Farewell to Phil Bolger

Phil Bolger, who designed 680 boats, including the Suprise from Master and Commander and the boat I own, a Bobcat, died yesterday.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/punews/local_story_145224017.html

Thinking of my reading of Eisenstein, I want to say that Phil made the world a more beautiful place, which is the best any of us can do.

New centerboard (part 5)

We know a family with 2 homeschooled boys; the older was really interested in working on the boat with me, so we invited them over. I showed him the work and he started planing the bevel. He ended up doing the rest of the side I had started. Later I tried clamping the centerboard on to the work bench in the garage and found that I could plane better there than on sawhorses. I beveled unevenly on purpose. The low point on the centerboard is often the first thing to hit bottom, so I left it thick for strength. (Perhaps a little metal reinforcement would be good here?). I also left it thick around the hook. You can see this in the path of stripes.

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

When the centerboard is up, it is held in place with a fid.

For the fid there are 3 holes in the centerboard. One is in the full up position, for beaching, trailering, shoals, etc. I've never messed with centerboard positioning very much, but when I have an easy-to-move centerboard, I will have a chance to experiment. I need the holes to be big enough for a 1/2" fid, but I don't have a 9/16" bit. I do have a 5/8" bit (uggh, these fractions are confusing!), but that hole seemed way to big. I ended up drilling with my 1/2" bit, and then wiggling the bit around to make it a little larger. Then I got the advice to put a couple thick layers of epoxy on the centerboard before I paint it, so I figured I should make the holes bigger now, so the epoxy doesn't make them too small. I drilled to 5/8" afterwards. (Yes, the bit kept jamming; it sucked.)

I drilled a 1" hole to hold the stopper knot for the centerboard lanyard, and then a 5/16" hole from the edge to the 1" hole to put the lanyard through. I practiced doing this a couple times on a piece of scrap plywood, and I'm glad, because it's hard to do well. The drill wants to drop to a softer ply, would would make the hole off-center. An awl + a very tiny pilot hold did the trick. Even so, it's hard to drill through the edge of a board and keep it perfectly centered. I was a little off when I came out in to the 1" hole, but not by much. (And it's better than the original centerboard's lanyard hole, so I'm happy with that.) If I ever do this again, I will look in to a jig.

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

The plans call for a metal plate around the hook to reinforce it. It says to use 1/8" brass plates, at 3" x 5 1/2". I wasn't sure if I could pull off the old plates without damaging them. The plans say to screw them in place, but the old ones were just epoxied in. Turns out that made them really easy to remove: a prybar under one end and they popped right out. (The alternative was to buy new brass from Amazon; $25 for a 12" square sheet, free shipping with Amazon prime, but without a bandsaw it might be hard to cut.)

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

Using a 1/4" bit to provide a starting hole, I used my grandfather-in-law's J.C. Penny jigsaw to cut around the lead sink weight in the old centerboard. Now there's no going back! The lead is held in place with small nails or screws, but the jigsaw only hesitated at these. After cutting 2 1/2 sides, I was able to pry the rest of it out. Wow, it's heavy! Duh. 11 lbs. (The alternative was to buy lead on Amazon, which I was surprised to find.) Now the old centerboard is really light. I suspect the wood I'm using is denser than they old centerboard, so I may not need as much lead to sink it. Hmmm.

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

While cleaning up I spilled the big bin of legos right in the sawdust pile. I don't really want glue, wood, and and metal shavings on the toys that my kids like to put in their mouths, so I hauled the legos inside for a washing. There are piles and bins of drying legos all over the kitchent.

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

The brass plates are supposed to be set in the plywood. Not flush, but not on top, either. Without that, the brass would scrape the inside of the centerboard trunk. Cut flush would take 1/4" out of the 3/4" plywood (which is really more like 5/8" thick) and leave it weak at the point where strenght matters most.

I bought some chisels and a small mallet, and experimented with cutting a 1/16"-ish deep hole in my scrap plywood. I think it will be fine. However, these chisels aren't as sharp as they could be, so I'll spend some time on the sharpening plates before I cut the holes.

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

I think I will use both screws and some Gorilla Glue to hold the brass reinforcement plates in place. Belt-and-suspenders, I know. But better to make it easy to remove in the future + more secure now. I brought some #10 3/4" brass screws (like metals, right?) and experimented with drilling a hole in the brass for them. I also beveled the edges of the brass a little, to make the transition to the plywood fairer.

