frandroid | Network

Library / Kitchen Floor Plan, Proposed
Extracted from my requirements / vision proposal

At the start of 2025 I vowed to finally restart the home library remodel that got put on hold when the pandemic began in 2020. The interior designer I had selected had moved from Portland to California, and I basically had to start over.

Instead of describing everything in detail, I’m simply listing the chronology of events. Excluded is all the email correspondence I’ve had with my designer, Hannah Lichtenthaler at Allison Smith Design. Also, for now, I’m skipping over all the design decisions. In short, here’s how I got to where we are today:

Library Remodel, Chronology of Events

dialecticdreamer

Collectivism
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1781
[Wednesday, 2 August, 2017, 5:00 p.m]]

:: The black hats pool their resources. Part of the Unfair Trades arc in Mercedes, within the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

Daniel Tamsen paused, one foot still hanging a few inches above the narrow brass strip that bridged the faux-brick hallway floor with the thick honey-colored shag carpet. The office in the basement of the “Forty-Niner Bar and Grill” was difficult to reach, even after descending a flight of steep, narrow stairs which could have been copied from the viciously steep stairwells installed when dividing a three story Victorian home into a dozen apartments.

The Federal agent swallowed down a litany of curses as he finished that last step. On the three windowless, doorless walls opposite him, paper maps had been mounted on the walls with wide bands of blue painter’s tape. Sheets of clear acrylic the same size as standard plywood covered every inch of the maps, and the glimpses of brown wood paneling from the mid-seventies, when the building had been completed.

“You’ve been busy,” Daniel Tamsen managed to say.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused

sonia

When I was 21 years old, my parents came out to visit me in California. My father is an audiophile, and he went with me to buy my very own stereo system with separate receiver, double tape deck, CD player, a stereo cabinet to put all that in, and speakers to hear it all. I had a big tape collection back then, mostly copied from his folk music records. The speakers are Advent Prodigy Towers, approximately a foot square and 28" high, with pecan wood on top and black grilles on the front.

I got rid of the tapes in this move back to California since I never listened to them anymore, but the same stereo system, cabinet, and speakers came back with me. I did replace the CD player about 10 years in, because apparently they changed the CD encoding over time and it stopped working.

My favorite thing to do with the stereo system since 2008 is to run my computer audio through it and play mp3s for folk dancing. I love the feel of the music through big speakers, and the audio quality is way better than the smaller portable speakers that big dance groups used.

A few years ago I realized the music was getting fuzzy. I took the front grille off, and the foam around the woofers was completely perished. I carefully unhooked them, put them in my bike trailer, and took them to a small audio store where a crusty older guy took them in and promised to repair them. A week or two later I biked back, picked them up, hauled them home, and reassembled the speakers. They sounded great! (Apparently this was in 2014.)

After the move back to California, the audio started dropping out unpredictably from one of the speakers when I was dancing. I tried swapping out the cable from the computer to the receiver, and swapping the speaker cables. Finally it got bad enough that I decided after 30+ years it was time to replace the speakers.

I did some online research and picked out some speakers that I wanted to check out at Best Buy. (I wonder if that's where I bought my system in the first place!) Then I started thinking about having new electronics off-gassing in my living room, and how I would get rid of the old speakers. I took off the grilles and unscrewed the woofers to take a look at them. The foam still looks good. I disconnected the clip that held in the woofer on the one that's been dropping out, and reconnected it.

I put it all back together and the audio hasn't dropped out since. Maybe the clip got jarred during the move? It didn't look wrong, but at least it's behaving better now. Which is good, because the one local audio repair place I found didn't return my message, and the new speakers I was interested in don't look nearly as nice as the old ones. The thought of new & improved electronics is exciting, but I love how my speakers sound and I'm glad they're not dead yet.

osprey_archer

As always on my birthday, I am having my annual birthday sale. This year, since I’m planning to raise prices post-sale ($3.99 for a novella, $5.99 for a novel), I decided to put everything on sale for one big final blow-out. So currently all my novellas are $0.99, and all my novels are $2.99.

Do you like Cold War spies falling in love on an American road trip, even though they're from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain? Then give Honeytrap a try!

If a Civil War soldier woke up from an enchanted sleep in 1965, how long would it take for him to cotton on that men are no longer allowed to touch? Find out in The Sleeping Soldier!

Are you interested in an m/m World War II retelling of Beauty and the Beast? Then Briarley may be for you!

How about a couple of boys riding the rails and falling in love during the Great Depression? Tramps and Vagabonds has your back.

Do you like watching post-World War I woobies suffer beautifully by the seaside? The Larks Still Bravely Singing may be warbling your name.

More Cold War spies, but this time CHRISTMAS! Deck the Halls with Secret Agents is a holly jolly short return to a favorite theme.

Do you like throuples and World War II and retellings of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? Then A Garter as a Lesser Gift may be coming to a Green Chapel near you.

Do you like throuples and pining and strawberry shortcake in post-Civil War America? Then give The Threefold Tie a try.

Do you want Cold War spies (again!), but this time they're the leads in the fandom that our two heroines are obsessed with? And kind of role-play as while trying out the joys of "your interpretation of this character is so incorrect" hatesex? Enemies to Lovers is calling your name.

