Category: Fun Stuff

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Down to the Wire

The kitchen redo for my Wonder Woman’s Xmas present is getting close–well, apart from repainting the kitchen cabinets… again (just done this summer, but still ;-)). Below see an almost finished “coffee shrine” replacement for the former coffee brewing nook. Needs some trim finishing out and the new surface for the cabinet, etc., isn’t fully painted yet, but most of the rest is done, and I even got the dining room painted the new wall color, first tested out on the south wall of the kitchen.

OK, so I also don’t have the plate rack installed for the dinner plates. It’ll come.

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As Things Go…

…the marble tile backsplash kitchen project has been… interesting. *heh*

Warning: Renov tale. Skip if handymanish stuff gives you a rash. The voices in my head say I must go here…

So, 12″ marble tiles. That was cool, since the backsplash I was working on was just about 12.75″ tall (by almost exactly 15′ in length–4’+11′) with the area under the window over the sink ~8.75″. Worked out the 3/4 inch differential with an oak spacer (which I’ll “pickle” this weekend).

The “interesting” parts?

Cutting the freaking tiles. *sigh* I had made a decision to cover one straight run of just a hair over 11′ with whole times as much as possible (except for the 3′ under the sink window where I’d planned to use my tile cutter to trim 4″ off each tile–I’ll get back to that later). That meant I knew up front I’d be cutting at least one hole in a tile for an outlet (and cutting a notch out of another one for another outlet and notches out of two more for the left and right side of the window). Since the hole for the first outlet was offset only 1/2″ from the edge of the tile, and these tiles fracture pretty easily, I took it very, VERY carefully. Used a Dremel and a cutoff wheel. Yeh, I know, wrong tool. I have the carbide attachment to cut tile with, but I wanted more control, so… slow and tedious.

Still, the tiles got cut accurately. For the outlets and the sides of the window. That’s the good news. Bad news? *sigh* The tile cutter I’ve used successfully on up to 20″ ceramic tile just busted these marble tiles to pieces. *sheesh* I managed to end up with 4-4″ X 12″pieces and one good 8″ X 12″ piece. Oh, three of the 4″ x 12″ were in 2 or more pieces, but… Mr. Ingenuity (that’s me, in case you had any trouble making the connection ;-)) had a solution. Epoxy and marble dust from the Dremel work. *heh* Breaks disappeared; just more veining consonant with the rest of the tile.

And then… pressing the (properly-buttered :-)) 8″X 12″ piece onto the (properly-troweled :-)) adhesive, the tile cracked. *sigh* OK. Pressed a tad harder and brought some of the adhesive through the crack, wipe-down. Another vein, consistent with the rest of the tile. *whew* Oh, the adhesive is sanded so, no grouting! *yipee!*

So, all that’s left is a bit of deail work–pickling the oak (including the custom shoe molding I cut today), a little caulking, etc.

Feels nice to check one more lil honey-do off my list.

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Micro-Mini-Life Hack

A case of “Two Very Minor Irritants Solve Each Other”.

Or,

“The Voices In My Head Make Me Do the Strangest Things, Sometimes”.

Irritant #1

I use a nice lil lapdesk with my lil Asus notebook. Moreover, I normally use a nice Logitech M305 wireless mouse with the notebook, and the laptop desk surface makes a nice, smooth, slick surface for mousing. Great little mouse. It’s not as comfy in my hand as the mouse that comes in the Logitech MK320 bundle, but it does have a “nano-receiver” that makes it a good fit for notebook use (dongles hanging off notebook ports=BAD :-)).

But, moving the laptop desk from laptop to coffee table or to the couch beside me, with the notebook and mouse still on it, frequently led to the mouse sliding off that slick surface. Sure, take the mouse off and put it elsewhere. BTDT, don’t like having the notebook/mouse in separate places. Be really careful when taking the laptop desk off my lap and placing it elsewhere (or picking it up, etc.). Right. Not me.

So, pick mouse up off floor every now and then, whatever. *grumble-grumble-gripe-complain*

Irritant #2

Picked up a cheap notebook bag–$7 cheap–for carrying other things (techie tools, etc.). I already have a nice bag for the Asus and another–a Targus hand-me-down from someone who “diminuted” her computer use to a netbook/smart phone combo–for my primary techie tools (now two bags to carry what used to fit in a padded aluminum case. Oh, well), but this seemed a nice enough way to carry most of the rest.

Except for the really tacky “designer’s” logo patch sewn onto the large outer flap. Made of some of that silicone-rubber-plastic stuff that is kind of “grippy”.

!

Removed patch from cheapo bag.

