First Day in New Orleans
We arrived in New Orleans yesterday afternoon. We were lucky to get a really good deal at the Ritz Carlton. They have really nice rooms and extremely friendly staff. Everyone we walk by greet us and are very professional. Of course we hit Bourbon Street last night and got to hang out with some old friends. The forecast called for rain all weekend but we have yet to see a drop (knock on wood). I think the wedding tonight is going to be outside on the hotel’s terrace so I am crossing my fingers that the rain stays away for Steven and Regan’s special day. That is kind of why I picked Vegas for my wedding because I wanted an outside wedding but hated the risk of rain so what better plan than in a desert where rain is very rare. It was a little warm but thankfully our ceremony was not long so it worked out well. Anyway, here are some pics from last night:
Ham & Cheese
I'd like to say we had a laid back weekend but we were either on the go or working on the house the whole time. Marin had her first birthday party on Saturday. She has had her own birthday party with relatives but this was a party for a girl in her class. We didn't know many people there but we kind of settled in after a while. Marin had loads of fun playing with her friends Katie and Sydney. On the way home she passed out from being so tired.
We have been working on various projects for the house. We bought some new outside lights
Great weekend
Wow, we had a long weekend but it was fun! Friday Eric’s mom came into town and we chatted for a while and then I found some time to play with my new G1 phone. I am amazed at how user friendly it is. I should have got it a long time ago. And here I was trying to be a loyal Blackberry user. I do not regret my decision to switch. I am so happy with the new phone. It even came with a protective cover which I am glad I did not take off because I dropped it Saturday night and there was a huge scratch on the face and I was so upset but when I took off the cover the scratch magically disappeared! So now I need to invest in another cover for next time (and with me being so clumsy there will surely be a next time.)
Saturday we went to a wedding in Fort Worth. It was very nice…open bar, even nicer! Our friend Jeff (the groom) is a big guy and during the ceremony the preacher kept making references comparing him to Shrek and calling him Big Boy. This made me a little frustrated. It is their day and I felt those comments to be unnecessary. But maybe everyone else took it as a joke. Whatever! We had a lot of fun and maybe drank a little too much. But we were staying the night at the hotel where the wedding was so we took advantage. I waited until the last minute to buy a dress for the wedding so last Thursday I finally went shopping. I had a coupon for JC Penney that I could use so I found one there. Well, I should have known better because one of our friends works for JC Penney and we wound up wearing the same dress to the wedding. It was quite funny and we laughed it off…we decided we would tell everyone we were the unofficial bridesmaids since the colors in the dress matched the color scheme of the wedding.
Yesterday when we got home we hung out with Marin and enjoyed a nice Mother’s Day. We planted some flowers by the front door and we played with the sidewalk chalk in the driveway. I asked Eric what he was going to make me for dinner since it was Mother’s Day and I had the day off. We found a recipe online for cheese enchiladas and he decided to give it a go. I was a little worried but they actually turned out very tasty. Eric is a great cook. He makes me look bad because I am lucky to get spaghetti right. He makes a really good steak too. That was my second suggestion if the enchiladas turned out horrible.
We’ll be headed to New Orleans in two weeks for another wedding. Should be another good time!
My recent project
I sometimes find myself in a creative mood and take on different projects that I find interesting. Lately it has been home improvement projects. I redecorated Marin’s room back in November in a kind of fairy forest theme. She has some Tinkerbell decor but it is not specifically designed around the character. The other day I was just browsing through Lowes (yes, I have a lot of time on my hands) and I saw a chandelier on clearance that I thought would look good in Marin’s room. The only problem was it was an antique white color and would clash with the colors in her room. So I decided to paint it. When we first moved in our house it was very hard to find black chandeliers for my formal dining room and breakfast room so I bought silver ones and spray painted them black. Those were easy but this one I wanted to paint purple and it has some metal leaves on it that I wanted to paint green. So since I was going with 2 colors it was a little more tedious but I think it was worth it. I’ll get Eric to install it in her room tomorrow and take pictures of the finished product. In the pic below its missing some of the shades because I didn’t have enough chandelier bulbs. So I get to make a Walmart run tomorrow.
Finally setup Marin’s TV: HDMI over CAT5 and IR repeater and XBOX 360…Oh my!
Well, I finally got around to installing Marin’s television. I have had her television in my office for several months now using it as a second monitor, but finally got the urge to get it all setup. Now she can watch all the Elmo she wants!
Most of you can stop reading from this point unless you are interested in the specifics. I have been known to sometimes go a little overboard with electronic setups. This one isn’t too bad.
We were originally going to get a LCD TV that had a built in DVD player, but wasn’t sure how I would get a TV signal to it…I did not want to get another cable receiver since she would likely not use it, but didn’t want to be limited to only DVD’s.
So the plan was to use a LCD display along with an XBOX 360 which would allow the use of a DVD player along with XBOX’s built-in Media Center support. This is basically our setup in our master bedroom.
