Response To Light

I rarely use Internet Explorer these days unless I have to. At home and at work, I am a Firefox user. It’s faster and more nimble for everyday surfing. And then there are hundreds of plug-ins that let you customize the browser in amazing ways. One of my favorite extensions is Stumble! Here’s a description

“StumbleUpon lets you “channelsurf” the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for.”

Almost everytime I’m on the computer, I use Stumble. Once you have setup the topics you are interested in, you simply press the Stumble! button and it takes you to new web pages. Interested in relationships, humor, games, gardening? You will soon be finding pages that you might have over looked using Google. The best thing is you get to rate the pages. The more positive the reviews, the more likely that site is to show up in a Stumble. That keeps the best pages in the subjects people are interested in, front and center.

I highly recommend it.

If you haven’t tried Firefox yet, go to Mozilla.com to download the client. Once it is installed, you can find Stumble! in the extensions downloads (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions.php).

Let me know if you use and like it.

Tim

There are two things I wanted to make for the bedroom - 1) An ottoman for the end of the bed to store our laundry and 2) a headboard. This weekend I started on the headboard. Based on numerous renovation shows that I have watched over the last six months, the construction was fairly easy.

I used a 2:1 ratio for the headboard - 60 inches longX 30 inches wide. I used my Kreg pocket hole jig for the joinery. Honestly there is hardly a project I don’t use my Kreg jig for. The came with rounded edges so I used my jointer to square the outside edges of the wood. Once it was all together, I stained it twice and painted it with polyurethane twice. I think I did a decent job of matching the rest of the furniture in the bedroom. “Finishing” my projects is something I am going to have to start paying more attention to. Of course it’s like anything else, the more I do it the more I understand what I’m doing wrong.

The hardest thing was suppose to be the easiest: making the cushions. The first padding I purchased was too thick (4″). I then had to go driving around the city to get 2″ cushions. On television they just cut the fabric, wrap it tightly and staple. Well the corners look like crap if you do it this way. Also if you cut the padding, it leaves jagged edges that show through the fabric once it’s wrapped. I can already see that Lynne is going to have to help me redo the cushions.

The cushions are attached to the headboard with Velcro so we can easily change the fabric when we get sick of what we have. This would have been a one day project if not for staining the wood. Lynne hasn’t seen it yet. Hopefully she’ll appreciated the effort.

Enjoy!

If you’re into movies at all then you would know there has been a buzz about Snakes on a Plane (SoaP) for awhile. I started hearing about it a month or so ago. First there’s the title, Snakes on a Plane. What else do you have to say? It’s Snakes on a Plane. You either dig this kind of flick or you don’t. I like B-movie horror/disaster movies so I’m on board. Then there’s Samuel L. Jackson — described as one of the baddest men on the planet. In my mind, even if the movie is bad, I trust that when he’s on the screen all is well. And on the outside of my radar existed Julianna Margulies. She stood out because I had just caught her in The Sopranos and thought she was awesome. All of the ingredients were there for a great movie and much to my surprise it was better than I thought it was going to be.

What else was I looking for?

Action - Check
Sex - Check
Nudity - Check
Blood - Check
Gruesome Deaths - Check
Jump Out the Seat Moments - Check
Memorable Lines - Check

SoaP is extremely successful as what it is suppose to do — entertain you for two hours. Yes, if you think about things too hard, it’s a dumb movie. But that’s not what SoaP is about. It’s a fun date where you go out, have some drinks, have a few laughs and wake up in the morning thinking, ‘That was fun.’

It will be interesting to see what other people think of it.

Tim