The Secrets of Isis

So a buddy of mine and I were talking about old Saturday morning cartoons and the TV show "The Secrets of Isis" came up. Wow! I hadn't thought about that show for a long time. Whatcha know but Netflix had it. I watched an episode earlier tonight.

CHEESY GOODNESS!!!!

Here's the opening sequence...



So I noticed a couple more TV shows on YouTube I remember as a kid. Neither of which Netflix has.
Like... BJ and the Bear...



And of course, it's spin-off show... The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo...



I'm so old.

Remote Controlled Helicopter

My brother-in-law Jorge fixed his remote controlled helicopter just before Christmas. His brother Efrain was at the controls as we tested it out in the inlaws' garage.

In the 1st video, Efrain has a less than graceful landing. The helicopter wasn't harmed...



He wasn't so lucky on this try. The helicopter cracked a landing gear that had previous damage...



I got creative with this shot as I layed the digital camera on the garage floor and let it run while the copter flew overhead. Take note of the wind noise, sounds kinda like the real thing...



Efrain gets the hang of it and does some fancy flyin'...



Jorge holds the camera REALLY close to the copter. At the end of the video Efrain yells over to Jorge to catch it since it was going out of control...

The New Dodge Challenger in the wild

Spent the day at Cabela's Sporting Goods store with my father-in-law Ramon, brother-in-law Jorge, and his brother Efrain. When we pulled into the parking lot we spotted these 2 cars sitting there.



Just beautiful! The orange one was a R/T model with a Hemi. The black one was a SE model. I really have a love for the early 70's models. These newer ones reflect all the best qualities of the originals, IMHO.

Yamaha stereo

Found this little gem at the Goodwill store down the street. It was marked as $20 but a lady standing in line at the register in front of me had a $5 off coupon she couldn't use so I was able to pick it up for $15. I googled it and this thing had a MSRP of $999 back in 1999 when it was new!

The only 2 problems are slightly bent but still working speaker lugs for the right side B-side speakers and it didn't come with a remote. I was able to get my AT&T u-Verse remote to control volume and on/off. So no problem there. Got it connected to the big screen in the game room above the garage. It works and sounds AWESOME!

Luckily, the game room seems pretty insulated. I walked outside the house while it was cranked up halfway and I could barely hear it. That's a good thing... for my neighbors!

Remote Control Helicopters and Ceiling Fans Don't Mix

Cristina and Abby are in Puerto Rico for the next week attending her cousin's wedding. So while I had a bit of spare time on my hands I tried my hand at flying the Christmas gift I got on Thursday.

I need practice...

Ripsaw

Wow! Now this is a scary little remote controlled toy...



I found this video on Hack-A-Day's website.

Space Shuttle stop

I missed the Space Shuttle as it made a stop at the NAS JRB in northern Fort Worth the other day. :-(

Video of the Space Shuttle leaving Fort Worth


.

SawStop

Wow! Here's a video of the guy who invented SawStop sticking his finger into a tablesaw. The SawStop system measures an electrical signal on the blade and when that signal changes like when a saltwater filled meat-stick (i.e. - a hotdog or a human finger) comes in contact with it it will release a spring and force the blade down into an aluminum block. Truly an amazing design but what's more amazing is the inventor's faith in his creation. I guess if you're going to claim this thing works you better be willing to back your words up.

A New Day

I remember vaguely where I was during some of the worlds most memorable events. Tonight I will remember watching Barrack win the election to be the 44th President of the United States. I was sitting in my living room with Cristina as we watched the live news coverage all night long. We ate some pizza, Cristina and Abby baked a chocolate cake, and later Cristina and I fought Abby to get her to finally go to sleep. (Three year olds can be a hand full at times)

The last time I can remember being in awe of such an event was the fall of the Berlin Wall. And when the wall fell we knew it wouldn't solve the world's ills overnight but we knew it was a significant event that would usher in a new era of world change.

Tonight at 10pm Central Time, the world changed course.

Still Shakin'

So far we've gotten a total of 6 earthquakes...

More quakes being reported by Channel 11

A map by Channel 11 showing the locations

4 quakes

Local Channel 11 is now reporting that we got a total of 4 earthquakes overnight, 2 of which were large enough to feel.

Our Poltergeist Home

Wow, this is bizarre!

