My wife and I just celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary. Neither of us had gifts ready for the other (I suppose we're a good match for each other!). However, Jess presented me with a bag filled with gifts she had meant to give me for a few previous occasions, but hadn't ever wrapped. After all the time that had passed, she decided to give them to me on our Anniversary, giving up on her intention to wrap them eventually. Me, I don't care about wrapping paper, I got new toys!
The neatest gift was the Heroes Season One collection on DVD. I popped Disc 1 in the DVD player to begin checking it out. During the beginning credits of the first episode, I saw a credit to 'Wendy Melvoin & Lisa Coleman' - Music Composers. I immediately paused the screen, and yelled for Jess to come take a look. She of course thought I was nuts, and asked who they were.
I ran downstairs and pulled out my Purple Rain soundtrack LP from 1984. (ASIDE: DId any of you remember the album included a fullsize poster of Prince and his band?) I scanned the credits on the album, and while Wendy's last name wasn't printed, Lisa's last name was, sure enough, Coleman. Turns out, the Wendy & Lisa that used to work with Prince are now doing music work for Crossing Jordan and Heroes, among other things.
Me, I just thought it was neat that I saw the pairing in the credits, and immediately remembered they were part of Prince's band 24 years ago.
Once I got over myself, we drove to dinner, listening to Purple Rain on the way there.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Mr. Fix-it strikes again!
Monday morning I was at a client's office, helping them with a couple of computer-related issues. The man I work with at this particular client pulled a broken PS2 out of a drawer and gave it to me. He explained that one of his coworkers had left it there for me, as it was broken and he thought I might want it.
I was out of town for work Tuesday through Thursday, and began working on the PS2 Friday evening. On my way home from work I stopped at Toys R Us & bought a $5 PS2 game - Rayman Raving Rabbids, and a wireless PS2 controller. After we'd had dinner and put the kids to bed, I hooked up the machine and turned it on to begin testing it out.
I tested a music CD, a Playstation 1 game, the new PS2 game, a very old DVD with few special features, and a dual-layer DVD. Every different type of disc gave me a Disc Read Error, except for the Dual-layer DVD.
Somebody at Digital Press referred me to an excellent page on repairing 'Disc Read Error' problems (DREs) - http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/ps2.ars. I read the article, and then began following the steps on my own PS2, hoping to fix the problem. I was carefully adjusting the laser lens adjustment, and testing things, repeatedly until I realized I hadn't tried simply *cleaning* the lens.
I reset the lens adjustment back to where it had been before I changed anything, and then cleaned the lens. Once the lens was clean, I successfully played every different type of disc.
So, I've been playing Rayman Raving Rabbids on the unit (even if it isn't very good), and can now watch DVDs in the basement, as an added bonus.
I was out of town for work Tuesday through Thursday, and began working on the PS2 Friday evening. On my way home from work I stopped at Toys R Us & bought a $5 PS2 game - Rayman Raving Rabbids, and a wireless PS2 controller. After we'd had dinner and put the kids to bed, I hooked up the machine and turned it on to begin testing it out.
I tested a music CD, a Playstation 1 game, the new PS2 game, a very old DVD with few special features, and a dual-layer DVD. Every different type of disc gave me a Disc Read Error, except for the Dual-layer DVD.
Somebody at Digital Press referred me to an excellent page on repairing 'Disc Read Error' problems (DREs) - http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/ps2.ars. I read the article, and then began following the steps on my own PS2, hoping to fix the problem. I was carefully adjusting the laser lens adjustment, and testing things, repeatedly until I realized I hadn't tried simply *cleaning* the lens.
I reset the lens adjustment back to where it had been before I changed anything, and then cleaned the lens. Once the lens was clean, I successfully played every different type of disc.
So, I've been playing Rayman Raving Rabbids on the unit (even if it isn't very good), and can now watch DVDs in the basement, as an added bonus.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Happy Feelings
A couple of months ago I wrote here about my venerable CD changer that I'd enjoyed for almost 20 years, but that had suddenly died. Having almost no time to try and figure out how to fix it, and almost no idea how to even begin to figure it out, I reluctantly bught a new CD changer and removed the old one from the stereo system.
I did spend a little bit of time one evening with the player, trying to identify what was wrong with it, but I made no headway and ended up putting the cover back on, and offering the CD changer up on the FreecycleNJ mailing list. In my posting, I even included a link to a promising-looking webpage I'd found with information on the likely defect and how to fix it.
I saw no responses from that post. I then posted the same message to Craigslist. A young (-er than me, anyway) guy responded with interest, and I gave the CD player to him, along with the spare cartridges, remote, original packaging & paperwork.
A few nights later I received an email from him:
> Hi Steve,
> I opened the CD player and found the laser pickup is missing its lens.
> It is round clear plastic piece that about a 1/4 inch in diameter. Do
> you know where is might be?
> Thanks,
> Steven
I replied that I didn't think the lens was anywhere in my house, but I'd look. I was disappointed, thinking the lens must have fallen out somewhere in my home, and by now had been vacuumed up and thrown away. It was sad to think that the whole device was rendered worthless over such a small thing.
Then, last Friday I received this msg:
> Steve,
> I found the lens. It was underneath some paper on the table where I
> disassembled the machine.It now works after I re-glued the lens back
> to the pickup assembly. It is a really nice machine. It sounds good
> and its disc changer mechanism is very fast. I think it should last
> another 10 or 20 years.
> Thank you very much.
> Steven
Now that just made me feel warm all over. I wish I'd put in the time and effort to salvage the machine myself, but I'm happy to know that this guy now has a good CD changer and saved it from the dump.
I did spend a little bit of time one evening with the player, trying to identify what was wrong with it, but I made no headway and ended up putting the cover back on, and offering the CD changer up on the FreecycleNJ mailing list. In my posting, I even included a link to a promising-looking webpage I'd found with information on the likely defect and how to fix it.
I saw no responses from that post. I then posted the same message to Craigslist. A young (-er than me, anyway) guy responded with interest, and I gave the CD player to him, along with the spare cartridges, remote, original packaging & paperwork.
A few nights later I received an email from him:
> Hi Steve,
> I opened the CD player and found the laser pickup is missing its lens.
> It is round clear plastic piece that about a 1/4 inch in diameter. Do
> you know where is might be?
> Thanks,
> Steven
I replied that I didn't think the lens was anywhere in my house, but I'd look. I was disappointed, thinking the lens must have fallen out somewhere in my home, and by now had been vacuumed up and thrown away. It was sad to think that the whole device was rendered worthless over such a small thing.
Then, last Friday I received this msg:
> Steve,
> I found the lens. It was underneath some paper on the table where I
> disassembled the machine.It now works after I re-glued the lens back
> to the pickup assembly. It is a really nice machine. It sounds good
> and its disc changer mechanism is very fast. I think it should last
> another 10 or 20 years.
> Thank you very much.
> Steven
Now that just made me feel warm all over. I wish I'd put in the time and effort to salvage the machine myself, but I'm happy to know that this guy now has a good CD changer and saved it from the dump.
S.S.D.D. - Same Scandal, Different Day
In other news, I read an article a few minutes ago about NY Congressman Rep. Vito Fossella. It's yet another story about some politician that undertook actions that would be deemed 'scandalous' or 'immoral' by most people. I'm a live-and-let-live guy myself. In my opinion, anybody should be permitted to do anything they feel like, as long as it doesn't harm somebody else or interfere with that person also doing whatever he/she feels like doing. I think Rep Fossella should NOT have done what he did, because it was wrong to treat his wife and (first) family this way. Plus, how could he explain to the daughter with the second woman the assumed secrecy he'd need to exercise ?
As I've written before, it seems to me that the Democratic Party is often criticized for what's considered excessive meddling in commercial/business matters. BUT, I believe the Republican Party excessively meddles in personal and social matters.
IT ALSO SEEMS VERY MUCH to me that the Republican Party have an almost complete lock on the title of HYPOCRITE. With the admittedly huge exception of Bill C and Monica, everytime I hear or read of a scandal involving a politician, Democrats are always caught with their hands in the cookie jar (or freezer). Republicans, though, seem to always be caught in scandals related to sex - pedophilia, prostitutes, extra-marital affairs.
Truly, the only explanation I can find for the Republican Party managing to be known as the party of 'Family Values' all these years is that they run aaround rampantly producing more and more families!
Seriously, the only thing the Republicans seem to do well, and better than anyone else, is branding and marketing.
Are any Christians out there paying attention????
As I've written before, it seems to me that the Democratic Party is often criticized for what's considered excessive meddling in commercial/business matters. BUT, I believe the Republican Party excessively meddles in personal and social matters.
IT ALSO SEEMS VERY MUCH to me that the Republican Party have an almost complete lock on the title of HYPOCRITE. With the admittedly huge exception of Bill C and Monica, everytime I hear or read of a scandal involving a politician, Democrats are always caught with their hands in the cookie jar (or freezer). Republicans, though, seem to always be caught in scandals related to sex - pedophilia, prostitutes, extra-marital affairs.
