Wednesday, December 20, 2006

I found out today that I passed my exam. I learned that the level of excitement of passing is far less than the disappointment of failing. But I'll take little happiness over extreme sadness. With this one out of the way, I only have two more to take to be done. And due to the schedule, I won't have anymore fall exams, only spring.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

I was talking to some people today about my home network, on how I watch movies and listen to music using my Xbox to stream from the server. Nothing really too exciting, but they were impressed. It made me want to actually get some more work done on the network.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

I flew into Hartford today for work. One good thing about plane rides is that I either get caught up on my diggnation or my sleep. Since I didn't have time to transfer any podcasts to the PSP, the sleep was great. I threw on my headphones and woke up when we landed. Since the plane didn't crash, I have proved that it's alright to keep electronics on during landing. Perhaps I'll submit a report to the FAA.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Well, another weekend went by and I didn't get to the home brew shop. I really need to get some sanitizer to brew another batch. I got a monthly kit for a gift and now have 7 kits to make. Hopefully the crushed grains are still good. What am I saying? I could brew some beer with lawn clippings and I'd still drink it.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

I took an exam back in October. Results should be coming out next week. I can only hope it'll be good news.

Friday, December 8, 2006

I went to a Christmas party tonight. We went to eat and then to a musical. I'm sure the award winning show was great, but the nap I took during it was better. The slumber was probably induced by the amount of alcohol that was downed. We ate at an Italian restaurant, so naturally I ordered several sambuka's. The drink is usually served with three coffee beans and anything else is considered bad luck. In one of my rounds, a bean split in half and I freaked out. Thinking they put in four, I took one out and technically only had two and a half beans. Well, I ended up knocking it over spilling it onto the table. I'm frickin' cursed now.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

I saw a fish house on the lake tonight. That's either dedicated or stupid.

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

I was going through my Discover account and came across a transaction with "Devon Morseview Drug Chicago IL" as the description. I called them up and they didn't have any record of the transaction. So I called Discover to dispute. They put me on hold for about 30 seconds. They came back on, told me they contacted someone over at Devon and said it was an entry error. The whole call took less than 5 minutes. Even though the error shouldn't have happened, at least it was efficient and smooth to correct.

Also, as I was going through the TCF account, I found a downloaded transaction with "WFN PBP WFN PAYBYPHONE" as the description. Google didn't help me on this one, but I figured it out. So anyone coming here from a search, the answer is New York & Company. Great, now my blog is tainted with that damn store.

Lastly, I downloaded Any Video Converter to try out. While I don't dislike using DivX Converter, I would like more flexibility than it gives me.

Monday, December 4, 2006

After some motivation from Knapper, I upgraded my TCF checking account so that I could start using their online bill pay for free. There's probably about 5 checks I have to mail every month, so I've already saved almost $2. I'm all for efficiency and not taking for granted when things run smoothly. I'd have to say that TCF was both efficient and smooth. I walked in, didn't need to wait, rattled off some numbers, signed something, and I was out of there. However, I just checked online if the account was upgraded, and it hasn't.

Sunday, December 3, 2006

Yet another lazy Sunday. I'm starting to feel a bit guilty not getting a lot accomplished, but it's so fun having fun.

It's hard getting back in the habit of updating this blog, especially when I'm currently not getting a lot of projects done. I don't think I want to stop posting, but I might change the format (frequency and content). We'll see ...

Saturday, December 2, 2006

It's been a few months since I played my Xbox. So I finally got to put in a few hours tonight. Black was the game of choice. Along with Xbox, I also enjoyed a little Sambuca. It's an Italian liqueur with anise flavor. Between Sambuca and absinthe, I'm in licorice heaven.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

I took today off, mainly to wait for the hot water heater installer, but also to try and catch up with a few projects (and also I have a lot of vacation to use before yearend). One project was to put lights in the huge pine tree in front. This thing is thirty feet tall. It was cold and windy, and I was standing on a 10 foot ladder with a 10 foot pole with my 7 foot reach ... almost made it to the top. Every time I see one of those videos with the lights synchronized to music, the end product is very cool, but just imagine the time commitment.

Quotes from movies I watched today ...
"Do you remember when everyone was shouting my name, and I used my strength to rip my blouse?"
"It's so damn hot ... Milk was a bad choice."

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

I've been thinking a lot about personal finances lately, mainly trying to get back on top of things. It seems that during the study season, this is one area that I let go, probably because it doesn't need daily attention. Thanks to Knapper, I now have a few personal finance blogs in my feeds. Knapper also has been talking about possibly putting together a personal finance site, maybe with more analyses than the other sites give. I think this would be a cool project for him, and I've extended my web design services.

