| |
 few weeks back I posted an entry about my new lappy, with the promise of posting about the other new gear that I acquired as a result of my insurance claim. If there's silver lining in all of this, it's new toys to play with, if nothing else.
My phone, while not completely destroyed, was badly damaged in the accident, so I had it replaced with a fancy new slim one with a lot of bells and whistles my old one didn't have, most notably: stereo Bluetooth and an mp3 player.
 It has other fancy things like a camera and video recorder, but as you might expect, they're pretty much worthless. Coupled with a 4GB microSD card though, it makes a decent little music player. It even has a built-in FM transmitter so I can beam it right into a radio. Now if they will start making cell phones with fax capabilities (send a jpg/receive a jpg) I'll be a happy camper. Why don't cell phones have this yet? In the wreck, my trusty Sony headphones were destroyed. I could have replaced it with another nice set of 'phones but opted instead for a cheap Sennheiser headset...  ...and these BlueAnt headpones, that'll work with the Bluetooth in both my laptop and my phone.  The sound quality in the Sennheisers are so-so, but I wasn't expecting much out of a $17 pair of headphones. The BlueAnt's sound isn't awesome or anything, but they have good general clarity and a decent bass response. I've been using them a lot in conjunction with my phone to listen to music while painting at the candy factory. You can't see it in the photo, but it also comes with a removable mini-boom mic for telephone application. I'm not a huge fan of the "urban-style" design and they can get uncomfortale after extended use, but if you're in need of a Bluetooth stereo headset, I'd give this my personal endorsement. Finally, I lost two portable DVD players in the crash. So I got two of these bad boys:  While I think it's pretty nifty that they have docking stations for iPods, it's a worthless feature for me because I'll never own one. It does however play Divx/Xvid from disc or SD card, which was the selling point for me. It also has video/audio in jacks, making it usable as monitor for a gaming console. I got a few other things in the settlement, like a couple of power inverters and a new aircard for the laptop, but there's nothing particularly interesting to say or show about them. This was the fun stuff. Yay me!
As an update on the desktop computer: the new power supply is in (along with some new case fans and a new hard drive I snagged while at Newegg) and it's humming a long just fine. When I consider that between two desktops and two laptops currently in the house, that we have over 2 TB of storage it blows my mind. Remember when a 100MB hard drive would run you a couple hundred bucks? | |
|
 was able to salvage a good deal of my personal belongings from the wreckage of my truck, but there were a lot of electronic devices which didn't survive; most notably my Durabook laptop. It was, as usual, lying out on the bunk. I did manage to find the chassis, sans the optical drive and the lid.
 You wanna know the funny thing? It still worked! When I got home, I found an old power adapter, plugged it in and it booted right up. With a little tweaking to get the desktop onto the secondary display, I could access it all using my desktop monitor. Ultimately though, after retrieving my data from it, I decided to convert the hard disk into portable storage via a USB enclosure. I fully intended to buy another Durabook; it suited my needs fine and took quite a beating in the two years I had it. The insurance company which has my home owner's policy informed me that I could make a claim on the personal items which were damaged/lost in the accident, however, there was a $900 deductable. Ouch. On top of that, I had to purchase the items FIRST, then present the receipts for the claim. In a way, this was good - this meant that the claim was going to cover the cost of replacing the items and not some depreciated value of the items lost. However, that meant that I had to pony-up over $2,200 to replace these items so that I could file the claim. The prospect of doing that isn't really appealing when you currently have no income. Fortunately, I had about $1500 in a credit line with Newegg and $2000 with Dell, which gave me some options. I briefly considered trying Dell's solitary semi-rugged offering but decided against it since Newegg had a Durabook. I decided to sleep on it and place my order the next morning. The next morning, the Durabook had disappeared from Newegg! My next choice were some ASUS notebooks, since I knew that, while not semi-rugged, their design features included magnesium alloy lids with steel hinges. Newegg was discontinuing the A7S-A1 and had knocked several hundred bucks off the price so I got it for a song ($1250), however their usual refund policy would not be available for this product. If I didn't like it, I was going to be stuck with it. I took the leap and bought it.  