Essential Tools for the Newlywed/Homeowner

Tools isn’t a euphemism for character traits…I’m talking real tools here.

I’ve been married for 7 years and a homeowner for almost two. For the first 5 years I lived 50 feet from my parents house and therefore had access to a lifetime supply of tools. My father was a high school shop teacher, so he had tools above and beyond the ordinary. At the time I didn’t realize how good I had it. After moving into my own home 30 miles away, I soon realized that my tool collection was sorely lacking and thus began my tool purchasing days. I’ve learned a few things along the way and here’s my top 5 tools that should be at the top of everyone’s list if they’re about to endeavor into home improvement.

1. Measure Twice – If you don’t have at least two tape measures, start here. Believe me. If you do no home improvements at all, you will need this to measure out your house for furniture or hanging pictures on the wall. When we were furniture shopping I pretty much carried a 25′ tape measure with me constantly. You need two simply because they “get lost” from time to time (read: this is something that your spouse will use and won’t put it back!)
2. Step it up – again, it doesn’t matter how many improvements you plan to make…if you hang curtains, paint the walls, or just need to change a light-bulb a step ladder is essential. Depending on your ceiling/personal height you may be fine with a 6′, but a 8′ might be a good option. Aluminum or Fiberglass is also your call…if you plan to do electrical work, go with fiberglass. If you’re a heavier fellow, make sure to get one that’s rated for 300lbs. In my case I have a 6′ aluminum one rated for 250lbs, but I’m 4’5″ and weigh 125lbs.
3. Drill Baby, Drill – I’m really not sure what people did before the invention of the battery operated power drill. It is used constantly in my household. If not for drilling holes, then for screwing, tightening and just speeding up any general screwdriver job. My advice- get the best thing you can afford. I’m not particular to brand names, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Lithium Ion Makita’s. Pricey, but I think worth it.
4. Nail it, Screw it. – I had a hammer, drill, and screwdrivers galore shortly after getting married…but until I moved into my own house (and away from my father’s collection) I didn’t ever have any nails or screws or fasteners of any kind. I remember at least 3-4 occasions after moving into my new house when friends and family would be over helping me with a project and they would say “we just need some screws”…and I would say “I don’t have any”. Kind of embarrassing really. So, go out and buy yourself a few boxes…personally, dry-wall screws go a long way and are useful in a number of situations. If you’re getting ready to start a project, I recommend buying twice as many nails/screws as you need. Inevitably in the future you will need more and it’s a lot more expensive to haul yourself to a hardware store and buy them again.
5. Buy It Once. This isn’t a tool specifically, but it’s probably the most important thing to remember in this list. Jen’s grandfather shared this mantra with her and I’ve found myself echoing it to myself over and over again, often the hard way. Sure you can go into Harbor Freight and buy a ton of tools for really cheap and in some cases, I think that’s fine. BUT for the things that you know you’re going to use for the rest of your life, for tools that are going to have a long, rough life, buy the good stuff. If you don’t, you’ll buy the cheap stuff, it’ll break or won’t work right to begin with and then you’ll buy it again (and again). So it may cost 50% more on the front end, but in the long run it’ll save you.

So, there you go, my list of the tools you need to begin your collection as you endeavor into the world of home-ownership and repair. Did I miss anything? Are there other tools that are vital for you? Let me know in the comments.

View from the top

My good friend Kipp finally decided to get hitched and it just so happened that his [now] wife is from Hawaii…so, the wedding was in Hawaii and for obvious reasons Jen and I thought we shouldn’t miss out on such an occasion. Now I could go on and on about how amazing the wedding was or how beautiful the island was, but this post isn’t about that…

This was our first vacation in 6 years of marriage. Sure, we’ve taken time and visited family and our job often calls us to some pretty cool places, but it’s not really vacation…at least not how I think of it. It honestly took about 3-4 days for it to sink into my skull that my only responsibility was to have fun…to do whatever I wanted to do. Slowly the stresses and concerns of everyday life faded away and the enjoyment and pleasure modes kicked in and it turned into one of the best weeks of my life. Unfortunately though, we can’t live there, it’s just not realistic.

But what is?

