Xbox impact testing, Surrogate, Super 8, Line of sight
So Randall wasn’t due to arrive at my place until somewhere around 7 on Friday. I figured that would work out well, it gave me time to work on setting up my second Xbox. I had it hooked up in the bedroom in a few minutes. I slapped my old 60 gig hard drive on it and started the process of updating the software on it, it looked like the 360 had not been used on the internet in ages as it had the old, old version of Xbox Live on it.
This Xbox came with the wired adapter for the controller. I opted to use that instead of pairing one of my wireless controllers with the 360. While software was downloading to the Xbox I decided to multitask and headed out to the kitchen. All of a sudden I hear a loud crash followed by Nicki SPRINTING out of the bedroom. Oh no….
I turn the corner and see the 360 on the floor with all of the cables yanked out. When I left the bedroom I did so with the wired controller laying on the bed. Well evidently when Nicki followed me out she managed to get herself tangled in the wire, panicked and ran.
My instant emotion was anger. I yelled at Nicki even though I knew it wasn’t really her fault, saying dumb stuff like “How could you not see the wire there?!!” even though I knew there would be no reply. Nicki cowered because of my obvious anger. I later comforted her when I calmed down, after all it was really my fault.
So now I had to attend to the 360. My worst case scenario was my new used 360 was now dead from the impact. When I plugged it back in I was pleased to see it still powered up although I immediately noticed a fan noise that was not there before.
Knowing of the 360’s history of overheating I knew a noisy fan was not a good thing so I decided I had one option, rip it apart. I hopped on YouTube and in a few moments was watching a video outlining the tear down of the hardware. Along the way I got some background on the Red Ring of Death issue along with a novel way to fix it.
With my years of PC repair experience ripping apart the 360 wasn’t hard but if I didn’t watch the video I would have struggled since there are a bunch of little hidden plastic snaps to be released.
As I was taking it apart it became apparent that the unit had been ripped open before. I am pretty sure it may have been fixed for RROD already which is cool. With the cover off I plugged the 360 in to verify where the noise was coming from, it was one of the two case cooling fans. When I unplugged the 360 I spun both fans. The quiet fan spun freely, the noisy one stopped after a few revolutions. Great, the fan is f’d up.
Then on a whim I took my hands and grasped the noisy fan and squeezed it on the center hub. I felt and heard a reassuring “CLICK” like I just pressed it back into place. I spun the fan by hand again and it spun freely. I plugged the console back in a viola, no more noise. Sweet.
I put the 360 back together and took it back to the bedroom to continue the configuration. I ran into another issue. I no longer had a network connection. WTF? After some troubleshooting I eventually figured out what I think happened. When the 360 was pulled off the dresser it yanked all of it’s cords out, including the CAT 5 cable that is actually snapped into place.
When I did some examination of the network port on the 360 I saw some of the wires appeared bent. I grabbed my dental tools and after some frustrating, tedious manipulation had the wires back where they should be, or so it seemed. Despite my labor I was unable to get the hard wired network connection working. Perhaps if two of the wires when power was applied touched it could have damaged the port. Great, so now a USB wireless adapter will be required to get the 360 on the net. I was annoyed as Randall pulled up.
I had a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner. Randall had made a stop at the Catholic Town Publix on his way in. He reported he actually had to wait in a three person line at check out, wow they must have been PACKED.
While we ate pizza we watched a Netflix item that was recommended to me, The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virgina. This documentary is about some redneck, trailer trash family in West Virginia. It has to be seen to be believed.
Sue Bob is probably my favorite White. She claims she is the sexiest of all of the Whites. The problem is if you close your eyes and listen to her voice you swear you are listening to man, a very deep voiced man. Every scene that involves her speaking is just solid gold.
Pretty much every member of the family is on drugs and most of them are collecting government disability and do not work. If you want to see the end result of government entitlement program abuse, look no further. If you have Netflix add it to your queue now.
After the flick I was surfing on my Xbox and found a little gem in their downloadable game content, the original Track and Field. This game came out in the early 80’s and I was a HUGE fan. I can’t tell you how many quarters I dumped into the machine over the years.
The control was simple. You had three buttons. Two buttons you hit alternatively to run and a third for actions like throwing and jumping.
I was never great at the game, only getting middle of the pack scores. I often would watch in amazement as people would generate tremendous speed using various techniques like the two fingers on each button technique or even the pencil lever trick. I used the standard two hand slap fest method.
Well the game on the 360 was only 499 Xbox credits so it was a no brainer, I downloaded it. Randall used to play the game as well so he was into it.
In our early matches Randall had a definite speed advantage using the buttons to run although I still won many events with better timing of the action button. Later on when I discovered that I could also run by moving the thumb stick back and forth Randall’s speed advantage was gone and I won almost every event. It didn’t take long until those old familiar Track and Field pains came back.
