To LA And Back, Part 1

Felice informed me that normal people take time out of their schedules for something called a “vacation”. News to me but I figured I’d give it a shot. We decided to visit my cousin Peter and his family down in Alta Dena, CA. I managed to sell the idea of taking the Coast Starlight down and back.

Henry settling in. We booked the “family bedroom” which is not quite as spacious as it sounds. Boarded in Albany Oregon at about 4:00PM.

Late at night in the Pacific Parlor car. Just proving that I’m not anywhere near the most insane passenger on the train. That woman is running some sort of business that involves having fun with hula hoops as a life skill or something else new-agey and vague.

I slept well but the train stopped moving at around 5:00AM so I woke up. We had a relatively long stop in Sacramento so I stretched my legs outside. Not the prettiest vista but a sunrise is a sunrise.

A riverboat on the Sacramento river.

Hanging out in the Pacific Parlor car. Nice overstuffed chairs. Those 4 ladies were returning from an Alaska cruise. Everyone on the train is staring at screens these days. The parlor car is unique to the Coast Starlight and it allows you to relax in comfort without hobnobbing with the riffraff in coach. The Wifi was spotty but I didn’t feel like looking at the internet, too much scenery and conversations to enjoy.

Someplace.

The kids adjusted to 3 sit down meals a day. Felice looks amused.

Henry was a bit tired at breakfast. They almost didn’t get up in time. The man behind us is suspiciously smelling a strawberry.

An ostensibly homeless man in at the Oakland station, pushing a shopping cart with some old vegetables in it.

The San Jose stop. Unlike other stops, smoking is verboten in San Jose.

Looking down the train.

What does the yellow light mean?

Suckers in a plane, getting there faster and cheaper but with less panache.

Henry playing Zombie Dice with a girl from Eugene. She was on a complex mystery tour arranged, according to her mother, by her dead great great uncle who loved puzzles. One day she received a letter from her dead uncle which directed her to complete a task. Upon completion another letter was found guiding her to the next task. One letter directed her family to pack their bags and head to the train station. On the train she had already completed several tasks outlined by letters slipped under the door of their sleeper. Definitely a fun experience for her. Yes, her parents were in on the fun but were tight lipped about the details lest she overhear anything.
We also played Munchkin on the train, all thanks and curses to Wil Wheaton for getting us into gaming as a family (or at least the nerdy male members of the family).

The girl’s mom and two teachers from San Luis Obispo who were coming back from the Oregon Country Fair. The mom is also a teacher in Eugene. She went to Oberlin, majored in Latin American studies and met her husband down in Bolivia. They eat guinea pigs in Bolivia but call them “conejo”, whereas in Peru they call them “cuy”. So I learned something new right there. She learned the hard way that conejo wasn’t rabbit in Bolivia.
Of the two teachers, the woman had just retired. She was originally from Mexico. He teaches special ed and has a small collection of classic cars.
Max wanted to know why I kept talking to strangers. Because I must.

Max is still skeptical.
All your vegetables are grown down here, America.

Not that welcoming behind the chain link fence.

The kids started hopping off at the “fresh air” breaks although they were nervous the we would get left behind.

Henry with our porter, Santa. Her name confused the heck out of the kids. I managed to get her to smile a couple of times.

Max getting up on the bed. Felice said it was like being in a padded cell with monkeys but I thought it more like a 3 dimensional game of twister.

Max. If the yellow stool is still out then the train isn’t leaving (how often do they forget the stools?).

Henry thought this palm tree looked like a pineapple.

San Luis Obispo. It looks nice there.

Getting to the coast.

Vandenberg Air Force Base. That’s a rocket launch tower.

Henry ate his dinner in our room. He looks somewhat disgusted by the pizza.
During the last hour of the trip I took part in a long conversation/tutorial about reverse osmosis water purification and treatment systems in the parlor car. Adam Robbins was an interesting passenger indeed, president of Tomar water engineering systems and an expert in the field. You never know what you’ll learn on the train.
We got into LA at about 9:45PM and were picked up at the station by Peter.

Ugly Standing Desk Modification

Felice has been having some back problems of late and one of the main culprits is her “workstation”. It’s a wood desk from the OSU surplus sale with the insert from a rolltop desk supporting the PC and two monitors. The monitors are the correct height if she is standing, but the keyboard and mouse are on the surface of the desk and really only useful when sitting. Since she rarely gets to sit*, it means she has to lean over when typing. Also this is her workbench and the height is not optimal. Compounding the problem is that she now uses an adjustable office stool that is never set to a low chair type height, so she leans over in it when typing as well.
*kids, they keep you hopping…

Here’s her old setup. She once pulled the PC off of its perch because she walked away while wearing her headphones. So after looking for an inexpensive solution at a variety of garage sales, surplus and thrift stores without success, I was commanded to do anything to fix the problem, as soon as possible.

