Wagner Power Sprayer: Friend or Foe?

One of my birthday presents this year was a Wagner Power Sprayer. It got christened this weekend as I repainted the fence at our house - going from faded redwood to a color actually approved by the HOA (but that's the topic for another blog someday). I haven't used any sort of sprayer before so I was sort of winging it and guessing on how much more/less paint it would use than painting with brush or roller. Nevertheless I had visions of a quick/smooth/effortless painting job.

The sprayer has two modes of operation: a tube attachment that theoretically lets you draw the paint right out of the can, or a smaller container that attaches to the sprayer directly and holds about 1/3 gallon. My first inclination was to save some cleanup time and use the tube attachment, so I tried that for the first half of the job. The biggest problems I found were: 1. The sprayer is now on two "leashes" - the extension cord and the 4 foot tube running to your paint can; this can be pretty awkward depending on the area you're painting. If you're not careful you can actually tip your paint can over with the tube. 2. The plastic clip that is supposed to hold the suction tube (actually separate intake and return tubes) in place in the can is really lame and doesn't work at all. Several times the sprayer ran "dry" because the clip came loose and the intake tube was no longer submerged in paint. A couple houses ago I did a lot of interior painting with Wagner's Paint Stick, which had a plastic cover that completely covered the top of a 1-gallon paint can, except for where the tube ran into the can. This seems like a much better solution. 3. With the tube attached there's not an easy way to set the sprayer down while keeping it upright (e.g. to scramble to grab a can of paint that just tipped over :o).

Problems aside, the first half of the fence got painted in about 5 1/2 hours, including some painting by hand in exposed areas where I was worried about overspray. This was a definite time saver over fence painting with roller/brush, but I was still somewhat frustrated with using the sprayer. Cleanup was pretty fast and easier than I was expecting. Any time that I saved in not having to clean the attached paint container was lost in trying to clean the tube.

Day 2 I ditched the tube attachment and went with the attached container. This made a huge difference in productivity and usability of the sprayer. I found that the container needed changing every 10-12 feet of fencing, which was ok. Problems I noted on day 2 were: 1. The sprayer handle has an extended "foot" that matches the bottom of the attached container, so you can set the combination down without it tipping over. That doesn't help much when you've got the container removed to refill it :(. 2. The instructions seemed to imply that the snap-on handle on the top of the sprayer shouldn't be removed once it was installed...I had it come off several times during the painting session, including a couple times with a full container attached.

The last half of the fence was painted in 4 hours; again this included time painting certain fence sections by hand to avoid overspray. Cleanup again was very straightforward, including cleaning the paint container.

In summary I'd say that I'm very happy with the sprayer and how it helped me finish this job much faster than if I painted with brush/roller. I could see it helping on some interior painting jobs as well, though the current house's vaulted ceilings will probably save me from doing some of them myself.

Maybe I should have been a plumber...

Lest there be any confusion I really enjoy the challenges of software engineering, even when they are more "real world"/schedule-induced than technical.

However, after having moved into a new house and had a fair number of plumbing tasks done for us over the past couple months I think there's something to be said for having a set of specific always-in-demand skills that allow you to charge outrageously. But then I guess the same could be said for some consultants these days ...

Stressful events in twos or threes (or more?)

They say that some of the most stressful events in life include (in no particular order): getting married, having a baby, buying a house, selling a house, moving, changing jobs, work (needs no explanation). That said, I'm wondering why I/we have been prone to endure 2 or more of these high-stress periods in each of the last few years. Just to recap:

2003: get married, get laid off, sell house, move cross country, new job
2004: buy house, move (local), survive startup hell
2005: have baby, change jobs to escape startup hell
2006: survive work
2007: have baby, survive work, sell house, buy house, move (local)

To be fair, we've really been blessed in terms of selling our house in 2 weeks in a down market, and finding a wonderful new house (and not getting outbid on it!). Still, things will be so much more calm when the smoke clears and the move is done.

Time for a new "startup"

David Christopher Love (aka Baby Dave) was born on Feb 23. He joins big sister Abby at home in Poway, California. Contrary to popular belief, his initials are not a tribute to the Digital Computer Lab at UIUC.

Reading "Death March"

I just picked up a copy of Ed Yourdan's Death March. Haven't had a chance to read it yet (being too busy at work), but am hoping to read it during the down time when baby Dave arrives. I definitely agree with the conclusion that software death marches are becoming the norm rather than the exception, having survived them at several different companies. I'll add additional entries as I read the book.

