Me, The Egoist

Electrical wiring is probably one of the parts of home renovation work that I like the most. It is sufficiently challenging that you keep thinking, but not so hard that you get frustrated easily.

After my previous success in finally fishing some wire through, I decided to make a small change. I drilled another 1 inch hole in the same space between studs, but against the opposite stud. I’ll use the first hole to handle telecommunications cable like video and networking cable, while the new hole will be used strictly for electrical cable. I easily ran the electrical cable down the new hole and fished it out in the basement. It took be 3 tries to get the required amount of cable pulled, however. I left uncoiled cable loose on the second floor so that it would be able to be pulled down straight. What I didn’t expect was for it to snag the shop vac hose and get tangled up. Oh well, no biggie.

A few suggestions for anyone doing electrical wiring:

• Always route our cable from one end to the other. Don’t place a spool in the middle (even if fairly close to one end) and try to run to both ends. You will spend way too much time trying to run the second side of the pull and have a much greater chance of cutting the cable to be too short. Save your time and money.
• As you are pulling the wire, route it exactly the way you want it to be mounted. This way you don’t have any surprises (like finding out that the cable is going to be run underneath an air duct instead of above because you forgot to route it that way before nailing it down. The sad part is that I was thinking about this exact principle as I was running tonight’s power cable when I discovered that I failed to route the cable around another armored cable properly. This is in no way surprising simply because the existing wiring in the basement is fugly. It used to be worse but my father and I spent 5 days just clearing out a bunch of crap and replacing it.
• Make sure you get the deepest receptacle boxes possible. You will never go wrong with extra space in which to fold in wiring. It’s tight enough by default.
• Always run out cables into the receptacle boxes from the same side (either top or bottom). This lets you remove the retaining clip from the other side, saving about a cubic inch inside. As mentioned above, space is crucial. I discovered this tonight, actually. I decided to run the feed cable up into a receptacle box from the bottom (which made sense), but to split off the down-stream receptacles from wire coming in from the top. Oops. This is 3 incoming cables plus a receptacle which all need to fit inside the same box. It is increadable tight. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it work as-is. We’ll see. I also discovered that this is why whenever possible you want to arrange receptacles on a circuit as a chain (no more than two cables going into a box). This is because receptacles have two terminals per wire (hot or neutral) which means that you don’t need a twist-on connector cap. However, when you have two separate lines which feed off of the same incoming line at a box, you need to use twist-on connectors to allow you to make all of the required connections. This takes up a lot of space.

I managed to the wire installed tonight, cabled all the way to the breaker panel with the breaker installed and tested. This is currently feeding 2 receptacles. Next time I do some work i hope to install the final receptacle on the right branch of the feeding box, and start the long arm on the other side with 3 along that wall. Finally, good news: I no longer need to have an orange extension cord draping though the master bedroom to get power for tools in the ’slave’ bedroom.

After much consternation, I managed to get electrical cable from the bedroom that I am remodelling down to the basement. I had to drill a 1-inch hole in the 2×4 at the base of the wall to get it done, but it is strung. I haven’t hooked anything up yet; I was just happy to get the cable down at all. My main task over the next few days will be to string the cable all of the way to the breaker panel and get the receptacle installed in the bedroom. This way I can get rid of the ugly orange extension cord that I have stringing power in from the master bedroom.

My main bit of mental trouble I have going on right now is trying to decide what to do for lighting that room. The generic frosted glass light fixture that everybody uses doesn’t appeal to me all that much. I’m thinking of going with recessed lighting or maybe a bunch of wall sconces, but I haven’t a clue what to do. When I was out in Detroit, a friend poited out a whole bunch of cool things that you can do with lighting, from how he decorated his Christmas tree to how he did his office. I understood exactly all of the techniques described. I still don’t know what to do. Fortunately, I have a bunch of work to keep me busy over the next few weeks, so I’m not all that worried.Phentermine Forums And Chats
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Today, I finally took the last bit of wall down from the room I am re-doing. It was a lot of work, and only the beginning of the process, sadly. Still, I feel upbeat.