Last night was my last night on 2nd shift and as Murphy's Law would dictate it was busy as hell so I wasn't able to leave until 11:30pm, a half hour late. I drove to the Walgreen's pharmacy on Central Drive and Bedford Road about a mile and a half from home. I needed to pick up a prescription for this nagging cough. While in the pharmacy, Cristina called me and said she was sitting on the couch in the living room when she heard something like footsteps in the attic followed by the wall between the living room and the bedroom move. I need to come home ASAP.

Hum, the wall "moved"? So I headed home. I grabbed a flashlight and begin the process of looking around the house. I saw a black cat run across the backyard (no lie). I went to look in the attic.

Well, I found nothing. But now come this morning I know what it was... a 3.0 earthquake!!

Here's the story from the Dallas Morning News

Video news from the local Channel 11

Preliminary report from the USGS

A map of where it occurred from the USGS.

HOLY CRAP!! I definitely didn't see that as a possibility! Add it to the things to worry about which could happen to the house. Along with tornadoes, grassfires, airplane crashes, foundation cracks, gas leaks/explosions, and robbery.

Oscilloscope How-To

Pretty cool video on how to use an oscilloscope...

Dreaming in HD?

Read this interesting story about how researchers think what type of TV we watch as a kid influences how we dream as adults. If you grew up watching a B&W TV, you dream in B&W. Color TV... you dream in color.

Got me thinking... will Abby later in life dream in 1080i High Definition 16x9 aspect ratio with surround sound?

Things that make you go um?

TV from my childhood...

Cold Ride

I rode to work today. BIG mistake! The ride to work was 63 degrees at 12:30pm. It was 45 degrees on the way home!

It took me 2 hours in the whirlpool tub with the hottest water I could get out of the tap to warm up after I got home. The new Frank Thomas motorcycle jacket helped ALOT but it still was way too cold.

With my starting 1st shift next week, I'll have a new rule... no motorcycle if the temps aren't 55 or above when I go to leave for work in the morning.

Abby's New Sandbox

After many weeks of working a little on it here and there, I finally completed Abby's new sandbox in the backyard.



I had alot of people ask me why I didn't just go with "The Turtle". The Turtle is a plastic sandbox found at Target or Walmart. It's a... turtle... which you remove it's back to reveal the measly 3 bags of sand it can hold.

BLAH!

I decided Abby needed a REAL sandbox that could hold ALOT of sand. So I built this puppy from scratch. I use (4) 4 foot long 2x12's for the sides and (2) 4 foot long 2x6's for the benches. The lid is (for the time being until I can think of a better method) a 4 foot by 4 foot 15/36 inch piece of plywood. I stained the wood of the sandbox and it's lid with a quart of stain Lowe's had on the mis-tinted discounted rack. I then applied 2 coats of clear gloss polyurethane varnish. The sand? Try (12) 50 pound bags! That's right, 600 pounds of sand!! Doing the math... that's nearly 16 times more than what Abby weighs. And since she's only about 3 foot 6 inches tall she can create "sand angels" in it.

The blue tarp peeking out from the bottom will be covered along the sides with mulch as I build out the rest of her playground area. Cristina asked me "if it doesn't have a solid bottom, how are we ever going to move it?". My answer, "NEVER". In the event of a nuclear war there will be two things left on earth, cockroaches and Abby's sandbox! ;-)

I Voted Today

Yes, I voted today. Texas is one of many states offering early voting. I wanted to vote this past Monday, the 1st day of early voting, but this week and been a bit crazy.

And who did I vote for, you ask?



President Barack Obama

Caribou Barbie is down!

Wow! Didn't see that coming! And neither did Caribou Barbie...


Crazy Protester Interrupts Palin Interview - Watch more free videos

The Credit Crisis

Cristina and I bought our current house back in June. Actually, we were technically homeless for 4 days. We close on selling our old house on June 20th but Wells Fargo delayed the closing of the new house until 4 days later. We were sure our credit was in order. Our loan officer was confident everything would go thru but over and over again they asked for more and more documentation. At that time everyone involved in our loan process couldn't understand what was going on.

Now almost 4 months later the world has learned what was brewing under the surface in the home market. Loans are ALOT harder to get now as the world-wide credit crisis expands.

Here's a short video from the local Channel 11 news regarding the market conditions.

