What I'm looking at doing in the near future

Where have I been since the last post? I've been researching/possessing equipment for various research projects.

1. Research on video game purchasing decisions - If you're a friend of mine, get ready to be asked for your help. I am doing research for this years application into a PhD program. This batch of research looks good and is on track to propel my education.

2. Writing a short script - I'm also looking at some other schools that require a creative writing sample. Thus, I am creating a short script and putting the polishing touches on it.

3. Developing some low-cost telecines - What is a telecine? It's a really expensive machine that converts film to a digital media file. In the Spring of 2010, I'll be teaching traditional film production. The students will shooting on film, then be required to convert using one of my machines. Pretty cool stuff.

Then, there's a whole lot of other stuff that I'm into, but that will have to wait for a further post.

Starting a new year (in school)

It's the beginning of August and with that date, I begin to think about upcoming school year. The next semester for me equals two sections of PM II (an intermediate video production class), one section of audio production and one class of video game level design.

I'm excited for this next semester. Each class is coming along nicely. Right now, I'm trying to line up all my special guests.

In addition, my other projects are also beginning to line up. My short script is done and will be under review. I have a few other projects that are in the editing stage. There's another development project that I might be starting. (Not too much on this one, yet.)

On the homefront, I'm nearly done. I just need to complete some "tidy-ing" up. Then my home will be done with the projects I set out to do.

All in all, my life isn't that bad.

The house is coming along nicely

In the beginning of this project, I had some loose goals to meet.

1. Start to replace windows - Done, the front window has been replaced and the front room feels sooooooo nice
2. Replace front door - Done, it closes, seals and is really nice. I just need to paint the outside of it. Unfortunately it has rained a lot lately.
3. Tear out a bathroom - Done, and the room extremely empty
4. Replace the shell ceiling fans - Done, both fans now work and they give a soft, nice light

There are plenty of smaller projects and they are mostly done. All I have to do is basic clean-up.

WoooooooHoooooooo. I'm almost done.

Something a little new.....

I finally began my short script tonight. I'm looking to have this thing be around 5-6 minutes long. (Yes, when I say short, I really mean short.)

I'm 4 pages in and have the main points in. Now, it's time for me to have fun adding in a little more.

Bees and bathrooms

This past weekend, the bee guys came back and much to their disappointment, there was not a second have. The bees had 2 entrances/exits to the single hive. I still have 2 walls that need to be recovered. :( My house also smells like moth balls. I dropped some in the broken walls to ward off any moths that might come in for a little snack. After all of this, I am still happy that I decided to call the bee keepers and have them remove the little pests alive.

And, the bathroom that was planned to be destroyed is now empty. The previous people are absolute idiots. In the shower, a friend and I found 2 layers of tiles. I can see the previous owners/renters/handy people saying, "Hey, I don't feel like changing this, people won't notice if just add another layer of tiles." Idiots.

Today I am waiting for my dumpster and have a feeling that the dumpster people forgot/lost my order. I'm singing a song, "No dumpster, no cry......"

I got new glass.....

Major house improvement is moving on down the road. The front window was finally replaced. I am now the owner of some vinyl framed windows. I do like the look of them from the outside. It supports a house painting decision I've been pondering.

I really need to repaint my house. The existing paint is peeling off. I have thought for awhile that white paint would look good. My front door (to be replaced soon) will be painted a muted blue.

I also called the bee remover yesterday and the feeling I get is that I will need to call him again tomorrow. Soon, the bees will be gone!

My house is coming down

This past weekend, a friend and I mostly tore out one of the bathrooms in my home. While the structure of the room is fantastic, I cannot believe what we found. The previous renovation was put directly over the old walls. When we started to tear down the greenboard, we found the wallpapered paneling behind it. The wallpaper was a nice blue flowered pattern. The wallboard was a popcorn ceiling texture.

We covered (or uncovered) all but the shower. Next weekend!

And what do my eyes see.......

I was looking out the window on Wednesday and I couldn't believe what I saw...... A blue jay! I was truly amazed. Now I'm really happy.

Other than that, I decided to step away from house organizing and look for videos. These would be used for my various classes and wow, I hit the jackpot. Over 100 clips will be rolled into powerpoints for my various classes. Most of these are between 3 and 5 minutes.

