I got a colonoscopy because I was short on material

Dave Barry once said that every good comedy writer should get a colonoscopy. Well, who am I to disagree? I've really been short on material lately, so in an effort to beef up my blog I thought I'd go for a comedy classic and get a colonoscopy myself, then compose a rectal anecdote just like the pros do. Okay, so that's not EXACTLY why I opted for a colonoscopy. I'll save you the, um, seedy underbelly of the full conversation with my doctor, but suffice it to say that she told me "well, you've got to get one in ten years anyways", and suggested I do it now just to rule anything out. And by "anything", that of course meant cancerous polyps, alien life forms growing in my upper GI, or a blockage caused by that box of Crayolas my friend bet me I couldn't eat in 4th grade. Since we're talking about a colonoscopy here, I figure it would be best if I started with the end of the story. Everything's fine. I'm clean and clear, and now about eight pounds lighter as a result of the purging process. More on that in a moment. But first, back to Dave Barry. A while ago he wrote perhaps the most important piece of medical journalism EVER, the chronicle of his own colonoscopy experience. It's required reading for anyone who plans to join the club. And I will also say that the article is phenomenal in its volume of sheer comedy as well as it's ACCURACY. I mean, it's frighteningly accurate. Every detail. So rather than plagiarize on his genius, I can only add my own twists and turns. Now would be a good time to go read his article. I will be here when you get back. The day before the test, as Dave also explained, I was not allowed to eat any solid food. It was chicken broth and Gatorade for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was also allowed popsicles, Jello, and hard candy, as long as they weren't red or purple. Which made me wonder - was I avoiding red or purple foods due to some sort of staining on the inside of my colon, confusing the doctor when he was inspecting my insides into thinking I had stigmata? Unfortunately I forgot to ask. Like Dave, my beverage of choice the evening before was MoviPrep. While his description of this vile substance was 100% accurate, I will add a few details. First, the stuff tastes like someone took a half dozen week-old used margarita glasses, wiped the slimy salt off the rims with a dirty finger, and mixed it with the residue found on the floor of a Gatorade factory. And yet, if you search the web you will find that "86% of people who took MoviPrep rated the taste "acceptable" or "satisfactory." I find that number dubious. There's a chapter in one of the Harry Potter books where Dumbledore and Harry travel to a cave in an effort to track down a horcrux. Once in the cave, they must row across a dark lake to an island. On the island is a pedestal. Resting in that pedestal is a horcrux, submerged beneath a mysterious fluid. Dumbledore announces to Harry that he is going to drink all the fluid and, no matter what happens, no matter how much he screams in agony, no matter how much he begs Harry to let him stop, how much he pleads to Harry to just let him die, Harry must make sure Dumbledore finishes all the liquid. That liquid was MoviPrep. It's just that bad. The directions say that over a course of an hour, you must drink the first liter, in four parts. The first part sets the stage, making you realize just how horrible the stuff is, and causing you to wonder how on earth the second liter will go down. But then, you think, the directions say that you won't have to drink the second liter until two hours later. Surely, that gives you some recovery time, right? Um, no. You will be spending the next two hours sitting on the toilet while every last ounce of gunk from the inside of your colon gets power washed out of you. And, as Dave says, just when you think you've recovered from the first dose, it's time for the second. By the time I was halfway through the second liter, more was coming back up than was going down. My advice is to drink it over the kitchen sink. Oh, and of course while you're attempting to drown yourself from the top down, the bottom half of you is reminding you that you need to be close to the bathroom at all times. I never did make it through the full second liter. My insides simply told me "no freaking way" and that was that. Plus, I realized I was doing this so the doctor had a clear, unobstructed path through my intestines, and I figured if he had to maneuver around those Primanti's french fries I had last month then so be it. This is Pittsburgh after all, so I'm sure he'll know to look for them. While I will spare you the details of my time in the bathroom, I can at least say that during the purging phase I was able to watch not one but two full Netflix movies as they streamed on my iPhone. Yeah, about 4 hours. It's amazing that I can even walk today. The next morning, my lovely wife (whom I can only love more for putting up with my poop jokes, and noises, all night) escorted me to the hospital. I signed in, and the nurse prepped me for the procedure. I was told to remove everything but my socks and shoes, put on the classic hospital gown, and wrap a beige blanket around my waist. I guess they figured I would be SO embarrassed by my outfit that talking with a complete stranger about what he was going to insert into my rectum would be no big deal. And they were right. I was then wheeled into the procedure room. Immediately I thought of Dave Barry's article again, warning us to ask for the non-ABBA colonoscopy. Amusingly there WAS a radio playing in the corner of the room. And the song? "Na na na na..Hey Hey Hey...Goodbye..." Seriously. The nurse then asked me to turn on my side while she connected something to my IV. I turned to see I was facing a 37" flat screen TV with the output from the special camera that someone else in the room was preparing. I then said, "Oh, cool, do I get to watch?" She responded by telling me as long as I was awake I could watch whatever I wanted. The very next instant, I was sitting up next to my wife and getting dressed. I missed the whole damned thing. The nurse had told me that I would have a bit of amnesia as a result of the anesthesia. She was right. Not only did I miss the procedure, but most of the conversations I had from the point I woke up to about a half hour after my wife got me home are a complete mystery. Supposedly I was awake and alert, but I do not remember the drive home, eating my lunch, or any of the conversations I had with the nurse before I left. It was actually a little freaky. So here I am, a clean bill of health, my tummy now filled with colon clogging BBQ'ed beef, ice cream, and donuts. I figure I survived this long on a good old fashioned American diet, and ten years from now I can empty it all out again. Hopefully by then they will come up with a liquid that at least 87% of people who take it will find acceptable or satisfactory.

A refrigeration odyssey

We had the pleasure of test driving a new refrigerator for the past month. Now, as I sit here waiting for its replacement to be delivered, I thought I would share the story as well as some uneducated opinions on fridge design.

Our tale starts with car shopping. Or, rather, a determination that we would hold out with our beaten-up, wet-dog-smelling ten-year-old Honda Odyssey for another year instead of buying a replacement. That left the budget wide open to take care of a few other major purchases. I had recently realized that our old secondary fridge, in the basement, was leaking air around the sides, causing a mold farm that Louis Pasteur would have been proud of. It was time for the beast to be retired to the scrap heap, and at long last we'd be able to replace our wimpy little kitchen fridge with a shiny new model, relegating the current one to basement duty.

Our first (and only) stop was the Sears Scratch 'n Dent warehouse. We found a shiny black French Door style Samsung with all the bells and whistles for about $900 less than the retail cost, and immediately snagged it.



Unfortunately, once it was delivered, we discovered a few problems that weren't exhibited at the warehouse when it was on display. For one, the giant gash across the front was definitely NOT there when we picked it out. Plus, the leaky water hose, while handy for washing the floor or keeping the dog hydrated, was not what we were hoping for. And the sound the motor made at 11:00 the first night, similar to that of a small plane landing in our kitchen? Yeah, this guy was headed back to the store.

After a little bit of online research and shopping around (yeah, I know, something we should have done to begin with), we decided to spend a little extra money and spring for a new model, rather than another scratch 'n dent. Sears made us an offer we couldn't refuse to exchange the Defecto Fridge for a better model at a discount. So here I sit, waiting for a shiny platinum side-by-side model to show up at the front door.



