Here are some pictures from MIlan:

I’ll keep ‘em coming at the same URL when I see more interesting stuff!

Ross

We’ve just gotten word that it’s going to be an additional two weeks between when the flooring is installed and when it can be sealed. This gives us the opportunity to fine-tune a lot of the painting, get the Insteon systems reinstalled, and figure out our speaker arrangement - all things we were considering doing after we moved back in.

Pictures to come…

Ross

We decided to do some basic electrical improvements before we started repairing the walls, like removing the conduit for the radiant heat in the ceilings, replacing the damaged electrical panel, and doing other things to make sure everything is up to code.

Then we decided to do some less-than-basic electrical improvements, like adding recessed lighting in the master bedroom, guest bathroom, and living room. We also put 7.1 in the living room, 5.1 in the bedroom, and stereo in the guest bathroom. Yay! And we added a ceiling fan to the bedroom.

So all that’s done. This past week, they reinstalled insulation in our walls and began putting up drywall. We asked for sound-proofing on the master bedroom wall that is up against the stairwell, and we’re hoping that makes a difference.

There’s pics! Look here:

Enjoy,
Ross

We picked the floors out, too. We’re going with wide plank flooring from Carlisle (if we’ve got the cash!) The one we selected is hickory, although I’m sort of worried it’s going to look just like our original shitty floors. Here’s hoping that making it actual wood will make all the difference!

We’ve also got someone to come in and wire all the surround speaker stuff. We’re going to do 7.1 in the living room and 5.1 in the bedroom. Neat neat neat!

Right now I’m sitting in the lobby of a local hotel, waiting for their extended stay sales people to get back to me so we can stay here. They’ve been really slow to work with, unfortunately..but I remain optimistic.

They’ve done what they call a “pack-out”, where they send all of our stuff to a warehouse to protect it while the construction is going on. We spent the past few days going through everything and cataloguing what was destroyed so they don’t bother to store it. Everything’s gone now, so they’re starting to take out the walls.

As it turns out, there was so much water in the ceiling of our bedroom that, even after four days, it was coming down in streams! We’re mostly just worried now that our rebuilding costs will exceed our (sizable) insurance limits for building damage. Keep ya posted.

You can see pictures of the demolition over at our demolition gallery.

Our upstairs neighbor got home at about the same time we did, in time to turn the valve off on his air conditioner’s water supply. See, our entire building shares a centralized, recirculating, pressurized water supply for each air conditioner, powered by a giant tank on the roof. Our neighbor’s water supply hose came loose, emptying the entire contents of the system onto his floor and, subsequently, into our unit!

Here’s what makes this worse: The water wasn’t really water, it was a water/antifreeze mixture. Also, as soon as the system detected a low water level inside the tank on the roof, it proceeded to refill it. I’d estimate there was as much as several thousand gallons of fluid lost before our upstairs neighbor got home and shut off his valve.

We immediately called a water remediation company, who has already removed all of our flooring. Most of the walls will also have to be removed because they’re made of plaster and can’t be sufficiently dried. They’re moving all of our stuff out, and we’re living in a hotel!

We’ve got really good insurance, and so does our neighbor upstairs, so we’re not really worried about who takes care of what. Right now, we just need to make sure it dries out before mold sets in.

For pictures of the carnage, go to our SmugMug gallery.

Everything I take (well, everything that isn’t clothing) usually goes into my Briggs & Riley Rolling Expandable Computer Case. I’m quite fond of that case - it’s reliable, durable, and somehow manages to fit everything I need.

Each trip I take has a different set of required tech, but there are nine items and three smaller bags that stay in there pretty much all the time. The nine items are:

• My seriously beat up 15″ Macbook Pro. Because everybody needs a mac or two.
• My Sprint EVDO card. Don’t let it deter you that this neat little gizmo will set you back about $200 and requires a service plan that costs close to $50 a month. Compared to $10-$12 a night for hotel internet (and providing near-ubiquitous access), is a necessity for any value-conscious road warrior.
• Shure SE210 Earphones with the iPhone Music Phone Adapter. I was looking for an “upgraded” version of the iPhone headset, complete with the ability to listen to music and the answer/hangup/play/pause/next button. These two items are the perfect solution for me - the Music Phone adaptor has an inline mic and button and fits into the bizarre iPhone headphone jack. The earphones integrate nicely with the adaptor because the lead is pretty short - you just throw out the cord that comes with them and replace it with the phone adaptor, leaving no extra cord length.
• My Amazon Kindle. The device’s design is one of the least inspiring things that’s come out lately, but it ends up being very practical and ergonomic. Style be damned! The free EVDO that comes with it would be much more useful on a different device, but as a book reader it is absolutely top notch.
• Logitech VX Revolution mouse. Mostly to save my hands. Nice design! Don’t WoW without it.
• Three different business card cases: a small one for walking around with, one that carries a larger amount of cards and generally stays in my hotel room, and one that contains my MOO MiniCards.

In addition to these items, I have two cable bags: one for my MacBook charger and one that contains various retractable USB cables, my airplane MacBook charger, my iPhone cable, the special funky USB cable for my camera, a card reader, and a bunch of other crap.

What probably ends up taking most of the space, though is my Lowepro Omni Sport camera bag. The Omni Sport is the perfect size to fit into the Briggs & Riley case vertically, and it allows you to take your camera out from the top. To get to the extra lenses, though, you have to remove it from the rolling case and open it up from the side…but it’s got the best gear/space ratio of any other bag I’ve looked at. And it seems that they sell a hard outer shell for it now…but I don’t have that.

In the camera bag is my Sony A700 digital SLR camera back along with three lenses. Usually I take a vintage Minolta 100 f2.8 macro, a Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6 wide angle zoom, and a vintage Minolta 28-105 f3.5-4.5 zoom. Occasionally, I’ll swap out one of those for the Minolta 100-300 f4.5-5.6 telephoto zoom. There’s also a charger in there, along with a lenspen and cleaning cloth.

Sometimes I throw a Sony HVL-F56AM flash in the bag too, depending on where I’m going.

So that’s what’s in my bag! What’s in yours?

Expect to see me gripe about travel, fawn over new technology or newly acquired gear, open source, life in West Hollywood, and various other stuff.