A Mark's Life

Movie reviews

2009-01-04T12:04:00.002-06:00

Over the holiday I've had the opportunity to see a few movies and I thought I would give anyone that cares (hopefully no one) my opinion of the three I saw; Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Valkyrie.

Slumdog Millionaire is about a kid from the slums of India that somehow, without the slightest hint of a personality or on-screen presence, makes it through the tryouts for the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and makes it onto the show. He proceeds to do quite well, and the show host grows suspicious and calls in the police who proceed to question him over night, before he returns to answer the final question. It seems that his life has been full of little events that have enabled him to answer these questions, and given him the suspicion and gumption to answer the questions that he doesn't know the exact answer to. All in all, it's an OK attempt at the classic man-tries-to-do-everything-to-get-woman-to-love-him story. I would give it 2 out of 4.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about a guy that appears to have been the unfortunate recipient of the time warp caused by a clock maker that, because of the loss of his son in WWI, makes a clock to run backwards for a train station. He's born old, with all the infirmities that come with it, and slowly grows larger and younger, then smaller and younger as he ages. He eventually dies as an infant, but I was rooting for him to become an embryo. This is a total chick flick, and while I normally don't mind a good chick flick, this movie was especially boring. Like someone once said, "Not all movies can have explosions and car chases, which is why there's nudity and espionage." Unfortunately, this movie has none of that and suffers for it. I never connected with the character, so when he dies I felt nothing. The women to my sides, however, were weeping. Chick flick. I give it 1 out of 4.

Valkyrie, on the other hand, has both explosions and espionage, and is right up my alley in terms of the kind of movies that I like to watch. It's about the 15th and final attempt on Hitler's life, by some of his highest ranking soldiers. They drop a bomb off at his planning session, but due to an unfortunate change of circumstances, it doesn't kill him. During the chaos that ensues, they attempt an otherwise bloodless coupe by invoking "Valkyrie", a set of plans to be used to secure Berlin and Germany in the case of an attempt on Hitler. They use Valkyrie as a way of getting the SS out of power and themselves into power, with the idea of negotiating a peace that won't destroy Germany with the Allies once they have succeeded. Unfortunately, Hitler doesn't die, and they are all caught and executed. The part that got me choked up at the end was knowing that the only monument to German soldiers in WWII is to these soldiers, the "traitors". I definitely liked it and would give it 2.5-3 out of 4.

Health care costs

2008-12-02T17:10:00.002-06:00

In response to Ian's comments, and as a sort of "part 2" to yesterday's post, I have to agree that we're getting more and better health care today than we did 20 years ago (or probably even 10 years ago).

But that's only part of the problem with the expense of health care. The other is that it doesn't follow the laws of supply and demand, at least not in any sort of reasonable way.

How much would you pay to be healthy or out of pain? The answer for most people is "as much as it takes". It's worse than racing. There is basically no upper limit that people won't spend, and so there is no incentive to have reasonable prices, or to limit care.

A heart transplant might make sense for a 20 year old, or probably makes even more sense for a 40 year old owner of a small business, but does it make sense for a 1 year old, or a 60 year old? I know I'm callus, but kids are easy to come by (I know specific kids have priceless value to their parents, but to society, they appear to be disposable if the back alleys of any major city are used as reference), and old people are of very little use to society and present a very real drain of resources.

In times past, you had a dozen kids because more likely than not, at least half of them were going to die (and you needed your own labor pool), and old people really didn't stick around much past their useful (to society) working years. The Eskimos are said to have put their old onto ice flows when they were too big of a burden to the clan.

I'm not saying that I want to go back to those times, because I don't. What I'm trying to say is that a capitalistic society is going to have a hard time with health care. It's either priced to the point where many can't afford it, or it doesn't offer all that it can, given a price-is-no-object mentality. We seem to have gone for the price-is-no-object way of doing things, so many people can't afford it.

The politicians are trying to get more people to be able to afford it, and they think that's done with insurance, but is it really? Is socialized medicine the way to go? Maybe. Is mandatory insurance the way to go? Probably not because it doesn't address the root cause of the problem, and from my (limited) point of view, it seems to be part of the problem. It causes people to stop caring about how much something costs (never a good thing if you're trying to keep costs down) and just like in socialized countries, it seems to be causing them to have to line up for months to get service.

The delay in getting service in Massachusetts seems to be partly related to people with new insurance having long lists of saved up complaints, something that probably doesn't happen any more in socialized medicine countries, but mainly it stems from the fact that there aren't enough general practice doctors. The lack of general practice doctors seems to stem from the fact that specialized medicine pays much better. General practice doctors are only paid for 15 minute visits with patients, so they try to hustle patients in and out as fast as possible, again, probably not what people want or are expecting. Jiffy Lube spends longer working on my car.

How can we convince doctors to become primary care physicians instead of specialists? Maybe we pay them more, maybe we pay the specialists less, maybe we fill all the specialist positions so that new doctors can't find any work as specialists and have to go into general practice? I don't know, and I don't pretend to know. Knowing enough to ask the question is sometimes the best that one can be expected to know.

It's a tough problem, all I'm trying to say is that maybe we're trying to treat the symptom and not the cause; that we should put some effort into figuring out the real reason why everyone needs insurance. Insurance may be the answer, but it doesn't really seem like we've determined that it is. It seems like we're just guessing at the answer. If there's one thing I've learned from situations like these, it's that the unintended consequences will hit you hard if you don't know the root cause and don't think things through.

I'm glad the Massachusetts is having a such a hard time, because it tells us that they probably didn't do it right. If we're going to inflict this kind of plan on the other 299 million residents of the U.S.A., we might want to know what doesn't work so that we can do something different. Or at least know what we're in for.

