I’ve been wanting an electric outlet in my basement and in the stairway for quite some time so last night I decided to try my hand at being an electrician. I am generally intimidated by projects that involve tampering with devices marked “HIGH VOLTAGE” but after googling “how to install an electric outlet” I felt like I could pull it off on my own.

The first, and also the most intimidating part of the project involves adding a breaker to an electric panel. Since my house is extra cool, it has no less than 5 electric panels, 2 of which are no longer functioning. I chose the one under the kitchen to connect to since it was the closest to where I wanted to put the outlets and it also had 3 open slots.

Once you’ve added a new circuit breaker and all the connections are made, run some wire from the panel along the ceiling towards the target location. If you need to get over some duct work, use a 10′ piece of conduit to pull it through. If you’re in a pinch and don’t have conduit handy, a broomstick, scrap piece of lumber, or in extreme cases, a broken tree branch might all get the job done. Just ask yourself, “how would a redneck do this?”.

Take the conduit you just used to fish the wire across the ducts and cut a short section to run up into the location of the outlet. Attach the outlet box to the wall and run the conduit through one of the pop-out openings on the box. I chose the bottom. If you do this step before fishing your wire across the duct work you’ll be out of luck so don’t get trigger happy and start skipping steps.

If you want extra outlets, you can make it easy on yourself and connect them all one after another. There weren’t any (functioning) outlets in the basement so I decided to add one here. The post I attached it to is pretty rough so the outlet looks stupid and not very straight, nonetheless, it has electric current so I’m happy. Once it’s firmly attached, spray paint a random yellow squiggle mark on the post so everyone knows how awesome you are.

Back in the stairway I have now installed the receptacles and used my cool electrical meter thing to test it. You could also use such things as a fan or radio to see if the outlet works, but if you want to feel like a real electrician I suggest using the meter thing. I got mine at wal-mart for $1.50. Also, putting the receptacles upside-down as required by many building codes eliminates the 1 in a billion chance you could somehow electrocute yourself by getting a flat piece of metal to connect the hot and neutral terminals while something is plugged in.

Done! Now you have one more location in your house that is capable of running up your electric bill.

Though still a work in progress, I have made the decision to merge my two websites… ryanmccoy.us (Blog) and shortleaf.com (photography). Both will more or less stay the same, they will just be combined into one site and under the umbrella of Shortleaf. My intent is to center more of the postings around photography, or photography related to the things going on in my life. But I’m sure I’ll post some of the random thoughts and such as well from time to time.

Hopefully this will be a mutually beneficial relationship for both websites!

It’s March and for me that means just one thing… time to plant trees! Most years I stick mainly to the cheapo bundles of seedlings available from the Missouri Conservation Dpt…stuff like White, Loblolly, and the pine from which that this website gets its name…the Shortleaf. However, this year I wanted a few species that are a little more obscure, at least in this part of the country.

So here are my new specimens and why I chose them:

• Jeffrey Pine: Bark smells like vanilla. Yum.
• Grand Fir: Looks cool.
• Dawn Redwood: One of the oldest known tree species, can be found in fossils.
• Concolor Fir: Found some of these growing in the Mark Twain Natl Forest…Looks cool.
• Douglas-Fir: Gets really tall, looks cool.
• Deodar Cedar: Unique and looks cool.

So, basically I just picked out ones that I think look cool. I’m sure to most people these trees all look exactly the same, but thanks to my geek skillz I was able to easily identify each one once I got them out of the boxes. I’m sure it seems like a waste of time and money to a lot of people, but I enjoy the process of planting them and watching them grow over the years. And eventually I’ll enjoy the way they change the look and feel of the property!

If you would have told me a year ago where I would be today I would have never believed you. I was certainly happy with where things were going at that time, but now I can’t imagine my life without Stephanie and Emma.

My friend Bridget has long been describing to me how when her and Andy started dating they just knew it was right. She always said when it’s right you will just know it without question. To be honest I had always thought she was full of garbage. I also used to think it was ridiculous when people would get engaged without dating for at least a year or two. But then I met Stephanie. She is more than I have ever hoped for in a wife, so needless to say that I am thrilled that she is the one who will come into my old house and make it a home. Bridget told me she thought that Steph could be the ‘one’ the first time I mentioned her, and as it turns out Bridget knows a lot more about relationships than I had given her credit for!

At any rate, I am excited for what lies ahead for the 3 of us and am thankful for all the support from our friends and family. Things are so drastically different than I would have expected a year ago, and yet my life has never felt so complete and full of purpose and direction as it does right now.

We’ve been jipped the last few winters in terms of snow so I for one have enjoyed the above average amount of snow we’ve received this winter. While our measly 4″ at a time may seem pretty weak compared to many parts of the country, here it’s enough to nearly paralyze civilization and empty the shelves of every Wal-Mart in the process.

Here are a few recent snow pics I’ve taken…

This past weekend we changed things up in the house a bit. Thanks to some help from the moms we tackled this project in just a few hours!

Sometimes the process of painting isn’t very fun, but it is pretty cool being able to completely change the feel of a room in such a short period of time.