Signed on the dotted line.....

Well, as most of you know, that time has come again. Most of you are well aware that I have a second job. I am a proud member of the Army Reserve National Guard. Well, as I stated almost exactly three years ago, "This is the last time I will do this unless something goes horribly wrong." Well, nothing HORRIBLY wrong has occurred, however, my financial expectations of the last three years has not become that of what I was expecting. I am not saying that I'm not satisfied with what I have accomplished financially within the past three years, however, it is not what I had anticipated.

To make a long story short, a side project that I was anticipating to be live and making money hasn't yet entered into any solid development work. Therefore, a CTO I am not and I am still employed by corporate America. Therefore, since I am still an employed IT professional for someone other than myself and my business partner my income has not blossomed into what I had dreamed it would have been.

Between buying a new car, the move to GA, fixing my car, buying a house, getting married (none of which I regret and will not complain about short of the financial aspect), our finances are a bit strapped. Uncle Sam has provided a way for us to escape a large portion of our current debt.

This year I have found myself quite the windfall to put us into a more favorable financial situation.

• A moderately large tax return
• Performance Bonus from work
• Installment #2 for my current Army contract

None of these mentioned thus far were outside my expectations for this year. Let me explain why.

The tax return was the product of claiming Single 1 on my W-4 for the majority of the year and some other write-offs (such as medical). The performance bonus from work was expected, though I did get a bonus that was larger than what I had anticipated. Lastly from that list, is the second installment to my current contract. When I reenlisted in 2005, I was completely out of the Army and the contract bonus incentive dispersement method was split payment. 1/2 at the start and the remaining at the end. Well, that contract is coming to a close and I have been expecting that value.

Now, what I wasn't expecting was to re-up again. Uncle Sam's enticing proposal was three fold. The first (and most lucrative), is $15k for signing on the line for six more years. This bonus is taxed so you can deduce what I will be bringing home. Secondly, they offered an additional bonus in the form of a Student Loan Repayment Plan. Every three years, Uncle Sam will contribute 15% or $3k (taxable income) toward my existing student loans. Lastly, this is not related to my reenlistment but is worth mentioning, is another $10k bonus when I am awarded my commission when I become an officer in the Army. At this time I can't tell you if that will be a Warrant Officer or Lieutenant, but they both offer the incentive. However, that additional bonus will not be available for the minimum of one year out from my contract start date of 20080413.

For those who would like to know my motivations to become an officer, it is a long story and will need to be another post for another time. The reasons are numerous. Although, one of the single driving forces is that in signing this latest contract will take me over the 10 years of service line. 20 years are the requirement for a retirement. Within the job that I currently hold in the Army caps out at my current rank of Specialist. I refuse to remain a lowly Specialist for the next 11 years of my military career. (Don't ask why I don't change jobs, that will be covered in the subsequent officer motivation post.) Becoming an officer (either) will provide me a route to utilize the skills that I already possess to obtain advancement in the Army, provide service in a fashion that is productive and finally, will be fulfilling.

For those that are unhappy about the news, I'm sorry. I have evaluated my current and future situation and have found that it is in my best interest currently to do this again. As for my future situation, completing 20 years of service and obtaining a Federal guaranteed VA retirement with medical benefits is something worth working for. Also, I would venture to say that those of you upset with my decision to further pursue a military career and retirement have the worry about deployment. Yes, being deployed is a bad situation. Going to war means risking my life for my country. Yes, I could loose my life in my pursuit. That is the risk I am willing to take. I know MANY people that have gone to war, some of them several times, and have returned in once piece.

Please don't misconstrue this message as me saying that I want to go to war. That is not the case. I would have no regrets if I complete a 20 year career and never have to enter a war zone. Although, I have consciously signed on the dotted line and if my name or number is called, I will execute the job I have been training to do all of these years.

I AM AN AMERICAN! I AM PROUD! I WILL DO MY PART!

For those interested in our timeline for kids, this will expedite those plans. This financial windfall this year is going to go a long way in the removal of our debt which will subsequently allow us to afford to move forward with our family.

Please don't worry, what will be will be and what has been done is, in fact, done.

Peace!

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More Yard Work

Well, this week has been interesting. Angel has put more time into the yard than I have. She is so thankful that our neighbor has lent us his backpack blower. She was just moving along in the yard with that thing. I have been limited to intervals between work and sundown. At most I have put 6 hours into the yard this week. The combined tally of time spent in the yard is ~28 man hours.

It is surprising that in a one and a half day span, the two of us put in 14 hours and it takes 4 days to put in the same amount of time. I guess that is what a 40+ hour a week job will do to housework.