In short, I guess I feel lucky that we got the house when we did. Any earlier and we wouldn't have paid off a few bills we had so we wouldn't have been able to qualify for the loan. Any later and we would have gotten caught up in this current crisis and not have qualified for the loan. Timing is everything.

Godzilla

Thursday night my father-in-law came over in my sister-in-law's SUV to the house to watch Abby while Cristina and I went to a Bedford City Planning and Zoning Commission meeting regarding the hospital to be built across the street. When he got to our house he realized the driver rear tire was leaking air big time.

So I drove him home later that night and early Friday morning Abby and I went to the Discount Tire on Harwood Road in Bedford, TX to get a tire fixed. As soon as I pulled into the parking space I realized what was sitting only 15 feet away...



A Nissan GT-R !! Yes, "Godzilla" itself!! The thing was REALLY NEW in that there wasn't a speck of dust or dirt on it... even the gold Brembo brake calipers were clean enough to eat off of. I snapped the pic from my 4-year old cell phone with the crap-tastic camera. We watched a bit later as a 25 YEAR OLD KID drove off in it with an older fellow (Dad?) riding shotgun. The world seemed a bit less fair at that moment.

A Day at The New DFW Founder's Plaza

On Saturday, Abby and I visited the newly opened DFW Founder's Plaza observation area at the DFW Airport. It's located on the northwest corner of the airport versus the old area which was at the southeast corner. This location is better since during the warmer months the prevailing southerly winds force the planes to land north to south making this area a prime location to watch landing planes. You had to brave the cold winter winds to watch landing planes at the old place.

This is the old beacon which was moved a few hundred yards from it's old location to be at the plaza.


The Plaza has a map showing the location of the runways.


Abby watches a plane take off.


The closest runway is "18-Right"...

Manswers

My friend, Jeff, told me about this TV show "Manswers" so I had to check it out. WOW! Imagine combining the now canceled "The Man Show" with "Mythbusters". Add some cheesy effects that reminds me of something people would watch in the movie "Idiocracy" and you have Manswers!

Cristina's official opinion after watching 2 minutes of it... "I felt my brain shrink a bit."

So check out an episode and find out the answer to the age-old question "Which is more nutritious, your cat or dog?"

My Monitor is Here!!

I got home from work tonight to find my new monitor sitting by the front door. YEAH!! Luckily, the highest resolution that my ol' video card can muster is exactly when I needed for this monitor. SWEET!!!

Computer is down

For those who may have been wondering why I haven't been responding to emails or online via Facebook it's because late last week my 19" CRT computer monitor bit the big one. It's the last CRT monitor we had in the house. I gave away or sold the others before the move. It's a bummer to be without my email. I still haven't figured out how to access my new email address via a web interface.

On the bright side... I've ordered a new 24" LCD monitor from NewEgg which is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. But I got a gut feeling I'm going to have to order a video card from them also since I really don't think my current one will be able to handle the new screen resolution. I hope to be back online at home soon.

That's all for now, gotta get back to work.

Stonehenge revisited

Yes, I'm a tool for CNN now. There was a story on Stonehenge about how researchers think the location was a place sick people came to be healed. CNN's iReport website invited viewers to upload their own pics/videos of the place. And so you have this...

Ike - Calm before the storm

As of about 1:49am here… no wind at all. It's muggy outside, 79 degrees. There's puffy high clouds above moving east to west but I can see the nearly full moon above. The local weather guys are forecasting the bulk of the winds and rains to hit after noon on Saturday. They say 35-40MPH, gusting to 50MPH.

Ike - The day before...

Here's a view of the backyard on Friday Spet 12th, 2008. This is the day before Hurricane (Tropical Storm) Ike makes its way up to the DFW area.

Our 7th

Today, Cristina and I celebrate our 7th Wedding Anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long!

I remember freaking out about the ceremony itself and hoping I didn't trip on something or just pass out from the heat of my tux. To keep my mind off it and to have some fun, I repeatedly called Cristina, cellphone to cellphone, to ask her if she was "doing anything special today", or "whatcha wearing?". :-)

I love my babe and look forward to our future together.

Obama Karma

I remembered hearing about this bonehead's video back in August...


Well, Barack's speech went great under beautiful 72 degree Denver skies. But now the Republicans are staring down a Cat3 hurricane by the name of Gustav for their convention.