Mandatory insurance

2008-12-01T07:15:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I heard an NPR article about how Massachusetts is coping with mandatory health insurance and the problems it's causing, primarily the lack of primary physicians.

This got me thinking, due in no small part to a book I've been reading lately, "More Sex is Safer Sex", which examines interesting topics from the point of view of an economist (supply and demand and putting the real cost on to the those that get the benefits).

It would seem to me that the problem isn't that health care is so expensive that no one can afford it and that people are going bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills and/or outrageous health insurance costs, but instead the problem is that there aren't enough doctors.

Some part of this equation is classic supply and demand, and Massachusetts' predicament shows it clearly, that there just aren't enough doctors. People with their new insurance are trying to use it, only to find that it takes them months (averaging about 4 months) to get to a primary care physician, and until that's done, they can't move forward in the health care system, so they continue to use emergency services and deal with the mess that creates.

If there were more doctors, presumably, they would be competing amongst themselves for quality and price, and driving down costs. If that was the case, then there might not be the need for insurance or complicated insurance forms that cost doctors money and all in all take 30% of every dollar spent on health care.

For every complicated problem there is a simple answer that is wrong, and this may very well be one of those answers, but I can't help but wonder if we're putting our attention in the wrong place. After all, how much use is insurance if you can't actually use it? I'd rather spend my money somewhere else.

Miata runs!

2008-04-18T11:33:00.001-05:00

It's been close to three years since I've even turned on the Miata, and last weekend I decided that was long enough.

A brief hunt for a new battery from BatteriesPlus was required. The first store I went to had one, but one of the vent tubes was broken. The next closest store was going to be closing right about when I would get there, but a quick call to them got them to agree to stay open a few extra minutes (and verified that they actually had a battery). While I was there, I picked up a replacement for the V-Strom as well (yep, I'm not driving for fun much anymore).

About a week later I actually get the time (while Sara is working late) to install the battery in the Miata (V-Strom is still waiting for a nice day) and, it runs! It took a lot of cranking, but the 3 year old gas actually burns! I let the Miata idle while I filled its four flat tires (though none of them appeared to be flat thanks to very stiff sidewalls) and I was surprised that the exhaust was clear, no smoke or anything.

The brake fluid appears to have vanished into thin air, but without any puddles, I can't be certain where it actually went. Does that stuff actually evaporate? I'm guessing not. I topped up the reservoir without checking pad thickness (it might just be all in the brake calipers and waiting to overflow when I replace the pads). Oh well, a turkey baster works well for pulling it back out again.

I think I heard a misfire or two in the few minutes it took the compressor to fill up so that I could pump up the tires, but I can't be certain. I was able to back it out of the garage, and though I have only comprehensive insurance and can't locate my '09 registration (I have it, but I think it's in the house somewhere), I decided I would give it a quick trip around the block to see how it runs.

It got me around the block, which is always a nice way to start. But it appears that there's a (big) miss at about 5k RPM, almost like fuel cutoff. I have no idea what the Link (replacement computer) is programmed for, so it could just be a configuration issue. Before the Miata went into cold storage I was working on tuning it for the newly installed wide-band O2 sensor, so this is probably just old gas and incorrect target lambda points (or maybe the boost control is messed up).

Unfortunately, the Link's keypad display was all messed up, which meant that I couldn't do any adjustments at the time. A trip to Radio Shack was necessary to pick up a soldering iron to re-do the cable connections going to the keypad before I would be able to use it again. I did that resoldering last night and verified that the keypad still works, so I have hopes for being able to get some adjustments made this weekend, and if it's nice, maybe even get in a little driving.

Then maybe I can convert the Miata to be my daily driver. But, that's a separate conversation.

Carpet tomorrow!

2008-03-24T14:44:00.001-05:00

It might be premature for a "yay!" but I'm going to give one now anyway. The carpet people called to say that their installers will be calling me tomorrow to tell me at what time tomorrow they will be over to do the carpet install.

It doesn't take very long to get bored with chipboard floors.

Let's hope they come tomorrow because we're going to take apart our bedroom and tear up the carpet tonight.

Change of scenery

2008-03-24T14:41:00.000-05:00

Today I start my work day in a new location, my front "den". I think it's supposed to be the den, at least that's what Sara and I call it. It's the room right off of the front entry which I suppose is where you usually put dens.

I'm working here because we've signed up for (and put a deposit on) new carpets which hopefully will be installed later this week. This weekend Sara and I started pulling up the carpet and pad in the upstairs rooms (all of the upstairs, and the stairs, are getting new carpet). We have just the master bedroom and the stairs left to do, which we'll do tonight or tomorrow.

In order to do my office carpet, we had to relocate my desk somewhere, and the den was available (the living room, not so much, since that's where the craft room supplies went). So, now instead of staring out the window and across the street like I usually do, I'm staring into the corner and happy that there isn't too much glare from having the monitor pointed at the windows.

Right now I'm also very glad that I got my Mac Pro with the Airport option, even though I have gigabit Ethernet in most rooms in the house, because I didn't put it in the den. After pulling up all that carpet, I didn't want to have to deal with drilling holes in walls and running cable too.

Hopefully the carpet will be in on Thursday or Friday (or maybe Saturday), because I leave for LA next Monday and return on Friday. After that I start a new job and I won't be working from home anymore (making it hard to be at home for the install).

Terrible toilets

2007-03-05T09:00:00.000-06:00

This story, like all good ones, starts in the past. This one only starts a few months in the past, so I'm not sure how good of a story it can be, but I'll try to make it interesting...