Speaking of house work, the time not spent in the yard this week can be attributed to house cleaning. Angel's parents are currently on their way down to visit with us. We had to give the house a good straightening up. We had done some "spring cleaning" in the past few weeks so this wasn't a full scale scrub down this time. Yet, the living room, kitchen, bathrooms and the floors needed some attention. Therefore, Angel didn't put as much time into the yard as she could have. I did my house work contributions after dark so my yard time wasn't effected.

Anyway, I'll repost the slide show from the previous post (Yard Work) that now includes additional pictures toward the end to illustrate the progress we've completed. During this past week in conversation with colleagues and friends, it has been estimated that we're trying to clean up ~11,000 sq. ft. of land. Between the length of time it has been neglected and scale of land to be cleaned, this project timeline has well overrun my expectations for completion. Thankfully there is not a hard deadline to complete this task, yet I feel that the sooner the better. Once it starts getting too green out there, the project will be extended much further. Small trees, weed sprouts, and fallen twigs have a way of making progress slow.

The backpack blower has proven to be invaluable. I am about certain that I have one of these guys in my near future. Even with the removal of all of the minorly established brush and trees, the well established trees are still numerous and fallen leaves will occur again. Likely next time I want to undertake this cleansing project, my neighbor will be doing the same. Therefore, it is likely within my best interest to acquire one of my own.

Well, with the 'rents on the visit this weekend, it will be interesting to see how the project progresses over the weekend. I still hope to invest some time into the progress as after this weekend it will be three weekends until I can address it again. Next weekend is a drill weekend and the following weekend is a trip to Alabama. I would think that in a three week timespan, green stuffs in the yard will certainly be on the prowl. Therefore, it is in my best interest to put a dent into the yard work sooner rather than later.

Photos:


Obviously, there is more to come on this topic.

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Yard Work

After 14+ man hours of work in our yard this weekend, it would appear that not much has been accomplished. Yesterday afternoon (a beautiful one that it was), I decided to start on our daunting task of reclaiming our yard. The prior tenants of the house and property neglected the yard so much there is about a one foot average depth of leaves amassed across the yard. From the shed to the property line looked like pure wilderness. Light brush, tree and branch debris, discarded junk, and of course the leaves. It is a total disaster. At one point, they had dogs and had a plastic mesh fence up in the yard. This didn't help matters any either. Along the fencing the leaves were the deepest. For the life of me, I don't know why they allowed the yard to fall into such disarray.

As for the discarded junk, I have found a dog bowl, truck leaf spring, a shattered mirror, rebar, several 2x4s, 2x6s, burnt wood, a Bic lighter, beer bottles, pop cans, and chicken wire. With the depth of the leaves and debris, it is almost a wonder that we haven't found dead bodies in the yard.

So, you may be asking yourself, with all of this stuff that covers about 1/8 of an acre, where is it all going? Well, at the back edge of our property line is a dry creek bed. At one point in time, it appears that this creek used to have some serious momentum. At points it is about two and a half to three feet deep and about two feet wide. I figured that this is my property and additional development in the area has left it barren. Sounds like a wonderful place to put all of my yard debris. Keep in mind, I mean the vegetation debris, I'm not going to put the metal and plastic debris back there. I will find a better home for those things.

To start off the process, I pulled out our brand new bush whacker. Yes, bush, not weed. This tool is a four blade metal disk instead of the string that a weed whacker would use. The cool thing about this tool is that it is a separate attachment for our weed whacker. Craftsman produced a "convertible" system. The motor and half of the shaft are stationary and the bottom end is interchangeable. The system came with a combo blower/weed whacker head. As a Christmas gift, we picked up the brush tool. I am very impressed with the power and efficiency of this thing. The manual indicates that it is capable of cutting brush up to an inch thick. I'm sure I was able to cut down a tree that was was approximately two inches in diameter with no problem. What a great tool.

After I felt that I had gotten a good start in chopping down the miscellaneous brush and trees from the yard, I felt it was a good time to start moving leaves. I began with the rake. I wasn't making big progress quickly, but I could see quite a difference starting. While I was doing this, Angel got home from work. Well, we only had one rake, so how could I give her to help? I attached the blower attachment to the weed whacker and sent her off and running.