Currently, I use Microsoft Money to manage my accounts. Having used it for many years, I wouldn't be opposed to switching to a different application, given time to do so. There's obviously Quicken and a few online apps popping up. I realize that there can be no single software that can do everything that everyone wants, but it seems that these applications should be better by now. The two things I can think of are budgeting and importing. The budgeting in Money is quite basic and can't handle some features I would like. I've read a lot of others feel the same way and the trend is to use a separate spreadsheet along with Money or Quicken. What I mean by importing is getting the daily transactions from various accounts into the application. It's gotten better in recent years, since all you really need to do is give Money your account information and it grabs the details online. This assumes that your accounts have online access (and Money knows about it) and offers downloads. Worse case is that you download the transactions in some format and import them into Money. I guess worse case would be that Money doesn't recognize the file. Anyway, I've always wanted to build my own financial software, but that would be quite an undertaking. I would certainly offer it for free on Knappers site.

Monday, November 27, 2006

The more I use digg.com the more I like it. At first I was just reading the front page and didn't find a need to create a profile, then I created a profile and starting digging articles. Then I started looking at the upcoming stories, playing with their visualizations, and adding friends. This is an incredible idea and seems to work good as long as, by definition of the site, users continue to support it. User driven sites can take up a lot of time for the users and it's possible that the "novelty" will wear off.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Another lazy weekend. We watched some old home videos of a Jamaica trip. It got me thinking ... I've need to transfer all these tapes to the computer (I need to get the network running smoothly), I have to either get a new video camera or fix the current one, I need to shoot more video, I need to edit more video, and I need to start working out again.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

It's easy to take for granted when things work smoothly. I compiled about 20 pictures of London using Picassa and put them on my flash drive. Karl uploaded about 30 pictures to Google's Web Albums using Picassa. Then after the Thanksgiving meal, I easily upload my pictures to his album and we used somebody's wireless laptop to display a slideshow through S-video to the TV. Brilliant.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Talk about a large vehicle ...

Sunday, November 19, 2006

This was the first weekend since my exam that I could really relax and do whatever I wanted. It seems like I'm really behind on a lot of projects. I got through my pile of periodicals and watched a few movies. I still have about 4 beer kits to brew. I need to start posting about my tech projects again, but I guess I actually have to do my tech projects.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The first day back in the routine of work. I think I can officially say that I have no jet lag. I think staying on the roughly same sleeping schedule (+/- 4 hours) sure helped. Towards the end of the London trip, I could feel my body wanting to shift sleeping patterns, but it's all mind over matter. Anything longer than 4 days would have been difficult.

Monday, November 13, 2006

The day went by quick and now I'm finally back home. The past week sure seems like a whirlwind. I'll let you know tomorrow if I have any "jet lag".

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Today was the day I returned to the States. Because it's actually 2:00am here in Hartford, I'll keep this brief. I was supposed to arrive at 11:00pm, but of coarse there were delays. I'll sleep for a few hours and then get into the Hartford office, do a presentation on something, and fly back to Minnesota Monday evening. (One of the reasons I went to London was that the airfare was only $80 more than if I just went to Hartford.)

Saturday, November 11, 2006

We got to London early today and attempted taking a double decker bus tour. We sat up on the open top to get good views. I think it would have been more enjoyable if it wasn't 30 degrees and windy. The tour had predetermined stops where you could get off, look around, and wait for the next bus running every 20 minutes. This is a good idea except when you see something midway between stopping points and can't get off.

We started off the day pretty slow on the pub front. One of the pubs we ended up at was the Coach and Horses. Of all pubs we visited, this was by far our favorite. We were on the busy Saturday streets where it'’s a zoo with all the people. We stepped into this pub and as cliche as it sounds, it felt like we transported back in time. Along with the incredible atmosphere, I think it was just a combination of our mood and exhaustion and the many pints throughout the day.

I'’ll tell you one thing: it'’s damn expensive here. But once you stop doing the conversions in your head during every transaction, it'’s bearable. And another thing, to get deals on souvenirs, look for the dimly light stores compared to the bigger stores. We attempted to haggle over price at the bigger stores and they pretty much ignored us. When I did the same thing at the "“shady"” store for the exact same things, I was able to get things a lot cheaper.

Friday, November 10, 2006

It sure gets dark here early. We ended up going into London in the afternoon. Without the internet, the public transit would be slightly confusing ... I kinda take that back. I'm the type of person that likes to research options before hand and come up with a plan. Karl is the type of person that likes to take the probable plan and deal with obstacles as they come. So, I think if you just threw yourself into the system, you'd probably figure it out. Although, the suburb of Watford we're staying in has 4 different stations, all ending in different places. So getting on a random one might have sent you very far away.

Anyway, we ended up by the Parliament during darkness and got some cool photos. I'll probably end up going to bed around 2:00am, but still no real effects of jet lag, yet.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Wow, seven months since my last post. I apparently got out of the routine of posting nightly, and apparently one thing lead to another, and now it's November. I suppose a brief update regarding the last few posts might be good ... I ended up not taking the spring exam and sat for the fall exam, which was last Thursday. There, all caught up.

