AT&T is the exclusive wireless provider for the Apple iPhone here in the United States, and has at least partially earned a reputation for providing poor wireless phone coverage. In my own travels, I’ve had great reception in Portland, Austin, Palm Springs, and Chicago, among other places, four or five bars, consistently. I don’t recall ever having poor 3G reception anywhere — except here in my home city of San Francisco.

Now, San Francisco presents some unique challenges, such has high-rises and famously steep hills. But solving those reasonably straightforward RF challenges is what AT&T gets paid the big bucks to do. After almost four years there has been some improvement, but reception is still a major issue, with some parts of SF being almost completely dead zones. (I believe this has more to do with the tinfoil hat crowd than AT&T’s lack of effort and investment, but that’s a post for another day.)

AT&T reception in our house, while not awful, has been spotty, and seems oddly worse since we gave up our land line in January. It has definitely been an issue, with dropped and “one-way” (you can hear someone but they can’t hear you, or vice versa) calls being a regular occurrence.

AT&T has a solution for that problem. It’s called the AT&T 3G MicroCell, which puts a mini cell phone tower called a “femtocell” in your house, and no less a personage than the NYTimes has written about it. Their first article, Bringing You a Signal You’re Already Paying For, is a bit snarky, but does a good job of covering the details of the technology, and why you might want it. Their second article, Dead Zone Doldrums Test Skills of iPhone Customers, is more pragmatic, focused on usable ways to improve your reception, including the MicroCell.

Ultimately, finding a usable solution is more productive than pointing fingers. While the 3G MicroCell does cost $150, there are no monthly fees, and I can attest to getting at least three, and mostly five bars everywhere in my ~1400 square foot house. The MicroCell hands off smoothly to a standard AT&T tower when I move to my back deck, where reception was already excellent. Call quality has been excellent. Once set up, there is nothing to do. It Just Works.

There were two tricks to getting the MicroCell working. The first was actually getting one. They are not yet available for ordering online, at least not in San Francisco. But, after reading a tweet that AT&T Wireless retail stores were selling them in Santa Rosa, I stopped by a store in downtown San Francisco. Yes, they had them in stock, and so did the second store I visited. So, if you want a MicroCell today, you may need to visit your nearest AT&T Wireless store. For me, this was only 10 minutes out of my way, not a big deal.

My second issue was activating the MicroCell. It needs to have a reliable two-way connection to the Internet. For you to receive calls, the AT&T network needs to be able to reach the MicroCell, that is, connect from the Internet to inside your home network. This is something that a good firewall will normally prevent. I assume that the MicroCell uses UPnP or NAT-PMP to attempt to automatically open appropriate holes for itself, but my decidedly non-standard firewall software and even more unusual hardware don’t support either. So, I had to put the MicroCell outside the firewall, which is easy enough if you have a simple home network…and a pain in the ass if you have a fully wired house. For most people, this won’t be an issue, but I would appreciate a way to manually configure my MicroCell, or at least the technical information to open the right holes. Currently AT&T wants the 3G MicroCell to be a black box that requires no direct configuration by the customer.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with the 3G MicroCell. It’s set up, it works as advertised, and I didn’t need to wait for AT&T to put a new cell tower nearer my house, or for Apple to launch a Verizon iPhone.

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On Saturday I took 13 BeBoxes to the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, with the intent of offering them to passers-by, getting them out of the house and into a good home.

I spent a bit of time creating a flyer to advertise them, and packed up a kit with stapler, tape, marker, etc., so that I could put them up in good places. Then I drove 45 minutes to the Computer History Museum, where the festival was taking place.

The second person who saw the flyer said, “OK, I’ll take them.” I hadn’t even posted it yet! After 10 minutes of transferring from my car to his truck, the BeBoxes had a new home, and better prospects for being refurbished and restored to their former, if not glory, at least functionality.

Rochelle hasn’t stopped smiling since I got back with an empty car. And I have to admit, with the CRAP efforts we’ve made in the last two months, it seems like we might recover the use of our third bedroom before the end of the year. That will make us both smile!

That’s been my DSL connection over the last few weeks. And since I self-host this site, on a cheap PC sitting on a shelf, Aldoblog has been up and down, too. Very irritating.

The problem is the wiring. Our house is a 100+ year old Victorian, and all of our phone wiring (except for the actual phone jacks) is on the outside of the house. And it’s old, and it’s been abused, and so on. So with all the rain we’ve been having, apparently water is getting into the wiring.

