Archives January 2011

This week is going to be hell week.  It is our busiest week of the year as far as race timing goes since the half marathon is this Sunday.  There is a bulge in the amount of entries which has created additional work for me, including preparing an additional 500 timing chips.  Preparing the chips is a very arduous process.

First I have to print out an 8 meter long string of numbers on my P-touch labeler. Then I have to cut each number off, peel the backing off and affix it to each chip.  It takes a LONG time.  After that I have to scan every chip on a USB reader to get it’s unique 16 digit code.  I then merge all of those codes into a file which is imported into the timing system.

Well I figured I would try to make the job more pleasant by watching the new Karate Kid movie that I have had sitting in a Netflix envelope for a couple months while I worked on chips.

My first thoughts were that Will Smith’s kid is too young to be playing the next Karate Kid.  He also is much too full of himself.  I found myself generally becoming irritated with the kid through out the movie.  Luckily Jackie Chan does a nice job playing the mentor.

The plot line is nearly identical to the original although I was disappointed that Jackie Chan didn’t get to kick the evil kung fu instructors ass at the end. The movie was ok, not nearly as good in my opinion as some of the acclaim I heard when it was released.  I’d give it a B.

Ali comes home this afternoon.  She will will not be happy to go from 5 days of fun right into a week of craziness.

I can’t believe it is supposed to get into the 30’s again Thursday morning.  No climate change huh?

I neglected to talk about the tragic shooting over the weekend.  You may be surprised at some of my thoughts about it.

First off it is just a horrible event, magnified by the fact that an innocent 9 year old girl was one of the casualties of this maniac.  Obviously anyone that commits such an act has lost all touch with reality.  It seems like the main target, the Arizona congress woman is going to survive the attack although who knows what her final condition will be.

There has been an immediate uproar after the shooting directed at Sarah Palin and this map that was used on her web site targeting potential wins for the tea party prior to the election.  Giffords just happened to be one of the few Democrats that actually won.

The controversy was that posting a map with gun sights on it somehow encourages loonies to go out and shoot these people.  Even for me, someone who is disgusted that someone like Sarah Palin is given an ounce of credibility in the political arena, thinks that this is too much of a reach.

Yea was it stupid or in poor taste to use gunsights to mark your political targets?  Yea, probably.  Is it reasonable to to say that it was the cause of the shooting?  Nah, come on now.

I mean really, what are we supposed to do, sterilize society to the point where everything that is said or done is run through censors first to make sure it doesn’t offend anyone or even worse, give the wrong idea to the mentally unstable?   Let’s pull anything violent that is on tv while we are at it.

Sorry I am always happy to bash Sarah Palin but to think she is even indirectly responsible for this shooting is stretching reality mighty thin in my book.  Let’s chastise her for what she really is, an ignoramus.

When I got home on Friday night I was on fire.  I had it set in my head that I was going to buzz through the majority of my inside chores that night and man did I ever. In the span of two hours I had them all done PLUS some unexpected bonus cleaning.  I cleaned out/organized the hobby/exercise room AGAIN.  I think one of the other times Ali was out of town I did this and slowly over time it became cluttered again.  I am going to really push for that to not happen again.

While I was in the process of working on the room I kept noticing this nasty, musty smell that was annoying me.  I put my nose to work, smelling different areas until I could track down the culprit, the timing mats.  You see the last race I timed it rained.  After the race I left the mats out on the driveway to dry but evidently I didn’t let them out long enough.  I took both mats out on the lanai, spread them out, and sprayed them with Lysol.  They really smelled badly.  Thankfully after two days the smell went away.

After my assault on house chores I got another urge, to go get a monitor.  When I was at Sam’s Club on Thursday I saw they had a nice deal on a 27″ monitor.  My plan was to use my Best Buy gift cards I received at Christmas and use them towards the purchase of a 27 inch monitor there.  So I headed out around 7:30.  I arrived at the store and beelined back to the computer department.  I quickly surveyed the monitors they had and didn’t see anything larger than a 23″ monitor. Surely I must have just missed the bigger models.  I went back and forth in front of the shelves several times, nope nothing bigger than 23″. SHIT, how can that be.

