Super Saturday
Saturday, February 25th, 2023 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio36F and Sunny today. Not bad! Plenty warm enough to get some work done outside. I slept in until 12:30PM, but it wasn't too late.
Snoop & Prowly both, were upstairs when I got up, just napping.
After a week, they're both acclimated enough to their outdoor freedom that... they're back to napping upstairs with me in the morning like it used to be, in the olden days of last fall.
Yvette and I did a bit of a walk up and down the block, and then, she decided to go into the back yard, where we were met by Prowly, and so... we had a bit of a three species walk back there, before Yvette had a long sit.
I stood there with her, watching Prowly prowl around the back yard.
Back inside, around 1:30PM, I got to work on the security cameras.
--<>--
In the wee hours of Friday morning, before bed, I had ordered two cameras, and a WIFI repeater to boost the signal near the back door, and in the back room.
After waking up on Friday morning, I'd been astonished to see all three items had arrived on the front doorstep!
Before work that morning, I'd gotten the WIFI repeater set up... plugged in behind the kitchen stove, near the back room and back door. A Wifi signal tester had showed that the signal was strong outside the back door.
And after work on Friday night, I'd stopped at Walgreens to get two micro-SD cards for the cameras.
--<>--
It should also be noted that the two rugs came on Friday afternoon, for the living room and the bedroom!
Over Thursday and Friday, Tim had managed to remove all the staples from the living room floor, so that, when the rugs came, he was able to put one down on the living room floor, and get what furniture there is left in that room, back into position.
He also did finish up with organizing stuff from the basement, and in dad's room, into bins. So... he DID catch up with all the stuff he'd started, by Friday night.
--<>--
So today I configured the two cameras, and mounted them outside, on either end of the side porch. One looks back into the back yard. The other looks at the driveway and the walk approaching the side door.
For both, I drilled holes to run the power cords inside the porch where they're both plugged into outlets near their locations. No lame solar panels to deal with! So Thank God I electrified the porch, back in 2020 and 2021!
They're both getting a strong WIFI signal, and have nice clear pictures, with night vision, but by far my FAVE feature, is that they track motion!
They both have their home position, looking out back or out front, but if their motion sensors pick stuff up, they will turn to follow what they're seeing!
I watched one lock onto Tim going out the back door to throw something away! It followed him back into the back door, and then stayed on the back door for a few seconds before returning to it's home position.
We tested out the front one, and it tracked him as well!
--<>--
The back camera is there to guard the back door.
Way back in the early 1990s, before Mom & Dad retired, and when I was also working, some punk neighborhood kids kicked in the back door and ransacked the house!
We got a dog after that, which took care of it. But this time around the house is gonna be even more vulnerable than in the early 1990s, and Yvette's getting long in the tooth.
Now, I have done a lot already to secure that back door. It locks with a deadbolt. It's got the dog yard fence around it. And the lighting back there's been improved. But it is still the target door for a break-in.
The camera can pan all the way over to the back door... and with the tracking feature, it will follow anybody coming through the back yard toward that door... which means that word will get around, from the teens who currently do this.
With a little padlock on the dog yard gate, the back door should be safe.
The floodlight, deadbolt, fence, locked gate, and tracking camera, should be plenty enough deterrence for any local punks.
And the back camera has the added benefit of looking at my shed in back.
--<>--
The front camera is, by default, looking at my car in the driveway. And if I back the car in... it's looking at the driver door, as well as the rear cargo door.
That area is also lit a lot better than it was when the Yaris was last stolen, and with this tracking camera, I think the RAV4 will be safe from hoods looking to nab tools out of it.
The front camera can pan well to the left and right of the driveway, and can catch anybody coming up the side walk toward the screen door of the side porch.
The side door inside the porch... also known as the kitchen door... would be the second most likely target for a break in. But... it is surrounded by the porch itself, and I have fixed both the front and rear screen doors of the porch to lock securely.
Thus, if I lock the porch doors, and the kitchen door... and go in and out through the front door... there is as much deterrence to a side door break-in, as to a back door break-in.
In Both cases, you'll have to defeat some surrounding bullshit to get to the door in question... and won't be able to do so without alerting the camera.
------------{=0=}------------
While I was busy installing those front and rear security cameras, Tim was in the house, going through the cedar chest in the living room... the one final cabinet he had not yet tackled.
He found a crap ton of old Sears Catalogues, that were taking up most of the space, and weighing it down considerably... and he threw them all out into the recycle bin.
--<>--
After installing the front and rear cameras, I set about to getting the Ring doorbell working again!
It's been down since the new WIFI was installed, and it's always been either too cold, or too dark to get it back online... as to do so you have to remove the cover outside, scan a little QR code, and stand there near the thing with your phone for several minutes.
