Archives 2009

All week I am doing remote training once again so these will be quick hitters if anything at all.

Saturday was mostly a workfest that included weed whacking, mowing, weeding, cleaning and dusting, what fun.  One out of the ordinary project was my work on the van to make it at least somewhat presentable.  I hit the 15-20 rust spots on the drip rail with a drill attachment to get it down to solid metal.  Then I went around with a small brush and a cup of that rust converter stuff and coated each spot, twice.  It turns the metal into a black primer like substance.  From there I plan to simply mask it off and hit it with some white paint.  No it won’t look great but it will look better than it did.  I also used the attachment to knock off some of the rust streaks on the paint.

Sunday morning while Ali went to spinning I decided to do some real world spinning and take my road bike out for the first time since the trip out west.  It also was the first time I took it out since I screwed around with the gears.  Thankfully it actually seemed to be shifting a little better.  As I was riding along I looked down at the front brakes and noticed that the one pad seemed to be rubbing against the wheel.  It annoyed me and I stopped a little later to see if I could adjust it by hand, I could not.  It was creating a significant amount of drag, if I free spun the wheel it would stop within two revolutions.  F that, I decided to cut my scheduled 18 mile ride short and instead turned around at about the 6.25 mile mark. 

I was working hard enough with the high humidity and blazing sun, I didn’t need to work against the brake as well.  My pace was well off the Randall pace the last time the ride was done.  When I got home I was able to adjust the brake properly.  My skin was just oozing sweat by the time I got back.  Boy did the pool feel good.

In my haste to get in the pool I hadn’t noticed that Sadie had been busy while I was gone. Sadie pulled a Wii remote off of a counter and decided to use it as a chew toy.  Boy was I pissed.  I stomped towards here holding the remote in my hand while yelling NAUGHTY!!!!!!!  Instantly she retreated to the outside, knowing she was in deep shit.  I mean WTF, there are literally 100 dog toys stuffed in two baskets and instead she decides to destroy one of MY toys?  I was really hot for quite awhile.  Every time Sadie tried to approach me I just gave her “the look” and she backed away.

Originally I had plans for Ali and I to go to see Bruno.  I had heard it was funny on the Stern Show.  Well Ali didn’t share in my desire to see it.  Her sentiment was reinforced when Randall gave his review after seeing it on Saturday.  He said it just wasn’t good.  So that was out the window and instead we decided to go see Harry Potter.

Before the movie I had a number of stops I wanted to make.  One of them was at the bike store.  I finally got around to buying a seat that is similar to Randall’s.  It offers more padding as well as a “relief zone” in the middle so you aren’t squashing your junk.  I also snagged a small rack that mounts to the seat tube so I can strap stuff on like a repair kit, extra hydration, etc if I want to.  Yea I don’t think you see too many road bikes with a rack on it but who cares, I’m not a conventional road biker.  I look forward to getting the stuff installed on my bike and giving it a test run.

So even though this was opening weekend for the Harry Potter movie I had no fears, we were going to Coconut Point again.  We arrived 15 minutes before the start and the theater was basically empty again.  We had no problems getting a primo seat in the big 400 person theater.  During the first half of the movie I was having a VERY hard time staying awake.  It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with the flick, I was just extremely tired from getting up on my own at 5:30 am followed by the energy consuming bike ride.  Even the Diet Coke and chocolate Raisinets couldn’t stave off the drowsiness.  On more than one occasion my eyes closed for a few moments.

Anyway the movie was good just like all Harry Potter movies are.  Since I only read the first two books the plot of this movie surprised me.  I didn’t expect certain things to go down.  It’s funny how they have to digitally shrink Daniel Radcliffe down to make him appear younger than his actual years in certain scenes.  If you’ll like Harry Potter you like the movie.  You’ll probably like the movie even if you never read the book. I’d give it an A.

Wow my brief foray into Sarah Palin discussions turned into a huge deal once it got sucked over to Facebook.  In total there are nearly 40 comments about it.  Tom got the worst of it from the commentator side of things but he was gracious through the beatings.  As I later said in the thread, politics and religion are like throwing a match into dynamite.  Whenever it is brought up you are likely to get some blowback.

I’m happy to take a hiatus from those type of discussions for a little while.

I’ll post his response as it’s own post instead of leaving it buried under a Comments link.  Thanks for taking the time to lay out your ideas.  I’ll address them later but let me simply say this in preface to your reply.

