electrical work proceeding

My wife and I stopped by the house two nights ago to check on the progress of the electrical work. We knew based off a prior inspection that the old house we purchased needed some work since there was old knob and tube wiring in there. There's only so much an inspector's going to be able to tell you about this kind of thing without tearing holes into the walls... Anyways, so we stopped by to talk to the people doing the work. Holy cow, they have to redo the wiring for the entire house. The lead claimed that it was the worst he's seen in 30+ years. There were junction boxes with 9 or more wires coming out of it where there were only supposed to be 4. Frayed wires screwed onto beams that were fire hazards... His suspicion was that the prior owners did their own electrical work, to be honest I wouldn't be surprised. He also showed us a few examples just for the sake of showing us.

On top of that, the people we bought it from who flipped it did piss-poor work as well! The kitchen appliances weren't being supplied with proper power, some of the boxes for their plugs were hiding under the cabinets next to them. I was never much impressed with the flip, and I`m even less impressed now.

We were expecting that the electrical was going to be a big job. The master electrician said it would be ballpark $6000 and done this weekend. Given the scope of what`s going on I can only hope it`s all going to be sewed up by the time we move in mid next week (or we`ll be living in a pile of dust)!

laptop hunting

Amidst all the packing (we have less than a week until we move into the house), I've been trying to search for something called an ultrabook for my wife. I've got an old Dell Inspiron dual core which was state of the art maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Apparently it's too big, too heavy and additionally the battery doesn't work anymore (when it did it only lasted an hour or two, far from what Dell claimed at the time). What a time sink this is... when you think you've found the model you're interested in based off of top 10 lists and a private checklist (14", SSD drive only, reliable wifi) there always seemed to be a problem with it.

First I thought I was getting the Lenovo U410, which on the surface looked like a good computer... however there were issues with the wifi antenna that were bad enough that it wouldn't pick up a signal past 10 feet from the transmitter! The company claims they've fixed it, the forums I've been reading say otherwise - certainly doesn't lend confidence to a purchase and as such they've lost me as a customer.

Then I thought I was getting the Asus Zenbook Prime UX32VD-DB71. I didn't see any of these available in Canada, but I did find the ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB31 for about $750 which was in my range. I'd be conceding on the solid state drive only requirement but that's ok. More digging reveals that it was a totally different beast than the UX32VD and had last generation parts... Maybe it would have still been an ok purchase but it was enough of a turn-off that I wanted to move on.

I considered the Sony Vaio T13, but I couldn't get it for a decent price in Canada. There was apparently a great sale online with Amazon yesterday that would have dropped it into my $600-800 range but I found out about it too late.

At this point I was getting frustrated and was starting to lose it. I wound up packing, having a Kwak or two and watching Futurama until the wife got home. Somewhat recharged this morning I took a look around online and came up with two possibilities. One was the Dell Inspiron 14z, a reasonable ultrabook for a reasonable price that happens to be $200 off today AND ships from Canada (would have been $599 before taxes). Wonderful - I don't have to go empty handed! The other option that I'm trying to sort out is a better option - the Toshiba Portege Z935. It has much better reviews and I can get it for a similar price, PLUS I don't have to concede on the solid state drive. Downside? The Toshiba Canada and the US stores are not set up in a robust way like the Dell stores are. This means the stock isn't the same, the model numbers aren't the same, and the sales aren't the same - the US store has a $150 off sale on the model I'm interested in. I could get something similar to what I wanted from the Canadian store but I would be paying about $150 more for a slightly worse computer. Even if I have to pay taxes/duty to get it shipped up from the states it'll still be worth it to go to the US version of their store in my view. Anyways, barring unforseen circumstances (and problems getting my US connection to bring it back across the border) that's the option I'll be going with. It will be so nice to get that headache off my mind since it's been driving me nuts.

furnace venting

Yesterday the HVAC company we've been dealing with sent some people over to clean the vents. While I was there I spoke with them, one of them suggested that I needed more cold air return vents for our house (we have 1 now) or we'd void the warrantee.

