Saturday, July 31, 2004

"Bob, It is raining in my house."
I called Bob the Builder. He is doing the work on your porch. I told him it was raining in my house. Not only inside the porch but also inside the house. Slight exaggeration, sure. But the wall in the guest room is wet.

I crawled up in the rafters with some tar paper. It didn't take much effort to channel all the water out of the house. Bob says the roofers will be here on Monday.
Yesterday was a holiday for me. I didn't have to go to work and I had no plans. At first I thought I would work on the bed finish. But I could hear the call of the road, and shame of all shames, I think the Miata had set in the garage undriven for 7 days.

One of the tires looked low, so I check them all out and then hit the road. At first I really had no plans other than to just cruise around a bit. I headed west, California here I come. After driving a little bit I decided I would go visit my Grandfather. He live about 90 minutes away.

When I got there I parked in his driveway and knocked on the door. After a few minutes there was no answer. I had my cell phone, so I rang his phone. I let it ring 10 times. Again no answer. His car was in the driveway so I figured he was just out for a walk. He walks a good bit. He is 78 years old.

My father lives across the street so I walked over there. Again I pulled out the cell phone but this time I called before I rang the doorbell. As soon as he answered the phone I started ringing the doorbell. Dingdong, Dingdong, Dingdong. He said "Hold on a second, someone is at the door." And there I was.

He called back across the street and eventually he got an answer. We we back over there and talked with him, Scott, for a while. Scott _really_ liked the Miata. He asked me how much I would let him have it for. He spent quite a bit of time telling me about his first convertible. He bought it after returning home from WWII. He also told me I was living life backwards. In his opinion I should have gotten the convertible when I was younger and single. Apparrently girls love convertibles.

I would not be surprised at all if the next time I saw him he had a Miata. After all, he is only 78 and girls love convertibles.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Hello, It is me again. 

The Miata is still sitting in the garage.  Tomorrow is out of the question.  I am driving down to Birmingham on business.

Tomorrow evening it will be woodworking time once again.  I am still working on the first coat of poly.  It could be said that I haven't been working on the first coat of poly.

I setup a Continuum Server on my Linux box.  I had a friend try to connect from the world wide WAN.  Firewall must be setup wrong.  I will try again later.  We played a little while on a server setup for beginners.  Those 'beginners' are pretty good.  They must have been playing a while.  Get the binaries at http://www.subspacedownloads.com and go get spanked.

 

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

It seems like the Miata has been sitting quietly in the garage forever.  Has it really been five days since it moved.  Does the rear tire pressure really look low, or is the car simply beckoning me to come give it a little attention.  Perhaps tomorrow will be a Miata day.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Lots of typos in my last entry.  I guess I didn't proof it before publishing.   And now I am just feeling too lazy to fix it.

I took Aaron and Austin home today.  They live about 90 minutes away.  Friday Aaron asked me if I would help him get his computer on the internet.  They have another computer in the house hooked up to a cable modem already.   Time to put together a LAN.

I called his mother and asked how long the cable needed to be.   Best guess was about 75 feet.  You can buy a 100 foot ethernet cable but they run about $60.  To me that is insane.  I decided to make one.  I got the category 5 cable from Home Depot.  100' of Cat 5 runs about $18.  I already had the crimping tool and the RJ connectors.  You can get a 500' roll of cable for about $45.  I should probably do that next time considering the number of times I have gone to HD and bought 100'.

I also bought him a Linksys router -  CompUSA, $59; Ethernet card, $14.   Aaron's birthday is in August.  I told him this was an early B-day present.  My Father said he would help pay for it.  Aaron and Austin now have Internet access.  I suppose they will be up late tonight playing Subspace/Continuum. 

I considered buying them 802.11B wireless stuff.  For the cost of the router and wire I could have gotten an equivalent wireless setup.  However there is no way of knowing whether the signal strength would have been good inside their house.  If it was bad, that could effect thru-put and latency.  I decided, better safe than sorry.  Wired was the way to go.

