What did you do today?

[laxx]

Eat eat eat eat! Had some crown roast + chestnut/bacon stuffing for an early dinner. Felt pretty hungry around normal dinner time, so had some chili with bread. Then just ate a native Taiwanese snack made of taro and some japanese sweet potato.

[crappyjones123]

I hate being a heathen during thxgiving and xmas. I had cabbage for dinner yesterday and spinach today. Someone fax me good food pls.

Glad everyone had a good time. Safe flights home everyone.

[Voltron]

I took apart my entire main system at home in order to replace the shelves of my Core Audio racks that had some problems with the veneers cracking. Arnold of Core Audio delivered the free replacement shelves months ago and said that the new design might require a little beeswax (provided) and elbow grease to fit into the notches on the old upright pieces. After dismantling two racks I tried to rebuild one to no avail because the new shelves simply do not fit the old uprights. I banged up the corner of one shelf without making any real progress and then tried the top piece which sits down into a notch rather than sliding into it like the bottom shelves. The screw-holes do not line up at all. Now, my system and the shelves and crap are all piled in the space and I cannot play music. I am sure Arnold will make this right by giving me replacement parts, but I have to say I am pretty pissed that I got so far and then had to abort.

[Dusty Chalk]

:\

Condolences, Al, there's nothing worse than an aborted music system on which you can't play music.

Well, other than maybe a shovel to the back of the head.

[Wmcmanus]

Al, I'm in the same boat, except I had to move everything (3 racks of gear plus one of the monoblocks) so that the guys installing my TV would have room to work back there. TV now securely mounted.

The mount itself can be pulled out up to 36", and is in turn bolted to two 1.5" square steel tubes (3/16th inches thick) that come down from the ceiling and are bolted across the joists up in the attic. They welded two sets of steel into a big 6' x 6' long "T" structure which allowed them to bolt each of them into 3 joists. Now that it's all done, it looks factory made.

Will probably take me days to put everything back together. Kicking myself for not taking close up pictures of all of the connections.

Watched a couple of movies with just my Oppp 93 and the Pany 65" TV using the internal speakers. It looked (and sounded) great.

[Craig Sawyers]

Did an after-Christmas outing with my family (sister, brother, his wife and the husband of my late sister). We went went whale watching out of Ventura harbor. We saw 4 California Gray Whales, a bunch of Common Dolphins and even more California Sea Lions. It was a great day for everybody, except my sister-in-law. She was terribly seasick from the moment we left the harbor. She was still feeling bad when we left Ventura harbor. I hope that she is feeling better by now.

Sounds like a great day (apart from your sister-in-law's troubles!).

Sure beats the hell out of frozen up burst heating pipes, which happened just before Christmas. Bonehead house builder had run unlagged and uninsulated pipes above our entrance porch - so thermally essentially outside. We've been way sub-zero for the last two weeks. When they thawed a little one day when the temperature crept above freezing, water came out of the split pipes under full heating pump pressure - it was a truly impressive sight. Got everything isolated and turned off while phoning the plumber, who got there half an hour later. By then I had pulled the closing panel off, saw the exposed pipes, and was having fantasies about finding the builder and laying about him with a length of two-by-four.

The good news is that the burst was *outside* the house, so there was no damage to the house at all.

Now properly pipe lagged and joists insulated above and below with high grade lagging. It ain't gonna freeze again.

[luvdunhill]

Packing up the car to drive up to Colorado to see my wife's sister and her family who are in the states for a few weeks, traveling from their home in Kabardino-Balkaria.

[swt61]

Have a good trip Marc!

Al that sucks big time. Wish I were there to help!

[morphsci]

Hope your rack troubles get resolved soon Al.

Have a great time visiting with your sister-in-law's family Marc.

[The Monkey]

My office is closed due to the snow as is my wife's. Now I'm wondering if I'll still get charged with a vacation day. Our neighborhood is all messed up; it's fun watching MTA buses getting stuck. The wind is awful, and particularly bad in our neighborhood. My son lasted exactly 3 minutes outside yesterday. And he's made it clear that he has no intention of going outside today. Can't say I disagree with that.