Whoopeeeee!

A fun little surprise while looking out the window

Before I begin this posting, I want to ask everyone to begin to look out their window. Nature is one amazing thing. Here's the latest reason......

Lightning Bugs! Those of you who are not in a state/part of the world that does not have these little insects, I am sorry. While looking out the window this evening, I see a spec of yellow. A second later, I see another. I only counted three unique dots of yellow, but I was brought back to Kansas City as a kid. In the evenings, the lightning bugs would come out and I would try to catch them. Occasionally, I would capture on in a jar and after putting some grass in the bottom, the jar would go inside the home. There, I'd watch the blinking for about 30 minutes, then it would be time to go to bed.

The next morning, the lightning bug would be mysteriously gone, but the grass would be there. Where did it go? As a kid I wasn't sure. As an adult, I'm pretty sure my parents released the bug back to the backyard.

I know there's a scientific reason behind why the lightning bugs blink, but I do not want to know. I'm just happy to see these bugs blink around during the late evening.

Another thing is I put up a few bird feeders about a month ago and the birds have been showing up. I was really surprised when I saw a male and female cardinal chilling on my fence. The bird feeders are working and my backyard is beginning to be a small estuary. (BTW, I'm kidding about the estuary.) Now all I need to see is a Blue Jay in central Texas. Highly unlikely as my home is a bit too far South. :(

Over the past few days....

Here's where I am with the home improvements over the past few days:
1. I've gotten rid of 3 bags of misc mailers that have been sent to me. And there's more. I can't believe all the paper mail that just gets sent out.
2. The bees found a new way in. Hello expandable foam.
3. The back porch now has a floor. Okay, to be honest, it always had a floor but it was covered with a quarter to half an inch of leaves.
4. 32 pounds of aluminum cans netted me a little more than $17.00. I bought pizza with that!
5. Organization in the garage. The glass tubing I received for free last year got moved into the glass shop. Extension cords on the floor got placed on the wall. And, the last shelving unit that was in pieces is now built and put into place. Unfortunately for me, there were two small parts missing. The top shelf will now need some strapping to keep it together. There is beginning to be room in there.
6. My grass is beginning to grow in the dead patch in the front yard. This is a good thing.
7. My front window is about to be replaced. The guy is coming by on Tuesday to take measurements and then 4 weeks later, new window. This is a fairly big deal as the front room is about 5-10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house due to heat coming through my single pane old 30+ year window.
8. I also decided it was time to replace the front door. I chose the design. (Here's a picture.) I'm tired of the 1-2 inches of rot on the bottom of the frame. The door has never been replaced, so I'll do it.

This is what I can remember, there was more.

This past weekend -> Bees, Trimming and Allergies

Central Texas is a hot bed for allergies in the Spring and Fall. Unfortunately, I am extremely susceptible to allergies.

Saturday, I was just feeling bad. The foam appeared not to work from mid last week. I did more research on removing honey bees from inside a wall. I found there was an insecticide that had honey bees listed as one of the bugs. It's brand name is "Sevin". I found it at the local Lowe's. I spend most of Saturday up at work as I had 2 finals to give.

Sunday, after waking up feeling under the weather, I decided that the lawn and other plants needed some maintenance. A mower, an electric pruner, a hand pruner and a weed eater are the tools I brought out. Less than two hours later, my lawn looked great and the bushes where either cut down or trimmed. The yard looks a lot better.

I also have a portion of the lawn that will not grow. I seeded and watered a few weeks ago and that led to a few sprigs of grass. This weekend, I laid down a ton of seed. We'll wait and see.

The bees......

I finally went outside in the backyard. I still see some bees, but they look confused by the expandable foam. Not sure how they out (or they might be going home). I'll find out tonight.

If there are a number of bees swarming, it looks like I might be "insulating" an entire 24 inch rail along my back wall.

Sorry bees.......

Bah, it's a sick day :(

This morning I woke up not feeling well. So, the pond rebuilding will need to wait for another day. Unfortunately, my attacking the bee hive last night only did a bit. This evening the "Great Stuff" expanding insulation will come into play. Taps will play as the bees are sealed into their tomb.

