Category Archives: Life

This will be more of a blog.. a lot of basic life updates and other boring stuff will be posted here

Life, Money

Captive Audience

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I have been thinking a lot about this recently with time being a rare resource and still having a desire to be well entertained.. Let me start out by asking one question. Are you a captive audience? Really? If you are one that likes to be entertained by Movies or a good TV series I would have to say that I doubt that you are anything but.. This initially came to my attention recently when I saw a commercial on YouTube for a TV carrier. The main character in the ad indicated that they were paying so much to see their movies and that by switching to this specific carrier they were saving so much and were able to watch so many more movies indicating that they had watched as many as 50 movies that month alone! Now I want to give you a little real information based on what I know about local viewing carriers.. I will not mention any names but I will tell you that this commercial was from a carrier (ComC****) that does have commercials in most of their programs. Most of the commercials last any where from 1-5 min each time with an average of a commercial break every 5-10 min, that would mean that you are watching upward of 600-3000 min of commercials in a month or 20-30 min of commercials in a single movie. Not that much right? Wrong! That would mean that in that month you are watching 6300-9000 min of TV a month.. yea, that sounds like a lot but lets apply it to numbers that mean something. That would be  3.5-5 Hours of of TV a day, 24.5-35 hours a week (yes, that is a full day of TV every week or more!)

Now I am not saying that this is something that everyone does but how much do you really do in a day, week, or month?  I know for me I was “hooked” on several shows on Hul*.. and I was finding that I was sacrificing much of my “free” time trying to follow a series. With this specific carrier, shows expire and I would miss an episode and loose the story if I did not keep up with THEIR time line, and yes, they had commercials..

I  found that Youtube as well has commercials, not the ones that pop up at the bottom of the video or the ones before it will let you watch the 0:30 video, that is not what I am talking about, that is normal, but rather, on the side. Now I am sure you are saying “what is the big deal, just ignore it”.. They are making it impossible to, they are a video themselves and one that you cannot Mute, pause, click away from, NOTHING will get it to stop until it is done. EVEN if there is no relevance, un-audience friendly, or offensive material.. The only way to SHUT IT UP without watching is it to leave the page altogether! Does the producer of that video know that their audience is being chased away by the very provider they are relying on to show their material? Probably NOT! I will also say that I have seen these same type of adds on other sites as well, Youtube is not the only one.. Most of them I do ignore by simply muting the audio on my computer but, that would really defeat the purpose of watching a video with it muted so you don’t hear another add in the background would it?

Even with the great changes in Technology with DVR’s, Netflix, Hulu, Comcast, and all the others, we are paying more for what we want and often (not always) being bombarded by adds and timelines that are designed to “addict” us to keep watching on their time line not yours, stopping you from doing other things that would be more beneficial to your psychology and spirit and body!

So I ask once again, Are we a captive audience? very much so. Are there things that we can do to fight back? not really, but we can at least limit it. Be aware of how much time we are spending allowing ourselves to be held captive. There are a great many things that we can do that are more entertaining and more productive in other ways..

Around The House, Life, Updates

Feb 9, 2014 Life Balance

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Welcome back! This has been a great week with the Room project moving along quickly and what not. we have finally reached a part of the project that does not require me to be actively involved. They (the girls) started Perfa taping and mudding, and have gotten a lot of it done as of this point,(in the room) as for the hall way well, we hit another snag. The door way from said hall into the bedroom that we are currently staying in is not only the wrong size but has not been framed in correctly at all.. Now we are going to have to tear it out and Frame it in to the correct size, which will mean that we will have no door for a while, while it is being patched in and replaced.

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I would have to admit though, one of the biggest accomplishments this week was BALANCE.. last week end my wife and I talked a lot about our lives being out of balance. It was to the point that every moment of every day was consumed by work, sleep, work on the room, or eating. No time was being left for personal growth, family time, or really anything else. We made the decision last week end to set aside time for other things.. Part of the problem it that I have been working Nights (2PM-11PM) so any of the routine activities that we would do in the evening were canceled. (Family Night, Date Night, Scouting, Everything) So we decided to re-structure our mornings to have Monday as a “Family Morning” and “Date Night” is moved to Saturday evenings. and Thursday and Saturday Mornings are for personal projects (if I don’t work Saturday). Sunday has never been a day of work for our family so that was not a problem. I cannot say I have never “tinkered” on Sunday but just no work..

As for the weather cooperating with projects, the Jury is still out. It has been raining a lot which has caused almost all of the snow to melt (YEA!!!!!!) but in the place of snow is now a tun of MUD…. (DOH!) Saturday I pulled the Zuki out to take it to a friends to be worked on and I felt like I needed to get my Muckin boots on just to get to the garage. Hopefully there will not be any more snow and we will get some sun soon to dry things out.

Oh and since I mentioned it. I did get to hear Zuki run but we have not entirely solved the problem.. it appears that there was a few problems with the carburetor. and the remaining problems appears to be something electrical. The problem is that it is a inconsistent problem so, Diagnostics will be difficult. but we will get there!

