Here is a daylight pick of the house with a roof.   This weekend, I will try to finally take some pictures of the inside of the house so you can get and idea what that looks like.

It seems we finally found some brick as well.  It's not exactly what I would have wanted but it's a nice used brick that should look pretty good.   About half of what you see here is going to be brick and the entire back side of the house will be brick.   The rest will be a stone mix.

When budgeting the house, my builder doubled the normal amount of allowance for audio video wiring.    Perfect.   Well, today I got the estimate for the wiring I want done.    Well, we should have tripled it and we would have been close.   Ok well, this will be my first overage.

I don't think I am doing anything crazy.  I am running HDMI to 3 rooms, speaker cables to a number of rooms and of course lot's of Cat 6e and RG6 everywhere.    I did draw the line here.   These are the wall plates we discussed using...but I think it was a bit over the top at 200 dollars a piece.   Maybe I will add them later.

OK, I am two for two.  I have picked out two bricks I like for the house and each time, the brick isn't available until June.   Since the house is supposed to be done by June I have to find something else.     I am going to a new place tomorrow and hopefully there will be a decent used brick that we can use.

I plan to take some more pics tomorrow.   Supposedly, the house now has a roof!!!  

Took a trip out to see how the second floor was coming along but it was much to muddy to go and take a look.   Hopefully I get get up there early next week and see how it is looking.   I will also try to take some pictures from inside but for now I have uploaded a few pictures of the almost completely framed second floor.

We did run into our first snag.   I can't get the brick I wanted until June so I will have to find another.   Picking out brick is a pain, all you can do is drive and look at various bricks because when you look at it in stores you don't get a feel for what it looks like.    I have narrowed it down so it shouldn't be long.  

After looking everywhere for a decent Photo Album package written in DotNet, I found nothing good.    So, I deicided to give good old PHP a try.   I installed Gallery today and spent the day getting the theme to match my site.  I think I was successful.     This thing blows away anything I found written in DotNet.   I still have a bit of tweaking but over the next few weeks, I will be moving all of my photography over to my local Gallery installation.

You can try out the new gallery here... http://www.jakepratt.com/PhotoGallery  or just click any of the photography links at the top.   

So, I am in search of some good software to serve up my photo galleries but haven't found anything yet.   I am considering nGallery but am not sold on it.  If you know of some good software (preferrable ASP.NET) let me know otherwise, I will have to write something.  One wy or another, I will be off of pBase before June.

For now, I have created a new pbase gallery of the images which I have taken of the new house.   I plan to keep them all together so I can see the progress as it goes.   Click on the picture to link to the gallery.

The house has made a lot of progress in 2 week.  I was able to spend some time walking through it today.   So far, I am liking the design.   You never know until you start to see it in the flesh. 

My friend Eric sent me this link.   It's a demo by Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims etc) showing off a game he is working on called Spore.  I will not try to describe it because it's just too complex and amazing.  For now just imagine what would happen if the Sims started as the cellular level and continued until life could travel the cosmos.   

Check it out for yourself here.  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore

I have finished my first PocketPC project and am ready to let people try it out.   It's a pretty simple program.  It lets you hide icons in your programs screen without deleting them.    Then if you need to run them, hide it also lets you launch the hidden programs.  It's should be completely non-destructive so there is no need to worry about runninng it.   I haven't done the documentation yet but it's pretty simple to figure out.

Here is a like to the program in CAB format so you can drop it dorectly on your Windows Mobile device.

HideItCab.CAB (34.45 KB)

If you are not comfortable installint it directly or just want to use the windows installer which includes the required CompactFramework 2.0 you can download it here.

HideItWindowsInstaller.msi (4.8 MB)

I'm considering this a stable beta so if you would like to try it out., please do and let me know what you think.  

The house is coming along.  Alene and I went out there on Saturday and showed up just as the concrete guys were putting up the forms for the slab.   The house is going to be between 2700 and 2800 square feet (twice my current house) but for some reason it looks positively tiny.   Everyone saids this is normal so I will just wait and see.   As you can see my front door will be a  at an angle facing the corner of the lot. 

Overall, the house will have a number of weird angles and nooks which I hope will give it a bit of character rather than just looking like a typical recent build.    My builder assures me that we will be framing in the next couple of weeks.

Now that we are started, I have a lot of work to do.  I have a PILE of decisions to make (kitchen final layout, cabinets, and about a hundred fixtures and trims.  Wish me luck.  

If I have a chance this week, I am going to setup a house gallery with all of my pictures.

It has finally begun.   After a few hiccups that delayed the start for the a month or so, the house is finally officially being built.   I went out after work and watched the crew pouring the footing.

If you look, you can just make out my angled front door...or at least, that's what I see.

I am loving the Jamin.   I never thought I would like a device better than my Treo, but it has happened.   The thing that is really amazing is that the email just works.   I used numerous email programs on Palm and they were always an exercise if frustration.  I was constantly fidgeting with them to keep them working.   With Windows Mobile 5, you set it up and the only time you even notice it's working is when you get an email.     I have also programmed my first program for Pocket PC.  I will be posting it in the next day or so.