Home Pics

Several friends and family members have been asking for some pics of our new home. The ones I've posted below don't show all the rooms - some of them are still serving as a catch-all for boxes and the kitchen wasn't presentable enough to be posted to the world. You can click on any of them for a super-big view...

This is the front of our house after I spent the morning working in the yard.

Our front 'formal' living roomThe formal dining room
The family room
Master bedroom.

Sprinkler Woes

This week I mowed the yard for the first time since buying our wonderful house. After I was done I laid down fertilizer and proceeded to water it in. I took the oportunity to watch the watering since normally it comes on in the early morning hours. As it worked its way to the side of the house, I noticed a nook that wasn't getting watered. I heard sprinklers working but nothing was getting wet. I peered over the neighbors fence and this is what I found.



Apparently the neighbors fence (presumably built sometime after our fence and sprinkler system were installed) is blocking the last two sprinklers in the line along the stone wall (indicated by the grey bar). Four times a week for 5 minutes I'm soaking the bottom of 6 feet of fencing.

The inspector never caught it because the sprinkler system was never tested. This was because the control box is located on the outside of the house and was locked, (the reason it was locked and on the outside the garage was because it served as a model home and people needed to adjust the settings without getting into the house.)

I haven't dug up the survey yet, but I'm pretty sure the fence is treading into my property.

A few co-workers pointed out that since it's my property, I have the right to tear it down. While true, I don't think that would be very neighborly. I suspect the easiest thing to do would be to moved the sprinkler line to my side of the fence.

Airport Adventures

Here is the promised post I made about the Apple Airport Express and the adventure I had getting it set up. The device itself is really impressive - follow the link and you'll see all the amazing stuff it can do. Unfortunately, Apple's documentation has always been severely lacking. I supose they write with Mac owners in mind - in which case it's a trivial matter - everything is truely plug and play. If you have a PC and third-party routers/modems, you're on your own. Fortunately, once you understand what's going on, it's really easy.

So here's the current setup: We have a cable modem that plugs into a Linksys Wireless-G router. The PC then plugs (note: plugs) into the router. This created a little hurdle because the PC itself isn't wireless and isn't configured in any way, shape, or form. We wanted to use the Airport in its "Airtunes" configuration to pipe music from the computer, across the house to a hall closet that holds the wires for our recessed speakers. Below is the closest picture I could find of the desired setup sans Apple products, of course.

I'll save you all the issues, websites, and hair-pulling I went through with the exception of saying that no documentation Apple provided helped. Here's what I ended up doing...

1. Install the software package that came with your Airport Express.
2. Plug the airport into a power outlet and then hard wire it to your router. If you find yourself short a network cable, you can do what I did and use the cable connecting the modem and router. Make sure you move the cable from the "Internet" (i.e. input) port to the number 2 slot on the router.
3. Run the "Airport Admin Utility." By default, it's at Start --> All Programs --> Airport --> Airport Admin Utility
4. You should now see the factory default name of your Airport Express under the "name" column. Select it and click the "Configure" button at the bottom right of the screen.
5. It may or may not ask for a password. I can't remember the first time.
6. You should now be looking at a series of tabs of properties you can set for the Airport. The first thing to do is click on the "Airport" tab and next to the "Wireless mode" select "Join an Existing Wireless Network (Wireless Client)
7. Click on the "Wireless Security" button to set up the encryption and password for your netowk. THis reminds that in trying to get all this figured out, I disabled encryption for our network! I need to fix that... I seem to recall there being an issue with WEP or WPA encryption. Once I get that solved, I'll make another post...
8. Enter the name of your network name in the field provided.
9. All the other proerties are moot for the setup we're trying to do except the last tab - Music. On there, you need to click on the boxes to "Enable AirTunes on this base station" and "Enable AirTunes over Ethernet." Be sure to give the "iTunes Speaker Name" something meaningful - this is what will be displayed in iTunes.
10. Once all this is done, you can click on the 'Update' button at the bottom of the window to save all your changes. When you do, the Airport will reset itself (indicated by the solid amber display light). Once done booting, the Airport will begin flashing an amber light indicating its searching for your network. After about ten blinks, it should turn a solid green. Congratulations! You can remove the wire connecting the router and Airport to verify that the signal is being sent wirelessly. Furhtermore, try opening iTunes and look for an additional display at the bottom of the window for output. By default, it should be set to 'My Computer.' Selecting your Airport name should take a second or two to synch up but then it should work great. When I tested it, I had headphones plugged into the Airport and directed iTunes to output to both the PC speakers and Airport. There was no desernable delay between the two.