The next step is going to be to clean the room out. First, I need to chuck out the window the 15 bags of refuse I have in there. Then I spend a week vacuuming and washing down the inside of the room. Then I repair the split beam I have in there. It was repaired some time ago, but I’m not happy with the job they did, so I’m going to re-do it better. Just the beginning, and yet so far along.
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Himplasia

As some of you may know, I’ve been having knee problems for the past year now. After talking with doctors we though that the problem was something like a bone chip inside the knee causing swelling and other problems. I had an excellent doctor perform arthroscopic surgery (he did a *really* good job). The pain went away for a week or so, but came back, and they recommended that I see a Rhumatologist, under the suspicion that it was some form of arthritis. I didn’t think so, but then other joints started swelling and I started to think that this might be the case.

I’d been taking Ibuprofen (Thank Advil for candy-coated goodness) at above-label-recommended strengths for a while. It helped out a lot, but it didn’t make life livable - it just made it bearable. So after some wonderful wikipedia research, I decided to try Naproxin Sodium, under the brand name of Aleve. I didn’t want to try this during the week because I can’t take Ibuprofen and Naproxin Sodium at the same time; if the Naproxin Sodium didn’t work, I still needed to be able to move, which is what Ibuprofen allowed me to do. So I waited until Friday night to try some Naproxin Sodium - taking some before bed to see how well I would sleep. Surprisingly, I woke up with substantially less pain and stiffness than usual. I took some that morning and I was able to get up and go about my business, easily putting in two and a half hours of work on the spare bedroom. What a change! Thank you, Aleve.

I don’t know what the long-term effects of this medication will be. I’ll be seeing doctor this week so I’ll ask about that, about what the real actual safe dose limit is, and to see if there are other long-term options that we can indulge. But until then, I’ll stick with my Naproxin Sodium. It’s great stuff!

On July 20, 2007 I fulfilled one of the key elements of the American Dream. I became a homeowner. I purchases an 100-year old 2 and a half story house just outside of Pittsburgh, Pa. It is in excellent physical shape. The wiring, however, is in need of some work.

My parents have come to town to help me move in and to help me get started on some of the construction work which I needed to have done. I’ll be posting here about the changes and events which occur, and any little bits of wisdom I come across.

The Declaration of Independence is a very moving document. It is both a forceful document stating that people do have rights, and part showmanship designed to gain popular support. The most well known sentence, the first line of the second paragraph, reads:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is very moving to me. Independence day is the day each year used to remind people of this amazing document and the events surrounding it. Sadly, it’s not viewed that way across the board.

I was listening to the radio the other day when a commercial came on which said that I should “declare independence from finance charges”. Yup. One of the most important documents in human history has now been reduced to a commercial jingle. This both makes me sad as well as reaffirms my suspicion that people will do anything for a quick buck. Ah, well. Read the Declaration of Independence this Independence Day. Try to understand what it was that happened over 200 years ago to cause a people to rise up against their masters. Keep that close when you hear political discussions today.

Well, I got back from PenguiCon a few days ago (conflict of interest note: I’m on the board of directors) and have a much better understanding of urban combat losses than when I went there. PenguiCon is a cross between a Linux technical conference and a science fiction convention. It’s much more diverse than that, however.

At PenguiCon, a company known as “Aegis Consulting” runs events called “Black Sweater Parties” which in fact involve teaching people SWAT tactics - room breaching and clearing, how to sweep a building and clear out hallways and stairs (I hate stairs). They don’t use real weapons or explosives - water guns painted black, imitation flashbangs, etc. However, the principle of operation is close enough that you can get a good feel for what’s going on. If you place yourself in the moment you can even stuffer from PTSD (I did last year - thankfully not severely). The event starts with about 2 hours of teaching how to perform all of the techniques, and the theory behind them. Then the fun begins.

The event that I participated in was on Saturday night - technically Sunday morning at 2:00am, working on 4 hours of sleep from the night before. We were fried. Out of the 9 people we had to play with, 4 had not taken the training - this was an informal tossed-together practice.