Truly, the only explanation I can find for the Republican Party managing to be known as the party of 'Family Values' all these years is that they run aaround rampantly producing more and more families!
Seriously, the only thing the Republicans seem to do well, and better than anyone else, is branding and marketing.
Are any Christians out there paying attention????
Monday, April 28, 2008
Request for Software
I want a software product that will intercept my incoming emails, and anywhere there are multiple exclamation points or question marks, convert the characters to one single exclamation point or question mark. THEN, at the bottom of the message, a note should be appeneded, inidicating the replacement took place.
Ideally the app could magically work with any email viewer I use (Outlook 2003, Ooutlook 2007, OWA, Windows Mobile 6, The Bat v3), but if it only worked within Outlook 2003 and 2007 I could tolerate that.
If the app lived on the Exchange 2003 server that might be tolerable, but it would have to only affect my mailbox as opposed to all mailboxes, and even then I doubt I'd have the courage, daring, or permission from above to install it to the production email server.
This could actually be an app that many people would find useful. I'm declaring here and now that I'd offer $15 for it.
I'm simply tired of receiving emails from specific individuals that ALWAYS use ??? or !!! or ??!, !?!, !!!! in every!! message !!! they send!!!!
Ideally the app could magically work with any email viewer I use (Outlook 2003, Ooutlook 2007, OWA, Windows Mobile 6, The Bat v3), but if it only worked within Outlook 2003 and 2007 I could tolerate that.
If the app lived on the Exchange 2003 server that might be tolerable, but it would have to only affect my mailbox as opposed to all mailboxes, and even then I doubt I'd have the courage, daring, or permission from above to install it to the production email server.
This could actually be an app that many people would find useful. I'm declaring here and now that I'd offer $15 for it.
I'm simply tired of receiving emails from specific individuals that ALWAYS use ??? or !!! or ??!, !?!, !!!! in every!! message !!! they send!!!!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Feels like a Sunday Morning
I woke up this morning at 5:50am. For no reason at all; I just woke up. For about 10-15 minutes I tried to go back to sleep, and then gave up and decided to see if I could find anything interesting to watch on TV.
I started on channel 2, and had made my way through the program guide into the hundreds wothout finding anything. I was nearly ready to give up when I came across a Woody Allen movie I don't think I'd ever heard of. It was called 'Melinda and Melinda', from 2004.
Ordinarily I'd have passed this up, but as there was nothing else on, and nothing to do that early on a Saturday morning, I pulled up the Info page on the movie to investigate. I like some Woody Allen, and find other Woody Allen films boring, so the fact it was Woody Allen was only slightly intriguing. The summary of the plot didn't interest me, but the info page mentioned two actors in the movie. I'd never heard of the female lead, but Wallace Shawn was the other name mentioned, and I like him, so I decided to give the movie a shot.
As it turns out, having missed the first twenty or so minutes, I only saw Wallace Shawn for about 2 minutes in the rest of the movie. And the movie was really more like 2 different movies, spliced together. Piecing together the very last scene (that did have Wallace Shawn) and the summary description, I think the idea is there are two guys (directors, maybe?) that each describe the way they would approach a movie or play about a particular woman and her lovelife. One chooses a dramatic, intense, and ultimately sad portrayal, while the other goes for cute, funny, and whimsical.
The movie that I watched is the two different takes, showing some from one style, and then scenes from the other, switching among the two every few minutes. I found the dramatic story to be a little bit dull and cloying. I very much enjoyed the lighter story.
Sometime in the late-90's I registered at the Internet Movie Database and began rating movies on a scale of 1 to 10. A few years later, Jessica pointed out to me that I almost always assign a rating of 7 to every movie I see. After watching the movie this morning, I wanted to give it a 7.
Lying in bed I thought about this. I see two ways to look at this. It could be that I seldom rate movies a low score, because I have very good judgement, and successfully avoid rotten movies. OR, it could be that I'm too risk-averse, and only choose safe movies that I know I'll like, potentially preventing myself from seeing anything that would be adventurous and ultimately more rewarding.
For example, Melinda and Melinda starred Will Farrell. It also had a bit role by Steve Carrell. I never liked Will Farrell in SNL, and every movie I've ever seen him in has looked very, very stupid. (Except for one, where some fiction writer is writing his life. That looked good, but I haven't seen it yet.)
If this movie had been presented to me as a Will Farrell movie, I'd have never given it a chance. But as things worked out, I liked his character the best, and he had the only two really funny lines in the movie.
I noticed something else interesting to me as well. In the movie, there are two instances of interracial dating. In each case, a white woman dates a black man. I think I've seen this in other movies as well as TV. In nearly every filmed case of this I can think of, the couple is a white woman and a black man. I can only think of one instance of a white man dating a black woman (Firefly and the Firefly movie, Serenity). Curious.
Anyway, as I write this Jessica and Maren are still sleeping, Nate's dressing up in superhero costumes, the morning sunlight is streaming through the living room window, and I'm listening to a GRP Jazz Sampler CD I got years ago, on my new CD player. (Thanks Mom!) It feels very much like a Sunday morning, although it's really Saturday, hence the title of the post.
I started on channel 2, and had made my way through the program guide into the hundreds wothout finding anything. I was nearly ready to give up when I came across a Woody Allen movie I don't think I'd ever heard of. It was called 'Melinda and Melinda', from 2004.
Ordinarily I'd have passed this up, but as there was nothing else on, and nothing to do that early on a Saturday morning, I pulled up the Info page on the movie to investigate. I like some Woody Allen, and find other Woody Allen films boring, so the fact it was Woody Allen was only slightly intriguing. The summary of the plot didn't interest me, but the info page mentioned two actors in the movie. I'd never heard of the female lead, but Wallace Shawn was the other name mentioned, and I like him, so I decided to give the movie a shot.
As it turns out, having missed the first twenty or so minutes, I only saw Wallace Shawn for about 2 minutes in the rest of the movie. And the movie was really more like 2 different movies, spliced together. Piecing together the very last scene (that did have Wallace Shawn) and the summary description, I think the idea is there are two guys (directors, maybe?) that each describe the way they would approach a movie or play about a particular woman and her lovelife. One chooses a dramatic, intense, and ultimately sad portrayal, while the other goes for cute, funny, and whimsical.
The movie that I watched is the two different takes, showing some from one style, and then scenes from the other, switching among the two every few minutes. I found the dramatic story to be a little bit dull and cloying. I very much enjoyed the lighter story.
Sometime in the late-90's I registered at the Internet Movie Database and began rating movies on a scale of 1 to 10. A few years later, Jessica pointed out to me that I almost always assign a rating of 7 to every movie I see. After watching the movie this morning, I wanted to give it a 7.
Lying in bed I thought about this. I see two ways to look at this. It could be that I seldom rate movies a low score, because I have very good judgement, and successfully avoid rotten movies. OR, it could be that I'm too risk-averse, and only choose safe movies that I know I'll like, potentially preventing myself from seeing anything that would be adventurous and ultimately more rewarding.
For example, Melinda and Melinda starred Will Farrell. It also had a bit role by Steve Carrell. I never liked Will Farrell in SNL, and every movie I've ever seen him in has looked very, very stupid. (Except for one, where some fiction writer is writing his life. That looked good, but I haven't seen it yet.)
If this movie had been presented to me as a Will Farrell movie, I'd have never given it a chance. But as things worked out, I liked his character the best, and he had the only two really funny lines in the movie.
I noticed something else interesting to me as well. In the movie, there are two instances of interracial dating. In each case, a white woman dates a black man. I think I've seen this in other movies as well as TV. In nearly every filmed case of this I can think of, the couple is a white woman and a black man. I can only think of one instance of a white man dating a black woman (Firefly and the Firefly movie, Serenity). Curious.
Anyway, as I write this Jessica and Maren are still sleeping, Nate's dressing up in superhero costumes, the morning sunlight is streaming through the living room window, and I'm listening to a GRP Jazz Sampler CD I got years ago, on my new CD player. (Thanks Mom!) It feels very much like a Sunday morning, although it's really Saturday, hence the title of the post.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Another post, from another airport.
Last weekend I flew to South Florida to celebrate my Dad's 65th BDay. About this time last Friday evening, I received an email that my office had scheduled me to travel to Atlanta yesterday morning (on a 7:15am flight) through tonight. SO, I am now sitting on the floor at gate D22 in Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. My 8:20pm flight from ATL to Newark, NJ, was delayed until 10:58pm, scheduled to arrive in NJ sometime around 1:45am.
Having nothing else to do after finishing my work at the client today, I explored Fry's Electronics for about an hour (we don't have those in NJ). I then drove to the airport, returned the rental car, and began puttering around the airport at about 6:30 or 7:00pm.
Around 8pm I went to Friday's for dinner. ( TIP: A Security Agent offered me the very nice tip that there are more dining options in terminals A & B, as opposed to C, D, and E. If you're ever in the Atlanta airport looking for a bite, maybe this will help you too. )
While waiting for my meal, I got a phone call from home. My 3-year-old daughter was crying hysterically because she missed me and wanted me to come home. She settled down when I assured her I'd be home when she woke up. (So, to whatever crew is flying my plane and working Air Traffic control, you better not make me a liar!)
