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As part of the ongoing improvements to the site, I've seen fit to build a system that captures current photos from my phone direct to the site. Eventually this space will have a brief bio of Becky and I and generally explain what's going on here. The posts below are [semi]periodic updates about my current doings, though as Dave is quick to point out, this is not a blog. |
Phenomenal Passion
I'm not sure, but I might have written about this before; For Christmas, Dad gave us each a $50 bill with instructions to spend it on something we're passionate about and submit a picture of us "living our passion". As should be obvious to anyone who knows me (or spends much time reading here), I'm pretty passionate about technology; Not always the popular stuff, and generally the more complex the better, but you get the point. I'd been planning on replacing my primary workstation for some time (and did so in January) and figured that I could certainly put the money to use there. It's somewhat appropriate, as Dad has been buying me computer gear for Christmas as far back as I can remember. I don't think anyone else (who was present) even knew what a "multi-I/O board" was when I got one of those, back in the day.
As noted above, said workstation was built back in January, and the money spent. Basically, I've been agonizing since over how to take a picture of myself "living a passion of technology". I figure that ideally, I'd be in the picture, but short of superimposing myself (shrunkenly) onto the motherboard photos, it doesn't really make much sense. The new workstation (named "Phenomenon" for its AMD Phenom II CPU) reused an old case, and my old multimon Monitor Gantry setup, it doesn't really look like much to be "living" in the photos.
That last sentence or two really sounds like an excuse. I've got to take the lid off Phenomenon in a few days to add some slot covers to help cooling, I'll be sure to snap a "thumbs-up" photo while I've got it apart. :)
Posted: 2 February 2010
Avoiding the Post-Crapmas Blues
Well, the Crapmas giving is basically over. I was going to bring my tote home from the office today (I didn't have a car on Friday, and had forgot it tonight), but that didn't work out. Two separate people got laptops (albeit sorta crappy ones) and I generally got rid of lots of stuff. There's a few things left to try on eBay, but most of what's left will be shredded for scrap and recycled.
Speaking of eBay, I've done my fair share of shopping there this weekend. I ordered Becky a belated Christmas gift of a "foot pod" for use with her Garmin Forerunner 305, as well as some components to fix Trevor's Dell monitor that fried.
On the building front, some other people have been very busy: Frank has a new installment of his work on the Dune Bug-E in which he discusses extending the frame and some testing of the inverter, while the guys over at Backblaze have built a serious Massive Storage Solution for "almost nothing", relatively speaking.
My building this week has been fairly limited. I finally received (UPS had sent it out for delivery in NJ someplace) a new appliance module for the kitchen lights (CFLs don't like being dimmed) and have done some major reconsideration right before pulling the trigger on my new desk. I've thought more about how I use the space and something more adaptable (think table leaves) makes more sense... More consideration will be given before any work is done :(.
Also on my to-do list for the next 30 days is rebuilding some garage shelving. I'd like to turn the large (24"x48") shelving unit at the front of my side of the garage sideways, while also making it freestanding and mobile.
Further, my Carputer project is moving ahead. I finally have Windows installed on the hard drive I'll be using to boot the system, after learning a lot about slipstreaming service packs using nlite
The desks, carputer, and Home Automation pages will be updated shortly to show current progress.
Technology Shop Projects Computers
Posted: 25 January 2010
Merry Crapmas!
In the spirit of Woot!'s "Bags o Crap", we're having Crapmas in January. Basically, it amounts to me (and a number of guys from work cleaning out our various closets, cupboards, totes and recesses and disposing of mass quantities of computer crap by giving it to one another (and sending the rest elsewhere, but trying NOT to continue keeping most of it). It's all part of stuff expanding to fill available space, and that space eventually needing emptied. I'm to a place now where I need to start using or eliminating the crap I have or I need to entirely stop accumulating new crap (not likely). So far, I've gifted a few (mostly working) P3 era laptops, a Linksys router, a 17" LCD (which is technically on loan), an old DLP projector with a bad bulb and a stack of random computer guts. I've received a few case slot covers and a Velcro cable wrap. Frankly, people should be more greedy, as I still have a pretty big pile of stuff (and more piling up daily). If you're reading this and there's (probably a bit older) tech-related things you're searching for, let me know. Maybe there's one waiting under the Crapmas Bin just for you.