I'm a light sleeper, nearly anything wakes me up, so a number of times over the last couple of months I've woken up to the sound of the toilet stopping, mainly because the plumbing sucks and the pipes hammer quite loudly when it shuts off.

I thought it was the master bathroom's toilet, but was never able to catch it in the act. Then, last week, I heard the guest bathroom toilet running and knew I had my culprit. I checked the seal of the flapper with the body and that seemed OK. I turned off the water and came back an hour later to see the toilet bowl empty. How much water have I been wasting?!?

I go to Menards (a local Home Depot like store) and get a new flapper and body since a flapper is $4 and a new flapper and body is $2. I figure if it's just the flapper, I've got spare parts for later, or if it is as I expect, the seal of the body to the tank, I can replace that too.

Of course it's not just the flapper. I take the tank off (which is conveniently already drained), and begin to try to get the flapper body out, but it's stuck, and the rubber seal that seals the tank to the bowl is making it nearly impossible to get a wrench on the giant nut. At some point in the process of wrestling with the tank it falls, and unnoticed by me at the time, cracks. Eventually I use a screwdriver and hammer to pound the nut around and get it off. It looks like it was on so tight that it crushed and destroyed the rubber seal, which is why it was leaking. I wonder if it's been leaking for years.

It's not until I get the new unit on that I realize that the tank is cracked. I'm not going to risk putting it on, so it's off to Menards to see if I can get a replacement tank. But, none of the toilets at Menards use a three bolt mounting system, so I drive over to Home Depot and find that the Kohler toilets use the same three bolt pattern that the Sterling toilet I have uses. A new tank is $57. I figure if it doesn't fit the bowl I have, I'll come back and buy the matching Kohler bowl later.

This morning I mount the tank to the bowl and get everything nice and tight. The old hard supply line needs to bent just ever to slightly to match up with the new tank and things are looking good. A few adjustments and everything's flushing just like it should.

Then I notice the puddle below the shutoff valve. It's leaking at the valve, not at the tank. The hard line has a compression fitting on it, so I try to tighten it down a bit more, but the green corrosion on it tells me that the thing hasn't been sealing well for years, and at this point, it probably never will. I'll buy a new flexible line tonight and that should conclude my toilet troubles for this week. I hope.

Brushing cat's teeth

2007-02-28T09:40:00.000-06:00

Last week I had President's Day off, and the vet was open, so I took Lucy, my cat, to the vet to have her right eye checked out. It used to produce a yellowish weep, like the sleep you get in your eyes, but lately it looks to be irritated and producing a black dried and crusty weep. It didn't seem to be bothering her, but after a couple of months I decided it should be looked at anyway.

The short car ride over to the vet's was quite traumatic. For Lucy because she doesn't like to be in a car, and for me because her constant meowing meant a constant stream of bad, bad cat breath that had me wishing for a gas mask (or that the car was warmed up enough so that I could roll down a window).

I told the vet about the eye and the incredible bad breath. The eye was brushed aside as not an issue if it didn't appear to be causing her pain, but the breath issue was traced to a rather bad case of gingivitis and receding gums.

Lucy is scheduled to go in for some sedation dentistry next week, and I got a mini toothbrush that fits over a finger and some cat approved toothpaste to attack the problem in the mean time. I'm hoping that if I brush her teeth every night for the two weeks before the dentist that I can improve things to the point where they won't have to remove any of her teeth.

Apparently cats have a hard pallet that allows them to eat dry cat food even if they have no teeth, and Lucy appears to only be at risk of losing one molar, but all told, I'd like to try to help her keep all of her teeth.

So, every night Sara holds Lucy while I open her mouth and attempt to brush Lucy's teeth. It's not easy. First, Lucy doesn't enjoy the operation and tries to lick the toothbrush (I don't know why I even bother to put the toothpaste on it since she pretty much licks it off the second I get the brush near her mouth), then there is the fact that cat's teeth are small. With all the wriggling, the tongue action, and having my other hand in the way trying to hold open her mouth and spread apart her cheeks, I barely hit any teeth, getting mostly gums and the inside of her cheeks. I know when I've hit the sensitive gums because that's when Lucy starts to squirm and howl, and the toothbrush comes back bloody. Poor thing.

Afterwards, a handful of tarter treats, as they've come to be known, seems to make everything OK. She's back sitting in our laps within minutes of the ordeal so that gives me a little comfort.

Her breath has improved a fair amount, so I'm holding out hope that her teeth can be saved, but I'm thinking that Lucy would trade a few lost teeth for a few less teeth cleaning episodes in a heartbeat.

Finishing up the basement (sorta)

2007-02-02T09:57:00.000-06:00

Last night I put some finishing touches on the basement and it's starting to look pretty good. I finished wiring the last baseboard heater, and moved the one baseboard heater that I accidentally installed under an outlet (it can be wired from either side, so I just switched sides).

I then put up most of the rest of the baseboard moulding, and realized that I didn't buy enough. The other interesting point is that the laminate is much lower than the carpet so the interesting thing will be how to match up the moulding as it goes across the transition. It turns out that if I build up the moulding by using the flattened quarter round moulding that I'll be putting around the wet bar, everything matches up perfectly, everything looks nice, and I didn't have to rip any of the moulding.

The Legato carpet tiles that I put down look reasonable when vacuumed, but there are still a number of places that make it obvious that it's not seamless carpet. It's good enough for the workout space, and I like it enough to not be upset, but I certainly wouldn't put it anywhere else in the house.

