I've been refinishing my desk over the past few weeks. It's not a full desk, just a desktop and 2 shelves, all made out of wood. The wood is in decent condition, but it's just scratchy enough to be really annoying. Also, the wood is stained lighter than our crown moulding, so Diana wanted me to restain them. hence the whole project.
Last week I took down the shelves, sanded them, restained them, and revarnished them. I really like that kind home project - enough work to make it more than a one day affair but less than 1 week, and fairly simple to accomplish. It took longer than I thought, as usual, but I just had fun messing with the wood.
With the shelves complete and reinstalled, I attacked the desktop today. After heavily sanding the desktop with 120 sandpaper, I flipped over the top to give the underside a sanding and discovered a new problem. The previous owner had installed and later removed a drawer underneath the desktop. However, the guides for the drawer were screwed into 2 small slabs of plywood (maybe 1 inch by 1.5 feet and 1/4 of an inch high) which were glued to the underside of the desktop and those glued slabs were still there. So this presented something of a challenge.
My first attempt was to use a putty knife to remove the old glued-on slabs. I chipped away some of the slabs, but overall it didn't work too well. Then I remembered... I own a Dremel. Messing with power tools on a Tuesday afternoon is AWESOME. I grabbed the Dremel, attached a drum sander head, and went to town. In about 10 minutes, the slabs were ground into sawdust covering me, my porch, and the tool. The only problem was that I couldn't figure out how to use the Dremel to sand the areas smooth. If you know, let me know. Tomorrow, I plan to fill in the gauged wood with some wood putty, and sand the top again with 220 sandpaper.
Anyways, for me, a day when I get to use my Dremel is a pretty good day, by any standard.
After searching for a bit, I decided to get a NAS to supply extra storage for my home network. I bought a Buffalo LinkStation 250 GB drive from amazon. So far, it's been excellent.
Setup was a snap. Literally, unpacked the thing, plugged it into the wall and into my router. Installed some software (both Windows and Mac install works), and it was up and running. Piece a cake.
I haven't solved the backup issue yet. I just manually copied some files over for now. But, I am looking into some real backup software. Some folks I know use Norton Ghost, which looks pretty cool. I would prefer something that works for both Windows and Mac, since I need to backup both. Rsync and cron (or @at for windows) would work, but I'm not sure I have the patience to set it up right now. Any suggestions?
Also, I noticed an interesting trait in my purchasing pattern. On amazon, I read lots of pages about different product options. There were a few options which I finally decided between, all of which seemed fairly identical. In the end, I choose Buffalo because they had posted a product manual. Because I could read the manual before buying, I was very confident that I understood the product and what it would require to manage. If I were a retailer, I would always insure that Amazon had copies of the manuals of my products.
Not sure if you caught the 3 May episode of Lost... but it announced the new Lost online game that was predicted. The site is The Hanso Foundation. It's actually a pretty well put together site entirely in Flash.
For easter eggs and general Lost info, check out LostPedia. Robert showed this to me, and it's a stunning collection of minutae about the show.
SPOILER below...
BTW - Diana pointed out an interesting fact about the episode this week. Anna-Lucia and Libby were shot dead at the end of the show. Do you think this has any relation to their DUI at the end of last year?
On Saturday, Diana, Brandon, Erika, and I went to see the Black Rider, a musical by Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, and Robert Wilson.
It was spectacular... in every possible way.
For a long time, I've been a Tom Waits fan... ever since Brandon introduced me to his music in college. Some of my favorite Tom Waits songs are in the Black Rider. So, to see it live was... well, it was mind-blowing.
Actually, it's pretty hard to describe why this show was so great. The music was awesome. The singing was really good (in my uneducated opinion). It was similar to Waits' original, but not exactly identical. I suppose no decent actor would sing exactly like Tom does... since he sounds like he's just woken up from a night of far too much alcohol and tabacco. Nevertheless, the actors did a great job in my opinion. The writing was... well, it was William S. Burroughs... it was wild. Funny, witty, convoluted, rhythmic... everything you might want from a theatrical production. And the staging was unlike anything I've ever seen. It was really far out there... Imagine the most bizarre Faustian storyline set in scenery reminiscent of the scary tunnel/boat ride from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original Gene Wilder version). With that picture in mind, throw in a massive dose of wacky mechanical devices that float around the stage (Robert Wilson's touch). If you are having trouble imagining it, don't worry. Just buy some tickets and go see it. (BTW - if you're a KCRW member, you can get huge discounts. See KCRW's homepage for more information.)
If you have never heard of Tom Waits or Black Rider, you can find him in iTunes... Here's one sample which is one of my favorite songs.
Last week, Diana, Aurelia and I went to see American Dreamz, the new Hugh Grant movie. I have to say, I was really underwhelmed. The plot has so much potential, a president who's not so smart, a wanna-be terrorist, a super-popular singing show with a horribly meglomaniacal star as the host. I mean, the possibilities are endless.
And yet, it just doesn't really live up to that potential. Some moments were spectacularly funny... but overall, not worth the $10 to get in. I'd say just wait for Netflix, and don't put it on the top of your queue.