Over a year ago I was crawling under my then new house and punch holes in the walls and drilling holes into the floor to run Cat 6 cables from the main rooms to a central hub in a closet under the stairs. I bought all the connectors and tools required for the job. I had even bought a 12 port patch panel for the closet. I wired my house as follows: 5 ports in my office, 2 in the family room by the entertainment center, 2 in the living room where my wife's desk is, 1 in my bedroom, and 1 in two of the other bedrooms of the house. But I never finished the project, I never connected the dot and made the thing work. I never terminated any of the cables, I just left all the cables hanging out of the wall.

My wife Kathryn never really complained about the cords or holes, maybe a few times here and there, but not really. However she did often get on my back about her computer not having internet access (rightfully so - it should have had access). She instead had to use my notebook with WiFi at her desk - which was a pain because she does all her MS Money on her own desktop but needed access to the internet, etc.

Flash forward to tonight. Well first to last night... I made plans with my wife that I was going to work on the network, and she would handle the kids.

Then tonight I got the bare minimum completed, I terminated 2 cables in my office, and 2 by her desk, and then the opposite ends of the cables into the patch panel in the closet. I had purchased some 3 ft. patch cables at Fry's the last time I was in So Cal (cause the Cat 6 cable I have is really a pain to crimp connectors onto), so I plug them all in and - voila! - Instant home network! Er.... long overdue home network!