last updated: Thursday, 11-May-2006 01:13:11 EDT
12/05/05, 5:51pm-
This is going to be quick, because Christmas Dinner is imminent.
I successfully bested the countertops in the contest of will yesterday, getting them built and trimmed to a moderately acceptable level. They're not perfect, but within the limits of my tools and the materials they're as good as they're going to get right now.
Christmas morning has come and gone, and it was excellent, as usual. The cinnamon rolls were properly cinnamon-y, the fire was roaring, and the cheer was palpable. I got toys, as did KP,dad, and mom. Full debreifing will happen at some later point. I do have one thing to say though. The iPod Nano is probably one of the coolest. things. ever. Even compared to a proper joystick.
12/23/05, 11:58pm-
Avatars are fun. You should go make one.
I got the replacement countertop. Then I killed it. Then I got another one. Hopefully this one will be OK. I used every damn clamp I have to hold the cleats in place. We'll find out in the morning I suppose. Pictures to come.
12/22/05, 10:13pm-
Only a few days until xmas. Got B and J their presents tonight, both were tickled. Yay for happy friends. A good time was had by all. Last night was Aeon Flux with B. Oh man, that was...simultaneously awful and excellent. It defies description a little, especially to anyone who watched the original series on MTV when they were supposed to be sleeping, like I did.
House work was progressing nicely all week, with lots of help from the parents (since dad is on vacation and mom is pitching in when she can) causing all kinds of things to magically finish. That is, until I went over to trim the counter top ends and install said counters. Instead of trimming the counters like I planned, a killed them. Totally $^&*@^& up. Yeah, that bad. There goes the Wednesday inspection, that is unless I work over the weekend, which I just might do.
Please excuse me while I go destroy every goddamn molecule of those countertops with a fork.
#$&*(*#$^&^%$&(@
12/3/05, 10:46pm-
Yay for snow!
Really!
My aunt is here this weekend which is really nice. We don't see her too often. It afforded me a chance to show off my house a little bit and feed my ego just a smidge. I also got work done on the base cabinets, which was very productive of me. The biggest deal is the sink base is in and set now:
Which means that I can work on the countertop and the right side filler for the dishwasher and then get my inspection signoff. I also gone work done on the cabinets on the new wall:
Thus pretty much completing one wall of my kitchen!
I also put the 2 strands of C7 lights on my front gutter, only to find that my 50' long house has a 56' long roofline. Back to Ace for more lights, heatshrink, and another extension cord, bach home for a soldering iron and solder, 5 minutes of measuring, cutting, soldering and shrinking later, I had end-to-end lights. I'll post a picture when I go out and take one.
11/29/05, 9:25pm-
Happy birthday Karen!
I've spent the last few evenings lighting my house. Tonight I got the smoke detector up and finished the lights. It's not much, but it's mine, and I like it:
There's a green light on the left side of the garage, out of frame, and I'm going to get some lights in the sidelight next to my front door. There are also lights in back. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Christmas!
11/27/05, 12:28pm-
The house is coming along nicely. I suppose a photo post is in order or something. Maybe I'll do that later. For now this will have to suffice.
11/26/05, 0-dark-thirty-
Went downtown with Karen and Karen and Craig and Matt to Bin36. Or so I thought. When I got there, Kelly, Mike, Tim (and wife), Steve (and wife), Scott (and girl) and someone else who's name I can't recall were in attendence. We were loud and obnoxious on the whole, fitting in well with the after dinner crowd at the place. Pictures were taken [1, 2, 3], and accounts of things were related, occasionally in vivid detail. It was fun. We tried to visit Millennium Park, but apparently it closes at 11, and our arrival was a scant 8 minutes too late. I did get a picture of the bean though, copyright be damned. The blue line trip back up to Karen's was a conversational delight, and I made it home and to bed remarkably early, considering the history of the last few nights.
11/25/05, 2:11pm-
Excerpted from an IM conversation:
2:09:02 PM Christine: Wow
2:09:06 PM Christine: You had some childhood
2:09:29 PM Me: well.....kinda, yeah
2:09:52 PM Me: the real bitch was getting everyone to stop calling me Kalel
2:10:12 PM Me: thank jeebus that's over
2:11:00 PM Christine: (laughs)
2:11:20 PM Me: ;-)
11/15/05, 11:26pm-
Up late working on my house. Fan in the kitchen is up, as are the bedroom and den fans. Retro to the LR fan will be by me I think. Sparky's coming in the morning, hopefully to make everything else right. Good times.
What's not good times is what I just saw on WU:
11/13/05, 10:55am-
Oh man, the last few days have been pretty cool.
First, something you can blame KP for:
| Your Superhero Profile |
 Your Superpower is Divine intervention Your Weakness is Atomic Explosions Your Weapon is Your Robotic Boomerang Your Mode of Transportation is Jet Pack |
Atomic Explosions! A Jet Pack! TeH Aw3s0me!!!11!!!one!
There's been a lot of work at Ché Dave. the kitchen is primed. The mirror wall is gone, filled, sanded, and primed, the ceilign fan in the garage is no more. Plumbing has happened, and is good. The sparky is going to be back to finish mid next week. The kitchen floor is tentatively scheduled for next Friday. Oh yeah.
I had 2 fun nights downtown. Friday was all about the Field museum and Navy Pier. Weak drinks, but good times. That 3D Sharks movie was a blast. Last night was wine and MooVs with Karen. Crazy fun times, ranting, raving, and laughing uncontrollably. I needed that.
Today will be more house work, and maybe an oil change for my car. We'll see.
11/8/05, 5:06pm-
Occasionally I've been asked why I still drive my 10 year old Civic. I always answer that it's because I love to drive my car. Apparently I'm not the only one who has a thing for 95 Civics. Good thing my house has a garage with doors that lock.
10/31/05, 8:59pm-
I spent about two and a half hours handing out candy at my house this afternoon and evening, until the rain washed away the kiddies. I saw two of the cutest princesses EVAR. They were twin sisters, and couldn't have been more than 5 or 6. Seriously, the cuteness was so flush I was afraid it might reach neurotoxic levels. Thankfully with a cute laugh and a wave from their mom and dad, they went on their way. There were also some lame kids that came by, too old for Halloween but too young to tell off. The cap for the night was a boy dressed as Darth Vader (he was...8? 9?) and his baby sister, dressed as a clown, all 2 years of her, toddling around and substituting a wide, sparsely toothed grin for the traditional "trick or treat".
Kids rule.
10/30/05, 6:54pm-
I just finished listening to the LA Theater Works version of War of the Worlds, starring Leonard Nimoy, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, and Brent Spiner, among others. For a man who titled his autobiography "I Am Spock", Nimoy has a lot more breadth than implied by that title. Great stuff.
There's also an interesting Wired piece on Absinthe. Worth a read for the wackos in the FDA that allow subsidized farming of tobacco but outlaw good liquer.
10/26/05, 11:00pm-
SOX WIN!!!
1-0 in a shutout of Houston in a 4 game sweep of the world series, with the best postseason record in baseball (8 wins in a row!).
This is what I've been waiting for for almost 2 decades. Good guys wear black.
