Harry Potter 7 arrival

Posted on 2007-06-16 by Jim Vanderveen

![HP7 cover](http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41unlrhUIVL._SS400_.jpg)

Book #7 of the “Harry Potter” series, [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows][hp7], will be released in California in exactly 840 (4\*5\*6\*7) hours, or 35 days from right now. I plan on being one of the first people on the west coast to get my hands on a copy of the book, because I’m eagerly awaiting the answers to some open questions. There are lots of tantalizing bits of *official* information (i.e. affirmed by JKR) on the [debunked rumors](http://mugglenet.com/books/futurebooks/book7/rumors.shtml) and [confirmed information](http://mugglenet.com/books/futurebooks/book7/confirmed.shtml) pages of [Mugglenet][]. Obviously *everybody* wants to know whose side Snape is on, whether Harry or Voldemort (or both, or neither) will survive, et cetera. But I’m also wondering about some more esoteric things. Will Harry get assistance from Dumbledore’s portrait at Hogwart’s? Will Prof. Slughorn be back? And what exactly did he do on the two “perfectly lucky days” he mentioned in book 6? Will that have an impact on the story? Who’ll be the new D.A.D.A. teacher? Will Harry re-form “Dumbledore’s Army”? The [“loose ends”](http://mugglenet.com/books/futurebooks/book7/looseends.shtml) page has many other interesting questions, although some of them have already been answered on the other two Mugglenet pages referenced above.

Hopefully I’ll manage to be [first in line](http://sonicchicken.net/blog/wordpress/2005/07/15/im-1-im-1/) again at Border’s this year! I’m taking the pre-release day off, so I can get up early and score the #0001 ticket, go home and take a lo-o-ong nap, then read the book aloud to my family starting at a few minutes after midnight.

[hp7]: http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows-Book/dp/0545010225/
[Mugglenet]: http://mugglenet.com/index.php

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Father’s Day 2007

Posted on 2007-06-15 by Jim Vanderveen

Father’s Day is this coming Sunday. I was wondering how we would manage to get the entire roof sheathed, considering that we’d have to quit work at about noon on Sunday so we could get together with the extended family. Alas, my problem is solved–the framing crew isn’t going to be able to finish the roof by Friday afternoon, so we dodged that bullet.

But now the dilemma is: which aspect of the project should we try to accomplish this weekend?

* Pick up the vent hood for our new range. (The GC wants to check the framing requirements for this unit.)
* Move some studs in the “wet wall” of the shower/tub. (There is a stud right in the middle of the wall, where the shower valve should go.)
* Double-check that the wall sheathing is all nailed off.
* Gable-end sheathing on the quilt shop.
* Buy a new high-efficiency water heater.
* Tear off more of the shingle siding.

We’ll probably try for “all of the above”, since we probably won’t have a free weekend again for quite a while…

Posted in Our home remodeling project, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Remodel week #9

Posted on 2007-06-14 by Jim Vanderveen

100_1020.JPG

It’s been a long, hot week. Temperatures have been in the upper 90’s and today we hit 101 (38°C). We’ve had a few delays with the roof, but it should finally be finished in two more days. Our general contractor convinced us to change our plans from a truss roof to “stick framed”, and we’re very glad we listened to him! This saved us a few thousand dollars (mostly on the foundation), and we got a *huge* attic–about 60 feet by 10 feet, if we want the minimum height to be 6 feet.

100_1010.JPG

This past week we also got the power and telephone lines buried. The power line had been resting on the roof of the quilt shop, so we were finally able to sheath the quilt shop roof last weekend.

100_0992.JPG

Lots more pictures are available in the [Remodel Week #9 photoset](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonicchicken/sets/72157600352096063/) on Flickr.

Things are going to get **really** busy now! This coming weekend we will probably be sheathing the roof of the main house, which has about 6-7 times the area of the quilt shop. It also has four valleys, whereas the quilt shop was a simple gable roof. On the other hand, we’re going to be laying down a *lot* more full sheets of OSB than we did on the quilt shop. If we can get some extra help, we should be able to get this done over Father’s Day weekend.

The following weekend (June 23-24) is our second demolition party, if all goes according to plan. More to follow, so check back often!

Posted in Our home remodeling project, Uncategorized | Tagged | 2 Comments

What is RSS?

