Day Two With The Computer Version Of H1N1?
I'm really dreading going downstairs this morning...thus my reason for waiting past 10 AM to make the first journey.
I have to fire up the old HP laptop and wrestle around with the Norton Antivirus/Anti Spyware software and hopefully exorcise the demons out of it's system registers and start up files before anything productive can be accomplished.
I'm thinking I'll give the process another hour or so of my time this morning, then if I'm not successful I may reluctantly hand the machine over to Staples or Best Buy for a "PC tune up" and see if they can do anything with the stupid thing.
In the mean time I guess I'll be forced to bring the PLC and 24 volt power supply and infrared sensors and associated stuff UPSTAIRS into my office and live with tripping over the wiring this week until things get straightened out.
It's really frustrating to finally have the shop finished and the Internet installed and everything working, only to have some asshole break into my house through the wiring and give me this computer venereal disease.
I think we should catch the people that think it's funny or that financially prosper by writing viruses and other forms of "malware" and send them to Malasya or somewhere, try them, convict them, and thrash them within an inch of their lives by caining them with the kind of passion and vigor I feel right now.
I find this crap to be no less damaging than if they had pryed open one of my windows or doors and came inside and set my TV or some other expensive piece of electronic equipment on fire.
I have to go now and try to get something done, because writing about it makes me think about it and further thinking is going to make my head explode...
dammit...
Showing posts with label My New Workshop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My New Workshop. Show all posts
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Ultimate Home Workshop
I'm Now So Organized...I Can't Find Anything...
Sorry about the light blogging recently, but I have a good excuse...I'm happy to report that the last dust settled in my Basement yesterday afternoon.
OK...maybe the next to last dust.
That would be because like most men's home workshops...they're always a work in progress.
That said, I say that I'm finished with mine for now because:
A. I've run out of money
B. I'm tired of building the shop and I believe that it's time to actually get some WORK done in my "workshop."
In the past four weeks I've taken every single tool I own, and almost every single nut and bolt and nail--or at least the boxes containing same--and dusted them off and cleaned things out and sorted like things in with like things to the point that when everything went back on the shelves and bunkers and bins this morning I find myself wandering around in my own basement like an Alzheimer's patient in a Nuclear Plant (or maybe a shopping mall.)
For your enjoyment, here's a photo looking at the entry wall of the 20'x12' shop area. All of the doors in these pictures are recycled Luan doors I pulled out of the main house when I replaced them with painted 6 panel slabs last year.
The bi fold doors cover a computer workstation with keyboard shelf and room for a file cabinet and my technical books. Of course there's also the obligatory TV and radio...if I could get a recliner in the room Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup would never see me again except at dinner I'm afraid.
Here's a look at the old workbench that was in that spot in the basement when we bought the house. It's build out of giant salvage lumber from the original home owner's farm and weighs about 500# I guess. Like that red door there covering my paint cans and WD-40?
Here's the wall opposite the entry, again showing our old closet doors covering a whole wall of storage shelves that came with the house...
Here's the same wall with the doors open showing where all the tools and supplies I've carefully put away and then forgotten which storage tub they reside in...
And finally, here's the new electronics workbench, made out of the old master bathroom door and covered with a sheet of 3/4" plywood. If you look closely you'll notice that the legs fold up and the whole thing is hinged to the wall (the entire wall is made of old doors except about 6" in one corner) so it can fold down out of the way if I ever decide to build a 16' sail boat or an experimental airplane in my old age...
There's still new 50 Amp 220 Volt and 20 Amp 110 Volt electrical circuits to install for future equipment like a small welding machine and larger capacity air compressor, but in the mean time I'm settling for the rewired and extended 1963 electrical circuits augmented with a new #6 grounding wire/rod circuit in an effort to reduce the chances of frying either myself or the sensitive equipment that will take form on the new bench.
Any way...back to my original point, I need to build something...and to that end I've had UPS dropping off multiple boxes almost every day this week, and I did another trip today to the Home Depot electrical isle for things like wire ties and wire labels and other wiring management stuff.
There's still a wire and tool trip to Radio Shack and Granger and possibly Northern Tool, and in the mean time I'm still waiting on the touch screen PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) to arrive from Indianapolis.
