Kitchen Hooks

Cleaned up the kitchen today and decided to put up a bunch of 3M hooks we had laying around in a drawer. It's amazing how a handful of hooks can make the kitchen look so much more organized.

I also took down and put away all the Christmas decorations. Well, all except for the lights on the outside of the house because it was raining all day. I'll do that when the weather is better.

Christmas Vacation

We ended up visiting my aunt & uncle and my grandparents for Christmas, which was enjoyable. We intended to head down there Friday night, but didn't end up leaving until Saturday morning. We spent Christmas day at my aunt & uncle's house, and the next day we spend over at my grandparent's house. Today we headed home, but stopped in Sacramento to visit my wife's mom and ended up going out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant called On The Border. After that and a trip to WalMart, we resumed our journey home.

Early Christmas!

We opened our Christmas presents this morning. I got my wife a Ginsu knife set, a Ben 10 Wrath action figure, the book The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, and the book Dexter by Design (which I gave her earlier).

I also got a nice framed poster that says "PROCRASTINATION. Hard Work Often Pays Off After Time, but Laziness Always Pays Off Now". We are both procrastinators, and when I saw it, I not only thought it was funny but also put a positive spin on procrastination, so I though she would really love it, but turns out no, not so much. So that was kind of disappointing. But at least she loved all my other gifts.

New Remote Wall Switch for Ceiling Fan

Picked up a remote wall switch at Home Depot for our bedroom's Hampton Bay ceiling fan. I got tired of having a remote loosely attached to the wall where you had to support it with your fingers to press the button less it pop out of its cradle, so I wanted one that was installed in the wall like a regular switch. Installing it wasn't too much trouble.

No Soliciting Sign - Try 2

I discovered that plastic cover on my No Soliciting sign had developed condensation underneath it, which totally ruined the cutout paper sign beneath it. So this time, I printed out the sign on something thicker than paper, an old inverted USPS priority mail envelope, and after cutting it out I put clear mailing tape over it as sort of a poor-mans lamination and ditched the plastic covering. I think it actually looks better than the previous version, so hopefully it will work better as well.

No Soliciting Sign

Today I made a No Soliciting sign. I found a rectangular piece of wood that was about 5" by 6", then printed out a No Soliciting sign I found online and attached it to the piece of wood. Then I put a piece of hard plastic over the wood and screwed it down.

Moving Day, and Dinner with Friends

This morning I helped my wife's friend Becca unload a storage locker to a U-Haul truck so she could take it to her mom's or grandmom's or something like that.

Later on in the evening we went over to our friend's Ray & Dawn for a lovely dinner. Ray cooks the most delicious meals! While there we watched Despicable Me, which turned out to be quite funny. From the previews I wasn't so sure, but I enjoyed it.

Tron: Legacy 3D

Last night my wife and I headed off to the midnight showing of Tron in 3D to meet up with one of her friends. While they talked, I played some game on my DS. Once the previews started, my wife asked if I would go get a pair of glasses for her friend, so of course I did. Another guy left the theater right in front of me, so I was thinking he forgot glasses too, but turns out he was just telling them that the 3D was totally messed up. And man was he right. Once I got back and put on my glasses, it was like one lens of the glasses would be black and the other would be normal, then they would switch constantly and quickly. I'm surprised nobody had a seizure. It took them several previews before they finally got it working.

We both enjoyed the movie, and were quite hungry when we got home, to the point of our stomachs audibly voicing their complaints, so we had a snack before bed. It must have been well after 4 before we finally embraced unconsciousness. And when I woke up this morning, she was still here. Which makes me happy that she didn't try to go to work being so tired.

Around 2pm the guy from Redding Comfort Heating & Air Conditioning came by. He inspected our heater and found that contrary to what the Gallagher's guy said, there was nothing wrong with our heater other than it's not meant to heat a house this big. And unlike the Gallagher guy, he actually went around to various vents to measure the temperature. So that's good news, and I'll definitely be attempting to get our money back.

My wife's friend Becca dropped by today, arriving here at almost the same time my wife got home. They then went out to eat at Lai Lai's so I took the opportunity to play more of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Heater Dispair

Today we had a guy from Gallagher's Heating come out to give our heater a look-over and tuneup. We had gotten a flier in the mail which said their tuneup would save $79 in heating bills over the winter, and that if it didn't or if we were unsatisfied for any reason, or no reason, then they would refund the entire amount, so I figured it was worth a try.

After he finished up, he gave my wife and I his report on our heater which made our heads spin. He said it was in terrible condition with a long list of problems, and that we would definitely need to be getting a new one. And so after he left, we set up an appoint with Redding Comfort Heating & Air Conditioning for the following day to come out and give their opinion.

New TiVo Hard Drive!

The new 1.5TB hard drive I ordered for our TiVo arrived today. I was able to get that installed without too much hassle, so now we've gone from 160GB of space to 1.23TB... I don't think we'll need to worry about making room for our programs anymore.

I did a deep cleaning of the kitchen to try to get rid of that fish smell that continues to persist. Oh, I also figured out how to remove the armrests in the Highlander so I could get the seat covers to fit better. I thought I was going to have to cut a hole in the seat covers in order to put the arm rests back on, but turns out I could just put them right back on over the seat cover.

Tangled

We went to see Tangled in 3D today. It was enjoyable enough. Afterward, we went over to my wife's friend's place for lunch/dinner, and also so I could set up her mom's new laptop. It was a good day.

Power outage

The power went out at around 2:20am last night (or this morning, depending on how you look at it). Since there's nothing you can really do at 2:20 at night without power, I just went to bed.

Something fishy is going on....

I awoke to a very strong smell of fish, which I assumed meant my wife had made fish for breakfast, but when she got home from work and also noticed the smell, I found out that not only did she not make fish, but that the smell did not exist when she left for work. So sometime between her leaving and me waking up, something that is not fish caused a strong fish smell to appear. And emptying all the trashes didn't help a bit.

Dell Inspiron 700m Repair

Today I installed a new LCD screen in my mom's old laptop, and while I was in there I also fixed the speaker wires which had been split, which is apparently a common issue with the Dell Inspiron 700m. It was actually more difficult to do that than to replace the screen. I had to clip out and use a section of old headphone wires in order to bridge the gap, but I eventually got it all working.

New external hard drive

The external hard drive arrived today (along with the 3M Shower Caddy), but when I plugged it into the USB hub the computer recognized it as an "Initio Default Controller". This was a bit confusing, but it was easily fixed by unplugging it, removing that driver, then plugging it in directly to the computer. Once it was recognized properly, I was then able to plug it into the hub with no problems.

My wife took a little break from work this afternoon so we could go over to a guy's house who was selling used Lego kits on Craigslist. All of the big sets that she wanted were gone, but she still walked away with about five medium-sized kits.

Sold the Exercise Bike!

We finally sold our recumbent exercise bike! I've listed that thing on Craigslist off and on for years, so I'm happy someone finally snagged it. The bedroom looks like it has so much more space with it gone.

Movie Costume Exhibit at Turtle Bay

Today we all went to see the movie costume exhibit at Turtle Bay. It was pretty cool to not only see the costumes worn by the characters I grew up with, but to also read about what went into making them. I was surprised by how small most of them were. It didn't look like I would have been able to fit into any of them, not even Schwarzenegger's leather jacket from Terminator 2.

I also had to mail back an external hard drive that I had just bought because the connections on the back didn't align with the holes in the case making it impossible to plug in either of the wires. Because it was defective, I didn't have to pay return shipping, and as luck would have it the price had dropped so instead of doing an exchange I just did a return and re-ordered it at the lower price. I know Amazon has some kind of price guarantee where you can get the lower price if it's within 30 days or something, but my way was just easier than having to deal with that. Plus, it allowed me to order a 3M Shower Caddy along with it and not have to pay shipping charges.

No More Spare Tire

My grandparents left for home before I even woke up, and my parents came by as they're going to be staying for a few days. It was a relaxing day talking, watching TV, fiddling on the computer and whatnot.

Oh, and I sold my old never-used spare tire that we got for my 2000 Toyota Corolla this morning, so I'm glad to finally have that thing out of the garage.

Thanksgiving!

My parents and grandparents arrived in town yesterday and came by to hang out. This morning we were going to head over to their hotel room before everyone came here, but I stayed at the house while my wife went over because we had the turkey in the oven and didn't really want to leave that going without someone here.

