Things Old Guys Do - The Catio

 

The wife and I are pet people.  We have always had dogs and cats.  They are our kids and we tend to spoil them from time to time.  

One of the things that Sue has always wanted was an outdoor enclosure for our cats so that they could go 'outside' but still be safe from all the nasty things that come after cats.  Sue nagged me for one of these until I finally gave in and said 'fine'.  You find a contractor and have one built. 

Sue went through four different contractors, all of whom never got back to her with an estimate. Most of the 'handymen' in town sort of saw a crazy lady that wanted to build a cat-condo.  So, in the end, I realized that if I was ever going to shut Sue up about this project, I would have to build it myself.  I agreed with the condition that I would have full creative control and budget authority.  This really irked Sue, but at this point, I held all the cards.

The project took about four months to complete and had to meet several parameters which included; it had to be free standing (the Catio does not touch the house), it had to conform to the design and look of the 115 year old house, it had to be accessible for cleaning, and it had to be off the ground due to weather / water and vermin (bugs and skunks).

The end result is a three tiered enclosure that is primarily made of metal with a wooden facade.  Almost all of the wood was re-purposed from other projects that we had around the houses.  The Catio was incorporated into the spiral staircase that I build which replaced the rotted stairway that came with the house.

The lamp post was left over from when we lived in Phoenix.  It was purchased for our home in Encanto/Palmcroft and never used.  Eight years later it was finally taken out of the box and placed on the corner of the porch. It is wired with the original knob and tube porcelain fixtures that were still on the outside of the house. 

The cats access the catio through a tunnel that leads from the enclosed sun-porch off the master bedroom, under a bench and onto the catio itself.  At the end of the catio is an enclosed area were the litter boxes are placed and can be accessed from the outside (no more indoor litter boxes). 

The cats are still figuring it out, but most have realized that there are a lot more birds to watch from the catio perches than through the windows in the house.  I have yet to show Sue what the bill is for the labor involved.  It won't be cheap.  Did I mention that we spoil our pets?

Things Old Guys Do - Windows 3.1

Finally finished tweaking and testing the complete Window 3.1 environment, with Wordperfect / Lotus123 / Photoshop Suites as well as other software.  It appears to be pretty stable (as stable as Windows could be back then) and it is lightning fast.  The entire Windows environment runs under Linux, using the DOSBox interface.  

I have been amazed at how well the video and music play.  There is no skipping or buffering.  And, I am finally getting to try and finish a copy of Myst, which is absolutely AWESOME played through the surround sound stereo. 

Things Old Guys Do: The Unix Server

Transitioning from the Man Cave to the Dog Lounge.

Upgrades are inevitable. 

After backing up more than a few hard drives (lots of images), it became apparent that I needed more hard drive space and better organization of my data.  The most cost effective way to do this was to 'upgrade' an old HP Desktop that I have.  It has been upgraded to a Two Terra-byte drive, a new cooling fan and a new operating system (Linux Lite)

Since I was tearing it apart, I thought I might as well do a little 'art' work on it and get rid of some of that old spray paint that has been cluttering up the Imagination Zone.  Hence, the old Black Hewlett-Packard Desktop is now the Red Media Server.   To make it look even more outstanding, I made a base for it from a discarded trash can and painted it bright blue.  Ad in the custom tall shop stool and a $99 flat screen from Walmart and a Lava Lamp and you have the 'new' $220 media player.

As an added curio, I also dug out the old Iomega Peerless swap-able hard drive.  Although their max capacity is only 20 gigabytes.  For when you positively, absolutely have to back up something small, right away. 

The servers only purpose is to store music and video content.  Currently there is about 28 days worth of music and several weeks of video (binge watch MadMan or Cosmos anyone?).  No streaming and no buffering in this dog lounge. The server is connected to the surround sound six speaker system for the lounge.  So the Dog Lounge now has the best sound system of any canine palace in this section of the country.

Things Old Guys Do - Barn Doors

The original barn doors.  They were layered slats that were four layers thick and were rotting on the bottom.  Each door weighed over 1000lbs.  The extension on the right had also rotted and was torn down.  (O'Henry the dog)

The only portion of the original doors that were salvaged.  Norvell-Shapleigh - Norleigh Diamond Barn Door Hangers.  Stripped the layered paint from them and refurbished the hardware.  According to a Google search, these were manufactured sometime before 1918.  

Since the doors were to large (8' X 10') to hang once assembled, I chose to arrange the doors on the ground and then hang them piece by piece on the barn.  Essentially, assembling the doors in place.  (Coco the dog)

Once the frame was hung, the remainder of each door could be installed in place.  (Iris the dog)

The primary door panel material is corrugated metal with window inserts placed in each door.  The windows were found in the barn and are being recycled.  They will be stripped, glazed and reinstalled in the same color scheme.  But that is a separate project. 