10/23/05, 5:05PM-
X-Plane 0wnz0rz me. I just finished 3 hours of messing around in it after obtaining a crappy joystick (to tide me over until the holidays), and it was the most fun I've had with a computer in a very long time. I drove a B17 around San Francisco, I flew a B-52 out of Beale AFB, I buzzed NYC in a 172, and I spent almost an hour executing landings in an O-320 powered Long-EZ, including 2 engine-outs. They weren't terribly pretty, but all none broke the plane. Of all of the sims I've played over the years (a dozen car sims, a few boat sims, and probably 50 flight sims) this is the Best. Flightsim. Ever.
Even without a motion base, a simulated cockpit (the real kind, not the ones on the screen) or even a proper stick (Logitech Attack 3 = suck, even if it was only $24), the planes felt real. The Warrior and the 172 behaving just as I remember them in real life. The graphics were a little unrefined, but I had most of the toys turned off, and there's some kind of bug with the terrain libraries right now (anything but the built in SoCal terrain is water? WTF? Reinstall time?). Supposedly you can pull data out via UDP to run secondary screens or something, which would be pretty damn cool IMHO. I can imagine myself sinking lots of money into this endeavor, but instead I'm going to try and maintain self control. That same money buys me a PPL and about 50 real hours in a real plane. Or a gajillion hours in an ultralight. This sure would be good training for either one of those eventualities though. Oh man.
10/22/05, 12:48pm-
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrracing!
Even though it's been more than a decade since I was in the seat of a kart, I managed to pile out to the local track last night with a group and race the hell out of karts in a mini-GP. I started off bad, got better, and then sucked, with a shining point of brightness giving me one of the 15 fastest laps of the day (#9 to be exact). I need to work on that. I also need to not wear jeans next time. The seam on the back of them...ouch.
X-Plane also came to my home. It's installing right now. Version 8 was discounted to the point where I couldn't justify NOT getting it, especially since it's wind-tunnel model is supposedly the most realistic one out there. Now all I need to do is get a joystick and some pedals. (hint...they're in my Amazon Wishlist).
10/20/05, 7pm-
Christine wondered why I hadn't blogged in a while. Part of my reply:
In other news, remember all that badness I had with the door I bought for my new house? Yeah, I have to replace it. Apparently my steel door wasn't the same as the steel door the guy at the village had in mind when I asked him about the rules. I wish he'd mentioned that so I didn't make a $250 and 5 week mistake. Grr.
A friend sent me a link to Infinity Aerospace. I remeber JD from his booth at Oshkosh, and the wonderful stick grips he sells. I noticed he also sells (occasionally from what I've read) retractable landing gear. That's a bright yellow Long-EZ in the pictures. I've always loved the L-EZ, even the first time I saw it's blunt nosed shillouette at Oshkosh '88.
It almost makes me want to build one. I have a 2 car garage, and resin and 'glass are cheap...
Nah. I'll settle for the poster instead.
10/16/05, 11:47pm-
Sox win!
10/16/05, 10:39am-
Reason is dying. Just look at the names and the reasons people have left the Bush administration. It's scary.
10/2/05, 8:18pm-
More from puppybreak.com:
- Buck.
- Weiner dog.
- Beware.
- Puppy or Tribble? You decide.
- Quack!
- Sheba-Inu, chilled.
- Hug me. Please?
- Radar.
10/1/05, 11:09pm- Aimless meanderings, part 146
I've been reading lately, a beloved pastime of mine that I've not indulged in for fun in a long time. Normally I read technical things. Circuits, systems, parts and assemblies dominate my collection of bound and printed matter. This reading was different. Random bits of literary detritus mostly. Blogs, essays, and shorts.
Tonight led me in a rather unusual (but highly logical if you think about it) pattern of surfing my favorite intarw3bs, leading me from the Daily Kitten, to Puppy Break, to this puppy, to Google, and finally to The Call of the Wild. Buck is a name suitable only for a strong dog.
Let me first state that I am not a huge fan of the writings of Jack London. His subjects are dark and lonely, the cold North, desperate prizefighters, slavery, animal cruelty, and the harsh lives of sailors. He does however, have the ability to tell a story with intense soul, while maintaining the detatched narration of a machine. This dichotemy has always fascinated me, even before I realized it. I've read Call of the Wild and White Fang close to a dozen times over the years (they're conveniently colocated in a single book), and I love them still. They are terrible stories, but hopeful and with sufficiently regal endings that I manage to overlook the fallibility of them every time. These are not stories of good people with great hearts, but flawed individuals from the depths of society, and the animals that triumph over their cruel masters and their surroundings with the strength that nature and history afford them.
I miss my dog.
10/1/05, 8:40pm-
Things are again becoming copasetic. My car is running like a top, the work on my house is continuing in due course, electricians are scheduled, and I am, although not as completely as I have been in times past, relaxed. Partly from a day of manual labor (the mechanism of this eludes me, but not it's product), partly from a wispy sense that things are good, and partly, well, partly just because I think. It's nice.
9/26/05, 9:53pm-
That was fun. What a forking mess. The radiator apparently had been leaking for some time, and the inter-column fins had corroded away, leaving only paint, and nothing to structurally support the columns laterally. Last night they must have gone boom. Suck.
After much banging of knuckles, gnashing of teeth and a wee bit of the bleeding of blood, (and invaluable help from dad) the new radiator is alive and well, and Dee is once again cool.
Man, if I ever do that again, there better be a damn good reason, like a B20Z with a blower or something.
9/26/05, 1:58pm-
So my car is sick. Don't worry, it's not fatal, but it's sure annoying. Over the last few days it's been running funny while it warms up, surging from 1k to 1k5 during the second stage of the warmup process. Once it's been driven for a little while, that goes away, but it's annoying that it lasts as long as it does. This morning, after I left for work, I got a call from my mom who said my car had left a puddle on the driveway overnight, and it looked and felt suspiciously like antifreeze, noting that she suspected that there might be a leaky hose.
The car drove fine the 4.3 miles to my office, but on my way out for lunch the temp needle rose too quickly and to a greatly inflated level compared to normal. Heat on full blast, throttle angle under 20% at all times, creeping to the speed limit and not over, I crept back to the garage that houses my tools (for now) and began to look around, only to find the disturbing photo you see below.
Looks bad doesn't it? It was worse than that. I ate a quick lunch, picked up a new radiator and hose set (upper and lower) at Honda, and proceeded to delve into the grimy mess that is the cooling system on Dee. After about 30 minutes of wrangling, the radiator was out, in all of it's hole-y glory (pic link 1, 2, 3, 4). Ugly. I pulled the old hoses off of the t-stat and the drain on the engine and cleaned the nipples and plugged the pipes with some shop rags, did a cursory cleaning of the lower bumper area, washed up and came back to work. After I finish up here, I'll head back and install the new radiator and hoses once I finish cleaning the propylene glycol off of, well, everything between the exhaust manifold and the front grille. Joy. More updates and pics later.
9/24/05, 7:55pm-
I suppose I should feed the update monster. I think it's hungry.
