Thursday night and sitting at home

I hope everyone has been having a good week.  It has been a fairly long week but it is almost over.

We have been having water pressure issues in the house.  The water has suddenly gotten much higher in pressure.  Beth got a gauge from a friend at work that shows it is about 90 psi which is about 10 to high.  It is not real bad but it makes the shower feel like one of those message shower heads instead of just a regular one.  Nothing else seems to be changed but it has taken a couple weeks to get use to the new pressure.  Hopefully it is not a bigger issue.

I also replaced the parts of the toilet in our bath room this week.  It was not the first time I had done this but the first with this toilet.  I had more issues with it that I ever thought about.  I could not remove the valve part by itself.  I had to disconnect the tank from the bowl to get to the gasket holding the valve to the tank.  When I was taking it off I cracked a portion of the sand for the tank.  The valve was attached to the tank not just with the threads but with some sort of adhesive as well.  I am not sure if it was a rubber cement or a silicon base but I could not get it to unscrew.  I tried so hard the plunger part of the valve broke off.  I now had a toilet in 3 more pieces than it should have been in.  I ended up at Home Depot with the tank and the newly bought parts attempting to get the bottom valve off of the tank. Judy from plumbing and a young man from the paint department helped me to get the seal off. They both went above and beyond to help out.  So something that should have been a hour job took about 2 days to finish.  With much fussing and extra work we no have both bathrooms fully functional again.  

Gman made the Honor Roll for the first 9 weeks  and E got all pluses or better on his report card.   I was so proud of both of them.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Bear Trap

Its time to have a little geek update.  I have been playing with my netbook and the home network set up.  We now have 4 computers, the Wii, and the Blue Ray player all hooked into the home network.  I think I have reached the end of my knowledge on how it all should work together.  I can think see how I want it to work together but I am not sure how it will turn out because I have no master plan to make it happen.  I think it has become my bear trap.

So here are a couple of things I am thinking and tinkering with.  Productivity is somewhat of a joke right now.  The 4 computers have 3 different OS on them.  The boys desktop is a rebuild from parts I had leftover from odds and ends.  I took the HD and motherboard from my  Alienware and build it.  It is running XP pro and has a lot of life left in it. It will need more storage when the boys start using it for more school work.  So either an external HD or one of the old internal SATAs I have.  The laptop (Beth's) is a very good for her.  It is running Vista but she says it is fine for what she does with it.  It is the only computer now with Office on it (and so the lack of productivity elsewhere).  I could reload the old version Office 97 on the boys computer but they do not really need it yet.   My desktop is now running W7 (I did keep an old hard drive with XP and Ubuntu on it) and I loved it enough to upgrade the W7 starter on the netbook to W7 Home.  Firmware in the Wii and the Sony Blue Ray have them hooked to the router very well. 

My 2 current problems are  1: Sharing the printer and the 2 external HDs I have on the network  2: File and application sharing without buying new programs.   On the first problem, I put the printer and Hds on the network  through a Belken Hub when we got Beth's laptop.  They work fine for her but I have not taken the time to get them to work with the boys computer or the netbook.  I need more knowledge about how W7 workgroups are suppose to work to make it all work better.   The second problem is going to be a larger one.  Everything I read tells me what I want is a home server set up.  I know that Beth will not want another computer taking up space we do not have.  I also do not know how Windows Home Server will work across the 3 OS.  I do not believe that everyone is going to want a home server for their electronics.  So what are people going to do instead? 

My answer leads to another question -  Do I want to does this because I think it will be useful  or because it seems like fun to try to do?  The useful side includes looking into the future of the boys home work.  The wireless key they use now to get to the network (and internet) should be enough  for connectivity but it does drag when any other device is connected.  The wifi in the netbook, blue ray and laptop all have better bandwith so they show less drag.   At some point the boys will need better internet and access to the printer and HDs.   They will also want to play more games like PvsZ etc online and be able to stream music into their own room (can anyone say head phones?).   I know they are still young but it is coming.  I know the answer to the fun part is that I do enjoy it.  

So for those who know- its my bear trap.