Posted: 20 January 2010
Another Week
I seriously can't believe it's been another 7 days... This has been a crazy busy week. Parts for Phenomenon showed up on Wednesday, and I had both it and my "new second" workstation up and running Wednesday night. I ended up actually not rebuilding any software at all, as a few reboots and driver CDs got the old XP builds running properly. The old motherboard and CPU went to Caleb, who had some issues, but ended up with a very nice workstation (for being free), when he was done.
Here's what else is happening this week:
- Memory for the Carputer project is in the mail this week, so I'll start building that box soon enough.
- Dave's D&D campaign arc ended, marking a (somewhat broken) 3 year run. A 4th ed campaign with a bunch of new people begins in February; I'm not really sure how I feel about it, not being a big 4e fan. I'll probably stick it out for a while, because the people are fun.
- Finally uploaded pictures from a run that Becky did back in December.
- Installed the Winter Grill Cover on my car
Also, I'm reconsidering my site's CMS again (specifically switching to Wordpress). If you have strong feelings either way, drop me a line. I'm not a huge wordpress person, but after having done some work on Becky's Site, I have to admit that it's very convenient.
Posted: 17 January 2010
Phenomenon is Ordered
It's been a busy weekend with the various festivities surrounding my birthday.
Dad and Patti came to Omaha on Friday night and we went to dinner at the Bonefish Grill; Becky isn't a big lover of the fishes, so I have to get fish where I can. I had a Norwegian Salmon which was very good. I tend to prefer Tuna to Salmon, but their only Tuna choice is an Ahi Tuna which is good, but a bit... undercooked for my tastes.
Saturday, Becky took me to see Avatar in 3D which is absolutely amazing (and I'd be a liar if I said it didn't make me cry at least once [yes, I know, that's sad]), and then on to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays for a steakish cheeseburger. When we got home, we had cake (she'd ordered me a banana and coconut cake from some cake lady) which was amazing. It's just as good tonight as leftovers.
Today, I ran to Lincoln to drop some stuff off, and had lunch with Mom and Doug at Old Chicago. I'd been in the mood for their pizza for some time, and now I should be good for another 6 months, even if my arteries aren't. I caught up with some old friends, stopping in to see Drew, who recently bought a house in Lincoln, and bumped into Joe and Micah (and Tim, I think, he was locked in the back seat and didnt talk) who were picking Drew up to go see Avatar themselves.
Tonight, I finally ordered myself (with some generous donations) a new PC. The last one (a Sempron 3100+) lasted 5 years; Hopefully this one will do half as well. Check out the details over on it's page.
Posted: 10 January 2010
First Post of 2010
It's a bit amazing to me that I can post multiple times in one day, and then go to the 5th of the year without posting again. We've been pretty busy with parties at Ben & Jeremy's place as well as Jason and Meagan's, plus with all the snow, it's been good to just relax. I've done some additional work on the Nerf Vulcan, mostly disassembly getting ready to do some upgrades. The thing is wired entirely with 20awg wire... Much to be improved.
We also received some trip photos today from our friends Jen and Martin (from Florida). It was excessively hot when we were in Egypt, but about now, it'd be welcome. I'm a bit glad we don't live in Canada this winter; after seeing Frank's recent snow pictures, it makes our problems seem tame. Seems he's back at it with a new Dune Bug-E. Cant say as that I've seen any dunes in his photos, but it looks like it'll be a heck of a project.
Posted: 5 January 2010
Nerf Progess
I worked tonight on taking pictures of the Nerf Vulcan and some other stuff. The photos of the Vulcan aren't up yet, but the SwitchShot mods and some of the other Nerf content is. Have a look.