As a treat, more an opportunity, I booked a trip to London to visit Karl whose over here on business. So, right now I'm in London at the hotel drinking a pint.

I left Minnesota at 5:00pm, had a layover in Detroit for 2 hours, then landed in London at 10:00am local time, which would be 4:00am home time. The way I figure it, I should experience no "jet lag" as I'll be going to bed around 3:00am and getting up around 9:00am (which would be 9:00pm to 3:00am home time). If I can stay on this schedule, then my body really won't need any adjusting. Everyone I've talked to said this won't be the case and somehow my body won't cooperate. Anyway, I got about 4 hours of sleep on the plane coming to London. Right now it's 10:00pm here and I won't go to sleep for another 5 hours. I'm a little sleepy, but I attribute that to all the pints I've drank during lunch (which would be my breakfast). Karl is sleeping right now and will get up in a few hours to go to work, and I'll be able to sleep while he's at work. Brilliant. So, along with activities we do, I'll keep you posted about my "jet lag".

Today's activities were pretty laid back. I got in to Gatwick at 10:00am, customs was a breeze so I was able to take the 10:37am train to Watford. Since this was an hour earlier than I told Karl, I walked from the station to the hotel, which was less than a mile. Watford is maybe an hour from London, so the locals were quite polite and I was offered a ride several times along my walk. We ate lunch and drank beer at O'Neills, toured the local shops, and drank some whiskey.

We'll either go out to another local pub (or more) with Karl's coworkers or possibly head to London tomorrow. Bigger adventures await ...

Monday, April 10, 2006

Well, it didn't take long at all. I had a nice leisurely day yesterday, and today my project list picked up right where I left it several months ago. Actually, it grew quite a bit. I guess it will keep me busy.

The first project I want to tackle is to finally get the network in order. It's currently in a state of "barely working". I need to run a lot more wire, tweak the hell out of the current server, install many hard drives and organize the files, get all the clients working (mainly Xboxes), and finally teach the household how to use it. My goal is to do something, no matter how small, every night ... starting tomorrow night.

Saturday, April 8, 2006

Some friends I haven't seen in a long time came over tonight. It was good to see them. It seemed like we all picked up conversations with ease that we had months ago, as if we saw each other yesterday.

Friday, April 7, 2006

I accidentally took my advice and came to grips with not taking an exam this sitting ... and I had a pounding headache all day from last night.

Thursday, April 6, 2006

Still no final word on the exam. I'm going under the assumption that it's not going to happen. I better come to grips with it soon. The sooner I do, the more time I have to do other projects.

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

I'm receiving word of all the people that have been calling the admissions office on my behalf and it still sounds like I won't be taking the exam later this month. It seems that this situation has received attention at other levels of my company and of the CAS office. From what I can gather, several people from within my company have called, which prompted the CAS to reconsider my situation. However, it appears that they're sticking to their "no exceptions" rule. Hopefully the CAS will take a good look at their policies for the future. Of coarse, this doesn't help me out today, but the bright side is maybe it will help out others in the future.

Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Another bad day. I called the head of admissions and told him my story. He said it was unfortunate that somehow my application literally got lost in the mail. He also said that the registration deadline was March 15 and they don't give exceptions to that rule. I find this incredibly ridiculous. I can see having a deadline so they don't have applications coming in at the last second. But an honest problem like mine should at least have a process to be excepted from this rule. I have a few calls into people that might have greater influence on the admissions office, but it doesn't look good. I've spent a lot of time studying and it would be a shame to have it go to waste.

Monday, April 3, 2006

I had an interesting day today. I realized that I hadn't received any confirmation that I was registered for the exam coming up at the end of the month. I sent in the application in February. I assumed that the confirmation was simply put in the pile of mail that I'll sort out after my exam. I immediately called the office and the claimed to not have any record of receiving my application. So, I have a call into the admissions office to see what I need to do to get this thing resolved. Hopefully this is just a bump in the studying road.

Monday, April 3, 2006

I had an interesting day today. I realized that I hadn't received any confirmation that I was registered for the exam coming up at the end of the month. I sent in the application in February. I assumed that the confirmation was simply put in the pile of mail that I'll sort out after my exam. I immediately called the office and the claimed to not have any record of receiving my application. So, I have a call into the admissions office to see what I need to do to get this thing resolved. Hopefully this is just a bump in the studying road.