This weekend I hope to get another stip of moulding to finish a little bit of wall, and to put down the short moulding that runs around the wet bar, and then after the Superbowl party I'll move my TV and couch downstairs and start enjoying the space.

I still have to finish the counter top on the wet bar, finish the flooring on the stairs into the basement, and figure out what I want to do with the bathroom down there, but that's not going to keep me from enjoying the space now. Yea!

Basement flooring

2007-01-26T09:29:00.000-06:00

After last week's plumbing debacle, I decided that the only thing that would make me feel better is to spend a little cash trying to get the basement prettier.  Sara and I went to Ikea and bought about 700lbs of laminate flooring (light maple colored).

This was two boxes over the limit of what would fit in the Jetta's trunk (and way over the limit of what the Jetta's springs are rated for), but we managed to get it all home without an issue.  Carrying the 25 boxes down into the basement was enough of a workout so I left them there to acclimate to the temperature and humidity of the basement for a couple of days.

Over the past three days I've been installing three or four boxes each night, which works out to about 50 square feet per hour; a solid average number for a first time installer.  I'm slightly disappointed, however, as I strive to be above average.

After a few nights, I'm through more than half of the boxes, and I appear to have covered substantially more than half of the floor.  I'm pretty sure I did the math right when figuring the area of the floor, so it's probably just an illusion (or further proof of the lack of my spacial skills).  At any rate, Ikea will take back the unopened boxes, so it's not a big deal (I just hope I haven't lost the receipt already -- I'm so bad with those).

It's pretty easy to lay, with click locks on the long edges and tongue and groove on the short edges; which is far better than some that are click lock on all four sides.  Those require you to assemble the flooring into long strips and then attempt to latch a 35' section as one unit; it's hard enough to latch a 54" section.

So far I've only screwed up two cuts, and I can probably fix them with some laminate filler.  They're on two boards that start a staggered row.  I cut from the beginning of the board, instead of the end of the board, so the cut is in the field instead of up against the wall.  I might also be able to just slide that piece out and cut a new piece the correct length and slide it back in.  That will require me to slide the entire floor to the right a few feet, which is possible since it doesn't go wall to wall (it will butt up against carpet that's yet to be laid), but I'll have to do it soon since the floor is already past the point of being able to easily move.

All in all, it's looking quite nice, it's easy to install, and I'm pretty happy with it.  Some of the edges don't fit perfectly, and it's a little too easy to hit the boards together too hard and get them to buckle a bit (which I'm hoping will go away when I put furniture down), but for $1.29 a square foot an a little bit of sweat, these sorts of things can be forgiven.

Plumbing nightmares

2007-01-25T11:18:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago I had my most serious plumbing problem of my life.  Luckily it was my house's plumbing and not my personal plumbing.

I had just come back from picking up Sara in Minneapolis because she had missed the last bus of the evening Thursday night when I pulled the stopper to drain some old dish water and nothing happened (well, actually a little water moved to the other side of the sink) and I went searching for the plunger.

I'm attempting to plunge with one hand while using the stopper to prevent the back flow from coming up the garbage disposal side and making absolutely no progress.  Sara comes down, after changing from her work clothes, and I ask her (in probably a very brisk way) to come over and help me out.  She looks as if I'm threatening to beat her with the plunger and takes a tentative step forward.  I assure it's OK, I just need her to hold onto the stopper so I can use both hands on the plunger.

I plunge to no avail, dinner is overcooking, and we call it a night.  I figure letting the clog sit for a while will help for the reattempt on Friday.

Friday evening rolls around and still plunging doesn't work, so I take the P-trap off and insert the only snake I have, a toilet snake, into the drain hoping to dislodge whatever is in there.  A little black sludge comes back, but the drain is still clogged.  I then move on to my favorite tool, a rubber bladder that connects to a garden hose that inflates with water to seal the pipe, and then sprays high pressure water to blast through the clog.  It appears to be working well, until I turn off the water, the bag deflates, and about two gallons of water comes shooting back at me, drenching me and creating quite a little lake in the kitchen.

An hour later and I've been able to create a paper-towel damn and mop up most of the water.  I decide that I need to get a real snake and head for Home Depot.  I get a 25' coiled model that lets you attach a power drill to it so you don't have to crank it by hand.  For good measure I decide to get some "10 minute drain opener".

With the snake and drill I'm still not getting anywhere, though when I force the issue I get the snake all wrapped up and nearly broken.  I bend it back into something resembling straight with a pair of pliers.  I decide to do an out flanking maneuver and go into the basement and snake upwards towards the clog.  I get about 23' of my snake into the drain pipe, but can't clear anything and can't find any evidence of a clog either.  However, I determine that pulling all the snake out of the housing means that you have to disassemble the housing to get the snake back in.

I notice that the cold air intake, which is (slightly) insulated, runs right along side the kitchen drain pipe over the top of the now finished basement ceiling and Sara's questions of whether or not the pipe froze seem much more on target.  In my heart of hearts, refuse to believe her.

But I try using hot water with my pressurized bladder, deciding to hook it up to the powder room's faucet so I can run the water until it's good and hot.  However, in attempting to remove the aerator from the faucet so I can screw in the garden hose adapter, I realize that the aerator is corroded on as I twist the soft copper internals of the faucet into a pretzel.  I put the garbage can under the open kitchen drain and run the hot until I get nice and hot water and then attempt to not repeat my previous experience.  This time I'm able to get the garbage can under the pipe as a gallon of hot water shoots back at me.

I pour in the "10 minute drain opener" and wait half an hour.  I snake some more.  Finally around 11pm I give up and decide to go to bed, but before I do, I reassemble the drain and pour about a cup of salt down the drain hoping that will melt any ice that might be in there, but still convinced that it wouldn't have frozen unless there was a clog in there to prevent the water from draining in the first place.

