Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Sunday

Cold. Damn cold. It's the dampness and the wind that cuts right through you, makes your hands freeze up in minutes. I spent Saturday (which was gorgeous temperature-wise, despite the fog and rain) working on CS3. Specifically rear soffits. I managed to get in a whole lot of blocking and another sheet of plywood up, and most of the outer perimeter soffit and venting before dark. Next I ran into town at the parents and for groceries after the sun decided to set. With cleanup going on out here I had a couple items on eBay that needed wrapping, too. Also returned The Expendables 2 (an entertaining film if you suspend all disbelief..which is the point). Got home and made burgers and onion rings that turned out great for a new recipe (grilling in December?) and pretty much passed out by 10:30.

Today, no sleeping in, soffits to work on and the new thermostat to install. It's 5PM now and my hands are still pretty numb. The rear glass corner eaves are now all set for plywood- the blocking is in and the rough locations for the recessed lights have been figured. I also dismantled 4 of the chem lab desks I picked up from Price Lab and squared the short sides of them so that they can be assembled into one long workbench. The trick there was finding right angles to rip to. 50+ years of use, sanding and re-laquering and you're not dealing with rectangles anymore. I also bid adieu to one of my Bell System switchboards. A gentleman picked it up today for use in a new museum start-up in Palmer, IA. Thank goodness he had a tommy gate on his truck. Before he arrived I figured I'd pull the desk shelf off so it'd fit through my door. Nope. The previous owner epoxied the screws in!! Fortunately, I was able to remove my entry door, strap it to a cart, and manhandle it through without a scratch before he showed.

And now...time for a movie.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Miscellany

A couple weeks ago I discovered that the first two Cinerama films had been released on DVD, in both letterbox, and a peculiar format called Smilebox. After going a little research it appears this isn't just some goofy name for a gimmick, but a legitimate process that is being applied to other extremely-wide-screen films as well. Cinerama is a true three-strip, three-projector process. Due to wide field of vision, Cinerama screens actually curved around the audience, both pulling the viewer into the action, and avoiding nasty parallax. These films were eventually reduced to a single strip intended for a flat screen, but trying to project such a thing on a curve doesn't work. The Smilebox format, which presents a curved interpretation of the image on a flat screen, actually corrects for the distortion that would otherwise be caused by manipulating the image so. The only hangup with this format, is you need a big screen to really make it work. Watching Youtube clips of it on my iPad was a bust. But viewing it at work on a 19" LCD screen while only sitting a foot or so away..and with earphones in..pulled me right into the action like you wouldn't believe! This gets a man thinking...for the drive-in rebuild, perhaps I should consider a screen wide enough to support this format.

In a similar vein, the last time I was in an IMAX theater was many years ago, possibly an ALPHA trip back in high school, and it was a dedicated theater such that the seat rows were practically at a 45 deg angle, if not more. So when I was in Chicago recently and drove by a theater that had the IMAX logo on the outside along with other popular movies, I got curious. A quick google search showed that it was some sort of nation-wide adopted IMAX standard projected in a more conventional setting. I couldn't pass this up, and bought a ticket for the 9:40PM showing of Skyfall. That, and a drink, set me back 20 bucks, but it was worth it! Now, if you do a little research, you'll find that the director never intended for this movie to be shown in this format, but because the film was overshot and cropped later for letterbox, each frame had sufficient image information to fit the IMAX frame. You might think the result is a lot of extra sky and floor, and in any other film, you'd be right, but in a constant action thriller like this, you never notice it, and I knew this little tidbit going in. The screen was 48' wide according to the ceiling tiles, and yes, it had a slight curve to it, too. As a Bond flick, it's one of the best to come out in the past 20 years. I'd see it again in a heartbeat, but do yourself a favor, and find the biggest screen you can.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Crossing the Finish Line

A while back I commented that the next couple months would be a complete blur, right up to Christmas, and it looks like that was the case. I vaguely recall November, and December is flying by. There was, of course, the events leading up to the big move. Getting all the prep work in place so we would have a minimum of trouble on the big day, and that work paid off in spades. December first we moved over 300 items from both my parents' place and the Lodge into CS3. It was a long day that left all of us sore for days to come. A tally was taken the following day, and while I don't have it in front of me, I know we moved 35 Radaranges (bringing the collection total to 41). 35 table model and portable TV sets (with still more remaining to move). A refrigerator, a stove, a combination washer/dryer, a steelcase desk and return, a huge lab desk, multiple tables and solid wood shelves, typewriters, couches, small kitchen appliances, a telephone switchboard and a Hammond organ, just to name a few. Sunday the 2nd, more things came over from the Lodge as I made multiple wagon trips loading and unloading up and down the outside stairs until I could no longer move. I recall being in town the following week, picking up additional things at the parents' each night on the way home, and re-arranging the downstairs of the Lodge as more and more items went to their proper home (I think people forget CS3 was designed exclusively for this purpose). Then I was off again to Chicago! 

So currently we're in good shape. The downstairs is getting cleaned up, Cara's been working hard sorting through her totes now that we can get to everything and have space to do so. The large armoir has been moved and once the weather hits hard and I can no longer work outside, I'll be ready to tackle the room divider cabinet that will separate the washer area from the dining area downstairs. Meanwhile, at night I've been tackling small things. The '62 Frigidaire dryer is just about ready for service, while the '55 was dragged outside for parts. My YA700 is back in business as a two-speed instead of a single-speed as was the case for sometime. The Spartus wall clock in the kitchen that never did work, has now been given new life with a Quartz movement that I found leaving work last week...in the scrap bin. Christmas lights are up on the front balcony. The replacement poly pump for my Maytag 806 just arrived, as did The Nest thermostat. But more on that later.

So what of this weather? It's mid December and we've yet to put up the downstairs plastic, nor even draw the dividing drapes upstairs in the living room for heat conservation. No snow to speak of which meant I could spend a couple hours after work this past week moving all the pre-painted siding boards to sawhorses around the building and get them off the ground where snow would otherwise cause damage. It's also meant I could get back to soffits. I haven't done any legitimate construction work on CS3 since the end of October, and while I don't really look forward to it, I need to finish A) Soffits, B) Siding, and C) the front roof fascia. That pretty much does it for the building's exterior. Interior-wise I have plans for the upstairs over this Holiday break- including building a 16' long workbench, insulating and wiring the ceiling over the front entrance, and installing bamboo flooring (somehow) onto that 24'x10' ceiling area. Will the fun never end?