We’ve been home for a couple days now and I find myself similarly unsettled to the way I was on the first few days of the trip. We spent so much time going and doing fun things, things that we WANTED to do and now that we’re back I’m finding it hard to slip back into my regular routine. Suddenly “relaxing” by watching TV just seems like an escape from the fact that my life isn’t as full as it could or should be. I need adventure…purpose…and pleasure. The difference now is that I’m not thinking about ways to just have fun, instead I’m thinking of ways to work the way I want to work, do the things I want to do, and make enough money so that I have the resources to take a vacation more often than once every 6 years.

The moral of the story is this: It’s time to start doing the things that I’ve put off for far too long. It’s time to turn of the TV, sacrifice a few hours of sleep and live in an adventure that will give me a story to tell.

I take back what I said…2 years ago.

Well, I officially have no complaint about Apple and have entered into fan-boy world. Two years ago I went on a rant after Jen’s Macbook crashed. I was pretty ticked that it was a widely known issue, but Apple wasn’t doing anything. But today that changed…they announced a recall that will either replace your existing drive or reimburse you if you’ve already replaced it.

Better late than never.

5 Tech Tips for PC users

I know this happens to countless others. The phone rings, and it’s a friend/family member/co-worker and their PC just crashed. Now it’s my job to figure out how 6 months of downloading trash, adware, & viruses could possibly have caused their computer to crash.

Not that this will protect you 100%, but I’ve decided to list a handful of tips that might help you to avoid having to make a panicked call to someone like me.

1. Back it up. - I don’t care how you do it exactly, but my recommendation would be to backup all of your important files to at least two different physical locations. You can do this by burning a few DVD’s, using an external hard drive, or through an online service such as Mozy. I would recommend backing up in some form at least once a week. If you go with an online service, it will do a daily backup automatically, which makes it pretty handy.

2. Be smart. - It’s pretty simple, most viruses, adware, and other malicious pieces of software built to destroy your computer lie in the seedy underbelly of the internet. If you don’t visit those places, you’re likely to avoid the bad stuff all together. Forwarded emails, Limewire or other peer to peer sharing applications are other things to avoid. Do not download or install any application that doesn’t come from a reputable source. Never click on a file ending in .bat or .exe unless you know exactly what it is and who it came from.

3. Get protection. – If you aren’t running anti-virus software you’re just asking for it. AVG Free is a good solution although it seems to be getting a little bloated. Currently I’m trying out Avast and so far I like what I see. Beyond that, an anti-adware application and perhaps a firewall of some sort would be a good base. Just go to download.com and look at the most popular (non-sponsored) programs in the category and that’s usually a good option.

4. Keep it clean. - Aside from the security programs that you should be running 24/7, I would recommend a handful of utilities to keep things clean and running smoothly. Start with keeping Windows updated. Even if you have automatic updates on, check the optional stuff from time to time. CCleaner is an app that I’ve come to really like. It cleans off temporary files, frees up space, and will also scan your registry to clean up errors. There are a handful of other programs that do similar things, but I really only use those if CCleaner doesn’t do the job first. Auslogics Disk Defrag is another one I tend to go back to often. It does the same thing as Windows Disk Defrag, but it takes a fraction of the time.

5. Google it. – Let me just pull away the curtain and tell you a little secret…after I’ve done all of the above, I go to Google and search for the exact symptoms, error code or otherwise. There is almost always an answer. If there’s not, well…it’s time for a reformat and that’s probably where you call me. In that case, do step #1, call me, and next time follow steps 1-4 thoroughly.

OR…

Instead of following all of these rules, buy a Mac. I am serious. I’ve been 100% Mac for 2 years solid, Jen has for 3, and we’ve had a secondary Mac in our house for 4. In those years, I’ve had exactly one major problem which was a hard drive failure (which happens no matter what). No anti-virus, no adware, no defrag, no registry cleaning…not even a worry about backups because Macs have that built-in.

I know Macs cost more initially, but think about all the time you’ve spent troubleshooting and fixing your PC. I have a PC at work and I’ve spent no less than 100 hours in 2 years trying to diagnose numerous issues. 100 hours x $10/hr = $1000. Enough said.

So, hopefully this was somewhat helpful. If you have any tips you’d like to share, hit me up in the comments.