This weekend

I'm going to start writing about what I'm up to around the house. One, it will get me writing. Two, it will show people that a "fixer-upper" is more than what it appears. Three, maybe this will get my friends to begin to update they're blogs.

This weekend, I decided it was going to be pond and bees weekend. The pond is a little 150 gallon water feature in my backyard. It stopped pumping water this past week and that made me very sad. Sadly, it has slowly been dying a sad death.

I bought myself a pump to empty the pond. That pump was cranking through the water quickly, then I read a little bit in the instruction leaflet. "Pump will not work if water is 1 foot deeper than the inlet." About 5 minutes later, the pump began to have issues. The water just reached that 1 foot mark and I had about 4 inches of water left. I tried and tried to get the pump to work. Nothing.

In that time, I found out something else very interesting. My pond/water feature has a water filter. That really surprised me. Off to Home Depot to buy a new filter. (Note to readers - The pond had been running for almost 2 years without a filter change.) When I arrived, the water feature isle was around the corner. Amazingly enough, there was not a replacement filter for my set-up. (I sometimes hate when you can't get something a few years old.) I grabbed and purchased a new filter and a few of the filter clothes so I don't get caught for awhile.

Back at home, I check to see if the filter fit. Check! I then place the entire pump assembly in and turn it on, Churg, churg, churg. I see water coming from the top fountain portion but not the waterfall. I drain the pond to the last 4 inches again. I pull apart the spigot and associated other pieces. They got a good scrub down, get placed into the water and turned on. Churg, churg, churg. Water is coming from both the fountain spigot and the waterfall. Viola, it lives. I point the spigot out of the pond form and it spits out another 2 inches. Only two inches left.

Now onto the bees. I have had a bee hive in my wall since I moved in. Last year, it appeared to be small. This year, the bees returned and multiplied. They didn't bother me, so I let them live. They don't appear to be Africanized. They are just the standard honey bee. Well, a neighbor came over to my home and complained about the bees. He was worried that the "mean" bees that live in my wall might sting his chihuahuas. As a home owner, I must now do something about them.

Now, I've seen "Billy the Exterminator" on TV and I've done my research online. I've tried a number of sprays, had part of the bee hive empty out in my kitchen and they appear to use the spray as a sort of bath. They don't like it, but they keep coming back. I'm almost to the part of the bee hunt when I need to open my wall and see what's going on. If I do this, I'll empty out the hive and spray everything down. Oh yea, my outside wall is brick. Yep, I'm going to make the bees very angry inside my home.

Tomorrow, I'll try to get the pond back in functioning order.

Cleaning my home, a necessary evil

For those who know me, I'm not much for cleaning my home. I currently live alone, don't have anyone who visits me and am frequently tired when I get home from work. That means, a nice evening in front of the television.

Yesterday some family visited me and had to use the restroom. I thought about this ahead of time and cleaned parts of it.

Later that evening, I went to the family members house for dinner. I was told I need to married to keep my house straight. (Meaning, the wife will kick my butt into cleaning gear.) I am waiting for my bride to join me this Summer!

This weekend was going to be a cleaning weekend anyways, so I started to cleaning. Living room, mostly done!

I'm feeling better about this place (after a year and a half.)

The Mac OS on a PC

For the past month and a half, I've been doing some research into putting the MacOS on a PC device. Specifically, I saw this on a Dell Mini 9 and was told that it can never be upgraded or it will stop working.

I bought myself a Dell Mini10v and installed Snow Leopard on it. If you want to know the reality of this, I am currently writing this blog entry from this device. I effectively have a Mac Netbook. (I think that's pretty cool.)

I'd like to thank the guys and gals who have been working on the Hackintosh project and have worked to get all the drivers working. The project is working and the steps to complete it are flawless.

This thing seems really cool at first thought. My purpose to make one of these is curiosity, and now that it works, I plan on using it as a travel laptop. If I get into graduate school for my doctorate, notes will be taken via the device.

I'm not sure which office applications I want for it. Should I use Google docs? If I do, I will need connectivity. Should I use Open Office? That's what I'm leaning towards, but need to see the current state of the project. Should I use Microsoft Word? It is software that is used at work and will work.

While not as powerful as any of my other machines, this 10v appears to work really well. I just bought the cheapest box. 1 Gig RAM, 160Gig hard drive, nothing special.