Digital Music Library

I have almost completed my first phase of going totally digital in my home.  I spent a few days last week ripping all of my CDs to MP3 format.  Well, like I said, I ripped almost all of my CDs.  I haven't gone through the Christmas CDs or my classical collection.

I used Windows Media Player to rip them at 320K, which is the highest setting it supports.

Why not use iTunes, you ask?  Well, I do have iTunes installed on the same computer, but I'm only using it to get music on and off of my iPod.  I like how WMP organizes the files, especially when it comes to album art.  With iTunes I see a file that claims to have the album art, but I don't know what format it's in.  With WMP there are actual JPEG files that get set as the folder image when browsing in Windows Explorer in "Thumbnails" view (like you see in the background of the picture above).

Plus, my ultimate goal is to get a Windows Media Center PC and extenders so that I'll have access to my media everywhere in the house, so I want to keep this as an all-Microsoft solution.  For the moment, though, I'll wait: the current CableCARD technology doesn't support "On Demand", yet.  Someday it will and my home media system will come to fruition.

In the meantime, my entire cabinet of CDs has been compressed down to one 500GB external USB hard drive.  It's a funny thing: now that I have my entire collection readily accessible I can't find anything to listen to!

Birds (but no Bees)

These birds have built a nest in a pot we have on our side door for the past several years. Actually, they may have been absent last year, but they're back this year. If you can tell me what kind they are, please do. Oh, and I say "birds", but you only see one in the video (shot with my phone). They take turns--the other one hangs out by the deck railing. I guess he (or she) is the lookout. Anyway, here goes:

This was the third video I shot in a span of about 5 minutes. I stood very still on the inside of the door. In the other two videos you see mostly pot but no bird. As they say, third time's a charm. I guess the bird got a little used to me by this time.

Moving Day!

No, we're not changing addresses.  However, I have officially moved into my new office in the basement as of Saturday!  There are still a few things that need tidying up--the main things being covers for all of the outlets and light switches.  But the office is in a state now where it can be used.

My thanks go out to my good friend Darren for his help (and his hand-truck) on Saturday moving the monster that is my desk.  THANKS DARREN!  My arms are still a little sore today (Monday--two days later!).

I also (finally) rearranged the new cable/phone modem and wireless router down in the utility room so that they are off the floor.  Eventually I'd like to get a nice enclosure to contain all the wiring endpoints--a patch panel of sorts--so that I can more easily configure which network outlets are active.  As for now, I still have a mess of cables in the utility room.  And I use the term "mess" in its technical definition.  :-)

Anyway, as a result of switching over to using the cable modem provided by Comcast (which came into our house after they decided to end their old phone service and we went with their Digital Voice phone service), I now have a spare cable modem.  Anyone out there want to buy a relatively new (~18 months old) Linksys cable modem?  I can provide a model number if you need it.  Make me an offer!

Basement is Nearly Finished

I had a day to work from home on my current project, and I actually worked a day in the basement for the first time! Granted, it was at our old kitchen table which is down there now, and not in my new office (the desk is still in the master bedroom), but the basement is pretty much usable now. Here's what's missing, in no particular order:

• Door knobs
• Lots of light bulbs, though I had one over the table to use (!)
• Toilet
• Bathroom vanity
• Network hookup (I had a great connection to my wireless router a couple floors up, though)
• Cable hookup
• Phone hookup (again--wireless to the rescue!)
• Wet bar (water lines and drain line are in place--no sink or counter, yet)
• Blinds (only need one for the office and one for the door--no other windows down there, thus the need for all those light bulbs!)

Let's see...that's about it for this phase. Later we'll convert the room Melissa calls the "Playroom" into what I call the "Theater". Much later, though...need to have kids which won't destroy the expensive electronics I'm planning for that room. In the meantime we may install a disco ball, just for fun! Must post pictures someday...I'm bad about that, even though my initial purpose for starting this blog was to "see how Picasa and Hello interact". I haven't used "Hello" for some time, especially since Blogger made it so easy to upload pictures directly to the blog. Happy 2008!

Drought Saying of the Day

As you may have heard on the news (I know if you've watched the Weather Channel they've mentioned this, and I know that the Weather Channel is national--except for Los Angeles where the weather never changes), we're in the middle of a severe drought in the Southeast. The governor of Georgia called for a mandated 10% reduction of water usage, and we recently got a letter from Fulton County (the county we live in, and the supplier of our drinking water) that if they couldn't acheive the 10% reduction through voluntary measures then they would financially penalize the people who were not achieving the 10% reduction. So we're doing our part--the kids take baths in much less water than they used to, and then we save the water to use on the plants (both inside and outside). But the best thing I've heard for saving water is a saying that I heard my mother-in-law say:

If it's yellow, let it mellow, If it's brown, flush it down!

I laughed out loud when I heard that one! I'm not sure where she heard it, so I can't give the appropriate attribution, so if any of my 3 regular blog readers know, please tell me!

It's Starting Again...

The grass is turning green and it's time to start mowing again. Soon it'll be twice a week that I'm out there on the John Deere cutting the grass. Don't get me wrong. I like taking care of the yard. Plus this year we bought a bagging attachment so that when the grass gets too tall to mulch then we can bag it (although my guess is that it'll be too tall to bag, as well--it'll keep clogging up the chute). It's just that I have a basement to finish and I don't need to be spending all that time out in the yard. [Can't wait to get that basement finished! I'll post some pictures when I have some.]

New Paint!

No, not me--the house! :-)

We've lived here for the past 4 years (my how time flies!), and the house still had the original paint that the painters put on. And it showed!

We had originally gotten quotes about a year and a half ago, but didn't have the money at the time to get-er-done. Well, I don't care what people say about tax refunds being an interest-free loan to the government, but I was happy to receive one large enough this year to be able to get the house painted!

So we changed the colors a bit. The stucco on the front is now more brown (I would call the old color "pinkish", but Melissa would disagree with me), and it is the same color as the siding on the back. (The siding on the back was sort of a taupe color.)

The front door used to be black, but Melissa saw some paint combinations in the paint store and decided that she liked this "cherry" color. I like it, too, but we both think that at least one more coat is needed.

We had our old house painted once while we were there--I had forgotten just how much newer a house looks with a fresh coat of paint!