Jay Dreyer

What are you looking at?

What are you looking at?
Originally uploaded by kaline.

Comment [1] | posted 08/25/2006 03:47 PM

Target Rocks...I Do Not.

Wednesday was Target’s big, national stores sales meeting where everyone comes  to Minneapolis to learn about what’s planned for the upcoming year. Our group (the tech side) was invited this year to what used to be a stores-only event. I picked up my ticket and had every intention of attending but I had so much work to do I decided to skip it. I worked on test plans and studying process flows. By doing so, I missed the following performances (who knew?):

• Tony Bennett
• Elvis Costello
• Diana Krall
• kd lang (I think she spells it all lower case)
• Maroon 5
• Kenny Chesney

This was not a good move on my part. In my defense, I had no idea Target rolled out the big guns at these events. Now I know and I won’t miss one again.

On a side note, if you’re into community service, Target announced they’re going to increase the amount they give to the community from $2 million a week to $3 million. I work for a very cool company.

Comment | posted 08/19/2006 12:46 AM

Emusic Picks (August)

If you’re looking for something new to listen to on your fancy-schmancy Ipod, here are a few suggestions for you that I’ve downloaded from eMusic recently…

(Let me add in here that, in general, I suck at music reviews…I either like it or I don’t. When I try to explain why I like or dislike something, I end up sounding like an obnoxious music critic/music snob…and by all means I consider myself a music snob. That’s why I like eMusic so much.)

Brendan Benson
Lapalco

If you’re into smart-pop music, you’ve come to the right place. From what I understand, Brendan is from Detroit, which is both cool and upsetting because why did it take me moving to Minneapolis from Detroit to find out about him? Most of the reviews you’ll find compare him to Matthew Sweet, minus the crunchy guitars. I’m not sure I agree with that, but I like Matthew Sweet and I really like this album. Lots of catchy songs that stick in your brain long after you take the headphones off. As a side note, Brendan is a member of the Raconteurs along with Jack White from the White Stripes. So he’s got that going for him.

Gomez
How We Operate

I’ve been a big Gomez fan since Bring it On came out in 1998. They’ve switched labels and are now indie (great for me as it’s available on emusic) but the music is still great. They’re an interesting band in that you never know what you’re going to get from song to song. I think there are three different people that take turns as lead singer. Overall, this is probably their most consistent album from beginning to end.

Spoon
Gimmie Fiction

This is the third Spoon album I’ve purchased and it’s far and away my favorite (although I really enjoyed Girls Can Tell...) This is where I need my inner rock critic to come out and describe the album because I have a hard time describing them to people. They don’t really rock, per se, but it’s not a bunch of slow, moody tunes, either. You can listen to samples on emusic to get a better understanding. There are a lot of great songs on this disc and the production is really interesting. I usually hear something new with each listen.

The New Pornographers
Twin Cinema

I’ll wrap things up with what is probably my favorite album of the last couple years. Again, if you’re into the rock-pop thing, if you don’t have this one already I’m not sure what you’re waiting for. My friend Pete says Electric Version is better than this one. I can’t say because although I own all of their albums, I like Twin Cinema so much I rarely play the others. (Note to self, listen to the other albums sometime.) The New Pornographers is dubbed a “super group” from Canada consisting of members of various Vancouver based bands. They’re led by A.C. Newman (who also has an excellent CD available from emusic – The Slow Wonder) but there are three people that take turns with lead vocals. When I first downloaded it I think I listened to it every day for about two months. I just couldn’t stop playing it. AllMusic describes it as: “Jubilant hooks and roaring choruses make Twin Cinema a perfect panacea for us pop fans.” I think that sums it up fairly well.

Comment | posted 08/16/2006 08:55 PM

Tesla Roadster

If only I had $100,000 laying around the house waiting to be spent, I could pick up one of these sweet Tesla Roadster electric cars. 0-60 in around 4 seconds, 240 horsepower, and about 250 miles on a charge. They’ve taken deposits on the first 100 cars, which will be released next year. I believe it uses the same type of batteries found in notebook pc’s. Hopefully they’re not the same ones Dell uses that have an annoying tendency to blow up.

Comment | posted 08/15/2006 04:28 PM

Insanity in Chicago

I love Chicago…it’s probably my favorite city in the U.S. Maybe it’s because I have a lot of friends there, or the pizza, or the bars, or the incredible amount of things to see and do. I don’t know what it is.

Anyway, I think Chicago is losing it. Now that they’ve banned smoking in the city, it looks like people have moved on to more serious issues. Reducing crime? Nope. Improving the schools? Uh uh. They’ve identified the new public enemy number one in the Windy City as none other than foie gras. That’s right. Get it while you can because as of August 22nd, you’ll have to head out to Schaumberg or Barrington to feed that foie gras fix. Nice job, Chicago city council! This would have made a good Sufjan Stevens song for Illinoise. Oh well.
CNN.com – Chicago saying au revoir to foie gras – Aug 14, 2006

Comment [2] | posted 08/14/2006 10:42 PM

Amazon Reviews

This is hilarious. Go to Amazon and search for “Tuscan Whole Milk”. Then, sit back, read the reviews, and prepare to laugh.

Here is the link in case you can’t search…

Comment | posted 08/14/2006 09:42 AM

New Pics Up

I posted some new pictures of Jack and Lucy in the gallery. I’ll work on getting some more new ones up when I get some time. Ha!

Comment | posted 08/12/2006 07:51 PM

Sold!

