Category: Miscellaneous babble

Starting my third week TV-less and so far so good. Haven’t really missed the TV and discovered I can catch episodes of BG online.

The stack of books on my to-read list has a couple less books on it now and the dogs get to spend a few more hours at the dog park. The dogs’ crazy antics are proving far more entertaining than some of the crap on TV.

I’ve been spending a little more time on the computer, but it’s ended up being more productive. Things like getting started on some programming projects left on the back burner, reading journal articles and listening to recorded lectures from conferences to get CE credits.

Anybody know what’s going on at the Jabers store on Rutledge Ave? The last few days I’ve been past there (heading to and from the dog park) the lot’s been cordoned off and filled with large trailers. Some of them have markings on them implying some kind of film shoot going on there. Traffic is a pain with people slowing down to rubberneck and see what’s going on. I’ve also noticed a higher than usual number of people just hanging out across the street.

Update: Heard from some dog park people that Kevin Costner was filming part of a movie in the area.

A grand experiment.

Inspired by my sister, who got rid of their cable TV service a while ago, I thought I’d try something similar although not quite as drastic. I’m just going to leave the TV off for the rest of the month.

Aside from a few hours of watching the kids watch cartoons while visiting my brother, I’ve already been TV-less for a week now. I have plenty of books to read, the dogs to play with and a steady stream of movies coming in from Blockbuster.com (which I have to watch on my computer now because the DVD player is flaking out) to keep me occupied.

Except for a few shows like Mythbusters, Stargate and Battlestar Galactica, I wasn’t watching a whole lot of TV anyway. When it was on, it mostly provided background noise and a lot of times I was just watching reruns.

It’s been pretty easy so far and I haven’t missed the TV yet. Resisting the temptation to watch Battlestar Galactica on Fridays will be the biggest challenge.

Maybe the TV will stay off even longer!

A few days ago I learned that my friend’s dad passed away after having a stroke. Although I only met him a couple of times, I seem to remember him being pretty cool for a dad.

Yesterday I learned one of the volunteers I work with at the Aquarium passed away over the weekend from a heart attack. He always gave me the latest updates with the birds when I came in for my Saturday morning shift. It will be strange not seeing him around and hearing his stories.

Sad days all around.

After moving the computer setup to the other desk, I was thoroughly disgusted by the rats nest of cabling building up. Although not as bad as some I’ve seen, it was getting pretty messy around the desk.

So, inspired by Declutter Your Desk, I decided to DIY a solution based on the peg board method.

A few before shots:

I decided to do the side and back of the desk using pegboard. On the side I used the lock shackle and peg method shown on Declutter Your Desk since this side was going to be supporting the most weight with all the gadgets. This was all done pretty much as described, except with the shackles oriented vertically.

On the back since I was only planning on securing cables, I went with eye screws and S hooks. This let the pegboard swing free and is easy to move around. Just drill a few pilot holes into the desk and screw in the eye screws.

After that was done came the task of arranging and attaching everything to the pegboard. I used zipties instead of wire.

And here’s how everything looks after:

The UPS is far too heavy to mount on the pegboard, so it stays on the floor.

Shopping list (I already had a bunch of zip ties, so didn’t need to buy those.):
2 2’x4’x1/8″ pegboard – $3.53 each
3 2.5″ lock clasps – $2.56 each
Open S hooks (package of 6) – $0.88
1 1/8″ eye screws (package of 10) – $0.90
5/16″x48″ dowel – $0.68
Total cost: $17.20