I finished my dinner, and proceeded to walk to my gate at a very leisurely pace. While on a very, very long escalator, I overheard a conversation behind me. A lady was telling a man about her family, including 3 children. Her husband returned home from Iraq this morning, and she was on her way to reunite with him. She mentioned that this was his second tour of duty over there. The first tour was 18 months, and the once concluded today was 13.5 months.
Maren was distraught after I'd been gone for 2 days.
Having nothing else to do after finishing my work at the client today, I explored Fry's Electronics for about an hour (we don't have those in NJ). I then drove to the airport, returned the rental car, and began puttering around the airport at about 6:30 or 7:00pm.
Around 8pm I went to Friday's for dinner. ( TIP: A Security Agent offered me the very nice tip that there are more dining options in terminals A & B, as opposed to C, D, and E. If you're ever in the Atlanta airport looking for a bite, maybe this will help you too. )
While waiting for my meal, I got a phone call from home. My 3-year-old daughter was crying hysterically because she missed me and wanted me to come home. She settled down when I assured her I'd be home when she woke up. (So, to whatever crew is flying my plane and working Air Traffic control, you better not make me a liar!)
I finished my dinner, and proceeded to walk to my gate at a very leisurely pace. While on a very, very long escalator, I overheard a conversation behind me. A lady was telling a man about her family, including 3 children. Her husband returned home from Iraq this morning, and she was on her way to reunite with him. She mentioned that this was his second tour of duty over there. The first tour was 18 months, and the once concluded today was 13.5 months.
Maren was distraught after I'd been gone for 2 days.
Monday, April 07, 2008
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
(Typing this from Gate C3 at Fort Lauderdale Airport, Florida.)
The Good:
Pursuant to my CD Organization project, described earlier, I've been trying to track down another one or two large CD binders. I've got about 100 more CDs to be filed, and am out of space in the binders I already own. The last time I bought these binders was June, 2003. Since then, Case Logic has changed the construction of their large binder, and the current model (still carrying the same model name/number) seems to me to be of much lower quality, has fewer features, and is ugly. My other cases are from The CDLibrary.com. These don't appear to be in-stock anywhere, online or brick-and-mortar, and their website reports 'out-of-stock' for every product I checked. Also, I think the last time the website was updated was 2003. I don't believe that company is still operating. I've scoured the web for the old-stock model of the Case Logic case for two or three weeks and come up empty. I've checked every electronics or music retailer anywhere near me, and found no CD binders of decent quality. I almost traveled 90 minutes to South Jersey to see if I could find anything satisfactory.
The reason our return flight from Florida this weekend was scheduled for today instead of yesterday (Sunday) was that our birthday present to my Dad was a family portrait session including him. This morning we woke up early, and went with my Dad to Sears, where we visited the Portrait Studio and had a batch of professional photos taken.
The service was pretty slow, and N & M immediately got out of control. To short-circuit the sibling friction, I grabbed M and took her for a walk through the store while her Mom & her Zayde went through the tedious and slow process of reviewing the photos and selecting what to buy.
Naturally, my first stop (after letting Maren grab a rolling Dora suitcase to play with) was the Electronics department. I'd been unwilling to get my hopes up, but I looked at the aisle with the CD cases, and this Sears, located at the Town Center mall in Boca Raton, FL, had FOUR of the Case Logic case that is out of production and that I've been searching for. I snapped up two of them. Each case hold about 112 CDs, with their liner notes; I figure I'll fill one up with what I own now. It's taken me 22 years to accumulate the ~600 CDs I have now, including high school, college, time spent working at a Music Store, and time spent working at a radio station. That's an average of about 27 CDs/year. (Wow, I wouldn't have thought I'd purchased at nearly that high a rate!) I very much doubt I'll run out of capacity now, ever. (Although, having done the math I'm not so confident now.)
Finding these binders way down in South Florida has made my day. This was GOOD.
The BAD:
For a long time, I've thought there is nothing I can think of that I wouldn't rather do than yardwork. However, I've also despised air travel ever since puberty. Air travel is simply the most horrible experience that occurs in allegedly civilized life. Currently going through it again, with two young, cranky children and a wife short on patience, has me convinced that I prefer yardwork to commercial air travel.
The UGLY: The opposite of the scenery in South Florida. Granted, I don't like South Florida. I especially displike Miami. I like New Orleans. I like the brief time I've spent in Tennessee, and I like the Orlando area, so I'm not anti-south. BUT, having spent a weekend in the Fort Lauderdale area at the beginning of spring, I can say with no doubt at all that UGLY is the opposite of South Florida. And, all decorum aside, (LOW CLASS ALERT!), South Florida must be the world capital of beautiful women and cleavage. The weekend was stressful, but it wasn't ugly!
The Good:
Pursuant to my CD Organization project, described earlier, I've been trying to track down another one or two large CD binders. I've got about 100 more CDs to be filed, and am out of space in the binders I already own. The last time I bought these binders was June, 2003. Since then, Case Logic has changed the construction of their large binder, and the current model (still carrying the same model name/number) seems to me to be of much lower quality, has fewer features, and is ugly. My other cases are from The CDLibrary.com. These don't appear to be in-stock anywhere, online or brick-and-mortar, and their website reports 'out-of-stock' for every product I checked. Also, I think the last time the website was updated was 2003. I don't believe that company is still operating. I've scoured the web for the old-stock model of the Case Logic case for two or three weeks and come up empty. I've checked every electronics or music retailer anywhere near me, and found no CD binders of decent quality. I almost traveled 90 minutes to South Jersey to see if I could find anything satisfactory.
The reason our return flight from Florida this weekend was scheduled for today instead of yesterday (Sunday) was that our birthday present to my Dad was a family portrait session including him. This morning we woke up early, and went with my Dad to Sears, where we visited the Portrait Studio and had a batch of professional photos taken.
The service was pretty slow, and N & M immediately got out of control. To short-circuit the sibling friction, I grabbed M and took her for a walk through the store while her Mom & her Zayde went through the tedious and slow process of reviewing the photos and selecting what to buy.
Naturally, my first stop (after letting Maren grab a rolling Dora suitcase to play with) was the Electronics department. I'd been unwilling to get my hopes up, but I looked at the aisle with the CD cases, and this Sears, located at the Town Center mall in Boca Raton, FL, had FOUR of the Case Logic case that is out of production and that I've been searching for. I snapped up two of them. Each case hold about 112 CDs, with their liner notes; I figure I'll fill one up with what I own now. It's taken me 22 years to accumulate the ~600 CDs I have now, including high school, college, time spent working at a Music Store, and time spent working at a radio station. That's an average of about 27 CDs/year. (Wow, I wouldn't have thought I'd purchased at nearly that high a rate!) I very much doubt I'll run out of capacity now, ever. (Although, having done the math I'm not so confident now.)
Finding these binders way down in South Florida has made my day. This was GOOD.
The BAD:
For a long time, I've thought there is nothing I can think of that I wouldn't rather do than yardwork. However, I've also despised air travel ever since puberty. Air travel is simply the most horrible experience that occurs in allegedly civilized life. Currently going through it again, with two young, cranky children and a wife short on patience, has me convinced that I prefer yardwork to commercial air travel.
The UGLY: The opposite of the scenery in South Florida. Granted, I don't like South Florida. I especially displike Miami. I like New Orleans. I like the brief time I've spent in Tennessee, and I like the Orlando area, so I'm not anti-south. BUT, having spent a weekend in the Fort Lauderdale area at the beginning of spring, I can say with no doubt at all that UGLY is the opposite of South Florida. And, all decorum aside, (LOW CLASS ALERT!), South Florida must be the world capital of beautiful women and cleavage. The weekend was stressful, but it wasn't ugly!
Correction to the previous post.
In my previous post I stated that my observation, gleaned from overheard chatter, was that many of the guests at the reunion I attended over this past weekend that represented my parents' generation seemed to favor John McCain, then Hillary Clinton, and then Barak Obama, in the upcoming presidential election.
I've since learned that I was wrong in my observation. I was right that almost none of that generation like Obama at all, but I've learned that most of them prefer Hillary C to John M.
I've since learned that I was wrong in my observation. I was right that almost none of that generation like Obama at all, but I've learned that most of them prefer Hillary C to John M.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
A generational thing?
This past weekend I had the pleasure to visit Boca Raton, FL, to celebrate my Dad's 65th birthday. The celebration included about 30 guests, at events spanning the weekend. Disappointingly, most of my cousins and their families did not attend. My brother was present with his wife and daughter, and one of my cousins attended, with one of his sons. Otherwise, all of the guests were of my father's generation - aunts, uncles, and friends.
Now, in my usual circles, it's pretty much a no-brainer that in the upcoming presidential campaign, of the remaining candidates, anybody would be better than McCain, and Barak Obama is the obvious choice.
Surprisingly to me, among the chatter I heard this past weekend in a crowd that was almost entirely of my parent's generation, the sense I got was that McCain was the obvious first choice, and anyone with half-a-brain could see that Obama was the worst thing that could ever happen.