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

I am worried that the screw heads sticking out would focus the force of the moving centerboard and gouge the centerboard trunk. I plan to countersink the screws, but again, if I sink them too deeply, I'll loose the strenght of the brass. My plan is to sink them 1/16" in, leaving 1/2 the thickness of the brass plate under the screw, and only a little bit of screw head sticking out. Another reason I'm planning to use Gorillage Glue - to alleviate the stress on the screw holes.

I plan to cut the slots for the brass plates to be a snug fit, which should also help.

From Jay Bazuzi's personal blog

The lead pouring plan is coming together. I decided not to go for an asbestos plate to back up the hold, instead using a piece of scrap plywood. I will do a test pour in a scrap piece, so I can develop my lead casting skills, and then do it for real. The only thing I'm missing right now is the propane tank, and a friend said he'll loan me his.

Updated TODO list:

- Clean up the cuts that went off the line
- Draw and cut the curve at the top
- Plane down the leading and trailing edges
- Cut a hole and pour in a lead sink weight (first time pouring lead!)
- Cut a gap for the pivot
- Prepare 1/8" sheet brass as pivot hole reinforcement (in progress)
- Drill 5 holes for fid and lanyard (ooh, the easy part)
- Epoxy and paint
- Install centerboard & lanyard
- Put boat back on trailer

Eisenstein on school

Check out this short video of Eisenstein. It's part 2 of 3, but it stans well on its own.

New centerboard (part 4)

Used a plane to smooth the curves around the centerboard, followed by some 80 grit orbital sanding.

One of the steps is to bevel the leading and trailing wet edges, to reduce friction and increase lift. I started to do that along the bottom edge (which is the leading edge when the board is down).

I then realized I needed to cut the hook in so I would know where to stop bevelling. I want to keep plenty of wood in place there, to keep it strong. I used a 5/8" drill bit to shape the main pivot point, and the circular saw to cut the rest of the slot. A 4-in-hand file/rasp to round the edges and smooth the transition between the hole and the straight cuts.

I also want to leave the lowest point a little thicker, since it gets beat up a lot when grounding, beaching, launching, or loading.

As you can see in the picture, the colors of the plys help to make the bevel even. I'm not trying to create a scarf joint, so perfection isn't required, but it's a good place to practice. Ideally the stripes are straight / parallel / equal width. There are 12 plies in this 3/4" sheet (although it's actually slightly less than 3/4"). The outer plies (the veneer) are thinner than the others. My plan is to bevel 4 plies worth, leaving the middle 4 plies intact (although maybe I will round the transition from the bevel to the middle section).

I've also been shopping for lead-pouring equipment. So far I have:

• small cast-iron pan as crucible (thrift store)
• long metal spoon to scoop impurities (thrift store)
• weed burner / valve / hose / regulator to melt the lead (Marine Exchange)
• lead (gonna pull it out of the old centerboard)

Still need:

• asbestos tile
• maybe a coffee can as an alternate crucible
• heat-proof gloves
• tongs
• propane tank

Updated TODO list:

- Clean up the cuts that went off the line

- Draw and cut the curve at the top

- Plane down the leading and trailing edges (in progress)

- Cut a hole and pour in a lead sink weight (first time pouring lead)

- Cut a gap for the pivot

- Cut some 1/8" sheet metal to reinforce the pivot (will try to reuse the old one)

- Drill 5 holes (ooh, the easy part)

- Paint (no epoxy)

- Install centerboard

- Put boat back on trailer.

The Ascent of Humanity

I'm reading another book by Charles Eisenstein, The Ascent of Humanity. It's very slow going. I read a section and have to take a break to chew the words. It's amazing. It has taken me 2 weeks to read 2 chapters.

I have some quotes to share:

Thanks to god Technology, we will leave behind all vestiges of mortality and enter a realm of without toil or travail and beyond death and pain.

This is a message we seem to hear a lot. Yesterday I heard it from the cashier at the cash register. She pointed to the way that most money is electronic today, and that this is an example of a trend to a virtual life (which, when complete, presumably mimics real life exactly?)

One thing I like about this quote a lot is that if you remove "Thanks to god Technology", it sounds like a message we're used to hearing from many religions. That suggests that science and technology is a religion for us today.

Next quote, when discussing the way that language is used to separate the words from the speaker:

The goal would seem to be to pretend that the words had no human author at all, existing purely as objective facts. Indeed, use of the first person is considered bad from in academic writing - a convention the author of the present work finds ridiculous!

