“Zero G Puke”

Yech!

I can honestly say I’ve only ever had one person throw up in a plane while I was flying. It was while I was still taking lessons and we took a passenger along since she’d expressed an interest in checking out the flying thing.

The nice thing about air-sickness is, once you actually finish heaving, you feel fine afterward. We went out and had lunch afterward.

Now this video takes your air-sickness scenario and goes over the top. I have no idea how the camera was mounted to capture this but it is very stable.

If you’re *really* squeamish you should probably give this a pass, but otherwise it’s great for a laugh!

CautionaryTale, Acer 3680 computer. Good service, not so good reliability.

About a year ago (November 2006) I picked up a laptop for Mich from MicroCenter. The guy I usually deal with has always been trustworthy in the past so I worked with him to pick up this new machine.

I didn’t want to spend a *lot* of money on this laptop, according to Michelle her existing (200 MHz) laptop was fine. But I knew that the browsing experience on that old machine was glacial and unsatisfying. So we compromised and went for one of those “back-to-school” type of machines.

We settled on an Acer 3680 for which I also shelled out for an additional Gigabyte of memory to ensure that it would be as fast as a lower end machine could be. Al, the MicroCenter guy, practically begged me to not buy this machine. He told me the warranty was such that you needed to send it to Acer yourself if you have problems so if I *was* going to buy this box, I should at least get the extended warranty so that MicroCenter would deal with problems and the manufacturer on my behalf.

The machine was a night-and-day improvement for Michelle’s experience, nicer screen much more responsive, the new battery actually worked (the old machine was a sell-off from my old company and I got it with a pretty much dead battery… but the price was right and it was never intended to be mobile.).

Heh, it seems I should have listened to Al. The Machine’s motherboard failed sometime in late April 2007 and they were good enough to do some basic troubleshooting over the phone and quickly agree that we should ship it to them and they would replace it.

We sent off the machine in late May (hey, life happens) and they were true to their word. A few weeks later the repaired machine arrived and we were right as rain again.

Man, a couple of months ago – after one of those 2nd Tuesday M$ updates, the machine rebooted but did not come back up. Complaining about a missing hard drive – never a good sign. Using the old 1 inch drop rule the machine corrected itself but I knew this was going to grow into an issue soon. Sure enough a couple of weeks later the machine failed again. Opening and reseating the hard drive worked until the next reboot at which point NOTHING I did helped.

So the machine is winging its way back to Acer in Texas again. I’ll credit them with pretty good customer service as far as addressing these failures, but I am concerned about modestly-used hardware having so many failures. I’m more concerned about what to expect once the warranty period ends (oh.. next week).

I just wanted to toss out this cautionary missive. I cannot speak for anybody else, but I’ve personally owned 3 laptops and probably 6 or 7 desktop computers not to mention the ones that have been in my care for work and I seldom have failures. Prior to this I’ve had a video card fail on a Dell machine near the end of it’s life as my primary machine (for which their dismal customer service on a $25 part cost them my business for my next machine) and a couple of power supplies on an NEC box for which their repair and replacement service was outstanding.

But I’m not used to defective products. I own two Honda cars. A 1995 Civic and a 1997 Odyssey. I do basic routine maintenance on them, major services and such. I also make sure that their braking systems and tires are kept in top-notch condition – rule 1 for cars: always be able to stop – but for both of these vehicles the worst thing that’s happened is that one of my Odyssey electric windows (rear left passenger side) needed to be repaired. This is a level of quality that I’ve come to expect from every corner of my life and I am significantly disappointed if products do not clear that bar.

I do not repatronize merchants that do not live up to their claims or my expectations. I vote with my dollars. I am willing to pay a little more up front for less hassle down the line. And I will evangelize anybody who I feel has done right by me.