To rapidly hit buttons or slap a thumb stick back and forth you tense up the entire side of your body. My index finger literally was sore the next day, funny stuff. Late in the evening I actually played an Xbox Live T&F game against someone else. He generated incredible speed. I can only assume he is using some sort of special controller technique to do so. Even though he beat me I put in a respectable showing.
Randall was up and out the door around 6:30 Saturday morning to head up to Siesta Key for a volleyball tournament. The plan was for us to catch Super 8 that evening when he returned.
I set my alarm for 6 am to make sure Randall was on his way. I also figured getting up early would get me a jump start on the day, something I always appreciate. After easing into the day with some WoW play time I started on stuff around the house.
After knocking out the rather large weeding session I turned to this weekends designated auxiliary project, tree trimming. The pygmy palms in the front of the house were badly overgrown and received attention first. Then I hit both oak trees followed by the coconut tree in the back.
The right tree had a few low hanging branches as well as some that were almost hitting the house so I lopped them off, it was pretty minor work. The left tree was another story.
This tree is smaller but has now grown into the line of sight of my Directv dish. I have always had in the back of my mind that I would eventually just have to cut this tree down. However instead of doing something that severe right now I instead cut the parts of the tree that were in the way. This was pretty grueling work with a pole saw. The branches of an oak tree have thousands of these tiny little “fingers” that make it difficult to get a clean angle to saw.
Trying to cut relatively thick branches high above your head with a pole saw is physically challenging. Doing it in 90 degrees and humid weather makes it all the more challenging. As I was cutting away I did my best to make sure I was not disturbing any bird nests that have popped up in this tree from time to time.
After a good 45 minutes of dirty, sweaty work I had once again given my dish a clear view of the sky. From the front of the oak tree you can’t really tell how severe of a chop I performed but from the side you surely can. It looks like a big machete lopped off much of the back half of the tree. Hey, I need to see the Eagles.
After a dip in the pool I went out to run a few errands, I had a number of things I needed to get. I took the party van and brought the girls with since they love a trip more than anything. I figured each stop was going to be very quick. I locked the van and left it running with the A/C blasting. I have a spare key.
One of the stops was at the local nursery. My initial desire was to find something to replace the tree that I plowed into with the neighbor’s mower which subsequently died. I decided to go with a Plumeria. They can grow into beautiful trees that produce awesome blossoms. The downside is they are sensitive to cold, especially when they are small. I am just crossing my fingers that we avoid a deep freeze this winter.
While I was there I spotted a hand edging tool, just like the old one I got from my great uncle which broke during the the HD antenna installation. I used that tool to bury a bunch of wire so I was happy to find a new one.
I also had to go grab the wireless Xbox network adapter. The $69 price tag meant my 360 that was originally a deal was now not much of one. Oh well, at least it works.
So I was actually unwinding later in the day, awaiting Randall’s return from Siesta Key. It kept getting later and later, I had not heard a peep from him. It was now 6pm. The movie started at 7:25. I figured Randall would show up any minute, have to take a lightning fast shower and we would roll out. Well at 6:15 I get a call from Randall. He was just LEAVING Siesta Key now (90 minutes away). WTF??
I was baffled on how it could take so long, especially when he later told me they lost in the first round of playoffs. So we had to improvise. I told him I would just meet him at the theater. I gave him crude directions over the phone and texted them to him as well. I told him he would have to call me when he got there as there was no way he would arrive before the movie started. I would have to then come out, flash my electronic ticket and get him in the theater.
I arrived at Silverspot around 7 and ordered a chicken finger basket that I took into the theater with me. I had my phone out with the ringer turned off so I could spot his incoming call.
We had decided to see Super 8 after originally talking about seeing Hangover 2. I had no problem making the switch based on my movie theater philosophy. Certain films just get no benefit of being viewed in a theater among them are chick flicks and comedies. I’ll be just as happy watching Hangover 2 on my 71 incher at home.
To be honest I knew next to nothing about Super 8 going in except there were two very high profile names involved, J.J. Abrahms and Steven Speilberg and it was about something weird going down in a town.
About 15 minutes into the movie my phone lit up, it was Randall announcing his arrival. I scurried out to get him in. I thought the movie was great. The story was very well written and interesting. It had a bit of an ET (ok a head chewing ET) like vibe with the movie being based on a group of young kids. I was very glad we opted to see it instead of Hangover 2 at the finish. I’d give it an A. Randall liked it as well.