Later on, I called the heating representative from the HVAC company we've been dealing with just to see what was going on and he said that they didn't know what they were talking about. Essentially he said our furnace was multi stage and would shut off before anything bad would happen to it. Also that it was extremely unlikely in his long professional experience that we'd need another vent.

If it's the case that we can't really harm the furnace we'll take his advice and just let it go and see how well it heats the house

Dark Knight Rises

I went into the Dark Knight Rises with huge expectations and was let down. Let me set where I`m coming from... I'm a big comic book fan and love Chris Nolan's work. I'm going on 38 and have been reading since I was maybe 5 or 6. It's been hard to avoid spoilers and as such I already knew more or less what would be going on in it and who everyone was.

The movie suffers from a few points (according to my amateur viewpoint):
- One is Bane, I liked him as a character in the comics but he just doesn't translate as well to the screen partly due to his iconic mask. Not being able to see a character's facial features reduces your ability to identify and relate to that character. Also the mask made it more difficult to understand him as it muffles the voice. I didn't have a problem with it but the person I saw the movie with did. Bane's motivations didn't exactly come through very well either, I knew who and what he was working on behalf of but it wasn't because of the movie that I did.
- Two was that there was too many characters and it felt to me like the movie was racing around trying to keep up with everyone. As a result it felt like scenes were cut short and the movie was cramped as a result. I think that some judicious editing for pacing would have benefited it so that it could breathe and not be as confused. It all makes sense if you stop to think about it ... but you're watching a superhero movie - you shouldn't have to stop to think about who's doing what to who and why to make sense of what's going on in a film like this.

Pluses were Anne Hathaway as Catwoman and Michael Caine as Alfred - I thought they both did well.


I'll be giving it another shot just to confirm how I feel about it but for the moment I can't help but feel disappointed that it wasn't tighter and cleaner. I feel that with time I will like it, but for the moment I can't say that I do.

I'm Scared - A Pixelated Nightmare

Holy crap. I don't know who has played this. The less you know going in the better I think... it's very low budget and also very effective in its minimalism. I don't know the last time a game has freaked me out like that. Seriously, give it a go and play it more than once since it changes.

http://gamejolt.com/games/imscared-a-pixelated-nightmare/files/10058/

Great Lakes Brewery - 25th anniversary black IPA

I'm a bit late on the 25th anniversary train for Great Lakes, but that could be blamed on the exams I've been studying for (blissfully over, although the house has consumed all the free time since). The bottle advertises it as being 100IBUs, which is an impressive number. I've heard that you can't really tell the difference past 60 or so. Anyways, on to the beer. Pours jet black, lovely hoppy aroma with great head retention. I'm not the kind of person who pays attention to head unless it's completely absent, so for this to stand out for me was something. The smell one gets matches the taste. I didn't get much malt at all... mainly a bit of roasty flavour in the distance, but oh the glorious hops! What really stood out for me was the resinous hoppy flavour of it... very piny, very citrusy... I wouldn't say piney as in it smells and tastes like a tree, but that's partly what comes to mind. The resiny oily nature of the hops in it were wonderful. I think it may be primarily cascade hops but I could be mistaken. A lovely, big, hoppy beer that does not come out so aggressively that it wants to destroy its drinker. Well done!

House update

Hello again! Today the ducts got cleaned by the same nice people at A1 that sold my wife a new furnace. No complaints so far, and the duct cleaning came with some additional advice. It seems that furnaces need multiple cold air returns to function properly and only having one on the main floor (as we do) leads to an inefficient furnace and probably voiding our warrantee. Obviously this isn't what we want so we spent some time discussing "do it yourself" options to add a return on the basement level right beside the unfinished furnace room. That would be the easy option. The best choice option would involve getting some sort of a cold air return on the upper floor (where the bedrooms are) above the main floor. That's going to be a bit more involved and definitely beyond my modest do-it-yourself skills. Just calling for an estimate now, hopefully it won't be too bad. The alternative would be installing some big ceiling fans to push some air downstairs for circulation purposes... I may do that anyways, I like ceiling fans!