Dinner went well. We ate and talked and put on movies. It was a good time.

Dexter By Design

My wife seemed a little down this evening, so I gave her one of her Christmas presents early in order to cheer her up. The one I choose was the book Dexter By Design, and it worked. It put a big smile on her face.

Couch Relocation

Cleaned up the house a bit since we'll be hosting Thanksgiving this year. Got rid of a whole bunch of boxes I had been keeping to ship stuff in that I sell on Amazon. We also moved the second couch with reclining seats from the living room into the family room. I think it looks fine there and also is more comfortable than the chair I usually use.

Our last 301 Disc DVD Player has left the building.

I sold our second Pioneer 301 Disc DVD player today. The first one I sold a while back and was actually able to hand-deliver it since it was purchased by someone who lived not 30 minutes away from my parents. That was cool because not only did I not have to find a box big enough to pack it up and worry about it getting damaged in shipment, but also because it gave me a good excuse to go visit my parents. This time, however, I had no choice but to ship it, and it was quite a challenge finding a box the right size. But I did, and I had kept packing peanut around from previous orders I've made, so I was able to pack it up nice and secure.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I started playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed today, which is one of the two games my wife got me for our anniversary. The other was Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which we've been playing. So far, I'm really liking the game.

Home Made Pizza Sauce

My wife's friend, Lisa, visited today so I got to play a lot of Half-Life while they chatted. I took a break for lunch as my wife made some of her delicious hot and sour soup, but after I went back to gaming.

Later in the evening I went to make a tortilla pizza, but found that the pizza sauce had gone bad. All I could find in the pantry was a can of tomato paste, so with a little help from the internet and some seasoning we had in the cupboard I was able to turn that into a rather tasty pizza sauce substitute.

Return of the Microwave & Viewing Skyline

Our broken microwave was mysteriously returned sometime during the night, as this morning I awoke to find it had been dumped on our front lawn. I had put it out on the curb, so I can understand somebody taking it even though I didn't put any sign on it that said "free", but dumping it back on our lawn? What a jerk move.

We went to see Skyline this afternoon. I'm glad we did because I love going to the movies with my wife, especially to see sci-fi ones. I just wish it hadn't sucked so bad. I truly don't understand how that script made it into production. Most of those stupid low budget poorly-acted original movies made for the SyFy channel have better stories.

Skyline is about an alien invasion, but the first 15 minutes is all about friends hanging out at a party doing nothing. That part kinda reminded me of Cloverfield. Let's get on with it already! Then most of the rest of the film takes place inside an apartment. There is a short little action scene where they decided to try to leave the apartment building, but that doesn't work so well, so they continue to stay inside the apartment. We see the alien invasion only from the perspective of this one little group of people who have nothing to do with affecting it's outcome. Independence Day wasn't the greatest flick in the world, but at least in that we got to see the invasion from various perspectives by people who actually made some kind of difference.

Who wants a broken microwave?

Contacted Gone For Free E-Recycling in order to get rid of our broken microwave. They said they could come by this afternoon so I left the microwave out on the curb for them, but by the time they arrived somebody had already swiped it up for themselves. All I could do was apologize for having them come out to our house for nothing.

Blood Drain

I Donated blood today. This was the first time I actually went into the Blood Center to do it. Usually I just stop by the Blood Bus when it's parked in the movie theater lot because they give out free movie tickets, but now they have this new point system for donating where you can trade in the points for movie tickets or other stuff online. I received 800 points, which was enough for two movie tickets valued up to $12 each. We'll probably use them to see the 3D showing of Tron Legacy when it gets released.

Goodbye Malware

We went over to a friend's house this evening so I could help fix some problems they've been having with their computer. Last Friday I had run a bunch of malware and virus scans, and did a bunch of cleanup, and it seemed to have worked, but after only a day the problems were back. Random popups and webpage link redirects and blocked sites. So it seemed the only way to fix it for good was to reinstall the operating system. So first, all their data had to be backed up, but their computer had only a single hard drive and they had no external backup solutions. Luckily, they had an old computer they were no longer using, so I was able to pull the hard drive out and use that. It was like 5 in the morning before it was finally ready to be used. Thankfully, they were both night owls like myself.

Anniversary Games & Megamind

I found two new videogames resting in my chair this morning (after walking right by them a couple times). They were Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and they were my wife's anniversary gift to me. I had previously gotten her a hardcover copy of The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer.

We went to see Megamind in 3D, and we both really enjoyed it.

New Microwave, Cleaner Fridge.

Got a replacement countertop microwave today from someone who didn't need theirs anymore. It's much smaller than our previous one, but it should do the job.

Cleaned the condenser coils on our fridge for the first time since forever! At least, I don't remember ever cleaning them before, and we bought the fridge like 10 years ago. I didn't even know that was something that needed to be done! I only found out when I did a websearch for fridge maintenance, because I had been noticing that the fridge has been kinda loud and vibrating for some reason. Now that the condenser coils are nice and dust free, the vibration seems to have been reduced, though it's not gone completely.

I guess next I should probably clean out the inside of the fridge... but what a pain that is!

Leafblower Repair

Finished cutting up the rest of the tree branches I had cut down a few weeks ago, so glad to be done with that. I used the leafblower to clean up all the leftovers that had settled on the rocks, but in the middle of doing that I heard a piece came loose inside it, so had to shut if off and take it apart. I got the piece reattached, but when I put it back together I didn't quite get the fan motor locked in place so when I started it up, the fan scraped against the outer plastic. Thus, once again I shut if off and take it apart. This time I put it back together correctly, and was able to finish cleaning up.

Sorry, Another Lineup Change Was Detected

TiVo detected a lineup change today, which is nothing out of the ordinary, except that this time it detected a change when no change took place, just like back in early September. It moved several station from the 800-block into the 700s, even though they still come through on the original channel numbers and not the new ones. Last time I just filed a report and it was changed in about 5 days, so this time I tried to do an online chat with TiVo support. The end result was the same, however, as at the end the TiVo support person wound up just submitting a report for fixing the channels. Sure hope this doesn't happen again in another two months.

My wife and I caught the premier episode of The Walking Dead on AMC last night, and we were both thoroughly impressed. It had a great atmosphere, and didn't shy away from gore, creepiness, or the killing of kids and animals. After only one episode it has already become one of my favorite series. I hope they can keep it up!

I forgot to mention yesterday that our countertop microwave went kaput. I started it up like normal but this time an awful sound emanated from its belly almost immediately, and a bit of foul-smelling smoke exhaled from the rear.

Halloween, 2010

Halloween went well. I dressed up as Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and my wife dressed up as a gothic schoolgirl. We got a fair amount of trick-or-treaters, not enough to make it though the whole bowl of candy, which consisted of two variety packs, one chocolate-based and the other void of chocolate. It's hard to get a huge variety of costumes when there weren't a whole lot of kids, but there were some really cool costumes, some extremely adorable ones, and as always a few who didn't even try.

Yesterday we went to see RED, which we both liked. Nice mix of comedy and action. I enjoyed it a lot more than Scott Pilgram Vs. The World, which we saw later that evening.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

My wife and I played Marvel: Ultimate Alliancefor the Xbox 360 tonight. The last time we had played it was November of 2009! We definitely need to find some more fun 2-player co-op games.

Sprinkler Fix, Redo

I awoke to an email from my wife saying that some very forceful water in the face woke her up this morning, and that I needed to check the sprinkler. Upon inspection, I found that the groves in the base of the sprinkler which hold it in place as it rotates were worn down near the top. So I had no choice but to find someway to unscrew the old sprinkler base and put in the new one. A tip for anyone else out there facing the same problem: use two wrenches to grip the top of sprinkler on opposite sides, crisscrossing in the middle, then twist.

Also found that the irrigation line was seriously leaking in one spot as I could see pools forming in a section of river rock, so I raked out all the rock onto the patio, peeled back the plastic, and pulled up the line. There was about a foot and a half section that was brittle and cracked with holes in several spots. A quick trip to Lowe's and I was able to patch it right up with no problem.

Tree Trimming

Did some tree trimming today, the kind that involves standing on the roof and wielding a chainsaw attached to the end of a long pole. It was exhausting!

Sprinkler Fix

A couple weeks ago I noticed that one of the sprinklers in the backyard would stay up after the cycle was over instead of going back into the ground. Then a few days ago I noticed that it had actually come completely out of it's housing. So I dug around it all the way down to where it screws in so that I could remove it and put in a new one, but I was unable to unscrew it. I figured my hands were probably too tired from all the digging, and I could probably get it the next day. But when the next day came, I was still unable to remove it, and I didn't have a wrench big enough to fit around the two inch diameter.