You know it is when there's this new girl in school that you're sooo obsessed with because you both love art, and then you have an obsessive friendship ending in a terrible falling out, and then meet again years later in Florence? Have a gelato with Ashlin and Olivia.

And finally, a couple of oddballs. A retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in pre-Revolutionary Russia! Kind of f/f if you want to be! The Wolf and the Girl features forays both into the Russian forest and the nascent French silent film industry.

Last but not least, if your inner eleven-year-old yearns for a magical timeslip story, there's The Time Traveling Popcorn Ball

turbobeholder posting in

girlgenius_lair

«They’re doing just as much damage as we are!»

Current Music: Mad Mav :: Bloody Fingers :04: Deathwish

ysabetwordsmith

FireSmart Canada is pleased to release Blazing the Trail: Celebrating Indigenous Fire
Stewardship, a beautiful, bound publication that recognizes the contributions to wildfire
prevention of Indigenous communities in Canada.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

oursin

Well, in further conferencing misadventures, woke up around 5 am with what I came to realise was a crashing migraine - it is so long since I have had one of these as opposed to 'headache from lying orkard' - took medication, and after some little while must have gone to sleep, because I woke up to discover it was nearly 9.30, and I had slept well past the alarm I had set in anticipation of the 9.00 first conference session. But feeling a lot better.

I was only just in time to grab some breakfast before they started clearing it up.

The day's papers were perhaps a bit less geared towards my own specific interests - and I was sorry to miss the ones I did - but still that there Dr oursin managed the occasional intervention. There were also some good conversations had.

So the conference, as a conference, was generally judged a success, if somewhat exhausting.

I managed to get the train from the University to Birmingham New Street with no great difficulty.

However, the train I was booked on was somewhat delayed (though not greatly, not cancelled, and no issues of taking buses as in various announcements) and I initially positioned myself at the wrong bit of the platform and had to scurry along through densely packed waiting passengers.

Journey okay, with free snacks, though onboard wifi somewhat recalcitrant.

At Euston, the taxi rank was closed!!!!

Fortunately one can usually grab a cab in the Euston Road very expeditious, and I did.

So I am now home and more or less unpacked.

Given that Mercury is, I recollect, the deity of travellers, is Mercury in retrograde?

oursin

Happy birthday,

stardyst!

ribirdnerd posting in

birdfeeding

Warm and sunny here too, 89 degrees this afternoon.

Blue Jay, Red bellied Woodpecker and Cardinals all around today.

Also saw a Deer in the woods nearby.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly sunny and hot.

I fed the birds. I refilled the thistle feeder. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/3/25 -- I took a few more pictures around the yard, mostly flowers at the end of the driveway.

EDIT 7/3/25 -- I dug up three pots of wild senna and one of purple echinacea that had seeded themselves in the savanna, hopefully to transplant them elsewhere if they survive.

I've seen a pair of mourning doves and a gray catbird. I also saw a very large bird, possibly a vulture or eagle, flying over the field to the west.

EDIT 7/3/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/3/25 -- We hooked up the new, flat water hose. The "non-kinking" label is a complete lie; it is the most prone to kinking of any hose I've ever used. Straightening it out enough to work is a bitch. However, it is extremely lightweight and completely flexible, so those are pluses. Also the multifunction water wand is by far the best nozzles I've ever used. I favor with "shower" and "flat" functions the most. The new picnic table garden and septic garden have been thoroughly watered.

EDIT 7/3/25 -- I watered the old picnic table garden and the plants in the house yard.

The corn is tasseling. The pollen hangs heavy on the wind with a sweet, dusty, buttery, golden smell.

Fireflies are coming out.

I saw a skunk in the house yard. I've seen a squirrel at the hopper feeder.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith posting in

birdfeeding

The corn is tasseling. The pollen hangs heavy on the wind with a sweet, dusty, buttery, golden smell.

Fireflies are coming out.

I saw a skunk in the house yard. I've seen a squirrel at the hopper feeder.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

When rainforests died, the planet caught fire: New clues from Earth’s greatest extinction

When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ rocketed, and a five-million-year heatwave followed. Fossils from China and clever climate models now link that botanical wipe-out to runaway warming, hinting that losing today’s tropical forests could lock us in a furnace we can’t easily cool.

I pointed this out decades ago and nobody listened. Now here we are. But hey, someone could roll up this newspaper and beat Brazil with it.

Current Mood: busy

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ravne-tunnels

The Ravne tunnels.

Semir Osmanagić has become something of a national hero in Bosnia for his claims that a collection of hills in Visoko, 24 km northwest of Sarajevo, are in fact giant ancient pyramids. He has successfully commercialized this theory through tourism to a network of allegedly prehistoric tunnels that connects these “pyramids” underground.

Inside the 3.8-kilometer-long Ravne Tunnel complex, which is operated by Osmanagić’s Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation, there are supposed ceramic plates said to have healing powers. There are also alleged runestones in the tunnels, and water from them is sold with promises of healing powers. In addition to offering tours of the tunnels, the Foundation sells opportunities to participate in their further excavation.

