Minor victory thread

Fun Size

Fun Size

We bought a fixer upper house, and I have discovered that a combination of willingness to buy tools and extensive use of Youtube/Google allows me to act as a somewhat competent handyman. I have installed USB and nightlight outlets to replace cracked ones and swapped out two bathroom fans so far. Next stop: full blown lighting fixtures.

Also, I joked about a weird offset in the unfinished basement being where I'll hide my super suit, and wile my wife scoffed at this, she did come to me with a fully functional set of bookcase doors we can order to lead into the unfinished area when we build the walls down there.
 
Bones

Bones

Fun Size said:
We bought a fixer upper house, and I have discovered that a combination of willingness to buy tools and extensive use of Youtube/Google allows me to act as a somewhat competent handyman. I have installed USB and nightlight outlets to replace cracked ones and swapped out two bathroom fans so far. Next stop: full blown lighting fixtures.

Also, I joked about a weird offset in the unfinished basement being where I'll hide my super suit, and wile my wife scoffed at this, she did come to me with a fully functional set of bookcase doors we can order to lead into the unfinished area when we build the walls down there.
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ps light fixtures are stupid easy if there is a round fixture box in place and the wiring was from after 1960. if you have to run line or install boxes add an additional level of difficulty to the task.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Bones said:
old work boxes use flags against the drywall, no board required. (is an electrical suppliers senior sales cog)
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Well, you would’ve hated the house I used to live in. Ceiling boxes that weren’t anchored (or didn’t even have braces attached!), runs of Romex left laying atop the joists with no anchors and pulled as-the-crow-flies from box to outlet, “3-prong” outlets with the ground shorted directly to the neutral inside the box so they didn’t have to replace the existing 2-wire cable, 2xBedrooms + bathroom + hallway all on a single 15A circuit, dual outlet box in living room held in place solely with a giant gob of plaster/mud (no screws!), overhead halogen light in entryway installed without heat shield, and that’s just the stuff I discovered...

—Patrick
 
Bones

Bones

PatrThom said:
Well, you would’ve hated the house I used to live in. Ceiling boxes that weren’t anchored (or didn’t even have braces attached!), runs of Romex left laying atop the joists with no anchors and pulled as-the-crow-flies from box to outlet, “3-prong” outlets with the ground shorted directly to the neutral inside the box so they didn’t have to replace the existing 2-wire cable, 2xBedrooms + bathroom + hallway all on a single 15A circuit, dual outlet box in living room held in place solely with a giant gob of plaster/mud (no screws!), overhead halogen light in entryway installed without heat shield, and that’s just the stuff I discovered...

—Patrick
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yeah lay people are garbage, and routinely try their luck at burning their homes to the ground >_>
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

I remember when I moved into my grandparents home after they had passed away. The kitchen was being remodeled because it needed it. The contractor started taking the walls out of the kitchen and found "spaghetti" made out of the old cloth wrapped wire. My grandfather had a friend of his do the electrical in the house back in the 50s. The contractor said he was surprised it hadn't burned down the house years ago. Ended up having to redo all of the electric wiring in the house and install a new fuse box because that was a disaster, too.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

WasabiPoptart said:
I remember when I moved into my grandparents home after they had passed away. The kitchen was being remodeled because it needed it. The contractor started taking the walls out of the kitchen and found "spaghetti" made out of the old cloth wrapped wire. My grandfather had a friend of his do the electrical in the house back in the 50s. The contractor said he was surprised it hadn't burned down the house years ago. Ended up having to redo all of the electric wiring in the house and install a new fuse box because that was a disaster, too.
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The house we moved into after the fire was of 50's vintage. At some point, a previous owner had partially redone the wiring. There was still the cloth insulated wire and two prong outlets in some of the rooms. When they redid the garage into a den, they never bothered to add any outlets, so we were lucky to have one along one whole wall.

The cherry on top was a completely unlabeled breaker box. I had to figure out what was what by myself.
 