Work on Ché Dave is continuing as a slow but steady pace. The wall for the kitchen is up and happy, the dance floor in the garage has been reduced to a pile of 2x4s and cut up plywood, and there is now a real live 15A circuit in the garage, tho it's installation is far from legally safe. Then again, it is my house, and dammit, I've got a degree in this stuff. I know how to manage electrical safety, thank you very much. That's precisely why I'll be paying an electrician an ungodly sum of money to rewire my house. Yes, it's that bad. Ever heard of something called 'burned bars'? It's when the main buss bars in a breaker panel degrade due to electrochemical or arc damage, and as they degrade, the arc damage gets worse, and so on until things either fail quietly or catch fire. Since the old and nasty 1971 model ITE box in my house has some very badly burned bars, I'm not taking any chances to avoid the latter scenario. Fire is the last thing I need.
I'm not even going to begin the SNAFU between my insurance company and my mortgage company that resulted in threats to terminate my homeowner's insurance. Stupid typos.
Other than that, the weekend will be sedate. There's more cleanup to be done tomorrow, and I'm sure that there will be sleeping in truly astounding quantities, but nothing truly newsworthy.
9/15/05, 5:36pm-
yes, I am aware that it's been forever and a half since I blogged. I've been busy dammit.
My door is finally here. After a month of screwups, Home Depot finally delivered me a door that swung the proper way. That means that the wall that's half finished can be built, the one that's in the way can be demolished, and the kitchen can be disassembled in preperation for real live cabinets and a new vinyl floor. I'm still lacking an electrician, but I hope that situation will resolve itself in the very near future. The last month has been something of a blur. I was sick for a few days, and I did a lot of running around, and that's about all I can coherantly recall. Hopefully with the completion of some of the work on my haus, I can relax a little and get back to blogging, since I do miss it. I also have a pile of non-haus stuff to do, and I need to carve out some time to complete those tasks post-haste. More later.
8/18/05, 9:59pm-
Home Depot is making my life miserable. First, they told me the door I wanted was a special order. Then they told me it would be in earlier than it actually came in. Then, when I went to go get it tonight, it was the WRONG DAMN DOOR. The tag said "right hang, out-swing". To most people that means when you're standing on the inside of the door, the hinges are ont he right, and the door opens out and to the right, with the hardware on the left edge. Someone at the plant where this door came from must have been celebrating opposite day when it was assembed, because it was a mirror image. This is getting really really frustrating. Seriously maddening actually. I'm very close to demanding a full refund and taking my money to Lowes. They're nicer people to deal with.
In other news, I finally got my shaggy mop a haircut. As usual, Angela did a wonderful job, and I left smelling something like an aromatherapy oil, but one which I thankfully enjoy. I will however have to wash my head before I sleep, since no matter how hard anyone tries, there are always a billion little cutoffs that stay stuck up there, and only fall out when my mouth is open and I'm inhaling while sleeping. Blech.
Hopefully the end of the week will bring happiness and joy to life in the land of Dave. I've had enough go wrong this week.
8/16/05, 10:28pm-
Data was the least appreciated character on Star Trek, according to some. This proves it. Blame my LJ friends page.
No real progress on the house...I went out tonight instead, since my door won't be in until the morning. Mom and dad apparently went over and did a few small things in my absence. Thanks guys.
Life is good. Yay.
8/15/05, 9pm-
Yup, 9pm exactly. No trailing minutes for this entry!
The house is coming along nicely. The door for the rebuilt wall will be here on Wednesday, and hopefully materials can be picked up the same day, for an evening of construction. The priming is finished, after countless hours, and would have been a much longer process without the helpful assis tance of my family, particularly my mom, who spent more tan a handful of hours painting the edges of walls for me, and my dad, who's heaped help on the project for things like construction, paint, demolition, and construction. KP has also helped with paint and closet stuff, which is well, very helpful. Once I get a carpet color picked, and a paint color picked, and an electrical contractor hired, and some more work done, and painting and carpeting finished, and the house furnished, I can move in. I sure hope that's before my next birthday.
8/14/05, 8:58pm-
In 2008 I'm voting for More Cowbell!
8/13/05, 11:23am-
Well. my super mega ultra cool digital cable is finally in. I begged out of work early to hit up the village office (to ask about my building permit stuff) and to meet the Comcrap installer for the specified window of 4-6pm.
The village trip was quite pleasant. I spent a little while chatting with an inspector and one of the more senior desk jockeys there, and found out a whole bunch of things, including that I don't need a permit for the demolition/restoration work as long as I don't suck at doing it. I also found out I need to talk to the engineers at ComEd to make sure that the feed that's been undergrounded (from their transformer to the meter at mi casa) is rated for the 200A service I want to have. Why? If it's not, and I don't meet some sort of special criteria (something about waving my arms like a chicken while hopping on one foot in a puddle of sacrificial blood on the 32nd day of the 13th month) then the charge for the new service could be as high as $78 per FOOT to re-trench the cable. Not my idea of a good time.
Comcrap was a completely different situation. I arrived at the house a little before 4. 4pm came and went. So did 5pm. At 5:45pm I called to ask if the installer was going to make it out before 6...the nice lady at the other end of the phone said the previous ticket was still open, meaning the job before mine hadn't been completed by 5pm as it was supposed to be. This raised an interesting point which I was unable to get her to expound upon. The appointments overlap by about 50%. That means if there is a single issue at the beginning of the day, it will snowball out of control by the end. My stomach started to sink toward my ankles. The very nice (but almost totally powerless) CSR filed a request with Dispatch (Who? Me either.) for the tech to call in, and to call me on my cell with his ETA by 6:30. Obviously that never happened (sense a trend?) and at 6:45 I called back, wondering where in the hell my tech was. The second lady, another nice CSR with an equally limited job description, escalated my request for a response, credited my installation charge back, and did her very best to make me happy.
Let me state here, that having been on the technician's side of the fence before, I was not angry at anyone I talked to, just EXTREMELY displeased with the architects of the schedule and the customer service department. The folks on the front lines were doing their best, and abusing them wouldn't help either one of us. Anyway...
After assurances that that it would be resolved by 7:30 (insert doubting face here), and 7:45 rolled around, called back and politely demanded some answers. I tried escalating the call, no go. I tried several different departments, no go. I tried a supervisor (twice!), no go. I finally got someone to admit that they didn't know when the tech was going to make it out, and that they were very sorry, but there was nothing they could do. I hung up. Around 8:30 I called back, knowing that the end of the day for the technicians was 9pm on weekdays, and that they would need to have some information for me very soon. The guy I talked to, also named Dave, was obviously either a newbie or had been instructed to tell me nothing. He was polite, but erected a company-line wall at every turn. He was the kind of CSR I hate with a raw seething passion, and I almost let loose on him, but thought better of it. Abusing him would put my appointment in even more jeopardy than it was already in. He did offer me a 7am appointment the following morning if the tech couldn't make it before, but I declined, since I know for a fact the techs never get on the road before 8 or 8:30am. Exasperated, tired, ravenously hungry, and fed up with the entire fucking mess, I turned out he lights hopped in my car, and began to proceed away with all reasonable speed. As I turned the corner at the end of my street, I passed a telecom contractor's truck that has just turned off of Barrington. I thought, no, couldn't be, it's a goddamn coincidence, but I turned around and pulled into the driveway just as the tech was hopping out of his truck. Miguel was from Brazil, and a very nice guy. He answered my questions, told me about his day, and we talked tech about my cable install. Oops, he'd run out of manuals for the DVR, and without one, I'd be stuck using resampled 480i on my DVI output, but he'd drop one off on Monday or Tuesday for me. It went well, the unit was partitioned, and I was able to watch some TV, as well as record the latest BSG.
