Thursday, September 29, 2005

The fall exams are arguably the worst. Things need to be done around the house, but studying needs to take priority. I leave the house when it's dark and get home when it's almost dark. Doesn't leave much time to do any outside work, unless I put a floodlight on the front of the lawn mower.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

I started eating seeds while studying. You know it's serious now.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

I was in a meeting from 8:00 to 4:00, which leaves not a lot of time to do much else at work. And I have two broken Xbox's waiting to be fixed at home, which I won't be getting to anytime soon. Something's got to give.

Monday, September 26, 2005

I got stung by a fricken bee today at lunch, right on the thumb. It swelled up pretty good, but I still had to work. I guess it's a good way to find out I'm not allergic to bee stings.

Happy Birthday Pea.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

I studied all day, but I did find this interesting.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Although not a movie, I watched quite a few episodes of Sopranos tonight. I'm on the beginning of season four. Which TV series will be next?

Friday, September 23, 2005

I got a whole bunch of electronics tonight for the mere price of $20. This dude bought out a pawn shop and tried to sell the stuff himself. Well, after a year, he was moving in with his girlfriend and needed to get rid of it. So I took 4 boomboxes, a complete component system, stand alone CD changer, equalizer, 3 speakers, 3 satellite receivers, and a satellite dish. Whatever I don't use, I can probably sell for $20 and be even.

What can I say? I like old electronics.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

I went to a Wild game tonight. Normally when I go, I sit about 10 rows up from the glass on the corner of the rink. These are really cool seats being close to the action. Tonight, the tickets were 2nd row on the upper deck right on the end. It was actually very cool; more like a tennis perspective. Also, being up so high and with the new rules, you could really see the plays being set up. As an extra bonus, we got $20 in certificates ... just enough for a few brews and a fist full of nachos.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

I didn't do much out of the ordinary. From the time I wake up in the morning to the time I get home after work, it's over 12 hours, only to get longer.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

I went to a happy hour for my former boss. He's leaving the company, which apparently calls for a celebration. He's really fun to hang out with, but there were a few other suits around, so he had to temper his antics. I guess that's good, because I won't be waking up with a headache tomorrow.

Monday, September 19, 2005

I've been collecting caps for the every10minutes sweepstakes. Pepsi products have a code that can be used for a chance at winning an Xbox 360. You can enter one code for each drawing, or save your codes and put them all in a single drawing. At first glance, it seems you'd have a better chance of winning by putting all of your chances into one drawing. For example, if you have two codes and there were 500 entries per drawing, the probability of winning would be 2/500 instead of 2/1000. But the hidden assumption here is that everybody is probably saving them. So if you have 5 codes today in a 500 code drawing, your chance of winning is 1%. And if you save your codes until you have 50 along with everyone else, there will be a total of 5000 codes in each drawing, giving you 1% again. So it boils down to if you think you can outpace others in the accumulation of codes, then save them. If not, it might be wise to put as many as you can, say, every few days. For example, if your rate of increase is 50% more than the average increase, while everyone increases their 5 codes to 50, you'd have 75 codes, giving you a 1.5% chance of winning. But if you can only increase at 75% of the average increase, then you'd have a 0.75% chance of winning.

Just give me an Xbox 360.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Down in the movie room, my AV receiver only has two component inputs. The HD DirecTiVo and the progressive scan DVD player were using these. I replaced the DVD player with Mobil (the Xbox) to utilize any HD content from Mobil. Well, I went to watch an episode of Sopranos, and naturally Mobil couldn't play the DVD. As it turns out, XBMC uses the Microsoft DVD playback software, which requires the DVD dongle. However, I learned today that the 2005-09-12 CVS build of XBMC has now an integrated DVD player, with menu support. It looks like an upgrade is needed.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

I'm still experiencing delays on the home phone through Vonage. It seems there is a lag between talkers. At first I thought it was only happening when I received a call from a cell phone, but it's happening during other types of calls as well. My new theory is it happens during peak internet times. The internet traffic obviously is worst during evenings and weekends. More testing is needed.