Anyway, that's what it took to get my Airport working. I hope this helps someone!

Have home - will travel

For those that miss the reference, there is an OLD TV western called "Have Gun - Will Travel"

Today we closed on our first house! We signed the docs at 9, but couldn't pick up the keys until the seller signed (he wasn't showing up until 11:30) and the check cleared. To kill time, Casi and I went over to Southlake Town Square. I bought a Apple Airport Express, (I'll make a separate post about it here...) and then saw Evan Almighty. It was humorous but certainly not the funniest movie I've ever seen. I'd rate it as a renter. When we came out, it was raining (big surprise, right?) and after calling the realtor found out the seller STILL hadn't signed. It's like he didn't want our money or something... To kill more time, we saw Transformers. I wanted to be a movie hopper, but Cas played good girl. It was a better movie, but I'm afraid Hollywood has gotten to Transformers. They tried to make some funny moments in the movie with some really inappropriate material that had nothing to do with robotic aliens.

With the movie over, the rain gone, and it in mid-afternoon, we drove over to the Title Company, met Lorri (our realtor) and got the keys!

On the way home, we stopped by Best Buy and Radio Shack looking for an amplifier or receiver. I didn't find one I really liked. They had plenty, but they were just a lot more than what I was willing to pay.

I worked at getting the airport set up, (again... it's own post...) and now I'm ready to pack!

Hope everything is going well at work...

Thoughts on Cheese

First off, Casi has pointed out that 'cheese' is the new drug on the streets (see here). I'm not talking about that...

A small group of friends at work and I went to the company library today with the intent of finding a book that we could read and discuss. We ended up walking out with "Who Moved My Cheese" by Spencer Johnson. It's a very short read (30 to 45 minutes) told as a parable. The story centers around 4 creatures whose every waking moment is spent in the pursuit of cheese. They learn of a room within the maze where the cheese always seems to appear and begin to build their lives around it so much so that they are blind to the fact that there is less and less cheese appearing each day until eventually it stops appearing all together. The rest of the story is spent talking about how the creatures deal with this change. Some immediately pick up and move on. Some have a long internal debates. Some just sit, stuck on memories of the past, and presumably starve to death.

The explanation of the parable is obvious enough. Cheese is, "a metaphor for what we want to have in life, whether a job, a relationship, money, a big house, freedom, health, recognition, spiritual peace, or even an activity like jogging or golf." The maze is the place that we spend looking for it, although I would argue it is our lives since the creatures could not escape the maze. The creatures themselves represent us and how we adapt to change. Easy enough.

Despite its affirmation that we're in charge of our own happiness, and if we aren't getting our cheese we just need to gather enough self-will to pick up and move on, I didn't find any comfort in it.

As a Christian, I realized several things. To continue the metaphor the book began, there is Someone who has a top-down perspective of the maze. Someone who knows every turn and dead-end and knows every creature living in the maze by name. He placed each of them in the maze with purpose and intent and is the ultimate source of their cheese, even though they don't know it. His sole desire is to have a relationship (a friendship) with the creatures, for them to simply look up and see the smiling face looking back at them.

The creatures were not placed in the maze to spend their lives looking for cheese.

We as people spend our whole lives thinking that if we aren't happy, something is terribly wrong. If a relationship or a job or any situation is no longer fulfilling, we need to put our running shoes on and move on. How near-sighted and selfish is that! There are good things in life that don't immediately feel good. If we seek to be led, we need to stop looking at the path ahead and start looking up at The One looking back at you.

Maybe you're in a situation that you're not happy with. Maybe you've got a spouse you're not connecting with or a job that isn't fulfilling and you're longing for a change. Why not look at where you are and ask why have you've been brought here to this place. There might be blessings all around that you aren't seeing (and will never see) unless you look up.

Beginnings

Welcome to my blog! For three years I've learned about friends and family and gotten all my news from blogs. I figured it was time I join the fray.

I hope this site will become a place that I discuss all spheres of my life - paying special attention to record my observances on their intersections and unions.

For tonight, though, I'm off to bed. Cas and I have had a long week and we're very sleep deprived.