[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

The ultimate forum backup has been made

I've been planning a shed that is also an office for about 12 months - but 9 days ago my neigbour helped me set up the wooden shuttering so that this weekend just gone, we could pour a concrete base for it.

Now - you can't just set to work with the mixer and get on with it can you...oh no....you have to do two things

1. Bury stuff

2. Write things in the concrete

So -as these pictures will show - a backup of the forum was taken - burnt to DVD - tucked away in a case, in a bag, and burried under the concrete just about where the door of the shed will be - and the UMSF logo badly drawn on top of the spot. Also, In the far corner of the concrete where it will stick out a bit from the shed base, I also wrote DHLLL and the logo - that's Me, Helen, Lee (the neigbour) Lorren (his little girl who helped...a bit...she's on the 'pluto is a planet' side of the fence) and Lorraine, (Mrs the neigbour). i.e. everyone who was involved in sorting out the foundations for UMSF HQ

I'm still finding concrete in my hair!!

Shed will go up in the next couple of weeks, but it will probably be after I get back from Valencia before I can sort out the inside of the shed and fit it out with a proper floor, walls and office 'stuff'

Anyway - the DVD should be fairly safe for a few years under 4 inches of concrete!

Doug

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[jamescanvin]

Good work Doug - nice to see the HQ construction underway.

Lets hope you never have to dig up the backup!

James

[djellison]

The best part...literally seconds after we finished tapping down a nice flat surface...Suzi the forum cat decided taht she needed to test the concrete and put a perfect set of paw prints around the edge of it

Doug

[MizarKey]

Why are there no pics of "Suzi the forum cat"? Personally, I'd like an anaglyph or cross-eyed stereo of the mascot.

[djellison]

Have you ever tried to get a pet to stay still enough to take two pictures before it moves

http://www.rlproject.com/suzi/

Doug

[lyford]

Sweet - UMSF can survive a direct atomic hit! (well, maybe not)

Though are we supposed to call you Doug "Two Sheds" Ellison now?

Suzi looks quite pensive, almost wistful in those photos - a beautiful cat you have there!

[dvandorn]

...are we supposed to call you Doug "Two Sheds" Ellison now?

Yes, I think we should. After all, he was once asked whether or not he might ever think about building a second shed. That's all it needs...



-Doug "No Sheds" Van Dorn

[Jeff7]

That looks familiar. Isn't concrete so much fun to work with? I poured a small sidewalk recently, with a very similar-looking rented mixer. I weigh about 120lbs, so moving around many 80lb bags of concrete mix was just loads of fun.

[mars loon]

Presumeably, Pluto has been buried with "Full Planetary Status" as part of the UMSF Logo?

ken

[lyford]

awesome, mars loon, very awesome

the fine folk at umsf never pass up the chance to weave threads together

[odave]

Ah, there's nothing like a good shed! I've got a fairly big one in my back yard that houses all of my astro gear and other toys - it's dubbed "The Man Area" or "Daddy's House". Note that I am blessed with a wonderful wife, three lovely daughters, two female cats, and a female dog. I dearly enjoy them all, but sometimes I need to retreat to my shed when the estrogen levels in the house become toxic for males

Good luck on the project, Doug, and post more images as you build!

[ljk4-1]

Good work Doug - nice to see the HQ construction underway.

Lets hope you never have to dig up the backup!

James

But who is going to be able to read CDs in 50 years?

[climber]

But who is going to be able to read CDs in 50 years?

Only Voyager I & II

[ljk4-1]

Only Voyager I & II

They are LPs. If nothing else, whoever finds the Records and uses the
stylus that went along with them could put the needle in the groove and
at least listen to the music, languages, and sounds. Plus there are
playing instructions on the covers.

That information will remain on them for as long as the records last -
at least 1 billion years or so. CDs and DVDs, on the other hand,
apparently won't last more than a century or so, to say nothing of
them probably being unreadable long before then.

[djellison]

Well - I had a look around the house for the perfect metal disc, etching CNC tooling and gold plating bath but I can't find them...maybe I put them in the loft but hey

If it helps - yes - I put an old IDE DVD Rom drive in there

Doug

[djellison]

Well - it's getting there - it's up, and I've started fitting it out inside. First step was the floor. A waterproof membrane on it, and then extra floor boarding over the top of that to strengthen it all a fair bit. Next up - extra battons in the ceiling and the corners of the walls to accept the wall material ( whatever that may be - Gypboard, Plasterboard, Plywood....don't know yet. ) - and then insulation over all interior surfaces.

I'm thinking of making faux-double glazing with some plastic as an inner window, just to eliminate the chance of condensation inside.

If I could - I'd keep it like this as it looks so damn cool Like the inside of a spacecraft under construction....but I'll be boarding over all the cool insulation in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to run power and networking through there first. Wireless just isn't fast enough for my liking - particularly when the words RAID FIVE NAS come into play as they will do eventually.