I started with a 26” LCD computer monitor that had built-in speakers. I picked up a pretty inexpensive Westinghouse (L2610NW) from 1saleaday.com for $250. LCD televisions are so expensive for some reason so I figured I would use a computer monitor since I did not need a built-in tuner. This particular monitor will do up to 1900 x 1200 which means it will handle all the way up to 1080p HD television, and the only inputs are VGA andHDMI. The XBOX has an HDMI output, so that worked perfectly for video and audio in one cable.
The problem with mounting a television on the wall is: Where do you put all of your components? In our living room we have a plasma on the wall with the components tucked away in a entertainment cabinet below the TV. I trimmed it down to where I only needed a power cable and a component cable (red, green, blue) which I ran in the wall up to the TV. Our stereo receiver handled the component switching to switch between the STB (set top box for Verizon FIOS), the DVD player, and the XBOX (when it is in the living room). I got lucky with the LCD in our master bedroom. Directly behind where the TV is mounted resides my closet. So I put a XBOX 360 in the closet and ran the needed cables through the wall to the TV. In both of those situations, you only see a TV and no components.
I decided to do Marin’s setup the same way. After thinking it all out. There was nowhere to put the XBOX 360 without it being an eyesore. We were going to neatly place it on her bookshelf, but have you seen the power supplies for an XBOX?! The are practically the same size as the XBOX itself. I though about placing the XBOX in her closet, but finally decided to place the XBOX in my coat closet that I like to refer to as the “Server Closet”. This closet if fairly centrally located in the house and is where all of the network cables run to. It holds the patch panel for the 10 network jacks I have through the house along with a 16 port switch, router, Vonage box, a small server, and now, a XBOX 360.
Now, how to get the HDMI signal from theXBOX to the TV that is ~50 feet away? I decided to try out this HDMI over Cat5 device from Monoprice.com. It will sent an HDMIsignal (which will carry audio as well as video) over two Cat5 or Cat6 cables.
So how do you change the channel? Unfortunately pretty much all remotes use IR(infrared light) which does not go through walls, cabinet doors, etc. My first attempt was in the living room where I used a Sony MRD-D1. These are mainly used in multi-room satellite distribution systems. I came across some of these on eBay for $10 each, so I bought two. These are pretty cool for 2 reasons. 1) They will let you modulate up to two inputs on two different channels. 2) They will repeat an IR signal from their supplied IR receiver through a coax cable. I used the modulator portion to put two of my security cameras on channel 80 and 82 in my cable signal (not the digital cable signal). I used the IRrepeater part in my living room so that it would repeat the IR signal into the cabinet where the cable box sits. In the bedroom, I used a Next Generation Remote Control Extender to repeat the signal to my XBOX 360 in the closet. This is actually a pretty cool little device. It will repeat an IR signal, but does not require a IR receiver that you would point at. It comes with a small transmitter and a battery. You put this in your remote control and it will repeat anything that the remote sends. You can get extra transmitters incase you needed to use multiple remote controls.
For Marin’s room, I decided to use this device to repeat the IR signal. That way I could cleanly mount the IRreceiver on the wall. This particular device also has a status light which lights up when it gets an IR signal. I put the other end in the Server Closet where the XBOX is located.
Okay, got it all planned out, now the crappy part…the attic! I hate getting in the attic to run cables. I think it is a combination between the heat and the fact that my previous attic cable run landed me in the ER. I decided to take a picture of the culprit this time, I had to run 2 Cat5 cables for the HDMI signal and 1 Cat5 for the IR receiver (only needs 3 wires, but I already had the Cat5 cable). Luckily it is not peak summer time yet so I only sweated out about 4 of the cold beers from the night before!
After running the cables, I finished hooking up everything on the inside. I mounted the LCD wall mount and installed a plug on the wall by jumping off of another outlet between the same studs…something you want to remember when picking out where to hang your TV.
It all turned out alright. About the only problem is that the video cuts out for 2 seconds at random times. Sometimes it will happen every few minutes, and sometimes it won’t happen at all. I may try shortening the two Cat5 cables that carry the HDMI signal and see if that helps. I probably had an extra 6 feet of cable when I was done and if that doesn’t make a difference, I could run a more direct path in the attic to cut off another 10 feet or so. If that doesn’t do the trick, I may just have to run an HDMI cable. I really want to give the HDMI over Cat5 another chance because I would prefer that method, plus they are cheap.
A plus is the XBOX 360 wireless remote reaches fine from her room, so you should have no problems playingXBOX as well!
The idea is to have everything expandable. Right now, this is just in Marin’s room. But I could replicate the same thing in all of the rooms. Run the HDMI cable and have an IR receiver in each room. You could then put all of your components in the one closet and every room could have use of any of the devices using a HDMI 4 x 4 matrix switcher. So you could put an HD receiver, 2 XBOXes, and a DVD player and send any of those signals to any of the other rooms.
Part List:
- Westinghouse 26” HD LCD Monitor (L2610NW)
- HDMI over CAT5E / CAT6 Extender Wall Plate
- Wired Home WHIRK1 Basic Decora Style Target IR Kit
- 3 Way Adjustable Tilting Wall Mount Bracket for LCD
- XBOX 360
- Some short HDMI cables, Cat5e cable, wall plates, electrical outlet, and a couple other small things.