Yes, I did spend most of the weekend playing computer games.  Just like the good old days.  I am a gamer.  Dude!

The Miata spent the weekend in the garage.  I drove the truck(extended cab)  as I was taxi'ing the four kids around.

Friday we packed up the office.  Saturday a moving company moved our stuff.  Tomorrow I will go to work at a different location.  The new offices are much nicer than the old place.

Saturday, July 24, 2004

LAN Party
I have been playing Subspace today. Most of the day actually. It is also known as Continuum. I first played this game about 10 or 11 years ago. Last night I downed the server binaries and installed them on one machine. At one point we had 5 other computers in the house logged into the server. Many explisions later my head is pounding. I did pretty well in the gaming though. My opponents were 11, 8, 6, and 3 years old.

My two nephews are staying with us today/tonight. Besides the LAN party we also went to Greenbrier for lunch, and hit the neighbors pools this afternoon. Domino's provided dinner. Hopefully things will begin to wind down in another hour or so. There is nothing quite like listening to a six year old yell, "Shoot him, Shoot him, Shoot him", only to then hear a three year old echo.

All things considered, it has been a good day.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

F1 Hot Wheels Re-deux
I hit a few more Advanced Auto Parts stores today. Now I have the whole set of Formula One Hot Wheels. It turns out there were 6, not 4. Tonight we all played cars on the coffee table. At the final store I visited they actually had all 6 cars. At least until I got there. I grabbed the last McLaren and Jaguar F1 cars.

Another benefit of the final stop is the cars rang up for $1.29 a piece. The other store was selling them for $1.99. I told the guy at the register I thought they were suppose to be $1.99. He didn't seem to care very much. About anything. Just a job, ho hum. Lucky me.

For the record, the complete set consists of:
  • Ferrari
  • Jaguar Racing
  • Jordan Grand Prix
  • McLaren
  • Renault F1 Team
  • Williams F1 Team


    They also had the cars in 1:18 and perhaps 1:24. The 1:18 scale cars where $24.99 and the smaller ones were $4.99. I will stick with the regular size Hot Wheels. They fit the budget.

    This little adventure, aka the obsession of the week, was very interesting. I had no idea that people made weekly trips to the store to purchase the latest Hot Wheels. And these guys are not playing with them. They keep them in the orignal packaging. I guess it is a lot like stamp collecting. Not nearly as expensive as collecting 1:1 scale cars.

    I sure have been verbose lately. :)


  • Monday, July 19, 2004

    F1 Hot Wheels
    Speed channel has been advertising Formula One Hot Wheels available at AutoZone. Sunday I stopped by to get a set. They only had the Ferrari and Renault cars. I hope to find the other two at another store later this week. Tomorrow is a Miata day so perhaps I will go find the other two during lunch. Top down of course.

    And no, I won't be sharing these with Jordan. He can get his own. Ok, maybe I will get him some too. And we can't leave Brianna out either.
    Picasa
    Google recently bought a company called Picasa. I had never heard of them before today. Hit their site http://www.picasa.com and download their free software courtesy of Google. To quote them, Picasa is "Everything you need to enjoy your digital photos in a single application." Give it a try. My first impression was "This thing rocks."
    42
    I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code. I assume it has been getting good reviews because I have heard several people mention it lately. The story was pretty good. The puzzle aspect was pretty cool as well. I actually figured a few of the puzzles out before the solutions were presented. The coolest part though was all the conspiracy stuff. Several times I had to remind myself that you can't believe everything you read. It certainly made me want to read more about Da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton. I liked the book enough that I took it to work and handed it off to a friend. It will be interesting to see what he thinks about it.