Posted: 30 December 2009
Christmas 2009 Photos are Up!
Nothing particularly amazing to report today; I went to the gym with Becky and spent the evening working on her blog, doing some general changes and tweaking her Google settings.
I also finished putting up the 2009 Christmas Photos and in the process discovered Gallery Remote. I've always used the "Upload Applet" within Gallery, but that doesn't work so well when you're trying to queue up files to go into multiple albums, or if you minimize the window, or try to upload too many files (as I learned when I had to rebuild the Gallery). Yea, it's Java based, and that sucks, but it's just a glorified FTP client, so I suppose it's ok.
I'm making plans to start ordering parts for my new workstation; I think I've decided on an AMD Phenom II CPU (either 3 or 4 cores, I haven't decided, yet). Maybe the 6-cores will come out in the next 10 days and drop the price on the Quads dramatically... Not likely.
Anyhow, enjoy the photos. Nothing too exciting, but hey, it's free.
Posted: 29 December 2009
2010 Project Projections
So I've started looking over my plans for 2010 and projects to be done. This is stirred a bit by Christmas gifts but also just the typical year end stuff. In no particular order, you can expect to read about the following in 2010:
- Nerf Vulcan Upgrades
- Desk building
- Workstation Building (and general network overhaul)
- Z-Wave Home Automation
- Car PC (Yay, Mini-ITX gifts!)
- More Shop Projects
- More Constant Updates!!
Anyhow, this is just a basic list of what you can expect, there will be much more in the near future on each of these. Happy Holidays!
Posted: 28 December 2009
All the Christmas is Done
Wow, it's been a long week (or so), but we're finally done with our entire gambit of family Christmas festivities. I got some cool gifts (including a few things I'd never buy myself) but I think I got to give some gifts that were even better: Becky got both a SodaStream and a custom blended perfume from a local salon here in town. I started out looking at (for) some of the Demeter Perfume
We had a bit of an issue getting to and from my Mom's house in Lincoln (on Friday noonish), taking up to an hour to get the 8 blocks from their house to the artery road; The surefooted Jetta eventually made it just fine. We didn't go back for Justin and Alison's rehearsal dinner on Saturday because of the headaches required to get to the place we were staying, but did go down Sunday for the wedding itself. Photos of the wedding are up now.
Photos of the rest of the festivities are coming on short order, just as soon as I can get them going.
Posted: 28 December 2009
Them's the Brakes
It seems that I have a schedule, whereby I always update only on either Wednesday or Thursday nights; Truth is (I think) that it takes me that much of the week to get to a point where I can sit down and write anything useful. I would have gotten an earlier start tonight, but I ended up over at Blake's helping Caleb work on his truck (we were at Blake's because said truck didn't fit in my garage). By the time we were done, it was almost 50F in the garage, so it wasn't cold, which was an improvement over the Jeep incident from last week.
I also spent some time this week on various projects around the house including some shelving upgrades in the pantry and getting ready to (finally) do some finishing/trimming around the undercabinet lights in the kitchen (that project really hasn't happened yet, more when it does). Anyhow, I'm just glad it's warmed up a bit, even if the highs are still well below freezing.
Also, if you want to buy my Infocus x2 Projector (Which needs a bulb, but is in nice shape otherwise), please let me know. I'm looking to make someone a deal, just to get rid of it.
Posted: 16 December 2009
Let it Snow!
It's amazing to me just how quickly I can get behind on updating. It seems like yesterday I noticed I had posted almost every day for a week. Not so much, 10 days later. It's just been pretty busy around here with the massive snowfall Tuesday afternoon. We closed early at work, and then opened late yesterday morning, due to the heaps of snow on the road. At 10am when I left home, the street in front of our neighborhood (We have private snow removal which is generally most excellent) was pretty well screwed.