Okay, so the observant reader in you may have noticed we've switched from black to platinum, and French Door style to side-by-side. See, this was a great opportunity for us. For the month that we had Defecto Fridge in our kitchen and despite my wife not getting the endless collection of my "My God, It's Full Of Stars" jokes, we realized that having a giant black behemoth in our already too-dark kitchen made it all that much more cave-like. So now we go to platinum which, by the way, is the new trend over stainless steel because it's doesn't show fingerprints. We also realized that this whole trend of French Door fridges is complete and utter whitewash by the refrigeration industry. Sure, it seems neat at first to not have to bend down to get the milk. It also seems like a sweet deal having a giant platter-sized drawer for all those Martha Stewart style deli trays you will constantly be pulling out for those classy guests you're always having over. In reality, here's the downside to having a French Door style fridge:

-You can't store anything taller than a relish jar anywhere but on the door, without removing a shelf. And the doors will hold approximately 1.5 gallons of milk, one bottle of ketchup, a container of apple juice, and a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup. No more.

-That giant platter-sized drawer will stay empty for much of its life as you hope some day to have friends to invite over for deli.

-The fridge has an alarm that warns you if you accidentally leave the door open. Which is handy because they don't close by themselves. But what's not so great is the fact the alarm isn't loud enough to hear unless you're standing right next to it.

-The freezer on the bottom is big, but annoyingly clunky to open. There's an upper drawer in it, but as soon as you put anything taller than a gallon of ice cream in the bottom that upper drawer will be blocked.

For all those benefits, a French Door fridge appears to cost about $600 to $1000 more than a side-by-side. Save your money and,once you find friends that you want to entertain, take them out to dinner.

On a final note, I should comment that while Samsung apparently makes an excellent quality refrigerator, their technical translation department needs some help. Some fun examples from the instruction manual:

"After taking out the Ice Bucket and cleaned, please make sure to install after removing the frost and moist."

"Please contact your service agent's."

"To get best performance of product, Temperature of frozen food during defrosting can shorten its storage life."

How not to introduce your children to camping

This weekend I attempted to demonstrate the wonders of tent camping to my two young offspring. Unfortunately, as most Pittsburghers are aware, this was NOT the weekend to go tent camping.

It seemed like a simple enough plan. Two guys, their four young daughters, a couple of tents, and enough s'mores to power a Girl Scout troop for weeks. My kids were very excited, this being their first experience sleeping in a tent that wasn't set up in the basement. We had our supplies ready, our juice boxes on ice, and our GPS coordinates entered. What could go wrong?

Well, for one thing, we failed to count on that predictable summertime weather in western Pennsylvania. Threat of rain + plans to do something outdoorsy = guarantee of rain.

After meeting at a local pizza shop for dinner, we all headed out in two cars to Cook Forest, about two hours away. The skies were clear, but it was one of those typical hot summer days that usually brings on a good whalloping of rain when you least expect it. We reached the campsite just after dark, and just as it started to rain lightly. Ever try finding a campsite in the dark while it's raining? It's about as easy as finding a lost penny at the bottom of a tar pit. Nonetheless, we found it just after that point where the girls began to get tired and cranky, wondering if we were ever gonna be there. You know how it goes.

We pulled in as the rains dissipated, and started to set up the tents while the girls proceeded to explore their surroundings by shining flashlights in each others faces. By the time I got my tent laid out, the rain came back. And this time, it brought friends. It was then I realized a crucial camping mistake, which is to ASSUME you remember how to set up the tent based on a foggy memory of doing it several years ago. Naturally, attempting this in the dark during a torrential downpour, With two children leaning over your shoulder screaming that they're getting wet, was not a pleasant experience. As I proceeded to set up the rain cover upside down, I started to wonder if parents of kids on the boat from the Poseidon Adventure felt the same way when it turned over.

Nonetheless, I got the tent set up keeping the inside relatively dry, managed to get the sleeping bags and the girls' things into the tent without completely soaking them, and attempted to lay them down for the night. Tried to, anyways. The girls sat staring at me, with fear in their eyes, as the thunder started. One began to cry in fright. The other just looked at me with an "are you serious?" look on her face. I explained to them that we were perfectly safe, and the thunder and lightning were far off, and that the tent would stay dry. Lucky for me, they were both exhausted enough that they fell asleep within minutes, each one with a death grip on one of my hands, while I lay wide awake for the next several hours listening to pouring rain and wondering if they felt I'd kidnapped them and were going to leave them in the forest as a very wet snack for the bears.

At around four in the morning, just as I began dozing off, Natalie tapped me on the forehead to inform me that one of her molars fell out. Well, at least there was that.

The next morning they recovered quickly from their night of terror, ate some breakfast, and were off to start the day. After quite a successful canoe trip down a lazy river, some go-karts, lunch, and a visit to a swimming hole, my buddy and I felt we'd probably redeemed ourselves from our attempts to permanently scar our children the previous evening. We made our way back to the campsite and cooked hot dogs and s'mores over the fire, and felt pretty good about ourselves. Then, the thunder returned.

This time we were prepared, and simply made our way into our now dry tents, just in time for yet another torrential downpour. It was then that my wife called me to inform us that the area was expecting severe thunderstorms until around one in the morning. Natalie began to cry again, and Jessica simply took on the same vacant stare that I remember Jeremy Piven having in the movie Judgement Night, when he realized that in a couple of seconds Dennis Leary was going to drop him off the side of a building to his demise. It was then that my buddy and I tossed in the towel and decided it was time to pack up.

We waited for this rainstorm to stop, made our way out of the tents, and began piling items into the cars. The girls, overjoyed with the idea of getting out of this god-forsaken place, were more than happy to actually help with the teardown and packing. And of course, just as we began to tear the tents down, the downpour began again. While the girls waited in the cars, the two of us finished packing up the tents while being drenched head to toe. When I finally sloshed my way into the minivan, one of my daughters greeted me with an outstretched arm holding my last dry shirt. She handed it to me and said, "maybe next time it won't rain."

That was all I needed.

Incentives

At last, I have her where I want her.

When my older child wants something, she's very clear about it. Her latest "thing" is dogs. Everything about dogs. Her room is decorated with thousands of stuffed puppies, ceramic puppies, pictures of puppies...there's even paw prints neatly painted on her bookshelves (very tastefully, I must say). This week, she's going to "camp" at Animal Friends, the local no-kill shelter. There, she's being immersed in puppydom. And it's getting to be a dangerous thing.

If you've been following my rants, you know we already have a dog. A crazy nutbag, neurotic, chew-up-everything-in-sight-if-you-leave-me-alone-for-more-than-38-seconds dog. So, naturally, she wants a second dog.

Each day she's come home not only telling us what she's learned about dogs that day (today we learned the term "hybrid dog!") but also about the latest little cutie that she absolutely must have. Trouble is, it's not just her saying, "oh, she's so cute, I MUST have her!". No, instead, she comes with justification, explaining the numerous reasons why it would really be beneficial to have a second dog:

1. It would help with Daisy's anxiety and attachment issues.
2. Daisy would have a buddy.
3. It's not like it would be TWICE as expensive to have two dogs (really?).
4. Daisy would play with the dog while we were gone and stop chewing things.

Hmm, well, frankly a couple of those items DO make sense. However, as the person who does 90% of the walking, feeding, mess cleanup and paying for, as well as 100% of the poop cleanup in the yard, I ain't too interested in doubling my efforts.

Naturally, my almost-ten-year-old declared she would step up to the plate and help with all that. I asked, "even poop cleanup?"


Of course, she replied with "eww...gross!"

I told her that's what it's going to take for me to even CONSIDER a second dog. She then declared that, yes, she'd help.

I tried to make her feel better about it by explaining that if you leave the poop in the yard a couple of days, it hardens like a rock and is easier to pick up. For some reason that didn't make her feel better.

