House Wiring Project

My house is probably 25 years old. It was wired with CAT5 but it was only used for old fashioned POTS two wire telephone. All the jacks around the house (9 of them) are RJ11 telephone plugs. The wires all meet up in the garage at a patch panel near where the old phone service and DSL came in.

This week I removed the old patch panel, pulled all the wires up into the attic and put ethernet connectors on them. Then I went around to all the jacks in the house and replaced them with ethernet connections. Making those plugs was tricky and took lots of re-work (I estimate a third to half of the ones I did were bad). Pushed them through the wall in the attic into my office and made this slick little recessed patch panel. Gonna buy a 16 port switch and put wired ethernet thought the house. There is even a connection outside on the back patio. That stray coax cable is for my Spectrum cable modem.

Leadership Matters

i like to check out the foreign press. Sometimes it gives a better perspective on what is happening in the US than just domestic news sources. Sometimes a story about events in another country holds up a mirror to what is going on closer to home. A story about Covid-19 in Spain, translated from Spanish but printed in the (domestic) New York Times.

What Is Happening Here

WordPress has a new editor that is challenging me. I especially miss the old Google Photos interface. Android also updated. The icons and fonts now come in two sizes:. Too Big and Too Small. Night mode seems to be on all day long and I cant seem to get my old keyboard back. Had my first Zoom call. Used my Raspberry Pi 4 and a decade old Logitech USB camera. Not a complete success. Refrigerator broke yesterday. Ordered a new one but it will be here in a month. We hope. On the bright side internet is stable. Still making ramen, saw a snake in a tree, got an exercise bike. Walked around the deserted Domain. Making some cat5 connectors, converting my old home phone wires to ethernet.