Vaction Project - The Completion

A little over 2 months ago I told you the story of my Vacation Project of painting my bathroom. When we last discussed the project I debating about applying the recommended polyurethane coat.

Well I am on vacation again and had not yet finished the project. Nor I had taken down the masking tape or put the cabinet door back on the vanity. Quite frankly I was getting sick of living with the room taken apart, but also did not really want to paint again. It was either time to get the room in order again or apply the poly coat.

I decided that I should do the poly coat since it was recommended for wet areas, I assume a bathroom qualifies. I went back to Home Depot and bought the poly. At about $18 the poly costs almost as much as the gallon of paint but is only 1 quart. Should be enough though, right? The poly coat went on very well. In the can it is milky white but becomes clear almost as soon as it hits the wall. It is a little hard to see if you miss any spots but after drying for a couple minutes it becomes obvious. As I was doing the last few walls I started noticing that I was running low on poly but figured I would have enough to finish. Of course that did not happen! I ran out of poly - I mean bone dry - with I would guess about 10 square feet of wall space left. I was kinda pissed and had to make the run to Home Depot to get another quart of poly at another $18. I got home and got the coat finished. I was pleased with the results overall. The poly coat seems a little slick to the touch, but does not appear shiny to the eye. I tried to take some pictures of the room with thy polyurethane coat on but they turned out the same as the photos in the last post. It is not exciting but here is the 2nd can of poly that I used to finish the job (the blog is called jdzphotography after all, I need at least 1 picture)
I let the poly dry overnight, it did darken the finish a little but I still like it. I missed a couple small spots along the ceiling that redid and then removed all of the masking tape. It is nice to finally have the bathroom back to normal!

The last thing that I needed to do was to put up the new towel ring that I had gotten. While looking at the ring at Home Depot it appeared to match my light fixture well. Upon further inspection at home I realized that it was close but was not quite what I was looking for. I decided to return the ring and will just use a towel bar on the wall next to the linen closet. The wall space that is left empty will be a good spot for a photo maybe. Here is the towel ring I ended up returning, feel free to use your imagination.

I am VERY glad to have this project done and will vow now to never use Behr Sandwash Texture Paint again. It is just too much work. I like the results but it is just not worth it.

Computer Trouble - The Solution

Let me start out by first saying I love Apple and will continue to buy Apple computers!

Bear with me this might get kinda long!

For the first time in the 4 1/2 years or so that I have been using Apples I had a computer fail on me. I have been using my PowerBook G4 for nearly 4 years with no major issues. A couple nights ago after getting home from work I noticed the computer sounded a little louder then it usually does, I ignored it and figured it was just the fan. The next morning it was even louder and I started getting a little worried. I quickly backed everything up to my external hard drive just in case. Good thing I did, by the time I got home that night my computer would not do anything! I am not a trained computer expert by any means but I was pretty sure that my hard drive had failed. The noises that I had heard were likely the "last breaths" of a dying hard drive, lots if clicking and scratching noises.

My initial reaction was anger towards myself for not taking the noises more seriously and getting software installed on my backup drive sooner. I had all of my information backed up but did not have a bootable hard drive to start the computer from. My anger quickly turned to the thought of "oh crap what next". You see, I had been wanting a new MacBook Pro but I had deiced to wait until the new operating system (Leopard) is out this Fall. I had not really been planning finances for a new computer quite yet either. What else can I do though, buy a new computer or use an old computer for a few months until I bought a new one.

A trip to the Apple Store was needed! I decided that if I was able to go and see the new model of MacBook Pro I could convince myself that buying one now was a good idea (even though it would mean upgrade cost in the fall). I made a trip to the dreaded Mall of America to see the new models (just released on June 5, 2007) of course I fell in love! The MBP's have brighter screens, bigger hard drives, more memory and are a LOT faster then my dead computer. I wanted one right then and there. Thankfully they do not install hard drives in the store or else I would have bought one on the spot. I left the Apple Store empty handed but full walleted for the day at least.