This evening she and I walked Daisy together, and she continued to spout out facts about why it would be good to have another dog, a boy dog, one Daisy could be buddies with, one that would distract her, keep her busy, and she would certainly help more with the feeding and care, and yes, she'd even help clean the poop....

And right then and there, Daisy left a deposit in the neighbor's yard. So with a wide smile, I handed my daughter the little plastic bag.

She replied with, "what, now?"

"Yup, if you even want me to CONSIDER IT..."

"Ew."

But she did it. Arms extended, holding her nose the entire way back. But she did it.

Upon our return, we walked into the basement and was reminded of the massive pile of cardboard boxes, destined for recycling, that Daisy turned into confetti all over the basement floor. The pile that's been sitting there for two weeks.

She's downstairs cleaning it now, as I write this.

Ah, a classic parenting moment. I wonder how long I can milk this?

The Family Vacation

We've just returned from what can only be deemed a classic American vacation. Last week we packed the minivan with beach toys, scooters, coolers, and antacid and headed for a rented beach house in Delaware, where we stayed with our close friends who also have two small children and an SUV filled with crap.

Overall the week was a success. We left on speaking terms with our friends. The moms got their well deserved rest and yet left more exhausted than they arrived. We only broke two dishes, a glass, and a vase containing fake flowers that was a victim of poor placement in the first place. And the dads, also known as the "pack mules", managed to squeeze out just enough relaxation to not go completely insane.

Paul, my fellow pack mule, reminded me of a post I created several years ago as a warning to future parents on what they should expect when a new member of the family arrives. Well, in a similar vein, a couple with no kids perhaps debating whether or not to join the parenting game might just decide against it after reading the following vacation highlight reel. I'm pretty sure the sound of doors slamming and tires squealing that I heard one night early in the week was the unmarried vacationing couple next door sneaking out in a combination of disgust and panic.

The bunk beds
The kids were quite excited to find two sets of bunk beds in the house where we stayed. Of course, with one kid still in a pack-and-play, that meant two top bunks for three kids. Time for a lesson on sharing, right?

Before the first night's sleep it was decided that, each night, the kids would switch things around so that the duty of sleeping in a lower bunk would be shared equally amongst them. This seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. Unfortunately it also meant that, each night, the parents had to deal with a child who was so traumatized by the possibility of bumping her head when sitting on the lower bunk that they would refuse to go to bed. For some reason, none of the kids bought into the logic that my buddy and I both spent four years of college sleeping on a bottom bunk while somehow avoiding a concussion. Go figure.

The tantrums
By the end of the week, Paul and I made it a game of deciding which kid would be next to tantrum, and why. With only a little practice we were able to call them moments before they would occur, much like Radar O'Reilly in M*A*S*H would announce the arrival of helicopters before anyone else could hear them.

There were tantrums over sharing of toys. Over naptime. Over sandcastles. Over hair clips. Doors being closed on fingers. Sequence of showers. Showers instead of baths. Baths instead of another five minutes in the pool. Getting out of the pool. Getting out of the bath. Getting out of the shower. Shopping for trinkets. Shopping for t-shirts. Over ice cream. Over dinner selections. Over being dragged on a pirate cruise. Over who got to be the 8th person in the minivan, forced to sit in someone's lap.

In other words, it was just like being home.

Fear of the ocean
I suppose it's healthy for a child to have some level of fear of the ocean. It's big and swirly, tastes bad, and movies are made about it with sharks eating people who like to swim. On the one hand, there's the level of fear that allows the child enough courage to go ankle deep into the water, only to dash out at full speed before the cold wave splashes at thigh level. On the other hand, there's the child who's level of fear is so high that just the sight of seeing dad enter the water without her causes screaming and panic. We experienced both levels, and every one in between. My oldest managed to work up the courage to join her dad several yards into the water where the waves broke, only to refuse to speak to him for the rest of the night when he somehow managed to allow the wave to crash directly into her face, filling her open and screaming mouth with salty sand. Paul's oldest took the stance of "uh uh...if I don't go in, you don't go in, so get your butt out of that water, mister!". Thus, he stayed pretty dry all week.

Out to Dinner
What would a beach vacation be without that night out at a big ol' seafood restaurant? Well, we belted through two dinners out this week, one more successful than the other. The first was in classic style. The little one's nap failed to take, so he was the typical bear that every parent dreams of. The only way to keep him from fussing was to constantly distract him with the spotlight-induced images of fish swirling around the restaurant floor, and thus we didn't see much of him or his mom the entire meal. And of course there were the usual bathroom breaks. First a child announces it's time to empty the bladder, so mom takes her. Upon returning to the table, the second child announces it's her turn, and the parent returns to the bathroom. Once back, she realizes that she, herself failed to go, and it's time for another trip. By then the appetizers are finished, and it's the dad's turn to go. Overall, we would have all seen more of each other if we'd asked for a table inside one of the restroom stalls.

The second dinner was almost strangely successful, with little issue to speak of. This was despite the 45-minute wait for a table, which we realized would be worth it when we thought about the fact that it would take us at least that long just to find another restaurant, and on a Friday night that place would have a wait as well. But the kids kept themselves occupied the entire time. Perhaps it was due to the four iPhones we had in our possession, each with a copy of the game "Pee Monkey" on it.

The noise, noise, noise, noise!
After accepting the challenge from my eldest child to swim down and touch the bottom of the nine-foot deep pool, I found myself unable to remove the water from my ear. After three days of asking people to repeat themselves and turning the TV volume up to eleven, a trip to the local urgent care facility was necessary. It turned out that the water pressure had compacted enough wax into my ear canal to make an entire colony of bees say, "dude, that's a lot of wax."

Unfortunately I didn't realize how good I'd had it. After my ear cleaning, I quickly learned just how loud a house with four children who've had nothing but ice cream and popcorn for four days straight can be. I promptly went back to the urgent care facility and asked for my wax back.

It only took about thirty years, but at last I finally understand why my parents never took me or my sister anywhere.

On LEDs, snoring dogs, and the Daily Show

My wife and I have a pretty good sleeping space. Though it's a fairly big bedroom (about 30 feet long, 12 feet wide), it doesn't feel cavernous or empty. Probably because of all the crap everywhere, but that's for another post. It's quiet and peaceful most of the time, except when the neighbor kid plays basketball in the driveway next door at midnight, but that's also the subject of another post. What IS the subject of this post, you ask? Well, tonight I'm going to talk about the wonders of LED technology and how they manage to nerf up my REM sleep.

You may recall a year or so ago, the fun adventure I had attempting to replace the ceiling fan, due to a light clicking noise that came from the motor at 4 in the morning. Well, along with that episode I've managed to build up a fine little collection of enemies to my feng shui. For example:

A couple of years ago we picked up an admittedly cheapass 19" LCD television for the bedroom. After the first hour of the first night with it in our room, I had to trudge down to the workshop and locate the roll of black electrical tape to cover up the bright blue LED light shining from the bezel of the TV when it was OFF, because it lit up the entire room at night. Now I ask you...do I REALLY need an indicator to know that my TV is off?

A few months ago, when we upgraded our Tivo, I moved the old one into the bedroom. We quickly realized that the need for quiet sleep outranked the need to watch last night's episode of Jon Stewart in bed, and the Tivo's fan was soon silenced by our unplugging the unit and selling it on ebay.

I'm currently typing this on our Mac in the bedroom. This Mac usually resides in the office downstairs, but its been temporarily moved to the bedroom while we remodel the office. I've taken to putting it to sleep each night, so that it doesn't randomly spout out midnight appointment reminders or blind us when the screen suddenly wakes up. I've also had to cover up the external hard drive, which has yet another blue LED that lights up the room.

