Through The Mist Darkly

When I saw this post from Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing for a ergonomic stand, I was excited because trying to use a laptop in an economy seat is pretty well impossible. So off I went to check it out. Everything looked good until I went to the checkout only to see these shipping costs:

FedEx: Ground: $31.64
FedEx: International Economy: $71.03
FedEx: International Priority: $79.63
UPS: Worldwide Expedited: $88.59
UPS: Worldwide Express: $106.84

A $20 item that costs, at the least, $32 to ship? Aaah, no thanks.

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I’ve just finished reading “The Weather Makers” by Tim Flannery, a sober look at how our dependence on fossil fuel is driving us to a point of no return as CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise to dangerous levels.

One of Flannery’s suggestions to reverse this trend is to take another hard look at nuclear power so it was very interesting to run across this article from The Washington Post. Written by Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, it outlines the reasons behind his contention that the environmental movement needs to rethink it’s opposition.

Mr. Moore cites this chilling fact:

More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions — or nearly 10 percent of global emissions — of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.

Moore is not blind to the costs and real, but diminished, dangers of nuclear power generation but makes the case that the alternative - increased CO2 emissions - are both more expensive and catastrophic in the long run.

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If you’re going to protest, why not be clever about it?

(Via Dvorak Uncenscored)

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A very imaginative short movie composed entirely of the stickfigure icongraphs seen in every airport in the world. Created by Iain Anderson.

Found over at BoingBoing.

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We’re 1/2 way through the kitchen reno and it’s time to start sharing the photographic evidence.

Where we started. The original cabinets (with doors painted white in a failed attempt to tart the place up). The countertop was replaced a few years ago and why we chose white is beyond me. Impossible to keep clean.

All the cabinets gone in a frenzy of demolition. Amazing how big the room looked at this point. Interesting echos too.

Now it’s starting to take shape! The cabinets are in. The over-the-stove microwave/exhaust fan is installed and working. Great little unit; when you start the fan, the whole exhaust unit slides out. The gas range has been reconnected and moved back into place and the refridgerator is finally out of the dining room. Unfortunately, we won’t have a sink until the granite countertop arrives on the 1st of May so we just dropped the old countertop back in place so we would at least have a workarea.

Counterops and paint still to come. At least we’re on the plus side.

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Splurged a little and got this neat new toy yesterday. It’s called a SqueezeBox and it comes from Slim Devices. It allows you to connect to a number of different music sources wirelessly. Right now, it’s picking up Whole Wheat Radio but it can also link to the music on your computer, Pandora or other sources.

You can connect it to a sound system or to headphones or powered speakers and the setup took all of 5 minutes!

This is probably the most functional item I’ve come across in years! If you’re a music junkie and would love to easily access your tunes from anywhere in the house, you owe it to yourself to take a really good look at the SqueezeBox.

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No one has ever accused me of being good with my hands. I have about as much mastery over hand and power tools as I do over my golf clubs. In other words, not much.

Last year we decided that 2006 would be the year that the kitchen gets remodeled. Knowing my skill level, the decision to have it professionally done was simple. Our local Home Depot was chosen to handle the project and numerous design meetings ensued followed by the outlay of a large amount of money. A week ago the work started.

Since last Thursday the following has taken place:

• the old kitchen cabinets were leveled in a fury of demolition.
• - new outlets for a built-in dishwasher and under cabinet lighting were installed
• - the fuse box was replaced by a modern circuit breaker panel (this included 9 hours without power last Saturday)
• - 28 cartons of new kitchen cabinets arrived from Ohio and took up residence in our living room
• - the kitchen and entry way floors were tiled and grouted. This 3 day project required gymnastics to get in the house, into the living room and up the stairs to the bedrooms
• - the delivery of a new dishwasher and combination microwave/range hood
• - a workout for the garbageman

Jan and I have been living with a fridge in the dining room, coffeemaker on the dining room table and a lot of take-out food. The cats go from abject terror to curiosity everyday. The neighbours are getting pissed off by the amount of traffic on the street - from tradespeople to semi-trailers delivering items.

Today, the installers arrive to move the new cabinets in. Then we wait 2-3 weeks for the granite countertops to arrive. Once they’re installed, we still need to have the backsplash tiled and the electrical work finished. Since we seem to love chaos we’re going to continue right along and have the living and dining room carpet ripped up and replaced by laminate flooring. Finally, paint the entire house including the ceilings.

I’ve been documenting the entire process and I’ll post the pictures as we get closer to the end.

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I received an email today from Bob Bogash who is one of the people directly involved with the move of the Lockheed Super Constellation from Toronto to Seattle. He’s posted what he calls “The Real Story” about this project, prompted in some part by my post from a couple of weeks back.

It’s well worth the read and I thank Bob for sending me the link.

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