Why My Hair Dont Grow No More

I am back from vacation. Relaxed, truly! I love the Quebec City, I am definitely going there every year.

Oh and I got a new kitty. She is the sweetest thing. She purrrsss if you just look at her.

Will post pictures later.

It’s been a week.  Siamese cats are very friendly and he is particularly loud. I doubt he’d have gone this long without getting noticed. I have even gone door-to-door asking people if they’ve seen the cat.  I am fairly certain someone found him and kept him.  I am offering a $100 reward if you know where he is. 

Poor Spice (his brother) is so lonely, he cries every night.  Yesterday I found him cuddling with Ayaan since he misses his brother’s warm body.  That’s particularly strange because he otherwise hates Ayaan and runs away when he sees him. 

It’s JUNE and I still have to wear a sweater to go out.  We had to shut all home windows and turn the fireplace on!  Wrong, so wrong! 

My “Milton, Halton, Ontario & Canada” blog has moved to http://www.zhamid.ca/blog.  There wasn’t any point of mixing personal rambling (this one) with a more focused rant (that one).

So when we first moved to the house, the washing machine broke and flooded the whole upstairs.  Had to fix the damaged wall and replace hardwood on the hallway.  Then I scratched the side of the van.  On a separate incident, I broke the side-view mirror.  Our video camera died, haven’t captured any video of kids for a while.  Just when I was about to buy a camcorder, the washing machine died again (I replaced the first dead washing machine with another old one).   Oh and my wifi router died (third one), so I am stuck blogging this plugged into the wall … how 1999! 

Meanwhile thanks to Ayaan, the hardwood looks like it’s 100 years old.  Leather couch and coffee table look antique.  I haven’t had a goodnight sleep for a while.  Heck I haven’t really done much in terms of personal entertainment for sometime (“much” is the keyword).  By the end of the day the mind is just so tired that there is no will to do anything.   We went paddle-boating yesterday and spent half the time fighting with Ayaan so he wouldn’t jump in the water. 

Time may be right to join a gym.  But I can’t find anyone that doesn’t require a 12-month contract.  And I don’t want to sign a contract.  First, however, I need to get over the obsessive compulsion to stay current with all electronic communication.  I fear turning into this :-

On the plus side I actually am getting some reading done. So that’s good, I guess.  Right? 

Look at the solid clump of concrete. What if I told you it was mostly empty space? That it was not solid matter clumped together, but rather held mostly by a force field? Science fiction?

If nucleus of an atom were the size of a marble, then the electron would be size of the thickness of a human hair. That's not the cool part. The cool part is that the electron would be 4 kms away from the nucleus at that scale. You heard it, 4 kms, about 2 miles! So an atom is mostly empty space. That solid clump of metal aint that solid afterall!

I am a huge fan of DIY projects. I believe people should service their cars themselves, do their own taxes and maintain their homes themselves. If a project goes South then I'd rather come out more informed. It's not like contractors never screw up.

I built fenced my backyard in Seattle myself. I wish I could say the quality was good, or even okay. The person who bought my house probably curses me for it :). That said, I learned three important lessons that improved all my future projects :-

1. Acquire right tools: For the Seattle fence I should've bought or rented proper tools. Instead I used whatever I had available, which was very little. As a result things did not fit properly, weren't balanced etc. etc. I will never start a major project without first acquiring all tools necessary to do the project and learning how to use them all.

2. Take your time, plan well: This is another typical DIY mistake. Often DIY projects mean you learn as you go. You must allow yourself that learning time. There's nothing wrong with pausing or even going back to fix something. It would have been wiser for me to walk through the project in my head first, listing all potential issues and mitigating them through planning before I started.

3. Recognize when you need help: I did the entire project on my own. Holding posts balanced without any help can be tricky. This is a two-part lesson :-
3a. Recognize when you need a helper. People may have installed drywalls by themselves, but it sure as heck helps to have a helper holding the other end.
3b. Recognize when you're in over your head. Even when you do a project by yourself, there might be aspects where it is better to hire someone.

I did learn my lessons and after that all my projects went amazingly well because of these. In Seattle when I had to enlarge the driveway I knew not to attempt it myself.

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Here are some recent projects I have done:


I installed garage door openers on both garage doors. The openers work well, are balanced and wired properly. Pre-planning helped me recognize I wanted different controls for both, layed out the wiring and overall, gave it a professional feel.

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This is when I ran an HDMI wire from inside the wall. I know people who've done this by cutting part of their drywall out, which isn't the right approach. I bought a fishing tape (research and right tool) and fished the wire from behind the wall. It was more challenging because this is an exterior wall with a lot of insulation.