Last but not least, we just received a new bedroom cable box from our cable provider. This unit is a DVR (the reason we have a DVR along with the Tivo is yet another post). Between the loud fan and the ultra-bright clock on the face of this unit, it gets unplugged at night as well.

It seems to me that these are all fine examples of weaknesses of the product testing process. Just like the way only left-handers tested the iPhone's antenna strength, obviously no one bothered to test out the TV or cable box at night in a real world test, only to discover the LEDs are bright enough to land a plane by. Kudos to the LED industry for making an impressive product. Sell it with a dimmer switch next time.

It never used to be this way. Back in my college years I spent many a night zonked out in the back bedroom with 40 or 50 of my fraternity brothers on the other side of the wall, doing and consuming things that really aren't appropriate for this blog. I blame this change in my ability to sleep soundly quite squarely on my children. 9 or so years of waking up to the slightest whine or sniffle has really taken its toll. And right now, as I turn to look behind me, I see my lovely wife zonked out across my pillow and breathing heavily, my dog in her crate snoring, and my younger offspring asleep on the couch and coughing lightly every thirty seconds or so. I think I will go downstairs and catch last night's Jon Stewart.

Wallpaper. Why did it have to be wallpaper?

When I was young I was a huge fan of Looney Tunes. Every Saturday morning I would sneak downstairs just before 8:00 in the morning, turn on the kitchen black-and-white, and watch Bugs, Elmer, and the gang cause mayhem and mischief while making timely jokes that went way over my head for many years to come. One of my favorite sketches was the one with Michigan J. Frog, the singing toad that drove an unnamed stranger to insanity. In the end, the man buried the frog in the foundation of a skyscraper under construction just to get the blasted creature out of his life. In the final scene, it's the year 2056, and a laborer from ACME Building Disintegrators is using a ray gun to completely eradicate the building when he stumbles upon a box containing our hero, the singing frog.

Forget iPads. Forget 3D television. What this society needs is one of those building disintegrators. Think of the deteriorated urban landscapes we could clean up. We could eliminate landfills. Imagine setting it to its lowest setting, "wallpaper removal", and making this home renovation chore an absolute breeze. No more scraping. No more gooey mess. Just point and shoot.

See? ya like how I slid the subject of a home renovation project in without you even noticing? Yeah, it's time again (still). After spending the last few weeks building cabinets for my neighbor, she offered (well, she accepted the deal) to paint our dining room. That turned into painting both the dining room AND the adjacent home office, since they will both be the same color. So naturally, this led me to realize that now is the perfect time to completely remodel both rooms. In my spare time.

Anyone who's been to our house knows what we're dealing with. puke-beige carpeting that's been in the house about 5 years too long, "lovely" rose-patterned pink wallpaper on which a former resident with a Laura Ashley fetish spent way too much money, and curtains that saw their prime years ago in a mid-eighties walkup in the Bronx. Well, we're switching out the carpet for Pergo that I rescued from another area of the house (more on that another day), and the curtains and wallpaper are to be replaced with something from the Sherwin-Williams Arts & Crafts pallet. This will lead me down the road of new baseboard and crown moulding (Arts & Crafts as well, new lighting, and yes...built-in office furniture. All in all, the project should keep me squirreled away in the workshop until my older one gets past the training bra phase.

Unfortunately, it all starts with removing the wallpaper. I hate wallpaper. I hate putting it up. I hate taking it down. Whomever invented wallpaper didn't really plan out the exit strategy very well. As tacky as it is, I understand why some less anal retentive folks actually consider painting over wallpaper. Not that I'd ever do that, but I feel for the poor bastards.

The offspring were of little help to me on this project, of course. Despite my desperate attempts to make them my slaves, they have quickly learned that the best way to avoid work is to get into fights with each other about it. Sure, they loved the first step of the wallpaper removal process, which was to peel off the top layer in sheets, leaving the shreds on the floor. But when it came time for the spray-and-scrape process to remove the glue from the wall, it was nothing but "Hey, I wanted to use that scraper! That scraper's special to me! Fine! I won't help then! Sissy, stop throwing at me! I wish I was an only child! I hope an asteroid crashes into this planet and squashes you like that centipede daddy found in the dryer! I hate you!" I realized when they were fighting with each other about who did the better job of tearing up the pieces on the floor into smaller pieces, that their fighting was a coordinated effort to get out of helping their dad. Very sneaky.

In the end, I came up with a rhythm. Spray the wallpaper remover. Stop to make coffee. Yell at the kids for fighting with each other. Scrape the walls. Repeat. It was a very productive day.

Designing a thing can't be THAT hard.

Over the past few years, I've often thought to myself that for my next career move, I need to work for a company that makes an actual THING you can hold in your hand. Okay, so that goal went by the wayside with my new career in the financial industry (and no, I don't work directly with cash, so that doesn't count), however I have to say I sometimes wonder how much better I could make things than the people out there who actually do it. Have you ever come across a product with a flaw so completely and utterly stupid it makes you wonder why the designer wasn't burned at the stake by company stockholders?

Take, for example, the air mattress I just attempted to inflate for my daughter's sleepover with her friend. This mattress, made by Coleman, comes with a handy-dandy inflator that blows up the mattress in less than two minutes. It's great when it works. However, the designers of this gadget demonstrated their idiocy by missing one important characteristic of the inflator.

Let's think for a moment...how often does one typically use an inflatable mattress? A couple times a year? When the in-laws come to visit? During flu season when the spouse bans you from the master bedroom due to excess phlegm? So that means for about 360 out of 365 days each year, this cordless inflator sits idle in the closet with a dead battery. That dead battery takes eight hours to fully charge, by plugging the inflator itself into the wall. AND, when the inflator is plugged in, it CANNOT BE USED. I'm sure most inflatable mattress users. like myself, never think to charge the inflator a day in advance before pulling the mattress out of the closet. And, if you're like me, you then end up rigging up your bike pump to do the job you'd originally bought the inflator to do. I'd really like to know what idiot allowed this through testing.

Next let's take a look at my new printer, a Kodak ESP5250. This is actually an excellent printer. It's one of those that Kodak is touting to have the lowest replacement ink cost in the industry, and it appears to be true. It prints well, scans well, and runs virtually flawlessly. Except if you move it.

The power cord on this printer resembles that of a laptop cord, with a "brick" that rests on the floor between two pieces of cord. The adapter that plugs into the back of the printer is so loose that if you move the printer a half inch, it sheds itself of the power cord completely. Really? No one noticed that in testing?

Finally, let's look at this alarm clock and iPod charger/player I bought for my daughter. It seemed simple and functional enough. It works as a clock, and it allows Thing #1 to fill her bedroom with the sounds of Hannah Montana blaring from her Nano any time she wants. However, it cannot actually be used as an alarm clock, despite the product description. You see, for some ridiculous reason when the alarm sounds, it always sounds with the volume at it's HIGHEST LEVEL. It even says in the directions, "after the alarm sounds you may adjust the volume to a lower setting." Seriously? Someone not only tested this "feature" but didn't feel the need to question the design? Way to go, tech writers. I'd like to know if the quality assurance team that tested this device actually tested it on small children, only to watch them launch through the ceiling when the alarm goes off with the music volume set past eleven. Morons.

Unfortunately my daughter wants to keep the clock radio, because it has cool changeable designs. At least the designers had their priorities straight.