For the record, I'll be the first to say that this thing is a beast. It's designed to be a desktop replacement, not for maximum portability. However, I figure that my portability largely consists of sitting in the passenger seat or bunk of my truck and that this monstrosity will give me the power and features of a desktop in my truck, contained in a single unit. Anyway, onto the specs. CPU: Intel 2 Duo Core T7300 2.0 Ghz (FSB 800Mhz, L2 Cache 4MB) RAM: 2GB DDR2 667 HD: 200GB Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8400 M (128Mb dedicated) Display: 17.1" WXGA (Wide Screen, Glossy, 1440x900) Optical: DVD Super Multi (8x DVD-RW w/ LightScribe) OS: Vista Home Premium Bell & Whistles: 5-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth 2.0, Wifi a/g/n, Gigabit LAN, Analog/Digital TV Tuner, Infrared port, Firewire port, external SATA port, 4-way speakers, 1.3mp webcam, multimedia remote control, VGA/S-Video/HDMI video-out ports, Express Card slot, 5 USB ports, full-size 88 keyboard with numpad This computer basically has everything I need built into it. With the old laptop, I had been using a combination of two different card readers, one for xD and one for SD. This card reader handles both. The TV Tuner was a selling point for me as well, I can watch TV on my laptop on the road and I can use it to convert analog video to digital and record cable television straight to my computer. After playing with the tuner a little, I'm not sure it'll be very useful on the road: Frankfort is only 20 miles from Lexington and I couldn't pickup any of the TV stations. Unless I'm in a metropolitan area, it's doubtful I'll be able to get anything with it. The 200GB internal hard drive is a godsend as well. Coupled with my portable HD, I'll have half a terabyte of storage capacity on the road with me. The extra large screen is great, too, giving me lots of room on my desktop. Considering Vista's reputation for memory overhead, the dedicated VRAM keeps all the system RAM available for Windows. This will also give me the computing power necessary to run decent games. Additionally, with the TV Tuner, I could easily hook-up a gaming console to it as well (like my PS2). Granted I've only been playing around on it for about a week, but so far, I've found Vista to be somewhat tolerable. All of its security nagging is a pain in the ass, but I can always disable that if they become too bothersome. The way in which Vista is intolerable is whenever you have to install/uninstall ANYTHING. It takes forever, however, once installed, the OS seems to be pretty stable and so far, programs have been smooth and responsive. Of course, between the Duo Core processor and the 2GB of system RAM, this is the sort of machine Vista was deisgned for; I doubt it would've run very well on the Durabook with a single core 1.8Ghz CPU and 512MB of RAM. Also, I have a reasonably clean install at this point; we'll see if I still feel the same in about 4 months or so. Coming soon: the rest of my new gear. | |
|
 elivered bright and early in Renton, Wa this morning and was unloaded quickly. We're picking up a load that's due to be ready by 16:00 about ten miles north of here and taking it to Wisconsin... by Wednesday morning. That's some hard drive'n. Hopefully it will be ready earlier than the appointed time and we can get out of the Seattle area before the evening rush hour. I'm not going anywhere right now, though, as the morning rush is still in full effect. I can see the 405 from where I'm parked and it isn't pretty.
I will definitely be stoppping in Missoula, MT on the way for some of the best tomato soup in the whole world, even if it's for breakfast.
Since blowing the radiator hose on Saturday, I haven't had to replenish the coolant. We've been in generally warmer climates than what we were experiencing in the midwest and east coast, so I'm inclined to believe it definitely had something to do with that.
Inspired by ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lossfound, who was undertaking his own OS re-install yesterday morning, I decided to tackle the one I had been contemplating, to see if it would resolve the issue with my Aircard making the laptop crash. It seems to have helped a little, but in the end, I still think it's a hardware issue. It seems that when I stick it in the slot I have to be very particular about how I put it in or else everything goes to hell. I had a similar issue with my ex-wife. Thankfully I've not had to re-install as many SO's as I have OS's.
Speaking of SO's, welfy and I have an interesting development on the domestic front. Her brother (nebreztnem) and his fiancé (smiles_sweetly) both graduated from college last spring. In the rust-belt of western Pennsylvania, job opportunities are somewhat slim. Welf and I extended an invitation to them to come stay with us a few months to check-out the job market and milieu of central Kentucky. With the state government opportunities locally, nearby cities like Louisville and Cincinnati, and the micropolitan areas of northern Kentucky and Lexington all within an hour and a half from our front porch, Frankfort is kinda ideal as base of operations. It would give them an opportunity to see if a move would suit them without the commitment of apartment leases and the hassle of moving a ton of things only to move them back if they decided to return to PA. Somewhat to our surprise, they took us up on the offer. They're planning to come down next Monday, the 19th. The plan is to disassemble the much coveted Guy Room this coming weekend when I get home. They'll essentially have the entire downstairs as their domain complete with their own bathroom. If they decide they like central Kentucky and want to stay, they'll have some time to get on their feet and find their own place.
