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Randy: Committed to Iowa bike ride once more…

Randy — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:25:27 +0000

I had coffee on Saturday morning with Morty. I haven’t seen him much in the last 18 months and not at all since early fall last year… It was great to see him and we instantly fell back into our old jovial “poking fun” manner. In a moment of prodding I challenged him about the bike ride across Iowa that he skipped out on last year and said I would do it again only if he committed to it and actually went this year! We weren’t sure if the bus had filled up yet but I received an email from Morty this afternoon telling me that it’s too late to back out and we are confirmed for the trip!

In true Morty fashion, the smack talk has already begun! He quickly emailed the “Reedster” and said that we were in and that he would have an opportunity to take my Downhill Speed Record (DHSR)…. ( I hit 48 mph last year as I pulled around Reedster to take the title!)….

Morty to Reedster
“Randy is going to give you a second chance at the down hill speed record.”

Reedster to Morty
“Now that I know Randy’s sand bagging tricks I will be prepared to wrestle the DHSR from his cheating hands!”

Me back to the both of them…
“Sand bagging? It was total tactical mastery at its finest. I need to finally hit that elusive 50 mark this year!”

So as they say… oh its on! I think I found that little motivation I needed to get serious about health… and wellness… and most importantly my fitness again.

RAGBRAI 2010 here we come!

MS Windows be gone… at least at home!

Randy — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:30:22 +0000

We took our Federal Tax return and purchased a new Family Computer. A 21.5″ (16×9) iMac and a wireless Canon printer. This really cleaned up our small built-in desk located between our Kitchen and Dining room. Literally 2 power cords for the entire setup. The computer is a work of beauty… I love the fit and finish of Apple products and the best part is that it replaced the last computer dedicated to running Microsoft Windows.

The kids have really enjoyed the integrated webcam and the computer is seeing a lot more facetime than the Dell it replaced…

Kuite Family iMac

iPhone – Hey my calendar is screwed up!

Randy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:30:48 +0000

I use a product called CompanionLink for Google that syncs my corporate Lotus Notes calendar up to Google Calendar and then over the air down to my iPhone. A previous post notes the process in more detail —-> HERE

Generally it has worked very well without issue until recently when a weekly meeting suddenly appeared daily in my iPhone calendar. Every day at 11:00AM or Weekly IT Coordination meeting!

I compared the meeting entry against what showed up in my Lotus Notes calendar on my laptop and viola… no such daily meeting was displayed. Only the correct once a week meeting. I knew at that moment I had an orphaned calendar entry the Lotus Notes was ignoring but CompanionLink saw the entry in whatever Notes view it was using to sync the data up to Google.

I discovered that in the Notes 8.5 client I could see the calendar entry causing the issue in the Views By Chairperson view but I could not delete the document no matter what I tried to do. I would get a couple of different error message and Notes would try to repair the calendar entry and then error out again.

At this point I decided I needed a heavier handed approach. I backed up my mail/calendar file locally and the right clicked on the calendar entry in question and displayed the document properties to be able to note the document ID.

Next I asked my friendly Notes Developer to whip me up a Notes Agent that would programatically delete the document by referencing the DocID.

The Notes Agent was created as a Private Agent in my mail (calendar) file and set to run from the actions menu with a target of None.

The Lotus Script looked like this (the long Alpha number is the document ID of the rogue calendar entry I am deleting) :

Sub Initialize
Dim doc As Notesdocument
Dim db As Notesdatabase
Dim session As New notesSession
Set db = session.currentdatabase
Set doc = db.GetDocumentByUNID(”C278821541C999D785257685006E8DAF”)
If Not doc Is Nothing Then
Msgbox(”Document found!! ” + doc.Subject(0))
Call Doc.Remove(True)
End If

End Sub

I the agent and then ran CompanionLink and re-sync’d my calendar and the problem was nearly instantly corrected!

Kids: 2009 Christmas Programs

Randy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:26:46 +0000

We attended the kids school Christmas programs over the last two weeks. Hannah’s was last week Tuesday and Noah’s was this past Monday. Hannah even had a solo this year! Both kids performed wonderfully!

On a personal note, maybe its the lack of substantial snowfall so far this year, but that Holiday spirit has yet to arrive. :(

Basement Recap: Bathroom

Randy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:41:13 +0000

Part 3: The Basement Bathroom.

The area of the basement where the bathroom would go was already determined because the sewer drain plumbing and venting were out in when the house was built. This meant that the placement of the tub, toilet and general area of the vanity was pretty well fixed. Given that I decided to keep the bathroom modest in size and save the extra square footage for the rest of the basement.

I really had hoped to get a one piece tub and shower enclosure into the basement but with the stairwell already finished it wouldn’t have fit down the steps… instead I chose a 2 piece unit. A tub and a single piece surround.

Continue on for the 25 images that shows the progress of the bathroom…

Cardboard shows drain plumbing locations / PVC is the vent stack / Tub will go between the windows.

Framing of the back of the Tub / Tub set into framed room / Bath Fan installed

Heat duct into bathroom / Plumbing and clean-out access / Moisture resistant drywall

Electrical wiring in place / patching of drywall

Bath fan opening / mudding of drywall complete / bath accessories

The painting of the room begins!

Tile backer down / Loose fitting the tile / Tile down but not grouted

Tile finished / Toilet in and vanity going in / Vanity in

The bathroom complete!

Livingroom: Miami Vice no more…

Randy — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:59:48 +0000

I recently swapped out the oil painting in the living room for a collection of three framed photo’s. The old oil painted was often referred to as looking like it was stright out of Miami Vice…. for the pastel colors that seemd to be remeniscent of the colors they wore in Miami Vice… the white and the pink especially.

Before and After…

Basement Recap: Bookcase wall in Family Room

Randy — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:49:42 +0000

This time we take a look at the Bookcase wall in the Family room. This wall is the other side of the enclosed stairway going downstairs. I always wanted library/study section in a home. This open area sorta forms part of that feeling. The other side of the room next to the windows will eventually form the total feel… as I hope to put a Eames Chair / Ottoman and Naguchi Table across from the bookcases for a real open library feel….

The bookcases and cd towers are from Ikea and I assembled them and secured them together into one unit and also to the wall behind them. This baby isn’t going anywhere!

Basement Recap: The North End

Randy — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:10:21 +0000

The basement project was spread out across many years. For several reasons it took longer to complete than originally planned… as a result it easy to forget what what each phase looked like. The Basement Recap is intended to place a series of images together that highlight a section of the basement and follows it through the construction from beginning to end.

I start off this series by looking at the North end of the Family room. This is where the kids desk sits. It is the narrowest section of the family room and is just at the bottom of the stairs.

The past (or some of it) returns…

Randy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:59:44 +0000

This morning I imported all 730+ posts from the past back into the site. I spent a bit of time removing obvious posts that are no longer applicable. I still have a bunch of clean up to do, so please pardon the dust while I work to remove irrelevant posts from the site over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for your understanding!
-R

Basement Project: Family room is 98% complete

Randy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:25:34 +0000

After nearly 7 years the basement project is drawing to a close! The family room space is now inhabitable! The kids had a good time settling into the space last night when they returned home. We now just have some final decoration items to finish and a shelf here and there, but otherwise the room is complete!