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And of course, I mounted the TV up. Notice no cables? It's all magic :)

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Installing this ventillation fan was a multi-step process. I first did electrical stuff. Then I put it up, but you could see the wire going to it. Then (days later) I moved the electrical wire to inside the wall where you cannot see it, and I patched the wall. Then (days later) I painted the wall. Again, (days later) I took it down again to put an elbow inside so the fumes etc. go straight outside the house. Now instead of my house smelling (stinking?) like desi food, the street does.

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And of course, how can I possibly forget ceiling speakers. I wired the back ones myself. Basically cut the ceiling, put the speaker inside, connect wires ... etc. etc. etc. The surround sound is amazing, especially when playing games. Now when playing Gears of War 2, I can hear aliens sneaking up from behind me, so just by hearing footsteps behind I can turn around and shoot. Without this surround sound I'd be killed.


I haven't painted the grills yet, that's on my todo list :-

So I decided to build an antenna to catch free high-definition channels. Who wants to pay the cable companies, right? Right!

I had two goals :- It should be easy enough that building should take less than 30 minutes. While I didn't completely meet the time limit, the product was very easy to put together and, well, the construction was intentionally flimsy.

Second, I wanted it to be cheap. I probably spent < $20 for parts. Not a bad deal. What I built is called the Single-Bay-Gray-Hoverman HDTV UHF Antenna. Mouthful, I know. So lets just call it SBGH. There is a double-bay version that presumably works better. You can use better construction material and be more careful about the instructions and get better reception. The instructions are here: http://www.jedsoft.org/fun/antennas/dtv/gh.html. Look at the GH-10 version (scroll down). It will give you the gaps and dimensions to use.

I used a 1x3 to support my antenna (its "spine").

First, I marked a line down the centre and then marked where different reflector rods were going to go. For reflector rods I simply got cheap iron hangers and straightened them (and then cut them to sizes using plyers. You can use a tin nip or some other tool).






The main antenna is in zig-zag shape (again, see this URL for the diagram: http://www.jedsoft.org/fun/antennas/dtv/gh.html). For that I bought a 10 guage copper wire from the home depot. This is what it looks like :-



So I took one strand out, straightened it by hand and put it in shape, as described by the URL (http://www.jedsoft.org/fun/antennas/dtv/gh.html).






This is the picture of the copper wire, before I took one piece out. You should probably get one with more thickness for better performance, but this worked just fine for me.

This is what the finished product looks like. The black thing is the 300 Ohm to 75 Ohm converter that you'll need. You need to connect the RG6 (which is the normal coax cable) to it. That goes into your TV.

I simply put it in the basement ( yes, basement) and got 1 Digital and 7 analog channels. I took it to the corner of the basement to get 5 digital channels. Took it to the attic and suddenly I had 20 digital channels.

The thing to note is that I am not pointing it properly yet. I also do not have any preamp. Worse, the cable run between this and my TV is about a 100' of three different cables with cheap F-connectors in between. And yet I am getting 100% signal strength on Buffalo channels.

Once I point it to between Buffalo and Toronto, I am sure I'll catch 5 more Toronto channels. Buffalo channels will still show up.

Here's what I am getting now, when it's pointing to a wrong direction :-

2-1 (NBC)
2-2 (WGRZ-Buffalo)
4-1 (CBS)
5-1 (CBC)
7-1 (ABC)
7-2 (WNGS)
15-1 (Sun TV)
17-1 (PBS-Kids)
17-2 (kids)
17-3
18-1 (E!??)
23-1 (CW)
26-1 seemed like a religious channel
26-2 seemed like a religious channel
29-1 (FOX)
36-1 (CTS)
43-8
43-9
44-1 (OMNI-1)
49-1 (MYTV)
I am getting dozens of analog channels that I haven't listed here.

Once I point it properly, I am expecting to catch these 6 additional channles :-

11.1 (CHCH)
25.1 (French CBC)
41.1 (Global)
57.1 (CITYTV)
64.1 OMNI 2
66.1

That is 26 digital channels, most better quality than cable with digital box. And all for free. Remember, I was not very careful with the setup and have this in the attic with a few ft. of snow on the roof. I also have a 100ft. cable (3 different cables connected together) run with no preamp.

Feel free to leave comments or ask any questions.

Here's a scenario, you go to a public bathroom to do your business, sit in the stall and the person in the next stall starts talking to you. How weird is that? Why do people do that? It's not really a proper conversation setting. Heck I dont really want to open my mouth in there cuz I dont want to inhale all the stuff people are, ya know, exhaling. Tell them to stop!

Okay, I used to be a cyclist, but they are really starting to tick me off now! One of these days I swear I'll run someone over because of their arrogant, self-righteous stupidity.

The other day one hit my car because he decided to bike down the sidewalk (illegal) on the opposite side, really fast. Then yesterday I was walking back with my kids on a sidewalk and two of them nearly hit my son because, again, they decided that sidewalk was for racing. But worst happened when I nearly ran two because they decided stop signs didn't apply to them!