| |
|
took the additional time-off as a sign that I should probably do something about my tooth abscess/sinusitis. Even though my puffy-ness from a couple of weeks ago has subsided, it was eventually replaced by a headache which is ever-present unless I'm constantly dosing myself with Advil. He was able to squeeze me in at 4pm yesterday to check me out and prescribe a regimen of antibiotics, decongestants, and nasal sprays to combat it. He actually praised me for waiting a few weeks to give my body a chance to fight it on its own, since I'm otherwise an amazingly healthy person. He and I seem to be of like-mind in that too many people seek to over-treat simpler maladies at the slightest sniffle. I've long believed that the current trend of the past 15 years to sanitize EVERYTHING and the over-use of antibiotics has contributed to poorer health, and has not been a benefit. Certainly appropriate steps need to be taken to prevent major outbreaks of E. Coli or salmonella, but goin' all Howard Hughes with the hypochondria and paranoia only serves to weaken the immune system. Personally, I think we're already seeing the effects of this, as its been my observation that we've become less hardy as a species. In another generation, I feel this may come to rue with a vengeance.
 ver since getting the new EVDO Aircard, after accidentally (if not somewhat gloriously) smashing my old one to bits in a laptop tumble, I've had problems with the computer halting in error while the new card has been in use. My fear is that the PCMCIA slot was damaged in the tumble and that the card is shorting somewhere when it's jostled around, yet I've never been able to discern any specific correlation to the computer-freeze and the jostling. I've found Windows XP SP2 to be a remarkably stable OS for the most part. The type of halt I get is a blank, black screen and then I have to to do a hard shutdown and reboot. In my previous experiences with this sort of halt, it's most always a hardware issue. I'm hoping that it's not, and that I just have some nasty registry problem due to the new card and it's drivers essentially being copied over the old one. I've tried numerous uninstalls/reinstalls and firmware updates to no avail. The next step is a reinstall of the OS, which frankly I'm probably due for anyway. If that doesn't fix it, I guess I'm screwed. I had hoped that there was maybe some sort of USB-to-PCMCIA solution on the market, but they seem to be very hardware specific to the card and pricey to boot. I may have to suffer through the year of frugality with the annoyance of laptop crashes. 2008 will mark my two year anniversary as a Sprint customer and should enable me to get a $150 credit toward a hardware upgrade. There is a USB version of the EVDO modem which I might have to seriously consider if my PCMCIA slot is indeed fux0red. That would probably be a more cost-effective solution than trying to repair the slot itself.
 he repairs on Sally were completed yesterday afternoon. After returning from my doctor's appointment and fetching welfy from work, I went to retrieve her and brought her back to the house. I made myself available for a load and made dinner for us and chasinghighways, who had been hanging out with me at the house for the past two days in hopes that the truck would be ready at a moment's notice. Around 9pm, I got a load assignment. We loaded in Columbus around 5am and have begun the 1,100 mile trip to Houston. It doesn' t have to be there until Monday morning, but I suspect we'll be there sometime in the middle of the night tonight. I know LARM is just as happy to be back on the road as I am. Even though he gets PAID regardless while he's in training, it's no fun sitting around when all you want to do is drive, learn, and see the country. On that note, Sally is running rather nicely and I hope that she will continue to relatively problem free for the next few months. She likes to run, and I still have a good deal of faith in her engine. Once she gets going, she has no desire to stop. I just have to make sure that the things she needs to roll are kept in good repair so she can. She's like an aging person who's still full of heart and adventure, she's just getting arthritic and needs a hip replacement every now and then.
| |
|
mused in my daily log yesterday about taking a single photo at the beginning of my day. My thinking is that I'll do it from within 50-100 feet of the truck but no more, just a daily record of where I am, visually. I know I'd never have the time or inclination to grab the photo out of the camera every.single.day and post it, so I compromised by making a deal with myself to post them weekly in my journal.
The other issue I was running into is the impractical nature of my current camera. Don't get me wrong, I love the quality and features of my Fujifilm Finepix S5100, but it doesn't serve all of my needs, largely because it is too big and bulky. I have been toying around with the idea buying a small point-and-shoot for some time now. I need something I can shove in the pockets of my cargo pants or in my coat. I need something that can ride on the dash while I'm driving. Since I've been a fan of my current Fujifilm product, I decided to go with the Finepix A700.
It's fully automated, only a 3x optical zoom, and best of all, small and cheap. When I need the extra zoom or manual settings, I still have the S5100. This is strictly for quick snapshots. I put a rush order on it with three day shipping, so hopefully I'll have it by Friday before I go back on the road next Monday.
I tried to take my first daily photo this morning with my S5100, but all my batteries were dead. Maybe I'll take one later when we stop for fuel as a substitute.
| |
|
  hile the nearly two weeks spent at home was nice, and getting to spend so much time with my dear welfy, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm glad to have the wheels back on the road. All that time, though, allowed me to work on The Guy RoomTM. It has a long way to go, but Rome wasn't built in a day. We can only hope the decadence and grandeur of The Guy RoomTM can someday give Rome a run for its money.
