Que sera, sera

That's actually been the name of my airport network at home for quite some time now. It's finally become an action as well.

The last straw in the litany of failure that is my Comcast internet connection is their unilateral attack on network neutrality. Comcast are interfering with the broadcast of packets between users on the network, if either the source or destination is within their domain. Worse, they're doing it in a particularly vile manner - effectively they're using a computer-hacker attack called the 'man-in-the-middle' attack. When they decide you're using too much bandwidth, they (sitting in the middle of the communication link) fake a packet to *both* of the communicating computers, this packet is an 'RST' packet, or 'reset' packet. What this does is tell the computer that receives it that the *other* computer has dropped the connection. So both computers think something is wrong with the other end, and the communication is terminated. This is pure unadulterated evil.

Now I'm not a huge user of P2P (which is where the news broke). I *do* however use iChat to keep in touch with my family across the Atlantic. It's a cool video-conferencing system built into all macs, and since my family all have macs, it works well. Since there's several thousand miles between us, it's one of the few ways we can 'see' each other without major travel.

Until a few months ago, iChat worked great. Now, I get less than a minute of great picture, and then everything breaks up! I was putting it down to transatlantic bandwidth issues, but then I tried it from work, and (lo and behold), there's no problem, looking around the net, it seems I'm not alone. This *did* annoy me. I doubt I use even 1% of the bandwidth I pay Comcast for, and when I do want to use some, they have a specific policy preventing me from doing so. It seems I'm allowed to pay Comcast for their services, just not to actually *use* those services ever.

I currently pay Comcast the princely sum of $185-$200 per month for both TV and internet, I've just ordered Dish Network, and will be cancelling all the Comcast services as soon as Dish and an alternate internet are installed. Dish ($84/month) will be here on Saturday :) The only real problem was which internet service to go for. I currently have a co-located server in Fremont (serving this very web-page). I pay $245/month for a dedicated 10 Mbit/7U service (which is actually a good deal). I never use the 10MBit/s though, I max out at ~1Mbit, and 95% of the time it's down at a few tens of Kbit/s. So, although I'm very happy with the service, that's a waste of money too. So far, we're up to $430/month to reassign...

So, I was looking around, and found Sonic.net's T1-alike. Basically this is 2+ ADSL lines bonded together to provide 1.5MBit/sec dedicated bandwidth in both directions. Together with a managed Cisco router, it costs $299/month. Even if this doesn't pan out, there are plenty (covad.com, garlic.com, core.com, speakeasy.com ...) for around $350/month. Even paying the extra $50, I'm still paying less than the Co-Lo/Comcast Combo, and getting the servers installed in the garage makes maintenance a bit easier than driving down to Fremont...

So, the wheels are in motion. Screw Comcast. You just lost another $200/month...

The next big stage of “project House” is now underway :-)

The image to the right is one of the reasons I bought this house in the first place - it has a huge back yard. Behind the garage, there’s this area the previous tenants used as a play-area for their kids, but from the get-go, this was marked down as where the swimming pool was going to go :-)

Basically I’m after what is known as a ‘lap pool’ in the US - long and thin. There’s a perimeter limit of 120’ after which you start paying extortionate amounts of cash, so it’s going to be 50’ by 10’.


So, on Monday the final measurements were taken, and they promised to be back on Wednesday to start digging. I had to take a half-day off work on both days, just to be there and give final approvals etc.

The digging crew turned up on Wednesday (6th Dec), and you can see what they’d managed to do by the end of the day. This photo (left) is actually from early on Thursday morning before I left for work - it’s too dark to snap photos at the end of the day. They’d cleared all the concrete slabs, and started on the main earth-removal for the pool.

Unfortunately they had to rip out the sprinkler-system control-wires (so that’ll have to be re-laid) and the internet-connection to the garage went along the same pipe conduit, so that’s gone too. I’ll have to get both of these reinstalled when the concrete gets laid.

I’ve also lost a fair amount of sod due to the heavy machinery they use while excavating, but I expected that.