Keeping the theme of the Norleigh Diamond Hangers. 

On to the next project..... (O'Henry the dog)

Things Old Guys Do - Thrift Store Photos

The Truth or Consequences Negatives

While on vacation, I found an abandoned collection of 1500 film negatives shot during the late summer of 1983.  

This binder of negatives was found in an Animal Rescue Thrift Store in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico during the summer of 2019.  The cost for the binder was $20.  

A majority of these images were taken on Tofino Island and in Vashon, British Columbia along with  Seattle, Washington.

The titles for the images reflect the description written on the plastic proof sheets that the negatives are stored in.  A [(misc)] in the file name indicates no description for the negatives is available.   The collection appears to be a project encompassing at least 50 rolls of 36 exposure film, shot within a four month period of time. 

It took me about two months, but I managed to scan all these images with a film scanner.  The entire collection as been posted to my Flickr account for viewing.  

If anyone has any information on the people or places represented here, your comments are welcome

Things Old Guys Do - The Bullet Camera

The 1940 Kodak Bullet Camera

I do a lot of photography.  Been doing it ever since I was in college.  There isn't a lot of film or formats that I have not done.  4X5, 3X4, 120, 620, 35mm, 35mm (half frame), and of course 127.  

If you haven't heard of 127 film, that is because they stopped using this format near the latter half of the last century (probably around 1960).  So it is considered a dead format.  Ignorant of this fact (ignorance can be bliss when learning stuff), I came across this little camera in the bargain bin of a thrift store about eight years ago.  They were asking .25 cents. 

It intrigued me, because it was super small (you can shove it in your pocket) made of Bakelite and had this cute feature of a corkscrew lens.  For .25 cents, it was a nice paperweight if it didn't work. Of course when I got home, I found that 127 film wasn't going to work, since even the last of the black and white would be bad by now, even if I could find some expired film.  However, while I was searching eBay for film, I came across this rather odd listing

A 100 foot bulk roll of Kodak Porta 160nc Color Negative Film (C41 Process) that was actually in 127 width.  It wasn't even expired, so for some small amount (probably $40), I bought it, figuring I would 'roll my own'.  The only thing I needed were extra film rolls.  These are always metal and hard to find.....but not on eBay!  I managed to scarf up five of them over a few weeks and started experimenting in the dark room. 

I calculated that the 100 foot roll of film would yield about 40 rolls of 127 film (at eight shots per roll).  I have shot and developed about 30 rolls so far and am getting near the end.  This is NOT a great camera, although it does have a certain James Bond quality to it.  The focal length is 6ft to infinity only, so you have to stand back from any subject.  Field of view isn't stellar either.  The shutter is fixed at approximately 1/60sec (they didn't pay a lot of attention to this back in the day) and the camera was never designed to shot 160asa speed film.  So I quickly found out that you needed a LOT of light to get the image right. 

You can expect to see most of the current batch on my Flickr feed in the coming week. 

Things Old Guys Do - The Captain's Chair

[cinema cycle]

Things That Old Guys Do

The Captain Kirk Chair

The Man Cave 2.0

We got this new house with a covered / enclosed patio.  This is supposed to be the dog lounge, where our large canines can sleep and frolic without worry of making a mess or shedding all over creation.  So naturally, this was also destined to become the new and improved Man Cave. 

Those Dreams Of Early Adulthood

What the new Man Cave eventually turned out to be was the ultimate stereo that I had always wanted as a teenager in college. We are talking college in the 1980s, so the Internet and Streaming media are not in the picture here. What I was shooting for was a viewing system for my extensive collection of media. Since my collection is voluminous and extensive, it figured it was time to upgrade the system to match. About $1,200 later, the project is complete

The Chair

What I did not have was a really nice chair to sit in while using / viewing the system. Mind you, this patio area has a tile floor (dogs remember). Easy to keep clean, but also easy to maneuver around with the right chair. So I went looking for the ideal office chair to complete the media lounge. I found it on Amazon.com for $189.

The Wheels

Sounded good, but all chairs came with the same crappy plastic wheels. I knew that this would not do. So I opted for custom wheels and installed them myself. Big difference on the tile floor. This thing glides around like it is on a cushion of air.

The Floor

One little setback, is that the chair glides so easily, that the unevenness of the floor becomes apparent and if you don’t anchor your feet you go floating toward the center of the room.

The Price!

While the total I spent on this chair was just shy of $200, I was amazed to find the original take on the back of the chair once I had assembled it. Appears that retail, this chair is worth a lot of the up and coming executive. It is nice, but it ain’t that nice!