Archived News starting from 09-05-2007 and earlier
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About 3 years ago, my sunroof in my Cougar broke along with a vast majority of fellow owners. I quickly learned it's one of the top failure parts for the car, but not being a critical part, I eventually forgot all about it. Recently some fellow owners, including
Excelcier, found replacements in local junkyards. I became increasingly aware of my previously forgotten broken sunroof, especially when surrounded by people who enjoy taunting me by leaving their sunroof open while parked. EternalOne took pity on me, and donated his sunroof after deciding he no longer wanted it. An
attempted replacement with Jrak left me with detailed knowledge of sunroof assembly, but the donor part was also broken and the sky remained an extra-vehicular activity. Fast forward to today when I finally broke down and bought a replacement part. Fighting mosquitos, I managed to get it installed in 45 minutes flat, 5 of which was spent conversing with the ex-
Morlock who quickly moved on after learning I was engaged in actual work.
After learning Lisa's parents live close to a
disc golf course we decided to
try it out while visiting. The first two holes were unmarked, and it looked like we'd be making our own tee-off spots, but the third hole was marked with a clear sign including yardage and par. Disc golf signs being as popular as they are, the first two must have been stolen. Fortunately the rest were also well marked and we had a good 9-hole round. I'm always amazed at how easy it is to find a disc golf course wherever you are in the country.
At work today our emails for orders, returns, and all sorts of other important things stopped sending. Fearing the worst, I checked all our configuration files and they all seemed in order. Still email wasn't going through, so remembering you can telnet to an SMTP server I quickly ran "telnet smtp 25" from our server and was greeted with a prompt. I followed instructions in
this link and discovered first hand how SMTP really is a simple mail transfer protocol. Trivial for some, unexciting for most, but something noteworthy for me. My lack of an email confirmed the server had a stuck queue but an hour later I got my very first telnet email and celebrated with a Mountain Dew.
After seeing a
deal on a
500w EarthWatts power supply, the hippie in me decided to make the purchase and save the world. Curious as to how much less power an
80Plus certified power supply would draw, I checked the UPS reading for this server and noted 174 watts. I then swapped out my standard boring power supply with the new exciting hippie supply (it's actually colored green) and was shocked to see it required 24 fewer watts to run the exact same equipment. That's a savings of 210.24 kWh per year at 6¢/kWh which means my $40 upgrade will save me $12.61 a year with a full ROI in 3.1 years. Definitely not a wise investment, but satisfies your inner hippie as long as you don't toss the old supply in a landfill.
Two people at my work have been redesigning
Fathead.com for almost a month now, with the rest of us jumping in for the last two weeks at 12 hours a day. Taking a step back and realizing all the bugs are fixed, it finally hit me what a great looking site it really is. Don't believe me? Click on a product image, any image. Most of you will choose the swimsuit models (Entertainment -> SI Swimsuit). Notice the "zoom" slider on the left. Move it up and down. Tripping out yet? If that's not enough, compare with what it
used to look like and you'll get an appreciation of how drastic the change is. Now that it's finally live, I plan to sleep all weekend. You may post your criticism below while I slumber.
Coming back from lunch today, EternalOne and I noticed a fire truck at the front of our office building. After we got back to our desks everyone was talking about the car that
burst into flames. We missed the actual burning, but I managed to get some aftermath photos, and was emailed the time lapse phtos of it happening. The guy who owned the car said he just had it worked on so our theory is someone got oil on the engine and shorted a connection (apparently it started burning very slowly). After they towed it away (spilling gas/oil/antifreeze behind it) we took a look at the parking spot and saw it actually melted the asphalt.
Wondering what else would be fun to do on a 90° day, I decided to help my sister
move from Grand Rapids to Chicago. After we filled a 15-foot truck and drove 4 hours to her new apartment, we discovered a garage door leading to a 500ft hallway we had to move everything down. Luckily someone had already stolen and left
shopping carts to help new tenants. Now I can finally say I've moved various pieces of furniture with a shopping cart.
Not quite sure what to do on a 90° day, I thought it would be fun to
work on Cougars all day in a hot barn. Luckily I wasn't the only one who had this thought and quite a few fellow owners
joined me. Once we got the first spark plug change done it was decided
grilling and lounging in
converted Cougar chairs was a better option than actual work. The last remaining Morlock also moved out today, leaving my fellow Eloi and I with an uncertain future. While the constant threat of cannibalism and caustic smoke made daily life with the Morlock stressful, his ability to maintain vauge machinery and keep us entertained will be missed. I don't doubt he'll find more Eloi to consume/befriend in his new basement.
A recent project launch at my work had me spending 12 hours a day at work, neglecting my soon-to-be-wife. Now that the project has launched (and before another one begins) I decided to take the day off and
take her to the park. Having been almost a year since I last visited, I was shocked to find a
freaky water park in the middle of the beach. Lisa was so shocked she immediately started doing
freaky stretches to compensate mentally. I was determined to find out if it was worth stripping naked and running through it wildly until I saw the $4/day fee which saved untold numbers of kids from a scarring childhood trauma. Instead, I
rode a dinosaur for free.
What do Cougar owners depressed about
Cougarfest being over do? Although listening to
Chocolate Rain and crying is the obvious answer, the correct one is to plan a
Slumber Party Supreme. Thanks to
Excelcier and LadyX the solution was implemented and brouhaha
ensued. The highlight of the event was easily the
various air mattress launches which miraculously did not break a mattress or Cougar owner.
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