Life in General

Hello out there. as many of you know, I’m curretnly trying to save all my pennies for an extended trip to New Zealand for a biking / racing adventure. As such, I’ve had to seriously curtail my extravagant ways. That’s hard for me to do, since I’m a serious gadget guy. Well, for some unknown reason, this morning I got to thinking about a little gadget of Kev’s, the Squeezebox. Mind you, he does have a slightly older model (not nearly as cool looking ;-), but still equally as cool a little device. Kev got his a while ago, and blogged about it in the past. He even mentioned me, but I never took the bait on it. Basically, this thing can allow me to hook up to my music library on my PC, and play it back through my stereo. That’s where things get a little trickier for me. You see, I’ve already got a whole-house sound system, integrated with my computer. I can currently play music on iTunes, and have it routed to the computer room, the rec room, the living room, the kitchen, and even the outdoor speakers all at once (can you tell I dig music?). This has been great for parties. But my big beef about that is that I have no ability to control the music unless I’m at the computer in the basement, which isn’t fun when you’re entertaining. So essentially, I’m thinking of getting this thing simply as a moveable head-end for the PC-based music. Basically, I could move the unit wherever I wanted (provided there’s a plug), and then use the supplied remote to change music on a whim. The key to making this work is that I’d use a wireless router (dirt cheap at about $70), which can talk to the head end, and then use a 3rd party application known as SoftSqueeze, which allows synchronizing the PC playback to the Squeezebox playback (not to mention the ability to stream my library over the web and such if I’m at a party elsewhere and wanted to call up a tune I own!)

Huzzah, I’m finally at the early build stages! As you can see by the picture to the right, the top and bottom frames of the bar have been put together and mounted on the front panels (in this picture, the bar is laying on its eventual front). Does it look like a bar yet? Not likely. I have a few concerns at this stage already. On the left, you see the wide bottom frame. A piece of 1/4 oak plywood goes on top of that frame to form the base of the liquor cabinet portion. I’m worried that the weight of bottles will be too much for the 1/4 wood. I think I’ll upgrade the base with an extra 2×4 stud piece that I’ve got left over. I should have attached it before the frame was attached, but such is life. My second concern is the side frame. There are no 2×4’s for support on the frame. Instead, the bar will rely on the 3/4″ oak plywood sides (not seen here yet) to bear the weight. I would have thought that building a full 2×4 frame would be more solid. I’m not going to bother changing anything on that though, since I’m sure the designer has had plenty of successful builds to his credit.

Well, it looks like it’s been a while since I wrote anything in the ole blog-sphere, so I figured I’d dash off a few paragraphs of random neuron firing. With the weather finally starting to come around, I’ve been as busy as ever, with lots of training focus, spending time outside running, and working away in the basement at getting the bar done, just in time for summer. What’s that? This was supposed to be a winter project? So that people could enjoy cold nights with cocktails and entertainment? Bah! I make no excuses, I’ve done my best. On that front, things are really finally ‘coming together’, pun intended. Last night marked the official first building steps of the bar. I was burning the candle at both ends last week, getting up early to stain and varnish, and staying up late to do the same. Persistence paid off, and the final two panels were finished Sunday morning. As such, I started putting the framing together last night, and will hopefully have some pictures up soon.

But I digress, the bar is not the focus this time around. Obesity is one of my topics du jour. They say that obesity is almost a national epidemic. If not obesity, then certainly at least being over-weight. How can this possibly be, asks me? Well, I think I got an inkling of an idea why. On my Saturday run, of a relatively short 13km, I passed directly in front of 3 McDonalds! A 4th McDonalds was just 200m off my route as well! Not to mention the countless pizza joints, and various other speedy, junky food options. Now I’m certainly not condemning the Golden Arches. Quite the contrary, those who know me are well aware that I had no problem watching “Super Size Me”, then heading to Ronnie’s house the next day for a delicious Quarter Pounder meal (check out the nutrition calculator)! Quite the opposite, I personally would have stopped in for a bite had I not been in the middle of a run and not had any money on me!

Thought I’d pop in another post on the progress being made on the bar front. Things have been going so slowly that I ended up actually taking a day off work to get some work done on this project! Actually, I had a ‘personal day’ that was going to expire if I didn’t use it by the end of the month so I figured it would give me a chance to get a little extra work done on the bar, not to mention get laundry and my taxes done! Pictured to the left here is my attempt at capturing what the oak pieces look like after two coats of stain and three coats of varnish. Shiny, isn’t it? What you see is the product of almost 2 weeks of effort. Every step takes me an evening, because you have to let the stain / varnish dry thoroughly before either sanding it or re-coating it. Plus, most of these pieces had to have both sides done, doubling the time! The good news is that I have about 2 other ‘groups’ of pieces that I have to work on, and most of these are simpler pieces with a lot of 1-sided finish coming up. After those are all done, it’ll be the true building time. Can’t wait for that stage! I have to question the people who submitted testimonials on the website where I got the design saying it took them 3 weeks to build the bar! Okay, maybe they truly meant ‘build’ and not prepare. In my opinion, there’s no way on God’s green earth someone could possibly do all the cutting, routing, sanding, staining, varnishing, dry fitting, and putting together this whole bar! NO WAY!! Maybe if they worked full time on it. Naw. Granted, I had to learn a lot of things along the way (namely how to properly use a table saw and router), but just these last few steps of finishing take so long…

Alrighty then, second bar update in under an hour. How’s that for service! Lucky for me tonight is a slow training night. Just working out on the ole Bowflex, which gives me time to type between sets. That’s basically the reason I’ve been a slacker on updates as well as the bar building itself. I’m basically putting in lots of training time. Evenings and weekends. Running, swimming, spinning, wave-running, working out… Not to mention the snowshoe races, Winterlude duathlon, and upcoming winter adventure race! When I’m done, I’m usually pooped, and just feel like veggin’. Oh yeah, and add to that the intense Olympic fever I’ve got, forcing me to watch extra TV! Looks like I’m getting a bit off topic, doesn’t it? Sorry. Just felt I should explain myself. That and tonight I seem to have a little extra time to type away here. It’s nice for a change. Anyway, on with my story…