    After finishing the code, I started another Terry Pratchett book. I have been working through a list of his stuff for about a year I suspect. I am on #13 of 22. Every now and then I throw in a Harry Potter book, but I am all caught up on those now. I got started on the Pratchett Disc World stuff after reading a book he co-wrote called "Good Omens". It was recommended by someone on Slashdot. Back in '92 someone recommended the first Pratchett book to me based on the fact that I enjoyed Douglas Adams' stuff (Hitch Hiker's Guide, Dirk Gentley, etc). Good Omens was ok, but I really like the Disc World stuff, especially the books involving Nanny Ogg and the GUY WHO TALKS LIKE THIS.

    Zaphod Lives!
    Here it is. The new tag:





    I wanted "RAM MX5" but I was limited to a max of five characters. MX5 was already taken as was RICKM, RAM, and RAM92 :).

    I need a vacation!

    Sunday, July 18, 2004

    New Tag for the MX-5
     
    I put the new tag on the Miata yesterday (RAMX5).  It looks pretty good to me.  I tried to post a picture but I am having passive mode ftp problems again.  I guess it is time to reboot again.
     
    I am still working on applying the first coat of poly to the bed.  I would gladly pass this chore on to any willing soul.  I wonder if poly can be applied with a paint gun?
     
    I got some good photos this morning:  A white '89 Ferrari Testarossa, several Corvettes, and a nice silver Miata.
     
    The framing work on the back porch is mostly complete.  They got started on Friday, worked about two hours yesterday, and then most of this afternoon.  It should be interesting to see how long it actually takes to get the whole thing complete.  Who thinks it will be done inside of two weeks?  Bob the builder actually estimated about a week to finish.  Ha!
     

    Thursday, July 15, 2004

    "I am not quite dead yet"
    Really, reports of my death have been greatly exagerated.  
     
    At about 2 or 3 am on Wednesday morning I decided to take a road trip.  I woke up my wife.  She said, "sure, lets go to the hospital."  I said, "What the hay!" and off we went.

    At about 10 pm I started experiencing some slight pain in my shoulders.  I tried the hot tub out but it didn't help.  I went to bed close to midnight.  I stayed there for almost 10 minutes.  I couldn't lay on my left side, my right side, or my back.  I moved to the sofa so my fidgeting wouldn't keep Ginger awake.  For the next couple of hours I tried to find a position that I could stand.  It gradually got worse.  I eventually woke her up and she took me to the hospital.   I eventually got a shot of demerol.  That made things much better!  It was getting light when we got home.  I don't actually remember the drive home.  I slept all day, at least until 5:00 pm when the phone woke me up.  I was awake until 8:30 pm but still foggy most of that time and I think I dozed off several times.  When I got in bed at 8:30 I slept thru til 6:45 am when Ginger's alarm clock went off.  I went to work today though in retrospect I probably should have stayed home again.
     
    The scary part is we don't really know what happened.  Some say it was simply muscle strain or a muscle spasm.  One guy suggested I was simply dehydrated.  Regardless, of what anyone says, I don't know what happened.  I do know that it hurt more than I have ever hurt in my life.  I hurt so much at times I couldn't even speak.  And of course occassionaly I considered hurling but I never quite got around to it.
     
    The good new is I am still alive and kicking, though for a while today I had serious doubts.
     
    On the brighter side, I see blogger had added some features to the blogging GUI.  I will have to try them out soon.  Good night.
     

    Monday, July 12, 2004

    Swill
    The beverage calorie list is here. Send me anything else worth noting.
    L6278

    [Verbose Mode On]
    I few months ago I turned my computer off. I was leaving town for a few days on vacation and I didn't really care to leave it on while I was away. The machine I reference is my Windows XP machine, not my Linux box that is hosting this site. The vacation was a trip to Pigeon Forge.

    After returning from the trip, I turned the computer on. Now everyone that has paid attention knows that computers usually die when they are being turned on. You might consider a lightning strike as an attempt to turn it on all the way to 11. Yes it is true, when I turned it on, the magic smoke escaped from an IC on the controller of a 40 Gig Western Digital hard drive. The drive was manufactured way back in 2001 if you can believe the date printed on it. And yes the smoke is magic, mainly because with out the smoke it will no longer work and it would be a true feat of magic to put it back.