The scenario we were given was of the hotel lobby and the three floors immediately above them, which were all open on one side down to the lobby. There were three sets of stairs going from the lobby to the second and third floors - on at each end of the “in-play” area, and one about a third from one end. The lobby itself was not in play, but the stairwells at the lobby level were.

Since we had 9 people, we divided ourselves into 3 teams of 3 people each. 2 experienced hands and a newbie on each of team Alpha and team Bravo. I was in command of team Charlie with 2 newbies. In brief, I was driving the short bus. The plan was to send all 3 teams up the stairwell. Team Alpha and Bravo would proceed up the stairs to the third floor and sweep that while team Charlie would take the second floor. That’s right - the “special” crowd would take a whole floor. This was an exciting idea. I think I was also given this “glorious” task because I wasn’t there for the training the night before, and therefore must not have known what I was doing. Right. The plan is that the Alpha and Bravo teams will come down the two remaining stairwells as we finish sweeping the 2nd floor. I asked how we would know if we needed to clean up or not. I was told that if we heard shooting to assume that everybody was dead. OK. Well, gear up and head out.

We then begin deployment. Since the hotel is completely open for the convention, we have people going up and down the stairwell. This is annoying, but we can’t expect them to put up with us unless we put up with them. Anyways, we line up outside the doors and team Alpha and Bravo charge in. We wait a few moments and then flash-bang our 2nd floor entrance, charging in. We clear the little space which sticks out in front of the elevators and then procede to clear out the hallway (roughly 100 yards long). Nothing. Of course, a bunch of people in the party rooms want to play with us, but we are strictly business. We are walking as quickly as we can while still being silent. Down the hall we go, checking room alcove after room alcove. Fortunately, we don’t need to search the rooms themselves, just the hallways and stairwells themselves. Down the hallway with no OpFor contact. We finally get to the end of the hallway and we have met up with no opposition. Mission complete. Almost.

While we’re waiting for the other teams to finish, we hear gunfire and lots of people hitting the ground on the floor above. We wait a few more minutes and hear nothing more. At this point, mission orders tell us to go up and sweep the 3rd floor - after all, we were told to assume that our teammates were dead. We procede up the stairwell at the end of the hallway opposite to where we started and pause. We aren’t sure what’s on the other side, but it can’t be good. With no OpFor people on the second floor, they must have all been on the third floor. We get ready to breach.

On a count of three our pointman throws open the door (I’m in second position) and notice two people there with guns. Point and I take out the guy standing. There’s another guy lying down which we both turn on next. Sadly, I forgot that I’m supposed to go low with point man high. I am hit by guy on ground. Pointman was hit by guy standing. It takes a moment for us to figure out who’s really dead. In the end, our third man is still alive. At which point the guy on the ground who killed me asks “wait, aren’t you on my team?” Fuck! We just wasted 4 perfectly good people on a friendly-fire incident. It was fast. They had guns. They were in the way. It was fast. We had guns. We were breaching the door. Fuck.

Though we “won” the match by getting all of the bad guys, we lost half our manpower to a stupid friendly-fire incident. It happened in a split second - people trying to get inside the decision curve of the other guy and killing teammates instead. I now understand why and how this happens in a warzone, especially an urban combat area. It is just too easy to kill the wrong person, especially when working on little sleep and pumped on adrenaline.

It was a lot of fun. No PTSD this year - just a lot of stupid dying.

I just wanted to jump back to make a quick post about something that seems to be rarely discussed: washrooms. Specifically, those in travelling rest stops. I’m am tired of poorly designed bathroom stalls.

There are a few things which commercial washroom designers fail to do:

1) Provide enough space. If you walk into a bathroom stall, there should be enough room between the door and the camode that you can enter, turn around, and shut the door. Stalls in airports should be especially large. If they want you to keep an eye on your luggage at all times, you need to use a stall. And because airlines loose luggage all the time, the only way to travel is to carry a few days worth of clothes with you. Thus the stalls need to be large enough to accommodate a person, a large carry on bag, plus door swing space and the camode.

