Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…
I put Scott’s Turf Builder Plus SummerGuard on our yard about a month ago, and it has done its job very well. That picture is from Sunday.
I’m following their recommended product cycle which has me applying a different fertilizer every 6-8 weeks, so some of the credit goes to the preceeding product applications too. Our new strips of sod (from the sump line work) in the back yard are even growing and blending into the yard quite nicely.
This evening I went and downloaded the new PostgreSQL 8.0 Beta which now runs natively on Windows. I’ve installed it but haven’t setup the Chef database yet because of my reliance on the fulltext module for text indexing – I’m not yet sure what fulltext searching options are available in 8. Anyway, it’s on my machine, with the intention of getting the Chef db running like it does on linux so a few people I know only running Windows can also run my software. I’ll provide more info as it comes.
Shortly I’ll be ordering a processor, memory, and hard drive for my new barebones PC. I think the plan is to make it my desktop, turn Windev into my web server, and maybe retire the current webserver. The only thing that is going to be hard about that plan is turning Windev, my longtime Windows DEVelopment machine, into a Linux server. Oh the humanity!
I just finished up building a pair of computers for Ana’s sister and cousin. Her sister’s computer was fried by lightning about a month ago and she was cut an insurance check last week. Ana’s cousin is headed to college for her freshman year and needs a computer. Both machines have this Shuttle board and have turned out to be pretty speedy machines. End price was $350 and $450, respectively. Not too shabby.
Thanks to David bringing this deal to my attention, I now have a barebones kit sitting in my living room for $20. I’ve got a few parts to buy still, but that’s a pretty tought decision to make since I don’t have a clue what I am going to have the machine doing. Ana says I’m a real nerd since I bought a computer just because of the price and I don’t know what I’m doing with it. Oh well, nice problem to have I suppose.
Here are a few items we found indispensible on our road trip. Highly recommended for those travelling in a car for any considerable amount of time.
Igloo KoolMate 40 This is a thermoelectric cooler/heater which plugs into the cigarette lighter in the car. It cools to something like 45 degrees below outside temperature or heats to 155 degrees. It was the perfect size for keeping all of our lunch foods cold on the drive.
Earthmate GPS Receiver in combination with the Delorme Street Atlas allowed us to trapse all over the place without the worry of getting lost. The trip planning portion of the software makes some questionable decisions, but the capability of knowing exactly where you are at all times is priceless. We borrowed this from a friend of my dad’s but are planning on buying it for ourselves since it was so useful.
We also borrowed my dad’s XM Radio so we didn’t have to deal with searching for radio stations every 15 minutes. I don’t have a need for one all the time, but it’s great on trips.
I used my Treo 600 with PDANet to have an internet connection on my laptop in the car and anywhere else we went with cellular service. This is GREAT for passing time in traffic jams.
Home! We arrived around 7:15 tonight, after a very smooth drive from Sevierville, TN. We went through Champaign around 5pm and stopped in for some BW3 which tasted great.
Many thanks to David and Libby for being such great hosts while we were in Durham, we had a great time and hope to visit again sometime.
Some Traval Statistics:
Total Miles: 2,800
Average Miles/Gallon: 24.62 (damn mountains)
Average Price/Gallon: $1.85
Today is our last full day in Durham with David and Libby, which really sucks because I’d rather not go back to all the crap waiting for me at work. Anyway, we are heading to Wilmington, NC to go to the beach.
On Tuesday, due to the less than desirable weather forecast, we went to a mall and roamed around a bit. I had a beer in the food court, just because they offered it. (It’s very strange to be sitting in the middle of a food court and drinking a Budweiser…) After leaving the mall we drove over to Jordan Lake to view the large population of bald eagles before heading back for the day. We all went and saw The Village that night. Overall we thought it to be a crappy movie. Maybe I need to watch it again, this time forgetting about how the trailers portrayed it. I dunno.
Yesterday involved a little canoeing, my first time. It turned out to be a lot of fun and I expect we’ll do it again in the future. The portion of the river we went on was supposed to take 4 hours – Ana and I were done and out of the water in well under 2. Ooops. After that short boat trip we tried to find a place to picnic but ended up just eating in the car as we drove around. We wanted to go into one of the parks around the lake to eat, but they charge $5 – measley I know, but when you’re someone who rarely carries cash around, that $5 is hard to come by. We drove around for quite a while looking for an ATM, and finally found one at an IGA grocery store. Not turned on. No money for me. Eat in car. The evening brought a nice dinner in, followed by a showing of Gattaca.