At any rate, I did successfully get the damn Ring doorbell back online!
--<>--
By that point, Tim was busy removing the small bit of carpet there was in Dad's room... the last downstairs room with a floor to mess with.
And today I was on his side about it, and we were agreed to pry up the shitty floor tiles in that room tonight too!
But first I had one last robotic detail to deal with, and that was the outdoor garden lights.
------------{=0=}------------
I'd set up the garden lights back in 2019 to illuminate the north side of the house, which had been in total darkness since the beginning of time.
And I did this because I'd fixed up the hatch door entrance to the basement, over there.
Nine LED lights, surprisingly bright, which follow the foundation on the north side, except for two, which are suspended high over the hatch door.
Like everything else, they too are powered by house current. They're 12 Volt lights, hooked up to a transformer in the basement which is plugged into house power down there.
But I had no photo sensor to turn them on and off, so, for the past four years they've just been plugged into a timer that turns them on at 4:30PM, and off at 7:30AM, all year round, reguardless of when the sun sets or rises.
And that's just... a bit amateaur, now that all the rest of the outdoor lights are dawn to dusk.
But the new WIFI is strong enough to allow smart plugs to work in the basement! I had already hooked one up a couple weeks ago, for the exhaust fan down there, so that now I can have Alexa turn that fan on and off.
Today, I set up a second smart plug for the garden lights. And then I programmed Alexa with a routine to turn them on every day at sunset, and turn them off every day at sunrise!
It's GORGEOUS!
--<>--
From this day forward, all exterior lights; front porch, side porch, back room floods, and north side gardens, will all turn on at sunset, and off at sunrise, in winter, spring, summer, and fall!
And I love that! Because I'll always be gone at work, by sunset, no matter what season it is! And I'll always be sleeping at sunrise, no matter the season!
But these automations make it look like somebody is home and awake at those times, who cares! :D
------------{=0=}------------
After I got done setting up the garden lights with Alexa, I joined Tim in the daunting task of removing all the floor tiles from the bedroom behind the living room... Dad's room.
They were not coming up easily, so I had the bright idea to get my torch from the basement and we started taking turns heating up the blades of our scrapers before hitting the tiles.
And that made it easier, but after a break I tried just putting the torch on a tile itself, and THAT, worked like a charm! Fire up the tile, and then it gets all soft and comes up like butter!
It was still a fairly intense task, but we knocked it out in half the time we were first expecting!
And after bagging up all the waste, and vacuuming the masonite underlayment, we rolled out the rug!
Rolled out the rug and put the furniture back!
------------{=0=}------------
I was pretty grouchy last weekend, about Tim wanting to tear up the carpets in the living room and hallway... and having to deal with the staples in the living room, and the linolium in the hallway... while there were still piles of crap everywhere he'd been sorting through to put into storage bins.
But, I was anxious about the cats being outside for the first time, and wanted that to be my main focus.
But a week later, I'm glad we tore up those floors, and the one in the bedroom today, because now that the new rugs are down, that whole section of the downstairs has a completely new energy!
The floors and walls still look like shit, but... it's not echoey anymore, and, with the last of the crap cleared out... you can finally get a feel for the new downstairs!
As Tim put it, Mom & Dad have finally moved out!
--<>--
The last thing to do was put up a blind in the kitchen, on the west facing kitchen window.
Unlike the mahogany blinds for the living room and bedroom, this one blind for the kitchen is bamboo, to match the blinds I put on the porch back in 2021... and it came today.
With that, we were exhausted. Tim fired up two frozen pizzas in the oven and after we ate, and chatted a while, I came upstairs to write this entry.
------------{=0=}------------
To recap, since last week; the cats have been fully emancipated with two cat doors and are both a lot more relaxed, and both still spend as much time indoors as outdoors...
The floors in the living room, hallway, and west bedroom have been stripped of all carpet, linolium and floor tile... and are now clothed in neat new rugs...
The last of the cabinets and drawers have been sorted through, with all the gems saved into storage bins, and all the crap thrown out...
And we now have three working security cameras, and the garden lights are finally on the dawn to dusk schedule with the rest of the outdoor lights!
--<>--
There is still much to do! I need one more camera to monitor the basement hatch area. And I'm still waiting to get that City Transfer Stamp, and finalize the deed transfer with the county...
I have a ton of work ahead of me, patching plaster and painting walls... installing a breaker box... cutting down trees in the back yard... etcetera... and I have to go full time at work.
BUT
Where we got tonight, on Super Saturday, at the end of Februrary, was far enough, for Tim to return to his life in Nevada... and for me to carry on alone here.