The Jetta made it just fine, though, following the rut out to the main street (which was slushy but not deep at all). The only time I was even marginally concerned was when I realized that the rut I was in lead into an apartment complex and I had to "jump" into another set of tracks. Dear old Dad was a pretty good teacher of winter driving tactics: Just Keep Moving and stay out of the deep part; Drag one wheel in the snow if it looks slick, etc. Winter driving has definitely become easier as I've gotten older, probably mostly because I drive a less sporty car.
Speaking of the Jetta, with a bit of additive (I'm using the Power Service
At 2F this morning (again, -17C) I got all the way to work (6 miles, like 10km) and the thermostat still hadn't opened (indicating that the engine had reached "cruising temperature"), but very nearly. Heated seats rock. I'm still hoping to get the winter covers for my birthday, as that should help with warming up, even if they look a little goofy. I could probably fabricate something, if I had a set to look at, I'm just not sure how aggressively they block the airflow, and it'd be bad to suck a homebrew cover through the radiator or something.
Bottom line, diesel or not, I'd still recommend it for the cold nastiness we have here in the midwest.
Posted: 10 December 2009
Defraggler
Just a quick note. Caleb pointed me to a pretty slick defragmentor called Defraggler. He claims that it's superior to Windows defrag because it wants to do work after you've run Windows defrag to the point that it has nothing left to do. In my slightly less than empirical study, I'd note that even Defraggler says that MSDefrag eliminated virtually all of the fragmentation, but spent a good while moving things around anyhow. (0% fragmented, though a few files 38mb worth still had some fragments). I'd suggest that it's more likely that Defraggler and MSDefrag employ different defragmentation strategies and that they just disagree a bit on how things should be arranged. On the upside, Defraggler has some basic scheduling stuff built in and a pretty slick (retro DOS) moving picture to go along with our speediness.
Posted: 1 December 2009
History's Pwnz Shop
Ok, this is a blatant rant. Somehow, the History Channel (which I generally like a lot) believes that Pawn Stars (a crappy "reality TV documentary" about some guys who own a pawn shop) is worthy of a 8 hour marathon this evening. Meanwhile, Discovery Channel is "discovering" Planet Earth again, for what seems like the hundredth time this month. At least Planet Earth is cool, if a bit tired a few years later. END RANT.
I also picked up a cookie cutter today so Molly can give her friends Christmas cookies. I've found a few dog treat recipes online, I'll post again when we get a few picked out.
Beyond that, not a whole lot exciting. Did a bit more Christmas shopping after work, though I did more shopping than I did buying... It's so annoying when you can't find what you're looking for.
Posted: 30 November 2009
Streamlining
Becky and I were discussing today what our goals for 2010 were. I expect that we'll see an expansion of the less pre-packaged foods thing, though not so much restriction as rethinking; We're going to try to take a more active role in what we cook and what we eat. What form that takes will remain to be seen, though I'm looking forward to learning more about baking; We made bread from scratch today to take to Thanksgiving (our first time) and it was really a good time. Turned out great, too. Becky also wants to learn about making cheese and yogurt.
For my part, I'm going to work on streamlining and simplifying our life. Not so much through elimination (We like our electric lights and satellite TV) but through planning and automation. Not like crazy Home Automation stuff, but just the right touches were it counts. Just making things work that make sense, making them easy to maintain, etc.
Anyhow, everything on both fronts will be documented here as we go. Enjoy the rest of 2009 and beyond.
Posted: 27 November 2009
Urban Disapointment
Tonight, I headed over to my cousin's place to try and help out with what I thought was a wireless encryption issue (dlink WPA vs Netgear WPA), but it turned out to be a signal strength issue. We tried swapping access points, NICs and about everything else, until we determined that it was the location of the AP that was the issue; After unsuccessfully trying to configure the spare access point as a wireless->wireless repeater, we determined that moving the access point and cable modem was the easiest solution, if easy is the right word. There's two cable jacks in the entire house, neither of which are near the any of the equipment in question OR the wireless "sweet spot"... So we're going to be running some cable in the future.