The new setup, standing…

And sitting…she is at roughly the same level in either position now.

She gives me the thumbs up!

The solution was to make two panels that sandwich pieces of 2x4 (notice the thin spacers on the side of the 2x4 that bump the width out to match the leg width). The 2x4 raises the desk up and the panels are screwed into the legs and side of the desk. It’s surprisingly rigid.

Not the plywood doesn’t go all the way up to the desktop. I wish it did, but I had just enough plywood laying around to achieve this and I didn’t have time to go out and buy another sheet. Painting/staining and sanding seemed superfluous.

Wireless Headphones Now Wireless Speakers.

I use some inexpensive (and relatively uncomfortable) Emerson wireless headphones while watching TV late at night so I don’t ruin my marriage. A while back I picked up an identical set at a yard sale. The original headphones had suffered mightily over the years so I retired them and started using the new headphones. The transmitter unit is identical and I didn’t have to swap it out. Tandem to this incredibly interesting bit of my personal history, I started looking to buy a shower radio. I find showering almost as boring as exercise and wanted a way of playing some tunes while I washed. As I thought about it I realized that:
a) We get very few radio stations
b) those radio stations all, um, suck.
c) That what I really wanted were wireless speakers I could stream music to from the Roku box, HTPC or Satellite box.
So why not hack the old headphones and turn them into wireless speakers?

The headphones. This is the “new pair” notice they too are starting to disintegrate. Cheap POS…

One of the transmitter units.

Old headphones disassembled.

The circuit board.

Wires going to the headphone speakers are snipped and stripped.

A headphone jack salvaged out of an old PC that is long gone.

Soldering and heatshrink insulating wires… It was very easy as I just hooked up red to red, white to white and ground to ground. The wires are thin and unpleasant to strip and solder. The ground wires wrap around the speaker wire and are not insulated.

All soldered up.

Testing with a set of cordless speakers.

Drilling the standoffs to the (large clearance) tap drill diameter for a #4-48 screw. I drilled out the other half to clear a #4 screw (I had to drill the circuit board as well). Didn’t bother tapping, just screwed the screws in and they formed their own threads.

The headphones put together in a puck. For now the top is held on with a rubber band as I know the second I glue it in place something inside will break. The headphone jack is zip tied to one of the screws for strain relief.

In action in the bathroom. It works like a charm and the sound quality is better than I though it would be. It’s worth mentioning that the bedroom is right next to the bathroom. Not sure what the maximum range is.

Preventing Bad Posture

I’m not a giant but being 6’ tall I think I’m at the outer edge of ergonomic considerations for most manufacturers. I found that working for long periods at my computer was giving me some neck strain, primarily because the bottom edge of my monitor was only about 3” above the surface of my desk causing me to look down at the center of the screen. So I bought a new stand for my main monitor from Monoprice. It’s adjustable and while it was a bit difficult to get it set up correctly, raises my monitor up so that it’s now about 9” above the desk top.
That left my 2nd monitor to the right of my main one. I bought this from Monoprice as well:

It showed promise but my desk edge didn’t have enough relief for the clamp nor was the desk edge close enough to center for the monitor edges to connect. So what to do?

I disassembled it…

And cut off the clamping bracket.

Mounted it in the lathe and turned the end to a round flange.

That’s my new import steady rest for the South Bend 10K. I bid on a bunch of used SB parts but the prices are crazy so I went with this one. It works fine.

Drilling some mounting holes in the flange.

Wow, what an exciting life I lead.

I screwed it to a piece of aluminum and temporarily clamped it to the desk.

It reaches and lines up but notice the angle! The cheap mount does not have a tilt function so I had to do my best to level it up.

Turns out the edge of the desk has an odd dip in it. Not sure why. the center of the desk is level.

So I put a shim underneath it.

Lines up perfectly. Or almost so. Now I can wreck a new set of muscles instead of my neck. I’m noticing that I am sitting up straighter and no longer developing a permanent hunch. This picture was taken a week later and I‘ve accepted that the c-clamps are a permanent mount rather than temporary.
If you don't use dual monitors I encourage you to do so. I find I'm much more productive and it allows me to watch Hulu while working on the book keeping.

Felice stands at her desk while she works on jewelry. I need to completely redesign her workstation at some point.

I think Henry sits too close to his monitor but the height is ok. His Dell monitor has an excellent mount.

Max could probably use an inch or two of height on his Samsung monitor, will have to do something about that.