I’m now back to my regular ol’ routine, just finished a week long “staycation.” So other than spend quality time with the family, what does a system administrator who doesn’t have to go to work for a week do with his time? Pull some CAT5 and clean up my home network, of course!

Inferno, my FreeBSD home gateway, file, web and everything else server has been irritating me with its typical PC fan whirring for too long. It was high time to uproot the beast from its cozy spot on my office floor, where it sat for nearly eight years and drag it to the basement and finally bring tranquility to my office.

This involved running six new cables from my electrical/laundry room to its new home in the basement’s spare bedroom. One Ethernet run to its LAN interface, one for its WiFi interface (I keep WiFi access to my network on a separate segment), one for my recently acquired Xerox Phaser 8400 printer and one spare for future use. I also needed two RG-6 runs, one for the cable modem which now sits downstairs and one for an old spare CRT TV as per the wife’s request.

After a long day of running and terminating cable and dragging equipment around, I ran into one snag: the NIC for the WiFi segment of my network was not seeing my piece of junk Tranzeo AP. I mistakingly saved this AP from AirSurfer’s dumpster several years ago and have been looking for an excuse to get rid of it ever since. After testing the cable run to the opposite side of the basement where the AP resides, I determined all was well and the Tranzeo pile of garbage was the worthy owner of the blame.

Upon hearing my tales of woe and coming to terms with what this meant for her iPod touch web-surfing habit, Jessie was quick to suggest we give the Tranzeo AP the fate it deserves and replace it with a far more capable AirPort Extreme. Who was I to argue? The Airport has been configured in bridge mode as I still intend to leave the routing duties to Inferno.

In my twisted reality, the aging beige Antec case in combination with the old 19″ CRT I dug up, alongside the Phaser, plain old Fujitsu keyboard and ancient desk (also saved from AirSurfer’s dumpster years ago) give the corner an almost retro-computing look. Somehow I find the whole setup appealing in contrast to my shinier, sleeker, far more modern and most importantly far quieter collection of Apple desktops upstairs.

Never quit moving this whole weekend. Finally managed to dedicate the time, along with Jessie’s parents to get the baby’s rooms ready for the arrival.

Started at around 10:00 AM Saturday morning and did not stop until this evening…

The walls were pretty messed up, took several hours to patch and sand everything to get the wall smooth and consistent.

Once the walls were fixed up, the only logical thing to do was exterminate the brown trim. There just simply is no room for “brown” in the encyclopaedia of sane aesthetics. All the trim was repainted white to scratch that off the agenda.

Next up, the walls were all repainted a half and half two tone consisting of what I’m told is a subtle green on top, beige at the bottom and separated by a wall paper banner consisting of various characters from Disney’s Bambi. Took two full coats of primer to cover up the previous dark blue and gold colours on the wall.

To finish everything off, I decided to give the electrical in the room a healthy face-lift. First off, I picked up a good set of wire strippers to prevent certain injuries and then replaced all the electrical outlets with the decora variety and installed a dimmer light switch along with a new light fixture.

After a ton of work, the results look very good, with the exception of the light fixture. For some reason only two of the three bulbs light up. I’ve already tested the bulbs and all is fine. If the wiring wasn’t right, none of the bulbs would have worked. In addition to the one bulb not lighting, the light isn’t very bright. Think I’ll yank it back out, drag it back to IKEA and get something else.

Jessie, for some reason, had the ambition to see to it that we replace the eye-sore light switches yesterday evening. Seeing as how I’ve also been thinking of doing the same thing, I agreed that yesterday was the time and we picked up the appropriate number of switches and plates.

For better or worse, I’ve never been the type to fear household wiring. I’ve replaced nearly every light fixture in this house without ever bothering to flip circuit off prior. Why should this task be anything different? Although I didn’t get zapped upgrading the first switch, it did short itself and tripped the breaker. My server and desktop happened to be on that same circuit. Sigh, there goes my semi-impressive 220+ day uptime. Beyond that the first wall plate went smoothly.

Next in line was the three switch wall plate in the entrance. The first time I got a good zap from it, I figured “Bah! I’ll just be more careful now…” The second zap hurt a little more and was enough for me to put my stubborn foolishness aside and turn off the breaker.

The remaining work was moving a long smoothly until I got to stripping the final wire of the last switch. The box cutter I was using (in leu of a good set of wire strippers) slipped and sliced into my index finger. Jessie, disturbed by my blood gushing finger, rushed me off to Emergency. I was lucky enough that I didn’t end up requiring stitches. Several hours later, they cleaned up my sliced finger, stabbed me in the arm with a tetanus shot and sent me on my way.

This is why IT folk generally shouldn’t attempt to be handy-men. Thus completes another successful project!