Personally,  I don’t want a politician to be on my mental level.  I want extremely smart, extremely flexible, extremely affable and extremely thoughtful individuals representing me in government.  They need to be able to listen to ideas that may not always be their own. They shouldn’t be told what to do by some being in the sky that may or not exist or directed by some magic book that is held up as gospel by some of the largest hypocrites on the planet. I want the best of the best, simple enough. Sarah Palin fails almost all of my criteria, hence my disdain of her attempts to become politically significant.

So without further adieu, Broon’s unedited response…..

Thomas Slovik // Jul 17, 2009 at 7:54 pm

When Sarah Palin was first introduced as the vice president choice of John McCain, a choice that blindsided everybody, I initially thought this was a pretty smart move.  Her writer prepared speech was delivered enthusiastically and with passion.  It also didn’t hurt the words were coming from an attractive middle aged woman.  I thought it was a pretty smart attack on Democrats, a way to lure some avid Hilary supporters away although the very idea that you would vote for a candidate simply based on their genitalia is rather ridiculous.  Hilary and Sarah couldn’t be more different on their political viewpoints.  Any person that would have swung across party lines with the Palin choice was a little low in brain octane in my opinion.

Ok anyway, like I said I never heard of the woman before and based on her one speech I heard she sounded like a decent choice.  Unfortunately for the republicans they were unable to bound and gag her for the rest of the campaign and lock her in a trunk.  Sarah quickly exposed herself as an unqualified, bible thumping, gun toting,  paper bulldog who embarrassed herself and the McCain campaign consistently every time she was allowed to speak without a script.  I mean the Katie Couric interview was astonishing as well as the one she did with Chris Wallace.  The only thing Sarah appeared good at was beating the shit out of certain key phrases that the republican puppet masters wanted her to say like “maverick”, “Joe the Plumber”, “Get er done”, “Hockey mom” and infinite basketball to politics analogies.

To me, the woman came off as incredibly outclassed for the position she was meant to take on and I believe I would have that viewpoint regardless of my political orientation.  I didn’t need another dummy in the White House, regardless of party.

Anyway, the whole reason I even bring this up is on Facebook a former high school buddy of mine Tom has been very vocal in his support for Sarah Palin.  He seems to think that she is just a terrific up and coming political figure and can basically do no wrong in his book.  He even justified her quitting her elected position as governor because she was getting too much heat.  That is just what I am looking for in a leader, someone that bails if they are scrutinized too closely.

When I heard Sarah’s speech she gave when she quit I was comforted to know that she had not lost one ounce of her ability to make rambling, nonsensical statements that are filled with nothing but empty metaphors that make no real sense.  I mean seriously, how can you listen to that “I quit” speech and feel like this is what you want in the White House? 

Tom also can’t stand Obama and seems to think that pretty much every single move he has made since he entered office was a bad one.  He appears to be against  the bail outs, stimulus packages, and various other measures that have been taken and in some cases continued from the Bush administration.  These measures were taken in response to being handed the worst financial condition EVER from a prior administration.  If Obama’s moves have been all wrong I would like to know what course of action would have been preferred by the naysayers?  Should we let financial institutions and auto industry go belly up and just tell the millions of people losing their life savings and/or their jobs “tough shit” that is they way things go? 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Obama walks on water.  Tom made an interesting post about all of the “Czars” that Obama has appointed and I already mentioned my displeasure with the Cap & Trade plan that is in congress right now.   I think a lot of the ideals that Obama spoke of when campaigning are getting drug through the mud of the entrenched political juggernaut that runs the legislative branch of government.  Obama can’t wave a magic wand and make all of that bullshit go away.  He has to try to work with the scum that have been there for years to try to get the best legislation possible out of congress.  It seems that is a more difficult task than he thought. 

I’m not a supporter of welfare mentality, big brother government or socialism.  I’m also not a fan of rich people paying smaller tax percentages than Joe the Plumber, Dick Cheyney (f you I’ll do what I want) politics, orchestrated wars, rich insurance companies laughing at millions of uninsured Americans, or unregulated, greed driven money grabbing.  Navigating a path down the middle of those two points seems to be close to unreachable.

I respect Tom’s opinion and I think he is a very smart guy which is all the more reason I am astonished that he thinks so highly of Sarah Palin and thinks SO negatively of Obama.  In fact I encouraged him to be my guest commentator for the day so he can offer his view on the issues.  I hope he does.