I think the contrast is interesting.
The guests at this gathering weren't unintelligent, or uneducated people. They weren't evil. I simply can't reconcile these people's political opinions with my opinions of their intelligence and character, and my beliefs and opinions of the state of the world today and our present government and politicians.
One other thing I found notable is that it seemed to me that a prevailing belief among the group was that authoritative national and world news came from Fox, CNN, and maybe MSNBC. I don't trust the presentation of the news from any of those sources, least of all Fox, the network that habitually identifies Republicans as Democrats whenever reporting on a scandal involving a Republican Congresscritter.
I believe a more truthful and factual representation of the news can be obtained from Rolling Stone, The Daily Show/Colbert Report, Google News, and actually sitting, reading, and comprehending most newspapers. I've got biases just like anybody else, routinely reading Huffington Post, and occasionally Slate or Salon, but I like to think I can recognize bias in the articles I read, even if it supports my opinion. For example, a while ago I tried listening to Air America when it was carried by Sirius Satellite Radio. After a day or two I was completely turned off by the channel. Yes, it espoused the views and opinions I shared, and bashed the people and groups I oppose, but the tone and characterizations were juvenile aqnd hateful, just like the rantings of malevolent windbags like Rush Limbaugh or Hannity. The point is, I didn't like that sort of behavior even if it was 'on my side'.
Personally, I think any clear-thinking person with even a shred of intelligence or simple human compassion or empathy recognizes immediately that the current occupier of the White House is without a doubt the worst president our country has ever suffered through, and is also a contender for the most dangerous person alive today. I think the damage done to our Nation, if at all repairable, will take literally generations to repair.
I lost all respect for McCain after 2000, when he completely sold out his principals and became Bush's biggest boot-licker and yes-man. I think McCain becoming the next president would extend the current administrations practices and priorities for another term. I already have doubts our country can ever return to what used to be an America based on the rule of law and the US Constitution. If McCain becomes President, there's no way we'll ever get any of that back.
So he's out. Not at all an acceptable choice.
Hillary seems to be the type that will say or do anything to become President, and it seems to me she wants the job more so that she can be President than for any other reason. I don't like her, and I don't trust her. BUT, I think her agenda probably/hopefully aligns with mine, at least somewhat, so if she gets the nod against McCain I'd unenthusiastically vote for her.
That leaves Obama. I don't know much in-dpeth about him. BUT, I also haven't seen or heard anything substantive about him that I don't like. I think it's unfair to judge him because of some association with somebody else. I think it's ridiculously immature to judge him due to his NAME, and I think it's childish and bigoted to oppose him because of a suspicion that he's a Muslim. I don't believe he is, and even if he was indeed a Muslim, so what?
Listening to or reading his speeches gives me more of a feeling of hope than I've ever felt from any politician in my lifetime. After everything the Republicans have done to our country over the 30 years or so, I usually feel very despondent and discouraged when thinking about national and world politics. It's very, very refreshing to feel a sense of hope. I've never tried mood-altering drugs - no cocaine, no heroin, not even Tylenol with Codeine. BUT, I definitely felt uplifted when I heard Obama speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention, or when I read his speech on race relations last month.
Maybe Obama is just a better used-car salesman than the others, and he'll prove to be jsut as much of a lyinbg dirtbag as the others. But their generation has had it's chances to improve our world, and we're in worse shape than we've ever been. Continuing the status quo, as I believe either Hillary or McCain would do, is unacceptable. If Obama is taking a chance, I think there's no other choice but to take the chance.
For the record, among all of the candidates that were originally running, I'd have preferred:
* Dodd
* Richardson
* Edwards
* Kucinich
over any of those still running, but sadly they're no longer a choice.
Now, in my usual circles, it's pretty much a no-brainer that in the upcoming presidential campaign, of the remaining candidates, anybody would be better than McCain, and Barak Obama is the obvious choice.
Surprisingly to me, among the chatter I heard this past weekend in a crowd that was almost entirely of my parent's generation, the sense I got was that McCain was the obvious first choice, and anyone with half-a-brain could see that Obama was the worst thing that could ever happen.
I think the contrast is interesting.
The guests at this gathering weren't unintelligent, or uneducated people. They weren't evil. I simply can't reconcile these people's political opinions with my opinions of their intelligence and character, and my beliefs and opinions of the state of the world today and our present government and politicians.
One other thing I found notable is that it seemed to me that a prevailing belief among the group was that authoritative national and world news came from Fox, CNN, and maybe MSNBC. I don't trust the presentation of the news from any of those sources, least of all Fox, the network that habitually identifies Republicans as Democrats whenever reporting on a scandal involving a Republican Congresscritter.
I believe a more truthful and factual representation of the news can be obtained from Rolling Stone, The Daily Show/Colbert Report, Google News, and actually sitting, reading, and comprehending most newspapers. I've got biases just like anybody else, routinely reading Huffington Post, and occasionally Slate or Salon, but I like to think I can recognize bias in the articles I read, even if it supports my opinion. For example, a while ago I tried listening to Air America when it was carried by Sirius Satellite Radio. After a day or two I was completely turned off by the channel. Yes, it espoused the views and opinions I shared, and bashed the people and groups I oppose, but the tone and characterizations were juvenile aqnd hateful, just like the rantings of malevolent windbags like Rush Limbaugh or Hannity. The point is, I didn't like that sort of behavior even if it was 'on my side'.
Personally, I think any clear-thinking person with even a shred of intelligence or simple human compassion or empathy recognizes immediately that the current occupier of the White House is without a doubt the worst president our country has ever suffered through, and is also a contender for the most dangerous person alive today. I think the damage done to our Nation, if at all repairable, will take literally generations to repair.
I lost all respect for McCain after 2000, when he completely sold out his principals and became Bush's biggest boot-licker and yes-man. I think McCain becoming the next president would extend the current administrations practices and priorities for another term. I already have doubts our country can ever return to what used to be an America based on the rule of law and the US Constitution. If McCain becomes President, there's no way we'll ever get any of that back.
So he's out. Not at all an acceptable choice.
Hillary seems to be the type that will say or do anything to become President, and it seems to me she wants the job more so that she can be President than for any other reason. I don't like her, and I don't trust her. BUT, I think her agenda probably/hopefully aligns with mine, at least somewhat, so if she gets the nod against McCain I'd unenthusiastically vote for her.
That leaves Obama. I don't know much in-dpeth about him. BUT, I also haven't seen or heard anything substantive about him that I don't like. I think it's unfair to judge him because of some association with somebody else. I think it's ridiculously immature to judge him due to his NAME, and I think it's childish and bigoted to oppose him because of a suspicion that he's a Muslim. I don't believe he is, and even if he was indeed a Muslim, so what?
Listening to or reading his speeches gives me more of a feeling of hope than I've ever felt from any politician in my lifetime. After everything the Republicans have done to our country over the 30 years or so, I usually feel very despondent and discouraged when thinking about national and world politics. It's very, very refreshing to feel a sense of hope. I've never tried mood-altering drugs - no cocaine, no heroin, not even Tylenol with Codeine. BUT, I definitely felt uplifted when I heard Obama speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention, or when I read his speech on race relations last month.
Maybe Obama is just a better used-car salesman than the others, and he'll prove to be jsut as much of a lyinbg dirtbag as the others. But their generation has had it's chances to improve our world, and we're in worse shape than we've ever been. Continuing the status quo, as I believe either Hillary or McCain would do, is unacceptable. If Obama is taking a chance, I think there's no other choice but to take the chance.
For the record, among all of the candidates that were originally running, I'd have preferred:
* Dodd
* Richardson
* Edwards
* Kucinich
over any of those still running, but sadly they're no longer a choice.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Another Kids say the darndest things
Blog entry – April 3, 2008
A few quick things before I forget them entirely. I've had an unusually, hellishly busy time for the last two weeks, and haven't had a chance to update this here.
1)A couple of weeks ago I undertook an enormous project to organize and neatly store my large CD collection. As I wrote previously, as soon as the project was done, my CD player broke. Then something very nice happened – my Mom offered to buy me a new CD player to replace the old. Thank you Mom! Now, the old player performed well for 17 years. So far, the new player is 4 days old, but it's shown no problems yet! And Maren and I were able to listen to Magical Mystery Tour, Revolver, and also the newest Joe Jackson album. Unprompted, Maren told me she likes the new Joe Jackson song Rush Across the Road – looks like she's got uncommonly good taste.
2)Work has been busier than it's ever been, and very, very frustrating. Last Monday I visited a client for a 1-2 day project. Ideally it would have been one day, but there was a small possibility the job would run into a second day. Another client engagement was scheduled for Thursday. Then, yet another project was scheduled for this past Monday. All three projects ran into major problems – two due to a Microsoft software bug that I've been working on with Microsoft Support since Friday morning, with no solution found yet, and the thrid due to miscommunication between the client and the salesman. NOW, I've got 3 clients in bad situations, with systems not working, and I had to hop on a plane for a previously scheduled family trip. I wrote things up as well as I could and handed things off to a coworker, but I'm not happy about the situation.
