Blogrilla

1. I got a new print server gizmo so Liz and I can share the Epson Stylus Photo 925 I have in the basement. The gizmo (model HPS1U) is made by Hawking Technology. Make sure you jot that name down and DON’T EVER BUY ANYTHYING FROM THEM! They’ve put together the biggest piece of crap in this single-port wired print server! It was a pain to install and I couldn’t get it configured so it would work correctly. I spent maybe 3 hours trying to get it to print ANYthing besides an insipid test page. Did I mention I’m an IT professional and I work with products like this all the time? This is actually a “professional opinion”. So I have to take it back today and compel CompUSA to take their garbage back. Like someone at Epinions.com said, I’ll buy something reliable from D-Link instead. I’ve already got a router from them I like.
2. The same day I swung by RatShack and purchased a small assortment of potentiometers that I will use in my robot project. I haven’t gotten to try them out yet, but the weekend is coming up and I am looking forward to some spare time in the evenings. The weather should be outstanding so I am hoping to have very little spare time during the day. Ben and Gabe have a soccer game and I think Chloe has a t-ball game. I have a run-away honeysuckle that needs an attitude adjustment and a honkin’ big pile of mulch that needs to be distributed.
3. Happy 8th birthday to Ben! He lost a third tooth yesterday. I need to post a picture because he’s starting to look pretty funny. I mean cute. “adorable”. you know.
4. Ben stayed home from school yesterday because he wasn’t feeling well. Last night he had some diarrhea and finished the evening off by vomiting in a bowl! Isn’t that excellent? No, I mean isn’t it great that he was able to keep it in the bowl? I think so.

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I sat down to write this thinking that so far my day had started off pretty poorly. See, on my way to work I stopped at Starbucks for a treat. I wanted a triple grande latte. Its a treat because its nearly a $4 cup of coffee. While I was waiting I saw a sign saying that my favorite coffee, Ethiopian Sidamo, would be unavailable until June 30th.

When I asked why there would be a delay in my favorite coffee, the girl behind the counter (technically a “barista”, right?) said “There’s some kind of problem over there. Hey Janelle! Isn’t there some kind of, like, drought in Ethiopia?”

Janelle confirmed that there was. And I went through some minor flashbacks involving Bob Geldoff in the desert, Hands-Across-America, LiveAid and The Boss standing next to A Flock of Seagulls.

It was all very 80’s.

Then I got to work and — I’m glad nobody was around to see this — I struggled to get out of the car with my computer, a newspaper and my favorite $4 cup of coffee and managed to accidentally throw the foamy coffee all over my shoes! I must have looked like a real spazz.

Now I’m drinking the garbage they serve in the canteen and I’m stuck at work for another 9 hours.

But then I realized that even though I’ve only been awake for a little over an hour all is not lost! When I left the house this morning the sun was shining, the temperature was in the sixties and there was a free newspaper (Boston Globe) wedged in my door.

All things considered, this morning is a bit of a wash.

Wait, today is Bob Edwards last day at Morning Edition. That pushes today in to the “bad” category.

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Its 72 degrees and very sunny with low humidity. Its OUTSTANDING outside!

I decided that I needed to get my hair cut today so I put the top down on the convertible and enjoyed the wind in my hair and went to my usual place (http://www.whiskerscuts.com/). I beautiful woman massaged warm soapy water in to my scalp and eventually got around to cutting my hair. All the “stylists” there dress in tight black t-shirts and are actually excellent stylists. I think “Jen” washed my hair THREE times! How about that?

Afterwards I put on the shades and cruised over to TNN Barbeque and purchased a pulled pork burrito. A couple of doors down is Starbucks, so I stopped in there to get a triple grande latte for the road. I stopped a field on the way back to work and listened to the radio and ate my lunch right there. I sipped a cream soda and enjoyed the warm weather and sun.

Cream Soda is good, you dork. If you don’t like it, its really your loss.

It was very difficult to come back to work. And yet it was also inevitable.

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This hasn’t been an especially good week. I wake up every day angry. Every morning I find myself consumed with work related issues and as I shower I fume and run over arguments from the day before. I rehash arguments I had two years ago and allow myself to get testy 15 minutes after waking up. On a couple of instances I’ve found myself shouting at drivers before 7am.

This doesn’t seem right to me. I can think about whatever I choose to think about and don’t need to dwell on these negative things so early in the morning. Naturally I will have to confront issues and people throughout the day, but I don’t have to get so angry so early, do I?

My temper has been getting shorter and shorter at work and at home. I need to do something to settle myself down. Exercise maybe? I think that I need to introduce more “fun” in to my life.

How?

dunno.

Maybe I need to have something to look forward to every day. Every couple of days? Hmmm… I’ll give it some thought.

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For years I’ve been trying to point out to my organization that my efforts at archiving have met a stone wall. That is, I tell the business that we need to archive this stuff and they all nod their collective heads and agree that this is a fearsome problem that someone should do something about.

Then they implement new projects and devote money to building new distribution centers and more resources are turned to other, higher priorities. I understand that restraining database growth is not a high priority. That’s fine. The business sets these priorities and they can’t all be critical all the time.

Unfortunately, one of my numerous bosses recently had to go to the president to ask for nearly half a million dollars form more disk space. The president pointed out that the entire need for the request is IT’s fault because someone hasn’t been archiving like they should have.

