I have a new fixation and it’s called M.U.G.E.N. I can’t remember what it stands for (or maybe I never knew), but it’s an engine (computer programming library you could say) for building fighting video games. It sounds like a lot of work, and I’m sure it is, but the cool thing is that people all over the world have already gone to the trouble of creating characters, backgrounds, music… but what’s even better is that people have ‘ripped’ characters out of other games like all the ‘Street Fighter,’ ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘X-Men’, etc. games and you can add them to your game. In like 5 minutes of surfing the web I was able to find a cool Ryu (from ‘Street Fighter Alpha’) and tried him out. It also looks like you can alter them yourself if you feel so inclined. Anyway, as a fighting game purist I thought I’d hate the idea, but it’s really quite fun. There isn’t an official location for where to find this stuff, but search for yourself and it won’t take you long (there are Linux, Windows and DOS ports available).
As for the house, I have officially hit the wall (I’m being figurative of course). I feel as if I don’t have any interest in working on it anymore. I would like a few more things done, but I don’t have what it takes to do them myself. Oh, I do plan on posting some before and after pictures fairly soon – maybe that will rekindle my passion.
I’m not working today but there are always jobs to do on the house. I haven’t decided whether to be productive today or just have one of those ‘who cares’ days. One thing I’d like to do but am having trouble justifying working on it until other things are done is setting up a computer to media center hooked up to my television. Now, most people assume when I say media PC that I’m talking about games, surround sound, and… well, I don’t know what else. Here’s what I mean by media PC – a way to watch all of my downloaded shows, or watch things online, from my television. I’d like to give Linux MCE a try (it’s 100% free), but it feels a little like overkill since I don’t have a nice TV, or home automation abilities. Still, check out these videos comparing it to Windows MCE:
Now, knowing me I’ll probably just end up installing Ubuntu on the PC and just using a wireless keyboard – since I’d like to be able to surf the net and I like the feel of a mouse and keyboard. Either way, I’m looking forward to (1) watching my downloaded stuff, (2) getting all of my DVD content onto the PC, and (3) being able to go to youtube to show my friends the latest stupid videos going around. Oh yeah, I also bought a cheap TV tuner card the other day and would like to capture TV shows too – but I have no idea whether the card will be Linux compatible or not. If not, I’m sure it will be eventually.
We’re about 75% moved in now – there are only small items remaining at the apartment, though this includes my wife’s extensive warddrobe. We do have a phone, but no cable or Internet. I’m not too antsy about the cable, but I am about the Internet – mostly because I haven’t been able to get a hold of anybody to help me. You’d think getting them to move your DSL service from one home to another would be a pretty common thing. But, I’ve had great difficulty (1) getting people to answer the 1-800 number, (2) getting patched through to the right division, and (3) getting anyone to call me back. I’ve been doing my best to remain positive and recognizing how counterproductive judging can be (some wisdom from Wayne Dyer), but I’ve decided to name the ISP in question – it’s nexicom! This isn’t the first time I’ve had difficulty with them either. Hmm… here’s a thought – maybe if I’m keeping the same number, and I have Bell’s DSL capabilities enabled at the new place, they don’t need to do anything for me. If that’s the case I feel quite silly, but they could have at least let me know…
Since we don’t have the Internet at home right now, I’m actually writing this post from work – how horrible huh? Actually, my work affords me a fair bit of down time. Right now I’m watching the Leafs/Senators game with one of the individuals I work with, while the other one listens to music.
It’s moving day! We’ve actually had a few moving days in mind, but we’ve always been behind schedule. Today the power gets cut off at our apartment so we really don’t have much choice. I’m going to need some help but so far everyone I’ve talked to is busy today. I’ll likely have a little more luck in the evening, but I’d like to get it done during the day. As for the work on the house, we’re doing fairly well. Everything that’s left to be done can be worked on after we’ve moved in (trim, cupboard doors).
Haven’t been to the gym for four days but it’s really not a priority for me at the moment. I’m so tired every day from working on the home that they wouldn’t be very good workouts anyway. Now, although I’m very tired, I’m currently up at 6:30am because I can’t get the move off of my mind.
My father and I spent all of yesterday working on the house, and a couple of my friends helped me out in the evening. There are still a ton of little things to do, but it’s feeling very close to being done – I think many of the little things can wait until we’re actually moved in.
I finally was able to paint my kitchen the red colour (antique red) that I’d been fantasizing about for weeks. The primer we used for the kitchen walls had been given a grey hue to it, since this apparently helps a dark colour come out better – it almost looked like it was a solid paint colour after only one coat. It also made the red come out almost entirely in one coat, though we’ll need to do some more cutting in. So, my advice to anyone painting red is to colour your primer gray first.
I was able to get out to the gym today, though I was pretty sore from working on the house the day before, and working out the day before that. I’ve read that working out while your sore can be counter-productive, but if you’re working a different muscle group it shouldn’t be an issue. For some reason everything in my body was sore today, even though I can’t figure out why. Painting ceilings can really mess up your back I suppose.
I’ve decided that I’m going to make it to the gym today. I think it’s been over a week since I’ve been there, and I’m feeling all soft… I’d also like to start heading to the gym five days a week. I’ve been doing three days a week for a long time, and I think I’m ready to step it up. I’ve been having a problem deciding on what to aim for – size or tone. There are many people out there who say you can do both at the same time, but there are equally as many people who say you have to pick one or the other. In my experience, I haven’t been able to do both simultaneously. So, since the weather is going to be getting colder for quite some time, I’m going to go for size – it’ll help keep me warm anyway.