So today I went to Harbor Freight to pick up a wrench. I saw this weird looking rubber strap wrench set, so thought I'd give that a try, but once back at home I quickly found that it wasn't going to do the job. So I returned it and picked up a 12" Professional Groove Joint Pliers. And both trips I took coupons with me which snagged me free flashlights, free scissors, and 20% off of my purchase. Anyway, these pliers enabled me to get the top screw-on cap removed, but I still couldn't get the base loose.

Not knowing what else to do, I took the internal components of the sprinkler to Lowe's and found a replacement sprinkler that would fit them, because if the old components fit in this new sprinkler then the components of the new sprinkler should fit in the housing of the old sprinkler. And thankfully, it worked. I got home and slid the new sprinkler components in with no problem.

New Mask, New Hoodie, Halloween Decorating, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!

Picked up a cool-looking silver skull Halloween mask from Grocery Outlet yesterday. I also got a new navy blue zip-up hoodie, because I lost mine somewhere. Usually when I lose it, I actually just end up leaving it in my wife's car, but this time we actually cleaned out her car, and after looking in my car and everywhere else in the house I just couldn't locate the thing. But it's okay, because the great thing about Grocery Outlet is their amazingly cheap prices, and plus I like the way this new one feels.

Today we put up our Halloween decorations. Some cheesy flat plastic skeletons, and light-up bat outline in the window, a little light-up plastic spider web in another windo, a bunch of skulls and rats and spiders scattered around front, and a couple other things. I think this is probably the most we've decorated for Halloween since we moved here.

And today is my sister's birthday, so Happy Birthday!

A Stitch In My Pocket

A little while back my wife and I went shopping for some new jeans and shorts for me. A couple days ago, I wore a pair of the black jean shorts for the first time, and discovered that the inside of the right-hand pocket was accidentally stitched folded over, preventing much of anything from fitting inside. So today I carefully cut the stitches out so it could be unfolded. I don't think I could have done it without the seam ripper I just happened to have, as scissors definitely weren't working. I've had that thing for years, and it was even still unopened in its package.

The Shakespeare Festival

Had a little adventure this past weekend. My parents came up Friday afternoon, then on Saturday we drove up to Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare Festival. The play we saw on Saturday night was Henry IV, and man was that thing long. Like three hours, they even had an intermission. We all had a hard time hearing and understanding most of the performers, only the guys who played Prince Henry and Sir John Falstaff were easy to follow. I really liked their scenes together.

On Sunday we went to see Throne of Blood, which I think we all agreed was also pretty dull. It's not that it was bad or anything, just not a whole lot happening on stage to keep me engaged. A little action, very little humor, and the rest was just talking, or even not talking, where absolutely nothing was happening.

Still, I haven't given up on plays yet. I think a comedy one would be fun, or something with a lot of action.

Goodbye Queen Mattress, Hello Headphones

Today I gave away the queen mattress that we had leaning up against the piano. Feels good to have that gone. Also, the headphones that I recently ordered for my wife arrived today. She tried them out and she loves them, so hopefully these will be the ones to stick with!

New Cell

My wife went out with her friend after work and got one of them fancy touchscreen phones with the slideout keyboard. And apparently it was super cheap after all the discounts and rebates. In the little time that she had it, it already seems to receive text messages better than her Tracfone.

Goodbye New Headphones, Time for Newer Headphones

It seems the Rocketfish RF-WHP01 Wireless headphones that I got for my wife also had some static, so I went back on Amazon and picked out another pair to get her. This time, I chose the Sennheiser HD 202 Intense Stereo Headphones. They're not wireless, but the Amazon customer reviews made it sound like it had everything she was looking for, great sound, great outside noise suppression, and comfort. So I guess we'll see.

Almost Sold My Pioneer DV-F727 301 Disc DVD

I almost sold my Pioneer DV-F727 301 Disc DVD today. A guy came over to look at it and was ready to buy, but when he tried to pay $25 for it I realized the zero had been cut off in my posting, because it was supposed to be $250.

Kaboom Scrub Free Auto Toilet Cleaning System

The Kaboom Scrub Free auto toilet cleaning system arrived today, so I cleaned out the toilet tank and installed it. Didn't run into any problems putting it in, so now just have to wait and see how well it works.

Another BBQ!

We did another BBQ today! Yep, we're on a BBQ kick right now. We invited my wife's friend Lisa over and we all had BBQ polish sausages.

New Steering Wheel Cover

Picked up a new steering wheel cover for my car. My previous one broke a couple days ago when I tried to take it off, and I was actually glad because it never did fit right since I switched it from my old car to my current car. I looked at lots of different designs, but had to go to several places before I found one that I really liked. The winning store was AutoZone, which happens to be the same place I bought my previous one.

While my wife and I were out, we also picked up a couple cheap Halloween masks. Later in the evening we got out the Halloween costume box and tried to put together some costumes for this year.

IR Transmitter Issues Solved! Also, BBQing with Friends.

Messed around with the RF receiver/IR transmitter for our MX-600 Universal Remote more today, trying to get it to work consistently. I eventually discovered that the problem was due to interference, as I noticed the red transmission indicator light would flicker on for no apparent reason, when no buttons on the remote were being pressed. So I removed the antenna from the receiver, and that definitely helped, but not enough. I then tried moving it various place in and around the stereo cabinet, and finally found a sweet spot about three feet from the stereo cabinet, away from all the electronics.

I was just finishing hooking everything back up when our friends Ray and Dawn came by for dinner. We had a nice BBQ meal out in the dark on the back patio. The only light came from the singular porch light and then some rope light that had been strung around the gazebo. We have four more lights in our gazebo, but they have blacklight bulbs, so those didn't help.

Moving the IR Transmitter

Moved our IR transmitter for our MX-600 RF Universal Remote from across the room pointing to the stereo cabinet to actually inside the stereo cabinet. I did this because it wasn't quite strong enough where it was to work everything. Tested it out and it worked fine, that is until later in the night when my wife went to bed and tried to use it. For some reason it just stopped working! I tried adjusting it but nothing seemed to work. Talk about frustrating!

Staining the Gazebo

Spent most of the day staining the gazebo. I know I just did this last fall, but it really faded and in some places was even non-existent. After examining the stain bucket closer, it seems the stuff was not really made for outdoors. But that's the stuff they gave me at Lowe's when I explained what I needed! Next time I'll do a better job at being more perceptive.

I also put the glass door back on the stereo cabinet today. We had it off for years, originally because the series two TiVo and/or the DirecTV box would get too hot and start messing up. But we don't have either of those anymore, and rarely use the DVD player, so don't have much need to actually get into the stereo cabinet now. The glass door is tinted, and the cabinet looks much nicer when the door is on.

Oil Change & New Air Filters

Took my car in for an oil change, and got a new engine and cab air filters put in. Then stopped by the recycling place and got about $10 for all our empty containers.

Ordered Wireless Headphones

Ordered my wife some Rocketfish RF-WHP01 wireless headphones, as her headphones broke. I'm going to try fixing them with some of my Sticky-ass Glue as the pads on my own headphones are falling apart, and that's not exactly something that can be fixed with glue. I ordered wireless headphones because she had a pair before and liked the freedom, just they had too much static so we got rid of them.

New Growth

Finally starting to see some new growth in that brown spot in our front lawn. We re-seeded and I've been watering everyday and it's paying off. The grass in the corner died after the corner sprinkler stopped working. I replaced it shortly after I noticed that something was wrong, but that was also during the time when we had consistent 106 degree weather every day, so there was little chance for the dying grass to survive.

The Results Are In

Had my followup doctor appointment today to learn the results of my tests, and... I'm very healthy! Woo-hoo! My wife came with me this time, and we went straight to the grocery store afterwards. After we got home, we barbecued up some pork, and it was delicious!

New Press Release Section

I used Wordpress to add a nice press release section to my website. I had a press release section before this, but I admit it wasn't a very good one. This new one should not only help me to add press release quicker and make them look nicer, but should also help me become more familiar with Wordpress.

BBQ Part 2: Beef & Chicken

We went out back and barbecued our dinner again this evening, though now it was time to try beef and chicken. Again they turned out well, though the beef definitely had more flavor than the chicken. Didn't even need any BBQ sauce for the beef!