And its true. Its exactly what I’ve been saying for years, but this time it came from the guy who signs the checks. I’m not in any trouble for not doing enough, but it will clearly come down to me to put together a plan to address the growth of our database. In addition to trying to finalize my efforts to get Sales and Distribution archiving in to production I’m going to have to do a comprehensive review of where all our data is and how to remove it, store it and access it.

I didn’t really NEED another responsibility but there’s nobody else here who can do it. Its also an opportunity to increase the visibility of my accomplishments.

This is the most positive way I can look at it.

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They’ve got a “class” that can be hard to come by in other news outlets:

From Nightline’s 4-27 daily email (tonight’s show is on the Cheney Supreme Court case):

Now I want to tell you about this Friday’s broadcast. We’re going to do something different, something that we think is important. Friday night, we will show you the pictures, and Ted will read the names, of the men and women from the armed forces who have been killed in combat in Iraq. That’s it. That will be the whole broadcast. Nightline has been reporting on the casualties under the heading of “Line of Duty.”

But we realized that we seemed to just be giving numbers. So many killed in this incident, so many more in that attack. Whether you agree with the war or not, these men and women are serving, are putting their lives on the line, in our names. We think it is important to remember that those who have paid the ultimate price all have faces, and names, and loved ones. We thought about doing this on Memorial Day, but that’s a time when most media outlets do stories about the military, and they are generally lost in the holiday crush of picnics and all. We didn’t want this broadcast to get lost. Honestly, I don’t know if people will watch this for thirty seconds, or ten minutes, or at all. That’s not the point. We think this is important. These men and women have earned nothing less.

One point, we are not going to include those killed in non-hostile incidents. There’s no disrespect meant here, we just don’t have enough time in this one broadcast. But they are no less deserving of our thoughts. I hope that you will join us for at least part of “The Fallen” on Friday.

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff

Nightline Offices

ABCNEWS Washington D.C.

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Sure enough, three yards of mulch is LOT of mulch. The pile the dumptruck left behind is about four feet tall and about eight feet in diameter. Maybe ten. Anyway, its going to take a lot of trips to move it, I think. I’ve been assuming I could borrow my neighbor’s wheel barrow, but I wonder if I should have one of my own?

I so rarely need one. I think I’ll count on borrowing my neighbor’s.

I asked for brown mulch and what arrived what actually much more along the lines of “black”. I suspect that this particular load came from deep inside the giant mulch mountains I’ve seen at the nursery. Its probably already decomposed. Liz said that when the mulch first arrived it was steaming. That would fit with the decomposing theory.

Is that good or bad? Irrelevant?

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I was right. They were raping me. There was never any question was there? I did a quick search at Google and found a forum where some people were discussing my problem (http://www.automotiveforums.com/t172919.html).

SONOFABITCH!

I should have checked the web before I paid someone else $115 to do it!

SHIT!

To summarize the discussion it looks like this part that went bad really is a resistor. When the blower uses settings one through three (anything except full-blast) it uses the resistor to decrease the amount of electricity getting to the blower motor. This is called the Blower Motor Resistor (BMR) and it looks like a thick credit card. Its tucked behind a panel on the passenger side of the car inside the dash. Apparently you just have to remove ONE screw and then you can remove the assembly that has the BMR in it. Put the new one in the assembly and put everything back the way you found it.

DAMNIT!!!

The kicker? The resistor is only $5!!

From now on I’m going to research EVERY fix-it issue in my life on the web before making a single move.

DAMNIT!

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I think the dealership is raping me. I can’t be sure, of course, but I have several reasons to think so:

1. They’re a dealership 
2. They want to charge me a pile of money for a number of repairs!

I guess, its really just #1. I took it over there for a 45k mile check up. I wasn’t crazy about spending $270 on it, but I thought it would be prudent for them to look the car over. What was I thinking? That’s just what they wanted!! They want me to come in with a slightly worn car and they can find a million things to fix on it! I played right in to their hands, too.

Here are some of the things they want to do:

• $420     replace the front rotors and pads.
• $115     fix the blower by changing a resistor.
• $95       fix the rear defrost; resolder a connection
• $250     replace a steering belt and an AC belt
• $270     regular tune up

All of this came to over $1,100!! For once, I didn’t roll over and accept it. I argued and finagled and bitched and moaned. I started off talking about the resistor and got them to knock that down some. Then I focused on the brakes. I was pissed about the brakes. He could tell that my plan was to simply go to Midas around the corner anyway. So he knocked $100 off the price. Also, since the rear defrost has a service note from Chrysler on it he’s going to do that for free.

I had to be a pain in the ass about it, but I’m glad I didn’t just roll over and take it. And I told him I wanted it by 4pm!

(there might be some wiggle room on the 4pm business)

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Gracie used the potty today! On purpose and everything! We’re not trying to potty-train her or anything. None of our other kids have been interested in potties at this age. All our other kids were significantly older when they got the hang of it. I think they were over three years old!

Nonetheless, Grace insisted that she try out the potty so she stripped herself naked and hopped up there. Within a minute or so she had pee’ed in the potty!

How exciting! This shows that she understands that the pressure on her bladder means she has to pee! And she noticed it!

In spite of this news I think she’s still just playing with the idea though.

Still, how cool is that?

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