3)Now for the good part, the episode that makes everything worthwhile. Sunday evening I needed to drive out to my office to pick something up. The drive to the office is about 40 minutes, so this wasn't a minot excursion. Nate went with me for the ride, and while we were out near my office we went to a restaurant out by the office. On the way home I had to stop for my weekly give-the-oil-barons-more-money event, and Nate asked me “what happens when the gas pump runs out of gas?” I explained that there are holes in the ground at the gas station, and a large gas truck routinely brings more gas to the station. When the truck arrives, a large hose is connected to the gas tanker at one end, and the other end is placed in the hole, and the gas then flows from the tanker truck into the underground tank at the gas station. This led to an explanation of oil drilling platforms, gasoline refiniries, other petroleum-based products, all the way back to dinosaurs. The conversation wasn't brief, but anyone that knows me can't find that surprising. A few minutes later, Nate said from the backseat “Dad, that's why I like you so much.” I asked him what he was talking about, and he replied that when he asks me a question, I don't just answer him, I give a whole story!
A few quick things before I forget them entirely. I've had an unusually, hellishly busy time for the last two weeks, and haven't had a chance to update this here.
1)A couple of weeks ago I undertook an enormous project to organize and neatly store my large CD collection. As I wrote previously, as soon as the project was done, my CD player broke. Then something very nice happened – my Mom offered to buy me a new CD player to replace the old. Thank you Mom! Now, the old player performed well for 17 years. So far, the new player is 4 days old, but it's shown no problems yet! And Maren and I were able to listen to Magical Mystery Tour, Revolver, and also the newest Joe Jackson album. Unprompted, Maren told me she likes the new Joe Jackson song Rush Across the Road – looks like she's got uncommonly good taste.
2)Work has been busier than it's ever been, and very, very frustrating. Last Monday I visited a client for a 1-2 day project. Ideally it would have been one day, but there was a small possibility the job would run into a second day. Another client engagement was scheduled for Thursday. Then, yet another project was scheduled for this past Monday. All three projects ran into major problems – two due to a Microsoft software bug that I've been working on with Microsoft Support since Friday morning, with no solution found yet, and the thrid due to miscommunication between the client and the salesman. NOW, I've got 3 clients in bad situations, with systems not working, and I had to hop on a plane for a previously scheduled family trip. I wrote things up as well as I could and handed things off to a coworker, but I'm not happy about the situation.
3)Now for the good part, the episode that makes everything worthwhile. Sunday evening I needed to drive out to my office to pick something up. The drive to the office is about 40 minutes, so this wasn't a minot excursion. Nate went with me for the ride, and while we were out near my office we went to a restaurant out by the office. On the way home I had to stop for my weekly give-the-oil-barons-more-money event, and Nate asked me “what happens when the gas pump runs out of gas?” I explained that there are holes in the ground at the gas station, and a large gas truck routinely brings more gas to the station. When the truck arrives, a large hose is connected to the gas tanker at one end, and the other end is placed in the hole, and the gas then flows from the tanker truck into the underground tank at the gas station. This led to an explanation of oil drilling platforms, gasoline refiniries, other petroleum-based products, all the way back to dinosaurs. The conversation wasn't brief, but anyone that knows me can't find that surprising. A few minutes later, Nate said from the backseat “Dad, that's why I like you so much.” I asked him what he was talking about, and he replied that when he asks me a question, I don't just answer him, I give a whole story!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Lights Out.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/earthhour/
The linked page above has a good explanation of Earth Hour. For Earth Hour, people around the globe will turn their lights off tonight from 8pm to 9pm.
The linked page above has a good explanation of Earth Hour. For Earth Hour, people around the globe will turn their lights off tonight from 8pm to 9pm.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
A definition of Irony
As described in earlier posts, I spent almost all waking minutes of last weekend organizing my music CD collection. The collection is approximately 600 CDs. For the last 5-6 years, I tended to not listen to my CDs as much as I'd have liked to, because it could take me 20-30 minutes to find a specific CD. If I was walking around and thought to myself, "Gee, I feel like listening to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road right now", I'd probably not bother, simply because it would take too long to find the CD among the unorganized stacks.
Now that nearly the entire collection is organized alphabetically, I can find almost any disc within a minute or two. This is GREAT.
So this evening Maren and I listened to the I Am Sam soundtrack. I haven't seen the movie, but the soundtrack is a collection of Beatles songs, performed by contemporary musicians. We had so much fun listening to it, we decided we wanted to hear a genuine Beatles album when it was finished. I was drilling through the A-B binder, making a beeline for Abbey Road, when Maren spotted the bright, vibrant colors of the Magical Mystery Tour booklet, and declared she wanted to listen to that one.
Accomodatingly, I pulled out Magical Mystery Tour and inserted it into the CD player. The player made a noise somewhere between a whirr and a squeal, and then decided to try the next disc in the cartridge. (It's a 6-disc changer.) Well, this wasn't the result I'd hoped for. I tried placing the disc in a different cartridge, and also in a different slot. I tried other discs. I tried putting I Am Sam back in.
No Joy. Literally one week after I organized all of my CDs, after letting them sit in a chaotic mess for over 5 years, my CD player bit the dust.
As the kid in the Schoolhouse Rock song says, "DRAT!".
(EDIT: I neglected to mention, I bought this CD Player, I think, in 1988. It's been wonderful, and heavily used during many periods of my life, for 20 years! It's a Pioneer PD-M435, and I'm inclined to get the current Pioneer replacement for it, but am hesitant, only because I don't think the current Pioneer can play MP3s. Of course, I never could play MP3s on the old model, so I might not worry about that.)
Now that nearly the entire collection is organized alphabetically, I can find almost any disc within a minute or two. This is GREAT.
So this evening Maren and I listened to the I Am Sam soundtrack. I haven't seen the movie, but the soundtrack is a collection of Beatles songs, performed by contemporary musicians. We had so much fun listening to it, we decided we wanted to hear a genuine Beatles album when it was finished. I was drilling through the A-B binder, making a beeline for Abbey Road, when Maren spotted the bright, vibrant colors of the Magical Mystery Tour booklet, and declared she wanted to listen to that one.
Accomodatingly, I pulled out Magical Mystery Tour and inserted it into the CD player. The player made a noise somewhere between a whirr and a squeal, and then decided to try the next disc in the cartridge. (It's a 6-disc changer.) Well, this wasn't the result I'd hoped for. I tried placing the disc in a different cartridge, and also in a different slot. I tried other discs. I tried putting I Am Sam back in.
No Joy. Literally one week after I organized all of my CDs, after letting them sit in a chaotic mess for over 5 years, my CD player bit the dust.
As the kid in the Schoolhouse Rock song says, "DRAT!".
(EDIT: I neglected to mention, I bought this CD Player, I think, in 1988. It's been wonderful, and heavily used during many periods of my life, for 20 years! It's a Pioneer PD-M435, and I'm inclined to get the current Pioneer replacement for it, but am hesitant, only because I don't think the current Pioneer can play MP3s. Of course, I never could play MP3s on the old model, so I might not worry about that.)
Saturday, March 22, 2008
So Neat! Now what do I do with it?
Friday afternoon a coworker asked me to setup a server with Joomla!, a Content Management System. I'd never heard of Joomla!, and initially didn't even really know what a Content Management System (CMS) was.
I think a CMS is a system that manages all of the files that comprise a website, so no human needs to keep track of all of that stuff. For example, I may decide I want a specific color for the background, or a certain graphic at the top of every page on the site. Then, instead of having to go add code to every single page, I can just tell the CMS to do it, and it will make it happen. *I Think.* Really, I don't know what a CMS is. But whoever wrote this page seems to understand the concept.
Last night and today I took an old WinXP desktop PC that had 'gone flaky' a while ago, and had spent the last couple of years sitting against a wall in my office, unused. I installed OpenSUSE 10.3 on the machine, including PHP 5.x, Apache 2.2, and MySQL 5.x in the install. At about 10:55pm this evening I finally had Joomla! installed and seeming to be working fine. Of course, I've got no idea what to do with it or how to use it, so I can't really test it too thoroughly. It does seem very neat, though.
I think a CMS is a system that manages all of the files that comprise a website, so no human needs to keep track of all of that stuff. For example, I may decide I want a specific color for the background, or a certain graphic at the top of every page on the site. Then, instead of having to go add code to every single page, I can just tell the CMS to do it, and it will make it happen. *I Think.* Really, I don't know what a CMS is. But whoever wrote this page seems to understand the concept.
Last night and today I took an old WinXP desktop PC that had 'gone flaky' a while ago, and had spent the last couple of years sitting against a wall in my office, unused. I installed OpenSUSE 10.3 on the machine, including PHP 5.x, Apache 2.2, and MySQL 5.x in the install. At about 10:55pm this evening I finally had Joomla! installed and seeming to be working fine. Of course, I've got no idea what to do with it or how to use it, so I can't really test it too thoroughly. It does seem very neat, though.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Shiny Plastic Platters - an update
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Greatest Hits ..... Found
Elton John - Songs From The West Coast..... Found
Paul Simon - Negotiations & Love Songs liner notes..... Still missing
Spreadsheet listing of collection..... Updated, and uploaded to Google!
