Archives March 2010

I moved the web cam to the top of the grill.  I see that Sadie is working on her tan.  🙂

We have had credit card fraud committed against us twice in the past couple months.  The first time was on Ali’s account that is used for her business.  Not only did they charge bogus items, they also changed the billing address on the card.  Now this past weekend we received an email from American Express about some possible shady charges, including $700 to Dell!  Ali called up and got it cleared up but regardless, it is quite disturbing.

I wonder how strongly the CC companies pursue these cases since they are so numerous?  I would have loved to pursue this person myself.  It wouldn’t be that hard to do, find out what address the Dell computer was going to and you have your criminal.  People that do this are absolute criminals and deserve every ounce of punishment the law allows. 

The next question is where are they getting the CC information from?  Ali and I both use our CC’s freely on the internet.  You never know if one of these vendors has been hacked and in the process exposed your info.  Hell CC info can be stolen by shady clerks, waiters or even skimmers.  I had one situation a year or two ago where a waiter casually padded the tip when he ran the CC, assuming I wouldn’t notice.  People are dirt bags.

I tried to roll out ISA server 2006 into production last night.  During my initial testing last night I was able to ping to and from our branch networks, connect to the internet and open network shares.  Stuff seemed to be working.  Well this morning there were fires everywhere.  People signing on to the network could not do so, it would just sit and spin.  I was unable to connect to our web host via ftp either despite having a rule in place that would clearly seem to allow such access.

I have found ISA server 2006 to be a royal pain in the ass to configure.  The rules which seem logical and simple to create just do not work as they should.  I am getting quite annoyed.

Our weekend once again started very early as we had another 5K to time.  Once again it was COLD with temps in the mid 40’s to start.  The race was small with around 300 registered runners. Timing went well.  We had a few issues but they were all related to human error during the registration process.  It always amazes Ali and I how something that appears to be so simple as registration can get messed up as much as it does.  Even with the race starting at 8am we were cleaned up and out of there by 9:30 which is great.

Once we got home I finished my post race processing, web site updating and equipment clean up.  While Ali retreated to the bedroom for her customary post-race nap, I was ready to dig into installing the retractable screen door I bought earlier in the week.

I came to the decision to try a retractable screen door when I recalled that our neighbors had one.  Originally I had plans to screen in the front landing of the house.  The purpose was to allow us to open the front door and let air flow through the house.  Both Jeremy and Randall said they didn’t think it would look great when they were over in January.  Plus that option would involve considerable expense and effort to complete.  A retractable screen costs a fraction of the money, is easier to install as well as being removable.

Installation of the screen was a bit of a pain in the ass for me.   The main body of the unit that conceals the screen is held in place with two wood screws.  The problem is they are like 1/4 inch from the top and the bottom.  They are designed to screw into the trim around the door frame.  Well attaching to the top was no issue but screwing into the bottom was for two reasons.  The trim on the door does not extend all the way to the floor, there is a small gap that is filled with grout.  The hole in the screen body line up right where the wood met the grout. So I drilled my pilot hole into half grout, half wood.

Secondly having the hole so low to the ground made drilling the hole and tightening the screw a pain in the ass because you could not get on the head of the wood screw straight on.  In no time I stripped out the phillips head screw.  I went into the garage and got one of my own high quality wood screws with a star head fitting.  Using this sort of screw allowed me to get more torque and get  the bottom attached.  It was still less than ideal in my eyes but the assembly felt secure on the door frame.

I had a second issue when it came to cutting the track the screen slides on.  The directions were not very good at all and I wound up cutting the track shorter than I should have because of the unclear picture.  I was pissed since I knew that it wasn’t like I could go to Home Depot and just buy more tracks.  After some reevaluation I came up with a way to still utilize the tracks without sacrificing functionality of the screen door. After overcoming that hurdle the rest of the install went well.