We’ve had PacBell out, more than once, and about the only thing they’re consistent about is that it’s our problem, not theirs. Even thought it’s on the outside of the house, it’s “inside” wiring because it’s past the junction box, and so our responsibility.

Anyway, it’s sunny and working now, and it looks like we might be done with the rain for a while. In the meantime, I’m calling wiring contractors, because I can’t take it when we don’t have internet access. I must be a junkie…or then again, maybe I need to have internet access to, like, work and earn a living…

It’s been quite a while since I posted photos of the kitchen progress. We basically came to a standstill two months ago, when we ran completely out of money to do more work. Fortunately, very nearly all of the work is done. Some painting touch-ups, painting the base board, and a couple of similarly little things. We’ll be getting them done in September.

It also took us forever to really finish bringing things back into the kitchen, and arranging them to our satisfaction. Two weeks ago we bought a new kitchen storage unit at IKEA, and that has made all the difference in being able to get things organized enough that we can work well in the new room.

The peninsula is cobbled together from three pieces of furniture: our old steel kitchen work table, the new IKEA kitchen storage unit, and a vintage seed cabinet that Rochelle found in an antique store about a year ago. It’s been moving around the house looking for a final resting place. The kitchen isn’t it — we’ll replace all of this in a year when we put in the real, permanent cabinets — but it’s working well in the new location.

The reason the new IKEA piece was so important to getting the kitchen settled was because we lost a huge amount of storage space when we rearranged the pantry by moving the door. We’ll get the pantry space back when we do the real cabinets, but for now, it’s holding less than half what fit in before. The Metro shelving that used to hold things we didn’t use often is now holding mostly things we use every day, i.e. all our pots and pans, cooking utensils, all our spices, etc.

The refrigerator in the back corner is still creating lots of dead space around it, because it’s so deep. Replacing it is the next major expense. And we’ll likely do it sooner rather than later, since all the manufacturers and stores have 12-month interest free loans and other incentives. We’re looking at getting a counter-depth unit, with the freezer on the bottom, and French doors for the refrigerator compartment. That will let us push it more fully into the corner, and better use the space around it.

These last two photos are stitched together from two shots each. It’s pretty easy to see the seams, unlike some of the earlier panoramas I did. I’ve got to get the hang of taking the shots from the same perspective, height, angle, etc. Might also try getting Preston to come by with his fancy camera and wide-angle lens; our little PowerShot isn’t really up to this kind of photography.

This one is the previous two stitched together:

And this one is of the kitchen entrance and our display shelf with all our champagne bottles:

Note: All of these photos can be clicked to view larger versions.

As usual, Rochelle’s invitation to a recent party is funny and worth preserving. In addition to Rochelle’s birthday, this was the “coming out” party for our new kitchen (even though it wasn’t quite finished). We do regret that we didn’t get to the grilled cheese sandwiches on the griddle, but at least we did make quesadillas.

Worst of all, we forgot to take any photos during the event, especially of people in the kitchen. We’ll just have to try harder (or drink less) next time.

Keeping Up With The Jones Poverty Party

We started the year on a good note by getting rid of lots of crap, but alas, during a routinue appliance swap, we got sucked into a kitchen remodel. We’re only through Stage One (structural), and we’re broke.

So it’s time for a party! We’ll celebrate Rochelle’s birthday and our folly. Come by and make fun of us!

We’ll be serving cheap but good food like bread & dip, deviled eggs and…well…you haven’t lived ‘til you’ve had a fried baloney sandwich made on a Viking Range! We’ll have red wine & tequila (& mixers) from our existing but not insubstantial stash. We’ll also serve whatever beer is on sale that week.

From all you iPoders out there, Rochelle has a special birthday request — bring a playlist of not more than 10 songs from any time I have been alive (May 31, 1962 to present). They can be all from one year [extra points for great years: (birth)1962, (college)1980-84, (move to SF)1985, (move to 569)1992, (guess)1995, and (married Michael)1999], have a groovy theme, or just be 10 cool songs you love. We’ll take take turns jacking into the system, so it’s your chance to be a DJ.

And if you like dressing up, come as your favorite Jones (Davey, Shirley, Starr, Bridget?). Since I suspect there will be at least one Tom Jones, bring panties to throw.

PS – We highly, highly recommend coming via cab or public transit because parking is virtually impossible in the Lower Haight on weekend evenings. Seriously.

Regarding the budget overruns of the kitchen remodel:

“Yeah. We spent into the grocery money.”

“Worse. We spent into the booze money.”