I walked out of Best Buy dejected but then decided to walk into the Staples right next to it.  Same deal there, nothing bigger than 23″.  Well this just was not going to fly so on the way home I stopped back at Sam’s and got my 27″ behemoth.  It is SWEET. It provides a huge window into my digital second world.

On Friday the replacement server arrived.  I spent a good chunk of my final hours before bed starting  the migration process.  It is going to be a long and twisty road until I get everything migrated.  It is bringing back some of the headaches I encountered when I did something similar at work a year ago.  Oh well it will be worth it when I am done.  I just need to make sure to not trash any data along the way.

So Saturday morning I wasted little time before I was outside working on more projects.  After weeding I planted all of the new garden additions.  If we can avoid frost for awhile we could have a nice diverse crop this year including lettuce, swiss chard, peppers, onions, carrots, beets, tomatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. I also hung the new bird feeder and replaced a number of the solar pathway lights that were dead.

When I returned to the inside I got a call from Ali.  Evidently my mom posted on Facebook that she was left go from her job again Saturday morning.  Ali said she had called and talked to my mom for a bit and she advised I do the same which of course I planned to do.

So I called up mom to find out what happened.  The last time I knew everything was fine at her job.  When she was hired back part time she understood her role to be more of a relief pitcher.  Basically she was supposed to take customers if the two full time salespeople were busy, otherwise her role was to do most of the support that is required to maintain the department.

Mom told me a month or two ago that her sales manager mentioned that he wanted her to start taking more customers.  Evidently since that mention mom still was doing more support than active selling and instead of letting her know he needed more, the sales manager unceremoniously let her go without warning.  It was a real classless move in my opinion considering he knew how important the job was to my mom.  Since Saturday mom found out that this had been planned for awhile, the manager had already made arrangements to hire someone else, a relative of a friend, FULL TIME, to take mom’s spot.

I mean WTF, mom has worked at this place for years.  The manager couldn’t have at least said to my mom that she HAD to start selling more or he would have to let her go?  I got the impression the initial mention was more of a suggestion, not an edict.  To go from that to “you are out of here” with no communication in between seems idiotic if not cowardly.

So now mom is once again left with a big ball of uncertainty.  For someone that would rather be inside a rigid box of routines this is even more of a problem.

She no longer has any insurance coverage, her extended Cobra coverage ran out at the end of 2010.  Her attempts to buy insurance so far have been unsuccessful, after all insurance companies don’t want to insure older people, they aren’t profitable.  I would love for all these people that railed against health care reform to be placed into this situation and see if their tune doesn’t change very quickly. Now my mom has two options, hope she can land a job that offers benefits or roll the dice until she is 65 when she can qualify for Medicare. It just blows.

When I talked to my mom on the phone I told her I could pick her up and she could stay the weekend which she of course declined.  She said she was in shock but fine which sounded as reassuring as  a used car salesman making his sales pitch.  I decided to drop in unannounced with the dogs in tow to cheer mom up.

Mom seemed ok outside of the chain smoking she was doing.  After all it isn’t the first time she has gone through this.  Her biggest concern was having to wait until Monday to get any answers as far her options go with unemployment and social security.

While I was there I got mom registered again for employment on the Home Depot site, a process that takes surprisingly long.  I also did some maintenance for mom while I was there, running out to get a new flapper for her one toilet that was running periodically.  I also put her Chrsitmas tree bag in the van to store it in our small shed, freeing up substantial room in her closet.

I reassured mom that things will work out one way or the other.  The good news is she has enough money in the bank to ride out the financial deficit for a decent period of time, as long as she can avoid huge medical costs. Of course Ali and I are always there as her safety net.

It really upsets me to see mom get shafted like this, again.  The business world can be a pretty cold and merciless environment.  I will be hoping that karma does it’s best to repay the manager for his actions.  For my part I will do my best to bring as many leads as possible to mom’s door and support her however she needs it.

On Saturday evening my buddy from work stopped over to watch some playoff football.  We had a good time drinking beer and eating subs from the nearby Italian pizza place.  He stayed until the Seahawks shocked the world by beating the Saints.  I got to taste tequila for the first time, I was not impressed.

