Category: Uncategorized

Building furniture 😀

I turned these:

Into this:

When we bought this house, it had thick, blue carpet everywhere. The previous owners had cats, and all of us are allergic to some degree so we had to pull it all. We replaced the carpet on the main floor with Pergo XP flooring (because toddler and TACTICAL DOG). A coworker’s husband installed the flooring and also put in some beautiful stairs:

The old stairs were, according to him, “paint grade” and unsuitable for staining so he pulled them out. I saved them for a later project which ended up being this entertainment center.

The new house has a living room on the main floor and a theater room upstairs, whereas the old house just had one huge room on the main floor. We put all the entertainment center stuff from the old house in the theater room and decided after a couple of months of searching that I was just going to have to build one. The problem we were running into was that we couldn’t find one that fit in the space available and could hold the Home Theater PC I built last year*.

Each of the sides and shelves are made from three of the toekicks from the stairs. I had to shave about 3/4″ from each side to get rid of glue and to make them straight. I then joined them with dowels.

Let’s see so there were 6 panels made of 3 toekicks which each required 3 cuts. That’s 54 separate cuts. Then the dowel joining was three dowels per. So that’s 6 dowels per panel. That’s 12 holes that had to be drilled. Again, 6 panels so that’s 48 precision holes.

That was a pain in the ass. Bad choice for a first project.

The top was just two of the stair treads cut to length and merely glued together. Easy.

I assembled the thing with glue and the nailgun I just bought because I was fed up with dowels by that point.

Oh, and I did about a million coats of paint and primer, plus sanding.

It was a big project. I’m glad I did it because I learned a lot. I’ve already started on my second project and after working on it for about 3 hours it already looks like this:

I cheated this time by having Lowe’s make all the cuts for me and using a Kreg K4 Jig to join them. It needs more work but it’s going a lot faster and this time I’m going to go with stain instead of paint.

*The HTPC can’t go in the theater room because the room was finished about 10 years after the house was built and isn’t tied into the HVAC system. It uses a PTHP that is either On or Off, so it effectively has no climate controls.

Short of it is that random person emailed Larry Correia telling him that he should push his publisher to pressure Amazon to stop selling books by a now dead member of Al Qaeda.  Larry responds by going on a rant about the first amendment.

I think it’s the proper response.

By the way, if you haven’t already read his Monster Hunter International or Grimnoir Chronicles books, I highly recommend them.  Probably will never be considered high literature, but very fun reads.

Man decides to break into the local Masonic Lodge in the middle of the afternoon in front of a restaurant full of people.  Gets attacked by K-9 units and is going to jail (after the hospital stay from the dog bites) for his troubles.

linky

Sadly, it appears it may have been due to natural causes. I can hope his medical condition was something that was long and painful, but I’m not optimistic. I’d also be okay with “shivved” or “beaten to death.”

He was on death row for almost as long as my friends were alive. He’s also the reason I’m such a strong advocate for self defense.

I know a bunch of you don’t particularly like Jon Stewart due to his view on gun control, and his generally leftest views, but I think he hit it out of the park last night talking about the NSA.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W9hWJROeRs&w=420&h=315]

Those whose jobs it is to oversee the NSA are either claiming “oh… we didn’t know” (either complete BS, or complete failure to do their jobs), or, in the case of the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, not only doesn’t believe that there’s not a problem, but, and I quote, believes that “you can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy was violated.”  Yes.  I looked up the context.  He actually believes that you didn’t do anything wrong if you don’t get caught.

By the way, Jon does blame both sides of the aisle for this one.

Oh… and his explanation of Obama’s reaction to all of this?  You have to go back to two days ago for that bit.  Apparently nobody tells Obama anything.

Went to the gun show with oddball. Ammo retailers had ammo at their normal “Internet +25%” prices. I think I saw two bricks of .22lr, both less than $60.

Towards the end of the show, there was a guy behind a table furiously trying to sell oddball one of these, with a forward vert grip installed. Pistol included. Only $850! Personal Sale! No paperwork! (And bonus points to the guy for suggesting that you could convert your pistol to a machine pistol, legally, just by getting a permit!)

As we walked away, shaking our heads, we came across someone selling the carbine version only two tables away. Sigh. Thankfully they only had a bluegun installed in it.

Watched Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters which is as bad as you’d expect, but not worse. I really liked that everyone had revolvers and cased ammo in the 1300s. Oh and the semi-auto shotgun and the full-auto crossbow.

Quote of the weekend goes to mrs wizardpc who said to me, “Oh yeah? Well how much do you know about the anatomy of a troll, hmmmmmm?”

And I’m almost done with the entertainment center I’ve been building out of our old stairs for the last, oh, 4 months. Never using reclaimed wood again. Also, need moar wood clamps! Next piece should be a little easier now that I sprang for a Kreg Jig

I also might be getting a new rifle soon-ish. Stay tuned.

I would like to thank this gentleman for demonstrating why you don’t look down the barrel of a gun.  Especially immediately after a failure to fire.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjDu5zwa4rM&w=560&h=315]

Don’t worry, no blood and gore.  Just an amazing example of a hang fire.

*edit* embedded video link fixed.

Last week I unofficially officially accepted a new position at work. It takes several weeks for the HR process to churn, but yesterday I started attending meetings for the new gig.

I still am doing all the stuff for the old gig, too.

This basically means I’ll be doing two jobs for the next few weeks. I’m out of gun porn pics and don’t have any range dates scheduled, and with the TN Legislature out of session until 2014 I’m basically out of blog fodder.

BBIAB.

Because it’s coming.

For folks who can get more than one 28-hour-per-week part time job (that’s coming, too, you know), you’re going to find people that make up to $62,000 and people that make more than $77,000*. There won’t be anyone between those numbers.

What will end up happening is that $62,000 will be a ceiling. Any more than that, and take home pay effectively goes down. You’d need a 25% raise, at the very beginning of the year, to offset the loss of the subsidy.

Which will need a “fix” at some point in the future, I’m sure.

*2014 maximum income for a subsidy is $62,040. The cheapest Obamacare Approved plan is $15,000.