The catch? It was 9-goddamn-thirty before I could watch any TV. Comcrap gets an F for execution on the install, and a tentative C for content. It would be a D, but I watched karting on Speed and had a blast, and Friday night's episode of BSG is safely ensconced on my DVR.
8/9/05, 10:51pm-
Work on the house continues. As of now, the carpet is taken up in prep for demolition, the kitchen is slowly taking shape, the new wall is goig to go up later this week, and the whole house is primed. The trim is also gone, awaiting some replacement material that doesn't suck. Whoever converted the back of the garage into an interior room really did a bad job. The drywall is all 3/8", the wood used was pressure trated deck-grade stuff (!) and the insulation...well..isn't really insulating. A nice tech from SBC came out and reconnected the phones, which were apparently sabotoged by the tech who installed the AT&T digital service a few years back. Comcast is suposed to be setting me up with my kick-ass DVR/HD package on Friday. The electricians I was going to have come out and do the work have changed management, location, policies and apparently quality, so needless to say I'm in the market for a super crew that's licensed and knows how to finesse residential electrical systems. More later. I'm tired and sore.
8/7/05, 8:07pm-
Today was the first full house working day, and boy was it productive. Aside from the primer all over the walls in one room, and the trim missing from, well, all the rooms (I'll be replacing it later) and the exposed floor in what will become the back of the garage, and the removal of almost all of the obstacles to building a new wall, it looks remarkably like a regular house. Tomorrow will bring a flurry of calls. The fridge has some disturbingly hot hotspots, there's no dialtone on the lines, despite SBC's claim to have turned it on on Friday, and I need to schedule times for electricians to come in and bid a few jobs. It's actually happening...the house is becoming mine! \m/
More updates as progress....progresses.
8/5/05, 4:24pm-
I did it. I bought a house. At 4:01pm today I signed the last piece of paper that was required to make it all official. Holy crap...I own a house. This will take some getting used to. I need to go take some measurements for the permit drawings (I'm changing the location of a wall) and get appointments set up for some estimates. Yup, it's real. I'm doin' it.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
7/26/05, 8:27pm-
I spent the morning on the phone getting all my utilities and services and things taken care of for my new house. It was pretty cool. especially the nice woman at SBC, who was not only polite, but verbose about the process and good natured about the stupid scripts she had to read. Onyx waste would do well to hire people like that. The afternoon was beholden to the infamous Home Inspection Process. Pete was a cool guy, and despite my best efforts before, showed me a few thigns I missed, as well as pointing out things I couldn't have observed. Good stuff. One of the things I'm truly thankful for in this whole process is that I'm not on a short timetable. I'm not in the just-moved-here-and=I-need-a-place-in-a-week state that other folks are, and I'm not paying a storage copany o house my worldly things, only later finding out that it specializes in secretly installing insects into boxes like Christine did. The process will be relaxed, as much as remodeling a house can be. The garage will reclaim it's square footage. The trim will be upgraded. Electric work will be done. There will be painting. Drywall and studs and pipe and mud and wire and tape and breakers will all make appearances on my credit cards. And it will be completed without a frenzy, care will be taken, and everything will be done fully assed. not half-assed like a lot of things were. I'm looking forward to it. I think it will be educational and rewarding. Oh yeah, and maybe I can get some more money out of it when I sell it, eventually. We'll see.
7/24/05, 2:19pm-
This morning I awoke with a mildly sore throat and the kind of wonderfuly deep voice only granted to those who spent a previous evening yelling every word to every song played by a favorite band, live on stage. It's still a little shaky, but it's going to be alright in another hour or two. Thankfully my ears suffered no similar damage, since I'm such a firm believer in hearing protection.
The setlist that nearly left me mute this morning:
- All I Want
- Come out and Play
- Cant Repeat
- Cant get my head around you
- Genocide
- Bad Habit
- The kids arent alright
- Staring at the sun
- Self Esteem
Just got back from Chris's new place, the subject of a simultaneous housewarming and bday party. Despite the fact I got there extremely late, it was fun, and nice to see a friend again.
Warped rocked my socks off so hard it defies both logic and linguistic expression. Only something like interpretive dance or avant-garde theater could even begin to come close.
With quotes like "Now is the time for us to make music for you!" and "Noodles, we're like pizza! We make kids happy!" from Dexter of the Offspring, it's no wonder. The Transplants were hard core, but quite good. Dropkick Murphys made everyone feel a little bit Irish, as well as making everyone feel like pumping fists into the air and singing along. Fun fun. MCS rocked the haus with great vigor. MXPX was amazing in both their ferocity and their compassion. I don't have anything nice to say about Gym Class Heroes, so I won't say anything at all. The water in the fountains was far from cold. The pizza was obscenely overpriced ($5.50 per small slice!) but the rock outweighed it all in favor of, well, rocking. It was brought forth by a multitude of bands with ample quantities of both Power and Glory (both relating only to teh rawk, and nothing else) onto the throng of frenetic fans, who consistently screamed and sang along so loudly I was grateful for my earplugs every damn second I was there.
Simply awesome.
7/18/05, 7:27pm-
Well I finally went and did it. Dave is getting a house. I'll be signing my life away later in the week, but in less than a month, barring any unforseen complications, I'll have a place of my own. Of course, there is work to be done before I move in or anything, but aside from paint, soft wiring and the reversion of a strange room into it's original garage space, it's almost ready to go.
I'm starting to get excited. This could be fun.
7/13/05, 9:28pm-
Fantastic 4 was amazing. B and I headed over to the googleplex for the 7:00 show, in the biggest theater they have, and got our pick of seats. Two thumbs up...go see it. it's totally worth the $9.50 or whatever your local superplex charges. Trust me.
In other news...well...there isn't much. I was in Cincinnati over the extended weekend and had fun. I washed my car again, just in time for more rain. I'm still in desperate need of a house. The market doesn't seem to favor the young, mobile indivdual looking for a place to live in for a while, not just flip in 2 years. Where are the quality homes? Anyone?
6/26/05, 7:05pm-
It never fails. This is at least the third year that it's rained the same day I put many hours of work into cleaning my car. I spent a good half hour with the water and the soap, half an hour drying, half an hour on the leather wheel (which needs more work), an hour claying and waxing the hood, an hour vacuuming, and more time than I want to admit windexing and Q-tiping and otherwise being anal about dirt in my ride. Grr.