Sunday morning I made arrangements to be a surrogate runner with Ali’s girlfriends, Michelle and Christy.  Michelle said she was planning to run anywhere from 7-10 miles.  Hearing numbers like that a month ago would have prompted a “thanks, but no thanks” response from me.  However since I had the ten mile miracle run the day after Christmas I knew I could do it.

I met up with them at 8:30.  Before we started I stripped off my training  pants and hooded sweatshirt.  The 52 degree air felt pretty darn brisk on my exposed arms and legs but I knew once we got moving I would be fine.  I also decided to wear my new sneakers to give them a true test, they passed.

Christy stayed with us till the 3.5 mile mark where she turned around to run back.  Michelle and I decided to do the full 10.  Michelle had it in her head that she needed to do 10, even though she hasn’t run any significant distance in quite awhile.  It’s the same kind of thinking I utilized for my first 10 miler so I was happy to help Michelle push to her goal.

I let Michelle set the pace the entire run, I didn’t want her to feel like I was pushing her.  We wound up completing the distance close to 3 minutes faster than I did the first time.  I actually felt better this time around.  I still had the legs that felt like concrete the last two or three miles but I didn’t have the hip and foot pain that I encountered the first time, perhaps a testament to the new sneakers.

It felt good to accomplish the magical 10 mile mark once again.  It even has me thinking about trying to do the Hooters Half Marathon in a few months.  That would be an unexpected feather in my cap. It’s only another three miles farther, I think I can grind it out.

I thanked Christy and Michelle for allowing me to tag along and headed home which included a stop at Dunkin Donuts of course.

I had precious little time at home.  After letting the dogs out I almost immediately had to head right back out.  I wanted to go see the 12:40 showing of Tron at the IMAX theater.  I thought I might be arriving just as the previews started but it turned out I made it with 15-20 minutes to spare. I was quite happy to see only 20 or 30 people in the theater.

I saw the original Tron many moons ago but don’t remember all that much about it.  The biggest thing the first Tron was known for were the special effects which were spectacular for it’s day.  Well the present day version of the movie had some pretty awesome special effects as well.

It is the perfect film for IMAX, the immersion into the computerized world of Tron was really made complete seeing it in that environment.  I really thought the movie was solid from start to end, I enjoyed the hell out of it and would give it a solid A.  No it isn’t the next Avatar but it is pretty damn good.  If you want to see it in IMAX you only have a precious few days left to do it before Green Hornet takes over.

Sitting in the theater for a few hours really stiffened up my legs after the long run.  I walked like an old man across the parking lot to Best Buy.  I wanted to spend my gift cards.  After some perusing I decided to buy three 360 items, an Xbox Live points card, a voice headset and some Kinect dancing game that I thought Ali would really enjoy.

By the time I got home it was just about kick off for the Eagles game.  I went into the game feeling very uninspired about their chance for winning.  To me the last few games of the season set a bad tone as well as exposing just how to beat the Eagles, blitz Vick.

Luckily I was pretty distracted during the first half of the game as I was working on labeling extra timing chips for the half marathon.  The Eagles languished through the first half playing more uninspired football, they looked overmatched on both defense and offense.  Akers also developed a case of shankitis to boot.

In the second half the Eagles managed to get a couple breaks and big plays.  They actually wound up in the position to be driving for the winning score with less than a minute to go.  When Vick tossed the interception to end the game I didn’t yell out in anger, didn’t make any gestures with my hands, I just turned it off.   It was odd.

In a way it is nice to be emotionally disconnected enough from the outcome of the game so that it hasn’t carried over into my personal life.  There have been many, many times where the playoff losses would hang with me for an extended period of time.  Not this one.

Despite my apathy there are a few things I am really tired of with this team.

Howdy Doody defensive coordinator Sean McDermott is a failure in my book.  Despite being mentored under Jimmy Johnson for a number of years, he is no Jimmy Johnson.  The defense has basically sucked all year long.  You need look no further to justify his dismissal than the fact that the team had the worst red zone TD percentage IN THE LEAGUE, yep, dead last.  Basically if a team got inside the 20 yard line they were guaranteed to get a TD. McDermott has to go.