Addicted to LinkedIn

LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com) is one of several professional networking sites out there these days. I originally found out about it from a former VP of Engineering at CCPU, and have been growing my network of connections ever since. In addition to adding connections to friends and peers I was already in touch with it has enabled me to reconnect with other former classmates, coworkers, etc.. It has even led to a number of (unsolicited) job/career opportunities from recruiters...thinking back to the telecom nuclear winter of 2003, it would be interesting to see how technology like this might have altered the networking/job search that so many folks dealt with back then (not that I have any interest in reliving that!)

They recently added a new "Questions and Answers" feature that has been interesting to watch and participate in. One of the recent questions had to do with being a LinkedIn adict . For whatever reason I'd have to agree, and it has become another site I check daily along with public email, Illini sports updates, etc.

Can nine people have a baby in one month?

As we're expecting baby Dave's arrival any time now, it's very apparent to me that they can't.

The "Mythical Man Month" is probably the best software development reference discussing the wisdom (or lack thereof) in doing this, yet it is still commonplace in a lot of large-scale software development groups and I've seen it a number of times spanning several industries.

Countdown to baby time!

Baby Dave is going to arrive sometime in the next few weeks. Everything has gone smoothly so far, and we'll have another ultrasound next week. I guess I should sleep while I can... :o

Brrrrr...

We've had a bit of a cold stretch in San Diego with the temperature approaching freezing overnight (and getting below freezing in the mountain regions). Last night we woke up with the temperature at 25 degrees! The added suprise was discovering that there was no hot water. Troubleshooting things a bit, the cold water was fine, we had heat, power, etc. It appears that something in the two solar water heater units on the roof had frozen up, preventing any water from getting to the water heater in the house. By the time we left for church (~9:00am) the outdoor temp had warmed up to around 32 degrees and we were getting trickle of water from the faucet. As the sun warmed things up further on the roof we eventually got full hot water flowing again.

Yet another thing to keep in mind with a 40-year old house...I'll add the disclaimer that I'm writing this sort of "tongue in cheek" after having grown up in the midwest. The blood thins out pretty quick!

Ode to owning a 40 year-old house

The realities of house hunting in the San Diego market of 2004 were :

1. that all indications were that the market was going to continue to skyrocket (and it did for a time),
   
2. you had little choice but to bid high in the hopes of getting your offer accepted, and
3. we weren't interested in being so house poor that living on 1 income was going to be a major struggle
   

When the smoke cleared, we found a 4 BR ranch built in 1957. No home owners association/fees, no Mello Roos (extortion fees for newer developments intended to fund new infrastructure).

One of the joys of buying an older house has been discovering all of the strange ways people chose to maintain it (or try to modernize it) over the years. Granted that in '57 they couldn't have dreamed of multiple phone lines (or 1 line with multiple extensions), cable TV, cat 5 ethernet, etc., but you'd think they could have at least considered something like insulation in the walls!

Over the last 2 1/2 years Laura and I have done a lot of upgrades, motivated more by making it a nicer place for us to live than any grand delusions of cashing in when we try to sell. Upgrades have included:

1. New carpet in all 4 bedrooms
   
2. New wood fencing
3. Ice plant and irigation system on our 45-degree hill in the back
4. Stucco resurfacing/repair and new color
5. Upgraded electrical service to 100amps
   
6. Knotty pine beadboard in the kitchen
7. Removal of popcorn ceilings
8. Repainted all 4 bedrooms, replacing some hideous baseboards in the process

Possible remaining projects:

1. Repair and repaint wood trim
2. Clean-up phone and cable wiring (all exterior to the house, running under the eaves
   
3. Garage improvements (drywall? seal floor?)
4. Stain concrete patio
5. Stucco cinder-block wall in backyard to match house stucco color
   

So this is blogging...

So after years of creating manually-generated homepages that ultimately suffered from bit-rot I figured it was time to try out this blog thing. I can't say I have a grand plan for what to write here in fugure blogs, but I'd guess it will be a mix of tech-related comments and other observations. As we're a couple thousand miles from family back in the midwest this could be another way of trying to keep connected with family.

As someone whose first exposure to the internet was back in the early days of usenet news, gopher, anonymous ftp, etc. it's interesting how new communications and networking tools have emerged with the internet over the years. Tools like LinkedIn, yahoo groups, message boards, have taken us far from the "early days".