6/19/05, 12:47pm-
So my G4 tower gave up the ghost yesterday. Not completely, just partially. The CardBus bridge chip that connects the Airport card to the rest of the motherboard's systems decided to take a permenant vacation, leaving me without (wireless) network connectivity for my 6 year old FrankenMac. With a little prodding and a little assistance, I now have a fabulous new G5 to replace the aging beast that took me through so many good times and bad. It's a little like the passing of an era...the G4 (WintermuteII) was loud, hot, finicky, and heavily modified. The G5 (WintermuteIII, as if there was any doubt) is clean, quiet, and decidedly unmodified, aside from a few factory options (memory, APX). As I sit here and blog this, the CPU meters are pinned (dnet RC5-172) and the fans are only a hair above a whisper. It's a soft, comforting whirr. I like this. I like this a lot.
The old G4 will be wiped clean, cleaned out, and parted out. The big drives will head to external cases, the very nice ATA RAID card will head to eBay, as will the second video card (Radeon 7000) and the computer itself (G4/450/768/Radeon Pro AGP/20GB Cuda). I expect the former two items to bring the most money, and the latter to just barely make shipping back for me. We'll see.
The Mini (Pico) will head downstairs to become a home media and file server. The two external cases with the big drives will be connected, and Pico will probably end up running a copy of 10.3.x server (which I have yet to acquire). I have yet to determine her final configuration however, so that all may change.
6/12/05, 10:46am-
I love model trains. I think we've extablished that here before quite well. I enjoy greatly the period shen diesel locomotives first came into general service and stram breathed it's last breath, especially on the Southern Pacific, and especially with that cool red-and-orange-and-silver-on-black paint scheme nicknamed "black widow". I've been waiting for some affordable F-7s to come out in BW with good detailing for a long time. Athearn finally has. There's only one problem. Preorders.
Let me see if I can explain this to folks who may not already know. For as long as anyone can remember, the way you got new releases of models was to go to the hobby store and ask one of the nice people there to call you when they got their order of <special new model> in. It worked nicely. Sometimes you waited around for a month or two until someone you knew got one of the aforementioned <special new model>s and you culd take a look at it.
Those days are gone.
The way it works now, if you look at the lined JPG above, is that manufacturers announce a product 3-12 months in advance. They list a preorder date, and an expected ship date. The expectation is that you'll shell out full MSRP plus whatever your local dealer wants to tack on for preorder fees now, and then wait 3-12 months for your models to arrive, while the manufacturer gets to earn interest on your hard earned cash. It's a scheme I can see working quite well for things like concert tickets, or limited run items, but this has become the SOP for every new goddamned release of anything I wanted this year. Passenger car sets? Preorder. Plaseic models of engine servicing areas? Preorder. $9 40' old time flat cars? Preorder. This is getting insane.
the worst problem is I can't vote with my dollars if I want to continue in the hobby. Take those wonderful (albeit mildly overpriced, even at MSRP) Athearn Genesis F-7s in BW. I have two choices. I can either preorder now, be guaranteed delivery around Halloween (that's FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS from now by the way), or not preorder them, maybe find a place that has a few for full price after the fact (sometime this fall), or wait until this time next year and enter a bidding war on eBay and end up paying close to, or more than full price on used or 2nd run models. If I choose to not buy them, I'm out the engines, since no one else makes BW F-7s that are that nice right now. Stupid #&^#$&@!#*$!^%/^&+$*^!@#(#&^$%^& captive markets.
6/4/05, 3:02pm-
I just finished the trans fliud on my car and I have a declaration to make: Any time I can buy a part from my local Acura dealership instead of my local Honda dealershit(s), I will. No, that was not a typo.
My experience with Schaumburg Honda Automobiles (a Rohrman dealership) has up here has been terrible. Poor workmanship at the lowest threshold, and bald faced lies at the highest.
Mcgrath Honda in Elgin hasn't been any better. Instead of fixing obvious problems with their quality, the service manager tried to buy me off with a $25 coupon for service. Add to that they charge 200% of MSRP for their parts (6x cost BTW), and their really crappy attitude, and they're on my official hate list.
Bob Rohrman Honda in Lafayette, IN, is at the opposite of the spectrum. I could have eaten off of their service bay floor, they had competitive prices, and bent over backwards to help the customer. When my b-pipe died in 2001 and I had somewhere I needed to be (my best friend's wedding), they had one couriered from Indy, at no extra charge (I just rechecked the invoice). Woodfield Acura gives me the same kind of warm fuzzy feeling.
When the cretains at Rohrman (Schaumburg) Honda were asked to sell me 14mm and 20mm crush washers for my transmission fill and drain plugs, the guy grabbed them off the shelf and tossed them at me, and ignored my request to verify the larger of the two (which was in fact 18mm, as I suspected) was the right part. When I picked the correct washer up from Acura this afternoon, I was given the $0.69 part at no charge by the friendly guy I talked to on the phone and sent off with a smile and a friendly "Good luck!"
I've written 2 letters to Bob himself in Lafayette concerning the quality and attitude of his dealers, and called Honda of America once for them, and once for McGrath. I've had discussions with the uncooperative service managers, and at this point I've given up on them. Nothing has changed in more than 2 years.
AVOID MCGRATH HONDA AND SCHAUMBURG HONDA AUTOMOBILES
They aren't worth the asphalt they pave their lots with. take your business where they tret customers and cars with dignity and respect. Shop at Acura, or buy your parts from Majestic Honda.
Seek out nice dealerships. Your car will thank you.
5/28/05, 10:50pm-
Weekly update time. Work is going well, as expected. The first BBQ was Friday, and damn can Mike mage some killer fajitas. Good stuff. Work on Dee continues in fits and starts. I picked up half of the speed bleeder valves I need today, along with some 3M stuff to clean the overspray off the inside of my car (I love the work America's does, but their cleanup leaves something to be desired), and a pair of Sylvania SilverStar® headlamps, and I can say without question they are the finest stock fittament lamps I've ever seen. Bright, white, and clear. Actually, they're the bightest, whitest headlamps that are still legal, or so says the linked webpage. Yes, this sounds like me pimping their product, but I'm just a happy consumer. You don't hear that too often these days...
5/15/05, 6:43pm-
Sunday blogging fun! yeah! Life has been pretty slow recently, and by that I mean 'no news', and not 'actually slow.' I've been working a fair amount, and I've come to the conclusion that I like my job a whole lot mor when I get a good night's sleep. Of course, I like everything better when I'm not sleep deprived, but I think that's a gievn, so that bit about work was redundant. Oh well.
I got my car washed on Friday, and so far it hasn't rained, despite threatening to do so for the last 60ish hours. I'm flabbergasted. Every spring previous to this, whenever I washed my car, it would rain profusely within a day or two. Not the nice spring rain from the stories of our youth, but a mud bearing deluge that left havoc in it's wake. Of course, by havoc, I mean dirty cars. It's nice to have my car clean and shiny for 3 days straight. All that's left in terms of work on her is trans fluid and a brake fluid flush. I need to get one of those handy one man brake bleeding kits first tho, since bleeding all 4 corners of a car can be a real PITA, especially if you're doing a full fluid flush.
Dennis emailed me a few days ago letting me know that the decals were finally in and that my AC-9 would be decaled on Tuesday. I'm eagerly awaiting the results. I'm a patient person by my nature (almost always willing to wait for 'done right' instead of rushing for 'right now') but I do admit to getting a little excited at the prospect of seeing a painted, lettered, and lightly weathered engine come home. He does wonderful work, and I'm looking forward to my little piece of it. Yay.