Ah yes, the house… I don’t think I have any interest in going over there today. I suppose I should take some things over though if I’m heading out anyway. There is still a lot of painting left, but my father and I will be over there all day tomorrow, so I think I’m going to just do my own thing for today. Yesterday I finally took advantage of having our own washer and dryer and I got caught up on the laundry. It was a very nice feeling being able to do laundry whenever I wanted, without having to pay for it. Also, our dryer is huge… very nice!
The last couple of days have been by morning shifts for work. I like having my day end at 3pm, so I have a fair bit of the day left, but it also throws off my sleep patterns since I’m normally working until 11pm. So, while I get to come home earlier, I often end up sleeping the evening away anyway.
As for the house, my father came up to work on the house all day while I was at work. I also hired a friend of mine (who is a painter) to work with him. It worked out well because (1) they’re friends and (2) they got a ton of work done. They have two rooms completely painted (including ceilings), and have the third bedroom ready for priming. So, we have the master bedroom, hallway, and kitchen left – they’re still big jobs, but everything feels manageable now. They also were able to get rid of a ton of paint chips so the house feels neat, even if it’s not painted.
I need to take some laundry over to the new house today. We’re way behind on this, but it’s hard to get motivated when you feel like you’re behind on everything. I’d like to get to the gym today too, but I won’t get all mopey if it doesn’t work that way.
Oh, I’ve made the decision today that from now on I will do everything slow and steady – as in choosing the turtle’s approach rather than the rabbit’s. I have a tendency to want everything done now, but since we’re always in-process (physically, spiritually, emotionally, financially) it makes sense to get used to the in-between times and do everything slowly. That’s my opinion for today anywyay ;)
Today I bit the bullet and went to the new house to do some more paint scraping. I only lasted about an hour before I got bored/tired/overwhelmed so I came back home and took a very long nap. While asleep, I got a phone message from a friend of mine who has been helping me with all this house stuff. After getting up I gave him a call back, and was having some coughing spells during the conversation. I joked that it was likely all the paint I was inhaling (though I guess I did/do think it’s related), which prompted him to ask me how old my house was. I instantly knew where he was going with the conversation… lead paint. I told him that I’d thought about it but I didn’t tell him the fact that my concern over whether or not my home had lead paint in it had kept me up almost an entire night. He knows me fairly well now, and he hesitated bringing it up because I have a tendency to fret over things. Anyway, he told me about a previous group home he had been working at where one of the residents had a habit of picking the paint off of the wall and eating it. They ended up having all of the individuals tested to see if there were abnormal levels of lead in their system, and surprisingly they all appeared to have been impacted negatively by this one individual’s behavior. The conclusion of course was that the act of peeling the paint off of the wall created a harmful amount of lead content in the air that all the individuals were breathing.
So, I’ve been peeling paint off of the walls of a house that is 37 years old, wearing no mask, exposing friends and more importantly my wife and unborn child to potentially harmful dust particles floating in the air. What have I done? What am I doing? What will I do? Well, I ended up calling the health unit to get their advice on the matter. They didn’t get back to me until after I had gone to work, so my wife took the call, but here’s what I got out of the call (and hopefully this will be helpful to anyone else dealing with the uncertainty of lead paint dangers): (1) It’s pretty common to have lead paint somewhere in a home, (2) scraping the paint is a fairly safe procedure though wearing gloves and a mask is recommended, (3) painting over top of it seems to be a good idea, (4) sanding lead paint is the most potentially harmful activity because of the dust it creates which is easily inhaled, (5) it’s best to spray paint chips with a little water before cleaning them up using a broom – a shop-vac is not a good option because it ends up blowing the dust around.
I’m currently in the process of moving out of our apartment into our first home. It is exciting but I’m finding myself quite stressed out with all the work I need to do. Initially we had all kinds of plans for things we wanted to do, but at the moment I’m wishing we’d just moved in and left everything exactly the way it was.
The first thing we decided on was new colors; the living room brown color was OK, the kitchen was a green we didn’t like, and all of the bedrooms were ugly colors (black, blue, and purple varieties). The idea of painting the home seemed like a small thing but we quickly noticed that the paint in all of the rooms was easily coming off of the walls; it was actually possible to grab onto it with our fingers and pull it off of the wall as if it were wallpaper. So, we decided to peel it all off so we’d have a fresh wall to paint on. The frustrating thing is that while most of it flakes off fairly easily, some of it is a little stubborn and you end up having to think a lot about whether or not just to leave these spots.
Now I’m almost a week into working on the home and haven’t accomplished anything we’d originally talked about because I’m still scraping the walls. Also, we found out that my wife is pregnant on the day we got the keys to the home, and she is (1) not feeling well enough to help, and (2) shouldn’t be around many of the taratogens associated with plaster/paint/wallpaper/etc..
Oh yes, the cupboards! The kitchen cupboards were also painted the green color we weren’t crazy about, so we’ve been going back and forth on how to solve the dilemma. Option one involves sanding, priming, and painting all of the cabinets and drawers, and likely changing the hardware since the doors are hanging a little crooked; this is the cheapest option but also happens to be the most time consuming. Option two is sanding, priming, and painting the cabinets but purchasing new doors and drawer fronts; this option is likely almost as time consuming as option one, but we end up with a little nicer result in the end. Option three is buying all new cabinets and hiring someone to install them; this is the least practical option, but it also seems to be the way I’m leaning since I’m feeling very overwhelmed with the projects.
I’m suddenly remembering a lecture I attended in college about project management. Our teacher told us of three concepts to be aware of when working on a project: (1) cost, (2) speed, (3) quality. He explained that you will have to sacrifice one of these goals in order to achieve the other two. For example, if I want something done cheap and fast, I’ll have to sacrifice the final product’s quality. Or, if I wanted something done fast and to be well made, I would have to be willing to spend a lot of money on it. I guess I’m in the middle of making these decisions on a daily basis in my home. If only I could remember how you determine which goals to aim for.