Sorry one more… Nah two more good things to note.. it has been decided that we are getting a dog at the end of this month. YIPPEE! ( I have wanted to get another dog for some time)  and as soon as taxes are done my wife said that I can buy and build a good computer for doing vids..  that will come soon enough trust me..

Thanks again.. be sure to sub to get email update on this page.

 

Around The House, Life, Tech

Feb 2, 2014 Computer Problems but still progress

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So this week, we had tons of progress on the room and hallway. I was hoping to get a vid up this week and have been fighting with my computer that is just not strong enough to do the vids I wanted to do. I guess a new computer is on the agenda.. because of the problems with the computer however, I have run out of time to get a good post put together for you on the progress. I will have to get more up later.

Around The House, Autos, Life, Money

Jan 26, 2014 Stalling out! Cannot wait for summer!

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Well, maybe not a full on stall.. We did get a little further along on the project.. after running the wires we were feeling like we were on the home stretch.. well, at least until we started the insulation ( MAN DO I HATE THAT STUFF!) we were able to get it all in Minus down around the concrete and the attic access. The attic access will be an Expanding foam insulation and around the concrete will use a rigid R4 insulation paneling.  Here are some pics of where we are at.

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This week was a bit tricky getting much done because, well, putting in 57 hours really limit what you are able to do elsewhere.  But we are still on track.. we are hoping to get the sheet rock on Monday and get it going in this week.. The overall goal is to get the kids moved in by Valentines.. I think we can do it, it is just time right!?

Update stated, here is the deal.. I was really hoping to get the trench dug yesterday with a vid of that process but there was not a trencher available.. hopefully soon.. we’ll get ‘er dug and get some wiring to the garage..

Now for those of you that know me, I am always shooting for things waaayyyy  out of reach and really I am at it again! I am trying to convince my wife of doing some massive amounts of concrete work.. (new driveway, curb, gutter, sidewalk, and of coarse a driveway to the shop) what that means for you is a lot of new projects.. and tons of great vids.. the catch is somehow I have to swindle a new computer and a car lift in the mix of everything else. The upside to that is I can use it for a income source but it is the journey getting there that is gonna be a bit tricky..

I guess what I am saying is, its only gonna get better.

Around The House, Life, Money, Tech

Jan 19, 2014 Wires and Bit Tricks

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Wow, what a week.. started out with a lot of wires, big thick ones, well, and one little one that loved to get tangled on everything.. we finally pulled the last of the wires out of the house toward the garage.. I learned a cool trick though, for a long time I have always just used a simple speedbor bit do drill out the holes for my wire such as this:
IRWIN_Speedbor_FlatBit

but, the problem I ran into, was that I had to go through a diagonal board and then through four 2×4’s stacked to get the wires from the ceiling to the wall

difficult drilling situation
difficult drilling situation

I did look at getting an auger bit to do it but they tend to be really expensive and in the end they do not last as long and cannot be sharpened.
auger_bit

but I came across one of these nifty little cheaters.

f84af3d3-cd5d-48ef-81e9-f6b1ba1404a7_300I was surprised that they were as cheap as they are, and make a cheap bit do so much more. now, there are limitations such as the clearence. The hole that you need to drill needs to be slightly larger than the fitting for the bit.. in my case I opted for the quick release but that means that it is a bit bigger connector but well worth the time saving and for my applications it will work greatly.

That being said, it was pulled out side and now are strung across the yard and I hope to get the wires buried in the next few weeks but it will all depend on work schedules and equipment availability.

We were also able to finish out the closet framing and putting in nailers where one wall connected to another (vital to Sheetrock working as it should and not cracking) and also put some expanding foam into the areas that we wont be able to fit regular fiberglass insulation (that was a fun process and it ooses out the holes before drying)

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I am now looking forward to a productive week of installing the remaining insulation in the walls and getting the Sheetrock started.. There is one catch to the process though, I still have to put in the attic access in the closet…. new tools required to complete… of coarse…

That is one thing that I am hoping to get ordered

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Around The House, Energy, Life

Jan 12, 2014 Slow but steady progress

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Wow, what a week. The progress on projects appears to have been slow although, it is starting to become more apparent with the progress, which always makes projects more fun.
Wiring in a 4 way switch was a frustration like no other, I had looked up several diagrams that showed how it should be wired in but in the end nothing works better than the noodle up stairs and figuring it out on your own.. I ended up pulling out a multi-meter and figuring out how it is suppose to work and vuwala it works! (if you have questions on this let me know and I will put together a vid snowing how to do it and why it works) I know it is a simple thing but it is something, none the less. As of Saturday morning I had worked just shy of 50 hours this week and we were ready for insulation before Saturday.  Although Saturday was planned to be fairly busy, we were able to get the ceiling insulated. But, before I show you what it looks like, I have to tell you I bought one of these and it was worth every penny!