Our First BBQ!

We finally barbecued! We've been to barbecues, but never ourselves barbecued, so I'd call it a momentous occasion. At first we were going to use the small tabletop one I got from my dad, but then we decided to use the full-sized one we got free off of CraigsList awhile back. Both are the charcoal kind. At first we used too few charcoals and it just didn't get hot enough to do anything, but once we added more things got cooking. We cooked up two burgers and three hot dogs, and they were all delicious!

Trimmed Tree & New Video Card

I trimmed the tree in the front yard today, and afterwards put a RADEON X600 video card in my computer so programs that were trying to use some aspects of OpenGL would stop crashing. And it worked!

Lots of Hot & Sour Soup

My wife made two huge batches of her hot & sour soup to bring to work tomorrow. She was nice enough to put some aside for me. She loves me so much!

A Cool Day

Today was the first cool day we've had in a long time. I awoke to discover it had actually rained. Yea! Spring is here! We'd better enjoy it because in a few of weeks winter will be upon us.

Another Internet Outage

Our internet went down again at about 11:30pm, and was out for about an hour. When you don't have it is when you think of all the stuff you really need it for....

Visiting Lita

We went over to visit Lita, a friend of my wife. I installed some stuff on her computer and tried to get some pictures off an old computer to put them on the new one, but no matter what I tried it just wasn't happening. It was too old of hard drive with the wrong type of connections to just put in the new computer, and the device I have that is supposed to bridge that gap allowed the computer to recognize the drive but kept saying it needed to be formatted, which was out of the question. The computer that the drive was originally in wouldn't boot at all, just kept beeping with no video output. And moving it to another computer she had didn't work as it would constantly reset half way through booting Windows. So I had to bring the old hard drive back to the house and put it in one of my computers as a secondary drive, and that let me get everything off it that she wanted.

I beat Half Life 2: Episode 1 this evening.

Fixed TiVo Guide Data!

The TiVo guide data for several of our HD cable channels were fixed today. TiVo put the channels back where they were supposed to be so I no longer have to do any manual recordings.

We went to see Piranha 3D today, except it wasn't showing in 3D. It was an enjoyable flick, pretty much what I was expecting, though there were a lot of scenes that were specially made for 3D, so it was disappointing not to have the full effect. Afterwards we went out for a nice meal at Red Lobster... just something about all those carnivorous fish made us feel like going there.

A New Doctor

I had a general physical exam today with my new doctor. It had been years since I had a doctor I could call on, so last week I finally decided to do some research and pick one out. The two main factors for me were proximity to my house and reviews by patients, and after meeting the guy, I think I made a good choice. The exam went well, though I was unaware I needed to fast for some of the tests, so I have to do that tonight and go in for the lab stuff tomorrow morning.

I finished Half Life 2 tonight. Now time to start on Half Life 2: Episode 1.

Sorry, A Lineup Change Was Detected

Today we turned on the TV to find that TiVo detected a channel lineup change. Anyone with a TiVo knows this is nothing out of the ordinary. The message said that it had moved several of our HD channels that were in the 800 channel range were moved to new channels in the 700 range. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell that to Charter, because the channels that the stations got moved to are empty, whereas the original channels still come in fine. Problem is, TiVo does not have any guide data for the old channel numbers, and wants to record everything on the channels that don't work. I notified TiVo using their online form, but now I have to manually record each show by setting the time and channel until TiVo fixes the guide data.

Unveiled the new Absolute Anime redesign today. I hope people like it.

Scissors

Finished reading Dexter in the Dark a few days ago. Prior to Dexter, I read a book by my wife's friend, Ray Garton, called Shackled, so now, since we don't have the next Dexter book yet, I've decided to try another by Ray, this one called Scissors.

No Unseasoned Meat Tenderizer

Once again FoodMaxx didn't have the unseasoned meat tenderizer that my wife likes to use. I think they might have stopped carrying it, because there wasn't even a spot on the shelf for it anymore.

Today I used a Ubuntu Linux CD to boot a friend's computer so I could reset the Windows XP password that she didn't know. I was trying to just use a simple little program that fits on a floppy, but couldn't find my external floppy disk drive (my PC doesn't have a floppy drive).

No Internet, No Phones

Our internet and phone services were down for most of the day. Thank you very much Charter! We eventually called Charter using my wife's cell, and learned there was a known outage, so at least that meant I could stop messing with our equipment. The guy on the phone said it would be back up in under two hours, but it actually came back more than seven hours later.

Real Dishes!

Our Corelle Livingware arrived today! Most of our supposedly microwavable and dishwasher-safe plastic plates were in pretty bad shape, so we decided to move on to some really dinnerware. The Corelle is nice because it's thin, stackable, and lightweight. Definitely WAY better than plastic.

Home Alone

My wife went to visit her mom today, so I had the house to myself. But instead of throwing a wild bash, I just spent the time working on the Absolute Anime redesign, among other things.

Thanksgiving in August

Hung out at my wife's friend's place today, and had a nice Thanksgiving dinner, minus the actual holiday. My wife even baked a gooey butter cake that we brought over for dessert. And while we were over there, I helped to remove a pen cap that was stuck deep insider their printer.

Round Table Pizza & Salad

I had no idea Round Table Pizza had a salad bar! That's not really the kind of thing you can notice when getting delivery. And it was a delicious salad, too, went well with the pepperoni pizza.

The Lake... Again

My wife and I went to the lake with her friend again. This time I ended up getting a little sunburned.

Recycling!

Took in our recycling today, getting about $10 and change for it. Also went to take my wife's car in for a tire rotation because the reminder e-mail said it was time, but there wasn't enough miles on it or enough wear on the tires to necessitate a tire rotation, so instead I got one of those little static stickers to put on the windshield reminding me to bring it in at the specified mileage.

Empty Fridge

I had half a quesadilla, the last egg, and the last hot dog for breakfast this morning, because we have no milk for cereal and no bread for a sandwich. We really need to go shopping....

XP Styling & PandoraBrowse

For the past couple days I was experimenting with utilities to make XP look more like Windows 7, but today I uninstalled them all and went back to the classic XP look (though with the silver color scheme, not the blue). I just couldn't tweak the Windows 7 styling to look like how I wanted.

Donated a buck to PandoraBrowse, since not only is it a fine program that I've been enjoying for the past couple weeks, but also the author was kind enough to implement several of my suggestions for improvement.

Hacked Account

My grandpa had his email account broken into today. I believe what happened is he signed up at some websites, and one was probably a trap which took his email address and password and logged into his account (since most people use the same password for everything). So I wanted to remind everyone that if you ever register at websites, use a secondary password that's different from the password you use at sites that you know are legitimate, like Google and Yahoo.

Got My Car Back!

I got my car back today! We were letting a friend borrow it.

The Lake

My wife and I went to the lake with her friend, Misty. Also along for the fun were Misty's kids, her mom, and a couple of her friends. It was a good time at a nice little uncrowded (and shaded) spot.

Beat Portal!

I beat Portal today! Now I'm back to playing Half Life 2.

Twilight Saga: Eclipse

My wife went to see The Twilight Saga: Eclipse today after work with one of her friends, and she enjoyed it. I didn't care for either of the first two films in the saga, so I'm gonna wait for DVD.

Started Portal

Took a break from Half Life 2 to check out Portal, also from The Orange Box. It's a unique and clever first-person puzzle game with great bits of dry humor sprinkled throughout.

Started Half Life 2

Started playing Half Life 2 today, from The Orange Box... and I like it! Feels very similar to Dead Space.

Beat Dark Sector

I beat Dark Sector this evening! Still need to go back through and get more of the achievements, but that's going to have to wait until later, as next I want to start playing The Orange Box.

Goodbye Halloween Decorations

A little while back I cleaned out our bedroom closet and came across some cheap little unopened Halloween decorations that we've had ever since our wedding. So I posted them up on Craigslist and today somebody actually bought them!

The Book of Eli

My wife and I watched The Book of Eli this evening. It started out fairly slow, but got better as it went on.

New Gig

Called the electrician who did some work for my parents a little while back, as he had apparently been wanting to get a website setup for his business. So now that's another project to work on.

Dentist & Misty's Place

Had a dental cleaning this morning... big fun.