I gotta laugh. Karma's a bitch folks. :-)

Gustav

Ya know, in our old house I would have said "Bring it on!" cause it was just so high above the surrounding terrain that flooding wasn't a remote chance. With this new place, I'm a bit concerned.

I finished today cleaning the parts of the rain gutters I can reach. I have a section on the back of the house that's bent up pretty badly. I think it got messed up when the big tree fell before I bought the place. That piece is pulled away from the house a bit so some rain will run between the gutter and the house. Oh well, can't fix it now. I cleared out some brush and dirt along a fence line where I saw standing rain water gathering before. I hope the water will run under the fence easier now. I shut the sprinkler system off. There's room in the garage for the Pilot, Prelude, and Shadow. The Jeep will have to rough it out in the driveway. The wireless rain gauge is on the patio table and ready to go.

Who knows? The storm could bring us nothing but I know at this moment NOAA is showing it coming right at us...


Like I said, I'm not worried but I am concerned.

UPDATE: Gustav was LAME!! We got only a slight breezy day and some spitting rain from it here in the DFW area.

AnimeFest 2008

Have you ever had someone tell you about a great new TV series they watch but you couldn't get into it because it had been on the air too long and you couldn't figure out who was who? Kinda like starting to watch the Sopranos on HBO in the 4th season. That's the way I felt about Anime. I've had people tell me how interesting it was but since I never could figure out which one was what, I never could determine where to jump in at.

Yesterday I felt like I corrected that. A while back Cristina shot wedding photos for a couple who after they were married had their honeymoon in Baltimore at an Anime convention. Tiffany and Blake really like Anime and enjoy it as a couple.

So what is Anime? Anime is a form of animation originating in Japan based on "Manga". A Manga is a graphic novel. Some might incorrectly call it a comic book. A comic book is much shorter and doesn't have the plot depth as a Manga. Or so I seem to understand. I'm still a noobie here.

So this past Saturday Tiffany and Blake hired Cristina and Efrain to come to AnimeFest 2008 in Dallas to shoot Tiffany dressed as a couple of her favorite Anime characters. I came along as bag boy since it sounded cool. It was! Blake showed me around the downstairs area where vendors had booths set up selling Manga paperbacks and Anime DVD's. In looking back I show have bought a Manga but I was on a budget from the boss. ;-P I was surprised at the number of people in costume and the level of detail in the costumes. Tiffany, I learned, wants to open her own shop to design and sew costumes for fans. She could do well at it since her self made costumes were flawless.

There were others I saw in the crowd who were dressed in costume but maybe they didn't get the memo it was an Anime convention. I saw a couple guys dressed as Ghostbusters complete with the nuclear reactor backpacks. I saw a pirate who looked like Capt Jack Sparrow. Correct me if I'm wrong but these characters didn't start off in the Japanese pop culture world. But ya know... it didn't matter. Not one bit. Everyone was happy, the place was jumpin', and smiles were the norm.

While Blake was introducing me to the various Anime story lines one caught my attention. It's called "Death Note". The story revolves around a kid who finds a notebook that was dropped to earth by a god. He realizes that when he writes someones name in the notebook that person dies of a heart attack. He uses the notebook on a vigilantie killing spree to kill criminals. There's also a cop who is begins to see a pattern to the killings and trys to track down the kid. I've already added the first 3 DVD's to my Netflix acct. Looking forward to checking it out. Tiffany and Blake surprised me with a Death Note keychain. COOL! They're a great couple. There's another Anime convention in May of next year I hear. "A-Kon" is many times bigger than this one was. We're all planning on attending it also. I'm looking forward to it.

The New Dallas Cowboys Stadium

I was traveling southbound on Industrial Blvd in Euless, TX Sunday morning and snapped a shot of the new home to the Dallas Cowboys.


If you can't tell, it's that large spacecraft looking thing on the left side of the road in the distance. According to Google Earth this picture was taken 7 miles away!!

Come to think of it, maybe it is one of the spaceships from Independence Day...


(source: Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions) <<< A VERY COOL WEBSITE. CHECK IT OUT!

;-)

Weak Trees

Again with the falling trees!!! The house has some of the weakest trees around!