Andy Reid.  Sure this has been said again and again.  He is a good coach, he isn’t a great coach.  A great coach knows how to manage the clock.  A great coach doesn’t have the worst challenge record in the league.  A great coach doesn’t have his team be among the leaders in penalties time and again. I truly don’t think we will ever win the SB with fat Andy on the sidelines.

Lincoln Financial field.  Ever since this place has opened the Eagles have enjoyed no significant home field advantage.  I was having a hard time finding their overall record there since the place opened but I know it isn’t good, slightly over .500 at best.  Teams used to FEAR coming to the Vet.  The Linc is like a resort in comparison.  Why the team has been unable to transform the energy of the crowd at the Linc into wins is beyond me.  All I know is the team has next to no home field advantage.  Hell our kicker doesn’t even know how to kick in it yet.

In the big picture, I wrote this season off before it even started so making the playoffs is just a bonus.  It’s just too bad that even with a different cast of characters the script still plays out the same.

This week is going to hellishly busy.

So there have been a few changes since Howard agreed to re-sign with Sirius only one of them has been positive which was the inclusion of the Stern Channels on the official Sirius-XM Iphone app. The rest of the news has been all bad as far as I’m concerned.

First Howard has been cutting his live programming back 20% a day.  Including the wrap up show, we used to get live content until noon.  Now it is all over at 11.  I enjoy the wrap up show, Gary and John actually allow people to finish a thought, something Howard is not very good at doing.  I would have been fine with just filling in the extra time with an extended wrap up show but nope we don’t even get that.

Add on top of that Howard’s stated intent to work even less during this new 5 year contract.  It sounded like eventually he will only be on three days a week in addition to his already staggering amount of vacation.  This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t fill those dead days stupidly with clips from the live shows of the week.  I mean wtf, I just heard the show on Monday, do I need to hear it again on Friday?  Talk about exerting the bare minimum of effort.

F let Riley Martin, Sal & Richard, or any of the other whacked out personalities  involved with the show fill in some of that dead time.  Howard bitches sometimes about the staff providing good content outside the boundaries of his live show. He wants to have his cake and eat it too.  If you are going to cut back your hours to a bare minimum at least give Sirius customers SOMETHING live to listen to.

In addition to Howard giving us less for our money, Sirius did not reach an agreement with Bubba to continue on in his role in the afternoons.  Now I don’t enjoy Bubba as much as Howard but I enjoyed listening to him more often than not.  Sirius came in and offered Bubba an 80% pay cut which is f’ing ridiculous.

Ironically Bubba was originally used to fill in the dead spots when Stern was not on the air which worked out great.  Now Sirius seems to care less if we have original programming or not.

Hell I wish they would have given whatever they pay Jay Thomas to sit in on Friday mornings on 101 to Bubba.  Jay’s show is AWFUL in my opinion.  I have never been able to listen to more than 10-15 minutes of it without turning it off.

This just continues a long tradition of Sirius offering it’s customers less and less while charging them more and more.  I really hate giving them any of my money.  I am hoping to at least cut loose one of my subscriptions and just use my phone to receive content in the truck.

Yesterday after dropping off Ali at the airport I made 3 stops on the way home, Home Depot, Sam’s Club and Publix.  At Home Depot I grabbed an air filter for the bedroom vent, some more vegetables to restock the frost damaged garden, some weed and feed to combat the latest infestation of dollar weed, a bird feeder to replace one that is in bad shape and some cheap solar pathway lights to replace some other lights that are dead.  These items will be planted/installed this weekend.  I already replaced the air filter last night.

Last night I also cleaned Tuki’s cage and did some laundry.  It is part of my plans for a front loaded weekend.  I plan to get pretty much any and all weekend chores/projects done tonight and tomorrow morning, leaving the rest of the weekend to my own pleasure. It is the way I would prefer most weekends went.

My new server is scheduled to arrive today, I may start the arduous process of migration of my home network.  I am planning to catch Tron 3D Saturday night, most likely by myself unless I manage to find a “date”.  Then of course we have the Eagles playoff game late Sunday afternoon.