After my wife got home from work, we went over to her friend Misty's house. That was a nice little change of pace. Oh, and again I didn't work on their computer! I did try some homemade Jalapeno jelly... and it was better than I was expecting, but still not really sure what I'd use it for. I pretty much only use jelly on PB&J sandwhiches, and don't really have a hankering for a Jalapeno-flavored sandwich.

The Last Airbender

We went to see The Last Airbender in 3D at Movies 10. I went in with very low expectations, so I wasn't quite as disappointed as my wife was. But I still feel ripped off having to pay for the 3D glasses, since there didn't seem to be ANY 3D effects in the movie AT ALL.

The Thin Man

This evening my wife and I watched The Thin Man We're usually not too interested in those old black & white movies, but it was one I got from my dad and the reviews on Amazon were all fantastic, so we decided to check it out. And I'm glad we did, as it was actually a pretty good movie. Makes me want to check out other old films I've heard so much about.

Happy Birthday Treese!

When my wife, Treese, got home from work we went out to eat at Logan's Roadhouse. She got a beautiful looking porterhouse steak and I got a BBQ Pepperjack Burger. And boy was it delicious! Their chips were WAY overcooked, however. I mean, they were almost uneatable. I asked the waitress about it, and apparently they do that ON PURPOSE! C'mon people, there's a different between kettle-cooked and burnt-to-hell.

After dinner we came home, dropped off the food, and headed off to Prime Cinemas where we saw Knight and Day. It was by no means a masterpiece of cinema, but it was fun and we enjoyed the experience.

Icky Salami

Late, late last night I returned the two moldy salami sticks that I bought the day before we left for Vallejo. I was going to just do a quick exchange, but when the FoodMax dude and I examined the other salami I picked out, we found that it also didn't look right, so he gave me a refund instead.

I called GardenWinds and bought a top cover for my parents' gazebo frame, which my mom had been meaning to get for quite a while.

Home Again!

We stopped off in Sacramento on our way home to visit my wife's mother, and picked up a couple smoothies from Jack in the Box while we were at it. After getting home and unpacking the car, we were both exhausted. I put on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, a DVD that we got from my dad... and although it had a ton of famous comedians in it, I really didn't find the movie all that funny. But boy was it long!

The Karate Kid

Went to see the Karate Kid with my wife, mom, and sister. We all thought it was pretty good. Afterward we went to Safeway and picked up supplies to make more of my wife's hot and sour soup.

Happy Early Birthday Grandpa!

Today was my grandpa's birthday party, which was held in the backyard of my aunt's house. We ate chicken and played some party games, like a few rounds of Bingo, guess the number of jelly beans in the jar, and remember as many of the items as you can on the tray that was brought over. Amazingly, my uncle Bill guess the EXACT number of jelly beans in the jar, 2780. Treese and I won the memory game, coming in first and second place. We both had the same items written down initially, but when I learned that there was no punishment for wrong answers, I just started writing down small objects that could have been on the tray, so I'm pretty sure that's what did it.

Later that night, my sister and I played another board game I brought with us called The A-maze-ing Labyrinth. We both liked it.

Weekend at Family's

My wife and I are spending this holiday weekend visiting my family in Vallejo! It was evening by the time we arrived, and we didn't eat before we left so we were pretty hungry. But, that's why we brought my wife's hot and sour soup, which was delicious. We also unwrapped a stick of salami that we brought, but it was all moldy... and I just bought it the day before!

That night we tried playing this new boardgame called Celtica that my mom got me for my birthday. It was pretty fun, though some of the finer rule points were a little unclear due to translation errors in the instructions. Later that night I looked up our questions about the rules online, and discovered we were playing it slightly wrong.

Wife's First Day Back, and Not My Rebate Check

Today was my wife's first day back to work since the whole almost-dying thing. She was exhausted by the time she got home, but still seems like she's making improvements every day.

I received a rebate check in the mail that had my address but someone else's name. So I called the 800 number and they were able to find the real address for that person, which was just down the block, so I walked it down and gave it to her. It wasn't a big check, but hey, money is money.

5-port HDMI switch is a bust

The new 5-port HDMI switch I ordered to replace my existing 3-port switch arrived today, and at first it seemed to work great. But later we discovered a problem... it would cause hiccups in the video and audio output by TiVo through the composite outputs, which is extremely weird. Why would an HDMI switch have any affect on the composite outputs? But it does, and the composite outputs are fed into the bedroom, so for our purposes that switch is not usable and I had to go back to the 3-port switch.

Fringe

We finished watching season 2 of Fringe this evening, and wow, that was just fantastic. Much more satisfying than the Lost series finale. We're both eager to see what's going to occur in season 3.

My wife's birthday present arrived today!

Grody Meat

We had bought a box of 6 individually shrink wrapped Stampede boneless beef ribeye steaks not too long ago from WalMart. I mention this because today we pulled out the last two from the freezer, and found that one was all dark green and otherwise discolored and just looking really nasty, so we didn't dare open it. How does a shrinkwrapped piece of meat that has been constantly frozen get to look like that? Anyway, we found something else to have for dinner.

A-Team

My wife and I went to see A-Team this morning, and we both really enjoyed it. Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous in parts, but there was tons of action and lots of comedic moments that worked. Definitely better than the TV series.

The Prince of Persia Movie

Went to see Prince of Persia this morning! I loved the games so was really looking forward to seeing what they did for the big screen. The special effects were cool, most of the action sequences weren't bad, and Jake Gyllenhaal looked great as the Prince, but I didn't feel much of a connection for either him or the female lead, and the story didn't feel very exciting or adventurous.

Taking it easy

For the first full day at home with my wife since she was discharged from the hospital, we basically just took it easy and watched TV and movies. I did run out for a couple errands, but otherwise it was a nice peaceful day at home hanging out with the love of my life.

Happy Discharge Day!

My wife was finally discharged from the hospital today! She was originally supposed to have been released yesterday, but the doc wanted her levels to be a bit higher so they kept her for one more. Wow, what a week. Hospitals are no fun, but I still enjoyed sitting next to my wife everyday, just talking and watching whatever stupid stuff happened to be on TV.

After we came home and she got cleaned up, we went out to pick up her new glasses, which not only help her see much better but also look fantastic. Then to celebrate we got some Chinese takeout... do we know how to party or what?!

Emergency Room Day

My wife finally agreed to go to the emergency room today, which was pretty scary since she doesn't go unless she feels she absolutely needs it. Once there we got right in, no waiting at all. They took an x-ray of her chest then took her off to get a CT scan, and soon discovered not one but two blood clots, one in each lung! She was admitted to the ICU that evening where they started her on Heparin. Doc said she wouldn't be going home for at least five days.

Frozen Computer & More Wrong Hooks

Woke up this morning to find my keyboard had no status lights active and my monitor was completely blank. Turned out that my computer had locked up somehow, and forcing a hard reset got everything working again. Glad it wasn't something serious!

Picked up a value pack of medium-sized 3M Command hooks, but discovered when I got home and tried to use them that this time they were the wrong shape! So now I'm going to have to return them and get the classic 3M Command medium-sized hooks, not the ones that widen out near the base.

Racing Pulse and Oversized Hooks

I woke up to find my wife had called in sick to work because her pulse was unusually high and wasn't settling down like it should. We took blood pressure measurements every half hour, and her blood pressure looked fine. Her pulse eventually decreased as she rested, but still never really got down to where it should have been. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

The large 3M hooks I ordered arrived today. I wanted to use them to hang up our kitchen pots, but unfortunately they are too big to fit the holes on the handles, except for one large pot and one large pan. So looks like I'll need to pick up some medium sized hooks

Hot Hot Hot!

Got up into the high 90s today, and got up to 83 in the house even with the A/C turned on... which we discovered because the A/C wasn't actually working. The air coming out of the vents wasn't cold at all, so I went out to check the A/C unit and found it wasn't even going! Then I touched one of the cords leading into it and the thing jumped to life, startling me in the process. I headed back inside and felt nice cool air flowing out of the vent. So the next time it's not too hot out I'm going to need to go check on that wire.

Recycling!

After a visit to the chirorpractor and a stop at the post office, we took a big plastic garbage bag full of our empty V8 Fusion bottles to the recycling place to see if the amount of money we would get for them would make it worth doing or if we should just keep throwing them in our curbside recycling. The final tally was $8.00, which won't buy us a flat panel LCD TV for the bedroom but will help offset the cost of movie tickets, so looks like we're going to be doing some of our own recycling from now on.

