Joe: 1, Comcast: 0

The Attic antenna has been wired and is currently propped up against the beams supporting my roof. It's a little ghetto right now, but I think it'll be much better as soon as I get a decent antenna mast mount installed (I picked one up from Fry's on the way home tonight, but it was missing bits and pieces, so I'll have to exchange it sometime soon).

After wiring it up, I scanned for channels on my Media PC and picked up pretty much all the channels I was hoping to get :) I might have to upgrade the Media PC to smooth out the video on the HD channels, but it's looking pretty good.

Next time I venture into the attic though, I'm definitely wearing a mask - 20 minutes later I'm still coughing from the crap I inhaled.

Done!

The second bedroom is done! I finished nailing , caulking and filling the nail holes last night and painted early this afternoon. After clearing all the crap out, I vacuumed and then used my sister's carpet steamer to clean the floor. It's looking pretty good. Next I've got to clean up the huuuge mess that's accrued since I started this home renovation stuff.

In addition to the completion of the 2nd bedroom, today also marked the first day that I've turned on the heat. It was brought to my attention yesterday by my sister that my house was ass-freezing cold. I guess I hadn't noticed having spent a couple winters at 216 Willow, where the temperature regularly dropped into the low/mid 50's inside the house.

The heat was running throughout today, but I've turned it off for now. Around dinner time, I started feeling a bit of a headache, but attributed it to either dehydration or low blood sugar (I got caught up in working on stuff and kind of skipped lunch). After a bunch of water, some food and a coke (I kind of suspected caffeine withdrawal too) the headache hasn't gone away. Concerned that it might be caused by my heater dumping carbon monoxide into my house, I turned off the heater for now. I'll probably run out to Target or something tomorrow and grab a carbon monoxide detector before I fire up the heat again.

Until then, I'll be the dude wearing a scarf and jacket inside his house (playing guitar hero iii if this headache goes away :)

fearless

The baseboards in the second bedroom are pretty much done now. All that's left is to paint the nail holes that I've already filled with spackel. It's probably a good thing that they're done b/c I think I've lost my fearful respect for my 10" compound miter saw.

When I first started using the $50( $25 after applying a $25 gift card) miter saw I bought from Amazon.com, I was absolutely terrified of it. For my first couple cuts, I had the 2x4's clamped down on both ends, I'd dug out a pair of ear plugs, was wearing long sleeves, leather shoes, work gloves, a ventilation mask and safety glasses- pretty much everything they recommend in the owner's manual - and I was still scared shitless as the 10 inches of carbide tipped saw blade spun up to it's unloaded angular velocity of ~5200 RPM while emitting a deafening high-pitched scream (the saw was making the screaming noise - not me). I think I was mostly afraid that the blade was come loose and dismember me as I crouched over the cutting arm (for $50, I thought it was very plausible).

This morning, as I was making my final cuts to complete the baseboard installation in the 2nd bedroom, I distinctly remember one point when I was making a 45° cut on a piece of baseboard that was about 4" long that I wanted closer to 2". Since it was too small to clamp down with the built in clamp, I was holding it against the guard by hand and since my work gloves were a little too baggy and I didn't want my hand to slip, I was doing it bare handed. As I was finishing the cut, the piece that had just been liberated caught the spinning blade, bounced off of the guard, whizzed within a few inches of my right temple and bounced off of the wall about 8-10 feet behind me. I thought to myself at this point that the safety glasses were probably a good idea.

There were also a couple times where I'd left my safety glasses somewhere, but was too lazy to find them, so I'd clamp down my piece and simply look away while I made the cut. Thinking about this now, I could totally see myself losing fingers/appendages if I continue to do this stuff.

My work with the Dremel isn't much better. Instead of wearing the ventilation mask, I've started holding my breath and rushing my cuts - taking a breath when I finished my first cuts and needed to turn the piece over then repeating the procedure for the next cuts.

Definitely not the smartest things I've ever done.

All sorts of productive!

I was productive today.

The day started with my attempts to do touch up work on yesterday's paint job in the 2nd bedroom. After about 45 minutes of that, I decided it would take less time to simply put a second coat of paint on all of the walls than to scour them at close range with loaded brush in hand. I needed more paint (among other things), so I made a trip out to Home Depot and swung by Carl's Jr. for a quick lunch.

Upon my return, I helped Gladys move some stuff into the house, ate my lunch and painted the 2nd bedroom for the 2nd time. 2.5 hours later, the room looked much less splotchy. When I first started painting, I thought I'd made a huge mistake choosing the color I did ("water spout" by Behr), but now that it's done, it looks ok. Maybe a little strange and I'll probably want to paint it another color in a couple years, but it's not too bad. Even if it does suck, it's going to be Gladys' room anyway :)

The walls still needed to dry before I could install some lighting, so I went out and put my final coat of high-gloss ultra bright white on the baseboards. They're now ready to be cut and nailed in.

After the baseboard painting was done, I reworked and installed the track lighting that is being used as a vanity light (I chose the track lighting b/c the power was coming out of a GAPING hole on the far right side of the wall. The hole has been made much smaller and now the connector supplying power to the tracks and the connector's decorative housing covers the hole.

Next came installing the new faucet and drain assembly in the sink in my bedroom. That took a little time b/c I'd never done it before and had to sift through directions that were a little out of date (they replaced a couple of the parts listed in the directions with parts that combined functions of multiple bits/pieces). The new faucet and drain seem to be working fine. I did some testing and it appears to be leak free . . . for now.

I then took my old faucet, which is still in very good shape, but is sadly unsuitable for my morning routine and cleaned all the lime/calcium deposits off of it. It's now installed it in the 2nd bedroom sink.

I did some dishes, grabbed a quick fast-food dinner and am now prepped for bed.

Next up: installing the mirror and medicine cabinet, painting the door frame and BASEBOARDS!

I'm hoping everything will be done by the Turkey-Day weekend.

I'll try to get some pictures up in the near future.

quick update

The bike is completely together and tuned up for riding! I just need a helmet and some spandex and I'm set to pedal my way to work! It took an hour or two to get the derailleurs shifting properly and the brakes catching the way I like them to and a few minutes to put the grip tape on so everything's in order and it actually looks a lot nicer than I expected. If I catch some decent weather over an empty weekend I think I'll scope out the trail that goes by work and into the Baylands. If you're interested, let me know! It'd probably be more fun with a bit of company.

So, after the bike was finished, I started on the Master Bedroom. Painting took one weekend for tarping, taping, painting and touching up with help from the sister. Another weekend was spent running coax to the attic/2nd bedroom, modifying and installing a pair of new light fixtures and installing a new medicine cabinet and mirror and two weekends were spent painting and then cutting/installing baseboards. Now I've just got to touch up the baseboards, paint the doors, clean the carpet and I'm ready to move back in! I think the door painting might happen this weekend if I can get my ducks in a row. Otherwise, I'll try to get a little done in the days I'm taking off next week with some help from mom and dad.

After the MBR's done, the 2nd bedroom will get the same treatment. I'll be sure to get some pics together soon (after I clean up the MBR and after I empty out the 2nd BR to get a kind of before/after effect).

Anyway, I think some sleep is in order.