Friday, September 16, 2005

We moved down two rows at work today. Instead of boxing and getting a cart, I just walked my stacks of papers and books down the aisle, which got me thinking. Our cubes should be completely modular. Just think, if you need to move, a forklift could swing by, hoist up your entire cube and bring you to your new spot. You wouldn't have to pack a thing. In fact, you could still be in your cube when they move you. Better yet, when you get in your cube in the morning, it is stacked on top of a big pile of cubes and when you need to leave, the conveyor belt will bring you to ground level. Imagine a big skyscraper of cube blocks that is so tight and things are going on all around you without your awareness.

Wait a second ... something seems familiar.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

I've been driving my car to work almost every day for a while, and because the thieves smashed my climate control, I've been getting hot air spewing on me and can't turn it off. Not only do I have hot are blowing on me, but I'm in my work clothes and it's been somewhat hot outside. Luckily I only have to go 6 miles.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Karl gave me a call after the cable installer left. It seems he got a pretty crappy installer. It seems the guy punched unnecessary holes in the wall, which is stupid since Karl and I prewired the inside. Then he set up the broadband bypassing the router. Of coarse, when Karl hooked up the router, the internet didn't work due to Comcast's MAC address verification. Luckily with new routers, it's as easy as cloning. I think this was the first time that a problem was solved on the same phone call

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

I went over to Karl's to help him finish some wiring. He's been using DSL and will make the switch to Comcast cable. Now I know that there are many variables in determining whether DSL or cable is better, but I've never used a DSL line that was anywhere near the speed of cable. I guess we'll see after he gets it up and running.

Anyway, one thing led to another, and I didn't get to bed until 1:30. As usual, tomorrow's going to be fun trying to stay awake. I'll never learn.

Monday, September 12, 2005

I was in the garage today, and I noticed the bastard squirrel had eaten through another piece of wood that I nailed up to block his original entrance. Originally, I sprayed some of that expanding foam, but he just walked through that. Then I got smart and tried 2x4's, and apparently was outsmarted. All were good ideas, until I realized that he was built to chew through things. I guess the next step is either chili peppers or the guillotine.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

I went to some family functions today. I checked the camera for the battery status. There was an extra set in the case, so I figured I was good. Well, after a few shots, the batteries in the camera went. And of course the batteries in the case were dead. Luckily, the camera takes AA batteries and I was able to find some extra, but I sure need to rethink my rechargeable battery process.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

I got to watch a few tennis matches today, all in incredible high definition. I'll have to admit that it's been a while since I watched anything HD, partly because there's just not many quality shows. But after seeing tennis, it's time to find something worth watching just for HD sake.

I was as giddy as a school girl.

Friday, September 9, 2005

I spent a lot of time working with Coppermine. It seems like it will work pretty good. It's a bit bloated as far as code, but as long as it gets the job done for now, I won't mind.

I also started wiring the garage for extra lights, and am planning the AV and network wiring. There's nothing like playing Xbox in the garage with some buddies.

Thursday, September 8, 2005

I got the final component to the jumble of wires in the movie room. This one will allow the Xbox to output DTS. Maybe more importantly, I won't have to press a few buttons to get both Xbox video and audio ... only one mere button.

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

I stayed up way to late watching the US Open. My all time favorite player Agassi was playing in possibly his last Open. It was quite a good match lasting into the wee hours of the morning. I'm not sure if he can go all the way this year, but he's sure fun to watch.

Also, I've been trying to make the Oberkampf script more robust to allow other users on the family blog to incorporate a photo gallery. But for some reason, I just can't get it to work. I'm sure it's something simple. I'd like to try to figure it out, as it uses Flickr to host and organize the photos. I'm currently looking into other options. I'd like to write my own and incorporate it into Nucleus, but we all know that won't happen.