Speaking of Indianapolis, coincidentally Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I will be up there next week for a three day training class on the PLC company's unique programming software. It's free if you'll pay your own per diem and we couldn't pass up the opportunity.
That, and we hadn't made a road trip in about a month and I didn't want to violate my personal and now company travel policies--one adventure every thirty days of at LEAST eight hours in round trip duration.
I'm so excited about this chance to advance skills I haven't used since back in the early 1980's, and things have come so far technically since then (i.e. SIMPLER TO UNDERSTAND THAN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS) that I hope it's true that almost anyone with programming experience can become a PLC expert in short order.
I guess that it's time to do some paper work and a little news surfing...and why don't you join me in praying for the dead and wounded and their families out at Ft. Hood--yet additional victims of another wild eyed believer in that ever peaceful religion of Islam.
(&%$#@!ing towel heads...)
Sorry about the light blogging recently, but I have a good excuse...I'm happy to report that the last dust settled in my Basement yesterday afternoon.
OK...maybe the next to last dust.
That would be because like most men's home workshops...they're always a work in progress.
That said, I say that I'm finished with mine for now because:
A. I've run out of money
B. I'm tired of building the shop and I believe that it's time to actually get some WORK done in my "workshop."
In the past four weeks I've taken every single tool I own, and almost every single nut and bolt and nail--or at least the boxes containing same--and dusted them off and cleaned things out and sorted like things in with like things to the point that when everything went back on the shelves and bunkers and bins this morning I find myself wandering around in my own basement like an Alzheimer's patient in a Nuclear Plant (or maybe a shopping mall.)
For your enjoyment, here's a photo looking at the entry wall of the 20'x12' shop area. All of the doors in these pictures are recycled Luan doors I pulled out of the main house when I replaced them with painted 6 panel slabs last year.
The bi fold doors cover a computer workstation with keyboard shelf and room for a file cabinet and my technical books. Of course there's also the obligatory TV and radio...if I could get a recliner in the room Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup would never see me again except at dinner I'm afraid.
Here's a look at the old workbench that was in that spot in the basement when we bought the house. It's build out of giant salvage lumber from the original home owner's farm and weighs about 500# I guess. Like that red door there covering my paint cans and WD-40?
Here's the wall opposite the entry, again showing our old closet doors covering a whole wall of storage shelves that came with the house...
Here's the same wall with the doors open showing where all the tools and supplies I've carefully put away and then forgotten which storage tub they reside in...
And finally, here's the new electronics workbench, made out of the old master bathroom door and covered with a sheet of 3/4" plywood. If you look closely you'll notice that the legs fold up and the whole thing is hinged to the wall (the entire wall is made of old doors except about 6" in one corner) so it can fold down out of the way if I ever decide to build a 16' sail boat or an experimental airplane in my old age...
There's still new 50 Amp 220 Volt and 20 Amp 110 Volt electrical circuits to install for future equipment like a small welding machine and larger capacity air compressor, but in the mean time I'm settling for the rewired and extended 1963 electrical circuits augmented with a new #6 grounding wire/rod circuit in an effort to reduce the chances of frying either myself or the sensitive equipment that will take form on the new bench.
Any way...back to my original point, I need to build something...and to that end I've had UPS dropping off multiple boxes almost every day this week, and I did another trip today to the Home Depot electrical isle for things like wire ties and wire labels and other wiring management stuff.
There's still a wire and tool trip to Radio Shack and Granger and possibly Northern Tool, and in the mean time I'm still waiting on the touch screen PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) to arrive from Indianapolis.
Speaking of Indianapolis, coincidentally Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup and I will be up there next week for a three day training class on the PLC company's unique programming software. It's free if you'll pay your own per diem and we couldn't pass up the opportunity.
That, and we hadn't made a road trip in about a month and I didn't want to violate my personal and now company travel policies--one adventure every thirty days of at LEAST eight hours in round trip duration.
I'm so excited about this chance to advance skills I haven't used since back in the early 1980's, and things have come so far technically since then (i.e. SIMPLER TO UNDERSTAND THAN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS) that I hope it's true that almost anyone with programming experience can become a PLC expert in short order.
I guess that it's time to do some paper work and a little news surfing...and why don't you join me in praying for the dead and wounded and their families out at Ft. Hood--yet additional victims of another wild eyed believer in that ever peaceful religion of Islam.
(&%$#@!ing towel heads...)