Friday, March 31, 2006

It seems that no matter how much I wanted to keep my study tool a secret, word got out and more people are asking me about it. I'm trying to dodge the issue of allowing them to use it this exam sitting, mostly because it's still in beta and I haven't tested the server issues yet. I'm not sure if it's the study solution for everybody, but the fact that people are interested is a good sign. If only I had the time right now to work on it some more.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Digg brought me to a site that talks about domains that are currently registered. Interesting read. Dealing with statistics all day, I found this graph particularly interesting. A classic lognormal graph with mean of 11.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

I've been trying to drink green tea in the morning, for obvious benefits, instead of the usual Mountain Dew. I gotta tell you, it seems to give me more energy in the morning and my brain feels like it's running smoother. I highly recommend giving it a try.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

My commute has recently changed. Before, I was in traffic a little longer and I depended on the traffic information updated every 10 minutes from a local radio station. I would take different roads depending on the congestion. Now, my commute isn't as dependent on congestion. So I've been thinking I can get my car MP3 player back up to specs and try to get into listening to podcasts downloaded the previous night. I'm a fan of the Revision3 family of content. I guess now I just have to find time to actually find and download content.

Monday, March 27, 2006

It's been a few days since the last post, in part because I've been quite busy, but mostly because nothing new has happened. I'll recap. Yesterday I studied, the day before I studied, then previous to that I'm sure I studied, and then ... well, you get the idea.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

I presented a new application today at work that I built. I had about two weeks to incorporate a new application that captures data from an Excel workbook into a database, while also adding an account log feature to replace the current, primitive system. Luckily, I've built something very similar before. So I recycled the code and was done in a few hours. Naturally, my boss doesn't know this and assumes I was slaving away the entire two weeks. Ahh, efficiency.

Monday, March 20, 2006

I switched from the unlimited plan from Vonage to the 500 minute plan. I use my cell phone most of the time, so the home phone rarely gets used. I was looking back at the used minutes through Vonage, and it averaged 100 per month. This type of analysis is exactly why I like detailed (and hopefully online) event logging. I knew I didn't use a lot of minutes, but now I can justify going to the cheaper plan.

That's why I'm leaning towards using Alarm.com. They log events relating to your security in real-time, which is accessible over the internet. They almost market their product not as an intruder alarm that rarely gets used, but as a home monitoring solution that gets used everyday. All that's holding me back is the initial cost of new equipment.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

I got to go to another Wild hockey game tonight. Even though we lost, it is always fun to see live hockey. We were able to get some food and brews before and during the game. All around a fun night. This is how I would spend the other half of my days if I won the lottery.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

I've reconfigured the network in hopes to get the ADT security to work with Vonage. I put the Linksys VOIP router in front of the D-Link wireless router. This should have removed the extra layer that the security had to go through. I did the quick communications test, and still no go. I might try the extended 2 minute test, but that would require the alarm to sound for the entire time. I'm still considering Alarm.com.

Friday, March 17, 2006

It's St. Patrick's Day and guess what I did. Studied. I wonder if this blog will be still around when I'm done studying.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Back in high school, I experimented with lucid dreaming. I was never able to fully control my dreams often, but I was making progress. Although I was wasn't able to recognize my dream state, I was able to control my dream "oddities", in particular, flying.

I bring this up because there was a digg post about "hacking the mind" dealing with lucid dreaming. (I don't know if I'm a fan of the "hacking" buzz word. It seams to be everywhere.) This got be interested again, and I've begun the process of training myself to acknowledge the dream state. One part is to keep a dream journal to not only remember your dreams, but to find signs that you might be dreaming. However, I've been getting little sleep lately, and am so tired that my sleeps are very deep. I can't remember what I did the night before let alone what I did in my dreams.

Anyway, more to come on this "mind hack" when something happens.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Happy Pi Day! On 3/14 at 1:59:26, I can't remember what I did, but should have said a little pi prayer. Or something.

I want my Xbox back.

Monday, March 13, 2006

I read a very interesting article on the whole Matrix idea, written from a programmer's point of view. It's a unique twist to the trilogy. I doubt this is how the Wachowski brother's had it in their minds, but who knows. The article sure fits nicely with what we were presented in the movies.

Back at the home front, we probably got around 10 inches of snow. Wet, heavy snow. I think I cleared the driveway in under two hours. I've refused to get a snow blower for this long. I wonder how much longer I will hold out?

Sunday, March 12, 2006

I was a bit out of sync today; not quite feeling right. I studied for a while and went to another birthday party. I better get back in the groove before the week starts. I have a feeling that I'll be putting in a lot of hours, both work and studying.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Study in the morning, house projects in the evening. That's all I got.

Friday, March 10, 2006

What an adventurous day. It started off with a few morning brews. Karl and I then headed off to Llamma and actually talked to the Dali Llamma (he goes by Head Llamma, but soon I'll start calling him Dali Llamma from behind his back). Now, if you're involved in Xbox modding, you've probably heard of them. They were the first to mod the Xbox 360 controller, and they're right here in town. We talked to him for some time. I dropped off my two broken Xboxes in hopes he can chip at least one of them. They also have clear cases for both the Xbox and PSP. The workshop was as close to nirvana as you can get on Earth.
Mopping the drool from the floor as we left, we stumbled across one of those extremely cool restaurants that only locals know of, Barley John's. Excellent music, homebrewed beer, good food, friendly staff, relaxed atmosphere. I can't wait to go back.
The last thing we did on our travels was to ship back the bug infested Xbox. I still need to leave negative feedback for that fool.
Ending with a few cocktails back at the ranch, I thought of the day and drifted off to sleep. I think if I won the lottery, these are the days I would fill half my life with.