As for the floor - it's going to get carpet tiles ( cheap, robust, replaceable when I drop a soldering iron or something ) - but I think I'm going to put some insulation down there first, not quite sure what yet though.

Doug

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[centsworth_II]

I just had to show that picture to my wife. I have the same chair piled high with the same variety of tools and material in my shed!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Hope it's meteorite-proof ... of course You all saw the news item of a meteorite striking a shed near Bochum in Germany

[djellison]

Well - technically, the second layer of insulation for the ceiling ( with a gap ) is a primative whipple shield

And yes - I think every red blooded, power tool owning male has 'the chair' which acts as tool box, work jig, step ladder, heavy weight, tea-mug stand, and....chair. It needs two paint splashes, a drop of expaning foam, one large dent and a couple of "oops - drilled too far" holes.

No one spotted the obvious mistake.....I've added some more batons tonight, there was nowhere for the panels that make up the far wall to screw in to at the top between the upright batons.....so I've added a few new extra battons

Doug

[ngunn]

batons.....so I've added a few new extra battons

Doug

Battons . . batons . . battens . . buttons ???

[djellison]

I'll just call them Jenson's.



Doug

[edstrick]

"Hope it's meteorite-proof ... of course You all saw the news item of a meteorite striking a shed near Bochum in Germany "

Actually, it's more likely to get hit by "blue ice" off an airplane.
Remember. You can't live forever. If nothing else gets you, eventually the blue ice will.

[tasp]

Anyone have a spare stasis box? Good place to put back-up discs.

{sorry, you can't have mine, it is where I keep my emergency back-up chocolate glazed doughnut}

[nprev]

Doug, do you ever sleep? I can't believe you have the time and energy to run this forum, work, glog, do family stuff AND build HQ UMSF. Where'd you get the clones? (I could use a few myself!)

[djellison]

Well - I'm currently sat on a nice black office chair about 18 inches above the yellow handled shovel
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&id=7174
Just about where this chair is - http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&id=8154

but inside a completed shedoffice. Walls are up, painted 'pecan' (Mars Sky if you ask me) - carpet down, some posters up, cool halogen lights up, shelving in place, made my own desk to fit (of which I'm very proud) - blind, Pathfinder blueprints across the ceiling, Pioneer Plaque on one wall, and the £1 Ikea clock that I sprayed and printed a custom face for to look like the tacho from a Lotus 49B F1 car from 1968 ....all sorted

The wireless network wouldn't quite reach, so I ran a network cable around the inside of the shed when boarding it up - through the old brick shed, through the garage, down the side of the house and into the front of the house where the phone and sat-tv go, and into the back of the wireless router.

And this is the first post to UMSF made from the shed, down that cable....it's a 100m roll, of which only about 30 is being used - the rest rolled up in various places in case I had to chop and re-run the cable because of a breakage etc - but thankfully - it worked first time...just crimped the connector on the shed end and it works..YAY!!!

Every time I walk in here, I get a glance of some paw prints that Suzi left just after the concrete started to set. I hoped that she would join me in here from time to time, but it was not to be - a picture of Suzi rock will certainly be going on the wall soon. Perhaps Gizmo - our new cat that we've had just a few weeks - will pay me a visit once she's settled into her new home a little more

Pictures tomorrow!

Doug

[nprev]

Hey, congrats! Give all them clones of yours the night off & a few quid for the local pub, man; they earned it!

[djellison]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doug_ellison_...005564148/show/

Not all setup - but 99% of my crap's in there now I've tried to keep it mainly space in there, but some motorsport crept in in the form of a few 1:43rd models, a few pictures and a large 'rasterbated' image of Button I printed out last year. In my old 'in the house' office, I had a rig for driving racing sims (racing seat, pedals, wheel etc ) but I've had to give that up due to time issues ( couldn't find a clone to keep on racing ) - and the rig's going on ebay. Hanging on the bottom right corner of the large West Spur pan print is a little round piece of metal - that's actually a piece of ballast from the bottom of the Renault F1 car that Jenson Button used to drive before he joined BAR / Honda.

No prizes for spotting the ultra-Full Moon fan status of having the large and the small hard backs on the shelf

Doug

[Nix]

It looks very cosy Doug. I noticed the big clock.. does Helen track time or do you get to stay there for as long as you like at night?

We're moving to a new home next May and I'll finally have an 'office' then rather than seated in the middle of the livingroom. Seeing your pictures I'm thinking the garage might be an option too. Hmm.

Good job -got recent outside pictures?

Nico

[nprev]

Nice, Doug! The apartment my girlfriend & I share isn't much bigger (600 ft^2)... wanna fly to LA & help me knock down a few walls?

[Mongo]

Nice, Doug! The apartment my girlfriend & I share isn't much bigger (600 ft^2)... wanna fly to LA & help me knock down a few walls?

But...you're a robot! I thought that you slept in a closet at the Robot Arms, dreaming about someday 'killing all humans'?

Bill

[nprev]

Well, yeah, but I needed the extra space for my pet human... ...till I kill 'em all, may as well enjoy 'em!