Yesterday around 7:10pm Abby and I were sitting on the window sill bench in our master bedroom watching a thunderstorm come thru. This picture I took of our HDTV is of local WFAA-DT Channel 8.3 was just after the storm hit. Our house is located practically right in the middle of the "O" in the name "Bedford". You can see the gust front on the radar. It's the green line that runs from Keller to Midlothian. (BTW, clicking on any of these pictures will get ya a larger version. Just click on Back in your browser to return to this blog.)


Abby's been a bit afraid of thunder but slowly I'm getting her use to it so she's not so scared of storms. The rain started falling and within 30 seconds I saw a large gray cloud appear to the northeast over my neighbor's house. It swooped down VERY quickly towards us bringing a large amount of rain and wind. Then at that moment a large branch from the tree right outside fell in front of the window. I grabbed Abby and pulled her back from the window. She was saying over and over "OH MY GOSH!! OH MY GOSH!!".

The storm was short lived. We soon went outside to survey the damage. The window with the blind pulled up is where we were sitting.

Luckily, we were OK and the branch didn't break anything on the patio either.


Here you can see the place it broke off from. Another branch is still hanging from the tree.


At 10am this morning, my father-in-law and his co-worker Jose Manual arrived to cut down the broken branch and cut up all the other pieces.



He also cut down a dead tree we had across the cul-de-sac from us.


I guess it's just less leaves I'll have to worry about this fall.

We're Back.

Been on vacation in Puerto Rico for a week and got back late last Wednesday night. I took an extra day of PV (personal vacation) from work so I didn't go to work on Thursday. Hoping to make an update with pictures and all here on the blog soon but household chores are taking up my time.

The New Home

We moved into the new house several weeks ago but we're still working on putting things into the proper place. Finally got internet up and running this past Friday. A plain old POTS line phone service was suppose to be connected Friday also but its still dead. I need to call AT&T using the Vonage line which I'm thinking about keeping for the home phone line.

Art of Manliness

I'm posting this on my blog to enter their contest. I know this seems like a sellout but this "Art of Manliness" blog is a pretty interesting read. So go check it out...
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/07/07/ritual-mens-grooming-products-giveaway/

SNL - Dick in a Box

OK, since I'm embedding Hulu videos, I need to put this one on my blog. It's a clip from Saturday Night Live and IMHO it's the funniest thing they've had on that show in a LONG time. Just a word of caution, it may not be safe for work...

"Obama" selling Kias in the DFW area

A local DFW Kia dealership is running an ad for new Kias using an Obama look-a-like. Having lived in the DFW area long enough, I know this particular car dealership likes to run ads like these. I remember a campaign of ads on the radio they had featuring Bill Clinton some years back. Well, John Stewart and The Daily Show picked up on the ads and here's his take on them.

BTW, this is my first attempt to embed a Hulu video. Crossing my fingers...

Cleaning and adjusting the motorcycle chain

Yes, it's been awhile since my last posting. Things have been REALLY hectic with the purchase of the new house. So I thought I would post this picture that Cristina took of me Friday, May 23rd.

It was a hot and humid Texas night around 11:30pm and I was working in the garage. I put about 1,000 miles on the bike so far. The chain needed tightening a bit, cleaned, and lubed. The dealership Cristina bought it from lubed the chain with oil (or gear oil) which over those 1k miles attracted a world of dirt and grime. Oiling the chain with gear oil is the perfectly acceptable method and is outlined in the manual. But I read up on better ways to clean and lube modern chains and learned that wiping down the chain with WD-40 would removed the grime. Then coating the chain with Dupont's Teflon Chain Wax will lube the chain but not cause it to attract the dirt. I've gotta say it worked fine and the chain looks great now! Needless to say I won't be using gear oil on the chain ever.

Very Old Maryland Pics

Check out this set of old photographs from the byways of Maryland during the early 1900's I found on Flickr. Pretty interesting.

Here's a picture of Frederick...


Yo Matt, you might be interested in some of them on the 2nd and 3rd page since there's a few Allegany County pics in there. Some Sidling Hill pics too way before they cut thru the mountain.

Here we go...

First, let me say sorry to the friends I haven't gotten back to via email in at least a week or so. Prepping the house for sale has been ALOT of work. I type this not from home but the "other place" I hang out at for 40 hours per week. If I were home I would probably be working even harder.