2) Provide a door hook. When I am travelling, I frequently am wearing a jacket of some sort. I would like to hang this up. In addition, if I’m wearing a firearm belt pack or a shoulder rig, there is a good chance I would like to take that off as well. As such, there needs to be a good hook on the door. Preferably one of the double hooks with the smaller hook underneath. This shouldn’t simply be a small upward angular project, but an actual hook so that something fairly heavy can be hung underneath the jacket. Hang it on the door, you say? A well-fitting door will not easily accommodate anything over the corner. Simply tossing your jacket over the top will likely result in your jacket falling on the floor and getting dirty, or stolen. Do you really want to make it easy for criminals to steal guns, as well.

3) Clean them. Enough said. Most wayside-rests attached to freeways are cleaned in a fairly regular basis. Except in Montana. But smaller convenience stores may not do so. I will tell you that on runs I make a lot, I frequent establishments with well lit and clean washrooms. I can buy Twinkies anywhere.

I’ve long thought that how a person quits a job is a very good indicator of their personality. When I worked at the hotel in my past life, most of the desk clerk personelle were known for not showing up on their last day - after all, what are they going to do - fire you? This showed a clear lack of professionalism and respect for their commitments, even if the superficial logic was correct. When I showed up for my last shift, my shift coworker was quite surprised. I pointed out that not showing up would have cost me $80.

I’ve also decided that you can judge a company by how it treats its outgoing employees.

At my now previous employer, I provided the customary 2 weeks notice. I was an “at-will” employee. Since I gave notice on Mon, Dec 18, 2006, I assumed that I would either be asked to leave immediately, or be kept on the whole two weeks. After a little thought, I figured that they would probably keep me on until the end of the week; there is usually nobody at work the last week as people use up any PTO which is going to expire. That wasn’t quite what happened.

Monday I spend most of my time doing knowledge transfer to other employees and cleaning up work left on my plate. Tuesday was a little different.

A little background. The company had 3 floors of a small office building. Since we were loosing large numbers of employees it made sense to consolidate to two floors and save approximately $7000/month rent on the third. Fair enough. The people moved desks but failed to clean up the rest of the crap on the floor. That job fell to the system administrator who happens to be a petit 5′ gal. She knows her stuff, but isn’t quite equiped to move desks that are heavier than she is. So when she was told to clear out empty boxes from a room on one of the remaining two floors, I jumped at the chance to be helpful. I said that I’d cut up the boxes and clear the room out so that our SysAdmin could do something slightly less useless. I think that was the most job satisfaction that I’d had at that company in 4 months. I was able to work on a single task for more than 30 minutes uninterrupted.

On Wednesday, when my boss came into the office after a day off, I told him the status of things and that I hoped that in addition to some additional knowledge transfer, I thought I’d be able to move most of the furniture from the floor we wanted to vacate to the empty room I’d just cleared out. I also indicated that if possible, I’d like to finish out the week at least. His response was: “If we need warm bodies to move furniture, I’m sure we can find some”. The problem is, they CAN’T! That or they wouldn’t. Simply put, they were putting a person on charge of moving furniture who was unsuited to the job, and also a professional insult. I was hoping to speed up saving the company a large amount of money and provide at least some dignity to the SysAdmin, but was told no. I would not have been in the office on Thursday but for a meeting which I was scheduled to be at. The CEO later invited me to an additional meeting over lunch (I like free food).

So I was kicked out the door at the end of Thursday. I asked to stay until Friday and would have been able to be a reference resource for transition in addition to getting helping get some unpleasant work done. Instead, I was told to leave. Yes, I’m bitter over this. You see, the company is having a huge attrition problem with engineers. Much of the knowledge base needed to keep the company going has been lost. One of the hopes of rebuilding the engineering department is to attract former employees back. Unfortunately, this requires enticement, and money alone will rarely do it. A day of my salary isn’t that much, but it shows how much consideration the company was willing to provide to somebody they didn’t have to. I was an at-will employee. They were within their rights to kick me out. But not extending one day does nothing but fuel bad will.