The NyQuil Haze

Today is kinda fuzzy. I wasn't feeling too great again this morning, throat still hurt and more congestion, so I took a NyQuil, since I was still groggy and couldn't find the DayQuil. So spent a lot of the day fighting to keep awake. I know I worked on the computer doing a few projects for people, and I probably messed with the new media player some more... then I know I ate dinner and watched some TV when my wife got home. At about 9:30PM I just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore so went to the bedroom and crashed.

Eye Exams, and Seeing the Advantages of the New Brite-View CinemaTube

Both my wife and I had our eye exams today. And now finally our insurance will let my wife get a new pair of glasses, which she desperately needed. Took a little while looking around and trying various ones on, but I think we finally found a pair that looks really good.

The new Brite-View CinemaTube arrived today, so I got that all set up and started testing it out. So far, I like it. Compared to our current networked media player, video and audio quality seems about the same, but the new player has advantages that I think outweigh the advantages of the previous player.

Advantages of the CinemaTube:

1. Sends the video signal to every output simultaneously, so no more switching back and forth.
2. There is an aspect ratio button for quickly switching ratios, so no more navigating through a bunch of menu options.
3. It boots up almost instantly, compared to the 60 second boot time of the EGreat.
4. Plays subtitles in MKV files
5. Played some DVD folders that the EGreat would crash on
6. Plays some FLV files
7. Better support and more frequent firmware updates

Disadvantages:

1. System folders, hidden folders, and empty folders are all displayed in the list
2. Page Down doesn't jump to the top of the list when on the last page, nor will Page Up jump to the bottom when on the first page
3. No way to create a shortcut to the video library folder, so have to navigate the network every time
4. Won't cause the HDMI switch to automatically switch when turned on or off
5. No 30 second skip (there is a GoTo feature, but nowhere near as convenient)
6. No Jukebox, so no poster art or movie description or genre filter

The main feature that got me to switch was the MKV subtitles, since I watch a lot of anime and want to convert my DVDs to MKVs so they don't take up as much space on the hard drive. That, plus the latest EGreat firmware, which was released in December, broke the machine's ability to play DVD folders, yet the firmware was left up and no mention was made of this.

Cleaned a Remote, Got a 9 Volt, and Glued a Seam

Spent several hours cleaning one of our MX-500 universal remote controls, though it was completely unintentional. I mean, I meant to clean it, but didn't figure on it taking so long. Ended up taking the entire thing apart and scraping off years of caked on dirt. Definitely nasty! And now I know I need to do the other ones as well, but it takes so long that I'm hesitant to get started....

Picked up a 9 volt battery for our sprinkler control box while I was out picking up a few grocery items, so now when the power goes out or I have to unplug the thing I won't have to re-enter everything. Doing so probably wouldn't be so bad if there were a full keypad, but entering all those dates and times and zones using four buttons?!

A seam in my leather chair had been separating for a while. I tried to so it up a while back, but couldn't find the right type of needle and so didn't get very far with that. Instead I used some safety pins to hold it together, but recently I noticed it started getting worse, so tonight I tried using that Sticky Ass glue. Guess I'll find out tomorrow night if it's going to work or not.

Sticky Ass Glue, Patch Painting, and Picked up a BBQ Grill

I'm really liking this Sticky Ass Glue I got from Amazon. So far, it's held together everything I've thrown at it. Today I used it to fix our pizza slicer that broke when it was accidentally put into the dish washer, where the heat slightly cracked the wooden handle and loosened the plastic piece that the handle fits into so that the two separated. To get the pieces back together, I had to put the wooden handle in boiling water so it would expand, then dried it off, added some glue, and shoved the two together. So now I'm looking forward to making a pizza so I can try it out.

Decided to do some touch up painting around the house with paint that has been out in the shed ever since we moved in. The lid was all rusted, and the paint inside was liquid on top and solid on the bottom. I tried to mix it up as best I could, but there was just no way it was going to become anything but a chunky mess. Still, it worked fine for just doing little touch-ups all over the place.

Finally got a full sized charcoal BBQ grill off craigslist, and it was free! Haven't tried it out yet but looks to be in pretty good shape. So now we have to make a pizza AND have a BBQ!

Going to Crackmaster, New Networked Media Player, New Shower Cady, and a Fresh Whiteboard

Took my wife's vehicle to a place called Crackmaster to get a nick in the windshield repaired. It's owned and operated by Jeff Wurst, who turned out to be a very nice guy. He told me what he was going to do and the potential outcomes, and made sure I knew that the repair was guaranteed for life, no charge. Before he got started, he told me to make myself at home, showed me where the TV was, and the fridge, saying I could grab whatever I wanted, and then got to work. I started reading Ray's book, Shackled, while I waited, but it only took like 30 minutes so I didn't get very far. When he was finished I couldn't even tell where the nick had been. So to anyone in the Redding area who needs their windshield repaired, this is the guy to go to!

Frustrated with the lack of updates and missing features with the Egreat EG-M34A Networked Media Tank, I decided to look around and see if something better had been release. The most popular one out there, the Western Digital, still doesn't see to have full DVD playback, but I did find another called the Brite-View BV-5005HD which looks like it has all the features I'm after. I placed my order so hopefully by this time next week I'll have a networked media player that supports full DVD playback and vobsub subtitles in MKV files.

Put up the 3M Command Large Shower Caddy in our shower, and without even showering with it yet I already love it. It holds a bunch of small and medium sized items without them falling out, which is one of the main problems with the current caddy that's draped over the shower faucet.white wired. So hopefully it works just as good when we're actually in the shower.

Finally got around to cleaning our white dry-erase board. Those things really don't erase all that well! The eraser got some of the stuff we wrote, but none of the blue smear that was all over the board. Windex helped a bit, but to really get it clean I had to go with baking soda and a lot of scrubbing. But, it's finally clean! And I put away the dry erase marker to try out these wet erase markers, which are supposedly easier to erase. We'll see.

New Shelves, No Cable Guy, and a Failed Egreat Update

We tried to go see the 11:30am showing of Prince of Persia this morning, but once we were on the road we realized there was no way we'd make it in time, so instead we went to this place called Junk 'N Treasures and looked around. Ended up getting a nice little wooden shelf for the laundry room and a white wire shelf thing for the hall closet, all for the low price of $1.00. Unfortunately, didn't see any poster frames that were the right size.

Cable guy was supposed to arrive today to take care of the "equipment upgraded needed" notice we got in the mail, but he called and wasn't sure what he was coming over to do, and when he found out we had a cable card he said those are rare and they don't just carry cable cards on them and they aren't able to pick up any on Sunday so he'd have to reschedule. So we did reschedule, but all this just felt odd to me, so I decided to call the number on the mailer again. I was connected with some guy and he put me on hold to check out the promo code I gave him from the mailer, and that hold somehow turned into an automated message telling me about our appointment, at which point it hung up on me.

So I called back and got a girl this time, and after she took some time to investigate, she said that the upgrade the mailer was referring to only meant that people with TiVo units would no longer be able to record some programs, such as Pay Per View or music, and that no equipment upgrade was needed. So yey, now we don't have to wait around for a cable guy and have him touching and messing up all our equipment.

Moved the bedroom TV onto the new TV stand, but since the new stand was about an inch and a half shorter than the desk the TV was on, we stacked some old wood shelves I had, put them into two black pillowcases, and put the TV on top of that, which raised it about another four inches.

Tried to update the firmware for my EG-M34A Networked Media Tank, but after the update non of my DVDs would play! Not only that, but attempting to play them would lock up the machine so that rebooting was the only way to get it back. Thankfully, downgrading to the firmware that was previously installed got everything working as normal.

Good Day for Craigslist

Got some particleboard shelves for the garage that someone was selling on Craigslist for $5. It has some chips and small breaks, but still seem very sturdy and I think will be a good replacement for the milk crates. Craigslist also helped us net a $5 TV stand that's is taller than the current one we have in the bedroom. Our old one was way too short for our high bed, which is why we currently have the TV sitting on a desk with the TV stand just kind of hanging out underneath. Now we'll be able to move the desk into my office, and I don't know what we'll do with the old TV stand. Sell it I guess.

Summer Rain

Finally got around to fixing the time on the sprinkler control box, and setting a watering schedule for 4AM... not that it really matters much at the moment since it's been raining. I thought this was summer! Not that I'm complaining, as I actually like the current temperature. I'm definitely not looking forward to the impending heat wave.

