The Ryno Pen

Felt Blah again today. It’s probably viral.

(File image from a previous Blah used here)

This is not generally a Good Thing, but I’ve got a little chore to finish, and being dizzy is a definite disadvantage.

You see, when I set things up here, there was not a Herself (apart from Miss Kitty) to consider. I did the Bloke Thing, and routed all the phone and internet stuff to the studio building at the back of the property. I figured that was where I’d be, most of the time, and anyway, a cordless phone could go with me into the house…

Fast forward. Herself is a very worthwhile inconvenience (please put the pinking-shears down, Darling: I’m in Just Kidding Mode) and between her collection of books and Stuff, and my books and More Stuff, we don’t have much empty space to sweep.

(As a concession to the delicate sensibilities of Both My Readers™, not much of the total junk resource is shown here.)

There is, however, the problem of Herself’s upcoming surgery. The poor lass is spending a lot of time in bed anyway, and her recovery period is probably going to mean a lot less wear on her running-shoes for a while. Gotta keep her amused somehow, and I think she’s read most of the books in our local library, both the worthwhile and the Absolutely Vacuous. So, there must be Intarwubs where no Intarwubs was before, to wit, Cat5 in the bedroom.

I went into why I’m not keen on wireless networking, a post or two back. There’s also a little doubt on whether we’d get a reliable signal between the two buildings: certainly our most recent cordless phone doesn’t make it unless you sit at a certain point in the kitchen (or perched on Ye Pedestal). So, wire it is.

I’m the best contractor I can afford. If my knackered back didn’t rule out the underground route for cabling, then I’d only need memories of the days when the guys laid a power line and phone cable to the (newly-built) studio.

Whatever stood on the site before (possibly a cow barn at best guess), there was a lot of large blocks of local bluestone

and some large balks of ironbark or similar indestructible hardwood. Oh, costly damage to the ditch-digging machine! Oh, joy!

I guess the overhead route wins, then. And don’t I love ladders!

I’ve always believed in keeping to the “one hand for the ship” rule where ladders are concerned. As I learned in 1995, it also helps to make sure the ladder is steady, and Holders Of The Ladder (if any) aren’t inclined to let go and wander off in search of their errant kiddies. A broken back and buggered neck is the kind of lesson I don’t need to learn  again.

I don’t know what the tensile strength of ye olde bog-standard Cat5 blue cable is, but I wasn’t going to risk flying a 15-metre span just to discover that the breaking point was {(Own Weight) + (SmallPerchingBird)} or something similar. Thanks to my junk-hoarder ways, I just happened to have sixteen metres of heavy multi-strand steel cable with a black vinyl sheath. Perfect catenary material!

(Heroically  going YIKES!)

There’s a long piece of grey weatherproof conduit carrying phone extension and a couple of rather long data cables strung under the catenary. I’ve put in a few spares because One Never Knows: webcams or whatever else may beckon!

In keeping with the letter of the law, I’m not doing any in-wall cabling. Everything is merely extension cables terminated in RJ-12 and RJ-45 plugs. Not bad for a dizzy bloke with a head-full of pseudoephedrine (in a moderate, recommended dose, obtained legally, no thanks to RudePharmacy - but that’s another story!).

Testing can wait till tomorrow. For now, as the clock nears 3 AM, and tiredness takes hold at long bloody last, I’m going to listen to the new David Byrne/ Brian Eno track “Strange Overtones”, received just this minute from their promo people.

(Hmm. Lovely. Quirky as Byrne usually is, with the Eno weirdness of gargly guitars, blobby nerf basses and faint distant keenings. If this is typical of the album, I’ll be saving my chewing-gum money to buy it.)

Now for bed! G’night, Both My Readers™!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 3:05 am and is filed under Domestic, Humour, diary, humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.