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

So, I've been seeing a lot of photos and footage of the hurricane damage and flooding. It's been over a week now and people are still being rescued from rooftops. And there are still people waiting to be bused out or have decided to just stick around. It's almost hard for me to comprehend. You're at work one day, studying and surfing the net, and the next you're running from rising waters. Then on top of it, the sole goal everyday from that point is to stay alive, either on a heated rooftop with no food or wandering the city with nothing to eat. Life as it existed before is completely gone.

This is getting too deep. I gotta go steal some songs.

Monday, September 5, 2005

I went over to Karl's to fix his Xbox networking once and for all. We just can't seem to figure it out. I set his network up very similar to mine, and still nothing. Everything seems in order. I'm sure Karl's hiding something very important from me. My only conclusion is that he put up his surround speakers before me, and subconsciously I don't want to fix the problem for him.

Sunday, September 4, 2005

Another lazy day. For as much as I complain about not getting projects done, I find myself enjoying not doing them. Do what makes you happy, right?

Saturday, September 3, 2005

I stayed up pretty late tonight, goofing off on the computer and Xbox. I was able to swap components between my two fried Xbox's in an attempt to build one good one. No luck. It looks like I'll be soldering some new circuitry after all.

Friday, September 2, 2005

Not only did I get to wear jeans to work, but was able to leave at 2:00. Ahh, the little things.

Thursday, September 1, 2005

I went and bought a new 100GB hard drive from a dude in the shady part of town for $50. Now I can start the server rebuild. I quickly checked the going rate from Best Buy, and right now they have a deal on a 300GB for $100. I know, 3 times the storage for twice the money, but who has time to deal with rebates? The way I figure it, by the time I need more space, prices will once again have dropped.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

I was able to put some further enhancements into my study site today. I still find it very satisfying to create an application out of nothing, and have it work correctly. Normally, I'd spend another few hours making it look pretty, but I'm running out of time and actually need to start using it to study.

I also spent some time tonight trying to help Karl get his samba share working between his Xbox and Windows machine. Everything seems in order, but there's got to be a simple setting we're missing. We were using Google's new talk program, and the lag was pretty bad. Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly using Google's UI, since they don't have a Linux version, yet. I had to use KDE's prepackaged program, Kopete. I must have an older version, because mine certainly doesn't look as pretty as the websites photos.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

I found I had 7 spam comments on recent posts. After manually deleting them, another 8 showed up. The spambot seems to have moved along. I noticed Blogger set up Word Verification recently to combat this. I may have to enable this.

I also tried to do a fresh install of Linux on the server, but it appears the hard drive has gone to a better place. I guess this is an excuse to go buy a new one. I happen to have about 5 hard drives laying around, but since they were used in old 386's, I don't think 720 MB will be enough space.

Monday, August 29, 2005

I had the day off today and went to the State Fair. I ate the usual fare: cheese curds, bucket of cookies, sweet corn, and a malt. I didn't get a chance to go to the bonsai display or the technology building. Last year, the tech exhibits were lame. It sure is a different experience pushing a four week old baby around. Instead of walking around watching people or looking at new exhibits, I found myself checking out the make and model of other parents baby strollers.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

I got a chance to open my two new Xbox's today. I bought both knowing they were failed attempts at chip modding. I opened the first one and it's pretty obvious why it won't boot. Most of the tracers on one side of the processor are all but gone. The second one won't even power up, implying the power supply is shot. I opened it anyway and there may be one or two tracers needing replaced on the mobo, but it looks like it may work as is. When I get another chance, I'm going to take the good power supply from the first Xbox and use it in the second, with hopefully good results. Stay tuned, maybe some photos will show up.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Damn, missed a post.

We had a few friends over tonight. It was good. A nice relaxing evening, of babies crying. I have Monday off and am looking forward to a three day weekend.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

I tried to finally watch a movie off the Xbox, and wouldn't you know, there was technically difficulties. I've been encoding the DTS sound, and I don't have the Xbox hooked up to my DTS decoder. Stupid. I've been trying to find the last cable of the collection to get this project done, but nowhere local sells it. I have one more store to check out and then I'll go to eBay.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Well, my car got broken into last night, again. It was the same bastards that did it before. They smashed the same window and tried to pry the radio out. I said it before and I'll say it again, there's no way you'd be able to get it out with a damn crowbar. Now, if you had a phillips screwdriver, that'd be a different story. Damn amateurs.

