I’ve been using Microsoft’s OneNote 2003 for a little over a year. Nate told me about it when it first came out. At the time, I was using a paper notebook system developed by David, which was working well for me. When Nate showed me OneNote I thought, “That’s interesting, but it doesn’t seem particularly useful,” and I promptly forgot about it. Well, during the summer of 2005 I started envisioning a new way to deal with all of the information that comes at me on a daily basis. It needed to have a few key features

Computer based
Accessible from many computers
Handwriting support
File management
Multimedia (images, videos, etc.)
Lists
Notes
Tabular data
Searching

I didn’t really think there was anything out there like what I was thinking about. Certainly there were apps that delivered part of the package, but nothing that … Read More »

We moved into the master bedroom this weekend. We’ve been in the house for almost two years, but I didn’t start working on the room until about 18 months ago. We had a couple of dependencies that slowed us down, and I fully expect the next room to go much quicker. I have posted several photo-albums broken into broad categories

Demolition — What’s there to say about this, you basically rip everything out.
Closet — The master bedroom did not have a closet. The adjacent bedroom had two. We cut a wall out, and closed a wall up, and all of a sudden the master bedroom now has a closet.
Framing — We had to do a bit of framing work. I don’t believe the attic (or 3rd floor) of our house was originally finished, but it … Read More »

We mostly finished our wood stove project a few weeks ago (with the minor exception of some trim work). It was my first time doing a tiling job. For that matter it is my first time working with metal studs, building a hearth, etc. Overall, I am pleased with how it came out. Of course, there are a few things I wish I had done better, but that’s always the way when you’re cutting teeth on something new.

Harry and I spent a weekend doing the rough construction. The hearth and half wall are completely non-combustible; built out of metal studs and durock (a cement board product). For the half wall, Harry welded a metal post to ensure the corner of the wall would be sturdy. The tall narrow wall is built on top … Read More »

This is the fourth and final installment on recent house projects.

The heating system install finally finished in January. When the guys ripped out the old system they discovered a crack in the furnace (can you say carbon monoxide leak), this meant it not only needed to be replaced, it had to be replaced. Now with the old furnace gone, there is a tremendous amount of space in the basement. Harry and I will need to fill in the concrete were the furnace and water heater were. We’ll probably do that this spring.

In a previous post I complained about the boiler going out just before we went on vacation. This was due to a design flaw (or poor manufacture’s recommendations), either way Agway came out this week and we discuss possible remedies for the problem. … Read More »

This is installment three of four.

Once the old heating system had been removed from the basement, I had a clear shot at installing some new lights. The first light was going near the breaker panel and the light switch was going to be at the end of the loop. I came up with a creative solution for leaving the switch at the end of the run, and beginning with the light by the breaker panel. It involved using a combination of 12/3 + ground and 12/2 + ground wire. Harry is a master electrician, so I ran my idea by him first. It turns out being creative and thinking outside the box (while good in my day job) is not such a good idea when doing electrical work. He was concerned with it being … Read More »