Day: April 5, 2010

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Intangible Results

You know all that little stuff that doesn’t get done because you ‘have more important things to do’? Well, today was time for me to start on that little stuff. I feel like I got absolutely nothing done today and, yet, I scratched quite a few things off my giant to-do list.

The biggest victory was the stupid catch for the over-fridge cabinet. I can’t even begin to calculate how much time I have spent on this thing. No matter how carefully I measured, I could never get the door and cabinet pieces to line up. Add to that having to work with my arms above my body and it has been a hard job that slowly morphed into a nightmare. This catch problem was starting to keep me up at night. It was such a small thing and yet it had completely defeated me. Tonight, I had an epiphany. I inserted the door piece into the cabinet piece and smeared it with glue. I then shut the door and pressed tightly. The result was a perfect impression of exactly where I should screw in the piece. I don’t know why it takes me so long to come up with ideas like that. 🙁

Another thing I did was finish two sides of the dishwasher cabinet. The third side, that of the library still requires some fine-tuning and thinking about.

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While digging through the dregs of the scrap pile I found a small piece of solid wood that would look much nicer for the top of the kitchen-side cabinet. I used the plywood piece as a pattern, cut out the top, sanded it, and installed it from under the counter using straight brackets. I also found a piece of oak-type trim that perfectly matched my counters that I used to hide my imperfect cutting along the back of the piece. Looks MUCH better than did the plywood!

I had to do some fine-tuning of the door on the kitchen side, but now it’s done. I’m not 100% happy with it, of course, but it looks a million times better than I would have expected it would.

I also added trim to the side of the cabinet we see from the entry door. It beefs it up a bit, I think.

Finally, I spent an hour today hauling some furniture I found on Craigslist. That will be a the subject of tomorrow’s post. 😀

Floor trim notwithstanding, the kitchen, *gulp*, is done for this phase of the renos!

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Internet Independence?

I  visit Craigslist almost every day, looking for good deals on items on my wish list. This week, something caught my eye and I followed up on it.

I don’t like contracts because life is unpredictable, but I decided to bend my own rule and take over someone else’s Telus mobile internet contract for a seven month duration in exchange for a free Sierra Wireless 306 Mobile Internet Key.

Sierra 306 Wireless Mobile Internet Key

My initial contact with Telus makes me believe this contract takeover will be a good deal for me since, for a small fee, I can stop it over the summer and restart it in the fall (which would extend the contract into 2011). Telus is the main wireless provider in BC, meaning that so long as I stick to the main roads, ie. the Alaska Highway, I could have internet access most of the way to Whitehorse and back south.

The key alone is worth over $200 and was my biggest obstacle to signing up for such a service since I didn’t want to lock myself into a contract in order to finance the purchase of the key. The plans aren’t cheap, starting at $30 (plus taxes and network fees, of course) for a mere 500mb, up to $65 (plus taxes and network fees) for 5GB. Telus says that I can sign up for a cheap plan and move up to another plan once per billing period if I think I will be going overboard. For May, I will sign on for the $40 1GB plan and see how far that takes me.

I won’t be excited about this purchase until I am parked in a Walmart parking lot or a highway turnout and able to post to the blog, but I can feel the potential of this breakthrough bubbling deep inside me.

Now, I just need to decide on how I’m going to get online in Dawson. One step at a time!