Then the big moment of truth came.  I opened the front door and pulled the screen door across, and BAM instant big window!  It’s awesome.  At first glance it almost looked like there was nothing there at all.  In fact when Ali awoke from her nap she was going to come yell at me for leaving the front door open until she realized the screen was in place. 

I showed the dogs their new portal to the front yard.  The weren’t sure what to make of it at first but I am sure over time they will enjoy having an unobstructed view out the front of the house.

 Having the front door open in conjunction with the slider that leads to the lanai let a wonderful breeze flow right through the house.  Both Ali and I were very pleased with the end result.  Can’t beat it for $139.

We decided to continue to take advantage of the temps that had warmed considerably from their chilly 40’s in the morning.  Ali and I spent a good portion of the afternoon working out in the yard.  We weeded and harvested from our garden collecting lettuce, carrots, broccoli, beets and our first ever home grown peas.   We also transplanted a number of things around the yard and Ali trimmed up a few of the landscape areas that were damaged from the cold temperature.

I also was able to do the final rearrangement of the sheds now that the lawn sweeper was out of my hair.  Things look much better.  However the very final step of the garage clean out will involve relocating the generator to one of the sheds.  If the Moto Guzzi was history it would be a piece of cake.  The bike has two strikes against it and is walking on thin ice.

After our yardwork session we wrapped it up nicely by enjoying an alcoholic beverage out on the newly resurfaced deck.  We sat out there for almost 45 minutes just taking things in, appreciating how much we love our property.  It surely isn’t fancy, isn’t spectacular but it is significantly improved from what we bought back in 2001, thanks almost exclusively to our own labor.  We like our little piece of the planet, even after being there for close to 10 years now.

Sunday was another pleasant day.  I had most of the housework done in the morning.  The rest of the day we again enjoyed the weather and hung out.  We noticed that our tax refund hit our account over the weekend.  I celebrated by buying a couple items online I had been waiting on from cyberguys and Duluth Trading.  I anxiously await my first pair of fire hose jeans. Since I appear to have improved our water quality the money can be directed towards a few smaller projects as well as possibly paying off a decent chunk of the remaining Camry loan.

Today Ali and I have another post work running date scheduled, should be fun.

Here is a view of the retractable screen door courtesy of my Trendnet wireless cam which is sitting in the dining room area today.

Last night when I pulled into the driveway there was a SUV waiting for me.  It was the guy that saw my lawn sweeper ad on craigslist.  I took him through the house to get to the back yard.  Sadie was all over him, constantly jumping up.  I could tell he was less than thrilled with it.  Even when we got outside she continued jumping up on him despite me telling her to cool it.  She was more excited to see this stranger than me.  Finally I took the dogs back inside to give the guy a break.

After undergoing the standard craigslist negotiation where you never pay the asking price (I dropped $25) the guy said he would take it.  Getting the sweeper into his SUV was a challenge.  I had to remove a piece of the sweeper in order for it to fit, which it barely did.  It’s nice to have the sweeper out of my hair, extra floor space in the shed and $100 in my pocket.

One of the shows I enjoy is Celebrity Rehab.  I find it entertaining to watch celebrities half heartedly try to get clean.  One of the cast members this season is Mackenzie Phillips.  I find her rather annoying and her looks at this point are almost Medusa-like. She has had a pretty wretched life filled with drug abuse and the shocking incestuous relationship with her father.

Well in the episode we watched last night Mackenzie got the bad news that her dog of 14 years was in real bad shape and should be put down.  They actually took the cameras into the vet office and showed Mackenzie crying her eyes out as she gave her beloved dog a final meal of ice cream, his favorite.  It not only flashed Ali and I back to our horrific experience when we put the cats to sleep, it was compounded with projecting if we had to repeat that scenario with our dogs whom we love so dearly.  Mackenzie couldn’t be in the room when the dog was actually put to sleep, a cowardly move in my book but she is enough of a mess as is I suppose.  By the end of the show both Ali and I needed some tissues.

