2 Bit Hacker

This is my first family holiday in a while where I’ve had no family things to go do. It’s kindof odd. Just me and the Bailey cat at the moment. He moved in on Friday, and seems to be enjoying himself. I think he’s a little confused that the floor is covered in carpet and there aren’t cages on the walls. He’s kindof like a big old kitten; everything here is new to him, and he has some of the kitten skittishness to him.

Work has been going well. My department just finished up a major project, which went pretty smoothly. Now we get some breathing room and will hopefully be able to fix up some of the less important things that deserve to be fixed. The company has issued me a Mac Book Pro, which I am quite liking. I keep comparing it to having a Linux laptop where everything works properly without having to futz with it. I’m really liking the little things, like iCal and Address Book, and how well everything syncs together, including my BlackBerry.

Stuff in the apartment has stalled a bit now that most of it is how I’d like it. The past couple of weeks I’ve been coming home, taking a walk, and just haven’t felt like doing much around the place. I should probably work on the office a bit this afternoon. Once I get that squared away, I’ll have a nice work area for doing projects. I should get some pictures posted once I get everything in place.

Finally got down to IKEA last weekend to buy some bookshelves for the new apartment. Picked up two of the tall units and two of the shorter ones. The plan was to put all four along one wall, but I measured wall to wall, not between the mouldings at the bottom of the walls, so I was just a bit short. I think it worked out pretty well anyway, and the other short case is in the dining area.

Now that I have a place for my books, I’ve unpacked the last of the boxes, and it finally feels like I’m settled in to the new place. Still a bit of clean up to do in the office, but that shouldn’t take long. And once it is done I’ll have space to start working on some of my other projects.

The only thing left on my list of things I want to get is some bedroom furniture. There’s a set at Bob’s Furniture that I like the look of, though none of their sets match what I want. I think I’ll end up getting the bed set, two night stands and a chest of drawers. Other than that, I’m pretty much set.

Now that I’m moved in to the new place, I’ve been giving some more thought to my temp and power monitoring projects. In the old place, my server was located in the same closet as the punch-block for the phone wiring. In the new place, they’re not even close. In order to have more than 2 thermal sensors, I’ll need to put the Basic Stamp II in with the punch block, so I’ll need a way of getting it’s reading back to my server for monitoring.

I was considering serial, using the phone line to the office as RS-485, but I remember all the headaches I had with 485 when working at SimPro, so I’m kindof leaning away from that. For the price of one 232/485 converter, I can get two XBee modules and carrier boards at Adafruit.

I’m also considering hacking apart my Kill-A-Watt to make a Wattcher, basically an XBee crammed into the Kill-A-Watt housing to allow for remote monitoring. I could then use that to track the usage of individual or small groups of devices, which would be nice even if I do decide to install T.E.D. in my breaker panel.

I have to say, I am impressed. It took over a month, but Delia finally moved the bulk of her stuff out on Friday. I was expecting piles of trash and stuff she didn’t want to be left behind for me to deal with, but she actually took everything. The only trash appeared to be a half bottle of ginger ale left on the counter, and I don’t mind that so much.

The apartment looks huge now. The second bedroom, which we used as an office/box storage room is almost totally empty, with only my desk left in it. The living room feels larger as well, with the bookcases gone. I’m starting to wonder how the new apartment is going to feel with so little in it, but I think that’s a problem I can handle.

The big move is next weekend, and given how many people have agreed to help, it should go smoothly. Hopefully I’ll be doing the walk-through and getting the keys either Tuesday or Wednesday, then I can move the boxes on my own, just leaving the furniture for Saturday. The only piece I think is going to be a pain is the sofa, as the sleeper section is rather heavy.

I’m really looking forward to getting out of here.

Progress is continuing on my apartment move. Today, Angelina and I went and retrieved all my stuff from the storage unit that Delia and I used to share. Upon opening the door to the unit I was impacted by an avalanche of stuff falling from the inside of the unit. I had more stuff than I remember in there, but still not a lot. Four boxes of books and such, my trombone, my child’s rocking chair (I consider it a family heirloom, one day my child shall rock upon it) and my old footlocker, packed full of all my most precious things. It felt good to make some progress on the move, and rediscover some of the items that mean so much to me.

We also stopped at Lowe’s to pick up some shelving to put in the carport storage at the apartment. It looks like some of my stuff was water-damaged in there, so I wanted to get everything up off the floor. I may go back for a second unit tomorrow, as it fits very nicely and makes that space much more usable. I should move the Christmas stuff into there and see how much room is left first though.