Unfortunately, the blower on the initially provided head is not very powerful. It is great for what I believe is its intended purpose. I think this is to be used when week whacking and cleaning up the clippings. At least that's what I've used it for thus far. It worked well for that. However, with this compacted foot plus pile of leaves in the back yard, it has been proven useless. Angel tried to get it to work for a good half an hour before declaring it ineffective. Thankfully, my neighbor has graciously given me full reign to his tools and I took this opportunity to borrow his Stihl backpack leaf blower. (He wasn't home at the time or I would have asked him instead of just taking it. But permission had already been granted so I didn't feel so bad doing it.)

Anyway, Angel decided that she would take the rake and move on and I was using the blower. The tornado like force that this guy pushes out is just amazing. I am so sold with its power, I'm half tempted to get one of my own. This leaf issue isn't about to go away once we get the yard cleared this Spring. I'm not sure the blower is more effective than good old manual labor, but is sure is lower impact on me.

So, Saturday afternoon, I put in at least seven hours into the back yard and Angel contributed about four. Today, I got a late start in the yard, but instead of picking up any power tools, I took to using the wheel barrow and rake to do some cleanup in the area we were working on yesterday, moved all of the miscellaneous debris to a consolidated location, and did some major brush removal. I found yesterday that the more sticks and obstacles in the way, the more difficult it was to get the leaves to move in the desired location. I hope that the work I did today will pay dividends once I pickup the power tools next time.

Anyway, I've got pictures that will illustrate the before and after shots from yesterday and part of today.



Type rest of the post here

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Amplifier Saga Continues

As most of you know, shortly after buying our house, my 600W Class D amp blew in my car. Well, the timing was horrible. After buying the house, this had very little priority to get corrected. Well, after getting the component speakers installed in my car, I figured it was about damn time to take action to get my amp fixed. Thankfully, it was still under warranty and it would only cost me shipping to get it fixed. Shipping only is much better than having to pay retail for another new amp.

Well, if that was the end of the story, there wouldn't be much of a story, would there. Well, there is more. After they only had the amp for 2 days, they had repaired and shipped my amp back to me. Within the shipping, there was not a single piece of paper outlining what they had fixed. They told me that documentation would accompany the return. I'm worried, but optimistic.

Obviously, since not having it hooked up for the past 9 or so months, I'm excited to have it up and running. Once I got off of work, I didn't waste any time jumping into the job.

I did the general continuity testing. Turned down the gain on the amp, turned the volume down on my head unit and felt the speakers for vibration. The first time there wasn't any. I turned up the gain on the amp and still nothing. Well, this wasn't any response for good reason, while I was waiting for the amp to return, I installed the remote gain switch and it was turned all the way down. So I disconnect the switch and presto, speaker vibration. I took this as a good omen and reassembled my trunk.

Before I departed, I did the same test again. Speakers are still vibrating. So, I jump into the car with the volume low (residential area and late at night). When I get to 78, I turn it up. Immediately I can notice the difference.. I have a full bass channel again. Unfortunately, this was short lived.

Once I got home, I left the radio on and popped the trunk. Speaker vibration was gone and a faint waft of smoke coming from the area of my amp. I'm in a panic now. I quickly grab the drill with the Phillips head bit attachment in place and start removing my speakers to I can get my trunk floor out of the way. The first thought that ran through my mind was "My car is about to catch on fire in my garage, ahh!!!" Well, thankfully, once I got into my trunk far enough, I was able to find that nothing was on fire.

The smoke was coming from the electronics on my amp. Damn it!! Anyway, I am pissed now. The power light is flickering and the fault light is on solid. WTF? I thought this thing was fixed. Am I being screwed here? What am I going to do now. Well, knowing that my car was safe, I call it a night. As I am lying in bed, the thought occurs to me, what if there is something in my system causing the problem.

Well, I know that the power is clean. I reran all of the wires personally and know that all of the connections are good and all of the wires are in good condition. What else could blow my amp? Well, my speakers could. I'm running 2 speakers with 4 voice coils (VC) (each at 4 Ohms) to present a 1 Ohm load to the amp. If any of the voice coils are damaged and are not at their correct resistance of 4 Ohms, then that could damage the amp.

I pull out my (not so) trusty multimeter and try to get a reading on my speakers. Well, my meter just told me that there was continuity but not at what resistance. The next day I bought a new meter and it told me a very bad story. One speaker was well and good. 3.9 Ohms on each coil. The other speaker was not so fortunate. VC1 was 1.5 Ohms and the other VC was only presenting a 0.8 Ohm load. I did the math, with these 4 readings, the amp was seeing a .416 Ohm load. Much less than the 1 Ohm load that it was rated to handle. So, now that I know what the culprit is, when I get my amp back this time, I won't make the same mistake.

