Scattered Thoughts . . .

A fter using the new Alexa-enabled dimmer light switch for the train room for a few days, I still wasn't completely happy with the lingering potential for future train car disasters on these shelves.  As I mentioned in previous blog entries, when people would reach into the shelves to access the light switch that was mounted flush on the wall inside these shelves, they would sometimes snag or bump a locomotive and the locomotive would come crashing down to the hardwood floor resulting in significant damage to the locomotive(s).   I added an extra shelf immediately below the switch to help mitigate where the arm could swing as well as adding a voice controlled Alexa-enabled dimmer switch but I wasn't convinced this was enough.  After using this new configuration for a few days, I decided I should extend the switch box outward a bit to play it safe.  This would move the dimmer switch closer to the front of these display shelves so people wouldn't have to reach into the shelve

S ometime back about seven or eight years ago, I installed a new hardwood floor in one of our bedrooms to be used "temporarily" as a multi-purpose room until we get further along in our renovations.  This room is slated to be the "train room" when we eventually finish playing musical chairs with bedrooms and renovations.  It actually is more like playing that numbered tiles game where you slide the numbered tiles to get them in numerical order.  In order to renovate one room, we need to move a few tiles out of place to make room for the appropriate tile.  Our numbers are still quite scrambled here for a variety of reasons though so this room is still a multi-purpose room.   So about seven years ago, I built a walk-in closet, repaired the walls and ceiling, painted the room, installed a hardwood floor and baseboard trim.  After I installed the hardwood floor over the subfloor, I built some display shelves right next to the door to the room.  My plan was to neatly sto

Just like everyone else in the country right now, we are having difficulty stocking our pantry and keeping it stocked.  This, of course, is what people would refer to as a "first world problem" and they would be correct.  This is just one reason (of many) why I say that the United States is no longer a first world country.  Supermarket supply chains have broken down.  Many critically necessary supply chains have broken down.   Sheila and I realized in recent weeks that getting simple things like meat is difficult so we need to place orders of only meat that range from $200 to $300...  and that is just for two of us!  I don't know how families with children in the household are managing.   When it comes to purchasing meat, we can't seem to get much from Shaw's using InstaCart (I should point out that there is nothing 'instant' about InstaCart either...  it requires up to five days to get an order).  Schwann's has a two week wait for delivery.  And,

Another little project that I've been working on little by little is making some shelves for my cameras.  Camera and lens storage has been a problem for me for quite some time.  I have some cameras that I would like to display so some open shelves seemed like a good idea.   At some point down the road, I will need to build some sort of built-in cabinet for lenses and adapters.    I decided to make some floating shelves for the living room as well as for our bedroom.   What moved this project to the front burner was having our old surround sound somehow getting toasted due to a brown-out or surge.  The old surround sound was a sound bar that I had mounted rather inconspicuously on the wall underneath the television.  It was very compact for a home theatre sound package.  This new surround sound is better than the sound bar with many more options and has five separate speakers and a large receiver so it takes up more space and can be rather conspicuous and difficult to blend i