I almost want to leave the car out to temp them to try again. I'd set up a motion sensing video camera that would signal me somehow. I'm not exactly sure what I'd do if I caught them red-handed, but I'd have some footage of the mayhem.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

I'm coding three different projects right now, and am really enjoying all.

I think I finally got the picture process down. I'm using Picasa to organize, do minor editing, and exporting down-res'd images. Then I'm using Flickr to host the pictures and integrating them onto the family website using Oberkampf. This way I'll also be able to integrate Flickr on the Xbox.

Monday, August 22, 2005

I spent another day at work coding. I really miss not being able to stream music from the internet while working.

More importantly, the first package arrived today of Operation Xbox Expand. I got another wireless controller for use in the Fireplace Room. Now I'm just awaiting the second package ...

Sunday, August 21, 2005

I'm really behind on my studying, but it's so easy to not study, especially when the other projects are too numerous. Another movie night came and went, and no movie was to be seen. I bought a lot of stuff from eBay this past week, so hopefully it all comes this week, because I just don't have enough to do already.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

I got some more work done in the garage, and then headed over to Karl's. We were going to swap some games and movies between the Xbox's, but had a hard time getting the configuration to work. We ended up having to use his PC as a middle man, which was incredibly slow. We ran out of time for me to get anything he had, which is alright because he had nothing to offer. I'm sensing the scale is a little out of balance. Surely something that will be fixed next visit.

Right, Karl?

By the way, Bloggers spell check wanted to change "Karl's" to Carol, girl's, or careless.

Friday, August 19, 2005

I haven't had time to sit and watch a movie in some time. With my new schedule, I'll either have to learn to watch movies over many sittings (something I've always hated doing), or watch programs coming in smaller time increments. One show I've started watching on DVD is Sopranos. I've got a few more series in the queue to start watching.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

I spent the day at work building a program to help me study. It's a web application that will produce a pop up window throughout the day with a random question, basically note cards when I'm not expecting it. Since I'm at the computer the entire time I'm at work, this will help in the pounding of facts in my brain. I've got the front end built to enter, edit, and delete questions, and a page that produces the pop up at set intervals. I just need to figure out how I want to have the pop up show at random times. I'm going to let Knapper also use this to help test and debug it. Who knows, maybe I'll open it up to other students to use ... for an astronomical fee.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Where does the time go?

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Here's a little trick I've picked up. Most of the junk snail mail I receive is some sort of offer where you fill out a form and send it back using their "No Postage necessary" envelope. The companies pay the postage on these, only if they're sent back. So I usually stuff the envelope with all the crap they sent me and return it. Now, they have to pay the postage and get rid of their propaganda. And if you stuff it really full, the envelope can't fit through the automated postal sorter, and will get the manual sorted rate. Brilliant.

Hopefully this will increase the companies expenses, thereby causing them to see that sending junk mail is more expensive than it's worth. One small step for man ...

Monday, August 15, 2005

I wish I could remember what I read today that was cool. I have a tendency to read about a lot of topics. I couldn't tell you what any of those topics are, but if asked about something, I could rattle off everything I read about it. Even this post is half thought out.

It could be that I spent time in the garage sniffing expanding foam.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Since everybody was sleeping in and I couldn't work in the garage, I spent a few hours playing the latest addition to my Xbox library, Destroy All Humans!. My initial take is that it's funner than average. It has a quick learning curve, humor in the cut scenes and game play, and is easy to quit and come back to.

After the house woke up, I spent the rest of the day building the shelving in the garage. A before picture might have been worth it.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

I started "Phase I" of the garage project. I need to build some shelving to get the bins (5 of which is just Christmas crap) off the floor. In order to do this, I had to install two ceiling fans, which of course wobbled the house off the foundation. I also had to figure out where the network wiring will go, along with the TV, Xbox, and other AV equipment. "Phase I" is turning out to be bigger than I have time for.