So today we are going to the beach. I’m probably going to be taking quite a few pictures because we have a few rooms at home with bare walls. Anyone that’s seen our house knows that the majority of pictures we have hanging are products of my digital camera, so I have some work to do.
Tomorrow we are headed to the Smokey Mountains (Tennessee side) where we have rented a cabin for the night. Should be a lot of fun, and I’ll probably pull out the telescope I’ve brought along.
The past couple days have been pretty interesting. We woke up a little later than intended on Sunday becuase of our late night. We purchased a metro pass and went to the Capital, Arlington National Cemetary, and the National Zoo. We watched (pictures to come) the Changing of the Guard at Arlington, which was very impressive. Ana really wanted to see pandas so we went to the zoo in the afternoon. We topped off a tiring three days with a very nice dinner at M&S Grill and retired fairly early.
This morning we went to the Lincoln Memorial to get a daytime picture to hopefully end up in our reading/living room. After checking out of the hotel we went to the National Holocaust Museum. Wow, if you are ever in DC, you have to go visit. Be sure to plan for 3-4 hours too, we were limited in time and really regret it.
We are now sitting in David and Libby’s living room watching a movie. It’s great to see them and their beautiful new house. We had a very tasty dinner, Mongolian Grill of all things, topped off with an ice cream for dessert. I really wish we had a restaurant like that in Springfield.
I’m using their internet connection to start uploading pictures from the past three days, so check the gallery for updates!
Gettysburg was very interesting yesterday. We purchased a 2 hour audio tour and drove around it ourselves rather than hiring a park guide to ride along with us. It turned out to be a gorgeous day and I took quite a few pictures. We got on the road around 2:30 or so.
We arrived and checked into our hotel here in DC at about 5pm yesterday. The drive from Gettysburg went very fast, even with our accidental detour to Dulles International Airport (the GPS didn’t notify us of our correct turn/exit until the lanes were already divided). The GPS is quite unreliable here, as soon as we got around DC limits it showed us driving all over the map when we were just sitting in traffic.
Shortly after unloading in the hotel, we figured we would take a quick stroll around some of the monuments before grabbing some dinner. Well, that “quick stroll” turned into quite a long walk – we didn’t eat until 9:30. After eating, we went and re-toured them to get pictures at night. The pictures look awesome, but it was 12:30am before we made it back to the hotel, exhausted and with very sore feet. Ana’s still sleeping.
We got up at 4am and were on the road by 5. 12 1/2 hours later, we’re finally in the hotel in Chambersburg, PA. The drive wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting, everything from Ohio on was very beautiful. We made two pit stops for probably a total of 45 minutes, and were held up for another 40 or so on the interstate in Maryland due to an accident a few miles up (it apparently took them several hours to get the accident cleared up, luckily we caught the tail end of it).
Time to head out for some dinner I think. The hotel has free dsl so I may try and post the 3 or 4 pictures I took from the car. And there’s always the crappy camera pics.
The last thing I need to do to my car before going on vacation is get new windshield wipers because the current ones are in horrible shape and just not doing their job. It sounds like such an easy thing to do, yet every single time I go to replace them it turns into one big pain in the butt. Anyone else just HATE replacing them? I have memories of a cold and icy afternoon at a gas station in Champaign with David trying to get a pair of refills on his car. We both took turns trying to slide the wiper refill into the blade, with numb fingers and no gloves.
Have you ever seen what they pass as directions for these things? It’s a small sheet of paper with completely useless 3 pictures on it. They always say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but these words may as well have been in Japanese because they offer no help to me whatsoever.
My latest experience has been just as annoying, though thankfully not in the cold. It started when I forgot I had already bought the replacement “blades” a year ago and really only needed the refills this time. Ok, that’s fine – so back to the store I went. Then I was faced with a question… the replacement blades I purchased, were they plastic or metal? Instead of taking my lazy butt back out to the parking lot, I guessed. Incorrectly. Back to the store again, where I learned Meijer doesn’t carry the refill I need. Damnit! Now to go look at another store. I wonder how long it’s going to take to install once I finally buy the right ones; I’m definitely not looking forward to it.
Ok, enough ranting about the wipers.
Last day of work before vacation is tomorrow. I sure can’t wait to have that week off. I’ve been getting in to work around 6:15am this week to make sure I have everything done I need to before leaving; I’m tired but everything’s getting done.
The Johnson Blog 