My Brother's a genius eh, he hooked up our home stereo.

I had good intentions of going out and being active today. I was going to go play golf (yes, you can golf in the cold and rain) but that didn't materialize. Then I was going to go for a run, but I wimped out. Instead I was a total nerd and finally rewired the entertainment center.

You see, it was getting pretty bad. We've had a lot of construction on our place, and one of the side effects of that was I had to move the entertainment center away from the wall to get it all out of the way. Then I got a new device that will switch HD input to both the TV and the projector. The cables weren't organized well to begin with, then got all twisted up when I moved everything. So I both needed to move everything back towards the wall, and hook up the new device. This was a daunting task since the cables closely resembled a bird's nest and were completely impossible to separate.

So I did what any frustrated nerd does - I started from scratch. I started pulling cables out and moving boxes around unhooking things. At this point I wish I'd been taking pictures, because it really was a sight to see. The whole living room was covered in cables and random devices (my roommate was scared.) Then I started pluggin things back in.

But this time I made use of one of the marvels of the modern world: zip-ties! Yes, armed with my bag-o-tying goodness I went to work, bundling up cables that go between various devices. To give you an idea of the scope of the problem: the worst example is the cabling that runs between the DVD players (yes, plural) and the main stereo cabinet - there are 10 cables that make that run.

The whole thing took me about 3-4 hours. I actually had the wiring done in about two (there's enough wires it's hard for me to hold the whole system in my head, I almost made a Visio diagram) but then I had to troubleshoot the new switch, move the screen hanging from the ceiling, and recalibrate the projector. I'm super thrilled it's done now though. The cables in the back of the cabinet are manageable, the switch is working fabulously, and I managed to be backwards compatible with the old setup so my roommate doesn't have to learn how to turn the TV on again.

Side Notes:
- I think it's a good personality study that my good friend Colleen wrote a bunch about clothes shopping on her Blog this weekend while I wrote about hooking up electronics. I guess that's why she's a recruiter and I'm a developer.

- The quote above is from Strange Brew which inspired my all time favorite Halloween costume. Being Eric Cartman two years ago was fun, but it's even more fun to be in character running around with a best friend. Kai and I were the McKenzie brothers and didn't break character all night - to the great annoyance of everyone else at the party. I don't talk to or see Kai enough, I miss you man - you show up in my stories surprisingly often.

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