The basement had begun to collect all manner of clutter from its general state of non-use so I began by sorting, organizing, and finding homes for this stuff. I decided to re-arrange the futon and coffee table and put them on the opposing wall. I also finalized the piecing together of a new PC I had started building, but more on that in a bit. First things first, I got some things hung on the wall, in particular, my Black-Jesus-Hanging-Out-With-Dead-Rappers art that I bought a few weeks ago found a home beside the door leading to the garage.
At the bottom of the steps, greeting all entrants to the Domain of Dudes, is a sign that Welf got for me.
Fubu likes The Guy RoomTM, too. She hangs out with me a lot when I'm down there.
So, another thing I added to the room was a fun kitty toy dipped in catnip oils. She had a blast. ( Read more... ) | |
|
  or every gallon of diesel I purchase at the major truckstops, I get incentive points at a rate of one cent per gallon. It doesn't sound like much until you consider that I use anywhere from 500 to 1,000 gallons of diesel per week. I try to use a particular truckstop and stockpile them for a year or two and get myself something nice. Last year, I bought a year's worth of air time for this particular truckstop's WiFi service. Since acquiring the Sprint air card earlier in this year though, it's a service I don't utilize as much these days. Certainly not enough to warrant a year's subscription. So, I've been contemplating what I would spend it on this time, as I had nearly $180 of these points.
A few days ago, while on the way to Laredo, we stopped at one of these particular truckstops just outside West Memphis, Arkansas. Inside, they were advertising a sale on Sirius satellite radio equipment, along with a sign reminding that you could also purchase air time with the incentive points. I had no idea. How awesome?
I didn't act on it at the time, and pondered this while making the trip to Laredo, coming to the decision that this would indeed be the perfect thing. I had enough customer reward cash to purchase a receiver and a considerable amount of air time. With the ongoing accrual of points, I could maintain the air time just for being a loyal customer. On our return trip toward Detroit, I made it a point to stop back at this particular location just in case it was local-store special on Sirius air time. Turns out, it applies to both Sirius and XM air time. Sweet! I can't believe I had never thought of this until now.
 Bottom line: I now own an Delphi Roady XT with 6 months of XM air time and only paid $6.40 out of pocket for taxes. That's 170+ channels music, news, comedy, and information at my finger tips.
And 24 hours into it, I've been loving it. Loving it. While I'll be eternally wishing for an all psyche/garage station, I'm more than content with the variety and niche music channels. I've really been digging the old-school hiphop channel. Who's house? Run's house. As a side note, if I could travel back in time to seduce "Big Mama" era Roxanne Shante, welfy would be a lonely woman. The old-school soul, classic indie, and blues stations are fun, too. The comedy channels are a lot more eclectic than I anticipated, with a great mix of new and old material. Right now, I'm like a kid in a candy store and can't keep my hand off the remote, switching through channels going "Ooooo, The Clash!" then "Ooooo, Bill Monroe!" then "Ooooo, Big Daddy Kane!"
Yeah, loving it. | |
|
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming This cheap Dell laptop I bought a little over a year ago has taken a beating. My constant use of it, particularly in a truck which is bouncing down the interstate has taken its toll. A few months ago, I began having trouble with the monitor lid. The wire running from the body of the laptop to the lid had developed a short from the constant jarring. I discovered that the hinge cover was pinching the wire, so I broke off the hinge cover and that fixed it... for a while. The short got worse and I later resorted to rigging it with a piece of plastic strap to pull the wire away from whatever it was shorting against. I'm able to use the laptop, but the slightest movement of the machine will 'cause it to short and the computer to crash. There is no apparent way to get inside the lid where the short resides and my fear is if I go tinkering in there I may damage it beyond all hope. So I've been in the market for a laptop... a durable one. I was at first drawn to the Panasonic Toughbook line. You can drop them, spill your coffee on them and they keep running. They also come with a three year warranty. The cheapest they have in the line however is $1800... a bit more than I'm prepared to plunk down for a notebook. Then I discovered Durabook, which operates under the same principle; industrial-strength casing for laptops used in "rugged" environments.  Newegg has one at a $1050 price tag. In addition to a more durable laptop, I would be getting a considerable upgrade; 2.5 times the hard disk space, twice the memory, and a DVD writer. I'd be taking a slight hit in processor oomph but not much... and it's not like I do any super-duty computing on the road anyway. A cool grand is still a bit pricey for me, hence my hesitation, but I'm going to have to do something and soon, before my current laptop gives up the ghost. The bottom-line is, I can't be replacing laptops once a year at any price. I'm leaning toward this as a solution to that. | |
|
|