How witty.

Bad sign on the bus

I was in Seattle taking the city bus to Adventuress. There was a sign that said:

• Metro has provided 3 billion rides since beginning operation in 1973!
• Thank you for helping Metro reduce traffic, congestion, improve air quality and save you money.
• You're one in a billion 3 billion!

I know that the phrase "one in a million" generally means "you're more special than the rest of the members of a set of a million people", but here it means "you're lost in the crowd". Doh.

New centerboard (part 3)

Made some progress on the centerboard today.

The big 41" arc had a few high spots, which I brought down 1/8" at a time.

Two of the corners are rounded with 3" radius. Marked that line and made 3 straight cuts to get closer to that curve. My plan is to use the new plane to round it out. (I just realized that my jigsaw has an attachment that lets you do fixed-raidus curves. Oops!)

Had Julie the artist pick a curve for the top, and made 3 cuts to approximate that, too.

All the cutting was with the circular saw.

Here's where things stand:

New centerboard (part 2)

Got a Stanley 118 low-angle block plane on ebay, $35 shipped. I read this was a good one, and I needed something that could plane end grain on plywood.

I set myself up with the "scary sharp" system (wet-dry sandpaper, cheap ceramic tiles, and a honing guide). By the end the surfaces of the blade were mirror-reflective (although slightly distorted).

Here's a pic of the old centerboard and new one.

Patterns of behavior and the subconcious

Some quotes from Yoga of Eating, ch 13 - Dieting and Self-Acceptance, which got me thinking.

[Y]our body shape is integral to your current pattern of being. It's your body's proper and appropriate response to how you live and who you are.

and

If the body-soul has decided that obesity is the appropriate response to a given set of psychological, spiritual, and physical conditions, it will use whatever mechanisms are necessary to achieve this state.

So, if you decide to make some change in your life to reduce your weight (like cutting out carbohydrates), your body may respond with increased appetite, aversion to exercise, or reduced metabolism. 

What's interesting to me about this is not what it says about dieting and weight loss, but what I can learn about my deep unmet needs and fears and wounds and how to heal them.

I think of the choices I have made which have lead to my current body shape. I didn't overeat just once, and suddenly get fat. I did it over, and over again. I was proud of my reputation for someone who eats a lot of food. I also have eaten many, many sweet foods. I no longer eat Hostess, but that doesn't stop me from consuming plenty of sugar. As a teen I would eat Betty Crocker frosting straight from the tub. 

There's more to this than just "here's how I ate and got fat". Perhaps a pattern of behavior like this is indicative of an unmet need that the "body-soul" is trying to fulfill. That means our habits can be a tool for understanding the subconscious. Let's look at some examples from my life:

I think I wish to be healthy and attractive and fit, but somehow that hasn't stopped me consistently making decisions that took me away from those ideal. Why is it?

I think of all the times I could have ridden my bicycle somewhere, when the weather was fine, and I had enough energy, and I had enough time, and the ride was quite doable, and somehow I talked myself out of it. Why?

I'm not just fat: I am also terribly inflexible. I can't come anywhere close to touching my toes, legs straight. This is inconvenient a lot of the time, but that hasn't motivated me to stretch regularly. Why don't I stretch?

I also have pretty bad posture. I carry my head well forward of my shoulders. This means pain in my head, neck, shoulders, and back, and sometimes secondary pain in other parts of my body. Why don't I hold myself with good posture?

There's some reason I have made these decisions this way, consistently, for so many years. This isn't just about discipline or habits or not knowing that I was harming myself or not knowing a better way to do things. There's a reason I have stuck to these patterns of behavior that goes beyond such things. 

It seems clear to me that this is the work of my subconscious (cue ominous music). There's some unmet need behind these patterns of behavior. They can give me a starting point for digging in to my deeper self to discover those unmet needs and maybe find some healing.

I don't think I can group "overeating" and "overweight" in to the same behavior pattern. When researching food issues recently, I came across a story of a woman who would binge on food, and then work out excessively to burn the extra calories, so she could stay thin. This person had one issue that motivated the overeating, and another that motivated her to burn it off.