Last night I fired up my 360 and playon.tv to watch the last 5 episodes of Caprica.  Once I started I just had to plow through till the end which didn’t wind up until 12:15 am. The last 5 episodes were good, especially if you keep in mind originally they were designed to just wrap up season 1 not the entire show.

At the end of it all there was a quick montage that attempted to summarize what would have happened if the show was able to continue, including Zoe becoming the first “skin job”.  There were a couple storylines from the show that were left entirely dangling in the wind with absolutely no closure like what the f happened to Tamara? Oh and who exactly shot the GED agent?

Even with the few expected loose ends I thought the final 5 episodes were very strong.  Caprica was a fantastic show that was a worthy successor to BSG.  It may have just been too fracking intellectual for some of the minions out there, too bad.  Another one of my favorite shows bites the dust.

Ali leaves today for yet another venture up north to visit her nieces.  It is Lauryn’s birthday weekend.  I know Ali really has fun during these visits although they almost inevitably wind up with her returning with renewed desires to want to have a cute little kid of her own.  It sounds like there could be a lot of snow in the forecast for her visit, fun.

While she is gone I don’t have big plans.  I am thinking about going to see Tron in 3D, by myself if necessary.  I may go for another longer than normal run.  I was thinking 6 miles around the water park sounds about right.  I probably will do some more handstand training following the advice in this 60 year old guide.

V finally is back on the air, I watched the episode last night.  It wasn’t all that great although Anna’s daughter is incredibly hot.  The gratuitous bra and panties scene was not wasted on me.  The best part of the episode however was the final scene where we get to meet Anna’s mother.  It is none other than the super bitch from the ORIGINAL V series in the 80’s! I thought that was pretty awesome.

Randall texted me last night.  He said that syfy dumped the final 5 Caprica episodes online.  I love Caprica and was quite disappointed that they unceremoniously pulled the plug on the show, not allowing it to grow into a hit like BSG did. Now I will have to digest the last 5 episodes in rapid fire to see if they were able to loosely wrap up the numerous storylines in any thing resembling a satisfying manner.

On my way to work I was driving along and saw some movement in the middle of the road.  As my eyes focused I realized what the movement was, what looked to be an otter flopping around after he was just recently struck by a vehicle.  My first instinct is to want to pull over and help the poor animal but logically I knew there realistically wasn’t anything I can do.   Next comes a wave of sadness mixed with anger as I picture a clueless, moronic driver texting or doing their make up that struck the animal.  Finally the emotion cocktail is topped off by guilt as I feel like I should have stopped anyway to at least try to get the otter off the road.

Hitting an animal like that is inexcusable in broad daylight in my book.  There was plenty of empty space on either side of the road where if you were paying attention, you would have plenty of time to avoid it. F’in people suck.

I think I may have seen this a couple years back (last year actually) and mentioned this but if so it is worth repeating.

I walk out to the gym and come upon a massive tricked out Hummer H1.  The thing has at least an 18 inch lift kit and tires/wheels that are probably worth more than my Tacoma.  The inside of the gold plated front license plate holder has the sign for some plumbing outfit.

To me, this guy is a total idiot.  I mean unless you intend to scream to people “HEY LOOK, I OVERCHARGE PEOPLE SO MUCH ON PLUMBING JOBS THAT I CAN AFFORD THIS”

I would never think for a second of using this company.  Perhaps he prefers to deal with only the elite super wealthy whom such a vehicle would impress. (like our new governor)

First Class Tools.   Haha look in the comments, the wife is very proud of her Hummer.

So on New Year’s Eve shortly after I got home my cell phone rang, it was Randall.  He was just asking me what was up and what I was doing for New Year’s which was nice but unusual.  Randall doesn’t typically call me just to shoot the shit, he knows me well enough to realize that I enjoy prolonged phone conversations as much as opera.  I told Randall I was considering going to the casino but more than likely we would just watch a stroked out Dick Clark this year at home.