I see these people A LOT in SW Florida, human sign posts.  Minimal job skills are required, I believe the ads for such a position goes like this:

WANTED: Human sign post.  Must be able to wave incessantly, stand in one place for hours at a time, endure harsh elements and be willing to work for peanuts.

These people amaze me.  The job has to be absolutely miserable.  I am further dumbfounded by businesses idea that this is actually an effective way of advertising.  I can’t ever recall seeing a human sign post and as a result decide to patronize that business as a result.

No doubt….

So I have been trying to get through The Dumbest Generation, a book about how today’s young Americans have basically been stupefied by today’s digital, social networked, entertainment gorging society.  I found the premise of the book interesting, even though I am engulfed in much of what it claims to be evil.  Well the book so far has been in a word, boring.  I am about half way through it at this point.  I have skipped many pages along the way.

Each chapter goes pretty much like this.  A premise is laid out, for example, parents use the TV as a digital babysitter and in the process unknowingly enslave their child to the device.  The child becomes incapable of being by themselves without a TV turned on.  After the premise is laid out the next 25 pages list endless studies, surveys and statistics that would lend credence to that premise.  It’s an extremely dry read.  Sure it’s cool to back up your theories with facts but I think the book would be much more interesting with more real life examples of situations that illustrate the phenomenon.  It’s going to be a struggle to get through it.

Over the weekend mom and I were talking about the book and premise a bit.  Mom said that my generation were the pioneers for the dumbest generation.  Video games came into main stream while I was a child with the Atari 2600 leading the way. (I was an Intellivision geek)  She said how she remembered me spending hours on end playing a game to “beat” it.  There is no debating that video games were a big part of my childhood yet I don’t think it compares in the least to the digital immersion that is the norm today.

When I was a kid cell phones didn’t exist, there was no real internet, text messaging meant writing a note and handing it to your friend and if someone said MMORPG you would think he was trying to sound funny.  I can only imagine what my childhood would have been if I was born into this time of digital overload.  Would I have even pursued playing sports, climbing trees,  write simple poetry, draw, build extravagant Lego structures or even simply use my imagination for that matter? At the very least I am sure my outside interests would have been extremely diminished.  All I could hope for is my parents would be strict enough to see the danger in allowing a child to rely exclusively on digital media to stimulate their brains and entertain themselves.  Unfortunately that isn’t the case in many households.  I read somewhere that the average teen sends TWO THOUSAND text messages per MONTH.

Yesterday after work I hit Wal-mart looking for a couple items and wound up walking out of there carrying two arms full of stuff.  I stumbled across a shop vac brush attachment to replace ours that went MIA, a new filter for it too.  I also came across some $3 door sweeps that I plan to mutate to work on our lanai doors to help keep critters out.  I also snagged 2 or 3 other items that I didn’t expect to get but once I stumbled across them I realized I could use them.  Looks like I have a bunch of mini-projects to knock out this weekend.

Getting Exchange 2007 up and running in our existing Exchange 2003 system was relatively easy.   What hasn’t been easy is setting up some of the features of it like Outlook Anywhere and or do something as simple as back it up.  Microsoft did a number of things with Exchange 2007 that don’t make sense like remove functionality from the GUI console and make certain operations only possible using the powershell interface.  It’s also stupid that you can no longer back up Exchange with the Windows Server 2008 back up utility.  Who introduces new versions and strips out functionality??? 

Well I thought I had my bases covered from a backup perspective when we upgraded to BackupExec 12.5 which supports Exchange 2007.  I  figured I install the remote agent on the Exchange 07 server, add it to my back up job and bam, I am ready to go.  After all that is how it worked with Exchange 2003 and Backupexec. Wrong. 

Yesterday I was in Backup Exec for some reason and just happened to look at the selections for the Exchange 07 server.  I noticed that I no longer had the ability to restore individual mailboxes, just the entire information store, WTF?? So I am off to Google to see what the hell the deal is.  What I find is in order to restore mailboxes in Exchange 07 you need to have GRT(Granular Restore Technology)  working in Backup EXEC.  However it isn’t like you just turn it on.