A friend used to binge and then go on strict diets to keep her weight down. She had one issue that motivated the eating, and another that motivated the dieting. Her life coach encouraged her to stop the diets. She promptly gained a lot of weight, and she seems to be a much happier person, having let go of that harsh treatment of herself. I think her thin shape was an expression of her self-loathing, and her fat shape is an expression of her love for herself and her joy in life. 

I talked about harmful behaviors above, but this applies to all my consistent patterns of behavior, including the ones I like. Digging in to those can help me understand myself in ways that I want to be careful not to change.

In Harville Hendrix's Getting the Love you want he hits on a similar notion when he says that your spouse's consistent complaints about your are likely to lead you to childhood wounds and your adaptations to those wounds. He's right, but you can go further and look at all consistent observations, from your spouse, friends, coworkers, family, and self.

Take a look at how you live your life. What are the things you do a certain way, consistently? Why?

Tonight on FOX

Episode 1 of Dancing with the Stars of Joss Whedon Shows (originally aired second-to-last): Sweet vs. Summer Glau.

New centerboard (part 1)

My boat (12' Bolger-designed plywood catboat, called a Bobcat or Tinycat) has centerboard trouble. It sticks badly, and I have to work hard to push it down and pull it back up.

Getting it out is a bit funny: you have to pull it out of the bottom of the boat. The boat is in the 400-500lb range, so getting it off the trailer, on to the ground, and rolled over is not something I can do solo! I finally got some friends over and 4 of us were able to lift the boat, roll it on to its side, and pull the old centerboard out.

My first plan was to use an orbital sander to lower the high spots, put a layer of fresh paint on it, and put it back in. Progress was slow at first, so I bought lower, and then still lower grit sandpaper. I then found that one side had been epoxied. I think that means the other side got soaked, and the board warped from the uneven wetness. I also did some measuring and found that the centerboard is about 1/8" thicker than specified in the plans. I decided to go for a new centerboard.

Original plans suggest laminating 2 or 3 layers of 3/8" or 1/4" plywood to make a 3/4" centerboard. I also want to make a new rudder at some point, and it's laminated to 1 1/2" (6 layers of 1/4"!). Instead I bought a single 8' x 4' sheet of 3/4" marine plywood at Edensaw Woods for $120. (I bought it with all 3 kids in tow, and we strapped it to the top of the minivan. Home boat building, yeah!)

Plenty of things stopped me from attacking the new centerboard, including lots of uncertainty about how to do it. I spent a while trying to cut and plane a small piece off the corner of the plywood, just for practice, and did learn that working with 3/4" plywood is hard work.

I eventually read some thoughts about overcoming procrastination with action, and decided to get cutting. I placed the old centerboard on the plywood & traced a line. Then I attacked it with my small cordless circular saw (not quite powerful enough, and won't cut a curve) and my grand-father-in-law's old J. C. Penny jigsaw, which will cut a curve but slowly, and it likes to splinter the veneer as it goes. I also decided to curve (a 4" semi-circle) the top point of the centerboard, instead of cutting it straight like on the plans. I think it'll look nice. (Maybe I'll discover why it was specified to be straight.)

It took 3 sessions of cutting, but today I finally finished separating the new centerboard from the rest of the sheet. What's left:

- Clean up the cuts that went off the line

- Draw and cut the curve at the top

- Plane down the leading and trailing edges (need a low-angle plane)

- Cut a hole and pour in a lead sink weight (first time pouring lead)

- Cut a gap for the pivot

- Cut some 1/8" sheet metal to reinforce the pivot

- Drill 5 holes (ooh, the easy part)

- Paint (no epoxy)

- Install centerboard

- Put boat back on trailer.

What I really want

Continuing on thoughts from Transformational Weight Loss.

Last night at dinner I stopped in the middle of the meal to get a drink of water. While standing at the sink I asked myself "do I want to eat another serving?" I noticed that I was hunched over, and corrected my posture. Immediately the pressure in my stomache became uncomfortable. I realized that I was holding myself in a hunched position to avoid the discomfort of being so full, and to make it possible to eat a little more. I decided not to eat more at that time.

Later I made a quick run to Safeway for some essentials. We usually buy our groceries at a food coop, so the Safeway is always a bit of culture shock for me. It's enormous; there are so many cashiers; there is a lot of non-food things, like school suppies and motor oil.