Still to do:
Obtain another large binder for the remaining discs. Alphabetize, store, and document V-Z, and all soundtracks/compilations.
Elton John - Songs From The West Coast..... Found
Paul Simon - Negotiations & Love Songs liner notes..... Still missing
Spreadsheet listing of collection..... Updated, and uploaded to Google!
Still to do:
Obtain another large binder for the remaining discs. Alphabetize, store, and document V-Z, and all soundtracks/compilations.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Overrun by shiny plastic platters
Growing up, I loved the ability to buy music, and replay songs I liked anytime I chose. I collected loads of records, and occasionally cassettes though I'd avoid them and buy LPs most of the time. (And then tape my LPs to listen to on my bike or, a few years later, in my car.)
As I was finishing high school CD players arrived. I wanted one as much as I'd ever wanted anything. One December weekend a 'big-box' discount electronics store in my area was having one of their frequent open-box sales, and I spent the night outside of the store, lined up on cold concrete with about a dozen other people, to purchase a display model Shar CD player for $29. At the time - 1986 - basic CD players were usually around $150-200, if I remember accurately.
I remember this occasion well. After buying the CD player, I drove to Mushroom Records and bought a used copy of Joe Jackson's Night & Day album (for $9.99, I think).
Let's jump to the late-1990's. My CD collection had grown to a difficult-to-manage size. I had a large wooden CD shelf, with a capacity of almost 600 discs. My not-yet-wife and roommate together badgered me to let them alphabetize the discs, so that they could find albums they were looking for. As things were, only I knew where the CDs belonged on the shelf, because I'd put them on the shelf as I purchased them, so they were arranged in approximately the order I'd purchased them. And I had the general location of every disc memorized. The system worked fine for me, but obviosuly it was inscrutable for anybody else. I finally relented and let the two of them arrange the discs alphabetically.
Now let's jump again, this time to the early-to-mid 2000's. My son Nathan was toddling around, and my daughter Maren hadn't been born yet. The just-under 600 CD capacity shelf was just about full, additional CDs were stacked around it, and the shelf wasn't entirely stable. My brother clued me in about a CD binder product that looked pretty neat. (http://www.the cdlibrary.com, if you're interested.) I bought 3 of the 204-CD capacity binders, and proceeded to remove every one of my CDs from it's jewel case, save the liner-notes and case inserts, and discard the jewel cases. I then began the task of organizing the discs and inserting them into the binders. After filling two of the binders, I got sidetracked, and never finished the job.
This weekend, over 5 years later, I returned to the task. I've now got three 204-disc binders, and two 232-disc binders (different brand). Half of the disc slots are consumed by the liner notes, so the binders really hold half as many CDs as they could contain. Nevertheless, all 5 binders are full, and I still have V-Z, and all of my compilations and soundtracks still un-stored. I'm estimating I've alphabetized close to 700 discs this weekend, and stored about 500 so far in the binders, along with finding and pairing the liner notes to each and every one.
I wish I'd taken a picture of my living room while I had every single CD lined up on the floor in alphabetized rows, completely covering the carpet, but at the time my back and knees ached and I didn't have the energy or motivation to try and get up and do the acrobatics necessary to tiptoe through the stacks of discs to try and get the camera.
Impressively to me, I've only discovered one missing CD so far -Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits, & one missing liner notes booklet - Paul Simon's Negotiations and Love Songs. I'm hoping I'll find the liner notes booklet in Jessica's van. If the missing CD doesn't show up, I might just have to replace it; it's too good to lose.
As I was finishing high school CD players arrived. I wanted one as much as I'd ever wanted anything. One December weekend a 'big-box' discount electronics store in my area was having one of their frequent open-box sales, and I spent the night outside of the store, lined up on cold concrete with about a dozen other people, to purchase a display model Shar CD player for $29. At the time - 1986 - basic CD players were usually around $150-200, if I remember accurately.
I remember this occasion well. After buying the CD player, I drove to Mushroom Records and bought a used copy of Joe Jackson's Night & Day album (for $9.99, I think).
Let's jump to the late-1990's. My CD collection had grown to a difficult-to-manage size. I had a large wooden CD shelf, with a capacity of almost 600 discs. My not-yet-wife and roommate together badgered me to let them alphabetize the discs, so that they could find albums they were looking for. As things were, only I knew where the CDs belonged on the shelf, because I'd put them on the shelf as I purchased them, so they were arranged in approximately the order I'd purchased them. And I had the general location of every disc memorized. The system worked fine for me, but obviosuly it was inscrutable for anybody else. I finally relented and let the two of them arrange the discs alphabetically.
Now let's jump again, this time to the early-to-mid 2000's. My son Nathan was toddling around, and my daughter Maren hadn't been born yet. The just-under 600 CD capacity shelf was just about full, additional CDs were stacked around it, and the shelf wasn't entirely stable. My brother clued me in about a CD binder product that looked pretty neat. (http://www.the cdlibrary.com, if you're interested.) I bought 3 of the 204-CD capacity binders, and proceeded to remove every one of my CDs from it's jewel case, save the liner-notes and case inserts, and discard the jewel cases. I then began the task of organizing the discs and inserting them into the binders. After filling two of the binders, I got sidetracked, and never finished the job.
This weekend, over 5 years later, I returned to the task. I've now got three 204-disc binders, and two 232-disc binders (different brand). Half of the disc slots are consumed by the liner notes, so the binders really hold half as many CDs as they could contain. Nevertheless, all 5 binders are full, and I still have V-Z, and all of my compilations and soundtracks still un-stored. I'm estimating I've alphabetized close to 700 discs this weekend, and stored about 500 so far in the binders, along with finding and pairing the liner notes to each and every one.
I wish I'd taken a picture of my living room while I had every single CD lined up on the floor in alphabetized rows, completely covering the carpet, but at the time my back and knees ached and I didn't have the energy or motivation to try and get up and do the acrobatics necessary to tiptoe through the stacks of discs to try and get the camera.
Impressively to me, I've only discovered one missing CD so far -Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits, & one missing liner notes booklet - Paul Simon's Negotiations and Love Songs. I'm hoping I'll find the liner notes booklet in Jessica's van. If the missing CD doesn't show up, I might just have to replace it; it's too good to lose.
Monday, March 03, 2008
So good it should be displayed twice!
For the last few weeks I've been repeatedly badgered by a family member, explaining that an Obama presidency is not in Israel's best interests, and as an Amercian Jew I should be aware of that.
Aside from vague accusations by Far-right-wingers, all of which essentailly boil down to guilt by association, I've found no factual basis for this concern. In fact, when I looked into the matter, I found an official statement by several Jewish leaders, under the banner of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that denounces the accusatory emails that attempt to slander Senator Obama.
I'm fed up with the BS. According to this article, John McCain was "proud" to receive the endorsement of a man on record as stating that God so loved the Jews he gave us Nazis.
Guilt by association can easily be used to slam anybody, and is a lousy way to decide who to support for the presidency.
Now, in reference to this post's title - my brother did far more and better research on this than I've got the patience for. He's written a post on this with more factual backing, but instead of copying it and re-posting it here, I'll just send you over to the original.
One last thought - not to get too dramatic, but I sincerely worry about the fate of our country. I don't find it inconceivable that the US, as we know it, could disappear by the end of the next presidential term. I find the possibility of destruction from an outside force, civil war, or a complete takeover of government by dictators or tyrants not completely unlikely. Should anything like that happen, I don't think that would be good for Israel, even if we did elect a strong 'PRO-Israel' President.
About a year ago I mentioned to somebody that I liked Bill Richardson as a presidential candidate. The person I was speaking with responded: "Richardson?? Do you know what his stance on gun control is?" I replied that things right now are pretty dire, and we can't afford the luxury of single-issue litmus tests that are used to flat-out disqualify otherwise good candidates. Honestly, I couldn't care less about his gun control position.
Maybe, in a time of a better foreign policy environment, a better economy, a more capable domestic disaster response team, a more stable geophysical environment, and generally happier times, we could focus on abstract policy positions that will affect a relatively few people. But this year is not one of those times. I don't mean to mischaracterize American Jews as a relatively few people - please don't read this that way. What I mean is that there are larger issues at stake. If America falls, how does that benefit Israel? And if America survives, but with a less Israel-friendly President, there might still be checks on the President that would help to insulate Israel from any anti-Israel tendencies. Of course, this gets us to the erosion of those very necessary checks that's been going on for the last 7 disastrous years, but if I keep going with this post much longer the Internet might run out of pages, so I'll leave that for another time.
And, in case I didn't make it clear up above - READ my brother's post!
Aside from vague accusations by Far-right-wingers, all of which essentailly boil down to guilt by association, I've found no factual basis for this concern. In fact, when I looked into the matter, I found an official statement by several Jewish leaders, under the banner of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that denounces the accusatory emails that attempt to slander Senator Obama.
