Blog Archives
Got the Jetta
Last night we took a drive past Lakeland to pickup my Jetta. We had put down some money on the car on Saturday so the seller would hold it for me. I then got money from the bank on Monday to pay the rest of the cost of the car. After a quick trip to WalMart (another story in itself), we went to pickup the car.
Its really nice and in great shape, but I am going to have a mechanic check it over on Thursday just in case. I’ll post some pictures soon…
Looking at a Jetta
I spent a lot of my weekend looking at potential cars to repalce my Miata with. I literally probably looked at hundreds of cars, listings and dealer websites in this area. I found two Jettas that I really liked which are at a dealer, and several that looked/sounded ok from the ad that were for sale privately. I am going to look at the better priced Jetta on Monday and see if it is as nice as the pictures and ad say it is. If it is, I am going to see if they will let me take it home overnight and have it looked at by a local mechanic, since its used. Hopefully I’ll be taking it home tonight and straight to a shop to be checked out. If everything is good, I may have found my car! It is super nice in the ad, the pictures look great, and its the highest end model they made in that year, has all the safety features and leather with tinted windows… I can’t wait to check it out in person.
The voice of practicality
Its taken me a while to get here, but I have something to admit. It saddens me to say this, and I can’t believe I’m actually thinking about this. Its like the voice of reason or practicality has broken thorugh my mentality about owning a 2 seater sports car in a family of 5. Yes, you got it, I am thinking of selling my Miata and getting a more “family” oriented car. I am NOT selling my Miata because I don’t like it, or I think there is anything bad about owning one, even in my family situation. I just think it would be much more practical and convenient to have a 4 door family car. I am definately going to miss the fun “zoom zoom” my Miata brought into my life. Liz and I will both miss driving it, going on dates together in it, and all the other fun things we experienced with it.
A few people who know me, know that I’ve had over 15 different vehicles in the last 12 years. So I have a bit of a record of not sticking with something for long. I assure you its not one of those “get a different car” itches. The plan right now is to get something more comfortable for the family, something we can all fit in and go on a short trip without having to take the van. It will be more economical, more practical, and will simply fit our family circumstances better than owning a 2 seater convertible.
One day, when the kids are older, I will definately get another Miata, its just too much fun not to. And for the people who scorn the Miata or men who drive them, all I can say is you must have never driven one. Or at least never ridden in one with a driver who can handle the abilities of the car. As for me, I’m sadly parting with my Miata, but will one day be driving one again.
**UPDATE**
I was talking to my wife about cars and options for replacing the Miata. My youngest daughter Abby said “Why does he want to get rid of it…I like the Miata”. It breaks the heart!
Sansa to IPOD conversion
I have been using an 8GB Sandisk Sansa for my mobile media needs…that is up until last night. I traded a new graphics tablet I bought at a CompUSA closeout for a 4GB IPOD nano with video. At first I was going to give it to Liz, but after tinkering with it for a while I decided to keep the IPOD and give her the Sansa. There are several reasons for this..
1. She won’t use the IPOD to its fullest extent (I will)
2. The Sansa has more storage space so she can put more photos on it and use it for client demos for her photography clients
3. I already have accessories she would need such as the carry case with clip so that she can take it with her more easily.
4. I would use the video playback more than she would.
So it worked out great for us both, she got a device she can use to store her favorite music, use in her photography business and its easily portable and easy to use. Plus the Sansa has a built in FM radio so she can listen out and about.
So now I have to convert all my WMA files to mp3, since some of them were DRM protected, I have to obtain the non-DRM protected versions so that I can import them into my itunes library. I use both Rhapsody and Itunes now, I think Rhapsody has a nicer interface, but itunes is definately easier to get podcasts and audiobooks, etc.
So busy!
I am normally pretty busy, but lately its just been crazy! Between some website development I’m doing in my spare time, my full time job and stuff going on with Liz and the kids; its rather hectic.
We realized the other day that our washing machine was starting to leak, so we jumped on craigslist and found a nice newer set for a great price and the guy even offered to deliver. They were dropped off yesterday, so after work I installed both a new washer and dryer and tested them out. Then it was off to web work land for me, which I got carried away with and was up way too late! I skipped my normal gym night in hopes of going tonight instead. I don’t like to mess up my schedule, but this won’t be too bad, since Liz and the kinds will be busy on thursday night, so I can go thursday after work and it won’t be a big deal.
With the web work I’m doing, I am finding all sorts of neat little tricks with flash and other cool tools. I think I am going to integrate some flash stuff on my personal sites soon, once if things slow down for me.