There are also a ton of candy / desert / junk items, like soda, cookies, cakes, pies, chips, etc. Safeway's cakes look pretty good, and they kept catching my eye. I was tempted to buy one, but had some reservations. I want to reduce my body fat, and a cake probably makes that harder, but I'm trying to follow Eisenstein's rule of "eat what I want" instead of "eat what I think I'm supposed to eat". I was also afraid that if I brought it home, the kids would wolf it down, and I don't want them eating that junk. "Protecting" them by eating it in secret seemed like a really bad idea, just because eating in secret is a warning sign for me, and I didn't like the hipocrasy of giving a cake to myself but not to them.

I decided to follow my true desire, if I could hear it. I asked myself "what do I really want right now?" I tried imaging eating different things, etc., to see what message my body would send about my needs. I immediately had the answer: "I want my back to stop hurting". I stretched a little right there, went home, and took some ibuprofen. No cake.

I had been unaware of that back pain the whole time. Ignoring pain is something I've gotten good at, and I want that to change.

The pain is telling me something more than "take ibuprofen". It's saying something like "sitting that way is harmful" or "these muscles want to be stronger". Unfortunately I'm suffering from a long, slow chest cold right now, so there's not a whole lot I can do about it right now, but I'm keeping the message in mind until I feel better.

Fearing the end of addiction

I few years ago I read The Yoga of Eating by Charles Eisenstein. Every time I read something he writes, it resonates with me. He is able to see clearly and then tell us what he sees. I just finished another book of his, Transformational Weight Loss, which I sometimes call Yoga of Eating II: More Yoga of Eating.

I was trying to explain a tenet to Reid, now 7 years old:

When you eat, your body sends a message about whether this is a food you need right now. You can trust this message. The thing I've gotten away from is being able to hear this message. You can probably hear this message more clearly than I can, because I have more practice not listening to it.

When you eat what your body doesn't need, if you hear the message clearly, you will not like the taste of the food.

He asked me if that meant that he might eat some cotton candy and not like it. I gave him a simple "yes", but realized that I had a deep fear of that happening. I was afraid of the possibility of junk food not tasting good, of comfort food not providing comfort. As I thought about it further, I found that I've had that fear for a long time, but hadn't been aware of it before. When I read The Yoga of Eating and tried to put what I learned in to practice, I think this fear blocked me, but I didn't know it at the time.

As I tried to understand the fear, I realized I had fully faced it once before: when I was thinking about quitting smoking. It went like this: I knew the powerful desire I would feel when I went too long without a cigarette, since I experienced it every day. Every minute the craving gets stronger, the misery gets more intense, and it just continues. Whenever something prevented me from getting my fix (say, being in an airplane), it was very stressful. When I considered the possibility of quitting smoking, my subconscious didn't register it as "Ahh, freedom from that dependency and an end of the misery of craving", but as "I will never be able to satisfy that desire, and the misery will increase forever". Instead of hope, I had despair. I had to recognize that fear before I could actually quit. I was entirely successful, and haven't smoked for 9 years.

I know that I use food as a distraction, from anger, boredom, loneliness, or physical pain. (For some people, fatigue goes on the list, but I use a computer for that one.) I am so used to doing this that I usually don't realize it, and just think "I am hungry". The other day I overate and the feeling was so uncomfortable I kept thinking I wanted a snack, because the flavor would distract me from the discomfort. Silly, huh?

Anyway, when I consider the possibility of hearing my body's true messages about food, and that I might try to eat a cookie or a pizza or whatever and not enjoy the flavor (because I don't need the nutrition), that idea is really scary. My fear is that I will want a distraction from something, and food just won't work. I'll be stuck with the discomfort, unable to divert my attention, because I don't like cookies all of a sudden.

I want to get to the bottom of this.

Bread log

I have been experimenting with sourdough breads, with limited success.  Most of the breads have been edible; one even tasted good; none have had a pleasant texture.

I'm making it hard on myself.  I'm using a sourdough starter from wild cultures I harvested in my kitchen.  No commercial yeast.  The flour is whole wheat.  No white flour.  No baking soda or other tricks.  I also don't like to measure.

I want to write down my most recent attempt, so if it's successful I can work from it.

• 3/4 C starter
• 3/4 C water
• 2 1/3 T olive oil
• 1 1/2 T honey
• 1 1/4 t salt
• 2 2 /3 C flour

Neaded for 5 minutes.  Rested for 5 minutes.  When I came back, it was really springy.  Neaded for 5 more minutes, at which point it was no longer springy.  

Covered in olive oil, back in the mixing bowl, left in the oven overnight with the light on, door cracked.