By the end of Thursday (7th Dec), the pool was excavated properly, (photos immediately above) and it was really obvious what it was going to look like when it was all finished. They’s also dug out the hot-tub hole, which is not connected (again, for perimeter-reasons) but is only 2’ away from the deep-end. I’m looking forward to that :-) The pool ranges from 3.5’ deep at the shallow-end, to 6.5’ deep at the deep-end on a gradual slope.

The next thing that’s supposed to happen is for the lattice-work of iron supports to be installed. I was hoping that would be done on Friday, but they didn’t come. It started raining towards the end of Friday (and has continued throughout the weekend!) so perhaps that’s why. Regardless, I’ll be keeping this up-to-date online as things happen ...?

Can’t wait for it to be finished. The estimate is for late Jan, early Feb... :-)



So, it’s now the end of the week (15th Dec). The plumbers came on Monday 11th, and put in all the drains and piping, There’s a load of pipes sticking out - it looks as though they’re far too far out, but I’m guessing that’s just a safety margin. I think they’ll be trimmed once the gunite has been sprayed on.

The next day (12th Dec), the steel rebar work was done - you can see the mesh of steel that’ll supply structural strength to the concrete. This was milestone 1, so I had to cough up 25% of the cost at this point. It was time for the first county inspection as well - I’m assuming that went ok, I’ve not heard aything different...

I’ve got the cement contractor coming on Monday, to talk about the gunite process...

Monday came and went, but on Tuesday (20th Dec), the gunite crew turned up and started work on padding out the raw steel layout you can see in the above photos into a more-real swimming-pool and hot-tub structure.



This took them about 7 hours, starting at ~7:00am and finishing at ~2:00, at which point they left to do another pool... Take a look at the below photos to see what it looked like when they were making the walls, and a close-up on the tub - it's hard to get scale on the hot-tub, but from outer-wall to outer-wall there is 8' across :-)



The next things to happen were the coping being put on, the gas and electricity being installed, and the solar-power heating system being installed on the roof of the house... No real photos to show here - I'll post some up when the concrete is being laid...

So, now (Feb 5th) the coping has been laid down, the electric has been installed to the deck next to the pool, and the hardcore has been laid where the cement is going to go, with the rebar being placed, ready for the pour. We had the inspector out today, and she passed the pool ready for the pour - hopefully on Friday :-)

You can see lots of white pipes sticking up out of the hardcore - these are mainly drainage pipes (because there's a lot of cement coverage here), and you can just see (next to the fence) an extra drain I asked them to put in - in case I decide to put a shower out here to save traipsing into the house all the time...



I'm going for a brownish stamped-concrete look around the pool, which ought to go well with the burgundy coping. The next stage will take some time though - a couple of weeks for the concrete to cure before they come back to seal it. Waiting... Still waiting....

So, it's mid March, the concrete is down, and they've done a really nice job on the stamped finish, you can see where they've installed the pump and heater on the right-hand-side image below:



So, all that was left was to fill it with water... The larger images (click on a preview) look a lot better than these previews, there appears to be some aliasing on the previews, and running a blur-filter over the image doesn't really make it look better (different, but not better...). Anyway, first the pool from the perspective I've been using, and then from down low - that's what it looks like when you're swimming lengths...






and then the spa ... This is set to be at 102˚F when it's switched on :-) It's gorgeous :-)




If you look, you can see the 'Ray-vac' cleaning the bottom of the pool (it does this all day :-). It's strangely fascinating to watch this completely non-alive object running around at the bottom of the pool, climbing the walls, swishing its 'tail' after it. It looks really (no, really) alive...

The only thing left to do now is get the solar heating array linked up (it's on two sides of the roof of the house, the S and E slopes). This has to wait until the pump has run for a while, to get the first pass of all the gunk out of the pool (mainly gravel). The heater also needs a new gas-meter, it's a 400,000 BTU unit, and the (somewhat limited) gas supply can cause it to not start properly sometimes. That's in-progress too.

I also want to landscape the far rear of the garden, put in the shower/changing room where I had the drainage extended to, and then I can finally stop spending money on this :-) It's well worth it, though :-) It's taken about 3 months to get this far, and sometimes you wonder if it'll ever finish, but now that it is (more or less), I'm a really happy camper :-)

I ordered a TV to go along with the new house... Not just any TV, mind. I wanted a hang-on-the-wall TV, and this being the last wild fling before mortgage-induced austerity, it behooved me to get a semi-decent one...