Tomorrow I intend to pack up my books, largely to clear off the bookshelves that they currently inhabit, as Delia will be taking them. I’ll also be purchasing my new vacuum cleaner. Would have done it today, but I didn’t think the box would fit in the back of the Prius along with my storage unit goodies. I’ve also been looking at some new furniture for the new apartment, and I think I’ll finally be able to execute my plan of buying some real furniture for the bedroom.

Speaking of which, I am simply amazed at how much less I’m already spending. My weekly expenditures for dining along have dropped to almost nothing, spending about $50/wk on groceries instead of $250/wk on eating out. My savings are nearly back to the levels they were at before I met Delia, and I should be on track for putting a down payment on some property in early 2010. With my reduced space requirements, I’m thinking the condos I looked at in Derry would be perfect. I loved the floor plan, I only hope there’s an opening when I’m ready to buy.

I am somewhat distressed by the lack of forward progress on Delia’s out-moving. Near as I can tell, she’s taken her computer, most of the stuff from her bathroom, a couple of food items, and roughly half of the giant pile in the bedroom. I’m hoping there will be some significant progress this week. I would really like to stop having the remnants of her life strewn about my abode.

I think she was right about me not being happy either. On average, I have been feeling far better about my life since she left. I feel free. I’m no longer trying to keep anyone else happy. I do what I want, when I want, how I want. What to do for dinner? Throw together some ground beef, chips, cheese, and poof! Nachos! Good enough for me, and cheaper than eating out every night. I think many of my reservations about buying a new place were grounded in my displeasure with the state of our apartment. Why would I buy a place with this person if she’s going to treat it like she treats the place? A place to sleep, surrounded by piles of unworn clothes and unopened boxes, getting surly whenever asked to do anything to better her surroundings, and just generally putting no effort into anything.

I think I’m coming across as being rather negative toward her, but I really do feel like my personal life has been stalled for years, and now I can get back into gear and do all the things I’ve wanted to do.

PS Pseudo-scientific research has discovered that Danger Mouse is really f-ed up, to subjects both drunk and sober. I still love it, but watching it now, 20 years later, it just boggles the mind.

Been thinking a bit lately about projects to keep me busy in the new apartment, and I’ve got a couple of ideas that I think will be pretty neat.

First, I’ve been interested in tracking the temperature in my apartment. There is only one thermostat, and I can’t think of a good way to pull any info off of it, so I’ve been looking into other sensor equipment. The iButton stuff looks pretty promising; the temp-only sensor buttons are pretty inexpensive, and the HA7Net looks like a good way to interface to them without having to mess around with line level protocols. Since I don’t use the landline phones, I’m thinking I’ll cut off the connection to the phone company and reuse the existing phone jacks in the apartment to make a 1-wire bus. Just solder an RJ-11 plug onto the temp sensor iButtons, and I can put a sensor everywhere there’s a wall jack! The controller is about $155 and the sensors are $7.50/each in the quantities I’d be looking at.

The other thing I’d like to monitor is power consumption. I’ve got a Kill-a-watt, but that only works for a single outlet. I’ve been eying The Energy Detective, which installs into your breaker panel with a number of inductive probes and a connection to communicate it’s readings over the power lines (similar to X10.) The only problem is their software is currently only for Windows. The older version had a serial port on the receiver to communicate with, the new version has USB, and I suspect it’s just a USB to serial adapter of some kind. To do what I want to do (feed the data into Munin) I’d have to figure out how to talk to the thing, which might make for a good project. T.E.D. sells for $145.

I’m also going to need a new vacuum cleaner. The old one is Delia’s, so it’ll be going away. I’m leaning toward spending the extra money and buying a Dyson, specifically the DC 25. The reviews are all very good on them, and it sounds like they last forever. Seems like one of those things where it’s worth to spend the extra up front and get something you’re happy with instead of skimping and replacing it later because you hate it.

Okay, the plans have been finalized! I am going to be moving to another unit in this complex, a two-bedroom that costs $330 less per month than my current two bedroom (at least for the next year, then it goes up by $200, but I intend to move again at that point.) With my other utility cost savings, this should drop my monthly expenses by $492, which almost entirely covers the amount that Delia used to contribute, so I can continue my savings plan as it has been.

The only tricky bit is I have to move entirely on February 28th, and for that, I will need help. I know I’ve been relying on my friends a lot lately, but anyone willing and able to help with the move would be greatly appreciated, and I’ll gladly pay for a grand feast in your honor once the task is done.

My plan is to spend my spare time in the next month reducing the amount of stuff I have to move. I intend to donate most of my books to the local library (feel free to look over the list and claim anything you’d like,) donate my excess clothing to Goodwill or something similar, and give away my excess computer junk that I rarely touch anymore.

I don’t feel like it’s going to be all that bad. I have a few pieces of large furniture (bed, couch, a couple desks) but not that much little stuff to move. I’m looking forward to the fresh start in a new place all to myself.