I'm fed up with the BS. According to this article, John McCain was "proud" to receive the endorsement of a man on record as stating that God so loved the Jews he gave us Nazis.
Guilt by association can easily be used to slam anybody, and is a lousy way to decide who to support for the presidency.
Now, in reference to this post's title - my brother did far more and better research on this than I've got the patience for. He's written a post on this with more factual backing, but instead of copying it and re-posting it here, I'll just send you over to the original.
One last thought - not to get too dramatic, but I sincerely worry about the fate of our country. I don't find it inconceivable that the US, as we know it, could disappear by the end of the next presidential term. I find the possibility of destruction from an outside force, civil war, or a complete takeover of government by dictators or tyrants not completely unlikely. Should anything like that happen, I don't think that would be good for Israel, even if we did elect a strong 'PRO-Israel' President.
About a year ago I mentioned to somebody that I liked Bill Richardson as a presidential candidate. The person I was speaking with responded: "Richardson?? Do you know what his stance on gun control is?" I replied that things right now are pretty dire, and we can't afford the luxury of single-issue litmus tests that are used to flat-out disqualify otherwise good candidates. Honestly, I couldn't care less about his gun control position.
Maybe, in a time of a better foreign policy environment, a better economy, a more capable domestic disaster response team, a more stable geophysical environment, and generally happier times, we could focus on abstract policy positions that will affect a relatively few people. But this year is not one of those times. I don't mean to mischaracterize American Jews as a relatively few people - please don't read this that way. What I mean is that there are larger issues at stake. If America falls, how does that benefit Israel? And if America survives, but with a less Israel-friendly President, there might still be checks on the President that would help to insulate Israel from any anti-Israel tendencies. Of course, this gets us to the erosion of those very necessary checks that's been going on for the last 7 disastrous years, but if I keep going with this post much longer the Internet might run out of pages, so I'll leave that for another time.
And, in case I didn't make it clear up above - READ my brother's post!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Panasonic DMR-ES15 and a U61 error code.
January 5, 2007, I bought a brand-new Panasonic DMR-ES15 DVD Recorder.
Sometime a few months ago it experienced a problem reading a disc, and displayed U61 on the display. After fiddling with a few buttons and probably unplugging it and plugging it back in (I don’t really remember what I did then), the device returned to normal and resumed working properly.
I promptly moved on with my life and forgot about it.
Yesterday afternoon, exactly 13 months and two weeks after the original purchase, the unit displayed the U61 error again, and nothing I could do would get the machine working again. After several attempts to reset it by pressing different buttons, holding various buttons down at power up, or by unplugging it and plugging it back in, I gave up and called Panasonic for help.
I spent a good amount of time on the phone with the Panasonic Tech Support agent. I let him know the machine was exactly 1 month and 2 weeks out of warranty. I let him know I’d just purchased a nice new set of Panasonic phones a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, after he’d also concluded the machine was definitely broken and wouldn’t work again without being repaired, he informed me that he thought it would be unlikely the factory would make an exception and repair it for free, but that I could include a copy of the receipt and a letter asking them to consider it.
The flat-rate for a repair was $130. I paid $97 for the unit, new.
So I pulled out my trusty multi-bit screwdriver (and searched Google) and went to work. Looking at Google, it appears to me that this is an extremely common problem with this model. There are many, many other pages detailing people that have this exact same error, with this exact same DVD Recorder. It appears to me that the unit has a design deficiency, and I’m inclined to think Panasonic ought to cover these repairs for free or at a heavy discount, or at least make the relevant repair procedures and parts available to owners of the units. But I don’t know the percentages of problems vs. OK units, and for all I know this is just a case of a small but vocal minority, so I’m not anti-Panasonic yet.
If you’ve arrived here because you also have the U61 on your DMR-ES15, I can tell you what I’ve done to solve the problem on mine. I’m not a trained repairman, I have no electronics or mechanical education, and it’s highly possible I don’t know what I’m doing, so proceed at your own risk.
First, I unplugged the device. Next, using a Phillips-head screwdriver remove the two screws on the sides (1 on each side), and three screw on the back, of the case, and remove the cover.
There is one Phillips-head screw at each side of the DVD drive, and one at the back, attaching the DVD drive to the DVD Recorder chassis. Remove each of these screws, and you can remove the drive assembly. There are 4 delicate ribbon/flex cables running from the bottom of the drive, to sockets on the circuit board. Gently slide each of these out of their sockets on the board.
Once the screws have been removed and the flex circuits unplugged, you can remove the drive from the DVD Recorder.
On the top of the DVD drive there are four more small Phillips-head screws, one at each corner. These secure the top cover of the drive. Remove these screws, and then remove the cover by lifting the back edge up, and then pulling the cover backward and up.
NOW, I tinkered for a long time on the drive mechanism, reassembling and testing repeatedly, before resolving the error on my unit. Ultimately, the solution was to carefully slide the laser head to the back of the drive. The laser was originally forward (toward the tray door). Once I slid the laser all the way back, I put everything back together and everything worked properly again.
I won’t be surprised if the problem re-occurs as I never determined the original cause of the problem, but at least I now know how to quickly repair it.
Hope this helps.
Sometime a few months ago it experienced a problem reading a disc, and displayed U61 on the display. After fiddling with a few buttons and probably unplugging it and plugging it back in (I don’t really remember what I did then), the device returned to normal and resumed working properly.
I promptly moved on with my life and forgot about it.
Yesterday afternoon, exactly 13 months and two weeks after the original purchase, the unit displayed the U61 error again, and nothing I could do would get the machine working again. After several attempts to reset it by pressing different buttons, holding various buttons down at power up, or by unplugging it and plugging it back in, I gave up and called Panasonic for help.
I spent a good amount of time on the phone with the Panasonic Tech Support agent. I let him know the machine was exactly 1 month and 2 weeks out of warranty. I let him know I’d just purchased a nice new set of Panasonic phones a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, after he’d also concluded the machine was definitely broken and wouldn’t work again without being repaired, he informed me that he thought it would be unlikely the factory would make an exception and repair it for free, but that I could include a copy of the receipt and a letter asking them to consider it.
The flat-rate for a repair was $130. I paid $97 for the unit, new.
So I pulled out my trusty multi-bit screwdriver (and searched Google) and went to work. Looking at Google, it appears to me that this is an extremely common problem with this model. There are many, many other pages detailing people that have this exact same error, with this exact same DVD Recorder. It appears to me that the unit has a design deficiency, and I’m inclined to think Panasonic ought to cover these repairs for free or at a heavy discount, or at least make the relevant repair procedures and parts available to owners of the units. But I don’t know the percentages of problems vs. OK units, and for all I know this is just a case of a small but vocal minority, so I’m not anti-Panasonic yet.
If you’ve arrived here because you also have the U61 on your DMR-ES15, I can tell you what I’ve done to solve the problem on mine. I’m not a trained repairman, I have no electronics or mechanical education, and it’s highly possible I don’t know what I’m doing, so proceed at your own risk.
First, I unplugged the device. Next, using a Phillips-head screwdriver remove the two screws on the sides (1 on each side), and three screw on the back, of the case, and remove the cover.
There is one Phillips-head screw at each side of the DVD drive, and one at the back, attaching the DVD drive to the DVD Recorder chassis. Remove each of these screws, and you can remove the drive assembly. There are 4 delicate ribbon/flex cables running from the bottom of the drive, to sockets on the circuit board. Gently slide each of these out of their sockets on the board.
Once the screws have been removed and the flex circuits unplugged, you can remove the drive from the DVD Recorder.
On the top of the DVD drive there are four more small Phillips-head screws, one at each corner. These secure the top cover of the drive. Remove these screws, and then remove the cover by lifting the back edge up, and then pulling the cover backward and up.
NOW, I tinkered for a long time on the drive mechanism, reassembling and testing repeatedly, before resolving the error on my unit. Ultimately, the solution was to carefully slide the laser head to the back of the drive. The laser was originally forward (toward the tray door). Once I slid the laser all the way back, I put everything back together and everything worked properly again.
I won’t be surprised if the problem re-occurs as I never determined the original cause of the problem, but at least I now know how to quickly repair it.
Hope this helps.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Latest Happenings
1) I took Nate to a classmate's birthday party this afternoon. Before the party, he commented that birthday parties "are like school, but with fun cakes and stuff".
2) I've installed a new Logitech webcam on my laptop, and am looking to test out videochat with somebody.
3) So you didn't give the new Joe Jackson CD a try yet, even after my nagging in the previous post, huh? Well, in 2006 Lloyd Cole released another excellent CD, one I'm listening to as I type this. The album is titled "Antidepressant", and includes lyrics like:
I said I’m trying to write my novel
She said Neither am I
And either way I saw you reading No Depression
You’re doing nothing I’ll come over
We’ll watch 6 feet Under
And then we’ll maybe get around to your condition
4) I've been working on printers around my home lately. I've got enough printers to stock a small store, and none work perfectly. On the one hand it's pretty aggravating, but on the other hand I'm having a small amount of fun trying to get at least one working properly, so I can live with it. As I sleep tonight the printhead on a Canon Pixma iP4000 is going to be soaking in a bowl of rubbing alcohol. This particular printer was working perfectly, with only one minor issue - it refuses to print black, at all. I'm hoping the printhead is just clogged, and tomorrow AM whatever had been clogged up will be OK. Of course, while the printhead sits in the alcohol, about $75 worth of ink cartridges are drying out on my desk.