When we got home Randall filled me in on his day of volleyball which sounded pretty frustrating. He said his last game in pool play was against a team that had a sandbagger. It was bad enough that he sandbagged but he also was the worst case of an over warm upper that I have ever heard. Randall said that between he and his partner they hit at least 50 warm up balls which is unreal, especially that late in the day. I would have been insane.
Randall’s playoff game sounded equally frustrating when they lost to another one of my most hated things, a co-ed team playing in the men’s division. Not only did they lose, they lost after holding a pretty big lead.
This was the tournament series that last year played under old school rules and also included free Corona beer for players. This year they removed the beer and reverted back to current rules. Throw in the hotter than hades heat and I was quite glad I missed the event.
Even though I wouldn’t have minded sleeping in on Sunday, Randall said he would rather get out the door early to do our ride to avoid some heat. The plan was to do the Dunkin Donuts ride (20 mile round trip) and then head to the water park where we could run/swim.
Randall was interested in trying out Ali’s bike. He hopped on it and the seat height actually looked ok. I jumped on my Dawes and we took off.
Randall and I exchanged lead rider roles half way, I was ahead the first 5 miles, Randall lead the middle 10 (broken up by coffee break) and I did the last 5. In the past when Randall and I have ridden together he has had to consciously slow down to allow me to hang with him since he does tons more riding than I do. This time that wasn’t the case.
I think the extended cardio work I have been doing along with additional leg strength work has helped me improve despite still not putting many miles in on the bike. We averaged right about 20 mph on the way out and over 18 on the way back into a headwind.
Randall did say he felt some significant differences riding the tri bike. Unfortunately he wasn’t really able to test out the tri position the bike is made for very much. When he got on the aero bars his knees were grazing his elbows.
After a brief pool and splashy splash session for Sadie we changed gear for the next part of the brick. When I got to the water park around 10 I decided to grab our passes right away. I was immediately annoyed when I approached the window and read the sign stating the lap/dive pool was closed for maintenance until further notice.
As much as I like the water park, they really do a poor job fixing things there. The high diving board has been closed for “maintenance” for at least 4-5 months. The dancing sprinklers that little kids love are broken and closed again. The on site lockers have as many broken units as it does functional ones and NOW the lap pool is broken again.
Actually the explanation I got from some kid lifeguard was now the low diving board is broken and for some reason that means the entire diving/lap pool had to be closed. That makes no sense to me. So I went out and told Randall swimming is off the agenda. He wasn’t all that disappointed since he isn’t a great swimmer.
We headed out on the run. Randall hasn’t been doing much running recently but he said he would try to keep up with me. We ran together until the 3 mile mark. At that point I told him I was going to go ahead and push for the last mile of the 4 mile jaunt. When I got back Randall was nowhere to be seen.
I was a bit concerned as he was really struggling towards the end of our run. I had visions of him passed out from heat stroke or something. I walked around out on the sidewalk trying to spot him which I eventually did, just before I was going to start going out on the trail looking for him. Evidently he bagged it at the 5k mark and walked back.
We headed into the park and almost directly to the lazy river, we earned some laziness. We had three relaxing loops around the circuit, including three trips through the “rapids” where they dump water on you.
After that we had lunch and unfortunately were joined in our meal by swarms of flies, they were constantly on you, not much fun. We both sort of dozed off a little bit under the umbrella after lunch before we headed home.
I treated Randall to a couple episodes of Hoarders Sunday afternoon. We both were amazed at just how f’d up human beings can become. Randall told me later that like us, he wound up cleaning some shit up at his condo when he got home later.
Randall and I grabbed dinner on his dime at El Apetito before he headed back east. I thanked him for the company since Ali was away. It was a fun couple days.
My Monday was designated as a relaxing day for me. I tended to sweeping the floors and some laundry but did no heavy lifting. I did throw down my first entry in this month’s Barbarian challenge, knuckle push ups. I grinded out 40 reps with solid form. I hope to at least hit my age before the month is done.
I did a lot of WoW on Monday, something I haven’t done much of at all in recent months. I left the house to pick up Ali for her scheduled 4:45 arrival at the airport at 4:15. I had with me a small vase with various flowers I picked from our property, something I have done before.
I heard my phone ring when I was about 10 miles out. Ali said it was her third time calling me, somehow I didn’t get or hear the first two calls. Evidently her flight was ahead of schedule. I felt bad as I pulled up to the terminal and she was pretty much the last person waiting.
Of course I had the party van with the dogs along. They were very happy to see their dog mom. Sadie wasted no time hopping up on Ali’s lap and staying there for the ride home. I had talked to Ali for a while the night before on the phone so I knew most there was to know about her trip. I stopped and grabbed us a Publix pizza for her welcome home dinner which she appreciated.
Last night was low key. Ali was pooped from her trip that had a lot of go go go in it. She was glad to sleep in her own bed.