40-year old Verging

Okay, okay, I know, the blog. Yeah, it's time to get my butt back in gear and let those creative juices flow. I have to say that the past couple of months have been a trying time for the creative side of my brain for many reasons. For starters, I've quit my job (the one I've had for a little less than a year after being laid off from a place I'd been with for close to two decades) and am starting a new one two days from now. Meanwhile I'm taking a week to get my head, my life, and the house back in order, to prepare for my upcoming role as an engagement manager (sorry, that's as detailed as I'm gonna get right now...it's a rule of mine not to blog about work), and to lay some concrete below the back steps. Yup, there's always a home improvement project.

If you were expecting to see a post here that I'd spent days and days noodling over to get the content and the comedic timing just right, you'll be sorely disappointed I started this post at 11:15pm and expect it to be done by 11:21. Instead, this is more of a reboot for me. At least once a day lately I've been saying to myself, "would you just sit yer ass down and write something already?" The problem was, I couldn't decide on a subject. Should it be about my daughter's solo at the 3rd grade violin recital? About buying a new Flip Video camera only to have its hard drive completely filled with shaky closeups of the dog's nose as taken by my 6-year-old? Or how about the fact that after completing our major home renovation only two short years ago, we just completed about seven grand worth of re-work as a result of damage from this winter's snowpocalypse? Hmm, well you know how sometimes your guest room just gets so messy, you don't even bother straightening it up and instead just close the door and pretend it's not even a part of the house until the day you find out your sister and her entire family are coming for a weekend stay for the first time since your wedding? Well, in blogging terms, today is that day. Time to open the door and start shoveling.

I suppose a good enough place to start would be with what may be deemed by some as a personal milestone this year. It finally happened. I hit forty. I don't believe I've thought much about it up to this point...it's just another notch in the long, somewhat worn belt of life, really. And frankly, I tend to wear the crap out of my belts, keeping them around for years and years past their prime, until the holes are loose and the leather is so shredded that I would have an easier time keeping my pants up with duct tape. So, I guess if I were to build this into a solid metaphor, I can say that I've got a lot more life in me before I completely fall apart and I will attempt to make the most of it by adjusting a notch or two.

I realized one interesting thing related to my birthday, though. 40 years old is the youngest age that I truly remember my dad being. Oh, he's still alive and kicking, so this isn't some memoir about a father long since past. But when I think back to my childhood, I realize he was 40 when I was ten years old, and I don't really remember any time when he was younger than that. For some reason, this strikes me as important. I think I know why, too. According to my own brain and memories, my dad's life began thirty years ago, when he turned 40. This means I'm just getting started, as well. And I've got nothing to complain about. Well, except that I need a new belt.

My new Theme Song

Every once in a while I come across something accidentally that gets me all giddy inside. This weekend, I came across my new theme song, along with the genius behind it.

While listening to Pandora yesterday, I heard something completely new. It was a song called "Shop Vac, but an artist named Jonathan Coulton. It seems back in 2006 Coulton produced a number of songs under the Creative Commons License, giving them away for free and thus becoming an internet sensation. Which makes me wonder why I never heard of the guy before yesterday. Especially because he grew up in Colchester, CT and was roommates with John Hodgeman. Anyway, the guy is a freaking genius and absolutely hysterical. Take some time and check this stuff out:

If you're an itunes user, click on this link to be taken to Coulton's collection of 52 songs he produced by releasing one each week for a year. The album, aptly named Thing A Week One, is available for free as a podcast. Make especially sure to listen to the songs below.

Now, to make the experience even more worthwhile, it turns out there's an entire Wiki site dedicated to Mr. Coulton, where you can read the lyrics to each of his songs. The song links below are to their lyric pages.

Shop Vac

Re: Your Brains

Mr. Fancy Pants

Code Monkey

The Town Crotch

After you've listened to the above selections, I dare you to not go about your day with "All we wanna do is eat your brains" running through your head endlessly.

Genius. Absolute genius.

My thoughts on the iPad, and more importantly on books

I came across a blogger's well-written post about Books in the age of the iPad through my friend's blog. I began writing a very long comment at the end of the article, but decided that, as long I was in the mood to pen a full diatribe, I might as well make a blog post about it. So go ahead and read the article. I'll wait. Then, come back.

Okay, so here's my thoughts. Much of the author's future vision of print seems dead on. In the coming age of the iPad, books will need to become more creative, more special, and more worthy of buying a paper copy as opposed to simply downloading it. However, I think that the points he makes about what won't be missed are simply untrue for a great many people.

As a result of focusing the last 20 years or so of my life on the printing industry and loving it, I got to have the last summer off when my company downsized. I hold no vision of a printing industry that isn't close to death's door. It has shrunk in size each and every year I've been in it, and I'm happy to be moving on to brighter pastures. But I will never stop loving print. It's just to special an industry.

Meanwhile, I watch the transition of print to digital by watching the habits of my lovely wife. She reads somewhere close to 100 books each year. She keeps a massive, color-coded list of books she has read each year, and looks forward to seeing it grow the way a triathlete in training looks forward to seeing his times shrink with each workout. Sometimes I think she skirts the fringes of insanity with this passion of hers, but I have the utmost respect for it. Frankly, it is kind of fun to watch her obsess over the latest issue of Bookmarks Magazine, or burn out a hair dryer (and a few hair follicles) after sitting in the bathroom for an hour lost in the pages of her latest novel. And of those 100 books each year, very, VERY few are purchased retail. They come second hand, they are borrowed from the library, they are purchased at used book sales, and they are even found tucked away in our house, obtained in years past by providers unknown.

My wife has told me over and over that she will NEVER read an electronic book. While I find the finality of that claim somewhat dubious, I cannot disagree that she, and many like her, are the reason the printed book may never go away, and I hope she's right. After all:

-You shouldn't have to spend $500 just to read a book.

-You can't give an iPad to your friend after you're done reading an ebook. Heck, you can't even conveniently give it to your spouse. And likewise, most households aren't going to buy an iPad for each member of the family. At least, mine ain't.

-As I mentioned above, very few books in our house were bought retail. I know, I know, this is one of the reasons why the printing industry is having such a hard time, and they need this new business model. Sure, that's true, but if my wife had to pay $15 for each and every book she read (now would probably be a good time to point out that she's actually purchased or obtained enough books that she hasn't read yet to keep her squirreled away in her reading chair for another couple of years without ever leaving the house), plus $500 for an iPad, well, the kids would be headed for technical school instead of Carnegie Mellon.

-Personally, one of my favorite times to read is during that period on an airplane when your tray tables must be placed in their full upright and locked position. The time when all electronics must be shut off is the best time to pull out that second-hand novel sitting in my backpack. And when your landing gets delayed such that you're circling for two hours without being able to use your ebook reader, well good luck not trying to light your sneakers on fire in frustration.

-Books don't break.

-You can't take an iPad to a book signing (which, by the way, is exactly where my wife is at this very moment).

-While I definitely agree that this new paradigm will force book manufacturers to get more creative with their printed products, I don't believe the same is true for childrens books. Be it toddler board books or young pre-teen Judy Blume novels, those products will be around for a long, long time. And believe me, after you've watched your nine-year-old waste an afternoon playing the Wii or on Webkinz.com, it's incredibly uplifting to see her pull out a Nancy Drew Mystery (yeah, they're still around) and disappear into a cozy chair for an hour with it.

-Imagine how dull and drab the den will look with empty bookshelves. I will have none of that.