Then I realized that maybe he was interested in coming over so I asked him, “Are you thinking about driving over?”  He said he was thinking about it.  Randall lives on the other coast but evidently the two hour drive to Naples wasn’t a concern. Now of course I had made no plans for a Randall visit but a quick confirmation with Ali was all that was required. Randall said he should arrive around 9 (which means closer to 10)

The dogs were extremely excited when Uncle Randall showed up unexpectedly at the door.  They just saw him three weeks ago.  I didn’t waste much time before I had the Kinect fired up.  Randall and I engaged in various full body video gaming.  We had an epic battle in track and field where I squeaked out a victory due to Randall fouling all three long jump attempts. Randall got some lucky wins in ping pong and volleyball while I dominated in bowling.

We tuned in to Dick Clark’s Rocking Eve about a quarter till midnight.  I was sort of hoping that this was the year that Dick finally stepped away from in front of the camera.  I wasn’t so lucky.  Instead we got treated to Dick mumbling the count down once again.  I really don’t get it.  Yea Dick you made your point when you came back after your stroke.  The only point you are making now is your ego is too large to allow you to step away gracefully.  It’s almost like he and Brett Farve are brothers.

After the ball dropped I got the urge to work on my handstands.  You see this month the Bar-barian challenge is a hand stand hold for time.  The problem is, I can’t hold a handstand.

I demonstrated my form or lack there of for Ali and Randall. I have this issue where when I overbalance (start to tip over) where instead of pirouetting out of it I instead just flop over on my back clumsily.   I tried several times and each time was an epic fail.  Randall, who was a gymnast in his youth is still able to do a handstand briefly which he demonstrated, show off.

Our Saturday was devoid of normal housework but full of activity.  Randall brought his road bike over.  We decided we would ride to the water park which was open over school xmas break.  We then figured we could actually get a New Year’s Day swim in.  Ali decided to drive the truck there instead of ride bike.  It was a good move on her part.

The ride was rough.  It was very windy.  I had not ridden since the triathlon in early November, I just either had other stuff going on or it was just too damn cold to ride.  The layoff was felt immediately.  For the first couple miles I was the windbreaker and there was a lot of wind to break.  My legs immediately felt fatigued.  Once I was struggling to maintain 13 mph Randall swung in front and lead the rest of the 16 mile ride which I had no problem with.  It was one of the few situations where being second didn’t bother me in the least.

We weren’t really sure what to expect at the water park.  The temps earlier in the week had been in the 30’s so we were afraid that even with heating, the water would be very chilly.  We were very pleasantly surprised when we were told the water temp was 84 degrees.  Wow, they must have spent a TON keeping the temp up.

My swimming has had a similar layoff to my biking.  The last time I swam was the end of October when the water park closed.  I experienced similar results to my biking performance.  In October I was swimming a straight 1600.  I did 500 meters and felt very fatigued.  Well it at least felt good to get back in the water, on New Years Day at that!

After swimming we ate lunch at the pool and hung out for a bit.  We threw the bikes in the back of the truck for the ride home.  Neither Randall or I had any urge to pedal our way back.

The rest of Saturday was a Kinect marathon.  Randall and I played a ton, to the point where I was really feeling fatigued, as was he.  It felt good to sit down and play a “conventional” video game like South Park Tower defense after awhile.

During dinner we watched the Big Lebowski on Netflix, a movie I saw before but remembered little about but that it was funny.  Randall said he had it in his queue to watch but he hadn’t seen it yet.  To be honest, it wasn’t as funny as I remembered.

We had a break during the film to do some dog searching duties.  The neighbor’s little chihuahua got out… The neighbor was panicked as they just got the dogs (there is a second one).  These things are tiny, smaller than most cats and an easy target for nighttime predators.  Randall, Ali and I walked around their property for a good half hour with flashlights looking for the dog but had no luck.  We were all relieved to hear the next day that the dog came back on it’s own.  The neighbor was VERY lucky.

My Sunday was extremely lazy.  It was actually a throw back to a time long ago in two areas.  First I never got out of my pajama pants all day long.  This just never happens if I am left to my on devices.  Second I spent the majority of the day trying to BEAT a video game.