Eriol

Eriol

Bones said:
yeah lay people are garbage, and routinely try their luck at burning their homes to the ground >_>
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There's at least one episode of Holmes on Homes where his electrician is convinced that it must have been a handyman, and then finds out that it was done by a Master Electrician and was inspected - and obviously the inspector was on the take, or something. His expression was just "rage" at how this could have happened. He outright on camera says "I'm going to get his ticket pulled."

So yes, handyman can be awful, but it's sad to see when your "co-professionals" are just as bad or worse. It DOES happen. I deal with it frequently in my profession (software) as well.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

I remember way back about 20 years ago when we were looking at homes that there was this nice two-bedroom bungalow with a nice half-finished basement that was reasonably priced.

Then we noticed the extension cords going through the floors of each of the rooms on the main floor...
 
Bones

Bones

Eriol said:
There's at least one episode of Holmes on Homes where his electrician is convinced that it must have been a handyman, and then finds out that it was done by a Master Electrician and was inspected - and obviously the inspector was on the take, or something. His expression was just "rage" at how this could have happened. He outright on camera says "I'm going to get his ticket pulled."

So yes, handyman can be awful, but it's sad to see when your "co-professionals" are just as bad or worse. It DOES happen. I deal with it frequently in my profession (software) as well.
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I wasnt trying to suggest professionals were above board, its just much less likely that the professional electrician is going to do things like string extension cords made of lightweight lamp cord through their home to feed electricity to their light fixtures. or lay a service feed 6 inches under sod because forget digging that trench 2 feet deep like code calls for.
 
Frank

Frank

First real day of school today. After the incredible anxiety attack I had yesterday about going back to school (more than I've ever experienced being in danger as a mountie) today was better. Butchered (both literally and figuratively) salmon today. I'm not good at it!
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Trying to work on a 5 year old legacy program that I didn't write and know nothing about.

I'm trying to add a save routine for some new data.

My code and the legacy code look identical (except for the database table it's pointing at in entity framework). It's like 12 freaking lines of code.

My code crashes. Legacy code works. WTF? Literally, the only difference is the model name. Every other line of code is identical.

So, I get in hack the shit out of it. My code is now twice as long (because some foreign key tables weren't getting updated properly, so I did it by hand), but works. Bleh, I hate legacy code. Especially when the programmers who wrote them decided to get "clever" on how it all links together.

But still, even with the additional hacking to make it work, it was better than writing all that data manipulation from scratch.
 
drawn_inward

drawn_inward

My new job at the biotech startup has had some ups and downs in the first month. Being the sole (paid) employee has some added pressures that I didn't quite expect. I am feeling more confident as time goes on. I do hope that we can make this thing work, it could really have an impact on diagnosing cancers quickly. If all goes well, later this year I will be going to some large cancer clinics to show them the process and help them get it implemented. I am such a negative nancy sometimes so I am trying to focus on the positives. Onward and upward!
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

We're in the middle of the academic application season. Last year was disappointing with a few interviews and even second interviews in between long stretches of dead silence.

But this year, I have an NEH fellowship, a published peer-reviewed article, and another year of teaching under my belt. I have a good feeling about two applications in particular. I already teach online for one of those universities, and I worked for the other one for a year. They are both A&M campuses and they know me. Things are looking up.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
I am once again employed. Got several job offers, but went with a nice startup with a good bit of funding. They gave me a better package than the last job I had, so I am pretty happy. The paid time off is "unlimited" like Google.
 
Cajungal

Cajungal

Staff member
fade said:
I am once again employed. Got several job offers, but went with a nice startup with a good bit of funding. They gave me a better package than the last job I had, so I am pretty happy. The paid time off is "unlimited" like Google.
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That is great news! Congrats
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Wahad said:
I have a date. For the first time in like, seven years-ish, a girl was interested enough to say yes, so we're having drinks on tuesday.

What the fuck do I do now?:aaah:
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It's been so long since the opportunity came up to post this classic...

 
Celt Z

Celt Z

Wahad said:
I have a date. For the first time in like, seven years-ish, a girl was interested enough to say yes, so we're having drinks on tuesday.

What the fuck do I do now?:aaah:
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Don't worry about making it the "most romantic first date evah!!!1", but be friendly, polite, and have a good time. Get to know each other. Think of it as hanging out with a new friend.
 
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