Ali went on the web site for the hotel in Aspen that we will be staying at.  It turns out the place is ultra-pet friendly, no limitations at all.  It also seems quite luxurious, on the site it says prices START at $250 a night.  So now we are thinking of another dog included road trip this summer out to Aspen and back.  Should be fun.

This weekend we have a race to time tomorrow morning.  Once again it’s going to be f’ing cold which makes the process pretty miserable.

I grabbed one of those sliding, retractable screen doors at Home Depot.  I hope to get that installed this weekend. 

36 degrees at the house this weekend.  I am SERIOUSLY tired of the huge serving of cold weather this winter.

Last night after work I met up with Ali to do a run.  It was my second workout of the day.  I had completed my normal lunchtime weight training session earlier.  It was a bit cooler than I anticipated with temps around 60 with an annoyingly strong breeze.  I just had a t-shirt and shorts.  Ali actually looked at the weather forecast and brought more appropriate clothing.

 We ran a route that I hadn’t run in years.  We also ran further than I have in years, nearly 5 miles.  I felt pretty damn good throughout the run.  The only problem I had was late when I could feel that it was time to cut the nails on my bent up toes.  If the nails start to get any length to them one of my nails cuts into the adjacent toe, making it bleed.

Ali said she felt good through out the run as well.  After a quick stretch I hopped in my truck and headed home.  I have been enjoying doing training runs with Ali again.

Hopefully tonight after work someone is going to be coming to buy our lawn sweeper.  I bought the sweeper a couple years ago when I saw it on sale at Home Depot.  I thought it would be nice to be able to sweep up the excess grass clippings that come during the rampant grass growth of summer.  The sweeper worked as expected but it was just more hassle than it was worth.  

The sweeper is big and takes up a lot of space in the shed.  Getting rid of the sweeper is a key part of my Camaro rearrangement plan.  Hopefully he shows up and takes it.

Last night I was playing WoW.  I was in a 5 man random group going through a dungeon.  My role in the group was the “tank” the most important role in a group. A tank is the guy that gets everything to attack him and not other members of the group.  We were about halfway through the dungeon when my buddy Charlie logged on.  He asked if I wanted to run through some stuff with him. 

I initially told him I would when I was done with the dungeon I was in.  It is generally poor WoW etiquette to just bail on a group, especially if you are the tank since tanks aren’t that easy to find.  However after a few minutes I decided I would rather be running through dungeons with Charlie than a bunch of four strangers.  I could have just simply left the group without a word.  They would have all been left scratching their heads and probably cursing me out for leaving in an unannounced manner.

Instead in a flash of brilliance I typed in “DIARHEA OH NO!” and then left.  I was laughing my ass off as I saw the sentence flash up on the screen.  I figured if nothing else it explained my hasty departure and gave them a few chuckles along the way.

It still makes me laugh now as I read it back.  🙂

I have written several times about how good the new SyFy series Caprica is.  I actually got Jeremy into it after we watched an episode when Randall and he stayed over at our place.  The show is so damn good that I thought I would try get Ali to watch an episode or two.  Even though the series is a prequel to Battlestar Galactica it is far from just a sci-fi kind of thing.  The show is compelling with a great story line and interesting, complex characters.

Ali basically dismissed the show as something only I would be interested in based on the BG roots.  I was hopeful that if she sat down and watched the show she would get as hooked as I was.  I did my best to try to explain some of the back story to tie together some loose ends for her.

Ali has done similar things to me, encouraging me to watch some shows that she liked.  Most recently I started watching Modern Family based on Ali’s endorsement, it’s f’ing hilarious.  I thought I could repay the favor by turning Ali on to a fantastic show like Caprica.

 Well despite watching two episodes she still is not sold on it.  She told me it isn’t something she would be compelled to watch.  Oh well I gave it a shot, it’s her loss.