Friday, August 12, 2005

I went to go get my two free in-store rentals from Blockbuster, and one of the printed coupons didn't work. The store said they couldn't do anything for me and that I should contact the online customer service. Yeah right. Every time I do that, I get some unrelated response from Sarif Sharphhreeghggh. I suppose looking at the big picture, I shouldn't complain. I'm saving a lot of money by using the coupons to rent games for my modded Xbox.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

I finally got a few hours of Xbox in tonight. I threw in Fable to give it another chance. I got through the training and started to go on a real quest, but had to quit just then. Many people say video games are a waste of time and brain power, but I find it quite therapeutic.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

On my list to do is to look into making sure the DirecTiVo was making its daily call since the switch to Vonage. Naturally I haven't looked into for a while. I think it's finally catching up with me since Season Passes are starting to not record due to "Insufficient Listing Information". I read somewhere that you have to set the unit to call New York for it to work with Vonage. Apparently this is a well known bug.

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Another missed post, but this one wasn't my fault. The electricity went out for the entire neighborhood at around 9:30 and I couldn't stay awake to reboot the house. I watched this show about a community that is "off the grid", meaning no government or corporate sewer, water, or electricity. They had to light a fire to heat the water for their shower, which they only took every five days. But the cool thing was the solar panels they used to generate electricity. Apparently they've come down in price. Next blackout, I'm buying some.

Oh, and apparently I'm lonely enough to have a spambot comment on Sunday.

Sunday, August 7, 2005

Again, it's been a long time since I posted. I've either been in the hospital or, as a result, tending to a baby. They say that your life changes once you have a kid, and they aren't kidding. Now that it's been over a week since the birth, things have slightly settled. So I'm back in business.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Now, this is something. A meteorite crashed through the ceiling and landed next to a guy working on his computer in his house. The closest to this I've experienced is a piece of ice falling from the "El" in Chicago and hitting me in the head. It really hurt.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Just when I thought I got it all figured out ...

I watched Coach Carter tonight from the Xbox in DivX format. The video looks great when viewing it on the computer monitor, but I certainly can tell the difference from DVD on the 55" RPTV. It's almost as bad as a standard definition signal from DirecTV. I didn't notice it this bad on other movies, so maybe it's an anomaly.

On an unrelated note, I finally broke my cell phone clip. It actually held up for over 3 months, pretty good for how many times I've dropped it.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Finally, I finished a project that I've been wanting to get done for a long time. I set up Xbox Media Center as my default dashboard. This will help accessing pictures and video easier for the household. I just have a couple more tweaks to get it exactly how I want it. I'm still looking around for broken boxes to put one at every TV. I say broken because I won't be using the DVD-ROM or hard drive. Really all I need is the motherboard and power supply, and I can put it in a black shoe box with an "X" made out of masking tape on the top.

Friday, July 22, 2005

I figured I was going to be at work late tonight, but it turned out I had less work than I thought. Naturally, I used the evening for no benefit other than taking it easy.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

I read that November 4th is when the Xbox 360 will be released. It's going to be an exciting day when Karl gets his. I, on the other hand, will wait until the mods start popping up. When the games are $60 each, it would be hard to not rip them. But we'll see.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

My order arrived today from Combo Clothing. I like getting stuff I'm into. They're just a bunch of gamers that are making some shirts and selling them. Now, as we all know, I don't have time to set up a shop to do this. But, if you send Combo Clothing a design and they use it, you'll get $100 plus $1 for every shirt they sell with your design. Surely, I can come up with something. Hmmm...

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy ...