Speaking of trains, things finally came together DCC-wise for me today, when I got my command station running and a few decoders programmed. It's been inop for the better part of 2 months, and DCC is way too much fun to wait that long for. The impetus was the moving sale over at DHC, where I grabbed a DT300, building parts (for the NWTM K module) and a new Walthers PFE 50' express reefer for the cost of a discounted DT300. Steve runs a great shop.
Househunting is going pretty well. I've seen a few that I really liked, and I think I'm getting closer to what I can afford too. Ché Dave will be a reality before winter, that I promise.
5/7/05, 12:13pm-
Dee now has new oil, new filters, and a complete set of new injectors. One failed (#2 cylinder) on me earlier in the spring, taking with it a plug and the dizzy cap/rotor. I picked up the other 3 shortly thereafter, and finally got around to installing them. Note to Helm/Honda: You really need to put a note in step 4 on page 23-118 that there's 1-1 1/2 cups of gasoline socked away in the injector rail and FPR, and it really wants to be drained by either the return line on the FPR (which is a bitch to remove) or by removing the nabjo bolt completely on the filter and dumping it from the feed. You guys suck.
I'm going out househunting this afternoon, after I take another look at Julie's car and shower. It promises to be a fun day, unlike yesterday, when I got a nasty case of food poisioning from my third favorite pizza joint. I'm all better today, thanks for asking.
More later.
4/29/05, 8:48pm-
It's been a while since I made an entry, so this will be a little longer than normal. I hope.
Today was anticlimactic, what with the day at work of trying to minimize the length of red and blue lines (PCB layout fun in Altium DXP), and the arrival of a busted ass copy of Tiger. More detail you say? Sure...
My new job, as the kids say, is t3h ra\/\/k. I like it. A lot. Not so much that I'll go back to working 50 hour weeks without compensation, but it is pretty cool. I like what I do, the environment is friendly, and my coworkers are universally cool people. It's nice. The projects are nothing sexy (think lighting control, aka, dimmers and switches), but the nature of the company means that I won't be doing the same thing for years on end, which I appreciate. The facilities are cool, with a pretty well stocked fab shop, an on-site FDM machine, and a dual 3GHz P4 under my desk. There's even an office anti-band, with 3 guitarists, a drummer, and finally, a bass player. We're so indie, Naked Cake doesn't have a chance. We've never even seen the other members instruments...it's amazing. *wink*
Tiger is a completely different story. It began, an innocuous trip to the mall to pick up a copy of a new OS. Why I get all tingly inside when I think about operating systems is something I have yet to understand, but I know I like it, and that's good enough for me. Mom and I plopped ourselves down in line a little before the planned time of the artfully named Tiger Party, as line members number 13 and 14 respectively. There was a nice guy named Dave (line member number 15) next to me, and we chatted as Mac geeks do about things for a little while, before I whipped out my iBook and started surfing the web, thanks to Apple's gracious contribution (an unsecured WiFi connection, in all of it's 802.11b/g glory). After a little waiting, and a lot of clapping and hooting and hollering (by the black shirt clad staff as much as the assembled masses) we made our way around the store and then snapped up a copy of the newest feline from the great fruit. Upon arriving home and attempting to fortify said iBook with the newest cat, I was most dismayed to learn that the media it came on was...how should I say this...b0rked. Halfway thru the media verification it would fail, as would any attempt to install. Feeling only slghtly daunted, I returned to the suburban arm of the mothership and got an exchange, hopefully for a working version, and work it did, finishing the partial install while driving home, in what may have been the first Tiger (retail version) install in a moving vehicle. Next up is the Mini, and then Wintermute II, the frankenmac on which I type this, in that order. Wish me luck.
And with that, this blog entry is now concluded. Keep your hands and feet inside the train at all times, and have a nice ride.
4/4/05, 6:29pm-
This is the new first day of the rest of my new life. I started at my new job today, after a little over a year at my old one. I'll miss working with the guys there, it was a really good run. My new digs are very different, but it's the return to being an EE I've been looking for ever since I was a year out of college. I think it'll be a good thing.
The house hunt is still going slowly. None of the things I've seen so far have made me get all tingly, or even been close to what I want. Where is my 2 bedroom ranch with a garage and a basement? I can't imagine that there aren't ANY out there. Really. This is getting rediculous.
Hung Fu Hustle. You know you want to. Lord knows I do.
3/20/05, 9:52pm-
This weekend was a wash. Aside from a little bit of required work, I was just too damn tired to do much of anything, except watch TV and sit and watch my trains run in a circle. Sad statement? I don't think so. I needed this. I needed 2 days to recover and rest up, because the next 8 workdays are going to be hard. Not bad, just hard. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I will be stronger.
In other news, Carson and I seem to have arrived at our mutual platforms of choice, at least to some extent. This is my laptop:
[Slate:~] dpaton% uname -a Darwin Slate.local 7.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 7.8.0: Wed Dec 22 14:26:17 PST 2004; root:xnu/xnu-517.11.1.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpcAnd my desktop:
Wintermute2:~ dpaton$ uname -a Darwin Wintermute2.local 7.7.0 Darwin Kernel Version 7.7.0: Sun Nov 7 16:06:51 PST 2004; root:xnu/xnu-517.9.5.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpcRunning one rev behind because it's my production machine.
New topic: stress.
It exists in everyone's lives to some extent. When maintained at a healthy level, I truly believe that it is a good thing. Generated internally at low levels, it keeps us motivated and helps in the personal pursuit of whatever we choose to pursue. When allowed to gro beyond those safe confines however, it becomes hazardous and damaging, yielding results similar to the grey hairs on my head and the too-often spabbing pain between my shoulder blades. The former can be cured with medicinal dyes, the latter is harder. I've found my job has very little to do with it. I'm pretty good at partitioning my life to prevent the mix of work and play, tho not perfect. Of course, that only works when I'm really and truly thrilled wiith my life outside work, which as of late has been less than perfectly true. I need my own place, and I need it soon. I love my family dearly, but the ache to return to independence is very strong. Finding a girlfriend would be nice too, but all things in good time. House first.
3/15/05, 11:33pm-
This update is for KP, TYC, and all the rest who noticed it's been a loooong time since I posted something new (the last entry didn't get posted when it was supposed to).
It's official now, on 4/1 I'll be starting a new job with a new company in the same field I spent 5+ years training for in college. I leave behind my old employers with sadness and regret, mainly for the things that might have been, but look forward to a bright future and wondrous opportunities with the new ones. One of the things I did before I knew I was leaving was order a new TV, in preperation for a live of poverty once I buy a house (yes, I have a realtor, and yes, I'm very serious about this). It's wonderous, and since it arrived home yesterday, has been a point of fixation for everyone who walks by my bedroom and notices it. 42" of HD plasma goodness does that I hear. Yummy. My PS2 now speaks to it via Y/Pb/Pr (component video) and there is a DVI cable waiting for my Mini to move to the other room. All I need is a cable hookup and I'll have every kind of video available to me from the comfort of my mattress. It's really quite crazy, but I've never one to shun technical excess have I?
