well. we’ll see – once we figure out where to put the new roomie’s computer, maybe we’ll know where to slap this sucker, too.

Pirates of the Carribean is the best movie this summer, bar none. I loved the Matrix, and I liked the Hulk, and there were any number of other decent movies out this summer. The Matrix, when paired with Reloaded, may be a more interesting movie, but PotC will have been way more entertaining. Johnny Depp deserves an Oscar for his performance as Jack Sparrow. No one else would have pulled it off the way he did, and he takes the movie from a really entertaining summer blockbuster to something great. Even at over 2 1/2 hours, the movie never felt long at all, and every minute of it is worth seeing.

Spent Wednesday drywalling the downstairs, and after a few mishaps, managed to figure out how to properly use the hole cutter. Whee! Things just come together slowly. What can you do? Also starting to try to actively get more exercise during the week, rather than just swimming on every or every other weekend. Tuesday mornings, I go for a swim with my old housemate, and recently, been doing pushups, and using our elliptical machine. I can get only about 10 minutes on the elliptical before my knee starts feeling funny, but that’s 5 minutes better than a month ago, so I suppose it’s an improvement. Knee also feels a lot better when swimming these days.

Debating getting some sort of home gym. With new tires for the Mini necessary soon, and a part on the Mini needing to be replaces (the shift linkage that broke a while back), spending a couple hundred might not be the smartest thing to do. But we’ll see, I suppose. There’s a lot of exercise I can do without weights, so I should be doing that, first. Which, I suppose, I am.

…and it looks like the onboard video card is butt, so there’ll be another card in the works. Looks like a PCI ATI Radeon 9200, if anything, which sorta sucks, but isn’t too bad – the question is 128mb memory, or 64? I’m leaning towards 128, since the cost difference isn’t too much ($20). Still, sucks. Total cost ends up being on the order of $350 + $40 (512 additional mb RAM) + $100 = $490. More or less what I’d figured on, but bleah.

Well, c’est la vie. Plus Mini tires = ~$1K this month on random relatively unexpected expenses. At least the drywall’s all paid up. 🙂

Ergh. Just spent $350 on a new computer – had to get something, because my old machine, though it tried to serve me faithfully, was constantly plagued by hardware problems, crashes, etc., that no amount of technical troubleshooting ever was able to fix. A constant crash problem with the only two PC games I’m even remotely interested in using in any way, shape or form (primarily Neverwinter Nights), made me finally give up on trying to fix this, since I spent most of yesterday rebooting over and over and over again, than doing the productive stuff I’d hoped to do.

So, out $350. Now I’ve gotta get tires for the Mini. Whee.

Otherwise, things are pretty good. Gonna start drywalling in earnest downstairs this week, since the electrical systems passed inspections with no problems at all. Also read The Da Vinci Code, and Angels & Demons, both Robert Langdon books, by Dan Brown, and the new Harry Potter book, all three of which were excellent.

Right. So, hopefully, we’ll be crash-free, shortly. Hopefully.

Hm. Sort of … pensive. Don’t really know why. Was going to spend the day drywalling downstairs, but due to still needing the wiring properly inspected, I can’t close up the walls just yet. So, no drywalling. Bought shelving for the new room’s closet, which was pricey, but not particuarly, say, fulfilling, because we don’t have a studfinder, and don’t know precisely where the studs are, because we’re twits, and never marked the boards.

Other’n that? Not a whole lot going on. Checked out the GF’s Civic to figure out why it’s rattling when the engine’s hot, but due to my inability to find anything super-obvious, the car’s headed to the shop this Friday. Still, sorta fun examining stuff, but nothing fruitful. The Mini’s in need of some rust repairs, which I should do soon – maybe this weekend, I’ll at least strip the rust, and hit with some primer, in some inconspicuous place (probably the inside of the driver’s side door, where it’s really unnoticable if I completely screw it up). Got the tool for it, just not the stones to actually do it, never having done any bodywork before. Still, ought to be fun, or screwed up, or both. Hopefully not horrifically tragic.

Almost trashed the Mini today, actually. The rear end broke loose on a turn, and though that wasn’t actually a problem, the problem was that it regained traction in a really odd spot. A quick correction and all was well, but definitely need to remember this is a car with absolutely zero traction control, ABS, or anything of the sort. Right after I get new tires, but before they’re mounted, I’ll be taking a trip to a parking lot, in the wee hours to practice dealing with the car in more … unexpected situations. Should be fun, so long as I make sure things are clear enough to be safe for all involved.

Hm. So much to do, so little I can actually *do* right now. Waiting on parts for the Mini. Waiting on inspection on the house. I started the Neverwinter Mod that I’ve never mentioned before, but it’s coming along nicely. Got a couple areas set up, and basically just making sure I’ve got stuff in place to start working on for scripting & characters and the like. Also, should be a good time, and a project I can work on more or less whenever.

Whoo. Yeah, so that’s really about the swing of things. This weekend, what to do? Probably will hack & slash the front yard, and Round Up ™ the whole thing to kill all the weeds and … everything, because we really have to just nuke it from orbit. After all, it’s the only way to be sure.

Man, I need no job. Gotta free up time for all this STUFF!