You've probably noticed that the number of personal posts has been kind of low from me for some time now. Well, I've been kind of busy working. A typical day for me is 14-16 hours of programming, interspersed with a couple breaks for snacks, to run errands, then sleep for 6-7 hours per night to start it all over again the next day. Not exactly the most exciting thing to write about, so I've kind of kept my keyboard quiet.
But I haven't spent every waking minute in front of my computer; I flew up to Spokane last week to work up there for three days. The trip was a complete success, and I was able to add a feature to our POS system that a huge potential customer has been clamoring for for quite some time.
And prior to my trip to Spokane I spent several days prepping for last Sunday's regional stake conference broadcast by rebuilding the wireless network I setup between three local church buildings and rewiring the satellite room. Lots more time on the roof, with only a little bit of time in the attic. But this time I did got to play in the tunnels. Unfortunately I paid the price the next few days with jello legs from having to walk hunched over.
Speaking of conference, it was a pretty great meeting. And I actually got to watch almost all of it this time instead of running around between buildings fixing problems to make sure the video could be seen in all three.
TV Upgrade
One of the highlights of the last few weeks was the acquisition of a new TV for my living room. I have been using a 34" Sony CRT (tube) TV for the last two years, and it has been absolutely amazing (CRTs still have a MUCH better picture than LCDs), but I've been running into a compatibility issue between the TV and the projector I got in May. Plus I've been wanting something a little bigger anyway. While I was at Circuit City 10 days ago (looking for a projector for the regional conference, actually; not TV shopping) I noticed that the Sony 52" XBR4 LCD TV that I've been keeping my eye on for the last year was on sale, at the best price I've ever seen. It has typically been around $3500-$4000, but it was on sale for $2900. I asked the salesperson if they had any in stock, and they didn't, but they were willing to sell the floor model for $2540, which actually rang up at $2440. It was near closing and Brent and I went in his new So now I have an absolutely massive TV in my living room, and an amazing smaller 34" HDTV looking for a new home. So if you know someone who wants an amazing deal on an amazing High Definition TV, let me know.
For the techies reading this blog, the new model is Full 1080p resolution at 120Hz, and it supports true 24p, for an absolutely jawdropping picture for watching movies. If you're in the neighborhood drop by and I'll give you a demo.
Ike Hits Home
My sister Suzanne and friend Brian decided to evacuate Houston to get out of the way of Ike. Suzanne decided to visit my parents for a week to wait it out, while Brian threw his family in his RV and headed for northern Louisiana. From what I've heard, Suzanne's apartment survived unscathed, but I haven't heard the status of Brian's house yet. I can't say the same for Suzanne's employer's building; it had at least a few windows blown out by the storm. Because of the storm I'm also running some of the services that Brian provides for his customers on a computer here at my place to make sure that his customers continue to have access to their email.
Rock Band 2
Rock Band 2 is out now. Brent picked up a copy at midnight last night, and we played for a while before going to bed. It is essentially the same as Rock Band 1, with a few features added here and there. They didn't fix a couple issues I had with the first, though. You still have to play the same songs multiple times in order to get through the Tour, and it gets discouraging. Overall the guitar parts still just aren't hard enough. Brent and I 5-starred every song we played on Expert the first time through, and even had perfect scores on two songs. Shouldn't Expert be at least a little bit of a challenge?
The cool thing about RB2 though is that you can import/export almost all of the songs from RB1, and the songs you paid for with RB1 automatically show up in RB2 as well. Overall I think I like the songs that come with RB2 better than the first; but I'm still hoping that some day one of these games will focus on some of the bands I liked to listen to in high school, during the peak of the hair band era. Somehow I just don't think of Beck when I think of great guitar parts.
Nostalgia Lane
On Thursday Phyl came over and we were both hungry so we went to Pizza Factory in Provo. I had a Calzone, and it was yummy. But during dinner we were talking about TV shows coming out this fall, and I briefly mentioned that I was going to give the remake of Knight Rider a shot even though my expectations weren't that high. She gave me a blank stare, and I could tell that she hadn't ever heard of Knight Rider, not even when I mentioned David Hasselhoff. Anyway, so she would know what I was talking about we watched an episode of the show. It was the one where KITT's prototype, KARR, escapes from the laboratory. Now that's classic television. Do you know Knight Rider? And have you seen the show?
The Internet Has Changed the World
Two posts ago I ranted about a TV show I saw on Discovery Channel, and its pseudo-science being passed off as legit. Then Brad replied to my post and talked about another episode of the show that he saw on that same night. Then two posts later, someone who was actually involved in the episode that Brad saw posted a reply on my blog. If you had told me 15 years ago that someone involved in the creation of a TV show would contact me about my opinion (ok, it was Brad's opinion in this case, but that doesn't change the point) I would have never believed it. Back then you wouldn't even get a response if you asked for one, and here we got a response that we didn't even go looking for. The Internet has truly changed everything.
Excited For...
I'm excited that Heroes season 3 is starting up here in 10 days. I still think it's one of the best shows on television, even though they had to ruin season 2 because of the writer's strike.
I'm also excited for the new Zune software that is coming out on Tuesday. There are some pretty cool features coming with this update.
Don't Like Working on Sunday
I really don't enjoy having to work on Sunday; it is normally the only day I take off. But we had two Little Caesars stores with significant problems today that had to be addressed. So I had to spend three hours diagnosing problems with one store (their phone line had been cut, which caused problems with our system), then the next 3 hours fixing problems with the other store. That deserves 6 hours of not working sometime during this next week, right?
There is One More Thing
I almost forgot one of the biggest things that has happened recently. Brent bought a brand new Honda Civic a couple weeks ago. It's black, two door. But the black has a mild blue metalic flake to it that's really cool.
That's All, Folks!
I suppose I've rambled on long enough. But thanks for bearing with me through my techie posts to get to the good stuff.
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