My IT Annaversary
I didn’t realize it until recently, but 2008 marks my 10th annaversary being in the IT industry. It just kind of snuck up on me really, but when someone asked me how long I’ve been doing what I do, I had to count twice to verify it has been 10 years.
I’m not quite sure yet how I would envision the next 10 years, since technology changes so rapidly. I will probably slow down a bit one day soon and try to map out some plans for the coming years.
It was 10 years ago now that I got my first IT job, a lowly rebate programming position using PICK. From there what I consider to be a real IT position came along where I worked kind of like an apprentice for a local IT services shop. I learend a lot from the other techs and eventually became the technician of choice for several clients. I went on to work for state and local government and to obtain my certifications in 2004 after about 6 years in the field.
Re-Connecting
Lately I’ve been trying to re-connect with some old friends, acquaintences and collegues. I have successfully re-connected with Kerry who was the first IT person I worked with when I got into the tech world. We worked on lots of stuff together, computers, running cable, climbing in attics and busting through concrete… I also got back in touch with Carol who was another of the first IT people I met when I first got into tech. We worked at the same little IT shop for over a year and did a lot of work for state and local government offices in the area.
Other contacts I’ve reached are Jim who is an IT director for my home county, and Eddie who was an intern when I worked for county government. I am still trying to hunt down the IT Director I worked for in my last county job. I haven’t been able to track down contact info for my old boss, the guy I first started working for at my first IT job, but I’ll find him eventually. I also recently talked to Jenni who was also in our IT department in my last county job. I’m still waiting on the low down on whats been going on since I’ve been gone. Also heard to Chris and a few others.
Its nice to catch up with people and see what everyone’s been doing. If you are reading this and know me or used to work with me, please leave me some comments here and re-connect!
LCARS24 – GUI replacement
For those of us who are Star Trek fans and like to tinker with LCARS software, check out LCARS24, can run on any Windows PC, and turns it into a LCARS interface.
Windows Vista Upgrade failed
Last night I was trying to upgrade to Windows Vista on my main XP computer. I was 3/4 of the way through the installer when the install screen vanished and dropped me back to the XP desktop. XP still seemed to work, and no matter what I tried, I could not get the installer to resume. I had no choice but to reboot, but what I didn’t know was that Vista had already copied over its boot files and screwed with the MBR on my hard drive. So upon reboot, I get a Vista boot loader, which goes to the setup screen, but promptly throws up an error saying (not exactly sure of wording) “Windows could not initialize the installer”. So XP was dead at this point, sure there are some ways I could have gotten it back, but I really wanted Vista to install.
I ended up using a Knoppix 4 bootable CD and using the file managers in linux to backup my data on my XP parition to a file share on a server in my network. After the backup was done, I wiped the partition and loaded the full install of Vista and installed fresh on the clean XP partition. I am not sure if I am going to go with Vista or not, so I’m installing from the media with no CD key, just to use it in eval mode. If Liz likes it and can get used to it, we might go ahead and buy the Ultimate edition upgrade. But for now we’ll give it a try and see how it goes. So far its running great on my hardware, but I’m a little disappointed with the performance rating of 3.7. I have a dual core P4 3GHz chip, 2 GB of performance DDR2 RAM, and 256MB ATI X600 PCIe video card running on a nice Abit motherboard. I was expecting to get a score near or at a 5.
Radiator install complete
On the way home Friday evening, I stopped by the local Advance Auto store and picked up some anti-freeze fluid for my new radiator. I was also going to get new radiator hoses, but they don’t carry the hoses I would need for my Miata. So I just got some shop towels and the anti-freeze. Then I ran to sweetbay and picked up some distilled water to mix with the anti-freeze.
When I got home, I got started right away on my task of replacing my radiator. It took me a while to get started, as I was trying to figure out how to get access to everything I needed to get to. At one point I thought I’d have to take off the cover under the engine compartment to get to the bottom of the radiator, but fortunatly I managed to give up on that and was able to do my job without having to remove the cover. Getting the old radiator out took me the longest time, as I had some trouble with the lower hose which seemed stuck. I finally got all the hoses and bolts and connections off the old radiator and pulled it out. I installed the fans on the new radiator and then dropped it in fairly easily. Then re-connecting a few hoses and wires and I was off and running. I ended up doing a 50/50 mix of anti-freeze and water, but only by accident. I read online that the miata radiator takes 6.7L of liquid, so I got three gallons of distilled water and a single gallon of anti-freeze. I got way too much fluid and ended up not even using a whole gallon of each type of liquid.
I took the car out for a spin and made sure there were no flow problems or overheating issues. Everything works great and it was a much easier job than I thought it would be.
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