Thursday, March 9, 2006

I took tomorrow off to get a few things done, mostly Xbox related. I'll be with Karl most of the day, which usually means we get nothing productive done. We'll see ...

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

The new Xbox I got from eBay doesn't work. First there was a not in the box that said it doesn't work, and when I booted it up, it just froze. I opened it up to see if there were any visible problems on the motherboard. I was surprised by what I found: it was infested with bugs. Literally, bugs. It was quite disgusting. I took it to the garage and cleaned it out, attempted another boot, and it still hung. I'm obviously going to return it, but I'm out $35 for shipping. Not good.

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

My new Xbox arrived today. Now to get its guts altered. Hmmm, I haven't taken a sick day in a while ... if it weren't for responsibility ...

Monday, March 6, 2006

I took some time tonight and played around with the configuration of Mandrake on the new server. Before I had to quit, I got Mobil (the Xbox downstairs) to recognize the server's root directory. The next step is to install another hard drive, configure that for sharing, and presto. It's slowly coming into place.

Sunday, March 5, 2006

Another fun day of baby gear shopping and studying. I swear Willy Wonka was working today.

Saturday, March 4, 2006

I went to a birthday party today, which meant I needed a birthday gift. A bunch of us went in on a used Xbox with a few games. It's only a stepping stone until we convince him to get it modded. I think everybody should have at least two.

I finally got my Xbox 360 sweatshirt from the Mountain Dew Every10Minutes promo. It's fun to forget about things that you ordered months ago.

Friday, March 3, 2006

I had a window of opportunity to rearrange the server closet to test my theory of ADT security and Vonage VOIP compatibility. But if it didn't work, I've found it often isn't an easy thing to simply "undo" the configuration. And if the internet went down for any length of time, I'd consider moving.

Thursday, March 2, 2006

I got my first taste of fraudulent charges this week. There were about a dozen charges on one credit card that clearly I didn't make. All of them were to "dating" sites and after talks with the fraud department, they appear to have been originated overseas. I have an account with True Credit and fortunately nothing appears out of the ordinary ... yet. Fortunately, credit card companies have a very efficient fraud department, so the process to stop this from happening again should be smooth. Frankly, I'm amazed this hasn't happened earlier, with the frequent online purchases and online bill payments.

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

I've kinda known in the back of my head that the ADT security wasn't working since we got Vonage VOIP telephone service. The phone lines in the house are wired with no scheme in mind. There's parallels, daisy chains, directs ... pretty much a mess. Anyway, since I disconnected the land line, no telephone jacks work and the cordless phone base is sitting next to the VOIP router in the server closet. Well, the security is spliced into the phone lines near far from the server closet. After rewiring the security to the VOIP router, ADT still receives no signal. Calling them was no help, as they "don't support VOIP". I've read it's really a hit or miss whether it'll work or not. I do have one more trick up my sleeve. Currently, the VOIP box is behind the main router. I'm going to try putting it in front of it and see if that works. The only thing stopping me is that I need to go offline to make the proper connections, but the way the broadband flows in this house, there's never a time it's idle. Maybe I'll need to wake up at 2:00am...

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

That weekend went by quick. I guess that's good when you're counting down the days until the exam (56).

Thursday, February 23, 2006

A rare uneventful flight back home. During the plane rides down to Dallas and back, I had a chance to use the PSP. I watched a few podcasts from the Revision3 family, a Metallica documentary, and played a little GTA: LCS. I also listened to a bunch of podcasts in mp3 format on the iRiver. I have to say, the PSP is a handy little gadget. It might be a bit spendy for the uses I just described, since you could probably get a cheap PDA to do the same plus office apps, but the PSP looks so cool.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

I had quite the excursion in Texas tonight. I went on a 9 mile circuit around the hotel looking for geocaches. It started off good, found two right away. The third was difficult since night started setting in. I decided to leave that one and head to the next. Unfortunately, I didn't take into account the large golf coarse and the even larger lake between me and the next cache. So after quite the detour, the next one was in an alley like walkway. It's now pitch black and the cache is located in a vine covered wall. Using my cell phone as a flashlight did not help. Imagine that. So, now it's completely dark, closing in on 8:00pm, and the co-workers are probably gone out to dinner. I start heading back and have about 3 miles. Luckily there was a Pizza Hut on the way. Apparently in Texas, there's no such thing as a "personal pan pizza". The dude made me a "small" pizza and charged me 2 bucks. We got to talking about beer and also apparently Guinness is $10 for a 6 pack and extremely hard to find. I told him it's about $6 in Minnesota and in every liquor store.