After getting home and getting my Dell laptop out of the basement, reviving it for the first time in months. I started reading reviews of the MBP's and trying to decide on which hard drive to order with the computer (without boring you to death, the choices are bigger/slower vs smaller/faster). While reading about what are people had order I stumble across a story about replacing hard drives in PowerBook G4s. Hmmm that was not 1 of the 2 options I had come up with before. Could I possibly do that and does it make sense financially to do to a computer I plan on only using for another few months? More reading was needed. Turns out people claim replacing a laptop hard drive is not that hard. OK, but how much does the new drive cost? The answer actually shocked me, about $150. Well, $150 vs $2500ish for a new computer the choice seemed obvious.

The replacement hard drives are easily found online but I did not want to wait for shipping. After all I was without my computer and for a self proclaimed geek that is not fun! I had a new mission, find a replacement hard drive locally. Easy right, just run to Best Buy and get one? Nope. Best Buy carries new hard drives for desktop computers but not for laptops (2.5" vs 3.5") It was now Saturday night at about 9:00pm, where else could I look? Nowhere everything is closed (except the internet, but I had no plans to wait for shipping). I had plans to go to the Twins game on Sunday with my dad for Fathers day, the game was a 1:10. Micro Center in St. Louis Park is open until 6:00 on Sundays surely I could get there after the game and they would certainly stock the right size. I had a plan I could live with. Everything was going great, Twins won with a walk off home run at about 4:00pm. Walked out of the dome to get on the LRT back to my car . . . for only the third time since LRT went live the train was dead. That is a story for another time but I will simplify it by saying I did not get to my car by 6:00 so Micro Center was out of the question! Argh! Now what?!?! Circuit City? Best Buy did not have them but maybe Circuit City. Worth a look right? To my complete shock not only did they stock them but they had choices, well only 2 but still! I opted for a Seagate 120GB drive for $109.99 (even less then online, this might not be so bad after all). I still need the right type of screw driver though to open the bottom of my computer. It requires a T8 Torx Screwdriver, Circuit City does not carry them. It is now almost 8:00pm on Sunday, the guy at Circuit City suggests I try Best Buy or Home Depot for the screwdriver, alright but they both close at 8:00. I make a mad dash from France/494 to Home Depot at Lyndale/494 and pull into the Home Depot lot at 7:58! Thankfully - being a guy - I know exactly where the screwdrivers are in the store and I am out of Home Depot by 8:02. At that point I think I took my first breath in about an hour! I now had everything I needed to fix my computer.

I got home, had dinner then it was time to see if I could take my computer apart, take out the old hard drive, put the new one in, put the computer back together and then get it working. Turns out all those people online were right, it is not that hard. In fact that hardest part was getting a little rubber washer back into place next to the new drive. I meant to take pictures of this process but forgot until I was putting the last screw back into the computer, sorry. I was almost done, just need to hook up the computer to the external hard drive transfer info over and I am done. Turns out that was the hardest part of this entire ordeal. It turns out that when I installed all of the software on the backup drive some of it did not get installed before the hard drive completely died. I fought with installing software until about 7:00am on Monday before I got it working. After getting up Monday afternoon I finished transferring all off my files back, and set everything up again (e-mail, web, MS Office, Adobe software).

It is now time to defend Apple Computer. It is not just hard drives in Apples that fail, in fact this hard drive was made by Toshiba, the same kind of drive that is in Dell's and other Windows computers. In the end I was without my computer for only 2 days. The big down side though, now I have seen the new MBP and now I REALLY want one. I guess waiting until this Fall will not be that bad, will it?

Computer Trouble

As all of my loyal readers are aware I am an Apple Computer fan. I swear they are just easier to use! Well . . . I have been having some MAJOR issues with my Powerbook (McMac) in the last couple days. I think they are almost fixed and the blogging can resume stay tuned!