    The IC in question is an ST L6278 1.2. ST means that it is an SGS Thompson part. The L6278 is simply a part number. Basically it is the motor control chip.

    So heres what we know. The hard drive quit working. I checked digikey and several other sources but was unable to find a replacement part.

    Western Digital said they would replace the drive. It was still under warranty, but they would not repair it. Guess what is on this drive? Your right! This is the drive I use to back up all the good stuff. In some cases the good stuff only lives on the backup drive. Doesn't make it much of a backup does it? I am not interested in get the drive replaced, what I want is the data back.

    I checked with one of those data recovery places. There estimate for retrieving the data from the failed drive was between $800 and $3000 dollars. Sure no problem.

    It turns out there are a few hard drives in the house. As a matter of fact I have an old 100 Meg drive you can have just for the asking. Let me know ASAP and I will send it too you. One of the drives around here has a L6278 1.2 on it. Most of the others either have the older L6262 or some labeled SMOOTH.

    I tried taking the controller board from that HD and putting it on the dead HD. It make some nice clicking sounds but it wouldn't access the drive. I put the functional drive back together and it still works! Whew! I also tried another controller board with the same form factor. Same results. Click click click.

    So now I am eyeing the L6278 1.2 that resides on a function HD. The IC is a 44 pin quad flat pack. With the right tools I could desolder it from one board and resolder it to the other. Attempt to read my data off and then move it back again. With any luck I would have my data and the functional drive would remain functional.

    Here is a problem. I don't have a good desoldering tool and the tip on my soldering iron is not fine enough to solder a 44p QFP back on.

    I know a guy that has the skill and access to the tools to get the job done right. I will be checking into this in the next day or so. Did I mention the drive with the good IC is not in my computer. Now that is a detail not to be over looked.

    When I set out to get the solder this weekend I was planning on doing it myself, but I had forgotten how small a leads on the chip are. I know my limits. I still needed the solder though. I pretty much used up what I had building up the wiring harness for the new radio.
    [Verbose Mode Off]

    Tomorrow is a Miata day. Haven't quite gotten all the way though the U2 CD yet. And for those taking notes, when playing MP3s, the player picks up at the same point in the song as where it was when it was turned off.
    Splash Splash Splash
    We visited the neighbors pools yesterday afternoon. For reasons that I can't explain, I decided to try to do a flip into the pool. I have never tried to do this before. I was somewhat successful a few times. Mostly I just landed on my back. I suspect I would have been more successful if they had a diving board. I was just jumping from the edge of the pool. So 35 is not too old to learn new tricks.

    Jordan showed me a new trick as well. He has now conquered the deep end. No float required. And he has also learned to do a rather nice dive. Brianna still prefers a float and hanging out near the stairs.

    When the clouds rolled in we move over to our hot tub. The rain was cold and the hot tub was hot.

    Misc
    I typed up the camping experience last night. I should have it posted in another day or so. I still need to proof it and add pics.

    I asked G to dig up some old photos of the Acura yesterday. Ginger asked if I was planning on making an "I Love My Car" website. Too late for that.

    Who is sending the anonymous comments about iMike's tech support?

    Sunday, July 11, 2004

    Check out the write up of the radio install. Pictures included.

    Googlicious
    I created a replacement home page and put it online last night. Not much to look at but neither was the old one. Today while searching the web it occurred to me that even though I forgot to backup my home page, Google had done it for me. So I searched for me and selected the cached version of my page. Next I 'viewed the source' and then saved it to my harddrive. Now I just need to FTP it back to the Linux box.

    I did a writeup of the stereo install last night. I will probably post it later today after I proof read it.

    I need to make a trip to Radio Shack this afternoon. I need some soldier. More on this later.

    I have now finished 1.75 applications of stain to the cherry bed. Almost time to open up a can of satin poly.

    Saturday, July 10, 2004

    RAM92.ODS.ORG
    Ever wondered about the URL?



    I think you have had too much to drink. The picture looks fine to me.