Got a thing in the mail from Charter a little while ago saying we had to call them because we needed an equipment update due to some service upgrade their doing. So I called and now I've got a Charter person coming by sometime on Sunday (no idea when) to attach some new tuner to our cable card, or something.

Also made an appointment to get a nick in my wife's windshield fixed. It's small so should be easily reparable. I was gonna try one of those do-it-yourself kits, but called my insurance just to see how much it would cost going the professional route and learned it wouldn't cost me a dime. So yeah, I'll let a pro take care of it.

Rite Aid For a Change

After scrounging the bottom of a drawer last night to find the final two NyQuil tablets in the entire house so my wife could sleep peacefully, I knew I needed to go pick some more up at the store today. Usually I go to Walgreens for such a task, but this time I decided to mix it up a bit and try Rite Aid, which is just across the street from Walgreens. Picked up one box each of their house brand NyQuil and DayQuil, 40 pills per box, all for under $20 total, which seemed pretty good to me. Hopefully they work just as well as their brand name equivalents.

The Furniture Shuffle

Did a little rearranging today. When we got our giant headboard set, I temporarily shoved both of the Sterilite 3-drawer  carts into the back of the closet, so today I got those out to find a place for them. The location I choose was in my office area in the space already occupied by a big box of comic books and a little bookshelf. So the comics got relocated to the top shelf of the office closet, and the bookshelf found its way into the foyer where we had an end table that I always felt took up too much space, being 28" deep and 24" across. Putting the 10" deep bookcase there really makes the foyer look a lot more open and spacious, so I hope it works out convenience-wise. So where'd the end table find its new home. Uh, nowhere yet, I just threw it in the front room until I can find somewhere to put it. I'd like to just get rid of it on Craigslist, but it's part of a set and we're using the other one, so I'd need to find something to replace that first. I'd also like to replace the Sterilite carts, because even though they hold a good amount of stuff and don't look bad, you can't set anything on top them or they will warp.

The Dark Ages

Woke up this morning to find our power had gone out sometime during the night, and that our cable was not working. Doesn't sound like too big of deal, except that we have not just cable TV, but cable internet and cable phones, so felt like we were back in the dark ages. It finally came back on around 2PM or so. Haven't seen any news on why it happened, so that's still a mystery.

BBQ Funtime

Today my wife and I went to a BBQ over at her friend's place, and for once I didn't mess with their computer! Well, maybe just a little, but only to do a couple updates which was real quick. And Danielle showed me how to play World of Warcraft, but that doesn't count. I can see how people could become addicted to that game, though. We had burgers and hot dogs for dinner, and I tried one of those hot dogs with the built-in cheese. Didn't hate it, but definitely prefer the ones without the cheese. Anyway, definitely a nice way to spend a day.

New Clothes

Did a little clothes shopping today, and picked up three new pairs of jeans, each different styles but all 36x32", which seem to fit better than my current 36x34" pairs. My wife got a couple shirts and some shoes.

Spare Drill Battery

Harbor Freight had my drill on sale for $15, which is the same price as a replacement battery, so I picked one up primarily just for the battery it comes with. Also got an extension cord reel and another one of those free super bright LED flashlights. Oh, and the light bulb for the dryer arrived in the mail, so I slapped that puppy in and now we once again we can light our darkest dryer!

Mr. Clean

Basically just cleaned house all day, as the place kind of got neglected these past couple weeks with me working on the sprinklers and doing some programming gigs. I put up some posters in my office, ones that I've had since high school. I'd really like to get frames for them, but I REALLY don't want to drop money on frames when there's a bunch of other more useful stuff I could be spending it on. So for now I'll just have to be satisfied with pushpins.

Sprinklers Are Fixed!

Thanks to cooperating weather, I was finally able to finish fixing the backyard sprinkler system. I spliced in the new wire I bought yesterday, did a successful test to make sure it worked, then filled in all the holes and trenches I had dug. I was exhausted and so sore by the time I was finished, but damn did it feel good. And when it was all over, I had dug enough rocks out of the ground to completely fill a bland empty area over to the side of the lawn. Of course now I need to get some seed or sod or something to get my lawn looking good again. I'm not worried about the ivy patch I destroyed, as I'm sure that'll all grow back pretty quick.

New Wire, New Conduit, New Rain

Picked up some new wire at Lowe's for the sprinkler system and went out to start prepping the area for installation when I realized that the spare PVC I had laying around wasn't going to be long enough to contain the entire wire segment, so headed back out to Lowe's to pick up a 10 foot PVC conduit. It was surprisingly cheap, just under a dollar, so basically all of this hardache for the past week could have been avoided if the people who installed this sprinkler system would have spent an extra $5 to enclose their buried wires in PVC conduit. Anyway, I started digging out a more of a straight line area to lay the conduit so I wouldn't have to bend the thing too much, but then a seriously dark cloud appeared and rain started pouring so I had to give up for the day. Forecast says the rain won't let up until Friday, but maybe I'll get lucky and I'll get a little nice weather to finish it tomorrow.

We watched the final episode of Lost tonight, and even though I enjoyed it, I was very disappointed that it left so many mysteries left unanswered.

Wires In Root

Had a dentist appointment this morning for a filling on one of my back teeth, and he used some kind of new air abrasion procedure which required no Novocaine and was completely painless, except for the uncomfortable mouth guard.

Started digging in the back yard again when I got home, and eventually discovered that both irrigation wires actually went through a rather thick tree root, as did a flexible irrigation line. I initially tried to dig them out, but quickly realized there was no way that was gonna happen. So I got out the chainsaw and disconnected the root from the tree so that it could eventually rot away. In the meantime, my plan is to pick up some new wire tomorrow and just split it in to the existing wires, completely bypassing the root. And this time I'm going to put the wire inside some PVC pipe to protect it, like they should have done in the first place. It's not like the stuff is expensive!

Wire Testing

After figuring out how to use the multimeter last night, today I set out to find the sprinkler valve control problem. I determined that the signal was properly leaving the box, and was also still in tact at the splice at the 3 valves for the front yard, where the wire takes off and starts heading to the backyard. I then tested one of the solenoids and found it to be functioning properly. From there, I dug around until I found the start of the dummy wire that runs parallel to the live wire, then hooked up it up to a 9-volt battery and checked the splices where I broke the wire, and found that the wire I broke was indeed the dummy wire. I then dug up the areas I previously dug up just to check for any other wire breaks I may have missed, but there were nada. So somewhere, somehow the live wire got broken.

The Quest For 500mA Fuses

After visiting a chiropractor for a much needed adjustment, I headed to Harbor Freight to pick up a fuse for the sprinkler control box. They didn't have it, but I picked up a surge protector that was on sale for $3 while I was there, and had a 20% off coupon so that made it even cheaper. And brought a coupon for a free super bright LED flashlight, so got another one of those. I then tried Auto Zone for the fuse, but the lowest they had was 1 amp, and I needed half an amp. I was finally able to locate them at Radio Shack in the mall, so since I was in the mall I checked the various stores for valances, but didn't find anything that really struck my fancy.

Leveled the Dryer, and Blew a Fuse

Today I adjusted the feet on the dryer so that it would be level with the washer, which was like a half inch higher. And I did this because I bought a gap cap that you put in between the two appliances so crap won't fall between the gap. I also put a couple blocks behind the dryer so it wouldn't keep getting pushed back every time we closed the door. Then I wanted to figure out how to change the light bulb, but had a super tough time figuring out how to access it. Finally I discovered that the entire top of the dryer can be opened to reveal the light bulb, though they really don't give you much finger room, and thus I broke the bulb trying to get it out.

I bought a multimeter from Harbor Freight went I went out this afternoon, which happened to be on sale for like $3, and I had a 20% off coupon, and a coupon for a free super bright LED flashlight. Tried to use the multimeter to find the source of my sprinkler control issue, but only wound up blowing the fuse in the control box. So tomorrow I have to go pick up a couple of those. Then I've gotta read up on how to use a multimeter, as I haven't used one since like high school.

Sprinklers Half-Way Fixed!

Worked on the backyard sprinklers some more today. Picked up three replacement Hardie sprinkler valve diaphragms from Normac and that actually got the valves working manually. It cost me like $50, though! I could have bought three entirely new valves for like $25 (with coupon), but then I'd have to cut apart all the PVC lines and buy replacement PVC pieces and glue them all together, working in that small little area without much room to maneuver in... so yeah, an extra $25 was worth not spending all that time and effort.