Finally…after six months we finally closed on the sale of our home in Ferndale. We had to drop the price substantially over that period, but we’re happy to get the deal done and move on. We managed to make a few more dollars over what the buyout price from Target was, but not much more. At this point, we’re just relieved to be done with the whole ordeal.

To give you an idea of how bad the market in Detroit has been, here is an article from the Detroit News that explains the situation there.

Comment | posted 08/10/2006 04:56 PM

The Garage Workshop (Part II)

Finally! I was able to wrap up building the base cabinets, installation, and some finish work on Sunday evening. I spent the rest of the week trying to put everything away in their new home. There is still a bit of work to be done as far as organization goes, but, overall, I’m in good shape to start building things.

Here are some pictures of the finished product:

One with the doors shut and another with them open. At the bottom of each lower cabinet is a big pull out tray where I store some of my larger tools. It’s pretty convenient. The doors are handy because it keeps things pretty much dust free. The drawers are nice becuase they use full-extension drawer slides. I can pull them all the way out to make it easier to use all of the available space.

I’ve placed all of my big tools (radial arm saw, table saw, jointer and drill press) to the left side of the shop. I haven’t tried pulling in a car to see if it will fit yet, but I’ll try eventually. I know I’ll be able to get at least one car in there when winter arrives. Since I’m taking the bus, DeAnne’s car will stay warm.

This is a decent view of what the garage looks like now. It’s a big difference from a few weeks ago. Things are a lot more organized and I don’t have tools laying around in buckets and the wheelbarrow anymore. My old clamp-pegboard unit came in handy and I’m using it to store the rest of my tools. I’m still working on organizing things but it’s orderly enough to let me work. In a way, a workshop is never really finished; it’s a constant work in progress.

Lessons Learned

1. Plywood can warp. I’m guessing this is why Norm suggests using MDO instead of birch-ply. Some of my doors are a little out of whack due to this problem. Maybe Lowes plywood is in danger of this more than something from a plywood dealer. Maybe not.
2. Along with point #1, sometimes it’s better to not cut everything all at once. I cut every piece of the top and bottom units before I started construction. The 100 degree heat along with the high humidity really did a number on some of the cut pieces. Since I built the top units first, the pieces for the bottom unit sat around for two weeks before they were used.
3. Measure twice, cut once, measure twice, cut once, measure twice, cut once. Can’t say it enough.
4. Take your time and read the directions/plans carefully. I had to re-do all of the drawer backs because I misread the measurement. They were all a 1/2” too short. Ugh.
5. Precision counts with drawer slides and hinges. I got impatient with the bottom door hinges and it cost me an extra 2 hours of tinkering to get them close to correct. Dumb.
6. Take the time to think about grain direction and color matching. One of my drawer fronts has the grain running vertically as opposed to horizontally like the rest. Two of the bottom doors are way lighter than the rest of the doors in the units.
7. A dust collection system would be really nice to have. I’d still rather have a bandsaw, though!
8. Pocket screws rule.

Comment [1] | posted 08/04/2006 10:52 PM

The Garage Workshop (Part I)

One of my first projects in the new house is to create a new workshop for myself and my tools. The “workbench” that was originally in the garage was beyond useless and was held up with a couple of cinder blocks and located directly beneath a make-shift storage shelf. This left me about 2 inches of clearance between my head and said shelf. Not a good environment for working with wood.

So, I went about trying to find plans for building my own workbench and storage system. After searching around the ‘net for a few days, I decided to go with Norm Abrams’ design for a garage workshop. His designs would give me a nice, big wall-mounted storage unit, as well as a workbench with cabinets, drawers, and a nice counter-top. I purchased the plans through his website and started planning.

The first thing I had to do was insulate the back wall of the garage. I debated about doing this or not, but DeAnne actually talked me into doing it. If I didn’t do it now, she reasoned, I’d never do it and would probably end up regretting it. As usual, she was correct so I picked up the insulation and installed it last weekend. (I should add here that my father-in-law is in town and has been a huge help with everything.) After installation of the insulation was completed, this is what the back of the garage looked like:

Next up was the installation of the wall-paneling. I picked up a few sheets of some thin, exterior grade siding from Lowes. It’s not really thick enough to hold anything heavy, but it looks pretty good, was inexpensive, and fairly easy to work with. It took a while due to all of the holes we needed to cut out for the outlets, but thanks to the finish-nailer, we got it up without too many problems.

Once the panels were up and trimmed out, it was time to paint. I ran into some trouble here because I picked up a can of “oops” paint from Lowes for $5. I thought I was pretty clever after purchasing the paint until I started painting. I didn’t prime the surface first so when I went to apply the paint, it just soaked right into the paneling. The can said it would cover 350-400 sq. ft., but it only ended up covering about 100 sq. ft. before I ran out. Not to worry, however, because Jack, my father-in-law, went in the basement and mixed together every available can of paint we had. I have no idea if this is a suggested practice or not, but it actually came out really nice.

Now that the wall was insulated, paneled and painted, it was time to start building something. Well, not quite. First I had to make all of the cuts from the 6 sheets of 3/4” birch plywood I purchased. That took about five nights to do. Once that was finished, I actually got to build the wall cabinets. We assembled them Friday night and hung them up on Saturday. I’m really happy with them and the hinges we picked up from Rockler work and look great. Lot’s of room, too.

Next up is the construction of the base cabinets and the workbench surface. I’m expecting that to be completed this week and I’ll post another article once it’s finished. I’ll leave you with a picture of my shop assistant and head-vacuum operator, Jack:

Comment [2] | posted 07/24/2006 03:17 PM