Category: House

Work and the normal things I do to have a place to go after the work day ends.

TV Cut-off

Post author By mstroud
Post date August 28, 2004

It’s always a fascinating experience to hunt down and eliminate bugs. It is even more so when the bug is “no satellite info” displayed on the TiVo screen. So it was with great surprise and unhappiness that I found this message on my TV last night and no signal present on the TiVo.

I checked the usual suspects: tree branches blocking the dish, loose cables, a TiVo reboot, temperature check, etc. All of these turned up empty. Since it was late I went to bed and wondered what the problem could be.

This morning I trekked out to the cable closet at the end of the complex. There I found dozens of coax cables cut completely through. Seeing this, I decided to go pickup a cable / line tester at Fry’s. To my reserved amazement, yes, some of those cut wires were indeed mine. How did this happen? Why would someone do this?

Just a few hours after doing all of the legwork to determine this, a Comcast technician drives by. Our conversation goes like this:

After that he sped out of the parking lot faster than I’ve ever seen an installer go. Something tells me that they probably did this on purpose, since clearly there are bits of cut cable and coax ends strewn all over the closet. I think I’ll be having some words with Comcast shortly.

House

Ethernet and Phone Additions

Post author By mstroud
Post date August 8, 2004

I have a new found respect for electricians, builders, and those poor guys who pull cable when building a new home. I also owe a pretty large “thanks” and “yes, you told me so” to Steve. It seems that as good as hard-wired network connections are, they are a major pain to install after the home is built. Who knew?

Now its two days later, over $200 spent, countless hours burned, time researching alternatives on the net, talking to friends, and ultimately quizzing the OSH and Home Depot guys to get the job done. It is done, although not entirely to my required level of perfection, but I got most of what I was aiming for:

A hard connect network jack between the office and the Xbox in the living room
A new phone connect closer to the Tivo
No cables on the floor (that anyone can see)
Minimal wall destruction (sans the garage walls)
Fully operational phone and DSL connections (this was shaky for a while)

In the process of all of this I acquired a number of new home improvement toys, including:

Box cutter / sheetrock knife
Cable staple gun
Wet / Dry shop vacuum
Cable punch down tool
Drill / Miter bit for the Dremel

I can now knock off one home improvement project. Only a dozen or so more left to go!

House

Home Projects

Post author By mstroud
Post date August 7, 2004

I sit here on a Saturday morning at home, a rarity to be sure, trying to decide which of the many improvement projects to begin first. I have several that would be very useful to complete, not the least of which are:

Add a network jack in the living room (running from the office)
Put in a ceiling fan in the master bedroom
Touch up paint throughout the house
Replace the 3 toilets (they are old and fairly low flow)
Build a work desk/shelf in the garage
X-10-izing many of the light fixtures and thermostat

I have to believe I can get some of these done. It’s just a matter of deciding which is the most important and least potentially destructive for a weekend project. Time will tell which actually get completed and which stay on the “to do” list for a while.