Some Garage Organization

The July 4th weekend gave me a chance to tackle organizing the garage.  It is a 2-cars garage and it was important for us to be able to park at least one car in and not use everything for storage and the workshop.    After some research, I went with the RubberMaid FastTrack system for the walls since they aren't too expensive and can be installed by one person.

This is the "parking" side of the garage.  The alcove in the back corner was a perfect fit for the wing-chun stand and the wood cart was exactly the right depth that I can push it against the wall still be able to fold down the steps up to the attic.  The kids' bikes and stroller hangs off one fast track.

This is the "workshop" side of the garage.  It is still not completely done but right now it allows me to keep stuff somewhere without them getting underfoot.

I need to get some more hooks and I'm planning to add some shelving above the workbench.  The floor is pretty sloped and took a lot of shims to get it leveled.

Setting up VNC on Fedora 14

As part of going down the wrong path to debug another problem, I found myself trying to set up VNC Server on my new Fedora 14 machine.  Setting up VNC itself is pretty simple with yum and instructions can be found here including configuring the firewall to accept it:  How to Setup VNC.

Of couse, once you have VNC running, Fedora don't actually let you access it from a client and eventually I found this post which answered how to configure SELinux to allow remote connection to VNC: Fedora 14 and SSH port forwarding.

I love Linux, but sometimes it's things like these that can drive general users away.

Getting a DHCP Linux Host to Broadcast Its Name

When set to using DHCP, the IP address of the machine can change.  When running a server that can be annoying so in the past, I've generally assigned it a static IP and edit all the other machines' /etc/hosts file to give a name that points to the server.  Instead of keep doing this, I decided to have the Linux server broadcast its name to the local network.

Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 by adding DHCP_HOSTNAME=<your machine name here>.

This is the location for Fedora so your distribution might be different.  ifcfg-eth0 is dependent on whatever network adaptor you want to config (i.e. if you're using a wireless adaptor it'll have a different name).

Finally, restart the network and your server should be found by your other machines simply by its name.

Why it is easy to hate LeBron?

Since the NBA Finals ended there has been tons of articles about LeBron by both his fans and his distractors including some that said they felt sorry for LeBron by all the criticism.  Seriously, how bad are the criticism when most of them usually inject praise like how he is an unbelievable talent and that eventually he will win a championship.  I sure wouldn't mind if my performance reviews all included "You're totally awesome!"  In his career, I'm sure there's been more far more praise then critiques.  But I digress.  The question is why is it so easy to hate LeBron?

It's an easy question to answer (in my mind at least).  LeBron himself kind of answered it when he said after the Finals how we fans will go back to our miserable lives and he will enjoy his.  Because in the end, we don't know LeBron the person and only know LeBron the brand.  Fans hate the arrogant spoiled modern athlete.  People like the simple story of good vs. evil, hero vs villian.  LeBron embodies the modern spoiled athlete.  King James is a public figure and his profession is to provide excitement and sports drama.  It happens that his basketball character is the evil bad guy and aren't we suppose to dislike the antagonist while cheering on the protagonist?

It is easy to hate the antagonist.

Sandbox with Seating

I had promised that once we have completed the house that I would build a sandbox in the backyard.  A sandbox is pretty easy to build since it's essentially a box.  A few things to consider when building a sandbox is whether there are cats and other animals around since you don't want your child's sandbox to become an oversized litter box.

Because there are cats in our neighborhood, I knew we needed to have a lid of some sort for the sandbox.  The dimensions of the box is 8' x 4' so a single lid that span the whole sandbox might be too heavy for the little ones to lift.  I decided to divide the sandbox into two 4' x 4' sections.

I built the lids to fold on top of each other so they become a seating bench when opened.  It still offers plenty of play area for the kids, easy for them to open while keeping neighborhood animals out.

Is it time for me to stop reading Yahoo finance?

I've been a big fan of Yahoo Finance and while my use of various Yahoo services have diminished, Finance (and Sports) are still two of my favorites.  However, I started to noticed that I'm less and less interested in Yahoo Finance since they no longer focus as much on news as they do on commentary, rumors and speculation.

When I look up the finance page on Yahoo, most of the articles seems to be about Google and instead of news it's often blog posts on rumors or some sensationalism.  As Yahoo change or focus their direction, I understand why they might cut some more tech-focused products but it would be sad if they let Finance deteriorate.

LazyHacker Is Now More Mobile Friendly

Those viewing this blog on a mobile device will notice a change. I've enabled mobile templates to make it more mobile friendly. To see the web version simply click the "View web version" link at the bottom of the page.

What a Crazy Year

Arguably, three of the measures of adulthood are career, family and home. Over the past year, I started a new job, had a new baby and built a new house. How do I feel? Tired. . . :-)

It was a lot of balls to juggle at once, but thankfully I had a great support system at home and at work. That's not to say that it didn't drive me crazy sometime, but we got through it in one piece!

A lot of people has helped me along the way especially following a dark period of my life. I don't know if they realized how much they kept me going and not lose track that life goes on.

I'm super excited to move to the new house with the family and start enjoying the fruits of our labors.

Week 35: Construction Is Now Complete!

The house is done!!! After a successful final inspection the city has signed off on the construction and approved it for us to move in. 35 weeks ago this was what we had:

And now this is what our soon-to-be home is:

There are still cosmetic details that need to be done such as the landscaping and touch ups on the inside, but there is nothing holding us back from starting to bring our stuff over to the new house. Our GC did an amazing job keeping the project moving forward and staying on schedule. That's quite an accomplishment for a 9 months project.

The last two weeks were pretty hectic with the rain and the backsplash people flaking out, but in the end everything got done. The backsplash went in which allowed us to get the appliances and kitchen faucets in. Finally, our front door also got installed .

Welcome, please come in.

Step through the front door.

Kitchen with actual appliances and backsplash!

22,000 BTUs, baby! Also, it allows for wok cooking on its burners.

The far right is a instant hot water filter great for that hot chocolate or tea with no waiting. :-)

We went for a solid glass backsplash for a clean look as well as easy cleaning.

From the kitchen, we can look to the great room area.

The soaking tub. I'm ready to use it now!

Week 34: Beginning Landscaping and a Test

The landscaping started this week.  The driveway was completed along with the front landing and the front yard landscaping has started.  The frontyard was cleared and mulched so we can pass inspection since the city required basic landscaping, but this isn't the final product.  We'll fully start on both the front and back yard landscaping after the inspection is completed.

Here you can see the driveway pavers:

Oh, the "Test" part in the title of this post refers to me trying Picasa and Blogger's integrated feature for the first time.