Since last Thursday (which I took off from work), I've...
- replaced the rear storm door
- repaired 4 lose tiles, grouted, and cleaned the master shower
- re-caulked the master shower and the bathtubs in both bathrooms
- power washed the driveway, rear patio, and all the solar screens and windows
- cleaned the oven
- mowed the lawn
- washed all the clothes (didn't get time to hang them yet)
- removed rotten wood sections from around 3 rear windows and replaced it. Then caulked the new pieces.
- and last night I finished at Midnight painting the rear of the house and the back door.

I still have to paint the front door and trim. I also need to power wash the solar screens and the back windows again. I went too fast and they have streaks.

By the time most of you read this the house will be on the market. Starting now is the process of finding a new place. I have to call around tomorrow to begin the pre-approval steps of getting our next mortgage.

I rode the motorcycle to work today since the temps were up there. Tomorrow is suppose to be even hotter but I'm thinking today will be my last ride-to-work day for quite awhile. The reason being is that the motorcycle can sit in the garage while potential buyers view the house but we need to clear the driveway of cars. So Cristina can leave with Abby in the Pilot, I'll take the Prelude to work, and we'll park the Jeep on the street. It may kinda suck since DaLude doesn't have running A/C. The Jeep has its own problems with A/C for that matter in that water leaks into the passenger side floor when you run it.

Oh well, I'll stop wining now and just hope the house sells for something near asking price.

The First Thousand

I rode the motorcycle to work earlier today. Ran out of gas along the way and switched over to the "reserve tank". I stopped at a 7-11 along Highway 121 on the way home. It cost me approximately $13 to fill up. I reset the trip-odometer which was showing 170.7 miles and noticed the regular odometer was showing 2058 miles. Being that I was about 10 miles from home still and I got the bike with 1068 miles on the clock, that means I've rode a full 1,000 miles on it so far. Hard for me to believe that between when the bike was new in 2002 and when I got it in February 2008 it racked up almost the same amount of miles as what I've ridden in 3 months!

So far it's been great. In the past 3 months I've gotten back into the groove and riding has become more second nature. When I first got it riding wasn't a totally comfortable experience since I was spending alot of thought processes on things like...

"need to up shift... gotta work on matching those engine RPM's", "here comes a corner... watch your speed!", "gotta balance the front and rear braking... don't lock-up the rear wheel!", "turn signal on", "how do I turn this signal off again?", "what gear am I in again?".

Now that the technical part of riding has come back to me I can focus on the experience itself. But that'll have to wait for few days. Bad weather is returning to the DFW area and the bike will sit in the garage until better days. It's all for the best anyhow since I need to tighten, clean, and lube the chain. My first motorcycle maintenance session. Ah fun.

Cristina's skills

Beautiful day out today. While in the backyard Cristina took a few photos of me and used her Photoshop skills to piece them together. Pretty dang good job, IMHO...

Movie Review: Baby Mama

We went to see Baby Mama at the Irving Mall. The movie stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler but we were surprised by all of the other people in it. Steve Martin, Greg Kinnear, Sigourney Weaver, and Dax Shepard to name a few. I was expecting a funny little chick-flick but it turned out to be funnier than what I thought.

One of the funniest lines was between Angie (the surrugate mother) and her redneck loser of a common law husband, Carl...

Carl: "Ya gotta come back to me baby. It's been 2 weeks since I've had sex!"
Angie: "Carl, we broke up a month ago."

The Movin' Experience

Last weekend was more than tiring. We're trying to prep the house for sell.

Last Saturday was yard sale day. I was kinda surprised by what sold and what didn't. For example a guy gave me $2 for my 20 year old radar detector when I would have let him have it for 25 cents. On the other hand a perfectly functional 5-disc CD player didn't sell at all even though I wasn't asking really anything for it. Most all of the items sold were on a "make best offer" level anyway. Oh well, made about $121.

Sunday was a 16 hour long day of yard work and packing. We rented a 12x20 controlled climate storage locker at a storage facility less than a mile from home. So far we've moved about 8 SUV's worth of items to it. (Of course ya know the new standard of measurement is the "SUV")

Monday morning our real estate agent stopped by so we could develop a game plan. I have a few more repairs and packing to do this weekend and the house should be on the market before the 19th.

Today is the first day this week I've been able to ride the motorcycle. Been riding around in the Jeep earlier this week. The Jeep has really been the hauler for the top soil, grass seed, borrowed yard sale table, and lots and lots of boxes I've needed to transport.