Anyway, a fun adventure indeed.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

I'm in the great state of Texas. We were treated to dinner to the tune of almost $800. With a few cocktails in me, I found a cache right across the street from the hotel.

I also got bad news about my two broken Xbox's. A dude that has modded over 300 boxes claimed these two were the worst he's ever seen and can't fix them. He mentioned he'll look around for some used motherboards, but the added expense is going to ruin my profit margin. Maybe I can sell them and get one working one to mod. Bummer.

Monday, February 20, 2006

I really have to get back into the habit of updating this every night. Not that there's interesting things happening, but Doogie Howser, M.D. could do it.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Well, now I have a possum living in the garage. Perhaps you'll remember such adventures as squirrel and vole. After reports of seeing one in the garage (only one eyewitness of questionable state), I looked everywhere last night but couldn't find it, which amazed me on account of the massive size of it as described by aforementioned eyewitness. Anyway, on my way out this morning, I decided to take one final sweep through, and sure enough, the little bastard was curled up sleeping in a box of wood. Resisting the urge to smash its head (and pissing my pants), I tried to calmly "shoo" him out. Him with his ravishing teeth trying to infect me, and me wanting to come to a reasonable compromise ... actually he just sat there and I pushed him out the door. He ran to the backyard. After gathering myself, I tried to track him in the fresh snow, but he evaded me. I think I'll start filming some of these encounters and send to America's Funniest Videos.

Monday, February 13, 2006

My two Seagate 250GB hard drives from tigerdirect came today, I think in record time. These will be going into the two Xbox's. I found a local guy that will chip 3 boxes (2 of them broken, the other one is Karl's) including the chip for $350. I have a use for one of them, but the other was possibly for the garage TV. Depending on the going rate for a modded Xbox, maybe I'll sell it and find a new toy.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Man, I'm on a roll. Another project done. I replaced a toilet. I think it only took 5 hours, but if you've read any previous project posts, you'll realize how distracted I get. Don't worry, some tech projects will happen soon.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

I decided to stop by Auto Zone to get my car diagnosed. It's been hesitating on acceleration and been getting worse. The computer came back with a bad knock sensor. Like that's not made up. I bought the $140 part and asked the guy how hard it is to replace. He said to just find it under the hood, unscrew it, screw in the new one, and you're done. Well, this is the size of a ping pong ball. Luckily with the help of Google, I was able to find it. Unluckily, my hands are just too big and got stuck and scraped several times. Luckily, I made use of some woman hands that were at my disposal. After beating on the Maxima for a little bit, I think it may actually have fixed it.

Thursday, February 9, 2006

I happen to take a glance at this site using Internet Explorer, and it's really ugly. I like the way it looks in Firefox. Put that on the project list.

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

One of my new pet peeves are when people don't answer all your questions in an email. If I have several questions, usually I'll bullet point them to make them all noticeable. And almost always, only the first will be answered and the rest ignored. When this happens, I've started resending the exact same email with the answered questions removed. Maybe if I just called them, less time would be wasted. But then I'd have to talk, which is hard on the vocal chords.

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

A few days of no posting, that should make the three people that read this mad. With Karl's help, I've been trying to find somebody to chip my two broken Xbox's. When I got them, I had master plans to try it myself. I think it would be quite simple with the proper tools and the proper time. I've realized after they've been sitting in the corner for many, many, many months that it'll be near impossible for me to get around to them. Ergo, outsource.

Saturday, February 4, 2006

I had time to watch another movie, Wedding Crashers. Actually quite funny.

Friday, February 3, 2006

I got a chance to sample one of the new absinthe bottles. In a word, crap. It's very bitter, no anise, doesn't louche, and little aroma. Apparently, this brand is meant to be a mixer. It's hard to comprehend at the price it goes for.

Thursday, February 2, 2006

I've always thought that performance reviews were bogus, and after today, I still think that. It's probably because I've never really been in a position to understand how "incentives" are determined, but from my point of view, the people that know the work you do have no say in the incentives. Plus, writing down your "goals" for the next year is a waste of time. Just do your job and do it well. You get what you get. If you're not happy... well, figure it out.

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

I've been playing with my PSP, trying to figure out the homebrew scene. Recently I found a 1.5 firmware, which allows 100% of the homebrew applications to run. The firmware doesn't come with any real features that I'd like (browser, numerous image and video extension compatibility), but there are some homebrew that can accommodate. Realizing that to get a particular homebrew browser to run is a bit cumbersome, I decided to upgrade to 2.0. While I can't run 100% homebrew now, 2.0 still allows about 80%. However, 2.6 just came out with a lot of built in functionality, including RSS audio feeds. This means that you can set up an RSS of music files on your home network and "stream" them to the PSP. This of course means you don't have to waste valuable space on the memory stick for your files. But I think I'll wait to upgrade until I figure out what I really want to do with the PSP.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

I read an article that mentioned a company with an interesting idea. Apparently, there are areas in the south, mainly Texas, that have no communication signal, mainly cell phone. So this company (I would link to their page, but it's disgusting and goes offline a lot) sends up weather balloons with signal relays. After 24 hours, the balloons drift out of their dedicated range and drop to the ground. This company doesn't want to hire full time people to go retrieve these, so they reach out to geocachers to go find them. If you bring it in, they pay $60. I think the closest they get to Minnesota is Missouri. Otherwise I'd be out there right now.