You see Randall and I had beaten the normal mode of South Park Tower Defense on the 360 earlier in the weekend.  However we started a new challenge, clearing all 11 levels on INSANE difficulty, which as the name implies, is insanely more difficult.

Managing to get through the game at this setting requires solid team work.  Randall and I each assumed different roles the game.  Randall was primarily the intricate maze builder, tower maker and money collector.  He performed these duties mostly using the one character whose power up was the least valuable.

My role was to position and utilize the power ups of the three remaining characters, monitoring when their power ups were available, utilizing them at the right time and making sure they did not killed in the process.  We started mid morning with this challenge and didn’t finish the last level until around 5 pm.  Of course you will have no appreciation for the difficulty of this accomplishment unless you try it yourself.

Randall headed out shortly after we finished up.  Ali and I half halfheartedly watched the Eagles/Cowboys game.  Even though the Eagles were playing mostly second stringers and the Cowboys were playing starters, I found myself very annoyed at the final outcome where the defense allowed yet ANOTHER third string QB to beat them.  To me, it just sets a bad vibe for the team going into the playoffs(just like last year).  I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Green Bay comes in and beats them.

My Monday wasn’t bad at all.  In the morning I hit a few places with the dogs in tow in the van.  One of them was a quick stop at Target to get another negative ion wrist band for myself, the same thing we got for my mom.  Hey, what can it hurt?

I know for sure that the different levels of magnetism from the moon affects the way my brain functions, maybe something on my wrist can help balance that out. Or maybe, the placebo effect will do the same?  Who cares, if it helps me feel better about day to day existence it is well worth the couple bucks.

Monday was the day we would take down all the decorations, something I originally planned for earlier in the weekend before Randall’s arrival. During the day I took down the outside lights.  The process went better this year since the new LED lights came with a storage spool that made wrapping them up a snap. I also pulled down all of the high sitting decorations inside the house as well as bring in the storage containers. Monday evening Ali and I put everything else away.

Another one of the projects for the day was upgrading the 60 gig hdd on my Xbox 360 to a 250 gig model I picked up off buy.com.  For some reason I assumed this was a genuine MSFT drive but it turned out to be some Chinese/Japanese knock off.

I also bought a 360 data transfer kit which again turned out to be some sort of shitty Asian version.  This kit was supposed to allow you to back up your old 360 hdd to your pc and then copy it back to the new one.  Well it didn’t work.

The directions were so sparse and written in such poor English they were next to worthless.  When I did finally figure out how it was supposed to work I realized it still didn’t work.  My educated guess is an Xbox Live update broke whatever back door this program was using to read the data.

So I decided to just slap on the new 250 gig hdd on to the 360 and see what happens.  I was able to initialize the new hdd and load my Xbox Live profile although I had no local content.  I was able to easily redownload what I already paid for and was back to where I was pretty much.  The biggest annoyance was instead of my new hard drive being identified as the HDD it instead was named a couple Japanese characters.  Thankfully after a bunch of fumbling around in various menu’s I figured out how to rename the drive.  So I am up and running with 4 times the amount of space as before.  I will keep my 60 gig hdd for a rainy day.

Yesterday I purchased a new “server” on ebay.  Our current home server runs Windows Server and Exchange 2003 on a small form factor Lenovo desktop.  I have been having some problems with it lately like unexplained NIC connection failures, a dead CMOS battery, and overall sluggish performance from the Pentium 4 with 2 gigs of RAM system.

Since the server houses my and Ali’s email and data it is rather important.  Well yesterday I had problems again and it took me a few hours to get email flowing again.  I mentioned to Ali it may be a good idea for me to look into upgrading the box sooner rather than later.  Ali said she was fine with doing it.

It didn’t take me long to find a suitable upgrade on Ebay. It’s another small form factor box, a Dell this time.  It has a 2.66ghz dual core processor, 160GB hdd and 3 gig of RAM.  I may upgrade the ram all the way to it’s max of 8GB to maximize the workstation’s ability to function as a server. I only paid $250 including shipping for the box.

I am not looking forward to the migration process. My plan is to install Windows Server 2008 and Exchange 2007 on the new hardware, picking up 4 or 5 years in the product life cycle.