Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…
We went shopping tonight for some more boring, house related stuffs. First was a Shop Vac vacuum for garage/basement cleanups. Second was an electric yard edger. by Weed Eater. That exciting purchase was topped off with a sprinkler hose, faucet splitter, and a few new shirts for work. Like I said, pretty boring, even if they were needed.
Really looking forward to the long weekend. Ana’s sister is going to be in town and we’ll probably shoot off some fireworks!
I thought I’d pass along a couple of very useful utilities I’ve been running for a little while now in Windows. One is the virtual desktop manager Virtual Dimension first brought to my attention by David. There are a few quirks but it works better than a couple other ones I’ve tried (and given up on) in the past. This is the first app I’ve found for which transparency is actually useful.
The other utility is Post-it Software Notes by 3M which I’ve found to be a fantastic replacement for a half dozen copes of notepad running at any given time filled with some text I don’t want to try and remember. Any notes you have open are saved, so they reopen after reboots; damn handy. I’m currently using the Lite/Free version but will probably purchase Standard $15.
Both are great apps and definitely worth checking out if you’re on Windows.
Our new sofa and loveseat were delivered today, they look great in our family room. The fabric is called Microfiber and it looks and feels like suede. Quite comfortable.
Before the delivery truck arrived, we had to move the current furniture from the family room into our empty living room. That has turned out looking suprisingly good too. Next we’ll need some new tables for the family room, then new furniture for the living room – that $50 couch is looking pretty bad.
The cats like the new furniture too, but Dozer is currently sleeping in his spot on the old couch.
As reported earlier, the sump line was connected incorrectly. Today I took off work and called Construx, expecting a quick conversation followed by them coming out to take care of it. Nope, suprise – they are done. They consider that since it’s functioning, their job is complete. The issue is dead.
So now we have to make a decision – dig and fix it ourselves or leave it alone. There’s really no advantage to ‘fixing’ it, since it does indeed work and is buried. I guess it’s just anger speaking that wants it done the way they originally said. Not sure what we’ll do yet.
After four phone calls and some heated “discussions”, 3 workers from Construx came to the house today and got the sump line buried. Woooo, finally.
BUT, when I got home I discovered that they connected the buried pipe to the temporary line coming out of the house. They were supposed to attach it to the line coming out of the house that’s like 3′ under ground. So I called Construx a few minutes til 5 and they are supposed to call me in the morning with what they’re planning on doing. It really shouldn’t take but maybe an hour to fix.
So right now we have a very large area of dirt that they are also going to be putting sod over (I didn’t have to argue for that!) next week. Soooo close to being all done.
Our furniture arrives in two days!
I just synchronized my Treo over the Sprint PCS Vision connection. I think it’s pretty damn cool!
Our furniture is set to be delivered this coming Saturday morning. We’re pretty excited, can’t wait to see what bright red looks like in our family room. It’s worth noting that we have 30 days to return the furniture, even if it’s just because we don’t like the color – I don’t expect we’ll have that problem though.
I’m watching the Cardinals vs. Cubs game as I type this, and Ana is sitting in the chair next to me watching Mary Poppins on her laptop with headphones. She’s apparently having a good time, she’s got a big smile on her face and is laughing periodically. 
Construx is supposed to come tomorrow, not holding my breath.
Over the weekend I started work on a new EJ innovations website, not sure if I’ll actually use the layout or not but I got to learn a lot more about CSS.
And finally, did a little work on Chef too. Mostly some icons that I took the time to create.
Damn, Cards just lost.
Thursday morning I sent a few letters out regarding Construx and their inability to get our sump line buried. One went to the Vice President of Residential at Construx, one to the company we purchased the house through, and one to our real-estate agent. I didn’t expect any of the letters to arrive before the week ended, but yesterday afternoon I received a call from the realtor and she sounds like she’s going to try and help us out. Wooo!
This weekend is going to be uneventful; so far we have cleaned the house and watered the grass (mowing later probably). Still need to go get a Father’s Day gift too.
You may recall that I had my laptop repaired and when it came back, the battery was wrapped and labeled defective, with a warning saying that any damage caused by it would void my warranty. Well I’m sick and tired of being tethered to a power source, and don’t want to spend the money on a new battery. So tonight I unwrapped and plugged the battery in and, as expected, everything’s working fine. Whee, no more power cord.
This weekend sure went fast. We didn’t do much, which was really nice, but it has flown by. I’m sitting in bed wishing I didn’t have to work in the morning!
Chronicles of Riddick turned out to be a very fun movie, despite most of the reviews I read boforehand. I’m actually glad they left it open for a sequel.
Ana received Big Fish on DVD from her sister last weekend for her birthday, and although Ana’s a huge Tim Burton fan, we hadn’t seen it yet. I tend to not really care for Tim Burton flicks, but we tossed this one in on Saturday afternoon and discovered that it’s a great movie.
Today was fairly uneventful, did a little coding on Chef, nothing big – just some mindless buf fixes.
The Johnson Blog 