Unfortunately, with only one speaker and a shared box environment, I don't have a clue what this will do to my fidelity. I do know that I will have to leave the broken speaker in place to fill the hole so that the ported box will stay in tune, but I'm not sure how a passive driver will effect the sound. I do know that running my amp at a 2 Ohm load will drastically damper its capability. My 600W amp will now run at 300W (at 12 volts) I imagine that it will run about 440W at 14.4 volts. I guess that is plenty when I'm trying to enter a Sound Quality (SQ) competition. I don't need all of the extra power and "boomy" base for SQ.

As for my broken speaker, I have contacted the manufacturer (it is out of warranty) to see if they can repair the VCs at a reasonable cost. These speakers each cost between $125 and $150 brand new. Also, the manufacture has stopped making this line of speaker. I am not certain that they will be willing to fix it for that reason. If they won't play nice with me, then I guess I'll run crippled for a while until I can justify spending the money to get it replaced.

More to come in this saga once I get my amp back yet again.

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Garage Work

Well, now that the garage has been cleaned out well enough to get both of our cars in it at once, I guess it has come to the time to get the doors working for us. Last weekend, Angel went to Sears to see about buying a new remote for the existing opener and while she was there, she put yet another Sears gift card to good use. She picked up another chain drive door opener for our other door.

As with most of everything that I get myself into, this turned out to be more complex that I had anticipated. I thought the major work was already done. I couldn't have been more wrong. I had thought since the header brackets (door and motor side) were in place and the bell wire and button installed that I'd just have to assemble and mount the new opener. Well, to my frustration, this was not the case.

So, I initially started working under this assumption. I got the system built, no problem there. I got the sensors installed and wired, no problem there. However, when I was ready to mount the system, I found that the header on the door side was the wrong width. I'd have to replace the bracket. No problem, the system came with one. I unbolted the existing header, installed the new one. The screw holes were off, but nothing a quick poke with the drill to get a guide hole made won't fix.

Once the door header bracket is mounted, I hook in the bar for the opener and then have to figure out how I can get the motor up, in place, and bolt it in by myself. The system did not come with prefab bars designed to attach nicely to the existing motor header system. Therefore, I take what was provided, L bars with alternating holes down its length and hammer it flat. However, these bars are about three feet long. How am I supposed to cut it? I don't have tin snips or a pair of dikes, so what do I have that will cut it? Well, from working in my trunk, I have a jigsaw that I borrowed from Ernie. This worked wonderfully (after I screwed the bar to a 2x4).

Before trying to hold and screw the motor, I mount the bar to the ceiling bracket. I pivot the motor close to being in place and begin to bend this bar so that it will line up with the motor. After a few shots at this I get the holes to line up. Wee.. now the system is mounted stable enough to see if I have enough clearance. The system is not mounted to the door yet, so I take and manually open the door. Anyway, to make a repetitive story short, I had to bring the system down and put it back up 3 times before I was able to get the door open without hitting the bar. The last time I even had to move the trolley (for manual operation in the event of a power outage) out of the way to reduce the clearance height requirement.

After having the system up and down 3 times, I was in quite the unhappy mood. Anyway, I braced the top of the door with the spare L bar and mounted the system to the door. Please keep in mind, up to this point, I only have the motor mounted to the ceiling with 2 hand tight bolts on one bracket. The other bracket hadn't been made yet because I was not sure the horizontal alignment with the existing bracket was even close.

Now that the door is mounted I gave the system its maiden operation. With some hesitation and excess noise, the door was successfully opened. The real challenge came when I couldn't get the door to close again. After some careful inspection, I found that the lag bolts on the left hand track were loose and the closing of the door was causing it to move and this movement was requiring too much force from the motor to move that it would just backup due to its safety system.

Thankfully, the lag bolts provided with the system were longer than those that were holding the track in place, it was a simple replace. After securing the track, the door would attempt to close and stop with about six inches left to go. Well, I read the manual and I had to increase the closing power of the motor. Several attempts and many adjustment screw turns later, I got the door to close without stopping short or hitting the ground and backing up again.

Now, let me tell you the a couple key details that I left out throughout this entire process. During the mounting process, in order to get the door to clear the bar, I had to put the mounting bracket partially in the ceiling. As I'm sure you can conclude, this also meant that the bar was partially in the ceiling and the trolley was also hitting the ceiling. Therefore, I had to cut a hole in the ceiling close to the bar everywhere things were hitting it. I still have drywall dust falling on my car at this point.

Here are some photos of my craftsmanship.

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