Those who know me will recognise the ‘semi-decent’ line... It’s along the lines of ‘tidal waves are semi-wet’, or ‘the universe is semi-big’... The result was a Panasonic TH-65PHD8UK, a 65” plasma model. I’ve just been watching HD footage on it, and it’s simply wonderful. You can’t really get the feel of it from the photo, it’s 65” on that diagonal - over 5 feet!

It wasn’t easy, of course, oh no - that would be ... easy. At first (despite having plenty of funds in my account) the bank wouldn’t authorise the payment on my debit card, and since they’re so far away (nearest branch is San Francisco), I couldn’t pop in to do a wire transfer... So I transferred money to another bank account and did a wire transfer. Ok, just frustrating...

Then I get a notification that the order is arriving on Monday 13th. So, I arrange to work at home, and wait in. The DHL man duly delivers 2 packages, neither of which are anywhere near the size of the TV. Hmmm. On the phone to the vendor - ah, that’s just the wall-support... I swear it’s sitting there laughing at me. It’s probably just the shadows and the designs on the cardboard...

So, a couple of ‘phone calls later, I’m told the TV is turning up on Friday 17th. ‘Phone up on Friday - no it’s now Tuesday. Ok, ‘phone up on Tuesday - yes we can deliver tomorrow... Another day working at home, and another delivery. Yay! This time, the TV turns up. The delivery guy wheels it into the garage. The wall-support shuts up, briefly...

Now I have to arrange for the installers. I ‘phone. They’ll “phone back”™... a week passes with me just getting the answering machine when I try to get in touch... (guffaws from the wall-support)... Finally I get through again - they’ll “phone back”™. Another day passes... I get through again ... they can come on Friday. Good. I’m getting heartily sick of the wall-support - it’s in stitches now...

So, on Friday 2 guys show up (obviously father & son). The bloke doesn’t understand the documentation for the wall-support. I explain it to him. Twice. It takes 6 hours to get the wall-support frame attached (crucifed :-) to the wall. Then they tell me they need more people to lift the TV up. They’ll be back on Sunday... The wall-support can’t laugh (it’s attached to the wall), but a “fixed grin” would be an accurate description...

On Sunday, I casually ask when they’re going to do the hidden-wiring (before or after mounting the TV on the wall-support). Blank looks... I come up with paper proof of the requirements... 5 hours (and lots of holes-in-the-wall, crawling about the attic, etc.) later, we finally have a TV mounted on the wall, and some content being fed to it from the comcast box...

So, now I can’t see that damn wall support any more :-) Thank [insert random deity] for that.

It was all worth it though :-)

So, all-of-a-sudden, I've gone from being a habitual rent-boy (no, not in that sense...) to a gen-yoo-ine house-owner. I've managed to trade what stock I have in the company plan for a few bits of brick and mortar (and stucco, obviously!), and an absolutely enormous debt. Despite that, I'm happy as Larry (who's generally regarded as being the happiest man at the happiest party on the annual celebration "happy-day" in happy-ville).

The whole deal was significantly easier than I expected ... Mother-dear is an estate agent (a "realtor" to you Yanks) back in Blighty and, as far as I can tell, house-sales generally tend to drag on for several months. I spent a weekend looking, had made an offer by Monday, and had bought the place 17 days later... It helps that I'd been looking on the 'net for the last 6 months, so I already had a shortlist. It helps (!) that I was, ummm, "financially constrained" as well [grin].

House prices in the Valley are high, but only roughly as high as London. The thing is that you'll get more house out here than you would in London. I used to live (rent) opposite a house that was sold the year-before-last (just before I came out to the US); the house had 3 bedrooms, no front yard, a tiny back yard, and was joined to the neighbours on both sides ("terraced"). It sold for £350,000 ( or ~$630,000). That's a lot of money for a small house with very little in the way of grounds, in a not-so-great neighbourhood on the very outskirts of London (end-of-the-line on the 'tube' rail system)...

That aside, I'm now looking forward to finding out everything about the neighbourhood - which pubs/clubs stay open late, where the best restaurants are, what my neighbours are like, etc., etc. Should be fun :-)