Bellwoods

Just thought I'd toss this out there for Toronto beer people. The barrel aged Grandma's Boy at Bellwoods is really really good.  It's not going to last much longer. It is really quite soft so far as the sour stuff is concerned, and has a lot of what makes a triple good with some very nice fruity sour notes. Overall it is quite a nice package and should be savoured while it is still around. Might last a week or so more according to estimates. I'll be back to send if off in a few days, I'd recommend you do so too if you have any inkling towards this sort of thing.

Freedom... Horrible Freedom

Two events that I can update on:
1. We're now the proud owners of some sort of new furnace. While I was studying for the exams that I just finished writing today, the wife went and dropped $5000 on a new furnace. I'm not disputing that we needed it, I'm just hoping we didn't get taken for a ride while I wasn't looking.

2. The aforementioned exams being done! I've spent almost the entirety of my spare time with a few precious exceptions for the past two months on studying for this exam. It's the pharmacy qualifying exam for Canada, meaning if I pass it, along with the rest of what I've done to date, I can finally be a practicing pharmacist. There are two parts to it: One is a live action portion where you interact with actors and pharmacists watch and assess how you react to various situations. These different scenarios are broken up with what is the absolute worst buzzer in the entire world. I literally jumped and screamed when it went off more than once. Picture it: You're stressed out standing in a number of different hallways trying to gear your mind up to whatever might be behind that door then a loud noise reminiscent of a fire alarm goes off right over your head. Repeatedly. I do not recommend the experience for people with heart problems. The other part is a written exam. We're essentially sworn to secrecy as to the contents of both exams.

Long story short, I had to do the written exam again as the first time I wrote it I had quite a bit of things going on personally that took away from the time that I needed to prepare. This time I made sure I had adequate time and space to get things ready so that I could give the exam the respect it deserved. Both my employment and my wife were accommodating for my study requirements and hopefully if this all works out well I'll be able to pay both back for their kindness. I've spent so long studying for this thing though, that now that I'm done with it I really don't know what to do with myself. Getting on top of the house situation is going to take some time, and I do a really good job of second guessing how I've done. I just hope that I don't have to do this again; I won't know the answer to that question though for another month and a bit yet. Argh

The drama continues....

Ok. Just had the HVAC guy over to the house to have a look. Looks like the furnace needs to be replaced, which in my opinion isn't necessarily a bad investment. The wife does not like being cold one bit and replacing it will help with the circulation of air in the house as well. Not an expense we were looking for but one that we kind of knew we'd have to do based on the inspection. It was clearly showing rust and some parts didn't fit together properly, also it was leaking from areas it wasn't supposed to be leaking from.

Now the roof... we'll have to get a second opinion on getting the bathroom vents done. It won't do to have them going just into the attic. To go through the roof however is a bit troublesome since there's 3 layers of shingles there. The roofer that my wife had take a look at it previously said that we'd need to replace the works, however we know a few people that had the same situation we did and just did it. They're fine, so I expect that we were just being upsold. Maybe if the 2nd/3rd opinions come back the same way we'll consider it more seriously but this is a major expense that we weren't planning on so if it can be dodged then good on us.

Roof ventilation

It seems we need to make a decision. Right now our bathroom fans are ventilating into the attic which is a big no-no. Seems the people who flipped the house prior to our buying it didn't choose to finish the job on this end as well. There are a number of options available, but because the roof is lacking soffit features the easy one is not available (not that it would really be an option - I've read quite a few negative comments about that choice). The other options are: going out through the side of the house which can't really be done given that it's venting into the attic and the wall doesn't go that high; going out through the roof - there's already 3 layers of shingles there which complicates putting vent hoods while still retaining proper drainage; the third option is the $20k replace everything job. The gable wall option isn't really an option, it's too far from anything to give good ventilation to the bathrooms.

While my wife seems to be favouring the replace everything and have it done properly option, I'm still feeling that even if it's not ideal putting the vent hoods on the presently done roof may put off purchasing a new roof for a while. Yes, it's not ideal but at least it takes away the immediate problem of my shower moisture condensing in the attic and freezing, also causing mold/fungus to show up which may spread.