travis' brain dump

This one gets a whole new label on idiocy. I mean, c`mon – if you’re going to rob a bank think at least a little bit…. LOL

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OCALA, Fla. – Police say it wasn’t hard to find the man accused of robbing two banks Monday in Ocala, Fla. The suspect, you see, handed each of the tellers a note written on a personal check.

“That’s how we found out who he was,” police spokeswoman Angie Scroble tells the Star-Banner. “It had his name, home address, and we were able to match his driver’s license photo to the man in the surveillance images.”

Patrick Johnson, 33, was stopped a few blocks from the second bank, where police tell the local newspaper he tricked a cabbie into serving as his getaway driver.

They found a gun in the backseat, according to a press release from police.

Johnson is being held on armed robbery, drug possession and fraud charges, according to the Marion County, Fla., jail database.

things like ‘ how in the heck am i going to feed video to my tv if it’s hanging over the fireplace and my equipment is on the other side of the room ‘ …. and i thought the framing of the project was going to be the hard part.

wiring is easy, i can run wires all day long through the supports and not even think twice about it. The real question is… what wires to run!? I can’t very well assume that whatever I run today will be what someone else wants in the future when/if I ever sell the house so just what can one do? Run it all I guess. For my own uses I need only the component feed for video and HDMI. The rest is all processed through the surround sound system back on the shelves.

Currently, I’m thinking of running a panel from behind the tv to the shelves (where the equipment will live) to include the following: RCA (x5) (2 for audio and 3 for either using component or single signal for video),  HDMI (x1), CATV (x1) — I’m thinking that should cover it. The only crappy part about that is I’ll have to run two panels since one panel supports 6. With 7 feeds it’s going to cause issues. *shrug* small price to pay I guess. Maybe I’ll run SVID too just for fun.

All in all the project for the downstairs is moving along great. Mike and I were able to get the new wide staircase in as well as complete the ajoining wall this past weekend and I finished up the ceiling framing last night. I’m hoping to complete the outer wall framing sometime in the next couple of days and begin work on the fireplace frame and all of the electrical. Once I finish that I need to get all the cables run for ethernet, phone, cable, etc through the ceiling to their respective homes in the walls and start measuring out the electrical for the lights. All in all that should put me into a prime position to insulate and sheetrock everything within the first couple of weeks of August and drop in flooring by the end of August.

If all goes well the whole room should be mostly done by the time September rolls around with the exception of a new window, some floor level trim and the patch panels for the video/audio feeds. I should be getting some pictures up soon so it should be an interesting change from the before and already existing during pictures. 🙂

well not really. I would think if I was slacking off I would post more. The truth is I’ve been extremely busy and I don’t think it’s going to end anytime soon. On a brighter note, things are progressing well all around. The garden is growing out of control. The remodel project has entered into it’s framing phase for the downstairs now that we have the fireplace and I’m about to get around to fixing my car finally and that’s just to name a few.

It’s been a mad rush to get a lot of things completed by the time the baby comes along. Thankfully I’m still running on schedule for the remodel downstairs and should be all complete by the end of September. The downside to that is, once Arwen has moved downstairs and the upstairs room is free, it’s cram time to get that room done in two months. Thankfully I don’t have a ton to do or I would be a little stressed. *cough*

Work is going well. We’re on the road to completion of the backup solution so with three sites left I can see the light at the end of the tunnel… oh wait… that’s the headlights on the Exchange 2007 deployment. *sigh*

Anyway, still alive and hopefully I’ll be posting up plenty of new posts in the near future.

So, I’m not sure if this last weekend was really a weekend or not. While it was July 4th weekend I spent 90% of it working on stuff, thankfully none computer related. It was actually a really good weekend. Wednesday night I spent doing some demolition downstairs in the house since I wasn’t going to get much time and needed a jump-start. I had to rip out the hallway, laundry room and parts of the downstairs bathroom walls in order to install a pocket door for the downstairs bathroom. Definitely more work that I had anticipated but none the less demolition was still fun.

Thursday night was a lot of fun. We hit up Elway’s with some folks from Lewan & Associates and Commvault. A wonderful evening to say the least. The company and the atmosphere was great and the food was outstanding. The steak there is hands down one of the best I have ever had. By the time the night was over however, Amanda and I were done, lol. Great night though.

Friday was definitely busy with getting the pocket door installed. I was definitely impressed with how easy those kits from Lowe’s work. I’ve never actually really been a fan of pocket doors but it was necessary in the hallway we have. The old configuration had a 22″ wide door frame with a door that opened out into the hall that left you with all of a 20″ wide passage to walk through. No fun. Now it’s opened up and is at least 24″ wide. It’s amazing what removing that door from the hallway and tucking it into a wall has done for the appearance as well. It’s much wider feeling.

So once I got all that installed I figured it was time to take a break and help Amanda in the garden. Did I mention how busy Friday was? lol We were able to get the stringers up for the beans and she was able to finish weeding all of the rows. Now it’s my job to clean up the other areas… Once we got all that done, it was off to Myke and Carrie’s for some July 4th fun… Another great night of food and fun. I want the recipe for those ‘Salute’ fire-crackers that Myke was setting off. Those things were ridiculously loud and had one heck of a concussion effect. Needless to say, by the end of that night… I was dead.

Saturday brought the cleanup and finishing work for the hallway and laundry room downstairs. I must say it looks a million times better and I know Amanda is extremely happy with the extra shelves she now has in the laundry room. Once I have my buddy Mike come over and do the texturing for the entire downstairs I’ll be able to install the doors on it. That thankfully is only another month away I think. I still have to finish the family room first however and that’s going to be one heck of a project in and of itself due to the widening of the staircase and the fireplace install.

So needless to say, by the time we made it to Sunday we were all wiped out. All in all a good weekend though as far as productivity but it was nice to just turn off the phones and take a break from the norm. I’ll post updated pictures and get the remodel photo gallery moved over today so those of you following that project can get some images. 🙂