In the morning it was huge and looked wet.  I dumped the whole thing out, intact, on to a cookie sheet.  Slashed the surface.  In to 350 degF oven for 45 minutes.

Let it cool for 30 minutes.

The crust is crispy.  The bread is sweeter than I expected.  Delicious.  This is a good starting point.

Bobcat

See, it's a cat-boat.  Get it?  Get it?

Climbing

Reid is in a school district-sponsored homeschool group that does weekly field trips. Next week they are going to an indoor climbing gym. The group leader sent out an email saying that they needed people who were certified to belay while kids climbed, and offered to pay for anyone who wanted to take the training. I agreed to do it.

Wednesday night, in the pouring rain, I drove the hour+ to Bremerton to the climbing gym.

Everyone there was compact, lithe, muscular, slim.  I felt like I stood out, at 280 lbs.  But I was not about to let that stop me.

The other student in the class was Rick, who looked like he was in his early 20s.  He was smaller than me and also quite fit.  He said he was shipping out in a few days, for 6 months, and planned on climbing with his buddies while deployed.  

We spent 1/2 an hour in a classroom practicing knots and learning the equipment.  

Then we headed to the wall.  They gave me climbing shoes in a size 13.  Right right foot is about 13 extra-wide, and my left foot is about 1/2 a size bigger.  Ow!  But we didn't have a lot of walking to do.

Rick and I took turns climbing the wall on an easy path.  I was glad to be able to climb to the top each time.  I weight 70 lbs more than Rick; I wonder if he coulda done it with a 70lb pack?  Sure, I'd like to be 210 lbs, but I'm also proud of having the strength to climb this wall anyway.

When I was climbing, the instructor strapped Rick down to the ground so I wouldn't pull him in to the air.  Heh.

We eventually switched to a different area with a more difficult climb.  Near the top it tilted back to a slight overhang.  By this time I was too tired, and didn't even have the energy to try the hanging part.  

It was fun and exciting stuff.  If there was a wall here in town I'd consider climbing there periodically.  I wonder how well balanced it is as an exercise?  Seems like it hits a lot of muscles, but some more than others, and that it doesn't encourage flexibility.

On the way home my hands were shaky and my arms tired.  I slept very hard the next two nights.

When I was about 11 years old we went climbing in summer day camp.  My fear of heights was quite strong then, and I didn't want to do it, but felt pressured to anyway.  We didn't have nearly the equipment that I saw the other night: no harnesses, no belaying devices.  

When rappelling, just had two ropes: one tied in to a harness shape around my waist, led up to a belayer at the top of the cliff, who was tied to a tree; one rope around his waist, led down to me. I was supposed to let me rope out a bit at a time as I walked down the rock face.  As soon as I stepped over the edge, I slipped and fell and was very, very scared.  I worked my way down in deep fear.  At the bottom both hands were purple from gripping the rope.  

So next week we all go back to the climbing gym.  I'm hoping Julie will come and climb a little, but who knows.  

New network topology

Annoyed by the constraints of the old setup, and wishing to make use of the Draft-N cards in so many of my computers, I bought a Linksys WRT310N, which has both GigE and 802.11n.

The GigE is valuable because the WHS can't support N, but does support GigE as well, so a cable between them gives me fast access to the server over WiFi.

This means I can sever the wire between the WHS and the MCE, and the desktop can also be wireless.

The new topology is generally simple: each computer is connected only to power & its peripherals. The exception is the TELCO -> Actiontec -> Linksys -> WHS -> external HD.  (The interconnects are Cat 1 telephone -> Cat 5 100Mb/s Ethernet -> Cat5 1000Mb/s -> USB 2.0.)

Because the only wires coming out of that section are power and telephone, I have a little more flexibility about where they should live.  I pulled the old stereo cabinet out of the garage to hold it all, and it looks decent.  The other equipment in my "rack" is a UPS and the printer/scanner. (The last has WiF, so it could be anywhere, but this is the best spot.)

There are a few other benefits of this change:

- The Actiontec Wi-Fi is outside the firewall, so I turned off security. Anyone who needs internet can use it without hassle.

- Ripping DVDs to the server can be done at any computer, transferred over 802.11n (not just at the MCE over Ethernet).  

- Since the MCE doesn't have to write to the server any more (and it always authenticates as Guest), I can restrict Guest on the server to improve security.

- A lightning strike on the phone line can't reach the rest of the network.

