I’ve really been neglecting this site, but I just can’t help it. Ever since the painters finished with the house, I’ve been scrambling to get things back into place. I’ve also spent a lot of time outside the house working on the yard and landscaping…it’s a mess. My fish tanks have also required a lot of attention – especially my fantail goldfish tank, as of late. I had expected a mini-cycle, but was not prepared to deal with a full-blown take cycling. The ammonia levels have really been going through the roof as I underestimated how big those fish have gotten and the amount of waste they produce. I had to replace the bio-bags on my filters after transplanting them and it just ruined my good bacteria levels. pH is still low, so I think they’ll be OK so long as I don’t neglect checking the levels and doing some water changes. Oddly enough, the tank full of platys that had over 40 fish died is the one that had the mini-cycle and is doing terrificly now. I’ll probably move a few of them to Joseph’s new 10G tank this weekend. It’s been running for about a week and is probably ready for a few fish.

Anyway, I just placed my order with X10 and pretty much got everything that was on my preliminary list from last week. However, I did decide to add some additional wall switch modules (they were on sale 4-for-3, so I got 8) and the RCA Universal Home Control Kit with ActiveHome Pro. It was only $20 and will allow me to control everything by PC, so I figure it will be very handy from work and a near necessity once I start expanding. I just need to pick up a couple of timers for my fish tanks now so I don’t have to remember to turn out their lights every night. No sense in getting X10 for that though. I wouldn’t be able to install an X10 outlet now anyway (once I get pictures up, you’ll see why).

This weekend will mostly be spent getting the home theater rewired, moving my son’s room (LAN drop and surround speakers installed) and some touch up painting. There’s also a lot of odds-and-ends to take care of (door stops, installing blinds, unpacking leftover boxes from our move, cleaning, etc.). I want to get as much done as possible before my grandparents arrive next weekend…my parents are probably coming the weekend after them, so I’m not going to get to do a whole lot for the rest of the month (not complaining, it’s just fact).

I’m also all set to purchase unRAID first thing next month. The Seagates have dropped to $199 at Fry’s, so it’s an awesome time to have a TB-dedicated setup. I have decided to forgo the Pro version for the Plus version, however. Plus gives me support to 6 drives and I can’t get past four without getting a new SATA card and external enclosure – not to mention the drives. That’s a considerable amount of cash, which will take me a while to come up with. So I figure if I ever need to expand beyond 6 drives, I’ll just upgrade when the time comes. I need the $30 saved now more than I’ll need it later.

Adding that 4th drive will allow me to finally set up my data structure how I originally envisioned while freeing up some much needed space on the second data drive. It fills up fast considering it holds all my TV episodes, box sets/series and children’s movies. I’ll be splitting off the children’s movies, which is about 300GB by itself. That particular drive is almost at 75% capacity right now, so I need the space. My other disk is nearly at 60%, but doesn’t fill up nearly as fast since it’s mainly individual DVD titles, and I don’t buy that often. I have increased my encoding bitrates since moving to unRAID, however, so I’m going to have to keep a close eye on things. I’ll probably use the new disk as an overflow, if I need to. The children’s folder doesn’t grow very fast either. I’m glad unRAID is so flexible that I don’t have to worry about what to do…I can just throw disks in when I need and put data wherever – the shares will still show me what I want to see – how I want to see it!

I took Friday off from work to give myself a 3-day weekend since the painters finally finished with the inside of our house.  The garage and back deck still need finishing, but were able to move back in, at least.

I pretty much got all rooms back into the condition they were prior, minus the den.  I’m still waiting for someone to stop by that can help me hang my plasma back on the wall.  Until then, the home theater equipment will have to wait also since the entertainment center is too far from the wall (again, waiting on the plasma to be hung).

We went to RoomsToGoKids yesterday and picked out a bedroom set for our son.  He’s getting a new room and I’ll be setting it up this week for a new Ethernet drop and some rear speaker mounts for the Sony, which isn’t using the surrounds at the moment.

I still haven’t ordered my X10 devices as I’m waiting for payment on my Amazon card to go through.  I did get to upgrade to unRAID 4.3beta 6, however.  You can get it here.  I had no issues with the upgrade and it seems to work fine.  There are a few new additions, along with bug fixes.  Looks like I missed several previous beta versions, but I hadn’t been in my own home for a week and a half and very busy.

Otherwise, I’m pretty tired and sore from the past few days, but I only have more work to look forward to.  My grandparents are coming for a visit on the weekend of the 18th, so there’s still plenty left that I want done to the house before they arrive.  The worst being the front yard…the landscaping looks like hell.  I’ll be raking out the old leaves so that I can get some new pine straw down.  Hopefully it’ll dry out enough so that my blower/mulcher can suck some of it up.  We’ll see since I may start on it this evening after work.  There’s also two walls that need touching up since Joseph decided the freshly painted walls needed to be drawn on.  Sigh.

Anyway, I’ll be taking out some pictures soon so that I can document the transformation our house underwent due to the new paint job.  I’m very pleased!

I haven’t purchased yet, but I did settle on a home automation choice and decided to go with some X10 devices. They’re just the cheapest available while also providing just what I want to go with at this point in time. I can also expand well with them.

I decided to go with:

2 x Wall switch modules (WS467)

4 x SuperSocket receptacle module (SR227)

2 x IR mini-controller (IR543-S)

1 x Universal module (UM506-S)

My total came to about $139 and should take care of my initial needs for two rooms. Plus, the universal module will give me the capability of opening and closing my garage door from the den or bedroom.

The painters have pretty much finished our house, minus the garage, rear deck stain and another pass on our son’s room. I started moving things back into place yesterday evening and am trying to get the fish tanks back into place. I’ve had about 30-35 fish die since moving them. Hopefully I can get the temp tank with problem transplanted this evening. I’ve got to pick up a new tank heater on my lunch break due to a freak break in one yesterday. I think the water level was too low and it weakened the glass. Snapped right in two.

I’m taking Friday off of work so that I can have a long weekend to get the house in some sort of order to move back in. It sucks being out of your own home…especially when it’s longer than you expected. My wife and son won’t probably go back when I do because of the lingering fumes (she’s pregnant and my boy is only 2), but I don’t really smell anything. I’ve got a good air filter I can put in by the bed anyway.

Anyway, I’ll probably order within the next week or so and I’ll be sure to document my experiences (i.e. Harmony setup) along the way. Stay tuned.