In order to properly backup the information store you need to jump through a number of hoops like installing the Exchange 07 management console on the Backupexec server, install some MAPI Collaboration pack on the Exchange server and a bunch of tweaks to the groups the backupexec user is in.  That is annoying.  More annoying is there is no mention of it when you go to set up an Exchange 07 server in the backup job.  If I hadn’t stumbled across it I would have been SOL if I had the need to restore a mailbox.  I am still fighting with this config and have yet to get it to work correctly.  For what we paid for Backupexec and the various agents that you are required to buy ala carte I think it is bullshit that they make Exchange 2007 backup such a chore.

So the AC repair guy came out yesterday.  In fact they called about 10 minutes into my gym workout so I had to cut it short and haul ass back to the office and then back to the house.  I gave him a brief history of the unit.  He grabbed the copper pipe and could instantly tell it was not cold enough.  They did some readings and determined the freon level was somewhat low although not terribly so.  He added about 2 pounds of coolant. 

The tech said that basically I need to monitor the system and see if it’s cooling performance degrades quickly.  If it does, then a leak test needs to be run which costs another couple hundred bucks.  If it is a tiny leak it may be ok for quite awhile considering it has run 8 years without having anything added to it.  After the freon was added he tested the air coming out of the handler, it was a chilly 61 degrees so the unit is still cooling well.  Once they were done the house started to cool down much better.

I also told the tech how I have a variable thermostat installed.  I mentioned that I let the temp go up to 82 during the day and then cool down to 77 after we get home.  He advised that there is no more than 3 degree swing in daytime versus nighttime settings.  Otherwise the amount of work the unit has to do to cool down the house will negate any benefit from the higher setting.  I may actually be using more electric having the thermostat at 82 instead of 80 during the day.  I made that change after they left.  The cost for the visit, $149. $89 for the service call and $60 for 2 pounds of coolant.  Now it’s up to me to keep an eye on how the system cools to see if we have a leak that needs to be addressed.

Yesterday I went out to the party van and stripped off the rust from the various spots on the drip rail.  My plan is to strip it to bare metal, prime the area and then just paint over it with some white paint to make it look a little better.  This is all in prep for the master plan of unloading the party van on some body looking to carry lots of people for little money (ie. Mexicans).   My hope is to sell the van for a couple grand and buy another conversion van, a newer one this time,  maybe a late 90’s model instead of an early 90’s model.

 The party van would also qualify for the new Cash for Clunkers program.  Unfortunately a SS Camaro does NOT qualify for any money back.  If I went for the V6 model I could get $3500 for the van.  If we bought something even more fuel efficient it would bring $4500 to the table.

I forgot to mention I played some Wii sports with my mom over the weekend.  She did pretty well holding her own in tennis.  She had a shocking upset in Wii Bowling when I bowled probably my lowest score ever and she rolled her best game ever.  I was having issues getting the Wii to consistently read my wrist snap which resulted in straight balls.  There is photo evidence of this historic event which I will try to get online soon.

So my new tonneau cover was installed yesterday.  The new cover looks great but yet I have some buyers remorse.  It has nothing to do with the cover, it’s because I paid to have it installed.  After seeing how simple the installation was I felt almost moronic for paying someone to install it for me.  If I would have bought the cover myself and installed it myself I probably could have saved a good $150 or so. Oh well, I guess I will write it off as an investment in local business.

After work last night I ripped into the air handler almost hoping that I would see a small pond of water collected underneath in the duct work which would explain the poor cooling performance.  Unfortunately, it appears that the rig job I performed last time I had the unit apart had worked.  There was absolutely no water collected underneath.  Why is this unfortunate you ask?  Well it means there is something else wrong which will require an expensive visit from an HVAC company.  I suppose our house is getting to the age when this sort of thing is going to start happening.

Mom goes back home today, we enjoyed having her around for 5 days.  It seemed like she actually didn’t mind it as much as she did in the past.  I think she enjoyed being involved in the painting project.  I’ll have to get the next painting project on the calendar while she is available to lend a hand.

So I picked up Mom on the way home from work on Friday night.  Mom is staying with us until Tuesday.  The main reason we asked her out was so she could dog sit while Ali was at a conference all day.  Secondarily we wanted to use her painting experience to help us pick out a color to use in the dining room.  Third we hoped she might want to help paint too.  All three worked out great.