[Dreadhead]

Got up and hung out with the in-laws. Just got back from workout #1 (weights) at the gym. Then more hanging out (I get bored as hell just watching movies all day) and then a cardio workout this afternoon. After they leave on Wed or we run out of left overs my diet will kick in in earnest. Muhahahahahah

[laxx]

Office is closed, but those who can work from home are supposed to. =[

[n_maher]

Got up, cleared the driveway, drove to work. Was one of roughly 10 employees to make it in (out of 60 or so) so it was a remarkably productive day. Now home listening to the wind howl outside trying to contact customer support for my wife's laptop which appears to have chewed through yet another battery. :S

[Voltron]

Sorry to hear of your burst pipes, Craig, but glad it was at least outside so that water didn't damage the house.

Seems like the East coast storm was real enough. Hope you are all powered up and warm by now. I wasn't snowed out, but decided I wasn't quite ready for work in the office today.

Update to the rack story above. Arnold of Core Audio Designs emailed back within a couple of hours max and offered to come by and pick up all parts and then return within the week with fully assembled racks. Seems like a good deal to me under the circumstances. I was wishing that Steve or Nate or somebody with skilz and toolz lived a little closer because it was take a little time to re-size the dados but I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for you guys. Anyway, this is a good solution and he is falling all over himself to make it right.

[swt61]

That's good customer service. Glad you're getting fixed up Al.

A high of 60 here today, and people are dressed up like we're having the East coast storm. Texan's are whimps...yeah, that's right...I said it.

[Craig Sawyers]

I took apart my entire main system at home in order to replace the shelves of my Core Audio racks that had some problems with the veneers cracking

Glad you're getting a good resolution in the end, but I suspect that it is a design problem at the root. The verticals are long grain, which hardly moves at all with changes in humidity. The shelves are short grain (vertically), which changes dimesion quite a lot with change in humidity. Having a quick look, assuming a generic hard wood and that the shelves are 2" thick, and that the moisture content goes from 8% to 5% (typical between summer and winter, air conditioned or not etc) gives a dimension change of 16 thou (0.4mm). So a snug fit as manufactured at 5% can lead to an impossible interference fit at 8%.

These effects are real. Large woodworking benches have to constructed to try to prevent the wood from splitting between winter and summer (for example the end caps are on sliding splines and fixed by a single bolt - ie not glued. End grain/long grain problem). I finished building mine in the winter, and by high summer some of the joints had moved by way more than a millimeter. Now that it is winter, they have all closed up again. And this timber is 4" thick, quarter sawn beech. Same thing with fitting drawers - you leave around 1.5mm clearance at the top if you build them in the summer, so that when the wood expands in the winter it does't jam. If you build in the winter you can cut the clearance down. If the drawer really jams as humidity comes up, there is absolutely nothing you can do until humidity drops again, it will be stuck fast.

So if Arnold builds yours up at high humidity, the shelves will be slightly loose in the summer. If he builds at low humidity, there will be no way on god's green earth that you will be able to dissassemble them when the humidity comes up - they'll be jammed hard

[Voltron]

That is even more expansion/contraction than I would have expected and I'm sure all of what you say is completely accurate, Craig, but the main reason for the fitting issue is that I had version 1 racks and then he changed the design of the shelves when he created a version 2 rack. When he originally replaced the shelves but not the posts, he told me that the v.2 shelves were slightly larger but thought they would work with the v.1 posts. The new shelves then sat in my house in essentially the same room as the racks for 5 months ( ) so I would think that humidity issues should have equalized by then. Who knows, but I think the v.2 units have different enough tolerances that it really doesn't work to mix and match with the old version.

He is picking up all the pieces tomorrow and returning assembled racks early next week. Pretty damn good service, especially with the New Year's holiday in the middle.

