Hey, the site's working again and I'm back... We moved into the new house on October 29, 2016, which was five months ago. Of course, just prior to the move I shut down and packed up the entire network from our old apartment and brought it to the house. For the first 3.5 months here, the servers were powered up, but there was no internet connectivity to them. This was due to the fact that the ISP Ethernet hand-off was in the laundry room, whereas the server rack is located in my office. And there was no Ethernet between. Workstations, mobile devices, Apple TVs, etc. were all using the default Wi-Fi from the ISP. Then, finally, about 1.5 months ago, I finally got up into the attic and ran some cable to cross-connect my pfSense firewall to the ISP. Viola! So, you may ask, if the servers have been online for the...
Category: House
First Walk-Through
Today Cari and I had the first walk-through with the builder to see what needed to go on the final punch list. Other than the basic painting retouches, the biggest concerns we have were: No electricity. Yeah, that's a big one. It sounds like Tampa Electric will be onsite tomorrow to install the meter. But the fact that the air conditioning wasn't running during the walk through today was a really bummer. Very hot and sweaty. No decorative stone. Around the entire front of the house is stonework that wasn't in place yet. However, the truck arrived while we were doing the walk through, so that looks like it'll be done in time. No sod. The entire front yard is still without sod, and it looks crappy. But, it's all supposed to be finished tomorrow too. So, fingers are crossed that everything will be fine for the final walk-through on...
The House is Almost Done
We'll be closing on the house on October 6th. I just got notification that the mortgage is complete too. We're almost there. Here are some photos from last Saturday (September 24): [caption id="attachment_605" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Some new landscaping, including a Bird of Paradise.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_607" align="aligncenter" width="640"] More bushes, plants and a palm tree.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_606" align="aligncenter" width="640"] A wider view of the front yard.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_608" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Timer for the sprinkler system.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_609" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Hot water heater is in![/caption] [caption id="attachment_610" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Kitchen counter tops are in![/caption] [caption id="attachment_611" align="aligncenter" width="640"] A closer look at the granite.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_612" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The kitchen sink in the island.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_613" align="aligncenter" width="640"] And the granite in the bathrooms.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_614" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Carpeting in the Loft.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_615" align="aligncenter" width="640"] ...and the front bedroom upstairs.[/caption] [caption...
Some New Sticks
Was driving home yesterday through the remnants of Tropical Storm Colin, and there was a crash on the interstate. Waze literally routed me right past the new house, so I slipped into the development and checked the status of the house. Now, there's been a ton of heavy rain the last several days, so I'm sure that's why not much has been accomplished. I didn't get out of the car. From the street with the window rolled down, it seems like some internal first story walls have been roughed in. Also, the studs for the stairs are up. [caption id="attachment_557" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Some studs going in, the staircase is roughed in, and the straps are in for the 2nd floor joists.[/caption]
The Great Walls
We stopped by the house this past Saturday, and the first story exterior walls are up. Check it out: [caption id="attachment_547" align="aligncenter" width="640"] From the front yard, looking at the garage.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_548" align="aligncenter" width="640"] From the front yard, looking at the front porch and entry way.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_549" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Cari and Vira in the "living room".[/caption] [caption id="attachment_550" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Looking toward the master bedroom. Nice view out the window![/caption] [caption id="attachment_551" align="aligncenter" width="640"] From the backyard, looking in through the master bedroom window.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_552" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Looking into the garage from the connected hallway.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_553" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Looking into the garage from the living room.[/caption]
A Little House Update
I met with the construction foreman for the house last Thursday (May 12) and we went over the drawings. We found several things that needed to be corrected, but nothing was too terrible. Tonight, on the way home from work, I decided to swing by and see if any progress had been made and it looks like they delivered some concrete and re-bar for the foundation. The in-slab plumbing looks complete, but I don't see any electrical done yet, so I think that'll need to be done before they pour. We also decided on the exterior colors. We're going with color scheme #3 (Poco w/Slate). Here's a rendering of our actual model with the colors (or, as close as I could guest-imate): It started raining a lot today, and it looks to be this way for a few more days, so I'll probably not check back in on the house until...
House Photos
We swung by the lot today and saw some of the early work. The basic framing where the slab will go is complete and they've run most of the plumbing. [caption id="attachment_524" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Cari standing where the master bedroom will be.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_525" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Standing where the property line is. We'll have a decent backyard and pool.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_526" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Looking out toward the front.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_527" align="aligncenter" width="640"] In the front yard, looking into the lot.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_528" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The plumbing for the master bathroom sinks (foreground), master bathroom shower and tub (midground), and guest bathroom and laundry room (background).[/caption]
All Sorts of News
A lot has happened since my last post. I'll start with the more mundane... I had trouble rendering SCS047 and guessed it was a Windows issue with my main workstation. So, about a week ago, I reformatted the box and re-installed everything. Since this is pretty painful to do, I thought it might be nice to make my C: drive an SSD, so I bought one and installed it. I made my old 1TB HD a secondary drive and installed less-used software to it. I also had a bunch of unused RAM laying around, so I upgraded the machine from 8GB to 16GB. I'll most likely up it to 32GB in the coming months. I got everything shiny and new, fired up LightWave and ... the application crashed again. So, I decided it was time to upgrade from LightWave 10 to LightWave 2015.3, which ended up curing the problems. SO,...
A New Era
Yesterday I received an email that all of the paperwork for the new house is finally complete. The process started in earnest on January 28, but it took some time to jump through all of the hoops. I have a meeting coming up soon where I'll sit with construction team and go over the timeline. The expected completion date is early August. We're pretty excited. Even though it's only been three months since I first started the process going, I've been planning out a new studio infrastructure for about a year. I've racked all of the equipment, ordered new network switches, and have been building a new server environment. Part of this has been virtualizing and normalizing all of the computers, which has been a challenge. The last piece of that will be completed this coming week, when I receive a new 5TB hard drive for one of the hypervisors. Once...