Regarding the house, if anyone knows of a ranch with 2-3 bedrooms, at least 1 1/2 baths, a 2 car garage, and maybe a basement I'd like to know, especially if it doesn't cost 2. Of course, by 2, I mean 2 (too) much. It's remarkably hard to find a place around here that's solid and doesn't need a boatload of work. Really. I've seen some really crappy houses, like the one across the road in Hoffman Estates that was condemned in 99 or so, sell for more than $205k, despite their dire condition. The only one I really liked so far needed a new roof, not just new shingles. Oy. Where are all the affordable houses? Median income in Schaumburg was $61,097 in 1999, and in that same year 81% of the homes in Schaumburg were valued at or less than $200k, but in early 2005, I can't for the life of me find one forking single family home here for under $258k. Real estate can't have gone up that fast here can it? Jeebus. What's a single guy to do?
And all of this bodes well for my personal life. I had 3 new years resolutions this year. Make sure I found a way to like my job more, make sure I found a new place to live, and make sure I found myself someone to love. I'm at 2 out of three (well, the job one didn't work out at all I planned but I'm not going to complain at all) and it's only the middle of March. Things are looking up for me dear readers, and that makes me smile.
3/1/05, 10:48pm-
So I've been looking into mileage cards recently, because my current card doens't offer me any real incentive other than no annual fee, which isn't something that's all that special, right? Wrong. Aparently, if you want to get a perk from your credit card, you have to pay for it. I remember vividly when I got come-ons from legit card companies with incredible perks, no feed EVER, and insane intital credit lines. That must have been a long time ago, because I can't find any record of that ever happening. The AA Platium card I've been thinking about has an $85 annual fee. That's pretty silly in my mind. Granted ,it has the worldcard benefits, like no preset limit and personal concierge service, but I dont' want either of those. I just want to earn 1 mile per dollar and not pay any fees. Nothing fancy. Just miles. Is that too much to ask? Really? My credit is amazing. My record is squeaky clean. Why do they need that extra $85? Are they that greedy? They don't need it. They're not hurting for cash. I'm not a liability. Just give me my miles dammit. That's all I want. Please?
In other, more disturbing news, I just got an announcement that the Backstreet Boys are back together. I hope that doesn't last long. I don't know if I can take any more of them. At least NSync could harmonize. Has the music industry sunk so low that they need to reconstitute failed boy bands? The revolution will not be broadcast by Clear Channel.
2/19/05, 7:10pm-
This is going to be one of those day-in-the-life blogs. I had a really really good one written last night about self-censorship, but ended up putting it in my private blog because it was a little more personal than I like to get here. That's OK tho, because a boring blog like this is much better than an absent one like that, no?
My friend Julie and I have been battling with her car for a while, specifically a very recalcitrant exhaust. It recently fractured, due to a broken bracket, and although my initial temporary fix held for a few days, it was not as robust as we'd both hoped. Today, I was able to affect a better repair, with steel instead of aluminium, and straps instead of bailing wire, and thus a proper result. We were both happy. The only casualties were the original clamps for the lower header heat shield, a portion of the center muffler heat shield, and about $12 which went to pay for parts. All is now well with her chariot. I do have one problem though. She's was having trouble understanding how it is precisely that I derive joy from working on cars. I tried to relate it to her jones for shopping, but I'm not sure that really worked, especially that example failed to incorporate part where I really like doing nice things for people in a truly amazing way.
My activitiees for tomorrow are as yet undecided. The original plan was to head to Madison for a train show, one of the larger in the area, but the impending snow is beginning to encroach upon that hope, and I have none preapred in it's stead. Not that having on plans on a snowy Sunday would be particularly bad. I enjoy watching the snow fall immensely, espcially if I have nothing special to be doing. That said, ideas for fun activities are welcomed dear reader. That aim link at the bottom is a direct conduit to my plans.
2/17/05, 8:44pm-
I've got two tickets to go see the Plain White Tees at thePlain White Tees on Wednesday, March 2nd at 5:30. I fully intend to go, but I need someone else to come with me. I have a hunch that somewhere out there in the web of inters there is someone who wants to rock out to one of Chicago's best local bands. Hit that thar AIM link at the bottom, or send my inbox some hot hot email lovin (since it was all lonely on Valentine's day this year). First come first serve. Plan on being in line around 4:30. I may or may not be able to give you a ride.
2/9/05, 10:33pm-
Tho I should be in bed, I'm wide awake, so I'm going to blog a little.
I was reading /. and saw this article. Does that mean that because I got decent ACT and SAT scores that I'm a LWM person, or that it was an artifact of my normally HWM self, as determined by other methods? I wonder sometimes. I've taken a fair number of intelligence and learning related evaluations over the years and not one of them felt like it really had anything to do with intelligence. They all seemed to be testing other things, like the ability to make visual or logical correlations or figuring out a mildly obscure progression of numbers, things that can be done emperically by anyone given the time and training. I always felt that I was being tested on what I had learned to that point, which is a very different thing than intelligence.
2/5/05, 10:03pm-
So KP and I are chatting, because we're both feeling less than social, she because she's teh s1ck, and me because I'm having a homebody moment. Background: I'm into trains, because I'm a geek and a dork and all of those words I wear like badges of honor, despite the fact that I don't need no steenkin' badges. I have a mythical short line I invented called the Coos Bay & Western. For 15 years it's been logo-less. Now I want to fix that, eith specific assistance from my sister. Excerpt from Adium:
(10:00:51) fiercekp: yeah i got your msgs about teh rr logos (10:01:09) dpatondotnet: I'm trying to make them teh rock, but all I'm coming up with is teh pebble. (10:01:19) fiercekp: lol (10:01:21) fiercekp: teh pebble (10:01:25) fiercekp: lolololololololol (10:01:38) fiercekp: that's so the new away <fiercekp came back (10:01:41)> <fiercekp went away (10:01:51)> <away message: teh pebb1e! (10:01:52)>It's ok. You can laugh at us, but never, EVER, mock teh pebble.
1/28/05, 7:16pm-
I remember where I was 19 years ago. I remember the exact second. It's like a snapshot forever burned into my memory. I was barely 7 years old. The entirety of Wilson elementary was in the library, watching the launch on the TV that sat in the corner on top of the geen bookshelves. Kids were packed shoulder to shoulder on the floor, and they climbed all over the jungle gym to get a peak of the shuttle that was launching the first teacher into space. 73 seconds after liftoff, 7 men and women, admired by all, lost their lives in a moment none who witnessed it will ever forget. No one around me really reacted for a while. Everyone knew what had just happened, though I doubt that many of the younger students appreciated the repercussions or effects of what they'd just seen. I have a faint memory of the principal making a schoolwide announcement after we were led bck to our classrooms, but it's steeped in both the distant past and the shadow of the moments before. Somewhere in one of the boxs labeled 'memories' in the bottom of a closet, I have an STS-51 mission patch. I don't think I'll ever get rid of it. I'm not sure why, but it just feels right to hang onto it. As if somehow, remembering will help the fallen heroes. I hope it does. They deserve it.