Monday, July 18, 2005

I spent the better part of the night over at Karl's wiring his home network. The fishing and wiring inside the house was relatively easy. Then we had to hook up the DSL to the demarc. It seemed logical, but we tried to copy how the current DSL line was installed. Wrong idea, especially when the previous installer was going against standards. After many trials and errors, we didn't get it figured out. In fact, I'm surprised we even got the DSL back up and running on the old line.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

I watched Elektra tonight. A lot of people didn't like it. As far as comic book movies go, I thought it was acceptable ... much better than Catwoman, but nowhere near Batman Begins.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

I've been having troubles with my Vonage account. It seems I can't receive incoming calls. After a total of an hour on the phone with customer service, it turns out that the process of keeping my same number was never complete. So when the service from Qwest, my local carrier, ended, my phone number is now "disconnected", even though I can still make outgoing calls.

Luckily, only telemarketers ever call my home, so maybe I'm now off some call lists.

Friday, July 15, 2005

Of course I received all three DVD's today from Blockbuster. And I forgot to use my two free in-store rentals before they expired. I wonder what it will take to make me finally switch to Netflix?

Thursday, July 14, 2005

I haven't received a DVD from Blockbuster in over a week. I'm to the breaking point. After complaining about not receiving any of the shipments I was supposed to, they shipped some more with an estimated arrival date of today. Nothing. So this is it: if I don't get anything tomorrow, I'm switching to Netflix. Mark my words...

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

I saw this server project over on Slashdot. It's these kinds of projects that make me want to build stuff, and I'm not talking no paper cup projects. It is nice to have the laptop up and running to do some internet research. Now to only stop time...

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

I think all of my personal learning of Nucleus, PHP, and other random research has finally taken its toll on my work schedule. I've been increasing my "fun" time at work while decreasing my "work" time. I might have to cut myself off in order to clear some mounting pressures to get things done.

Or work twice as fast so I still have some play time.

Monday, July 11, 2005

I've put a link under Notables to the family website, or my first stab at using Nucleus. It will shed some light on my "other" life, as opposed to my battle royale with technology described here.

As my PHP knowledge expands, I get closer to porting this site from Blogger.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

I took the time tonight to install Mandrake Linux 10.1 (now Mandriva) on my laptop. I had 8.0 on it before I messed it up. I thought I was ready for a more serious distro, but I guess not. Anyway, in about an hour, I had the laptop up and running, connected wirelessly to the network, and surfing the web. Quite incredible actually since I did the network setup manually.

Saturday, July 9, 2005

I ran around like a decapitated chicken today doing errands, resulting in additional projects for the house.

There are two inventions for the home that seem incredible, but they are a nuisance: vacuum cleaners and ceiling fans. Vacuum cleaners always get clogged, they're dirty, and never seem to work consistently for a year. So I bought some parts to fix it, but we all know how this will turn out. For ceiling fans, you're suppose to make sure they are installed into support beams. If they're installed incorrectly, they may fall and kill you. Now, I've never known anyone to install one correctly, and I've never known anyone getting killed by one. I started out with good intentions to install one correctly, but after the curses came, I think I'm going to resort to just slapping it up and dealing with the injuries later.

Friday, July 8, 2005

I finally got around to setting up the family blog idea. This idea was to set up a system so that individual "households" could set up blogs; we could set up family reunions, calendar functions, contact information, etc. I choose to use Godaddy as the hosting company, and Nucleus as the content manager. It'll probably start out as another personal site and allow other households to become members as I become more familiar with it.

As Nucleus was built around PHP and MySQL, I finally get to get my hands dirty with some old fashion coding.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

After grueling testing, I think my official DVD backup system is to use StreamRipper to rip the DVD to the hard drive, then use DivX Converter to store them as divx files, and watch via the DivX Player on PC or XBMC on Xbox. I haven't come across a DVD I couldn't backup, and I think the $20 is worth it.

Happy Anniversary, Pea.

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Whoa, what happened here? Over a week without a post. Am I too busy to take 5 minutes to post something everyday? I think I need an entire month of no work to get caught up with my projects.

Ahh, who am I kidding? I'd spend it all playing Xbox.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

I read that Peter Jackson, director of LOTR, will receive at least $200 million for the movie. What? Aside from the usual "what would I buy if I won the lottery" question, I can't even comprehend that much money, let alone getting it through directing a movie.