Applied contact cement to ugly, tacky “designer” logo and

Glued face down on upper right-hand corner of laptop desk.

Now, I can place the mouse on this small, 2″ patch of silicone-plastic-rubber whatchamacallit and the weight of the mouse and the “takiness” *heh* of the patch material holds the mouse in place at up to 30-degree tilts.

Using one irritation to solve another: life-hacking.

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I Usually Get Away With This, But…

…not today. My Wonder Woman’s ethnic heritage is pure Norwegian (20th Century grandparent immigrants on both sides). While I usually get away with it because it sounds–the way I deliberately pronounce it–like “Sweetie”, today when I called her my “Swedey” she didn’t let it slide… *heh*

Oh, well, another lil grinner down. *sigh*

😉

In related fun, while reading an article on PixelQi’s transflective display retrofit kit for netbooks, I ran across this in comments:

…which earned this response:

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I Just Loves Me Some Free Stuffs

(Yeh, well, you’ll have to just take the fractured English, cos I say so. So there. *heh*)

A couple of months ago, a very generous Lovely Daughter and Husband gave this to me:

OK, so it’s an eight-year-old semi-mini-system they had already scheduled to be donated somewhere. I’m not belittling their generosity, though. Quite the contrary. It’s still more than enough sound for the 18.5’X12′ room I put it in, and produces a little better sound than the 17-year-old Pioneer tuner and KLH speakers I had been using there. And it even plays DVDs very nicely. No remote (at the time), but there was a solution for that. A couple of weeks ago, Lovely Daughter even brought up the remote they’d found.

Bonus: while I’ve been getting some work done here, I’ve been playing this:

Also free, sent to me for listening/commenting on an Internet “radio” site six or seven years ago. The set I have isn’t exactly like the one linked. It has just disk one and disk two (both in the Samsung CD/DVD changer now) but also includes a booklet with the text of Bush’s September 20, 2001 address to Congress. While that’s nice to have on hand I would probably prefer to have disk 3, and will have to locate and purchase that. Amazon, I suppose.

See the list of pieces performed for the recordings below the break. Some aren’t actually American in origin (the “Colonel Bogey March” stands out there) but have been adopted into the American experience so thoroughly as to be “American” for the typically expansive values that characterize the melting pot America*. 🙂

Enjoying (and enjoying this break as well :-)) the music and the sound system. Thanks, generous folks, all!

Continue reading “I Just Loves Me Some Free Stuffs”

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Great Scene

Just saw the end of an episode of a show that I sometimes watch with my Wonder Woman. It tends to give me a rash *heh* but it’s not as bad as some. The greatness of this scene was the fruity lawyer going around a room telling folks that if a case ever came to trial, no matter what, “I win.” *heh*

I kept expecting him to say, “Even if I have to hit [the other lawyer] with my purse, I win.”

Great scene, even if the best part was in my imagination. *heh*

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Little Things

Good ones, this time. 🙂

Yesterday, two days before its estimated time of delivery, my knife bar arrived. Sweet. I’ve been storing my most used kitchen knives in a knife block for years, but it’s always been a wee problem to place conveniently. This, I think, addresses the main issue: get ’em off the counter:

Of course, my most used knives are the two on the left, closest to hand when I’m using the peninsula for food prep. The one farthest left is a Chicago Cutlery 8″ chef’s knife (~OK) that once belonged to my father-in-law. Next to it–most used of them all–is my Sabatier Aîné & Perrier “K” 10″ chef’s knife (OK, so SA&P says it’s a “slicing knife”. I still use it as a chef’s knife), an anniversary present from my Wonder Woman 18 years ago. No, it’ almost nothing like the WallyWorld, Tarjay, et al “Sabatier” knives.

The rest are a mix of “heirloom knives” and a couple I picked up that are not bad/not great but serve their purposes (the larger “butcher knife” and the slicer with the handle that matches it. Oh, the bread knife on the right, next to the steel, really should go in the island’s drawer, since it’ll be used there more often than not, but I wanted to see if it’d fit on the bar with the others).

The knife bar holds the knives (and even the knife steel–one of three I use) very firmly yet releases them easily enough when needed. Seven knives and the steel are now stored in convenient reach, off the prep surface (right under my pot rack).

Handy.

Now, it’s time for some attention to those blades’ edges…

Next up in the kitchen: new backsplash for the stove, complete with new storage bars for some cooking implements. I can only hope I come up with some meals that justify this stuff. *heh*

Edited for my inexcusable lapse in labeling the Sabatier as an 8″-er. What was I thinking? Oh, right. I was thinking the other edit: 8″ for the Chicago Cutlery “OK” knife. *heh*