1/22/05, 1:20pm-
Just got back from the hobby shop. Holy carp are the roads ugly. The EOH Eastbound is a real mess, anything over 30-40 and you'll slide like a hockey player. The Westbound lanes are dead clear, but for some reason the EB ones are totally neglected. Ugh. Visibility is maybe 100 yards in places, and a lot less in others. Blowing and falling snow combine to make things interesting. Cedarcrest hasn't been plowed or salted since this morning, and it's snowed a couple of inches since then. You can draw your own conclusions. A lot of folks seem to have real trouble with car control too. I saw a whole lot of cars slide right into intersections at lights and miss turns by a mile because the drivers forget that their cars understeer like mad when friction is low. Thankfully no one was trying kick-turns in traffic like last year, but it was still tricky avoiding those who were running past their own limits, like the guy in the Blazer that ended up in the median when he passed me doing 70ish on the EOH. There's a reason EVERYONE was in the right lane doing 40. Dumbass. I am kinda suprised he didn't roll over, but that's a good thing, since I really hate calling 911.
Anyway, I made it home with all the couplers I need to get rid of the horrid underhanging plastic things on a bunch of my engines, and now I'm off to start the retrofit process. Wish me luck.
1/16/05, 11:33pm-
I spent today being a relaxing bum. It was nice. I played with trains (the ABB traincam is almost ready!) and did lunch out with mom and dad, and finished up in front of the fire. It was good. It was my birthday yesterday. I got a cool toy for my camera (Kirk 80-400 collar), a tank car, a cool fountain pen, a Nationals shirt, and a bunch of really nice cards. More to come from KP when I see her next. My family rocks hard core. Yeah :-)
Now it's late, and I'm tired. Goodnight moon.
1/7/05, 8:35pm-
It's been a long December
And there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
Sometimes Adam knows just what to say.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
1/7/05, 6:45pm-
I'm feeling remarkably less dead today, but that doesn't mean I'm better, it just means I'm getting there. The downside was that I didn't get the right drugs until today. The upshot is that given the non-drug improvements of this morning, I should be better by Tuesday or so, by my own esitmates anyway.
Trains continue to dominate my life just slightly, as there is now a 12 pack of hoppers to build, in addition to painting the ash conveyor and the water tower so that they look less like Plasticville components. The world for me this weekend will be railroadtastic I think. Should be fun. And Dennis, the nice guy who will be painting my AC-9 (with a reference list that includes Overland Models Inc), has said that in exchange for scanning his pictures, he'll fix the pilot on the aforementioned engine. Weeeeeeeee! All I need to do now is decide if I'm going DCC so I can get a decoder installed and tested before I send it off. \m/
I can hear you saying "OK, enough with the trains dave!" and I can understand why. Relax, I'll return to the rest of my hobbies in short order, and things will return to their normal randomness in a week or two. I promise. Right after I get this steam bug out of my system. There's a Balboa SP consolidation that really looks like it wants a new home, and an MDC Shay that wants to be assembled. Really, that's all....
1/5/05, 3:08pm-
Got my Tichy ore car dozen kit, and the 2 MDC SP 22' from evilBay. So cute! If I'm still sick tomorrow, I may try and start asembly, but that will depend on if my dexterity has returned by then. This entry is taking forever because my fingers won't seem to hit the right keys, even tho I'm in full-on hunt-n-peck mode today. Thankfully things at the office are slow, so there's no urgent need for me to rush my recovery and risk giving this thing to someone else.
I also got the demo photos from Dennis, and it looks like he's first in the running for chief painter for my AC-9. The PRR stuff he has in there looks extra sharp. I need to find out about some finish options however. I don't want anything quite that shiny.
Damn this bug has taken a lot out of me. I'm going back to bed. Blah.
1/5/05, noon-
Blah. I hate being sick. really I do. I picked up this phenomenally annoying bug on Sunday or Monday (according to my Dr), and it's really kicked my ass something fierce. I spent most of he day yesterday in bed, and I think I may do the same today. I can't wait until I feel human again.
It's finally snowing properly here, and it looks really nice. There's a solid 4-5" on the ground, maybe more. It's hard to tell from my bedroom window. The "experts" say it's going to continue for another day and change, and we could end up with more than a foot of the white stuff. That's not a bad thing. Not at all.
Monday night I went out with Al and the infamous Lou Rocko Centrella, and it was a blast. Gamewoks 0wned me tho, suckign up my remaining credits in just under an hour. I'm really good at the rally sim, and Time Crisis isn't to bad, but man oh man, that Superbike sim kicked me hard. Not so much with the finesse on that one. Oops.
And I neglected to mention that I once again have bamboo. I hope this batch is luckier than the last :-) Thanks mom!
1/1/05, 2:10pm-
Happy new year everybody!
Last night was amazing, on more levels than are bloggable, if that's even a word.
The evening started (mor eor less) with a trip to Karen's (P) by myself, Al, and Karen (Z). After a mere one misadventure with the parking, we headed up to her (really nice) apartment to kill time with the two residents (Karen (P) and Melissa (K). Melissa incedentally, served us the most amazing flourless cake (Hot Chocolate Cake?), which had melted maarshmallows on top, and was halfway to fudge, and tasted really really good. Yeah. After killing a sufficient amount fo time, the crew (Myself, Al, Karen (Z), Karen (P), and John (attached to Karen (P)), adjourned to Kelly and Mike's apartment, which was equally nice, but much more festive, due mainly to the company :-) At athat point, things get a little fuzzy, because the preferred beverage of Karen (Z) and I is the infamous Captain and Coke. Karen, being the ex-bartendress that she is, mixed the first few rounds as best she could, since the party was lacking ice. The results were excellent, although very strong, as is expected when the normally small quantities of ingredients are amplified by the complete lack of filler material (the missing, tho not missed, ice). No one complained. The countdown was at a friend's (of the enigmatic Kelly) place, where the champaign was served and many good stories were told. No, I didn't partake in any of the champaign, since I knew that I'd be hurting plenty from just the C&Cs. Champaign and I don't mix, although it was a particularly tasty variety. The return to Kelly's brought with it a little more drinking, a little more partying, and a lot more tiredness, and as we were all finally settling into the comfort of slumber, I reflected upon the year that was 2004 and the friends I was surrounded with, and concluded that it was indeed a very good year. My friends are good people in the most fundamental sense of the word, and I'm very glad they're in my life. I'm sure I'm a better person for it. Resolutions? I'm going to modify the list from last year a little, but they're pretty boring: Call and email more often. Absence, despite the saying, makes friendships harder than they need to be. Mea culpa. Finish the things I start more decisively. Not just finished, but finished! That would be a good thing. Last? I think I'd like to be a better me. I'm not quite sure how, or exactly what that entails, but I think that I can still improve the person I am, and I think I'd like to try.
Now I'm goign to take my giant glass of Gatorade and my plain but salty pringles and adjourn to the TV, where I can do something mindless while my stomach rebalances itself, pH- and otherwise.
Happy new year folks.
For news from 2002, visit the Old News '02 For news from 2003, visit the Old News '03 For news from 2004, visit the Old News '04