Posted on 2007-06-13 by Jim Vanderveen

Leave it to [Joseph][] to find (and link to) all the cool stuff… One of his [recent “del.icio.us links”](http://joseph.randomnetworks.com/archives/2007/06/07/links-for-thu-7-jun-2007/) is a 3.5 minute video, [RSS in Plain English][]. It’s a gentle introduction to RSS and feedreaders, specifically tailored to non-technical web users. The video assumes some basic familiarity with the web and web browsers–you know what “right-clicking” means, and you read more than one blog and/or news site with some regularity.

I didn’t see links to feedreader sites mentioned in the video, so here they are:

* [Google feed reader](http://www.google.com/reader)

* [Bloglines feed reader](http://www.bloglines.com/)

* [Newsgator feed reader](http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NewsGatorOnline/)

* [My Yahoo!](http://my.yahoo.com/), which can be used as a feed reader.

[Joseph]: http://joseph.randomnetworks.com/
[RSS in Plain English]: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Ceiling beam

Posted on 2007-06-05 by Jim Vanderveen

I finally go some close-up pictures of the [ceiling beam that was flown onto the roof](http://sonicchicken.net/blog/wordpress/2007/06/01/ceiling-beams-up/) last week.

100_0808.JPG

This thing is *huge*! If you can’t read the tape measure, it’s 16″ x 5.25″ wide, and 32′ long!

Posted in Our home remodeling project, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Raising the roof!

Posted on 2007-06-04 by Jim Vanderveen

100_0855.JPG

I came home for lunch today, just in time to see the roofing crew preparing to hoist the first rafters of our new roof. All thoughts of sustenance forgotten, I grabbed our camera and snapped a bunch of pic’s–check out the [“Raising the roof” photoset](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonicchicken/sets/72157600311497398/) on Flickr, especially good as a slideshow.

Posted in Our home remodeling project, Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Weekend remodel progress

Posted on 2007-06-04 by Jim Vanderveen

Another weekend gone, and we’re a bit closer to a finished house although we *appear* to be going backwards!

100_0774.JPG 100_0810.JPG 100_0821.JPG

We took down most of the garage roof this weekend, which was considerably more difficult than the main roof of the house where we had ceiling rafters to stand upon. For the garage nearly every cut had to be made from the top of a ladder. To make matters worse, we are storing lots of building material, tools, etc. in the garage, so just moving a ladder around is a major chore.

From the final picture you can see that we have a few rafters still in place. Most of these make up the wall separating the house from the garage, so at least there’s a place to stand while working on them! We should be able to take the rest of these down tonight, if the roofing crew doesn’t take care of it for us today.

Posted in Our home remodeling project, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ceiling beams up!

Posted on 2007-06-01 by Jim Vanderveen

100_0781.JPG

We have a pair of *large* ceiling beams that were hoisted into place today. Check out the [ceiling beam delivery](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonicchicken/sets/72157600294021274/) photoset! (If you have a fat pipe, try viewing it as a slideshow.)

We had a slight mishap, though. The crane operator parked right next to my neighbor’s fence, and he wasn’t watching too closely when he deployed the stabilizers–he pushed it right through one of the fence rails. I had some glue and clamps at home, so I took a stab at repairing the rail. Hopefully it’ll hold up, because a new rail just wouldn’t look right on this rustic fence…

100_0801.JPG 100_0807.JPG

Posted in Our home remodeling project, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Right-click on a (Windows) MacBook

Posted on 2007-05-31 by Jim Vanderveen

We’re deploying a [MacBook][] for one of our users. Thanks (?) to [Boot Camp][], we’re able to install Windows XP and set this as the default OS. But there is one *glaring* problem with running Windows on a MacBook–no right button on the trackpad! Under OS X you can “right click” by holding down the control key while clicking the one-and-only mouse/touchpad button, but this doesn’t work while running Windows (at least under Boot Camp). I finally found a solution buried in the [responses to a comment](http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/29/apples-boot-camp-1-2-supports-windows-vista/comments/4192180/) on [Engadget][] — just touch the trackpad with *two* fingers and you can “right click” with the trackpad button. I agree with one of the replies: not the typical elegance I expect from Apple, but at least it works!

[MacBook]: http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html
[Boot Camp]: http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
[Engadget]: http://www.engadget.com/

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Who doth inhabit the primary?

Posted on 2007-05-31 by Jim Vanderveen

Oh. My. God! Hat tip to [acetylene][] for this [Elizabethan-flavored “Who’s on first?”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaGHVWKrcpQ) I laughed so hard I almost threw up!

[acetylene]: http://www.acetylene.net/

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 1 Comment