Saturday morning I wake at about 6:30am and begin to boil water to throw down the still clogged drain.  I pour an entire bottle of salt into the boiling water for good measure.  I pour the water into the sink and watch it go nowhere.  Then, suddenly, it starts to drain!  Into the cabinet!  A giant bowl under the trap and a quick glance shows that the metal sink and the plastic drain pipe no longer fit tightly under such thermal stress.  Great.  Now we wait for the water to cool.

More snaking.  I give up and tell Sara to call a plumber.  At this point I want to have nothing to do with the sink anymore.  Plumber shows up, takes a look around, goes into the basement and remarks about how stupid it is to run the drain next to the cold air intake for the furnace, and even dumber to run it over the basement since it's nearly impossible to get the required slope in such a shallow rafter bay, and then he gets out the big snake and tries to snake down from the kitchen.  He pulls his snake out and says it's hitting ice.  He tries again but can't bust through.

"It's going to get expensive." is his next comment.  However, he tells us what he would do and offers us the chance to try it ourselves.  If that doesn't work, he'll come back and completely rearrange our plumbing to prevent this problem in the future.  I pay him $125 for a few minutes work and for advice that I didn't want to hear and send him on his way.

I then disconnect the dishwasher, and pull it out so I can cut a large hole in the drywall behind it to get at the T connection that's the drain and vent pipe.  We then shove a hair dryer on max into the space, below the T and wait for it to do it's magic.  I decide to go to Home Depot to get a union so I can patch the pipe if I decide that I need to cut in to it if the hair dryer doesn't work.  When I get back from Home Depot the hair dryer is making a sound like it's going into some sort of thermal protection mode, and it smells funny too.  The pipe is clearly hot to the touch, but it still not draining (as I discover when I pour some water down it and it comes back up the disconnected dishwasher connection).

I cut into the vent pipe, above the T so I can get a nice straight run to the elbow that's below the floor and is probably frozen.  At first nothing happens, but after about 30 seconds of spinning the snake I suddenly get no resistance and I proceed to shove about 20' of snake down the pipe.  It all comes back perfectly clean.  There was never any clog in there.

It appears that the drain froze at about ground level as it makes it's 90 bend to go over the basement.  The guess is that condensation from sewer gasses froze and slowly built up.  I guess that means we don't use our sink enough.

The question is what to do about it now?  Put a vent in the ceiling to let warm air get into that space?  I already filled it with insulation (for sound deadening) when I put the drywall up.  Maybe it's just a fluke because it's been cold and we've had no snow.  At least now I have a union in the pipe so I can snake it easily if I need to.

Xbox 360 vs. Sony PS3

2006-12-31T12:29:00.000-06:00

The first week of December I decided to get a Xbox 360 and HD DVD drive because MicroCenter had them on sale with a $100 rebate, and I have been wanting a high-def DVD solution for quite some time. I decided to get the Xbox 360 Pro system because it came with component cables that would cost $40 if I bought the Core system. The included hard drive and wireless controller were a bit of an up sell since I didn't need them (I thought), but I'm glad I decided to get them.

The Xbox 360 was immediately useful after getting it out of the box. The Xbox 360 works as a Media Center Extender right out of the box so I could watch TV streamed from my Media Center PC, and the HD DVD drive came with the movie King Kong and a remote that works with Media Center Extender to turn the Xbox into a nice way to watch TV. The included hard drive even came with some demo games. All in all, I am very pleased with the Xbox 360 and its out-of-box experience.

The Sony PS3, on the other hand, has a painful out-of-box experience. I got one the other day when I stopped in to get some of my favorite popcorn, and a movie, at Hollywood video. Their attached Game Crazy store had just received two 60GB units about an hour before and the salesman told me I was the first adult to walk into the store. Lucky me, I got it for MSRP. :-)

After getting it home and unpacking it, I realized that they no longer come with the Blu-Ray movie "Talladega Nights" and even though it has a 60GB drive, it doesn't come with any demo games. It doesn't even come with an HD cable, so it's connected to my TV via a composite cable. Composite!?! The top of line "next generation" game machine that's being sold as "High Definition gaming" comes with the worst possible video connection. On top of that, the wireless controller uses rechargeable batteries, which of course, come mostly discharged, so you are forced to use the measly 4' USB cable with the controller. And, to make matters worse, the batteries are only charged when the PS3 is on (I was hoping they would charge if it is just plugged in). Sitting that close to my 55" TV is a bit of a neck strain. The 360 also has wireless controllers, but they supply two Energizer AA batteries (offering a rechargeable pack if you're so inclined, or allowing you to use your own rechargeable AA batteries), so their controller works at a reasonable distance right out of the box. Once again, a better out-of-box experience.

Without any games, the PS3 will let you surf the web, but without a USB keyboard or mouse (which I don't have in my living room), it's not a very pleasing experience (entering a web address is excruciatingly slow and navigating at TV resolutions means lots of scrolling).

A day later I got Tiger Woods golf because all of my PS2 games (both of them actually, Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution) use custom controllers, and there isn't a backwards compatible connection on the PS3 to plug those in (or as far as I can tell, even a Sony branded converter). Tiger Woods Golf looks like it might be a nice game (I got it because Sara thought she might like it, not because I suddenly started liking golf), but the 480i SD TV connection offered by the composite video cable is not doing the PS3 any favors.