--<>--
Mom & Dad have moved out!
The cat's have independence!
The house can defend itself while I'm at work!
--<>--
And with that... tomorrow is Tim's last full day and night here. :(
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
Snoop & Prowly both, were upstairs when I got up, just napping.
After a week, they're both acclimated enough to their outdoor freedom that... they're back to napping upstairs with me in the morning like it used to be, in the olden days of last fall.
Yvette and I did a bit of a walk up and down the block, and then, she decided to go into the back yard, where we were met by Prowly, and so... we had a bit of a three species walk back there, before Yvette had a long sit.
I stood there with her, watching Prowly prowl around the back yard.
Back inside, around 1:30PM, I got to work on the security cameras.
In the wee hours of Friday morning, before bed, I had ordered two cameras, and a WIFI repeater to boost the signal near the back door, and in the back room.
After waking up on Friday morning, I'd been astonished to see all three items had arrived on the front doorstep!
Before work that morning, I'd gotten the WIFI repeater set up... plugged in behind the kitchen stove, near the back room and back door. A Wifi signal tester had showed that the signal was strong outside the back door.
And after work on Friday night, I'd stopped at Walgreens to get two micro-SD cards for the cameras.
It should also be noted that the two rugs came on Friday afternoon, for the living room and the bedroom!
Over Thursday and Friday, Tim had managed to remove all the staples from the living room floor, so that, when the rugs came, he was able to put one down on the living room floor, and get what furniture there is left in that room, back into position.
He also did finish up with organizing stuff from the basement, and in dad's room, into bins. So... he DID catch up with all the stuff he'd started, by Friday night.
So today I configured the two cameras, and mounted them outside, on either end of the side porch. One looks back into the back yard. The other looks at the driveway and the walk approaching the side door.
For both, I drilled holes to run the power cords inside the porch where they're both plugged into outlets near their locations. No lame solar panels to deal with! So Thank God I electrified the porch, back in 2020 and 2021!
They're both getting a strong WIFI signal, and have nice clear pictures, with night vision, but by far my FAVE feature, is that they track motion!
They both have their home position, looking out back or out front, but if their motion sensors pick stuff up, they will turn to follow what they're seeing!
I watched one lock onto Tim going out the back door to throw something away! It followed him back into the back door, and then stayed on the back door for a few seconds before returning to it's home position.
We tested out the front one, and it tracked him as well!
The back camera is there to guard the back door.
Way back in the early 1990s, before Mom & Dad retired, and when I was also working, some punk neighborhood kids kicked in the back door and ransacked the house!
We got a dog after that, which took care of it. But this time around the house is gonna be even more vulnerable than in the early 1990s, and Yvette's getting long in the tooth.
Now, I have done a lot already to secure that back door. It locks with a deadbolt. It's got the dog yard fence around it. And the lighting back there's been improved. But it is still the target door for a break-in.
The camera can pan all the way over to the back door... and with the tracking feature, it will follow anybody coming through the back yard toward that door... which means that word will get around, from the teens who currently do this.
With a little padlock on the dog yard gate, the back door should be safe.
The floodlight, deadbolt, fence, locked gate, and tracking camera, should be plenty enough deterrence for any local punks.
And the back camera has the added benefit of looking at my shed in back.
The front camera is, by default, looking at my car in the driveway. And if I back the car in... it's looking at the driver door, as well as the rear cargo door.
That area is also lit a lot better than it was when the Yaris was last stolen, and with this tracking camera, I think the RAV4 will be safe from hoods looking to nab tools out of it.
The front camera can pan well to the left and right of the driveway, and can catch anybody coming up the side walk toward the screen door of the side porch.
The side door inside the porch... also known as the kitchen door... would be the second most likely target for a break in. But... it is surrounded by the porch itself, and I have fixed both the front and rear screen doors of the porch to lock securely.
Thus, if I lock the porch doors, and the kitchen door... and go in and out through the front door... there is as much deterrence to a side door break-in, as to a back door break-in.
In Both cases, you'll have to defeat some surrounding bullshit to get to the door in question... and won't be able to do so without alerting the camera.
While I was busy installing those front and rear security cameras, Tim was in the house, going through the cedar chest in the living room... the one final cabinet he had not yet tackled.
He found a crap ton of old Sears Catalogues, that were taking up most of the space, and weighing it down considerably... and he threw them all out into the recycle bin.
After installing the front and rear cameras, I set about to getting the Ring doorbell working again!
It's been down since the new WIFI was installed, and it's always been either too cold, or too dark to get it back online... as to do so you have to remove the cover outside, scan a little QR code, and stand there near the thing with your phone for several minutes.
