Life With a Projector

Project This!
As you recall, I was having problems with my projector recently where the lamp was flickering. I assumed this meant that the bulb needed to be replaced, so I did some online research and found a replacement. The website I found it on, Visual Apex, also had a video that showed how easy it was to replace a projector lamp. I went ahead and bought one, and it arrived last Monday. I really wanted the new lamp installed before the weekend’s big World Cup games, but I also was going to NYC for 2 days of Circulation seminars on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I decided to install the lamp Monday night before I left. The video made it look so easy – how hard could it be?

Well, it’s me, so of course it’s going to be difficult. My first order of business was to take down the projector from the ceiling in order to take the back panel off and remove the old lamp. The projector is attached to a ceiling mount, and then the mount is attached to the ceiling. As I was looking over the mount, I noticed two things: 1) It had a couple hand-screw attachments that loosened easily to tilt the projector, and 2) the rest of the screws attaching the projector to the mount were crazy looking. Knowing that I had to somehow get the mount off the projector to get to the lamp case, I loosened the two hand screws and started to tilt the mount. As soon as I did that the entire projector – mount and all – came loose from the ceiling. I grabbed it with both hands but not before it came crashing down the wall, leaving a nice, long gash, before landing lightly on the sofa that luckily was lying directly underneath. Apparently the previous owners had attached the mount to the ceiling with a couple of weak drywall anchors. I actually don’t think that’s the worst idea in the world, but I really didn’t have to move it too much for it to come out of the ceiling. Either way, I have it down, and my next step (replacing the bulb) became easier, but it also created an undesired final step (re-attaching the mount to the ceiling).

So I began by trying to figure out how to remove the mount from the projector. I inspected the screws a little more and noticed that the heads had hex tops, like you’d use an Allen wrench for, but there was also a pin in the middle. I tried all my Allen wrenches, and even every Ikea tool that I’ve saved through the years, and nothing would work. I needed an Allen-type wrench that had a hole in the middle that this pin-head would stick through. I went online and found an installation guide to a similar wall-mount, and they highlighted the special pin-head screws (marketed as “tamper-resistant”), and this mount came with a special tool in order to tighten/remove these screws. The previous owners had left a lot of paperwork of the projector, so I looked where that was, but no special tool. The only solution: find another one.

So I jump in the car and head over to Home Depot. I find the aisle with Allen wrenches, but can’t find any with pin holes. I find an associate to ask if they have any, and he gets this weird smile on his face. “I know exactly what you’re looking for, but we don’t have them. And you’re not the only one to ask for them.” Um, okay. If I’m not the only one to ask for them, why don’t you carry them? So I head out to Lowe's and try my luck there. I find the same Allen wrenches, and when I ask one of the guy’s working there, he knows what I’m talking about, but says “I don’t think we have them.” We look some more, then he asks a co-worker, and he says, “Nope, we don’t have them. But if you find one, let me know, I’m dying to get one.” Again! Why doesn’t anyone carry them if they’re so desired? Someone suggested I try the Ace Hardware down the street, but it was after 8 pm and it closed at 8, so finding this wrench was not going to happen this evening. I drove home, figuring I’d try to find one online I could order, but my main goal was to get the projector back up, somehow, before the end of the night.

I get home and begin to think through my problem. The 2 screws that were hanging off the mount that came out of the ceiling were easy enough to remove, but the way the mount/projector was set up it was impossible to put 2 new ones into the ceiling. The only solution was that I needed to get the mount off the projector, install the mount in the ceiling, then screw the projector into the mount. And the only way to remove the mount from the projector was to get these screws off. As I’m pondering my next move (which included building a temporary shelf for the projector on the back wall), Sage was busy cleaning up the basement and moving a bookshelf from upstairs that we kept all our DVDs on. As she was organizing the DVDs, she all of a sudden goes, “What the hell is this?” I look over, and she’s standing there WITH THE SPECIAL ALLEN-WRENCH TOOL THAT I NEEDED! “Where did you find that?” I screamed? “It was right here on the shelf, with a bunch of cords”. Turns out that when I looked for the wrench on the shelf that the paperwork was kept, I SHOULD have kept looking at the shelf underneath it where the previous owners left some cables. Dios Mio!

So with the tool in hand, I easily removed the mount from the projector and changed out the old lamp. Then, with a little difficulty, I managed to re-mount the mount on the ceiling, and with Sage’s help, attached the projector back to the ceiling mount. So the last part was to make sure the projector was projecting correctly. I hooked up the cables, plugged it in, turned it on, and it’s pointed at the ceiling. So I started tilting the entire projector to try to get it lined up onto the screen, but no matter how much I tilt it, it’s still pointed at the ceiling. I figure I must have attached the mount to the projector wrong somehow, and I begin muttering under my breath and begin to unscrew it all again. Sage is looking at me and the projector and says, “Wait…what’s that knob on the front?” I note the knob, begin to move it, and all by itself it moves the projected image anywhere I need it. So yes…if Sage wasn’t around on Monday night I wouldn’t have gotten the screws off and would have ended up moving the entire projector around to try to get it directed correctly onto the screen. As it was, she saved me hours of aggravation, and when it was all said and done, the image does look a bit sharper and brighter, and the flickering is gone. Hooray!

Garden
All is going well this year. Sunday night I had a lovely salad with romaine from the garden. It’s really popped up beautifully, and while it’s not as crisp as I thought it would be, it is very fresh and tasty. Sage is enjoying the peas which are growing way past the trellis I built for them, and I’ve determined that I definitely could have grown many more.

Romaine on the left, shallots and onions on the right.

Peas

Also this past weekend I noticed that my garlic started producing scapes, bulbous parts of the leaves. If left unattended, the garlic plant will use all its energy in growing these bulbs instead of the ones under the ground, which you don’t want. Therefore it’s important to cut these off before they begin to use up all the plant’s energy. I’m told they’re very tasty as well, but I didn’t get around to doing anything with them this year. Hopefully the garlic should be ready to be pulled in a month or so.

Blurry picture of a scape, about to be amputated.

The rest of the garden keeps growing as well. The pumpkin is spreading, and the tomatoes are growing at a fast clip. I'm very encouraged about how well everything is going so far.

Big pumpkin spreading in the middle, a couple smaller ones beginning to grow in the front-right.

Tomatoes.

Weight
Monday June 14th I weighed in at 213.0 pounds. My goal was 212.6, so I’m off by 0.4 pounds. To date I've lost 3 pounds in 23 days. This week's weigh-in was encouraging, since it was a very BAD eating weekend for food. No beer and fries (still!), but I did make this incredible buffalo chicken dip that has cream cheese and blue cheese dressing in it. Plus homemade brownies and ice cream (of which I had very little), so I didn’t think being at 213.0 was too bad, considering. I have a big challenge coming up this weekend, with a Red Sox game, a round of golf, plus a Phish show in Saratoga. I just need to keep focused!