You know the type who think they're above the law and zoom past stop sign and traffic lights as if road signs don't apply to them (they do). What the heck! If you're on a thin bike with tiny wheels and virtually no protection, shouldn't you be more careful than drivers in 2000 lb. cars, seat belts and airbags????? Let me spell it out for you thick head, waste-of-skin, science-experiment-gone-wrong morons: 2000lb. blobs of metal will always crush 150lb. flesh bodies. So obey traffic laws and ride more carefully than you drive, not less. Honestly, that thin little helmet isn't going to protect your head that's too stupid to figure out that cars facing green light may not realize you're dumb enough to break the light. May be I should have ran you two over to increase the collective IQ of this city.

For those riders who'll defend not having to follow a stop sign or a light, consider a car that stops to turn right. If you're coming from the direction I am turning to riding on a sidewalk, I wont see you when I turn. At least freaking slow down!

I've been trying to find cyclists on the road who actually follow road signs, and I honestly haven't seen one YET! If you dont like road laws, dont bike on roads. Go take a trail. Or campaign for laws to be changed.

Alright, I am glad I got that off my chest.

Isn't it strange that people treat those closest to them worst? Parents talk to their children in ways they would never talk to anyone else and spouses treat each other at times much worse than they would treat a colleague. Does getting close to someone mean losing the hesitation to disrespect or insult them? Or is it that we try to earn respect from strangers but take loved ones for granted?

Conundrum indeed.

Do bathtub people never take baths? How difficult can it possibly be to make a bathtub that doesn't require a post-bath surgery?

I bet the Masseuse Association pays the Bathtub Association.

So, I've been working like a dog this week. Someone raised a point, why like a dog? Ya know, I dont know!

'Working like a donkey', I understand. Those poor animals work hard. Cows work fields too in some countries. Slaves, ants, internal combustion engine, Oompa Loopma ... all I get. But when do dogs work? They truly have a good life. Even in countries where they are homeless, they don't really "work".

Or perhaps the expression is all wrong. Or may be *I* use it wrong. Perhaps I actually have been working like a donkey. Next time I am on vacation chilling out all day, I should tell people I've been 'working like a dog'.

So what came first: Chicken or the egg? This question has troubled philosophers for centuries. I solved the mystery!

Obviously, Chicken came first. Then came "or". Then came "the". And then came "egg".

Case closed!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...!

• So my son breaks my $1000+ HDTV LCD in January.
• Then I find out I won't be able to use some international tickets I booked for the family, costing me $800 to cancel them.
• Then I find out after paying $61,000 in federal + state income taxes (not a typo), I still owe another $3,500 in taxes! No, I am not filthy rich. I moved States and a lot of moving expenses my employer paid ended up on my W2 as "income". That pushed me into AMT, wiped out all these deductions I had and, well, I am screwed :).
• And then I sell my $2000 camera to replace it with something else and that money gets needed elsewhere, so poof goes my only hobby

AAAH! I know s*** happens, but does it all has to happen exactly at the same time???? I still haven't recovered from having to change the clutch in my car. My 401k balance is down in the toilet, bank account is down to double digits (gulp) and now I have to come up with funds to pay Uncle Sam some more. Great!

My first snow fall of this winter was in Virginia. Beautiful snow flakes fell as my kids and I walked. I went and bought kids a whole bunch of winter stuff.

Second was also in Virginia. Fun, fun!

Third, in Toronto. We made a snow man. A two sided snowman! I spent 2.5 hours shoveling snow.

Argh, fourth snow fall. I am ready to die. This place isn't for humans. We were stuck at home for the entire day because none of the cars would get out of the driveway.

And it's snowing again in TO! Aaaah! I am going into hiding until someone else shovels the snow. This place isn't for humans. Heck it's too darn cold for polar bears.

Ah, I guess if justice is served, then justice is served.

A man in India snatched an expensive necklace from a woman. When corned by police, he decided to swallow the neckless. Sadly for him, x-rays don't lie and revealed the neckless.

Here's what it gets interesting. Instead of waiting him out, police forced him to wait 50 bananas to make him poop the neckless out. When that didn't work, they forced him to eat rice and then chicken and then naan (bread). Eventually the poor guy crapped the neckless out and justice was served.

No word on whether the woman actually wants to wear that neckless now :-).

Okay, what's worse?

* Paying $10.50 for a coke and pretzel (are movie theatres in a different country? Have they ever left their theatres to see what prices are like everywhere else in the planet?)
* Finding out that the package has nearly 1300 calories!
* Still eating it even though you hated the taste, but hated the idea of wasting $10.50 (some would argue it's still wasted, but some always argue everything).

I feel sick to my stomach now :(