[Craig Sawyers]

He is picking up all the pieces tomorrow and returning assembled racks early next week. Pretty damn good service, especially with the New Year's holiday in the middle.

Yeah - that is really excellent service!

The key about the expansion issue is that wood is not isotropic. Along the grain there is hardly any change. But perpendicular to the grain you can expect a movement of 3% or more depending on changes in humidity.

Think of wood as a bundle of drinking straws - there can be very little movement along the bundle, but rather a lot across the bundle as you squeeze.

The legs of this stand are along the grain direction, so doesn't change much. But the bit of the shelf that fits in the notches is across the grain, and will swell and contract as humidity changes. Not instantly, you understand - but it will certainly follow seasonal changes.

The only way to equalise out the anisotropy is to make plywood, where alternating thin layers of wood are arranged with alternate layer's grain directions perpendicular. That is the basic approach needed when veneering (at least in modern times) - a core material has cross-banding layers glued to it. The veneer goes on top of the cross-banding.

[NightWoundsTime]

Running the hell out of my heater for yet another night. I really should invest in an inspection and cleaning on the fireplace in this house so I can use it. Landlord said it's been a good 10 years since any tenant has had in interest in it, so it would be up to me to check the working order before starting a fire in the house. If this winter keeps handing me well below freezing nights, I think whatever investment that represents would be a far better option than spinning the meter from dusk to dawn.

[Salt Peanuts]

Fireplace isn't exactly a good way to heat your house. It makes the immediate area of it warm, but makes the rest of the house noticeably colder.

[Grahame]

^

Science/fireplace colder

[Salt Peanuts]

Drove up to my folks place near Bar Harbor. Our 7-month old daughter did remarkable well during the 5 hour drive. Let us hope she does just as well on the return drive.

[The Monkey]

Reksy, that's really weird. When I was on regular vicodin meds post-op, I developed a horrible pain on my left side from my neck to my pinky. I was convinced that they had done something to a nerve in surgery (they did manage to paralyze part of my diaphragm, but that's another story). Nothing showed up on any tests with the shoulder, neck, arm, etc. And I was seriously convinced it was at least a pinched nerve. I was writhing in pain. Oddly, it improved as I weaned off the meds. I attributed that to coincidence at the time, but I have taken Rx pain meds a few times since and have noticed a similar pain, though not as intense. Maybe one of our docs can ring in here if this is some sort of known side effect. Hope it is easily rectified, regardless, you've been through enough.

[NightWoundsTime]

Because a fire in the sort of poorly designed fireplaces you see in North American houses creates just enough heat to cause a convection current up the chimney, which sucks the smoke from the fire up the chimney, but also suchs out the heat generated by the fire, and lots of nice warm air from the house. The cold air that leaks into the house to replace the warm air lost up the chimney cools the house down.

Well, it is a bit of an unusual fireplace, in that it goes through the middle of the house and has openings into two rooms (with a brick wall down the middle). The fact that it's in a very old house would suggest that it was probably built for function over form.

[NightWoundsTime]

Reksy, that's really weird. When I was on regular vicodin meds post-op, I developed a horrible pain on my left side from my neck to my pinky. I was convinced that they had done something to a nerve in surgery (they did manage to paralyze part of my diaphragm, but that's another story). Nothing showed up on any tests with the shoulder, neck, arm, etc. And I was seriously convinced it was at least a pinched nerve. I was writhing in pain. Oddly, it improved as I weaned off the meds. I attributed that to coincidence at the time, but I have taken Rx pain meds a few times since and have noticed a similar pain, though not as intense. Maybe one of our docs can ring in here if this is some sort of known side effect. Hope it is easily rectified, regardless, you've been through enough.

X3 on shoulder pain from vicodin. After my hernia surgery I was on those for a few days, and between the constipation and the random pains that a call to the doctor were confirmed (or highly suggested) as side effects, I decided that ibuprofen would work just fine.