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day troubleshooting complications with adding a second, dedicated, high speed internet connection for our office.  I sat in my office in complete silence for hours just trying different things to fix the problems.  Finally as the day was winding up I started to make some headway.  I now have pretty much all of the issues squashed.  I hate when I can’t figure shit out.  I develop severe tunnel vision until I do.

I was reviewing my blog post from a year ago.  One of the topics was Eric from Biggest Loser going on Oprah to talk about what a loser he was for regaining most of the weight he had lost.  I was annoyed with big fat Oprah offering up her own advice for weight loss, advice she obviously doesn’t follow herself.

Well it just so happens that I watched an Oprah show with Ali last night that had another loser on it, Kirstie Alley.  Kirstie was joking about her weight loss soap opera of the last decade or so.  Once again Oprah, who still is as big as a house started throwing out the diet advice.  I had to laugh out loud at the hypocrisy of it all.  At one point Kirstie proclaimed that she was actually quite healthy, claiming her vital statistics were all quite good despite weighing at least 250 pounds.  Yea that’s a great message to send out to a nation that is already bursting at the seams with obese citizens, you can be fat and healthy!!

Oprah should NEVER do another show on healthy living. It’s like having a child molester give parenting advice.

So I had stitches removed for the second time in a month yesterday.  Hopefully it is the last time for awhile.  The scar that is left behind is pretty nasty.  I figured I can use it in the future as a topic of conversation.  I can tell women about the the knife fight I was in or perhaps the wrestling match I had with a tiger.  It will impress the chicks.

It will be nice to start lifting weights again as well as resuming my pull up program in earnest.

After having my stitches removed I picked up mom’s tax stuff.  Mom was worried that her taxes this year would be a pain to figure out because of the unemployment compensation she received as well as the 401k disbursement.  She also was worried that she would wind up having to pay into the system this year.

When I got home I punched up turbotax.com and had her taxes done in a half hour.  I called mom with the good news, she didn’t have to pay anything, in fact she was getting back more than last year thanks to various Obama tax breaks as well as being in a lower tax bracket.  Mom was thrilled.  After having months and months of bad luck mom seems to be enjoying a change of fortune.

Mom also showed me pictures of the new condo she is going to be moving into, right across the parking lot of where she is now.  It seems much nicer than the place she is in now.  She is very excited to move and I’m excited for her.

I had ideas of screening in the front landing of the house over the winter.  The idea was screening in the front landing would allow us to open the front door and let the cool winter breezes flow through the house.  When I was at Home Dept over the weekend I had a better idea. 

Our old neighbors had a cool pull out “screen door”.  Most front doors in newer homes are the “swing out” variety due to hurricane code.  A swing out front door makes a conventional screen door difficult to accommodate.  A pull out screen door install on the inside of the door frame.  It basically works like an old roll up blind.  The screening retracts into one side.  When you want to use the screen you pull it across and it hooks to the other side.  It’s easy to install, cheap, and won’t change the look of the front of the house.  I might pick one up this upcoming weekend.

I accomplished two of the three goals I laid out on Friday.  I didn’t take the time to work on the Moto Guzzi.  I picked up the hardware for my garage shelving project on the way home Friday.  I had to buy the heavy duty variety with strong brackets, double slotted rails and 20 inch wide wire shelves.  It added up to a lot of money, over $300.

When I hung this type of shelving in the utility room years ago I simply pushed the rails up to the ceiling and screwed them in, assuming my ceiling line was straight.  Well I did not make any assumptions about the ceiling being straight in the garage and it’s a good thing I didn’t.  I bought a top rail assembly that the vertical slotted rails hang off of.  This adds to the cost but it means you only have to level once.  Once the top rail is straight you can hang the slotted rails anywhere along the length.  Once I got the level out it became obvious that the ceiling was far from level, I was quite glad I spent the extra bucks for the top rail.