-Perhaps the biggest problem I have with the concept of an iPad is the distraction. My wife complains that I never read anymore. That's almost true. I have to make an effort to detach myself from the day-to-day, from my latest home project, from the TV, or from the computer, in order to sit down and read something. But when I do, it's a unique experience that cannot be compared to attempting to read a story when you can be so easily distracted by something completely unrelated without even looking up from the page. This morning, as my daughter was reading The Lightning Thief at the breakfast table (and mind you I would NEVER let those grubby, pineapple juice-ridden sandwich clamps touch my ipad at the breakfast table if I had one), she asked me what a "caduceus" was. Not recognizing the word, we headed for the computer and suddenly got lost in a half hour of surfing Wikipedia and related sites. On the one hand, it's great to have all that information at your fingertips. On the other hand, it's great to disconnect once in a while.

Don't get me wrong. I want an iPad. I can't justify buying one right now, but I want an iPad just the same.

The REAL reason I haven't been blogging...

At long last, my latest workshop odyssey is complete. Well, at least complete enough to take a break for a while. I've finished constructing my entertainment unit. I still plan on building a piece over the TV and perhaps putting doors on the bottom of the bookshelves, but for now it's done enough that I can sit back, watch LOST, and enjoy the final product.

This was definitely a fun project. It was quite a challenge working with those old sycamore floorboards, as often times it was tough to get a piece of any decent length without huge knots or holes. Overall I didn't have any major disasters during the project, except for when I realized I incorrectly measured the space for the bottom drawers such that there's quite literally less than 1/16th of an inch of extra space for the DVDs to fit in them. Oh well, soon all video will be online anyways.

Hmmm, what's the next project gonna be? Well, my neighbor conned me into helping her build built-in cabinets around her fireplace, so that should keep me busy for a while. Plus I have a dining room to redo. Or maybe, just maybe, I'll spend a little time OUT of the basement for a while.

Coffee...a cup best brewed cold...

I'm baaack! And I'm seriously caffeinated. I'm also attempting to enjoy life a little more and, as a result, I'm working on getting my creative juices flowing again by reintroducing myself to my own blog. I hope the one or two remaining people with an RSS feed to this blog missed me as much as I missed myself.

While I refuse to blog about anythig related to work, I will say the past few months of my new job have been stressful and exhausting, and I will leave it at that. you want the full scoop? Buy me a beer. Or a cup of coffee. Hey speaking of which, that's quite the natural segue into the subject of today's blog post. Snow. No wait, I mean coffee, not snow. I'm sick of snow. and so are you. I'll just talk about coffee.

I'm somewhat of a coffee snob. I get all my coffee fresh roasted from Prestogeorge, my favorite place in Pittsburgh's Strip District, and tend to drink about three of four cups a day. I refuse to drink that standard office swill, and cringe any time someone tries to offer me skim milk to put in my cup. Recently my trusty-yet-raggedy DeLonghi coffeemaker decided it was time to give up the ghost. Well, not totally, but the timer button stopped working. Yeah, sure, it still makes coffee, just not at four in the morning while I'm still asleep. And that's annoying. So it was time for a new coffee maker.

My needs were simple. A steel carafe and a timer were really my only requirements. I wasn't interested in a machine that automatically grinds, as waking the dog at four in the morning would be a whole different annoyance. I also believe that those doohickies that take the single-serving plastic tubs of coffee are yet another example of how this planet is doomed, so I'm not going there either. And, unfortunately, I took the time to read all the comments on Amazon.com for each coffee maker I viewed, and noticed one common thread...they all sucked. Curse you, Amazon, and your Web 2.0 openness. It was so much easier to shop when I knew nothing about what I was buying.

Then I started to read about the concept of "cold brewing". The idea is that you take a pound of ground coffee, dump it in a plastic tub with about nine cups of water, let it sit for a day, then drain it through a filter. The end result is sort of a coffee "concentrate". Take a little bit of this concentrate (about a 1/4 cup) and mix in a cup of boiling water Yes folks, it's a trendy take on instant coffee! But the concentrate has none of the oils and acids left in typical brewed coffee, and therefore it tastes more "pure" and is less harsh on your stomach. One batch of concentrate apparently will last over a month in the fridge and makes about as many cups of coffee as the traditional process would, but with no waste because you make it a cup at a time. The gadget to do this cost about thirty bucks, so I decided to give it a shot.

The verdict? I'm still undecided, but I'm leaning toward excellent. They say that this process makes coffee that "tastes like a coffee shop smells" and they are absolutely right. It has a sweet, pleasant taste with no bitterness. You can make it as strong or as weak as you like simply by adding more or less concentrate. It's the first cup of coffee that I've ever enjoyed drinking black. While I'm still in the process of finishing my first batch, I'd say I'll stick with it for a while. Here's some other interesting things I've learned about this whole process:

Someone on a website commented that if you drain the "sludge" after it's done steeping for the day and immediately put new water into the old coffee grounds, you can get a second batch of concentrate that's just as good as the first, thus doubling what you get out of a pound of coffee. It appears to be the truth, because I can't taste the difference between batch 1 and batch 2.

The brewing process isn't exactly the cleanest in the world, but since you only do it about once a month, it's not so bad.

This stuff makes kickass iced mocha and iced coffee as well.

It's nice making coffee with boiling water. You end up with much hotter coffee that you do from a typical brewer.

If you invite friends over that drink decaf (god knows why), you might have a problem if you don't have a spare coffeemaker around, because this whole cold brewing process isn't exactly a spur-of-the-moment thing. You can, however, make an entire pitcher of coffee simply by measuring out enough concentrate to mix with the right amount of boiling water

The leftover sludge makes great compost for the yard. Just dump it around your plants to keep deer away. That is, if the snow ever thaws.

Avoiding frozen pipes without setting fire to the house

Okay, I had three different Facebook friends mention they had frozen bathroom pipes this weekend. I think it's high time I share my discovery with the world regarding a great way to avoid frozen pipes forever.

When we renovated the house we made a really dumb decision and located the new master bathroom sink not only on an outside wall, but in sort of a "bumpout" that looks like this:



I know, I know...kind of looks like the side of an RV, right? Well, not the brightest idea, in retrospect. The pipes froze twice in the first winter. The solution we came up with was to install a Watts Water Circulating Pump on the hot water tank.



The concept is simple. On the "hot water out" pipe atop your water heater, you install the pump. under the sink with the problem pipes, you install a special mixing valve (that tubular thing in the foreground) that connects the hot and cold water pipes together before the water runs to the faucet. The gadget on the hot water tank has a 24-hour timer on it, on which you can set intervals of 15 minutes each for it to run at various times throughout the day. When it kicks on, it sends hot water up the hot water pipe, to the mixing valve under the sink, and back down the cold water pipe to the water tank, thus filling your entire system with hot (or at least warmer) water. Voila, no more frozen pipes. During the coldest time of year (um..now!) I have it run once every two hours.

Installation is simple, and if you're lucky no soldering is necessary. By "lucky" I mean that if the hot water pipe coming out of the top of your hot water tank is flexible, then all you have to do (after properly turning off and emptying the tank) is unscrew the hose, put this gadget on in between it and the tank, and reconnect. If the pipes are straight copper, you'll need to cut the pipe. I helped a friend install one in his house and, to avoid soldering, we used a pipe fitting called a "sharkbite" fitting. Ask the guy at Home Depot about it.

Another advantage to this thing is you no longer have to wait ten minutes for warm water to reach the shower. The only disadvantage (other than the relatively minor electrical usage) is that you, ironically, must wait a bit for COLD water to come out of the tap. But really, which is worse, rinsing your teeth in warm water or crawling under the sink and setting fire to your house with a blow torch?

A pink kink in my think

Why pink? Why, why I ask you?