BMW M1 Homage Concept Car

Now while I'm not in the market for another vehicle at this moment, I do think I may have found the best looking car I've seen in a long time.

The BMW M1 Homage

That view would strike fear into almost any person who looks into their rear-view mirror and sees this thing gaining on them.

The side profile is sleek and looks like it would cut thru the air like a knife.


And even the rear looks awesome...

Hardy Heron

The newest version of Ubuntu Linux has been released! Known as Hardy Heron and also know as version 8.04, this one is suppose to be better than ever.

I'm at this very minute I'm installing it within the Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 environment. The older 7.10 version of Ubuntu had some serious video and mouse issues when trying to install it this way. So far I haven't seen any of that. It's still not totally straight forward. I found these instructions which have me up and going great so far.

FIGHT THE MAN, use Linux!

Tech Support from the 1930's

I have the Core77 design blog added to my Google Reader account. This evening I saw they added a story about "Tech Support from the 1930's". It's a YouTube video from a Western Electric training film showing people how to use them new-fangled dial telephones. I laughed at the "Oh Gramps, that's yummy!" comment from the girl who's having trouble with her Algebra homework. Algebra? They had math back then? ;-) Also interesting was the part how they should how they were going to cut-over to the new system. Wow!

Part One...


Now, in this part what I found interesting was that the dial tone sounds like it was recorded when they were electrocuting a prisoner in the Huntsville Prison. (For all ya non-Texans out there, that's where we kill 'em.)

Part Two...


I found these interesting in that they give the date and time of the cut-over in 1927. Wow, nearly 81 years.

The Change is A-comin'...


NOTE: This video has no audio...


I like this video since I totally remember the coolness factor of our new Trimline phone with the rotary dial. A few years later we got the touch-tone model in our house...


To think what all these folks would do with a cellphone.

Irving Bank Robbery

A bank near my workplace and my daughter's school was robbed earlier today by 4 machinegun weilding bandits...

WFAA-TV Channel 8 story

Scary.

A new week, more rain

It was nice weather today to ride the motorcycle to work but the forecast for the rest of the week is sketchy. Maybe Thursday might be the next clear day with no chance for rain.

Accuweather forecast for Fort Worth, TX.

I had to stop for gas this evening on the way home. Cost me $10.71 to fill up the bike. The mileage came out to be 42MPG. It been as high as 50 or so. Although during this last tank full I've been running it a bit faster on the highway than before so I guess that's why the mileage dropped.

Another storm video

Another strong storm front blew thru the DFW area this past Thursday evening. Tornado sirens were going off in both Fort Worth and the Irving areas. The video below is of a nearby lightning strike at home. So close in fact that it caused electrical interference in the camera recording this. Just a word of caution, the sound is a bit loud so watch the volume on your speakers...

NOAA's Summary

OK, last posting about that storm. One of the local radio scanner boards posted this link to the NOAA summary of the storm. Seems they estimate the wind we got here at home to be 70+ MPH. That's kinda my estimate from watching the video.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/April0910/april0910.htm

W.

The aftermath of the storm

Wow, it's been a couple of days. To follow up on my earlier post regarding the storm. Here's what happened. A major line of thunderstorms moved thru the DFW area early Thursday morning (4/10/2008). Trees, power lines, and fences were down all over. Power was lost to thousands of homes. Luckily we escaped with no damage whatsoever.

This video clip below is from my security DVR focused on our front driveway. The camera and DVR run on a UPS made for a computer so that's why they stayed up and running even when the power is going up and down. I was impressed by how well the mount stayed steady. It's a beefy camera mount but for it not to even wiggle at all... nice! The company who makes it is called RAM Mounting Systems.

My wife and I were awake at the time doing last minute tax preparation. When the winds hit, we grabbed our 3 year old daughter and I got them into closet in the master bedroom. The electronic wireless rain-gauge showed a 3.9 inches/hour rainfall at the peek of the storm.