On the workout front, I tried to stop by Urban Active (also known as "the gym") on the way home, but I was told that they were closing at 9pm, instead of their usual 11pm, presumably for "Thanksgiving Eve". I hadn't seen a sign earlier in the week, nor is there anything listed on their website. I will say that they've got a totally awesome setup in terms of equipment and facilities (except for the missing hot tub...) but their hours (only until 11 on weeknights, and early evening [6 or 7] on weekends) are really a drag.
Posted: 25 November 2009
Around the House
Well, I've let it go a week again without update... I really need to get better about it, but... I'm just not often inclined to update when there's not something "really special" to report, until I feel like I should update just because it's been so long.
Anyhow, as a partial result of Becky's Inconvenient Challenge, I've necessarily started thinking about cooking and baking things to replace the convenient foods that are now banned (including granola bars, pre-packaged breakfast items and... Hot Pockets!!!). One of the ideas we'd come up with was using hard boiled eggs for breakfast (for me). We boiled up a half-dozen Saturday and I'd microwaved them for breakfast (sans shell, of course). This went great on Sunday, but... When I bit into the yolk this morning, I ended up with a face full of superheated steam and a kitchen full of egg bits. Not pleasant on either count. Note to self, split the egg before microwaving. I also have banana bread to fall back on, but it won't last the entire 30 days (except in case of miracles). I located this recipe for Maple Oat Muffins that I'd really like to try.
One thing I've discovered in all of this is that I really prefer baking to cooking, as it's all the work up front, then you toss it in the oven and it bakes. There's no "maintenance" aspect to it, and it's generally more exciting to me as a result.
On the trip front, I'm almost done uploading the 7,000 photos we took in 18 days of vacation. My cable connection seems to be pegged at 1Mbps up, and I'm sure they love me right about now, as it's been basically solid for 8 hours a day (off and on) since we got back. I expect that by tomorrow night, all will be uploaded for your perusal; Following that, work will start on the narrative and select photo page.
Even with all the other stuff going on, I've still managed to find some time to work in the garage. I did some major "pre-snow cleaning" (which had a side-helping of bench-top-finding) trying to get things whipped into shape for winter. There's still quite a bit more organizing to do, but there always is.
Last night, I ended up distracted by working on the burner assembly a bit. I think the fuel feed is going to be more tricky than I'd though, as I'm having trouble getting nice atomization; The guys on the Internet would have you believe you just drip fuel into the airstream and get fire... Not exactly the case, in my experience.
Posted: 16 November 2009
Back, From Outer Space
Ok, maybe not "Outer Space", but Egypt anyhow. Becky and I got back this week from our 18ish day, 2009 vacation with destinations including Athens, Cairo and Istanbul. Photos are being uploaded slowly (around 7000 total) and a full writeup will be done sometime, hopefully before Christmas.
I've got to admit, I've not been really motivated since getting home. I'll chalk it up to "relaxing" :) Upcoming projects are: Fibonacci Sequence Day, Major Junk Cleaning, First Aid Kit Updates, Trip Recap/Documentation and probably a ton of other things I haven't thought of yet :)
Posted: 09 November 2009
Oh, it Glows
So I did the actual glowplug harness replacement on Saturday night. It really wouldn't have been bad at all, had I known up front that I had one bad plug remaining. Unfortunately, the only local place with said plug was half way across town. Thankfully, John bailed me out, hauling me down there to get one.
Posted: 12 October 2009
Preparing for Winter
So it's been a few days again since the last post, and I've been spending a lot of time doing crap around the house, getting ready for the 4th (or is it 5th) annual pumpkin carving party. I've also been generally picking up, cleaning up, etc. It seems like we've done a lot of acquisition of stuff recently and that the "stuff" is getting out of control. For example, I put out a [admittedly ugly] candle in the bathroom and Becky ask why. I told her I'd found it in the bathroom cupboard and figured we should use it or something. She was in favor of getting rid of it, instead. That candle has been in the cupboard for over 3 years.