**Update** I wrote the above before sending the Acer off to Texas for repair. I just wanted to report that the machine was returned in working order (albeit with all the data and programs missing from the hard drive). So so far so good. Hopefully, if we treat the machine with especial kindness it may last through my hoped-for lifespan of 3 years…

Yippee Ki Yay! Did I mention that I’m a sucker for the “Die Hard” Movies?

Man, do I ever enjoy Bruce Willis’ John McClane character in the Die Hard movies.

This song, which I first heard probably a year or so ago, has been buzzing around in my head for a few days now. I just rented the “Live Free or Die Hard” video from Blockbuster and really expect (hope?) it will be satisfying.

Anyway, for your listening and viewing pleasure. I may have to go rent the other movies now!

Charleston, South Carolina

We’re here in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina eating breakfast at “Joseph’s”. The food portions are generous and the atmosphere convivial. There is a live band playing sax, clarinet and guitar about 15 feet from us.

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Here is a link to the growing album. I’m trying to blog more or less real-time.

We had a bit of a SNAFU when we arrived last night, they assigned us to a room that had plenty of space, but few amenities:

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There were a couple of other hiccoughs but I used the “comments” section on their internal website and the manager called us this morning to apologize and is moving us to a new room. I’ll let you know if things are great now.

Savannah, GA for Thanksgiving

We met up with the Naidus in Savannah over Thanksgiving. We spent a couple of days at the “Westin Savannah Harbor“. Hint, if you’ll be spending a lot of time in your room, shell out the extra $30 a night and get the River view. The golf course view is OK, except it’s really the “parking lot, marsh, roadway *then* golf course view”. 🙂 No worries for us since we spent so little daylight time in the room but it *does* explain why there were no images of that view on their web site.

Check out the pictures here:

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Largely the place was a ghostland for Thanksgiving. I was *very* surprised. The River Street that I was expecting is completely packed, you know tourists in the sidewalk, kids in their parent’s cars cruising up and down the boulevard. So we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Since we arrived later in the day we were looking for a place to eat right away, but most places were either closed, or their kitchens were closed.

Fortunately, a friend at work told me about

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Kevin Barry’s (Irish) Pub. They were open until the wee hours (at least *much* later than we were going to be up), but they had some great live music – Irish songs, of course.

We ended up at the Bacon Park Golf course before heading home. Not one of my best games, but I’ve been unable to practice much lately at the driving range…

Overall a great trip and a nice diversion. We only spent the Thursday and Friday there so we still had the rest of the weekend available for getting the Christmas decorations culled (still haven’t set those up yet!).

TED Talks – Jill Sobule

If you enjoyed Jill’s song you’ll probably enjoy this tongue in cheek offering from TED talks. This one about Global Warming. The first 25 seconds of TED credits are always a little much but the content of ANY TED talk is worth it. I subscribe to both the video and audio TED feeds and heartily recommend them to anybody. They cover a breadth of topics that are sure to have an appeal for anybody with an interest in anything…

Renovations – a couple of months later

Now that we’ve had a few months to live with and consider some of our renovation choices I just wanted to share some of my thoughts.

One big change that I would make is to NOT go with fitting the standalone bathtub into an alcove. Even though they offer the bead kit that will prevent water from seeping through and damaging the wall, and even though Tommy made sure that there was going to be a great seal with caulking, etc. to back that up, the fact is that the bathtub itself lacks a sufficient slope for the water to cascade down the wall and flow into the tub. Instead it tends to accumulate around the base of the wall.

After each shower we make sure to quickly wipe up the excess water to prevent mould from forming from this accumulation.

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Our toilets are GREAT, they have overcome our bungalow’s naturally sluggish sewer drainage and all perform consistently and well. However, Michelle didn’t favor the flush handles and so we installed some that protruded from the tank by a good inch or so over the original ones. This means that the toilet seat lid rests against the handle. The flush is VERY vigorous and can be felt through the handle when they are depressed. What this means is that the handles are wearing through the toilet seat lids.