5) At my job I do a lot of work with Microsoft CRM. At the beginning of the year Microsoft released CRM version 4.0, and I've been doing a lot of testing with the new release. I'm testing many different scenarios - straight installs, upgrades, upgrades with 3rd party add-ins, etc... This past Friday I completed an upgrade on a test box, using a copy of a genuine, production database. Things went very well, which is always exciting.
2) I've installed a new Logitech webcam on my laptop, and am looking to test out videochat with somebody.
3) So you didn't give the new Joe Jackson CD a try yet, even after my nagging in the previous post, huh? Well, in 2006 Lloyd Cole released another excellent CD, one I'm listening to as I type this. The album is titled "Antidepressant", and includes lyrics like:
I said I’m trying to write my novel
She said Neither am I
And either way I saw you reading No Depression
You’re doing nothing I’ll come over
We’ll watch 6 feet Under
And then we’ll maybe get around to your condition
4) I've been working on printers around my home lately. I've got enough printers to stock a small store, and none work perfectly. On the one hand it's pretty aggravating, but on the other hand I'm having a small amount of fun trying to get at least one working properly, so I can live with it. As I sleep tonight the printhead on a Canon Pixma iP4000 is going to be soaking in a bowl of rubbing alcohol. This particular printer was working perfectly, with only one minor issue - it refuses to print black, at all. I'm hoping the printhead is just clogged, and tomorrow AM whatever had been clogged up will be OK. Of course, while the printhead sits in the alcohol, about $75 worth of ink cartridges are drying out on my desk.
5) At my job I do a lot of work with Microsoft CRM. At the beginning of the year Microsoft released CRM version 4.0, and I've been doing a lot of testing with the new release. I'm testing many different scenarios - straight installs, upgrades, upgrades with 3rd party add-ins, etc... This past Friday I completed an upgrade on a test box, using a copy of a genuine, production database. Things went very well, which is always exciting.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Various tidbits
Tonight I installed a webcam that I picked up a few weeks ago at Radio Shack for about $8. One more reminder that you get what you pay for. It's lousy.
**********
Yesterday I finally received my signed copy of Joe Jackson's new CD Rain in the mail. I listened to it continuously all day today at work. It's a great album. A DVD was included with the album, with interviews and behind-the-scenes type content. I haven't watched it yet, but am looking for time to do so.
Coinciding with last week's release of the new Joe Jackson album, there has been an increase in volume of messages on the Joe Jackson Yahoo Group. Following the various discussions, I've found something interesting - it seems to me that people's preferences of the songs on the new album, as well as preferences about which albums are better than others, are all over the map. What I think is the best song on the new album (or the worst) seems to vary a lot from person to person, and what I might consider a weak album is another fan's favorite.
**********
Sometime in the early 90's I drove from New Orleans up to New Jersey for the first time. One of the standard highway signs that lists Gas Stations, Hotels, and Restaurants displayed a sign for the "New Orleans Steakhouse", about 20-30 miles away from any large city in New Jersey. Now, having grown up in the New Orleans area and loving good food, I laughed at the thought of a 'New Orleans' restaurant in NJ, especially in some backwoods nowheres-ville.
For the last 9 months or so I've been working in Sparta, NJ, and drive past the New Orleans Steakhouse nearly every day. I started thinking that if this restaurant has been in business for as long as it has been, how bad can it be?
Today was Mardi Gras, and the restaurant hosted a Mardi Gras party today. So I took Jessica out for dinner tonight and we decided to give the joint a try. The service seemed inconsistent. Everybody was friendly. The waiter didn't seem like the brightest bulb in the box, and we had to wait a little too long between my appetizer and our entrees, but everything came out right, and nobody had any attitude.
There were slices of King Cake at the hostess counter, and we each had a small slice. A live band, "The Noisy Neighbors", played fun Mardi Gras music, and the food, though not up to Al Copeland or Commanders Palace standards, was still pretty good. I had a cup of gumbo that was defintely good, and a plate of Bourbon Chicken over dirty rice that was far superior to the typical bourbon chicken available at every mall food court.
During the meal some of the waitstaff and customers from the bar paraded through the restaurant second-line style. The entire waitstaff were dressed up for Mardi Gras, some wearing masks, all wearing beads, one in a Jazz Fest shirt. Somebody gave us beads to wear, and a couple of Purple, Gold, and Green festooned noise-makers.
Dinner was good, and fun.
**********
Over the weekend Jessica, Nate, Maren and I were walking past the YMCA in downtown Montclair. Nate asked what the building was, and in response I pointed to the flags hanging in front of the building emblazoned with "YMCA", and asked him what was on the flags. He answered, questioningly, "yumica ?". It sounded so similar to Yarmulke, Jessica and I couldn't help but laugh. I'd never noticed that the pronunciation of this well-known Christian organization sounded so similar to the skullcap worn by Jews.
**********
Looks like Clinton and Obama are running neck and neck on the Dem side of things, and McCain is going to win the other side. Nothing to comment here, just recording this point in time.
**********
Not at all related to the above tidbit, but our country Really, Really Needs something like Instant Runoff Voting or Approval Voting. I don't know what the best voting system may be, but our current system, wherein we avoid voting for a candidate unlikely to win because we don't want to waste our vote, is a truly bad system.
**********
Did you already forget about the new Joe Jackon CD ? Go get it, now! At least listen to it!
**********
That's all for now. Good night.
**********
Yesterday I finally received my signed copy of Joe Jackson's new CD Rain in the mail. I listened to it continuously all day today at work. It's a great album. A DVD was included with the album, with interviews and behind-the-scenes type content. I haven't watched it yet, but am looking for time to do so.
Coinciding with last week's release of the new Joe Jackson album, there has been an increase in volume of messages on the Joe Jackson Yahoo Group. Following the various discussions, I've found something interesting - it seems to me that people's preferences of the songs on the new album, as well as preferences about which albums are better than others, are all over the map. What I think is the best song on the new album (or the worst) seems to vary a lot from person to person, and what I might consider a weak album is another fan's favorite.
**********
Sometime in the early 90's I drove from New Orleans up to New Jersey for the first time. One of the standard highway signs that lists Gas Stations, Hotels, and Restaurants displayed a sign for the "New Orleans Steakhouse", about 20-30 miles away from any large city in New Jersey. Now, having grown up in the New Orleans area and loving good food, I laughed at the thought of a 'New Orleans' restaurant in NJ, especially in some backwoods nowheres-ville.
For the last 9 months or so I've been working in Sparta, NJ, and drive past the New Orleans Steakhouse nearly every day. I started thinking that if this restaurant has been in business for as long as it has been, how bad can it be?
Today was Mardi Gras, and the restaurant hosted a Mardi Gras party today. So I took Jessica out for dinner tonight and we decided to give the joint a try. The service seemed inconsistent. Everybody was friendly. The waiter didn't seem like the brightest bulb in the box, and we had to wait a little too long between my appetizer and our entrees, but everything came out right, and nobody had any attitude.
There were slices of King Cake at the hostess counter, and we each had a small slice. A live band, "The Noisy Neighbors", played fun Mardi Gras music, and the food, though not up to Al Copeland or Commanders Palace standards, was still pretty good. I had a cup of gumbo that was defintely good, and a plate of Bourbon Chicken over dirty rice that was far superior to the typical bourbon chicken available at every mall food court.
During the meal some of the waitstaff and customers from the bar paraded through the restaurant second-line style. The entire waitstaff were dressed up for Mardi Gras, some wearing masks, all wearing beads, one in a Jazz Fest shirt. Somebody gave us beads to wear, and a couple of Purple, Gold, and Green festooned noise-makers.
Dinner was good, and fun.
**********
Over the weekend Jessica, Nate, Maren and I were walking past the YMCA in downtown Montclair. Nate asked what the building was, and in response I pointed to the flags hanging in front of the building emblazoned with "YMCA", and asked him what was on the flags. He answered, questioningly, "yumica ?". It sounded so similar to Yarmulke, Jessica and I couldn't help but laugh. I'd never noticed that the pronunciation of this well-known Christian organization sounded so similar to the skullcap worn by Jews.
**********
Looks like Clinton and Obama are running neck and neck on the Dem side of things, and McCain is going to win the other side. Nothing to comment here, just recording this point in time.
**********
Not at all related to the above tidbit, but our country Really, Really Needs something like Instant Runoff Voting or Approval Voting. I don't know what the best voting system may be, but our current system, wherein we avoid voting for a candidate unlikely to win because we don't want to waste our vote, is a truly bad system.
**********
Did you already forget about the new Joe Jackon CD ? Go get it, now! At least listen to it!
**********
That's all for now. Good night.
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