I have to seriously think about my profession.

Monday, June 27, 2005

I spent the night cutting up the old carpet for easier handling. I went through a few razor blades in the process. And because it was storming outside, I had to keep the garage door closed, which triggered a sauna-like effect.

I experimented a bit with twingine.com, which compares searches between Yahoo! and Google. At the time of this post, echomoche was number 8 on Yahoo! and first on Google.

Post #200 ...

Sunday, June 26, 2005

I was getting ahead of schedule on my chores today. I had a choice between getting the server going, rebuilding the laptop, or playing video games. I chose the easy way, Xbox. If only I could pass MC2. Although, there's nothing like playing the same level over and over, and over and ...

Saturday, June 25, 2005

I went to visit with the family at the annual camping trip. Luckily, there was no spending the night. Not that I don't like camping, I just like getting stuff off my to-do list.

Speaking of technology, I played a game called Kubb. The rules are you throw pieces of wood at pieces of wood.

Friday, June 24, 2005

I really enjoy grilling season. I think I've been on the deck each night with the grill, a magazine, a brew, and a Djarum. I can't wait until I get the laptop running again.

Just ... need ... time ...

Thursday, June 23, 2005

I went out on a paddle boat for work today for the afternoon. Man, the sun drains you...

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

StreamRipper works fair enough. It seems to have trouble distinguishing the exact timing to cut off files and start new ones between songs. This might have something to do with the radio station being tricky and fading the songs together. This probably isn't a big issue, since I'm listening only to discover new bands, after which I'll end up "buying" the disc.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

I put about half a gig of recorded stream on the new player for my bus ride home. Right when I pushed play while waiting for the bus, the battery died. And unfortunately, it has a proprietary battery pack, not AAA batteries. Humbug.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Since I got a new MP3 player, I've been craving some new music. My current solution is to record some internet radio stations. I needed a stream recorder that would also parse the songs into individual files. As there are quite a few free ones out there, I choose one cleverly called StreamRipper. We'll see how it works.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

I've noticed again that I'm veering away from posting about technology. This is probably because other things in my life are competing for the precious time.

The rumors are that the results of my last exam come out this week. I've actually started studying for the next round. It sucks now, but will be worth it when I'm done.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

I had a full day of fun today. I got whipped around behind a boat today. I can guarantee I'll be soar tomorrow. Then I went up to North Branch for Karl's party and drank all of Dave's beer.

Weekends are worth it.

Friday, June 17, 2005

One of the things on my list to do before I die is to go storm-chasing. I think it would be incredibly fun to see a tornado in progress, deaths aside.

I also got a chance to play more with my new iRiver H10. This is a device that has an audio player, picture viewer, FM tuner, voice recorder, and text viewer, all with 5GB's internal storage. I need to get into discovering new music again. Suggestions are welcome.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

I was in an all day meeting and all of a sudden Pea showed up. Well, surprise, surprise. Everyone in the meeting had set up a surprise party for us, but Pea was in on it. I'm sure I was as red as a beet. Nobody had a camera, but one of the big wigs literally had 3 cell phones, a Blackberry, and a PDA, and didn't know how to work any of them. It would be fun to be rich and buy toys that you don't use.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

I was dragging today ...

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

I got home from Chicago at around midnight. Again, not a short drive. And on top of it, I got pulled over for doing 80 in a 65. First of all, why is the speed limit on I-94 only 65mph? The cop told me that the ticket was around $280 and that in Wisconsin you have to pay on the spot. Luckily he gave me a warning. Of course I drove slower all the way home, hence the midnight arrival time.

Wisconsin sucks.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Today was the first day of my seminar, and as such, my mind was wandering. I watched National Treasure this past weekend. The only reason I gave this an average rating is because it was about the Freemasons and had secret codes to break. This got me thinking that I need to become part of a secret society, perhaps the Illuminati, or start my own.