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It’s gotten bad enough that, if we’re not careful, the handle can actually be held down by the friction of the toilet seat and allow the water to flow slightly after the flush. This is remedied by pulling the seat forward when flushing but these handles will need to be replaced.In designing the bed end tables, I specified that the cupbard doors open “traditionally” with the hinge on the side and the handle in the middle. I was thinking of “normal” use such as accessing the cupbard when standing in front of it. This, of course, makes it awkward to open if you’re in bed which is when you want the most convenience. So I’d have these cupbards open the other way. I may be able to swap the doors from the right and left end tables… hmmm.

I had elected to have only the heating lamp and not the fan on a timer in our master bathroom. I’ve never had a fan timer before in there and I was simply used to it. But, given the risk of mould from the water accumulation above I’d now like to put in a timer for the fan so I can have it run for an extra hour after we’re done in there, but not for the whole day. Since the fan is on a half-size switch, I need to think about a way to do it, but nothing obvious comes to mind.

I don’t think there is anything I could have done about this, but the thermo-balanced faucet does come at a water-throughput price. It’s not nearly so bad as those severly “lo-flo” fixtures but I can see that it does limit the water somewhat. I don’t have a problem conserving water (you can just look at my water bill to see that) but my morning shower isn’t a place that I wish to scrimp. I temporarily replaced the new showerhead with the one that used to be there and I could tell that there was some restriction imposed by the new head itself. This was resolved by a quick trip out to the garage and drilling out the restriction. But there is still a limitation imposed by the faucet itself that I’m willing to accept for the great temperature control features that it offers.

Aside from those trifles (the bathtub being the one that I would most caution folks about) we’re still extremely pleased with the work and the results. It wasn’t cheap, but you need to invest your time and/or your money to get what you want in life. Lacking the great amount of time it would take (and some of the requisite skills) the money trade-off was well worth it to us.

Cookie Lesson Learned

My department at work held its annual Thanksgiving potluck lunch. I decided I’d make some of my chocolate chip cookies for this event and set to work.

I’ve been tailoring this recipe for years now. When I found I was going to be a little light on the flour I rationalized that the original recipe had actually only called for exactly as much flour as I had available so I would just go with what I had.

Unfortunately, it seems some of the other “tweaks” I’ve made to the recipe over the years depend on the right proportion of flour and the dough melted rapidly and spread out on the cookie sheets. There it browned rather nicely and became somewhat crispy such that, when I tried to pull up the cookies with a spatula, the outer, crisped edges broke away. Leaving me with a bunch of soft “cookie hearts” that, while still tasting great, looked absolutely wretched.

I *was* able to salvage some cookies (they turned out OK due, presumably, to temperature differences between the upper and lower oven racks) but the vast majority I didn’t think looked very appealing (they’re in the foreground below)…

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So I ended up buying some pastries and will next time go out and get the flour when I’m low!

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Mich and I just finished watching Nova’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” on PBS.

I was very pleased to see that the ID proponents got their butts handed to them in their outrageous attempt to further dilute what is already considered to be a shaky science curriculum. We very much need to grow up, put away the fairy tales and begin to accept what life has to offer us without hiding behind our mother’s skirts.

What was very clear to me from the statements of the ID proponents was that the point of the judgment against their actions was completely lost on them. I too believe, as George W. Bush was stated to have said, that ID needs to be discussed and presented to students so that they understand these issues. But the proper forum for ID is NOT a science class. *Social Science* perhaps, for it’s relevance in society today, or mythology, for it’s quaint point of view for folks unable to grasp epochal aeons of time (check out my opinion in the 7th paragraph of this blog entry) .

I have to say that the scariest part of the show was the discussion about “The Wedge” strategy whose primary instigator seeks nothing less than a complete regression of folks’ literacy and life outlook to a more religious perspective. Let’s see… can we think of a time when that was the case?  Hmmm.. Yes, indeed, it was called “the dark ages”.