As I mentioned last week, the outer wall is concrete block which meant I had the pleasure of drilling with a masonry bit.  Drilling into block walls sucks, especially when it is poured concrete block where they fill the cinder blocks with cement.  It is ass busting work getting simple 2-3  inch deep holes.  I was leaning on the drill with all of my weight while up a couple steps on the ladder.  Drilling the holes was the hardest part of the job by far.  Once they were in I inserted the anchors and screwed the hardware in. Doing the front set of shelving was a bit more challenging due to having to work around the frame for the garage door opener.

Once I got the shelves up I started transferring items to them.  I immediately noticed a problem.  I had 3 brackets per shelf.  Each bracket was probably 3.5 feet apart.  There was a lot of flex in the shelving if I put heavier items on them.  One fix would have been to install additional vertical rails and brackets to offer support which would have added additional expense to an already more costly than expected project.  So instead I went the cheap route and found some unused wooden boards/shelving in the shed.  They were long enough to span the brackets and then I simply put the heavier items on top of the wood.  It’s not a perfect solution but it works and the zero cost option works out well.

After I cleaned off the remaining rolling wire shelf I wheeled it to the new storage shed.  The new shed has become overcrowded already.  I need to do some rearranging as well as relocating/giving away one of the smaller plastic shelf units that came with it.   

So now that far wall is totally empty I should be able to squeeze in my new Camaro whenever I get around to getting it.  Here is an idea of what it might look like 🙂

Later in the day Saturday Ali and I worked on going through the piles of pictures and junk that was on the dining room table.

We spent a couple hours consolidating and got some stuff back up on the walls.  We also came up with more or less of a game plan for the stuff we had left over which is cool.  I just want to make sure that we follow through and get the stuff done instead of back burnering it for several more months.

On Sunday morning I decided dust off my road bike and go for a ride.  I remember during those hot, sweaty summer rides thinking how awesome it will be to ride during the winter when the temps are far milder and the air less humid.  Well for some reason I just have not gotten around to riding at all so far this winter.

The temps sure were cooler, low to mid 50’s.  I wore my baggy bike shorts and a hooded sweatshirt.  The air felt very cool until my body temp heated up.  When I did the 17.5 mile Publix ride in the summer I typically had the wind to my back for the ride out and in my face on the way back which is not fun.  Well on Sunday it felt like a head wind for the majority of the ride out to Publix.  The combination of the wind, sore legs from my Friday workout and not biking for months really cut down on my average speed for the first half of the ride.

I was frustrated but I welcomed the idea that on the way back I should have that same wind to my back.  Well the ride back was actually worse.  There were brief periods that the wind was behind me but more often than not I was working against it.  The worst part of the entire ride was the last 2 miles before our house.  Once I made the gradual curving left the wind was crushing me in the face.  My speed drooped from 16-17 mph down to 11 and change and I was busting my ass just to keep it above double digits.

I found myself getting very angry with the wind.  I even swore at the wind, at one point yelling out loudly “Cut me a f’ing break!”    Well the wind didn’t care about getting cursed out, it continued all the way until I made the right hand turn onto our street.  I was very glad to roll into my driveway.  I need to try to get more regular with my bike riding.  The trip took 1:10 and change.  I think I have done the same distance in as little as 1:03 so that is a big drop off.

Ali had created her own project for Sunday, cleaning out our closet.   Our closet, specifically Ali’s portion of it (2/3) was JAMMED full of clothes and shoes.  When hanging clothing on her side I typically had to lean my body weight on the clothes to create a small space to jam a hangar in.  It was that tight.

Ali has a hard time getting rid of stuff so she asked that I could help her with deciding what goes and stays.  I laid on the bed and offered my opinions as she held stuff up, until I started to doze off.  Laying down after the tiring bike ride just zonked me out.  Ali did remarkably well cleaning stuff out.  We have four huge trash bags full of clothes and shoes to donate.  I was proud of her for making the effort to consolidate.  Our closet looks 100% better. 

Last week I ordered a wireless web cam with pan/tilt/zoom after my co-worker showed me what his could do.  I always thought it would be cool to be able to see what the dogs are doing when we aren’t home.  In the past I considered using a conventional web cam attached to a pc but running a pc all day just to run a webcam would be a big waste of power.