Monday, January 30, 2006

What an absinthe day! I received a shipment of six new bottles, all different brands. I'd have to say that some time is put into the bottling and labeling. I can't wait to try them all. Also, a set of four prints came today, all absinthe related. I'm surprised that I got the go-ahead to hang them in the main sitting room. Now I need to get them framed, hopefully cheap. I think I've spent my allowance for the next few months.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

I stopped by Target and Best Buy tonight to see if they had any older PSP's. Neither did. I then went to Circuit City and they were sold out. Luckily, the guy was willing to see if they had any in the warehouse. The warehouse guy called back and said he found some underneath a bunch of boxes. He brought them out and two of them were actually firmware 1.5. I almost bought both of them and sold the extra on eBay. So, now that I once again have a PSP, I have to figure out the whole PSP hack scene. I realize that Fanjita has developed the EBOOT loader for all firmwares, but he hasn't ported the ISO Loader to anything other than 1.5. This means I'll be able to play copied UMD ISO's. I will have to find out if that includes the newer games needing 2.0+ firmwares, like GTA.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

I just realized that I haven't used my two free in-store rentals from Blockbuster in about 3 months. That's what I call brain overload. I suppose it doesn't really matter since I haven't gamed in that long. Also, my temporary storage is almost maxed out, so it would be difficult to find room for any new games.

Karl's been trying to install Linux on a machine, so he has about 11 distros on various discs. I'm sure there's one I could use.

Friday, January 27, 2006

I went over to Karl's tonight to do some routine maintenance on the Maxima. I think I got over there sometime before 3:00 and I don't think we got done until around 7:00. Of course the actual work took about 45 minutes. I still find it amazing how easy it is for side projects to spring up. For example, I think we spent 40 minutes trying to open a stroller. If only I could remove sleep from my day. Or eating.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Because I've been sitting on two movies from Blockbuster and only rotating one, I've noticed that the time from returning the one until the next one arrives is very short. A few days ago, another disc of 24 came and I watched all four episodes and returned it the next day. I just realized that it took a day longer to get the replacement disc. While not very scientific, it does show evidence towards throttling, both of which Netflix and Blockbuster have admitted to doing.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

There's two movies that I can't convert to DivX, Fantastic Four and Polar Express. I'm working on two theories. Either they have better DRM than other DVD's, or my DivX Convert is confused. Before I returned my PSP, I hooked it up to Construct to transfer some files. However, the PSP needed to be mapped to the E drive. The E drive housed my media files, including having Convert installed on it. When I remapped the media drive to F so the PSP could have E, Convert stopped working. After removing the PSP and remapping, Convert just hasn't worked right.

This has given me some motivation to get the server back up.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

The past few years, I've been getting increasingly involved in the Saint Paul Medallion hunt. I was eagerly awaiting the start of the carnival this year. Well, I found out today that it's the third day of the hunt. I read the first three clues and have an idea of where it might be. I wish I had time to post the clues and my thoughts.

Monday, January 23, 2006

In a weird twist of fate, Karl got a message from our absinthe connection offering an incredible deal if we buy at least 6 bottles. Because Karl just bought a minivan, it turns out to be my turn in financing this shipment. I'm currently awaiting further instructions from our friend Andy.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

It's official. I've completed the web-based flashcard program. It was quite the project. I'm a bit scared to let 40 users access it. I really haven't done any real testing to try to break it. Also, I'm not sure how the server, hosted by GoDaddy, will handle it. Theoretically it shouldn't be a problem. Worst case scenario, the MySQL database will be queried every 30 seconds. I should really be more concerned if my work will block the site due to the possible excessive page requests. But each request is only 4K worth of data. Maybe I'll start by only allowing a few people access and build up my confidence that way. We'll see.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

I was watching Brainiac. It's a show that performs comedic science. They did a little experiment to see if they could quantify the phenomenon of beer goggles. This got me to thinking. I could create a web application with my new found knowledge that could scientifically quantify beer goggles. Now, to gather images for the database ...

Friday, January 20, 2006

Karl and I went up to Duluth to get his damn minivan. A total of 330 miles. It was cold. Found a cache. Drank a beer. Time for bed.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

I'm getting the absinthe bug again. It's unfortunate for the pocket book that it costs so much per bottle. But I guess that indicates the quality (and perhaps the illegality). I've got to remember to talk to Knapper before he goes to London. Maybe he can do some price checking for me. I recently watched an episode of The Thirsty Traveler dedicated to absinthe showing places to check out in Europe. I must go.