Mom and I went to Lowe’s Saturday morning to pick up two gallons of the paint we picked out the night before.  The color was called “sandy shell”.  As we checked out we asked the clerk about job opportunities at Lowe’s since Lowe’s and Home Depot could be two possible good fits for mom to reenter the workforce.  She said they weren’t hiring right now but mom could get her application in online so when something comes up she would be in the pool of people to be considered.

While we were away Ali did a nice job of getting all of the trim work in the dining room taped off in prep for painting.  She actually had to take off to some luncheon so mom and I were going to start the painting while she was gone.  In order to minimize the furniture moving I shifted the main table to the one wall, thinking we could get 3 walls painted and then move stuff back to do the last wall.  In my head I figured it would be a 2 day project. I was wrong.

One of the most annoying things for me is trying to paint the ceiling line in a room.  In our other painting projects I have tried using various edgers to get the job done.  I never had great success in getting a consistent and clean ceiling line.  In the living room I decided to tape the ceiling line this time.  I figured what the hell, taping the trim works great, why not do the same thing with the ceiling?  In the past I shyed away from taping the ceiling because it seemed like it would be a large pain in the ass.  Once again I was wrong.  Taping the ceiling wasn’t hard or a very lengthy process however it made a huge difference in both the amount of effort to paint the line and also in the quality of the work.  As I pulled the tape away I had a beautiful, straight, crisp line.

Mom and I worked diligently.  By the time Ali got back from her luncheon we had two coats on the three walls.  All that was left was to do a bout a 10 foot section on the last wall.  Ali couldn’t believe how much we got done.  She jumped right in to help us finish.  Ali went around and did the touch up work since that is her specialty.  The first paint hit the walls around 11:15, we were pretty much done and cleaned up by 4:30, pretty amazing.

The color looks great, Mom, Ali and I all agree.  We plan to use the same color when we take on the daunting project of painting the rest of the large living area.  The color matched everything in the room well.  It is weird how a simple change of color can change the entire mood of a room.  All of a sudden our dining room feels warm and classy.  Throughout the rest of the weekend we all spent many moments just admiring the change.

Our Sunday was a nice contrast to a pretty bust ass Saturday.  After doing some inside chores and putting in a couple of miles on the treadmill I joined mom by the pool.  It was hot as hell yesterday.  You couldn’t stay out of the pool very long before you were sweating again. Ali was gone again for a good portion of the day but joined mom by the pool when she got back.

Speaking of hot, that is what Ali and I were when we saw the $290 electric bill.  Now we have had bills this high before but this was different.  This was the bill for June.  We were gone for two weeks out west!  During that time the computers were off, the water heater was off, the tv’s were off, everything was off except the pool pump and the AC that was set at a steady 82 degrees.  It should not have been that high.

I noticed that yesterday the AC was on pretty much all day.  The system didn’t appear to be able to cool the house down very efficiently.  It lead me to my hypothesis of why the bill was so high.  I think the AC system once again has water pooled down in the vent under the air handler, choking off air and thus making the system very inefficient.  I plan to rip the air handler open tonight after work and take a look.  I fully expect to be vacuuming out several gallons of water.  I have to do something to fix this problem long term.

My truck gets it’s new tonneau cover installed today.  I threw my bike in the back so I could simply ride to work after dropping off the truck since it was only about a mile from my office.  I look forward to not having to use a rock to hold down the broken, flapping cover.

If you want to see all of the pictures from the painting project go here.

I am picking up my mom on the way home tonight.  She is going to be spending a few days with us and I’m looking forward to it.  One of the things I hope to get accomplished over that time is painting the dining room.

Last night I knocked out mowing the grass after work so it would free up time over the weekend for other stuff.  I also removed cover plates, light switch covers and curtain hardware from the living room to prep for the project.

I read that Obama’s approval rating has been going down.  I can understand the shift.  It seems the news is once again filled with lots of bad news.  I have to be honest, I am a bit concerned about the original ideas that he ran his campaign on are getting tarnished by traditional Washington DC bullshit. Items are tacked on to bills which wind up turning a positive concept into a negative final product.  Cap and trade is a perfect example.

I am not one to promote government welfare,yet  I also am not one to only care about myself and not care about the big picture. I can’t stand people that are “me first, f everyone else” individuals.  The trick is being able to walk the fine line in the middle where you are taking care of the people that genuinely need it versus simply encouraging a lazy, unmotivated worth ethic where people would rather just receive handouts from the government instead of making something for themselves.  Right now it feels like the hand out mentality is winning.