DIY
(Posted 18:03:28 on 26th July 2008 by Rag)
As I've moved into the new house I've started to do some DIY jobs in order to get things sort of looking how I want them. Basically an excuse to play with power tools. Probably not the most sensible thing given I'm on blood thinners, but it's boys with toys and you just can't suppress that urge.
Now, most people probably grew up with their fathers passing on the philosophy that if you're going to buy a tool, spend the money and buy a decent tool that will last you a life time. Well, me being me, I've completely ignored that advice and gone with the theory that a) I'm really not going to be doing much DIY and b) so long as the person who I pay to come out and fix the mistakes I make has the decent tools that's all that matters. Just so you can get a sense of the quality of products I'm buying, I bought a jigsaw for $15 the other week. Mr O asked whether it as a 700 piece floor jigsaw, but, joking aside, a jigsaw puzzle would cost a lot more that $15.
Anyway, armed with my new jigsaw I set about cutting back a cabinet to fit a new TV that I'd bought. This lasted all of two minutes until I realized that I couldn't fit the jigsaw in to cut round the bit I wanted, so I ended up using a sawzall which is even less refined than a jigsaw. Good job I didn't want an even line - I'm sure that would have been easy to do. I've gone for a more wibbly-wobbly look so that it looks a little more creative.
The other thing I've done is Cat-6'd the house so that I can channel TV through the house over a computer network. Very clever setup, I've got two networks - the primary takes the main computing so this server, work computer and Karen's computer to the Internet (and the phone as we use VOIP). There's then a secondary network for the TV to keep the streaming separate from the Internet Traffic. I've got two digital TV feeds into a computer (with the new ATI TV wonder digital decoders so that you can get premium channels) through Windows Media Center (by far the best thing Microsoft has produced). This computer is hooked up to the main TV and then I've got two linksys media center extenders and an XBox 360 feeding another three TVs. One of the connections is wireless and, for the most part, seems to stream HD OK. Really just means I can use a computer as a DVR and feed TV, music etc. through to any room in the house. (With the ability to change channel in any room of the house and not having to buy a digital decoder for every room). With the house being on the side of a hill, this kind of made it easy to do the cabling as you can stand up in the crawl space under the house. Below is a quick picture of the cat-6 between the two routers and a printer.
As it happens, he is the sixth cat I've had although technically he's the seventh I've been around as my folks had a cat when I was born (many, many years ago).