A major power line was knocked down just south of my workplace. I work in a VERY large data center with a redundant power system. My employer also has a building across the street which houses hundreds of people. It doesn't have a power backup. When the outage hit they were moved to our building. My crew and I spend the entire day Thursday trying to setup workstations, phones, and network connections for everyone. We were stuffing folks in conference rooms, meeting rooms,... everyplace except the bathrooms which were busy places themselves. The thing is... we'll have to move them back early next week. :-(

Here's some other pictures of the damage I took while driving around the neighborhood. Click on the picture to goto Flicker to see the full pictures and info about the pics.









BTW, I found out the hard way that my security DVR outputs videos in an AVI format encoded with DirectShow (aka - Dshow) and YouTube doesn't like that format. I found some software on the web that will convert it to a plain-jane AVI format

MAJOR THUNDERSTORM

A major line of thunderstorms just moved thru the area about an hour and a half ago. The tornado sirens were blowing. I grabbed the family and moved them into the bedroom closet. I'll provide more info later after I get more sleep now.

The front driveway cam caught the wind and rain. I'll upload a video clip when I can.

Election '08

I first heard this take on the classic 80's Twisted Sister song, "I Wanna Rock", last week on the local Live 105.3 radio station during the "Big Dick Hunter Wild-Ass Circus" show. The song' lyrics were written by a member of Twisted Sister who is a devoted Obama supporter. I think it's an awesome remake of the original. Enjoy the video and support my man B-rock...

5 years of service

Finally after 5 years and a few weeks I have a new work laptop.

My old laptop... my buddy... my companion thru many, many work-related problems was an IBM Thinkpad X30 running a Pentium III Mobile at 1.2Ghz and with 512MB of RAM. It had a cracked case near the palm area of the keyboard and the "Pentium Inside" sticker is nearly worn to the point of not being readable. But it was a fantastic laptop. A never had a real problem with it's speed until a few laptops in the FBI and Veteren's Administration went missing a year or so ago. Then Corporate Executive (or Legal) office got nervous about one of us losing a laptop and whatever customer data contained there on. They got Corporate IT to force a mandatory encryption on our harddrives. Sadly, the old gal just couldn't handle it. The last 6 months have been painfully slow ones.

The new one is a Dell model with the usual Core 2 Duo running at 1.8Ghz and has 1GB of RAM. It's sleek with a wide screen and a bright silver finish. But I'm not sure if it'll ever live up to the high standard set by my ol' X30.

Here's hoping my ol' X30 eventually finds a new home thru a bulk re-seller on eBay. Job well done.

First ride with the new helmet

It was a great day today but sadly I was too busy to enjoy it on 2 wheels. Finally, around 8pm I got done all of the chores I decided I was going to do tonight and I headed out for a night time ride. I headed down Beach Street and then West on I-30 into Fort Worth. I turned north on Rt183 and headed back home. I put 30 miles on the bike.

The new helmet performed VERY well. It didn't have quite as much airflow thru it as I was expecting but then I realized the airflow was being blocked by the windshield on the bike. The face portal is much better than my old one. I found I was able to view the speedometer located on the tank easier now. I had to tilt my old helmet down to view it. The new one is a just a eye glance down now, very nice.


Overall, no pinching or binding at all during the ride. Cristina did laugh at me for my "corn-row" hair style I had after removing it. That could be an issue after riding to work. I might have to take a comb to work or wet my hair once I'm there.

The weather is suppose to be nice tomorrow so I'll probably be on 2 wheels heading to work. Look out for me.

Finally got a helmet that fits me. It's a Shoei RF-1000 in the color of Antracite. It's a dark metallic gray. The color matches the pin striping on my motorcycle. It also will hide fingerprints better than glossy black would and hide bug splatter better than white. At $416 after taxes, it was ALOT more than what I wanted to spend on it. I was hoping one of the HJC models would fit since they all were less than $200 but everyone of them pinched here or there. At least it was cheaper than the $500+ models from Arai. Looking forward to getting out and riding with it.

I was shopping around last night for a mirrored-colored "spectra shield" for it. OUCH! Everyplace I saw was wanting nearly $60 for one. Normally, I would just use my sunglasses under the helmet like I normally do but now I see how extremely easy it is to swap out the shield on this model. It finally makes it practical to have a tinted shield and a clear one.

The start of something new

The sound of trumpets begin to play as my blog is created.

Now what? Hum, I should say something creative or interesting. Drawing a blank. I guess I can say I hope to write in this blog some musings about life and stories in the news. Maybe someone will read it, maybe not but whatever. It could be fun.