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Although the reviews are mixed, I shot 1250 staples through this in the first day and it was flawless. (click pic to see where you can get it) I have a feeling I will be using this a fair amount between odds and ends, re-upholstering seats on the bikes and much more.

in the end we got 6mil plastic and a ton of insulation 2f49faff-ec6c-44c5-9b26-15d6c4e99752_1000

and went at it.  slowly working our way from one side to the other putting the insulation up and then stapling it up.

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now that the lights are wired up and the ceiling insulation is complete, it is on to the walls. I also have a cheap trick I will show you next week for the wiring. I have a little more to do for the  garage stuff.

be sure to sub to stay up to date on what projects and tricks I have to show you.

Around The House, Life

Jan 5, 2014 A whole new Year

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Well people, it is officially 2014 although, in the automotive profession it seems like it has been 2014 for some time. It is interesting to me to hear many of the people I know having such high hopes for the new year. I know that 2014 is not going to be a great year, yes, good will happen but so will a lot of bad. Maybe it is too realistic of me but I know much of what the year holds and for what I don’t know, well, I can only hope it will be good. I wish I could say good riddins to 2013. It was a really hard year, between loosing my job, moving in with family, attempting to start my own business, getting a new job, having my father in law diagnosed with Terminal cancer and so many other things but, I can also say with all honesty, it was a good year. I learned a lot about who I am, what I like and felt The Spirit very profoundly as a comforter and guide. That said, Life will go on and it is really what we make of it and who/what we turn to when it is not all sugar coated the way we claimed it would be in our new years celebrations.

Ok that said, here is the update. Most of this week (outside of work) has been spent doing construction on the back room in a desperate attempt to get to where the insulation can go back in.. as of now we have the ceiling is supported, and receptacles are connected.. Lights and garage wiring will be next and then we should be able to install the insulation at that point. I should have some good pics and vids for next week but here is a little vid for everyone to get up to speed if you have not already (this was more for you tube followers but here goes.)

Around The House, Energy, Life

Dec 29, 2013 Quit waiting, Just Get Er’ done!

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Well, as I hope you know, this last week was Christmas.. YEA! right?.. well not so much.. it was a rough week.. if you did not know, I am a VERY introverted person and can only handle being around a lot of people for a short amount of time. Christmas day there was A LOT! of people at the house and my usual escapes has not been an option.. – Garage, well no power and thus no heat and no light.

-Office,  My bed has been nominated the baby sleeping room and bed. and thus no escape

I did attempt on Christmas day to spend some time working on the Zuki but I could only look at it because it was soo cold I could not even hold the tool for more than a second. Now with a little back story. We have decided to buy this house from my parents (although they will still be living here with us) but that gives us the ability to make certain decisions..  Upon buying this house there are several things that we wanted to get done right away such as: finishing the back bedroom for our kids, running power to the garage, installing a water softener so that we don’t have to chew on our water just to get it down.

All of these projects seem like they would just be easier in the spring when it is not soo cold, but, what do we do until then?—— get er done!

Thanks to some help of some friends, just before Christmas they came and helped us route a heater vent to the back room ( that was a project by its self)

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Creating the motivation to get that project done/going.. Yesterday we decided to dig in and get really going but there was soo much insulation in the way of re-supporting the saggy ceiling so, it had to all come out!  we went and got full body hazmat style suits and started pulling. unfortunately we did not get pictures of the mess but  this is what it looks like now

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Because the wiring for the garage has to go through this roof area we decided we needed to run the power to the garage at the same time. Now everything I do I want done RIGHT not something I will have to come back and fix later so we will be using a trencher and putting these lines 3-4 feet below the surface of the ground ( that way when we install sprinklers and driveways, it will not get hit and make a big mess. this is the area the ditch will be in. STATLIGHT 2013 GARAGE AND POWER

Also, I have been looking to heat the shop and have found a way to make a used oil burner.. stay tuned for more details on these and many more projects

Life

Dec 23, 2013 More changes. hoping they are good!

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Ok, it is Monday and things have gone through another change.. I am still debating how much I like it. Up until now, my full time job has had me working from 8AM until we are done.. as of this week, we are now doing shifts and I am working 2pm to 11pm. it has made my morning feel weird. This week will not be a good trial run since all of the holiday stuff messes it up but next month will tale the tale and determine wither or not I will like it..

I need your input. Doing a daily post seems like a bit much to get good content.. How does everyone feel about a weekly post?

 

Around The House, Autos, Life

Dec 20, 2013 Finally some resolve

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Only 5 more days until Christmas, Not sure if we are ready but it is what it is.. I will tell you this, we are for sure going to look at Christmas differently this year.

As for updates, Blazer is home and fixed, it was the fuel pump so that has been resolved.. that also means that the snow blower is home as well 😉 I am hoping to get it out and use it tomorrow.

Roof is no longer leaking and tomorrow I will be moving the rest of the ice off so that I can finish attaching the heater cord to the roof and permanently resolve that issue..

Oh and one more but GOOD things just so you all don’t think of me as Mr Negativity.. THANK YOU ALL that came to the house today to help out with the room.. it is always appreciated!