With winter coming, I finally ordered my new glow-plug harness (which I think arrived today)... I've been starting on 3 plugs for months now. While this isn't an issue in the summer, it could easily lead to some very hard starts during the winter.
On a related note, I've been working on our "car kits" (more on those later), refreshing perishables and just generally making improvements, especially in the first aid areas. In this pursuit, I've been doing a lot of reading online for ideas and whatnot. Specifically, the forums over at ZombieHunters has been really useful. Their stuff leans more towards survival in a post-apocalyptic world, which only somewhat applies to my situation.
One thing I've come to realize is that, in a real post apocalyptic world (PAW), we'll be (basically) reverted to medieval technology levels on relatively short order, as there's only so much of anything that you can stockpile. I'm not talking about fuels and foods either, but even durable goods. Eventually your solar panels will wear out, your rechargeable batteries will fail, light bulbs (even LEDs) will burn out... It may take a really long time, in terms of years, but I'd wager that many things would wear out long before society was ready to start making them again.
What this all means to me is that you have to determine what situations you're trying to prepare against, understand that you can't prepare for everything, and do your best to align your preparations with the situations you're likely to face.
Posted: 08 October 2009
Super Sunday Stuff
Today was anything but a lazy Sunday. We were up at the crack of dawn to get downtown for Becky to do the Kommen Run. It's amazing how long it takes to run a 35 minute 5k (in terms of administrative overhead)... On the way down, (around 7am) I saw a temperature sigh that said 32F... Following that, we went to Blue Planet for breakfast and then home for a nap, before Becky headed to work. I ran down to Harbor Freight for their parking lot sale, and bought nothing. When I got home, I did some chores, finished repairing the dishwasher and did some tinkering in the garage, including painting a cabinet and messing with some batteries. Some SLA batteries seem to be beyond desulfation and I'd read that it might be caused by low electrolyte levels in one or more cells. The S in SLA is supposed to stand for "Sealed", but that's easily remedied... I don't really have an appropriate tool to refill them, and the eyedropper I was using is entirely too much work... What I really need is some syringes (for a variety of things, not including shooting drugs), but convincing the supply companies that I'm not shooting drugs with them is the tricky part... Jeez... What is the world coming to?
On Saturday, I headed over to Jason's place to help him with some data cabling he was doing. We'd not so much as run a single cable when we broke a basement window attempting to open it (to facilitate communication). The rest of the afternoon was spent replacing the window (mostly removing the old, stuck, rusted out frame from the foundation...). Perhaps on my next cabling job, I'll take my plumbing tools, for when we replace the sink after it fails while washing hands... heh. Maybe Jason will send me a photo of said window...
Shop Projects Alternative Energy Becky
Posted: 04 October 2009
The Discontinued Duracell Debacle
I've been absolutely terrible lately about updating, mostly because I've not really done anything worth updating about. I've been pretty busy with work and just stuff around the house. I've also done a fair deal of gaming and sitting on my butt, doing nothing.
Aaanyhow, I went out last night looking for a second set of batteries for my digital camera and almost came up empty. See, a few years ago, before we went to Europe, I'd bought a set of these Duracell NiMH AAs
In other events, Fall has arrived. It's been in the 50s at night, and that's just fine with me. You can always put more clothes on if you're cold, but there are practical, legal and physical limits to how many clothes one can remove if they're overheated. The Colony wraps up tonight, and Big Bang Theory started last night. Both excellent shows.
Posted: 22 September 2009
Building and Buying
Its been a pretty crazy week or so, with work and the long weekend. Somehow, a long weekend doing "nothing" sure can seem full. Our 32" LCD TV "died", and was promptly replaced with a new LG 47"
And yes, Dave, I know the RSS feed still isn't passing post bodies. There's some complexity in accessing other pages' text (changed since I went to this new format for posts), and I just haven't had a taste for that project yet.
Posted: 9 September 2009
Older postings, no longer included in the RSS Feed.
