Archived News starting from 06-01-2005 and earlier
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Buy My House! Today was an
MC-NECO mod meet in my garage. The
GnomeCam temporarily became the garage cam while I changed my brakes and intake,
Ron gutted his interior,
Pierre replaced his alternator and fan controller with Zack and
Jason lending moral support. Several burgers, pizza, and trips to Autozone later all cars started up successfully. It's always relaxing working my car for 8 hours.
Today I transitioned the
GnomeCam to the day/night wired camera now that Michigan looks like it's past the danger of freezing anytime soon. I also moved the location to increase the amount of inactive suburb you can see. Now instead of two boring houses you can see two boring houses and two driveways. If you look closely, you can finally see the Gnome in all his glory. You can also watch the plants grow. The excitement is so intense I decided to extend the captures to 11:00pm as well. If you find yourself dizzy or fatigued from the activity, remember you can always close your browser.
After getting back from vacation, my
XP Media Center was not
recording shows anymore.
Duane informed me his media center is not
playing any shows but
Steve has had no problems whatsoever. The apparently random occurences had me convinced it was a software problem so I decided to reload from a previous backup instead of trying to troubleshoot it. Once I had re-imaged the machine, I noticed live TV would randomly black out. After a few reboots it would work again. I checked to make sure I was getting consistent signal from the cable line and have decided it's a problem with the
tuner card. The blackouts would explain the lack of recorded shows since Media Center just quits when there is no signal. It could just be a faulty card, but
Steve has not had to reboot his machine for almost a month. He does not allow his machine to suspend which means it's on all the time. Bad for power bills, but apparently good for stability and possibly hardware components as well. I'm sure my machine has turned on and off at least 2 times a day for the past year and all that power cycling may have also affected the tuner card negatively. My suspend is off and a new card is on order. I'll see if this theory holds for the next year.
I came home today at 6:40pm to find the maple tree in my front yard
significantly smaller than I remembered. Fortunately Missy was still hacking away so my first thought of a tree rebellion was ruled out. I've
checked the polls and found this was a well received change with over a 90% approval rating. She did such a good job I let her trim up all the other trees and weed whip my entire yard with an electric model and a cord too short to reach everywhere.
Every year, for the past 3 years, my work gives everyone a Las Vegas vacation including hotel and airfare.
This year was the longest one yet spanning 4 days and 3 nights. I had grand plans to visit Hoover Dam and Area 51 but they were squashed by a persistant sore throat that air conditioning and desert air did not help. Fortunately
Brian suggested playing Blackjack which turned out to be some good advice. I wound up with an extra $50 in my pocket just by sitting at a table for a few hours. According to the majority of those that went, it's the game with the best odds. I found out
some people left with over $800 so my $50 victory was quickly overshadowed. The volcano didn't erupt as regular and the pirate ships in front of Treasure Island are now some kind of teen drama but other than that it's the same Vegas as before.
My GPS software told me to drive up I-77 instead of I-75 to return home. I never question technology so naturally I'm
following the route it told me to
presently. Missy has been driving for 7 hrs straight now and keeps asking for a break. I told her I have important things to do on the laptop and to shut up. Her sacrifice is bringing you this update, so appreciate it accordingly. My right rear tire is leaking air in protest of one too many SCCA races, so if I don't make it back the tire most likely blew up on a bridge and we fell 300 feet to our doom. Totals for the trip so far: 6 dead semi truck tires, 4 dead animals, 3 tanks of gas, 12 Hondas revving their engines at me and 5 vehicles with rainbow stickers (significantly less than our trip down, but we aren't north of I-80 yet).
Today concluded my annual
Florida Vacation. The trip down was my first time driving straight through to Florida. I drove 7:00pm to midnight, Missy drove midnight to 7:00am, then we alternated before a necessary 2hr nap at a rest stop. Total time was 23.5 hrs (including the nap/gas stops). A visit to Cocoa Beach revealed my favorite restaurant, the Moon Hut, had been sold to a mexican eatery which was rapidly raping the historical significance of the place. I was able to get some photos and make my peace before it was completely destroyed. Ironically, our favorite Mexican place, Azteca II was also shutdown. Is nothing sacred in my beloved Cocoa Beach? Fortunately, the Josephs were available to comfort Missy and I in our time of need. They live on a main street and one out of every five cars blast the song
Gasolina while driving by. Tim quickly made an MP3 CD of the song for me so we could fit in as locals, which we blasted anytime we drove somewhere. We were also allowed to wear the official
Clown Around Orlando wig and got several politically incorrect balloons by Tim. A trip to the Magic Kingdom completed our Whorelando visit, after which Joseph and I grappled heterosexually with his wifes approval. I can only hope that tomorrow FEMA will declare Michigan uninhabitable due to excessive depressing weather and my time in Florida will be extended.
I was sent a link at work today about the 2003 movie called
Malibu's Most Wanted. Not surprisingly, I had never heard of it, and now that it's over 2 years old I can talk about it and maintain my elitist non-conforming reputation since it's borderline commercially expired. The main characters name is B-Rad and that's all I know. According to the few people who have seen it that's all I need to know. I still plan to watch it just to see if the creative minds that came up with B-Rad have any other talents to share with the world. After all, I've been Brad for 27 years now and never came up with B-Rad on my own. It took a movie like this to open my eyes.
My
Cougar has
EBC Green Stuff brake pads as recommended by the SCCA instructor I had run my car last year. I quickly learned they run much hotter than normal brake pads. Unfortunately I learned this after I installed them and consequently, my rotors warp every 5,000 - 10,000 miles. Once the warping starts, I have to get them turned pretty quick or the steering wheel starts to shake out of my hand when I stop. It's only $20 to get them turned, but taking them on and off becomes time consuming so I decided to get some "serious" rotors. Enter the
Power Slot Cryo-Treated Rotors. They are "warp resistant" and are designed for full ceramic pads. I
installed them and they definitely
look sweet. Hopefully I can keep my car off jack stands for another 50,000 miles this time.
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