By contrast, the Xbox 360 actually up-samples and anti-aliases old Xbox games (I bought a used copy of Colin McRae Rally 04 for $8 at Game Stop last week) to full 720p HD TV resolution, and they look great. I'm glad I got that hard drive for the Xbox 360 since it's required to run original Xbox games, like Colin McRae.

All in all, I would have to say that the Xbox 360 has left me with a very positive feeling regarding Microsoft, and the PS3 has left me with a very negative feeling regarding Sony (which really just builds on a previously held poor opinion of Sony). If I can only find a HD cable for the PS3 (they're not in stock anywhere locally), perhaps my opinion of the Ps3 will change.

Excitement

2006-09-25T10:28:00.000-05:00

Wow, it seems like forever since I've posted anything to my blog, but it's only been three months. I guess not much really interesting has happened. Is my life really that boring? I'm preparing for a wedding, which is to say that I'm sitting back and making my wife-to-be do all the work because I don't want to get anything wrong, but that's not really all that exciting. I am looking forward to seeing all my friends again, but as far as I'm concerned, I already feel married so that day isn't much more than paper work in my mind (I know, not terribly romantic, but hey, I'm a guy, it's my nature).

The only thing that has been of much "excitement" lately was that I almost burnt down my second (detached) garage. On Saturday I turned on the lights to look for a tool and one of the ballasts in one of the fluorescent lights hummed loudly, then popped, then burst into flames which went shooting out and along the ceiling for a few inches. I quickly rushed to turn off the lights and then ran into the house to get the fire extinguisher as smoke oozed out of the light fixture.

After returning with the fire extinguisher, and being relieved that there was no fire, I examined the inside of the fixture to find that it had been wired in a most unworkman like manner. No ground wires, wires that were too long, wires that were too short, loose wire nuts, and no strain reliefs for the wires coming into the fixtures.

The ballast appeared to be something out of the 1960's, perhaps procured from a local dumpster. It doesn't surprise me, since the previous owner appeared to be the "resourceful" type.

Now I have to figure out what to do about it. I certainly need to do some rewiring of the fixture, if not all of them. I think I can get to the wires above it from the attic space, but if the ground wire is cut off everywhere that might mean rewiring the entire lighting of the garage, which would be no small feat. I found replacement ballasts in the attic, but I'm not sure that I want to use those as they appear to be roughly identical to the flaming one, so I'll probably try to buy a new one, or ten (there are a lot of lights in that garage). All in all, more work that I have to do. That's the problem with owning a house, the work never ends.

Bad driving

2006-06-19T13:22:00.000-05:00

Sorry to the few people that read this blog, it's been way too long since I've updated it. I've been busy, though not a lot of it was noteworthy.

I've been noticing some pretty bad driving lately and thought I'd share.

One of the reasons why I won't bicycle to work; the guy in front of me the other day came within inches of taking out a mailbox on the side of the road, on the far side of at least six feet of shoulder, when he leaned down to pick up something while traveling at 60mph.

The next day, the cement truck in front of me was forced off the road, and I quickly followed him, as a car crossed over the double yellow line and headed right for us. The driver appeared to just not be paying attention.

A coworker's wife just got rear ended by a driver accelerating into her when the light turned green for a different lane of traffic. I'm really not a fan of the drivers in the Midwest, though people say that Minnesota drivers are particularly bad.

On the lighter side, I saw a car from Rhode Island with the license plate "IQ 110". Seriously? I'm hoping that Rhode Island's license plate format is two letters followed by three numbers, but even still, I'd hope that they would have left out the "IQ" series, or at least started it at 200.

Working in the basement

2006-05-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

This weekend Mom and I spent some quality time in the basement getting "that" much closer to being finished.

The first day was spent trying to pull the 10-3 (10 gauge, 3 wire w/ground) cable for the 240v electric baseboard heaters from the basement into the garage, where the main panel is. This wouldn't have taken entire day except for the fact that the wall that I have to pull the wire through is full of the 1-1/2 inch ABS plastic pipe that the previous owner put in while the house was being constructed thinking that it would make it easier to pull new wire into the basement. The only problem is that you can't pull wire through the pipe given the two 90 degree bends it makes in less than 6 inches. I imagine that the one wire that was in there was put in while he pipe apart since I couldn't even get my fishing tape through the pipe.

The only solution was to remove the pipe, or more accurately the two 90 degree bends, so that I could run the wire through the hole where the pipe used to be. This required about 2.5 hours of cutting, twisting, nipping, and Dremeling, all through a small hole in the drywall while standing at the top of a ladder and trying not to damage the one good wire inside of the pipe. I finally got the pipe out with the wire intact, but it was serious work and it tore up pretty much every knuckle on my hands. I was exhausted from the work and decided to call it a day.

The next day I took it slow, but I was able to get speaker wire pulled for the rear speakers, a 1/2" soft copper gas line run in the soffit space, and the soffit finished.

While finishing the soffit I managed to shoot myself in the left thumb with the air nailer. Luckily my hand was about a foot away from the air nailer when it happened, so it was more like hitting the knuckle on your thumb as hard as you possibly could, instead of the more painful option of driving a nail through my thumb.

The problem with the air nailer is that while working in awkward locations, if you push the nailer too hard after pulling the trigger, you'll push the nailer back onto the wood after the recoil, but before you can release the trigger. Since the nailer cycles automatically, and quickly, this leads to double nailing as the trigger is down and the tip is depressed when it hits the wood again. The secret to preventing this is to have a light touch on the nailer. But in awkward locations, that's sometimes hard to do. In this case, the tip pushed against the wood just enough to activate, but not enough to cover the nail hole. The nail came flying out at an alarming rate of speed and my hand just happened to be "down range".