Monday, January 16, 2006

It seems like every week I say that I'm so close in finishing the online flashcard application. I literally only have a few minor tweaks to do. I haven't really exhaustively tested it. I probably should before I let others use it.

My dreams have turned from coding on a computer to actual computer code. I only see the code now.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

There's nothing like spending $25,000 in a single sitting. I don't understand how buying a car from a dealer needs to take so long. If I ever buy from a dealer again, I'm going to come in with the cash and say to the salesman that he has 30 minutes to give me the vehicle. If they don't make it, I'm going to walk out. Seriously, they've sold cars before. Their process should be at maximum efficiency by now. I better end this post now.

Friday, January 13, 2006

The food shipment arrived today. Unfortunately, with 28 lbs of hamburger, 32 pizzas, and various other dead animals, it won't all fit in the freezer. Looks like I might have to lease some freezer space somewhere.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

The infamous Fanjita cracked the PSP 2.6 firmware today. Man, it'd be nice to be 14 again and have all that time.

I still need a network name for the PSP.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

I had a 3K meeting tonight. It's unfortunate they're getting fewer and further in between. And that it's winter. The usual meeting area was a bit too cold. Plus with Karl's rental car and other mechanical gadgetry, the usual activities of sounds and underhanded takedowns were not revealed. We did get the discussions going though.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

I'm having some problems with Construct, the production home computer running XP. I had to change some of the drive letters in order to correctly hook the PSP up to it. My PSP needs to have the E drive reserved, which was currently the temporary media directory. After remapping the drives and successfully installing the PSP, I was getting errors from many applications, either because they were running from or backing up to the E drive. Norton, MS Money, SmartRipper, and DivX were a few victims. I think I got everything back up, except DivX. I need to manually change some registry entries and the movie I'm backing up, Fantastic Four, might have advanced encryption that is giving me troubles. Either way, I have to figure this out.

Monday, January 9, 2006

Every day I see Google's share price go up, and I do nothing to benefit. For all the glorifying I do of this company, you'd think that I'd buy a stake in it. It's currently at $464 and it'll be no problem for it to go to $500. It'll be interesting at that point to see if it continues to go higher due to human nature to like round numbers. My guess is that it'll hover around $500 for a few weeks and start its climb back up.

By the way, when is Google Calendar going live?

Sunday, January 8, 2006

I updated the PSP firmware to 2.00. The immediate benefit was the integrated browser. The rendering is a bit weird due to the screen size. It seems to render images full size, as opposed to scaled for the small screen. I can't complain though. My only problem is deciding whether to surf the net or play GTA.

Saturday, January 7, 2006

I went to a close friend's dad's funeral. It was incredible to hear the people talk about him. It sure makes one think.

Friday, January 6, 2006

I had time to watch another movie: Birth. Some of the scenes were a little too long, but the cinematography was quite brilliant. The same guy did Se7en, and also Illuminata which was directed by John Turturro. I haven't seen it and heard mixed reviews, but it's on the list. And no, it's not about the Illuminati.

Thursday, January 5, 2006

I've been doing a lot of coding for the web-based flashcard application. I really enjoy coding and debugging. Like playing video games, I could probably do it without a break for several days. I currently have the main functionality in place, along with the interface. I still need to code some of the extra functionality. I also want to build a "demo" for those that are interested in learning about it but don't want to invest any time checking it out.

I'll have to write up the full specs when I'm done.

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

I received the 1 GB Memory Stick Duo Pro for my PSP. That enabled me to start the hacking. Not hacking at all, I started small by converting a DivX movie to the MP4 format the PSP wants. I used a program by Videora, which I'll have to take a look at in more depth for use with the Tivo and Palm, and eventually the 360. It worked flawlessly. This program doesn't down-rez for the PSP during conversion, so I'll have to down-rez prior to Videora's program. Time for some more testing.

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Well, it's a new year, no more vacation to use up, everybody's back at work, and the study season should begin shortly. Bah humbug.

Monday, January 2, 2006

I watched Saw this past weekend. I expected it to be the usual horror film, showing nothing new and very predictable. But I was pleasantly surprised. I think if I ever became insane and started killing people, I would do it in a similar fashion as the movie.

Maybe more importantly, I watched the converted DivX file over XBMC on the 55". I think I need to tweak the sound settings since I had to have the receiver cranked up pretty high. I still would like to find a compression scheme that was a bit better. The playback was obviously compressed, but still watchable.

Sunday, January 1, 2006

New Year's Eve was a blast ... from what I remember. We did the annual fondue with my mom and uncle, but included a few other family members. Karl was there, which probably explains why I don't remember much. Uncle Shane, Karl, and I were in the kitchen for the entire night, trying to find Shane's drink.

But now I have to go get rid of this headache.