Herein lies an update.

Working on family DVDs

I've been trying to spend some time working on some DVDs of family videos. Previously, I had some made up of the years before Maya was born and shortly after Maya was born. Lucy was feeling a bit left out and asked if I'd make a DVD that included footage of her, so I jumped ahead to a few months before Lucy was born.

I just finished that DVD. June 2000 - Dec 20, 2000: 4.1 GB of DVD video. I separate each event into its own title on the DVD and produce a menu that lets you skip to a specific event/title or play all. Each event is preceded by a CG title sequence.

Most of the time, I don't really edit much out of the video, but some of the longer ones, I cut up extensively. For example, there was a trip to the zoo in this DVD I just finished. I think my edits make it a lot more fun to watch.

It seems the only time I ever have to work on any of this stuff is on the weekends... so I try to do as much as I can.

Home improvements and basement

Now that Autumn is fully upon us, I have begun transfering my limited home improvement skills from the yard to the interior of the house.

A couple weekends ago, I put low-voltage boxes and keystone jacks in the walls of our family room to make the installation of our home theater system more attractive and professional. I also have three network cables coming up behind the TV. One is for a videophone Christine brings home from work. I'm thinking about building a media PC so I can watch video I download on the TV.

We've been doing some planning in the basement as well. We decided to cover up one of the doorways for my office, so I got that framed this weekend and I've got a sheet of wallboard ready to go up there.

I messed something electrical up in the lighting circuit for the office -- only two of the four recessed can lights would come on when I turned the circuit on. I finally got a tester and figured out where the problem was. I had to cut a hole in the ceiling and get into the junction box by the second light and re-connect the leads going into one of the wire nuts and wrap it good.

I don't know if it's possible, but I'm hoping we can at least have two bedrooms done in the basement by Christmas. Right now, it's looking like we're going to move the plumbing for the bathroom in the basement and that means cutting up the cement floor: not fun. The way it's plumbed right now, however, imposes some very undesireable limitations on what we can do. For one thing, we have to install a shower if we keep the current plumbing. There just simply isn't enough room for a tub. By relocating the drains, we'll be able to have a tub, a bigger bathroom, and more.

Trailering

Because we knew we were going to be doing more construction work in the basement, we'd been thinking of either picking up a beat-up pickup truck or a trailer to pull behind the Subaru. About two months ago, someone was selling a small utility trailer nearby and I bought it. Since then, I've been gathering all the necessary hardware to hitch it up to the car. It's been quite a learning experience for me.

I pulled the trailer down to my parents' today without the electrical hooked up to it. I still need to replace the trailer-side connector for that and finish connecting the wiring harness on the car side.

Too busy for politics?

I have been so busy the last couple of weeks, I haven't had much time to listen to talk radio or download and listen to MP3s of the Rush Limbaugh show (I'm a Rush 24/7 member). I don't feel too bad about it, though. From what I have gathered, most of the chatter has been about the Harriet Miers nomination, which I don't really care that much about. I'd be fine if she had gone through and was confirmed. I'm fine with Bush nominating someone else. It seemed to me the people on the right who didn't like her were all Ivy League legal snobs (i.e. Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, etc.) Rush Limbaugh didn't have anything bad to say about Miers, specifically. He only thought the president did an unnecessary thing by nominating a stealth candidate for the Supreme Court when the GOP is in so much power -- that it makes the administration look weak.

It's all moot now, though, right?

I did, however, buy a somewhat politically-oriented book: Millionaire Republican : Why Rich Republicans Get Rich--and How You Can Too!. I'm about halfway through it and enjoying it. It's very easy reading and despite the fact the author is quite obnoxious, it contains some very compelling information.