This New Years weekend will be spent painting my daughter's room pink. Why? Because after months and months of hounding and hounding me that she didn't like the washed-out green walls, I finally relented, made the mistake of handing her the Sherwin-Williams paint book, let her pick her three favorite colors, and thanked heaven she didn't pick obnoxious orange like she originally requested for the bathroom renovation. Then I made her promise that if she did most of the work emptying out her giant scrap heap of a room I'd paint her walls with her. So, pink it is. Never mind that it's a dark pink that will make the room feel like the inside of a Hello Kitty clock on a cloudy day. Never mind that her room currently has the cleanest and most not-in-need-of-repainting walls in the whole house. Never mind that I hate pink.

My hatred for pink goes back quite a ways. The first girl I ever dated wore nothing but pink. Everything, absolutely EVERYTHING, she wore, day in and day out, was pink. It would stun anyone to see her mix it up a little with a red scarf or a purple sash. Luckily she dumped me before I truly couldn't take it anymore.

A while back, researchers did a study that seemed to suggest women are genetically programmed to prefer shades of pink. One possible reason for this was that while men hunted, women gatherered, and they had to be able to spot ripe berries and fruits. I'm not buying this. My daughter hates berries.

Comcast Makes Good

At long last, we have a working Tivo. For those who weren't paying attention, after writing my last post clearly describing how the fine folks at Comcast could not for the life of them figure out how to get a Comcast CableCard properly installed in a Tivo, an Internet-trolling Comcast Customer Service employee came across my blog and actually posted a comment asking me to contact him so he could help. So I did. And he did. And just like that, all is right with the world. He conferred with the tech that was coming to the house, made sure the guy would have a full arsenal of tools at his disposal, and voila. At long last I can Tivo this week's episode of "Hung" on HBO. Not that I'd want to. The show is pretty lame, frankly.

So what have we learned, class? Well first, it pays to speak your mind. And these days, if you speak your mind you'd be surprised just who might actually hear it. In fact several months ago, I posted a similar rant about attempting to replace a defective ceiling fan bought at Home Depot. As a result of that rant, the administrator of a large ceiling fan sales website commented, thanking me for posting such useful information. Had I thought of doing this a few years back when we discovered the aftermarket warranty on our couch was as much a sham as the blanket tossed over the back of the same couch, I would have ranted about that, too. Hmm, maybe I still will.

Suddenly, I'm taken to a moment back in time, back when I was when I was a strapping young lad by the age of 10 or 11. One day in elementary school I was assigned a homework assignment that involved selecting a product that I liked and writing a letter of praise to the manufacturer. The product I chose was the Swingline stapler. But not just any stapler. Specifically, one of those tiny red ones designed for elementary school to students carry around in their pencil boxes.



For some reason that seems to escape me at the moment, this was the product I chose. Looking back, I realize now how close I became to becoming that guy played by Stephen Root in Office Space. It's kind of eerie, actually. Come to think of it, I do mumble a lot, and I like setting fire to things. I could set this whole building on fire, in fact, I...

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah.

While I don't recall exactly how I extolled the virtues of the Swingline Mini Stapler or how exactly it completed my childhood, I do remember one thing. Out of all the kids in the class, I was the only one who got not only a response from the manufacturer, but a freebie as well. Yes, Swingline actually sent me a shiny new Mini Stapler, with a year's supply of staples. I remember walking proudly into school that day, heaving my shiny new Mini Stapler over my head like an Academy Award, thrown off balance by the proud slaps on the back from my fellow students, showered with cheers and coy giggles from fawning school girls. There I was, a true hero of the gifted class, for one brief but powerful, shining moment that my fellow students would recall fondly for years to come. At least, that's how I remembered it.

What the heck was I talking about again?

----------

And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...

Construction of the Horse Poop Cabinets

One month into my latest workshop project, I am surprised to say I'm making good progress. You may recall that I've decided to tackle the construction of an entertainment center using, among other things, some reclaimed lumber from an old barn in the area. Jeff, my woodworker buddy who sold me the sycamore floorboards that he scavenged from the old barn, reminded me that a)not only will this wood make for a beautiful piece of furniture and a good story but b)horses, cows, and perhaps an occasional goat have been peeing and pooping on this wood for over a hundred years. Mmm...smell that history.

Working with the stuff has been an interesting challenge. As demonstrated yesterday when I tossed a few scrap pieces into the fireplace and watch them erupt into flames, this wood is as dry as the Sahara. Every time I cut a piece on my table saw, I nervously expect the piece to disintegrate into dust. But so far the wood has held together quite nicely. It's also been a challenge cutting down boards in such a way that I don't end up with giant knot holes or nail holes, although a few nicks and scrapes here and there make for nice character.

The project is proving to be a good learning experience, as well. For example, I learned you really shouldn't put the back of a bookshelf on before putting the face frames on. If your back isn't quite square, the face frames ain't gonna fit. I also learned that a biscuit joiner is a very cool tool to have in the arsenal, because it allows you to screw up and get away with it. I've also learned that I should have bought a random orbit sander years ago, using Gel Stain is a lot like spreading chocolate pudding, and I proved the old woodworker's saying that you can never have enough clamps.

So, here's my progress so far:

The original design:



Just checking to see how off-square I am:



Bookshelf #1 complete (well, aside from shelving and lighting of course)



The sycamore has some really cool grain patterns to it:



I think I need more clamps.

Comcast continues to amaze me

I promise I'll get back to my regularly scheduled blogging about constructing the ultimate family with my next post, but first I need to vent about Comcast one more time. We're now into our third week of owning a new Tivo and of having Comcast pay visits to the house only to have no clue what to do with us.

It was such a simple matter. Tivo requires the use of a CableCard. Comcast provides CableCards. Make an appointment, have a Comcast dude come over and install it, and you're golden, right? So let's see where we are....

December 4: Make appointment for a week from Saturday
December 12: The 8-12 window of the appointment goes by, and at 11:59 lady calls to say the tech has no cable cards, can they bring me a set top box instead. I explode at her for making me wait all freaking morning to tell me this, instilling fear and wrath such that the woman cowers in a corner and pleads for me to let her supervisor call me. Supervisor never calls, so I call Comcast tech support and complain for an hour. Supervisor then calls, comes over 45 minutes later with three CableCards, none of which work. Says he needs to get new ones from "the warehouse" during the week. Makes appointment for 6pm-9pm December 16
December 16: Tech shows up at 1:30 in the afternoon. WTF. Installs a Cablecard. Spends an hour on the phone with the home office. Gets it working, except there are no premium channels showing. Doesn't mention that to my lovely wife, and leaves thinking he's free. I come home see there's no premium channels, call Comcast.They spend ten minutes trying to send a signal to the Card with no luck. Says they need to come out again with a new CableCard.
December 19: Tech arrives on time, but with no replacement cableCards. Spends an hour on phone with home office, trying to get current card to work, with no luck. Lists the name of every supervisor he can to woman on other line, pleading my case to her and explaining how Comcast has totally screwed us. I like this guy, despite the fact that he didn't do anything for us. Plus Daisy LOVED him. Our next attempt happens Tuesday afternoon.

Okay, so that brings us to today. I've realized the flaw in their system.

First of all, it's a known fact that CableCards arere a commercial failure for the industry, primarily because Comcast and other Cable companies realized that they shouldn't offer $2.00 CableCards to customers when instead they could market $10 cable boxes and get additional revenue with On Demand sales. Sure, makes sense. But that doesn't negate the fact that new Tivos REQURE the use of CableCards, and Comcast still OFFERS CableCards, therefore they should SUPPORT CableCards.

Second, most of their techs work from home. They wake up each morning and say, "Well Brain, what are we going to do today?" Pinky answers with, "Same thing we do every day, Pinky...install some cable boxes." Basically if a gadget ain't in their truck already, they aren't prepared for the day and there's going to be a problem. At no point are the techs informed ahead of time that there will be a CableCard installation, and he'd better stop at the warehouse and get a working CableCard.

