My New Left Glove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Club

I've been putting off golfing. You know, knocking a couple balls at the ranges, but mostly just being frustrated. However, I've now accepted that golf in my future is inevitable. Given that, I can see it's in my best interest to try hard and get good as soon as I can.

What do you pay for parking?

The lot where I park is now $100 per week. That's outdoor, uncovered, with no plug-ins. Welcome to Calgary.

Why is our office downtown?

We don't want to sue our fans

It's basically a week off for basement development, so I'll get a chance to peek out and see what's happening in the real world.

Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Sloan, and other prominent Canadian artists have formed the Canadian Music Creators Coalition to make their voices heard on copyright laws and politics.

Record companies and music publishers are not our enemies, but let's be clear: lobbyists for major labels are looking out for their shareholders, and seldom speak for Canadian artists. Legislative proposals that would facilitate lawsuits against our fans or increase the labels'’ control over the enjoyment of music are made not in our names, but on behalf of the labels' foreign parent companies.

And, of course, Dr. Geist has some commentary.

Basement: Day 20

Drywall is done. It will be pretty this week with the contractors mostly out on other projects. All I can see remaining before the taping and mudding next week is finishing the vent and projector holes and some cleanup. In this picture you can see how the camera flash lit up some drywall dust in the air.

 

Basement:Schedule

Greg updated the schedule for me today

• April 24: This week finish hanging drywall
• May 1: This week taping and mudding
• May 6: Paint on the weekend
• May 8: Flooring this week
• May 15: Trim and maybe some new windows this week

So, that means the inaugural movie event will be May 20th at the very earliest. However, we'll be able to start bringing in furniture and setting up equipment as early as May 13.

Basement: Day 19

Getting the drywall up is taking longer than we thought, but every day there's more progress. Today it was the A/V room (shown) and few spots around the main room. Only difficult area left now is the ceiling of the stairway.

 

Basement: Day 18

More drywall is up, but still not quite done.

 

Basement: Day 17

The drywall should all be up tomorrow. I snuck in another RG-6 co-ax cable into the A/V room again because I realized I may want to switch to satellite TV in the future but still keep cable for Internet. At 17 cents a foot, there's a no issue with just laying extra cable now.

 

Basement: Day 16

A little drywall really makes it start to look like a real room. It also starts to bring out the bad acoustics of a small, rectangular room. Not to worry, we'll fix that with furniture and acoustic tiles.

 

Basement: Day 15

The ceiling has been drywalled (is that a word?). Insulation and wiring is done.

 

Basement: What are all those wires?

When people see this picture I hear "That's a lot of wires". They are:

• 5 x passive speakers (12 AWG pair)
• 1 x active subwoofer (co-ax)
• 2 x Ethernet (cat 5)
• 2 x phone (cat 5)
• 1 x control in (cat 5)
• 1 x control out (pair)
• 2 x spare to upstairs (cat 5)
• 2 x cable/sat in (co-ax)
• 1 x cable/sat out (co-ax)
• power on dedicated circuit

While the phone and control only need 4 wires, I used 8 wire cat 5 because, for some reason, at Rona it's cheaper. The spare cat 5 go to the top floor and could be used for audio, video, remote control, etc. The control out will be used for the room lights. Why get up?

Basement: Day 14

I finished all the sound insulation and wiring. Except, that is, for that pesky sub cable I'm still waiting on. Of course it didn't come today, it was a holiday for government (and many other) workers. So, I'm counting on getting it tomorrow, I don't want to hold up the show.

 

Basement: Day 13

All the wiring is done now except for that sub cable I'm still waiting for from the US. The inspector is coming tomorrow.

 

Basement: Day 12

Today I finished running all the wire except the subwoofer because I'm waiting on a longer cable. Also, tomorrow I might run some more Cat 5 (used for computer network or phone) since it's cheap and now is the time.

 

Basement: Day 11

Today my friend Mark stopped by and helped me run some cable to the top floor from the basement and from behind the screen for the speakers. We also did a test setup of the projector and screen. Even before calibration and in the light of day with no curtains it looks great - I can't wait.

 

Basement: Day 10

Maybe I shouldn't count today as a full day since Brian just popped in to adjust the position of some of the pot lights. Looks like all that's left before we start with the drywall now is my audio/video/data wiring.

 

Basement: Day 9

Greg (General) and Brian (Electrical) put in a big day and it shows: Middle post is framed and overhead box is complete, including cold air return to the closet (where it will be used to vent hot air from the equipment and also be brought to ground level as the primary return for the main area). Subfloor under the stairs is done. All the electrical is wired and all the outlets, switches, and lights are roughed in, including the stairs lights.

 

Basement: Screen size

This weekend we'll be doing a test setup of the screen and projector. It's a 100" 16:9 wide screen and the main seats will be about 12' away giving a 33.7 degree viewing angle from the center seat. Yes, that's a one hundred inch screen. Too big? Nah. I tested this setup in a few different stores and I'm happy with the size. Also, when watching 4:3 "TV-sized" content the viewing size will be only about 82". The THX recommended 16:9 screen size for this seating distance is actually 107", so maybe it's even too small (ha ha).

Basement: Plan

Here's a quick sketch to help make sense of the pictures. The main jobs are the wall separating the unfinished storage area, replacing the mess of supports under the stairs with a small room for the theater equipment and DVDs, moving the 3 hot and 2 cold vents down, adding lots of electrical, and framing in overhead boxes across the middle and over the screen area.

 

Basement: Day 8

The water, sewer, and 1 of 3 heat ducts are boxed in together now on this wall. It may look a little wider than needed, but we wanted to keep the lines flush with structure on the opposite wall to minimize "step" shapes. Electrician Brian was in for his first work day on site and got all the outlets, switches, and basic light fixtures roughed in.

 

Basement: Day 7

The framing is just about done. Here you can see the box above the viewing area that holds 2 heat ducts and will hold the screen when it's rolled up (it's motorized).

 

Basement: Day 6

Barry put in a few Sunday hours to catch up. The hot air ducts are all roughed in and I'm not sure if it's done, but I can certainly say the stair area is more framed-in than ever.

 

Basement: Day 5

Today Greg got out his plumber tools and moved the rats nest of water pipes to the side of the wall that will be the unfinished storage room. I feel better about that area now, because when we moved here the heating ducts were actually resting on water pipes. They also finished the new structural system under the stairs since that area needed the supports taken out to make room for the equipment/media closet. I think the new system looks even stronger than the old one.

 

Basement: Day 4

Some duct work finished and all the framing, ceiling, and duct plans finalized.

 

Jade in Calgary

Today my 17.1km commute took 22 minutes from getting in my car to parked in my stall. Certainly a good day, but not too far from my usual. Not bad for going from the far suburbs to the downtown core of a city of a million at the dawn of the morning rush hour. I love this city (but I might not be in love with it if we didn't already own a house here - we've now passed Montreal for average house price).

No wait, I can't love this city until 2008 when it's finally smoke free. WTF is the holdup?

Basement: Day 3

The wall separating the storage room is framed as is the equipment/dvd room. Here you can see pocket for the pocket door.

 

Basement: Day 2

They pretty much got all the subfloor done.

 

Basement: Day 1

Today was just dropping off the rolls DELTA®-FL plastic and plywood. Tomorrow they'll attach one on top of the other and complete the subfloor.

 

Basement: Day 0

We're finishing our basement, and here's the first "before" picture.