Now that it's all done, and my mind has relaxed, I find myself wondering how to improve things. Imagine if the laptop supported 802.11n, and SATA. I could put 2x 500GB drives in it, and a second Wi-Fi in the PCMCIA slot. It could replace the linksys, working as a wireless access point, NAT for the home, firewall to the outside world. It wouldn't have to be wired to the Actiontec, since it could uplink over wifi. It wouldn't need to set on the UPS, since it has battery backup built-in. The only wire would be power.

The drives would cost $230; the laptop could be a Dell D630 for about $500 on E-Bay.  After other items, shipping, etc., it'd be $1000, which is way to much. But I can imagine for free.

EDIT: One of the things I dig about this setup is that almost every item was under $100.  (The laptop was $300, a couple years ago, so its value is close to $100 now).  If someone breaks in to my home & steals equipment, it won't be that difficult to replace, and I have good backups.  

Old network topology

I recently purchased a new router, which triggered a set of cascading changes in my home network.  First, the old setup:

Actiontec GT704-WG.  Qwest DSL used to require you to have an Actiontec GT701-WG, which has a DSL modem, a 100 Mb/s Ethernet port, USB, and 802.11b/g.  I managed to fry mine with a sloppy firmware upgrade, and bought the 704 at Best Buy to replace it, with the assurance that it would be well-supported, since it's almost the same thing.  Unfortunately, they're both junk. Neither Qwest nor Actiontec provides firmware updates, and their feature sets are somewhat limiting.  There aren't any open source firmwares for them, like Tomato or DD-WRT.

Windows Media Center on an old Dell 400SC.  This was marketed as an entry-level server, but really it's just a desktop PC like any other.  I've added a WiFi-N card.

Windows Home Server on an old Dell D600.  This is a laptop, which seemed like a great idea for a WHS.  I love that it has a built-in keyboard, monitor, mouse, WiFi, and battery backup.  Unfortunately it only supports IDE drives, so I'm limited to 250GB, and they're expensive.  When I ran out of storage, I added an external drive, and eventually replaced that enclosure with:

A 2-bay external SATA enclosure.  This contains a 1TB drive and a 300GB drive. 

Also: A desktop with a Wifi-N card, a D600 (used as a laptop, gasp!) with 802.11g, and a new Lenovo T61, with WiFi-N builtin (sweet, sweet laptop).

Constraints: The only phone line is in the kitchen, which isn't a good place for electronics.  The video collection lives on the server, but is played on the media center, and 802.11g isn't fast enough for DVD playback.  Pushing data between the desktop and the server over WiFi was really, really slow.  The WiFi in the Actiontec unit is really bad at doing in- and out-going traffic at the same time.

Solution: 

- server sits right next to the media center, with an ethernet cable between them.  It doesn't need to be a crossover, because everything is autosensing these days.  It doesn't have any DHCP; both devices complain that there's "limited connectivity", but they can still see each other just fine.

- A long phone cord runs over the door from the kitchen to the main desk.  It plugs in to the Actiontec, which has Ethernet to the desktop (making desktop<->server links much faster).

computer = laptop

I once thought of a laptop as being a special-purpose computer, with miniaturized, slower components, a built-in screen/keyboard/mouse, and a battery, for 3x the price.

These days, the speed & price difference between desktop and laptop computers has gotten smaller. Battery life, screen size, and portability have improved to the point where laptops are useful for general-purpose use. I guess that's why laptop sales exceeded desktop sales 5 years ago.

Now I think of a desktop as being a special kind of computer, with important components missing (screen/keyboard/mouse/battery), that takes up too much space. In exchange for giving up all that important stuff, it's a bit cheaper.

"Computer" now means "laptop" to me.

(Ironically, the first laptop I ever bought is a server.)

I wish Vista sleep was a little smarter

Maybe it's just because I have kids underfoot, but I often need to put the laptop down in a hurry. I want to close the lid & slide the laptop under the sofa where it's safe. A minute later I'm ready to work, and I have to wait for wake up & log in. It's about 10 seconds, but I want it to be less than 1 sec.

I wish Vista hybrid sleep worked like this:

1. When I close the lid, the display turns off immediately.
2. After 2 minutes, standby
3. Later, hibernate

(Yes, I'm assuming we're talking about laptops. What else is there?)

What I really want out of this is that I can close the lid and open it again soon, before standby and session lock.