The Trendnet cam I got is a stand alone wireless unit that allows me to place the camera anywhere around the house as long as there is an AC outlet near by.  When I bought the camera Ali immediately gave me shit about it.  She assumed that I got the camera to monitor HER and not the dogs.  She based this on a discussion we had a few days prior about the advantages of her possibly not sleeping so late and getting out the door so she wouldn’t be so hard pressed to complete her daily schedule.

I told her that actually that discussion hadn’t entered into my mind at all when I made the purchase (it hadn’t) but she didn’t believe me.  I assured her this was for pet surveillance only.  Well anyway, the box arrived Friday and in short order I had the unit up and running.  It’s pretty damn cool.  I am able to both view and control the camera from a web browser.  I also am able to get the feed on my Iphone using a great $1.99 app.  The unit also can function as a surveillance device that can notify you of movement and send a snap shot of what it saw.  I don’t think I will need that functionality but it’s nice to know it’s there.

We watched a good amount of Olympic coverage this weekend since it all wrapped up on Sunday.  I tuned in for the much hyped USA / Canada gold medal hockey final.  The game lived up to it’s hype and then some.  Of the four major sports, hockey is my least favorite.  When the Flyers were good I used to sometimes watch the playoff games but I just never got into it.  Well one thing I did immediately notice was watching hockey in HD really enhances the experience.  It’s much easier to follow the puck thanks to the clarity and definition HD offers.

The game early on seemed to be pretty much dominated by Canada.  They were definitely the aggressor.  Even when the USA was on a power play they couldn’t get any good shots on net.  However as the game went on Team  USA started to play better.  After being down 2-0 they scored a goal to cut the lead to one.  The third period was very back and forth with both teams applying pressure at different points in the period.  You just got the feeling that Canada was destined to win it. 

Well with only a couple minutes to go it was desperation time.  USA pulled their goalie to give them a 6-5 skater edge.  This is always a risky move as an untended net can easily result in a cheap goal for the opposing team if they manage to break free.  I thought the game was over for sure.  Then out of nowhere we scored with 25 seconds to go.  Holy shit, I threw both arms up in celebration as I yelled to Ali, “THEY SCORED!”  The game was forced to overtime.

There was a change in the way overtime is handled since I last knew.  Now they make it 4 on 4 to increase the scoring possibility, that’s a great idea.  No one wants to see a tie, or a game go on for four hours.  In OT both teams had some good scoring opportunities that were turned away by good goalkeeping on both ends.  Then just as suddenly as the US tied the game, Canada won it on a quick shot under the pads that was centered.

It was a pretty disappointing way for the US to go out after battling back but there was no denying the overall success the team accomplished in the games.  As far as I know, the US was thought to have no shot at the gold medal coming into the Olympics.  It was hard to not feel good for the Canadians as well, winning the hockey gold medal during games hosted in Canada is pretty much a storybook ending.

Ali and I also took in the closing ceremony. For the most part the word I would use to describe them was “dumb”.  The ceremony was filled with sappy references and bad jokes.  I really didn’t get it at all.  You could even tell Bob Costas thought it was f’ing stupid as he described the big inflatable beavers and moose that were brought out towards the end. 

Again there was tons of lip syncing going on by the musical performances.  Michael Buble in particular was HORRIBLE at it.  It was pathetically obvious he was faking it.  I just don’t get it, why the f can’t you actually SING at the Olympics!!??  I think Neil Young might have actually been singing,  hopefully….

So besides the sappy, corny closing ceremonies I think Canada did a nice job hosting the games.  Now of course it’s a far cry from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics which set the bar incredibly high for me.  I enjoyed watching the Vancouver games.  I enjoyed watching the Olympics, I always do.  The Olympics inspire dreams of what it must be like to represent your country competing against the best in the world.  What an awesome experience that must be.