In the time since the prior photos were taken, the (old) kitchen sink and (new, temporary) cabinet were installed (and the dishwasher dragged into place), the ceiling, walls, and trim have been painted, the electricians returned to install all the outlets, switches, and lights — and our contractor left to go get married on the East Coast.

The day after Ken left, I spent hours and hours pole sanding the putty in the floor seams, and then painted the floor. We can’t actually decide what kind of flooring we want (plus we’re out of money), so we’re just painting the subfloor for now. You can sort of see the dark brown we’ve chosen in the photos below. The paint is polyurethane-reinforced, but the subfloor is soft plywood. We’ll see how well it all works out.

Because of the damn floor paint, which takes 24 hours before you can walk on it in socks, or apply another coat, and takes a week to cure fully, we haven’t been able to really move back into the kitchen. But, with the sink finally hooked up, we’ve been able to do dishes, and that has made us a bit happier — huge piles of dirty dishes have been oppressing both of us for some time.

It’s also nice to be able to flip a switch and get light in the room again. Actually, our old kitchen lighting was a single fixture, with two 60-watt bulbs. Our new lighting is a central fixture, three wall sconces, and a task lamp over the sink (which is the only light you can see fully in the photos above). All told, it’s 13 bulbs, and most of them are 60-watt. It’s as bright as the sun in the room (the yellow paint helps with that effect), and we’re pretty happy with that. Though the central fixture is kinda ugly; a poor decision on eBay, alas.

There’s still plenty to do to finish the room, and then lots and lots to do to move back into the kitchen properly. But we’re really, really close to being able to call it a kitchen again, instead of a project.

Which is good, because we have a party scheduled for the weekend after next. Yikes! Good thing Rochelle has three days off this weekend to work on the house…

We’re in the home stretch on the first phase of our kitchen remodel. The photos here were taken last week; I’ll be taking some more tomorrow when I can get back in with good light.

Here are the stove and refrigerator in their permanent spots. The walls have been primed and patched, but not yet painted. And we’re having a weird problem with the refrigerator’s rollers, where it’s tilting backwards. We’ve already begun lusting after a new fridge, with an icemaker. Plus the white fridge is going to look so icky in the new kitchen…

Panning around the room a bit, the stove is nicely aligned with the new pantry door. You can see some painted over paint patches, where we were trying out different colors, and then had to start painting over them, so they wouldn’t bleed through later. And this shot gives a decent look at the new trim on the pantry, which is used on all three doorways and the two windows.

That weird blotch with the squiggle is actually a wad of bubble wrap, stuffed into the original vent hole in the chimney. We’ve not yet patched it, and it’ll probably be on our list for “when we get to it.” For now, the bubble wrap is keeping the chimney from sucking all the heat from the house. The squiggle is the electrical wiring for the stove hood, which is a down-the-road purchase.

Here’s the opposite corner of the room, where the sink has yet to be installed. The cold and hot input pipes are sticking out under the window on the right, with a stick balanced across them. And more paint patches. The first set were to see the colors next to the brick of the chimney. These were to see the colors in the light that comes in the windows. For now you’ll have to guess which color we picked. If you look closely, you can see that we’ve got the ceiling painted (just one coat at this point).

After posting the photo of scope creep, we kind of had a pause in progress, while we back-tracked on a few things. So we’re finally making progress again today, getting to the point where we can finish all the taping and mudding, and the subfloor can be laid in. That’s when we’ll get to move some furniture back into (semi-)permanent positions, and get to start having a life in our kitchen again.

Here’s the before and after of the pantry doorway:

The difference is pretty subtle in the small photos, a little more apparent in the larger ones (click photos to view). Basically, the door now starts 16” from the wall, instead of 4”, and it’s much wider.

The difference isn’t subtle when you’re standing in the kitchen. We are incredibly pleased with how much it changes the room, by having the pantry be more a part of the room, rather than a hole hidden in the back of it. And if it looks this good before trim and paint (and all the rest of moving back into the kitchen), it’s going to be fabulous when we’re all done.

It’s not often you can snap a picture of scope creep, but I caught it this evening, after Rochelle came back from meeting with a kitchen cabinet consultant.

Like all decisions we’ve made, this one seems reasonable. And in the end, it’ll be the right thing. All we’ll really lose by moving the pantry door is some time (which is expensive) and some sheetrock (which is cheap).

What I’m struggling most with — aside from how to pay for it, of course — is where to move the Cat5 and speaker jacks, now that the cabinet in which the Sonos ZonePlayer audio unit was to be housed is no longer on that wall. Fortunately, with the extra expense of moving the door, it’ll be a while before I can buy it, so I’ve got some time to figure things out…