When we searched around for a crib for our first child Connor, we were more concerned with appearances than we really were about features. So the crib we bought for him was really just picked because we liked how it looked.
Here is a picture:

Now I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but it has no fancy features. There is no drop down front, no under crib storage, not even a hint of a built in wipe warmer or dvd player. We were pretty happy with it, and still are to this day.

Now with our second daughter we purchased a crib made by a different manufacturer, so of course it was a little different. This was my first time touching a crib with a drop down front (also called a drop side I guess)....which supposedly is terribly handy if your are four feet tall and have no back muscles to speak of. Now not only do I not require a drop down front (almost six feet for those who don't know me) but even if I did there just is something about putting moving bits on a baby crib that doesn't make any sense to me. Especially when the movement and pattern closely resembles that of a guillotine. It truely makes about as much sense as putting a knife block along the top, or maybe a fajita maker on the side.

Either way you cut it, I don't need this stupid feature, and I don't want anything that moves on my childs crib or even near it. Not to mention all the baby crip recalls and warnings you hear about...and what....so I don't have to bend over that extra inch? So with that in mind I'm posting today with the method I used to permanently disable this added bonus.*

First I took a look at the slide assembly, and decided that I could move that bottom bumper post up a bit to disable the whole thing:

Then I just eyeballed it, to see about where I needed to drill in order to stop the drop side from even moving:

After that I picked a drill bit that was a little bit smaller than the width of the screw, so the teeth would have something to bite into when I screwed it in later:

The next step is simply drilling a hole on each side:

With a little effort the screw will bite into the hole you drilled and make it's own thread:

There....done! Stupid little thing, but you know what....I feel a lot better not having something that moves on the crib. Plus it looks a lot better than my other solution....zip ties. :) Now for the love of god can we stop putting any movable parts on baby cribs at all?

*added bonus = stupid stupid stupid idea

Posted by Dennis Judd at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Connor, I just want to take this chance to apologize to you for this video. Hopefully when you grow up to be a rocket surgeon this will be a good laugh.

Posted by Dennis Judd at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Slowly but surely I have been turning Jen to the dark side of geeky technology, swaying her with promises of automation and a home of the future. One of my latest conquests was getting her to sign off on buying a hands free, automatic, self opening trash can.

It's pretty cool actually, and it didn't hurt that my old pedel step can just died (gee...an hinge made of plastic, I'm surprised it lasted so long). Plus we had to move the trash can onto the other side of the baby gate long ago due to Connor's shenanigans. As an end result we've been reaching over and having to lift the lid up by its front for quite a while, so a hands free auto opening one really made sense.

Anyways here is a video of Connor using (playing) with it:

Posted by Dennis Judd at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fiberglass that is of course.....when we had the roof replaced last year we also had the skylights replaced (seemed to make sense). Well after that we've noticed some condensation building up on them during the really cold days....and of course it drips on you while your trying to brush your teeth or use the toilet.

Well, nobody needs cold water dripping on them while they use the facilities, so today I set off into the attic with my trusty "pokey stick" to remedy the underlying cause. See...the roofer told us that it was caused by the eaves being blocked and not letting air through, so I took a garden tyne, some electrical tape and an expansible painting stick and made my self a "roof eve insulation un-blockerator". An hour later, much sweating and swearing, I was all done.....no extra holes in the ceiling so we'll call this a success.

Time will tell of course...but I hope it's all done because that was not fun. I had insulation in places no man should ever had insulation.

Posted by Dennis Judd at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm halfway through my online math class and things are going pretty well....but some of this stuff is cringe worthy. I'm talking "don't copy that floppy" level of cringe here people. Starts out like bad late 80's rap and then somehow transcends into a calypso kinda beat.

And you have to watch it...you can't skip it or anything because ....well I'm sure somebody somewhere thought that it was important for me to see it.

Posted by Dennis Judd at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really need to get over this bad habit of waiting to start my homework until I've gotten my test scores back. I would never have been able to pull that off with the summer class I took...the most I could take off would be an afternoon.
Maybe I've been spoiled with taking a normal math class....then again even thought it's an internet class I still have to go take my tests on campus. Even more ironically is the fact that they are paper tests....so I literally sit down in a little room and write everything out by hand. I actually find it kind of quaint to be honest, and it does allow for a more personal experience than just a simple answer to a problem. I rather like being able to show my work and how I reached my solution.

Anyways I might need to take the next semester off here to work on some other projects, plus I'm expecting work to get real busy around that time. We'll just have to see what happens, but if I don't take the next class I have lined up then I think I'll have to wait until fall of 2009. :(

If only things were as literal as math...like remade 80's videos

Take on me: The literal version

Posted by Dennis Judd at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I worked on tweaking a script that I wrote two weeks ago, basically it telnet's into a router, graps the output of a command, parses it for the ip data only, then crafts it into a config statement and appends a line of my choosing. It then stores it locally, and uploads the command back to the router all in about 20 seconds.

It's not perl, or amazingly graceful....in truth it's visual basic hacked together, but it works and it will allow me to do 286 routers in the time it would take somebody to do a tenth of that by hand. It was actually fun to figure out.

Posted by Dennis Judd at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the title gives away....we had some work done on the front of the house just yesterday. Here are some pictures of the before work (although I had already pulled out the landscaping rocks):

And here are the results of the work they did yesterday:

This completes phase three of the landscaping project for this year. Next spring we are hoping to put in english boxwood shrubs along the dirt areas outline by the landscaping rocks.

Posted by Dennis Judd at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)