The thumb is fine, stiff, and has just a small cut, belying the true violence of the event. I was only a few boards from being done with the soffit, so I pushed on through the pain while the thumb was still usable. Today it's quite stiff and I doubt I could pinch an ant between my thumb and forefinger today. It's not swollen, however, so I imagine that nothing's broken.

All that I think to do in the basement is to put in the return air ducts in the return air plenum, wire up the boxes for the electric baseboard heaters, wire up the thermostat for the baseboard heaters, run a flexible gas line from the upstairs into the basement to connect with the soft copper line, and put in some insulation in ceiling to help deaden the sound from the basement. I'm sure there's something else I'll think to do before drywall, but it looks like I've got only about another weekend's worth of work (assuming I don't remember something major). Yea!

South Dakota

2006-05-01T09:53:00.000-05:00

This weekend Sara and I took the Jetta down to South Dakota for her brother's Confirmation. It's a long drive, over 350 miles, and the Jetta TDI delivered nearly 39mpg even though our average speed was over 75mph. It was raining the entire way there, and most of the way back. There were some points where the rain was so fierce that I really wanted a third, faster, speed for the wipers. Passing 18-wheelers at some points was really taking your life into your own hands. The spray from their wheels was nearly impenetrable and they always seemed to edge into our lane at that point (it was quite windy).

We only had to fill up the tank at the beginning of the trip and about a hundred miles into the return trip. However, after over ten hours of sitting in a car seat over two days, not to mention sleeping on a hotel bed, I'm pretty sore and rather sleep deprived.

At this point I'm hoping that I'll a few weekends at home to myself so that I can finish up the basement. The biggest remaining task is to put in the return air ducting. I'm not sure how I'll do that. I can either cut into the main plenum with the vent and put it in the soffit, or I can put some ducting into the wall and run that into the return plenum inside the soffit. Just putting the ducting into the main plenum seems the easiest thing to do, so I'll first verify if that's allowable or not. I'm hoping it is. Once that's done, I bet I can finish up the rest of the work and be ready for drywall by July (though I'm shooting for June).

TV feature I won't be looking for!

2006-04-19T16:20:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon this link to a website talking about new patents.

Philips has submitted a patent that would allow digital cable boxes (of the type primarily used in Europe) to prevent you from skipping commercials by changing the channel during a live program, or fast forwarding it if it was recorded. Alternately, you could pay a fee to be able to skip the commercial (Pay per skip?).

It was interesting to note that they thought there might be significant consumer resentment. You think?

Getting a new car

2006-04-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months Sara has been lamenting her '92 Buick's lack of good gas mileage and the fact that it has over 209,000 miles on it and in general is the source of a lot of worry for her (overheats, minor stuff doesn't work, etc).

Toyota was advertising a sale on their cars and a Corolla seemed like a good fit for Sara. The Honda Civic was also in the running. Her main criteria was gas mileage, but I wanted her to have ABS (not standard on the Corolla) and lots of airbags would be nice too. On her wish list was heated seats and a sunroof (the time she'd spent in the Focus, which has heated seats and a sunroof, had really made an impression on her).

The idea of Biodiesel had been thrown around by me, and I think a few of her friends as well, so I also wanted to look for a Golf since they used to come with diesel engines. The local dealer said that there were no more diesel Golfs (though I found some on the web inventory at another local dealer) but they had a bunch of diesel Jettas. I took a 5 speed (manual) out for a spin.

With only 100hp it's not fast, but with 177lb-ft of torque (it's max) at 1800prm, it will easily spin its wheels on our sandy roads as you leave the stop lights. For about $24k it had all the features that we said we wanted, though it was more than I was wanting to spend (but that's pretty much always the case, isn't it?).

I had been approved for a "blank check" loan for 5.95% from Capital One for $20k already, but a quick call to them the next day got them to up the limit to $27k. I figured that I didn't want to spend that much, but I had better be ready to, just in case the Jetta proved to be the car Sara really wanted.

On Saturday Sara and I went back to the Volkswagen dealer so she could check out the car. I took out the stick, and after getting it to a less populated area switched with Sara so she could drive it. It's been a while since she has driven a manual, and with the salesman in the back and a brand new car under her, she had a very rough time driving it. As much as I hate to think of it, it seems the 6-speed automatic would be the way to go.

Unsure if we really wanted to spend that kind of money, we tested a Corolla. While it was a little faster, it gets a little worse gas mileage, it doesn't handle as well, and it didn't have nearly as many features (safety or otherwise). It is about $6k less, however.

We never did test that Civic, figuring it wasn't going to be much different from the Corolla and even if it was, it wasn't going to be as great as the Jetta which competes favorably with sedans in the $30k price range. Plus, I think Hondas are a bit over rated at this point.

After haggling with the professional saleman, I had gotten him down to invoice price (which was after he gave me the song and dance about "How much profit do you think is fair for me?") but his manager wouldn't go for it. The diesel is in too high of a demand, now, for him to let it go at invoice (where they still make a fair amount of profit apparently), so we got it for $250 over invoice. Of course they "lied" when they said that they actually had the color that we wanted in stock.

Sara wasn't too happy about the experience of haggling with a professional. The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde transformation really caught her off guard. At one point she wanted to leave, protesting "They've turned mean!" Eventually we got them being nice again, by me fumbling with my calculator, pointing out that I am willing to pay sticker price on a car when it's truly warranted (I paid sticker for my Lightning and I was happy to do so) and Sara commenting about how we hadn't really seen many other cars, so maybe we should go and compare other cars. We didn't actually have to get up and walk, but it was close.