So after getting them working using the manual release, I tried activating them electrically through the control box, but that didn't work. There are two wires running from the side of the house to the backyard control valves, but only one is actually connected to the valves, and I accidentally broke one in two different places while searching for the valves, but I didn't know if I had broke the live one or the dummy one. And since my test didn't work, I figured I had broke the live one, so I fixed it, then tried again, but it still didn't work. So tomorrow I'm gonna need to go get a multimeter and hopefully that will help me locate where the issue lies.

In an unrelated topic, for a little while now I've been having these seemingly random connection issues with my internet whereby I'd visit a site and the browser would return with some kind of error like "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" (IE8), "The connection was reset" (Firefox), or "Error 101 (net::ERR_CONNECTION_RESET): Unknown error" (Chrome). It's a common error that I've been able to find mentioned many places with many suggested fixes, but my issue was more rare in that it was not constant, and reloading the page one or more times would eventually get it to show up, though sometimes only partially, like it would load the content but not the stylesheet.

Well, I tried every suggested fix mentioned on every page I could find, and none of them worked. Then, several days ago I finally made the connection that it isn't random, it happens when my DVD drive is either ripping or burning a DVD. This should tell me something, but what, I do not know. I have tried searching the web for anyone else with the same problem, but can't find a single mention of it. I tried to update the firmware for my Optiarc AD-5170S DVD drive, but unfortunately I can't because mine is a Dell OEM one which cannot be upgraded with the official firmware, only Dell's firmware, and Dell does not provide a firmware update for this drive. Thank you Dell, for making life harder. Anyway, so I guess until I get a new DVD drive I just have to stay off the 'net while it's doing its thing.

Still No Valances

Looked for valances at Bed Bath & Beyond and a few other places while wife was at the gym, but still didn't find anything that looked right for where we want to put them. Of course the search is more difficult because I don't even really know what we want or what would look good there.

Sold my Point Blank 2 game for the original Playstation. It was the one that came in the box with the light gun... I miss those light gun games, especially Elemental Gearbolt. That was one of the downsides to getting a flat panel television. The Wii overcame the limitation of the flat panels, but we still don't own one of those yet. Not sure if there's any good light gun games out for it anyhow. I know I could easy check, but I don't want to find out there is and then be all disappointed because I still can't play them.

More Fruit & Veggie Juice

Went grocery shopping this afternoon while my wife was at work. We usually do it together, but she hasn't been feeling so hot these past few days. While at the store I noticed Ocean Spray has some drinks similar to the V8 Fusion, where fruit and vegetable juices are mixed together into something that's drinkable. So I got the two different flavors they had, Cranberry Strawberry Banana and Tropical Citrus. The former wasn't bad, and haven't tried the latter yet.

Picked up and tossed a bunch of the old rotten wood along the side of the house, trying to get that area cleaned up a bit. Saw a descent sized lizard while doing so, and would have liked to have snapped a photo so I could look it up online later to see what kind it was, but the camera was all the way in the house and at the time I just wanted to finish so I could go inside and eat.

Oil Change & Clean Sprinkler Valves

Took my wife's vehicle in for an oil change this morning. They recommended a tire rotation, though they were unaware that we had four new tires put on back on January 18th. And if I remember correctly we get free tire rotations at America's Tire, whereas Toyota wanted to charge like $11 or something. Anyway, America's Tire should automatically send us a reminder e-mail when it's time, so I didn't worry about it.

Took apart and cleaned the three sprinkler control valves, then put them all back together and... no difference. I can turn the little black knob to manually get them going, but when I turn the knob off they just keep on going. I wasn't able to do a good flush of the pipes while I had valves disassembled because the ditch that they're in would just fill with water mixing up all the surrounding dirt. Maybe tomorrow I'll try putting plastic down, cut out a few holes for the valves to slip through, and try it again. Really running out of ideas here.

Raising the Headboard & Relocating the Internet Hub

Yesterday I got the giant headboard/dresser combo thing set up, and as we expected the piece that actually goes behind the bed wasn't quite tall enough due to us having basically two mattresses on top of a box spring on top of a metal frame. So today I grabbed a couple cinder blocks which I just happened to have for some reason (really not sure where they came from), and put it under the headboard... and it fit perfect! Sure would be nice if all fixes were that easy.

Later in the evening my wife went out to dinner and a movie with one of her friends. To my wife's disappointment, her friend wanted to see Alice in Wonderland. So while they were out, I used the time to relocated the modem and router into the hall closet. Doing so was not quite as simple as it sounds, as we have a signal enhancer on the line so by moving that I also had to go outside to the main junction box, find the cable that was now attached to, and swap it into the correct position in the splitter... in the dark. But now it's done so that big mess of wires is now hidden away from view.

Putting up the Headboard

Got a friend to help me bring the big pieces of the headboard inside the house this morning, then just as we were finishing that a guy came over to buy some old pool chemicals I listed on craigslist (because we used to have an above ground pool a while back but it was totaled in a massive storm). I was glad to get those out of the house and get a few bucks in the process. I have a bunch of other yardsale-worthy junk I need to get posted on craigslist, as I'm just too lazy to actually do a yardsale, not to mention I hate getting up early.

So, I got the headboard all put together, minus the mirror, because we may end up rising the portion that's directly behind the bed. Our bed is higher than normal because on top of our mattress we have a foam pad and then on top of that a couple of memory foam pads. Hopefully it will be as easy as slipping a couple cinder blocks underneath.

Mother of all Headboards

Turned on the main water line to the backyard again, and as expected zone 5 immediately came on. What was unexpected was that zone 6 did not. Yesterday it would not shut off, just like zone 5, but today I couldn't even get it to start. Definitely need to take apart and clean the valves, and flush the lines, but have to wait until my right hand is feeling better. Right now I have very little gripping strength with it. Manually screwing into studs really took more out of me than I ever expected... wait... that sounds weird... disregard that.

So we got ourselves a gigantic headboard that we found on Craigslist. It's huge, with like dressers on either side and a giant mirror that goes in the middle, with lighting and everything. The couple that listed it were very nice and helped take it apart and load it into the truck. Tomorrow I'll get a friend over to help set it all up, as my wife isn't supposed to do any heavy lifting due to her hip replacement.

Drill Baby Drill & Sprinkle Me This

My hand is still aching from manually screwing in the Garagemaid Easy Wall Slat Wall Kit, and that was like several days ago, so I decided it was finally time to break down and get a decent drill. But didn't want to spend a lot of money, because it probably won't get used very often. I mean, I've survived 10 years without one.

So this morning I picked up an Drill Master 18 volt cordless drill & flashlight set at Harbor Freight. They had it advertised on the website for the sale price $18.99 (normally $29.99), so I called our local store to see if they had the $19 drill and flash light set there, and they did, but what the guy neglected to tell me was that they didn't have it for $19, they had it for $24.99, and to get it for the website price I needed to bring in a printout of the page, even though it's from their own website.

Quick sidebar... www.harborfreight.com is their website, is it not? Because that's what I went to, but I also see there is a another, different website at www.harborfreightusa.com, and they have the same drill & flashlight set for $24.99... so what's going on? Do they really have two different websites? I thought Drill Master was the house brand of Harbor Freight, so that would also indicated they are the same company with two different websites. I don't know, it's weird.

Anyway, so I got that, but they wouldn't honor the 20% coupon I had because it was considered price matching or something like that. I also bought some drillbits, but didn't even think to tell her to then use the coupon for those, and she didn't just do it as a lot of clerks would. This realization came when I got home, and I know I could have gone back but really, getting 20% of $3.99 hardly seems worth it. Oh, and I did get the free super bright LED flashlight that I had a coupon for. I thought it'd be a piece of junk, but it's actually pretty descent, giving off a lot of light.

In the backyard, I turned on the main water line and my PVC repair seemed to hold. I then manually turned on one of the valves and the sprinklers came on, but then when I turned the knob back to the off position, the sprinklers just kept going. I then tried the next valve, and same thing happened, so had to shut off the main line again. I read online that I'll most likely need to take them apart and clean them, as it's probably some sort of little clog causing the problem. They are old, but seems unlikely that the valves would just happen to fail all at the same time.

My wife's replacement MP3 player, the Sansa Fuze, arrived today. Her other one was sent back to Sandisk because it wouldn't stop giving the white screen of death. Lets hope this one fares better.