Although Osmanagić has been well-received by many Bosnian nationalists, he has been ridiculed by the scientific community. A study found no evidence to suggest that the “pyramids” are anything other than natural hills. As for the tunnels themselves, they are likely remnants of medieval mines or tunnels dug by Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. A geologist found that the runes are likely modern additions. Osmanagić himself has admitted to widening the tunnels for tourist usage.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ravne-tunnels

lyorn

This night I dreamt that I had accidentally travelled to Mars with a friendly old man, and then realised that I couldn't go back. Mars was like a run down half-deserted town surrounded by desert, and what people there were looked like humans but kind of not actually there, so they were either Martians or dreams in a dream. I learned that the friendly old man was a retired professor of spacefaring so that my chances to go back were maybe a bit above nil, but I was not sure if I wanted to go back.

Waking up I felt as if I had been in a Doctor Who episode, only that it's not the doctor who occasionally appeared as a friendly old man.

At least the heat has broken, and after breakfast and a stupid work meeting (on my day off, but it was good that I dialled in because someone had totally misunderstood a situation and was ready to make it all real complicated) I went to the pool that was half empty, no glaring sun, and I had the showers to myself afterwards.

Now I should either learn a bunch of songs for a workshop later this month, or practise the piano. I think I'll start with the songs -- the piano I can set to "silent".

A day with some sports and music is never a wasted day.

(Edited to fix copy paste error)

Current Mood: okay

kaffy_r

They Did It

I mean, there was no way it wasn't going to pass, but it's still like a knife twist, like salt in the wound that knife left, like the laughter of the people who brought knives and salt to the scene.

Motherfuckers. Murderers.

Current Mood: crushed
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Nothing. Not a damn thin.

emperor

This is a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, and provides the backstory for Imperator Furiosa in that film. So here we see her life from a child in one of the remaining green places to the Imperator we meet in Fury Road.

Aside from the opening, this film is very much in the orange-and-black dieselpunk post-apocalyptic vein of Fury Road. There's a lot of high-speed chase-come-fight sequences, which are quite the spectacle, a fair amount of bloody violence, and some quirky funny moments (especially from Chris Hemsworth as Dementus), which provide a little comic relief.

Furiosa doesn't let off full throttle very often, so this is not one to watch for interesting ideas or a nuanced plot. But if you can avoid thinking too hard about how plausible it all is (or isn't), it is pretty entertaining.

calimac

Chirp. It was the smoke detector in our bedroom, waking us to inform that the battery needed to be replaced. Or so we thought. Upon inspection, it turned out the battery couldn't be replaced on this one. You had to buy a new detector. Wait for the hardware store to open for the morning, then find one of the same model, so it fit on the same brackets. Sort of. Anyway, it's up and alert now.

Boom. That, I presume, was the sound of the warehouse full of fireworks exploding after it caught on fire, a couple days ago. Although it was after hours and out in the countryside, seven people were reported missing. It may be a while before this can be put out; fireworks keep exploding. At least one local town had been relying on those fireworks for its July 4th show, which has been canceled. Be careful out there.

Smof. It means ... well, it means someone experienced in running science-fiction conventions. One such has written that the unopposed bid for the next Worldcon up is woefully unequipped to do its job. This is the sort of thing smofs often say about Worldcon bids, whether or not it turns out to be true. The smof recommends voting No Award, er I mean None of the Above, so that the Worldcon Business Meeting will decide what to do. Reading the very serious comments on this post, I decided it was better not to post my snarky comment, which would have been, "Maybe we should put the Worldcon on a boat." But I'm not sure how many readers will have been around long enough to remember what that's a reference to.
Update: Worldcon bid in question has responded with a puff piece. This does not instill confidence.

Meow. A cat walking in front of my monitor, hoping for an early breakfast, made it difficult for me to read the announcement of the impending publication of Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats. This is apparently a collection of unpublished or obscure pieces, many of them whimsical, rather than e.g. an omnibus of Catwings.

Speaking of cats ... This was on xkcd a few days ago:

purplecat

We had a "free" day in Cusco, but there were some suggestions of activities that our guide could organise for us. Two other people in the group were interested in seeing the Moray Ruins and the Salt Mines of Maras and we were happy to tag along and make the excursion cheaper.

Moray was the first Inca Plant laboratory we encountered. As noted previously, it wasn't quite clear to us why it earned the status of laboratory.

( Pictures under the Cut )

The Salt Mines are not actually mines, but a salt extraction plant that predates the arrival of the Spanish and which are still worked today. Mineral rich water from the mountains comes in and fills clay lined pools. The water then evaporates and the salt is collected. They are owned by 300 families and there were people working them - flattening the clay lining - when we visited. I bought salt.

( Photos under the Cut )

greghousesgf

There's been a change in plans, my friend is supposed to come over at 4 today to go swimming and then we're going to go out to dinner and to that place with the flaming drinks instead of tomorrow. Also they're doing one of those free lunch things in my apt bldg at 1. If they're gonna raise the damn rent and not fix elevators and things I'm gonna at least get free food out of them.