It would help if I was filthy rich and didn't need a day job.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

After trouble checking into the Allerton Crowne Plaza downtown, we spent the entire afternoon on Navy Pier. It was another nice day to sightsee, picture take, and urban geocache. There was one that was creative. It was a film canister wrapped in velcro with the other piece glued around a blind corner. So you had to reach around into a dark crevice and feel around.

Another creative one had several locations you had to find and parse information off of signs, do a little math and conversions to calculate the final cache location. Well I ended up not finding it because I think I used a short ton conversion from pounds instead of a long ton. Maybe next time...

Saturday, June 11, 2005

I spent a few hours in the blazing sun going to a couple different parks finding some caches.

The Sheraton hotel claimed to have free wi-fi access in all rooms. After spending an hour playing around with configurations, I finally got connected with an incredibly weak signal. After each page loaded, the connection would of course drop and it would take 5 minutes to reconnect. They probably had one access point down in the front desk. I guess I could have went down there or complained, but it was much easier to shut down the computer.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Seven hours in the car is a long time. Coming from St. Paul to Chicago, we went through a few tolls. This is a completely inefficient system that humans thought up. Let's make everyone come to a screeching halt and pay a measly 80 cents every few miles. Stupid. I can't wait until the RFID chips are installed in our brains at birth.

Thursday, June 9, 2005

I spent today entering some coordinates from geocaching.com into my Garmin GPS. I have a seminar in Chicago next week, and Pea and I are leaving tomorrow to make a weekend trip out of it.

If only I got paid to play on the internet. Oh wait, I guess I do.

Wednesday, June 8, 2005

I'm doing some testing at work to verify the new version of a particular model gives the same output as the old model. Basically it's just running a few test cases through. Unfortunately, it's not going well. On top of that, I didn't build the new model, so I'm spending most of my time complaining and devising more efficient ways to do the same thing. The good news is that I'll probably be in charge of the next version and will be able to change anything I want. The bad news is that I'll actually have to work.

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Karl came over to help me move the furniture back in each room, and then he paid for my dinner. All this, and he hasn't given me signs of impending doom at his place. Hmmm...

After that, the Three Kings met and discussed the state of the union. The CD player in the garage finally gave out. This might be the motivation I need to get the all-house speaker system in place. If I just wasn't so lazy.

Monday, June 6, 2005

I had the day off to keep a watchful eye on the carpet installers. And since they were on the top two floors, that only meant I had to be holed up in the basement. Instead of being productive, I spent the entire day on Xbox. As soon as I pass Midnight Club 2, I'll have to work on Riddick.

I also got around to watching Chronicles of Riddick. I can see how some might think this is a stupid, pointless movie, but I really liked it. A good combination of visual effects and story. It had many sub-plots going that were easily distinguishable, but had some great ideas on joining them in the end.

Sunday, June 5, 2005

I pretty much spent all day pulling out every staple in the floor from the old carpet. I can't open my hand now from clenching the pliers.

These house projects are sure getting in the way of my tech projects.

Saturday, June 4, 2005

Karl and I busted through some projects today. We took everything out of many rooms and crammed it into fewer rooms. Then we ripped up thousands of square feet of smelly carpet. Of course, all this was rewarded with Xbox, pizza, and RvB.

In the words of Karl, if you bought an Xbox and played only Halo, it would've been worth it.

Friday, June 3, 2005

Getting off work early is always fun, even if it is to just run errands.

Thursday, June 2, 2005

I finally got my main HDD, secondary HDD, CD writer/DVD, and Neo all working (somewhat nicely) together. The Neo is very picky on which IDE cable connection and jumper settings it has with multiple devices are present.

Now, to find more music.

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

I was walking down the street when I saw two guys, one in a suit and the other in rags. Both were talking to themselves and each started screaming. I chalked them both up as crazy, but noticed Suit had an earpiece connected to his phone. Maybe Rags had a tooth phone.

I'm going to have to buy about 50 rechargeable batteries and have them in rotation. My Xbox wireless controller finally conked out. And I was in the lead in Midnight Club 2.