At any rate, I did successfully get the damn Ring doorbell back online!
By that point, Tim was busy removing the small bit of carpet there was in Dad's room... the last downstairs room with a floor to mess with.
And today I was on his side about it, and we were agreed to pry up the shitty floor tiles in that room tonight too!
But first I had one last robotic detail to deal with, and that was the outdoor garden lights.
I'd set up the garden lights back in 2019 to illuminate the north side of the house, which had been in total darkness since the beginning of time.
And I did this because I'd fixed up the hatch door entrance to the basement, over there.
Nine LED lights, surprisingly bright, which follow the foundation on the north side, except for two, which are suspended high over the hatch door.
Like everything else, they too are powered by house current. They're 12 Volt lights, hooked up to a transformer in the basement which is plugged into house power down there.
But I had no photo sensor to turn them on and off, so, for the past four years they've just been plugged into a timer that turns them on at 4:30PM, and off at 7:30AM, all year round, reguardless of when the sun sets or rises.
And that's just... a bit amateaur, now that all the rest of the outdoor lights are dawn to dusk.
But the new WIFI is strong enough to allow smart plugs to work in the basement! I had already hooked one up a couple weeks ago, for the exhaust fan down there, so that now I can have Alexa turn that fan on and off.
Today, I set up a second smart plug for the garden lights. And then I programmed Alexa with a routine to turn them on every day at sunset, and turn them off every day at sunrise!
It's GORGEOUS!
From this day forward, all exterior lights; front porch, side porch, back room floods, and north side gardens, will all turn on at sunset, and off at sunrise, in winter, spring, summer, and fall!
And I love that! Because I'll always be gone at work, by sunset, no matter what season it is! And I'll always be sleeping at sunrise, no matter the season!
But these automations make it look like somebody is home and awake at those times, who cares! :D
After I got done setting up the garden lights with Alexa, I joined Tim in the daunting task of removing all the floor tiles from the bedroom behind the living room... Dad's room.
They were not coming up easily, so I had the bright idea to get my torch from the basement and we started taking turns heating up the blades of our scrapers before hitting the tiles.
And that made it easier, but after a break I tried just putting the torch on a tile itself, and THAT, worked like a charm! Fire up the tile, and then it gets all soft and comes up like butter!
It was still a fairly intense task, but we knocked it out in half the time we were first expecting!
And after bagging up all the waste, and vacuuming the masonite underlayment, we rolled out the rug!
Rolled out the rug and put the furniture back!
I was pretty grouchy last weekend, about Tim wanting to tear up the carpets in the living room and hallway... and having to deal with the staples in the living room, and the linolium in the hallway... while there were still piles of crap everywhere he'd been sorting through to put into storage bins.
But, I was anxious about the cats being outside for the first time, and wanted that to be my main focus.
But a week later, I'm glad we tore up those floors, and the one in the bedroom today, because now that the new rugs are down, that whole section of the downstairs has a completely new energy!
The floors and walls still look like shit, but... it's not echoey anymore, and, with the last of the crap cleared out... you can finally get a feel for the new downstairs!
As Tim put it, Mom & Dad have finally moved out!
The last thing to do was put up a blind in the kitchen, on the west facing kitchen window.
Unlike the mahogany blinds for the living room and bedroom, this one blind for the kitchen is bamboo, to match the blinds I put on the porch back in 2021... and it came today.
With that, we were exhausted. Tim fired up two frozen pizzas in the oven and after we ate, and chatted a while, I came upstairs to write this entry.
To recap, since last week; the cats have been fully emancipated with two cat doors and are both a lot more relaxed, and both still spend as much time indoors as outdoors...
The floors in the living room, hallway, and west bedroom have been stripped of all carpet, linolium and floor tile... and are now clothed in neat new rugs...
The last of the cabinets and drawers have been sorted through, with all the gems saved into storage bins, and all the crap thrown out...
And we now have three working security cameras, and the garden lights are finally on the dawn to dusk schedule with the rest of the outdoor lights!
There is still much to do! I need one more camera to monitor the basement hatch area. And I'm still waiting to get that City Transfer Stamp, and finalize the deed transfer with the county...
I have a ton of work ahead of me, patching plaster and painting walls... installing a breaker box... cutting down trees in the back yard... etcetera... and I have to go full time at work.
BUT
Where we got tonight, on Super Saturday, at the end of Februrary, was far enough, for Tim to return to his life in Nevada... and for me to carry on alone here.
Mom & Dad have moved out!
The cat's have independence!
The house can defend itself while I'm at work!
And with that... tomorrow is Tim's last full day and night here. :(
°¦}