Third, CableCard settings expire. If the tech grabs a bunch to keep in his car, they are already initialized and coded to work with the local Comcast system. But if they aren't used in, say, three months, the settings automatically expire and the card needs to be reinitialized before it's brought to the house.

Seems like a classic failure to communicate. If they ever get this working right, the next thing I'm going to do is have a little chat with Comcast, and have them lower my bill by using this strategy.

Oh and the next Comcast employee who asks me why I wouldn't like to keep Comcast's DVR instead will get punched.

As long as I'm venting

Wow, this is a first. I'm bored. I'm actually bored. Not to say my life is normally the most exciting there is, but it's raining outside, the wife and Thing #1 are out, while Thing #2 has vanished into the playroom with her new Barbie dollhouse. It's cold and rainy outside, my cabinet project is currently in midst-glueup so I can't work on it right now, and I don't feel like watching TV, exercising, or in any way improving my life.

I know! I'll vent some more!

As you could see by my last post, major consumer goods have annoyed me lately. So as long as I'm walking down that path, maybe I'll take some time and bitch a little bit about Apple.

W....H...A...T...?...?....?

"But Mike," you say. "Aren't you, like, a total Mac lover? I mean, don't you want to MARRY your Mac?"

Well sure. Our house has gone all Mac, as we currently has two Apple iMacs no PC-based machines, three iPods, an iPhone, an Apple Time Capsule, and an Airport Express. After all, I use PCs all day at work and, much like a gynecologist, do I really want to take my work home each day? And all of it works together just so bloody well. So why would I complain?

Because Apple seems to have failed with two simple, basic home computing rights: The right to keep a to-do list and the right to print an address correctly.

I'll explain. First, Apple has done a very nice job on integrating a To-do list application into their Mail and Calendar programs. Since users are always in Mail anyways, it's easy to click one button and add an item to a to-do list in a separate window of the Mail program. Those To-do items also synchronize with the Calendar program, so you can easily see in the calendar what's coming up on the To-do list.

But there's one huge flaw with the whole To-do list feature. It doesn't exist on the iPhone. You can sync your mail, calendars, addresses and notes between the computer and the phone. Why THE HELL can't you sync To-do lists? It seems like a basic human right. And come on, Apple, people have been complaining about this since the day the iPhone first came out. I mean, I can point my iPhone at a star in the sky, and it will automatically tell me what star that is. I can hold my phone in front of me, and it will give me the name, menu, and reviews of the restaurant in front of me. I can even update my Facebook status. Why the hell can't I keep a decent to-do list on it using Apple's own to-do application?

The second issue I have is that, apparently, the developer of Apple's address book application came from a very broken family. There's a seemingly nice intelligent feature in the address book, where if you enter the name of a contact's spouse in the "spouse" field, that spouse's name will magically appear when you print an address label. Great, so if my buddy John Smith is married to Jane, I just put Jane's name in the Spouse box, and as a result I can print a mailing label and it will state "John and Jane Smith". Great. Almost.

The first problem is that you must put Jane's last name in the Spouse box as well. Otherwise her name will not appear. Okay actually, once I managed to figure out this extremely poorly documented feature, I began to realize it actually makes sense, because if Jane keeps her own name of "Jones" then the system is smart enough to print "John Smith and Jane Jones" rather than John and Jane Smith.

But wait. There's more. It turns out that if there is ANY other "Jane" in your address book, her name will not print on the mailing label unless you create an address book entry specifically for Jane Smith, with exactly the same address as john's, AND enter her name in John's Spouse field. Huh? Why? I get the feeling that this is because the address book is trying to handle the concept of divorce elegantly. Perhaps Jane moved out, got a new address, and therefore needs her own Christmas card.

But wait, it gets better. The same process is true for kids. If John and Jane have a little boy Joey, and you want to address their Christmas card as "John, Jane, and Joey Smith", then you must put Joey's name in the Child field and include his last name. but if there's any other Joey in the address book, then little Joey Smith needs his own address book entry too, or his name won't print on the Smith's address label. Why in the name of Steve Jobs would I want to create a separate address book entry for every child of every friend of mine in order to get a working mailing list for our annual holiday cards?

Oh and speaking of which, there's no way to toggle the feature on and off. So if I want to send an Xmas card to the entire Smith family, great. Do the above. But then if I only want to invite John and Jane to the Bar Mitzvah, without the kids, I have to completely redo their address entry.

I have a hunch that Steve Jobs doesn't send out his own Christmas cards. Otherwise this would never be a problem.

Commercial Failures of the week

Ever have one of those weeks where everything seems to cost you time and money? Where everything seems to break at the same time? where the whole concept of the "valued customer" apparently means nothing anymore? This was one of those weeks. It started early in the week, when I called a medical supply office that was making custom fit orthotics for my running shoes. I suddenly realized it had been over two months since I ordered them. They told me, "yeah, they're here, can you come in next week for a fitting? Okay great, see you then. Oh and (lowers voice to a mumble) these aren't covered by insurance, so that will be $160."

Wait...what? And, why didn't you tell me this before making the order?

Things progressed when I paid a visit to my local Lowes. We have a light fixture in our kitchen with three hanging track lights on it, and one decided to fry itself. We installed it in late 2006, so naturally Lowes doesn't carry it anymore. And neither does the manufacturer. Not even repair stock. Great. So I can either tear apart the fixture and attempt to replace the element inside that's fried, or replace the entire light fixture AND the matching one over the dinette table, which won't be easy because these fixtures were specifically chosen because the hole in the ceiling is off-center. Naturally I'm going with the former plan.

And then, there's Comcast. You know all those FIOS commercials you see with the read-headed cable guy who simply just doesn't have anything worthwhile to offer his customers? I was that customer today. A little over a week ago we treated ourselves to a brand new Tivo. This Tivo takes CableCards, which are little cards that slide into the Tivo and perform the same task as one of those digital cableset top boxes. Comcast readily provides them, but they insist on coming out to install. No problem, I made an appointment for today (a full week after I called), and they gave me the typical arrival estimate of between 8am and noon.

At 11:59 today, just as I was about to click the "chat now" button on Comcast Support's website, the phone rang. It was the contractor's secretary who called to say not only is he running late, but that they didn't have any Cablecards and wondered if I'd like a set top box instead. At that point I completely blew up at her and demanded to know why they are just telling me this now, and how she expects me to insert a set top box into the little slot on the front of my Tivo. She quickly got herself off the phone by interrupting my tirade and asking if I wanted the supervisor to call me directly. I replied with "yes please" and hung up the phone.

An hour and a half later, having heard nothing from them, I CALLED Comcast support, and got a very nice and understanding lady who took all sorts of notes and sent all sorts of emails to allegedly the right people who would get in touch with me. Very nice of her, though so far that gets me cable service on my Tivo as much as pouring orange juice into the CableCard slots would. But it turned out that 45 minutes later I got a call from a "district supervisor" who said they found some CableCards and would be right over. And they were.

And none of the three CableCards he brought with him worked. He then told me they would have to come back during the week. So I scheduled the followup appointment, let him leave the house, then called the nice Comcast lady back and asked her what she could do for me to compensate for the misery of the day. The best she could do was give me a $20 credit. Not only was that pretty pathetic, but a friend reminded me this evening that this installation also cost $16. So I'll be calling Comcast back again shortly. Meanwhile, FIOS continues to dig up our street, laying cables for their service. Keep digging FIOS, keep digging.

And to top things off, my camera broke this evening. Awesome capper to an awesome day.