Tomorrow we should be able to pick up our car, assuming that they can do the dealer transfer. Looks like insurance will be less than the Civic or Corolla too, so that's a bonus. Now to check into biodiesel...

Wedding Ceremony vs. Wedding Mass

2006-04-03T13:49:00.000-05:00

This Saturday Sara and I went to a briefing at the Cathedral (along with ten other couples) to find out the ins and outs about having a wedding at the Cathedral.

We were given a brief lecture from a priest about the sacrament of marriage and how it is a reflection of God's love for Israel (so what you're really trying to tell me is that my getting hitched has something to do with world piece?) and how the gays and Mormons have perverted the whole thing. Yeah, whatever, bite tongue, please move along...

Then we got a brief lecture about the whole process and were informed, much to my pleasure, that we have the option of a "Wedding Ceremony" instead of a "Wedding Mass". This means that there will be much less religion in the ceremony and no Communion. That should make my side of the isle breathe a collective sigh of relief. Sara thought her side of the family might have a problem with this, but parents didn't have any objections at all. Whew.

Finally, we were given a FOCCUS test which is supposed to tell us all about ourselves, and I suppose let us know our likelihood of getting divorced (or actually, annulled since divorce isn't allowed). The test was off to a bad start in my book because it asks for you to put down your current relationship state, listing single, married, divorced, widowed, seeking validation, and a few others. None of them were "engaged", so I voiced the question that everyone else was too afraid to ask. "What do I put down for my status? Am I seeking validation?" "Seeking validation" seemed a whole lot like what I was doing here.

The blunt answer came back that "you're single". Funny, don't feel single. The lady to my right informed me that "seeking validation" is for people that were married outside of the church and were looking to have their marriage recognized. Ah.

The next interesting bit of the front page was the question of "how long have you been courting?" which I took to be about 6 months since that's how long we were dating before I asked Sara to marry me. Sara put down 10 since apparently she thinks being engaged is some form of courtship.

I asked, "Are you planning on leaving me?"

"No.", she replied.

"Then we're not courting."

Oh well. Not as bad as the lady to my right that needed to do math to figure out how long they had been courting. When her fiancee asked what she was scribbling, she said she needed to calculate the number, and that she needed another box (there were only two) since they had been "courting" for 106 months. He responded, with not much love in his voice, "I don't think that we needed to inform the entire room of that fact." Whoa there big guy, nothing to get riled up about. Another lady giggled and said that they needed three digits too. I suggested that "99 will be just fine."

So, the first meeting with the church went well. I didn't burst into flames when I walked through the door, and I managed not to insert my foot in my mouth, even if it was because I had to clench my teeth though a lot of it.

Snowin' snowin' snowin'...

2006-03-16T11:19:00.000-06:00

It's snowed a lot this week. Monday most people decided to just call off their day due to the snow. The Minneapolis Twin Cities area got a fair amount of snow (6 to 18 inches, I got about 12 inches), concentrated during the morning rush hour and the plows just couldn't keep up. The morning news was full of spin outs and buses stuck in the snow.

I got up at 7am and started to snow-throw my driveway and sidewalk. It was the thick heavy snow that sticks to everything (including the sides of buildings and cars -- looked like the town had been attacked with papier mache) and that thrower can't throw quite as far. The wind had driven the snow to well over a foot in some places -- taller than my thrower. And the wind was still blowing at quite a clip (about 10mph), creating deep drifts and making throwing snow in the wrong direction a cold and unpleasant experience.

It had started to snow late the previous night and there was probably about 6" of snow on the ground and in the street (not counting the drifts). It took me over an hour of hard work with the thrower to clear the snow. While I was out there I watched a van get stuck on my street and decided that I would wait until the plow came by before trying to leave for work.

I got back in the house and was able to take a shower before the power went out. The unfortunate side effect of having an on-demand hot water heater is that if the power goes out, so does the hot water (my unit has a computer to control the burner and input and output water valves, not to mention a fan to assist in combustion).

Unfortunately, Sara was in the shower when the power went out. I quickly ran downstairs to get the UPS from the computer and plug it into the water heater (in the dark, the spark told me I had plugged it into the right outlet in the UPS!), but Sara wasn't patient enough (the heater apparently takes a while to reboot before it will deliver hot water) turning off the hot water just as the burner turned on. She said that she got her hair clean before the water went too cold. It's a good thing to know though, that you can at least finish a shower if the power goes off.

I didn't have enough UPSes to do actual work though, so for the 2+ hours that the power was off, I read a book. At least the stove is gas and I can light it with a match, so I was able to do a late breakfast without a problem.

Once the power was back, I worked from home while the snow continued to pour down. At about 1pm the street plow came by and at about 2pm the sidewalk plow came by. I could see that the snow was pretty thick, but it wasn't snowing much anymore. The neighbor's driveway was nice and clean, so I decided I should get mine in order as well.

I started to shovel the snow from the garage door, but it was just too heavy to move with a shovel, so I went back to snow thrower. This time the drifts were bigger (up to my knee), and the wind was worse. I could only attack small sections of the snow at once, and it wasn't making it off the driveway, which meant that by the time I got to the other side, I would be moving twice as much snow. I just kept slamming the snow thrower into the snow, and while it nearly stalled a hundred times, it managed to mostly clear the snow. I then went back with the shovel to get the bits of snow that thrower left behind.

All told, that took me over two hours, and none of it was easy. My back was definitely feeling it, and I knew that the next few days were going to be painful.

Around 5pm the street plow came back again. This time going so fast that he nearly completely covered the sidewalk with thick, compacted, snow and managed to even get some snow onto my lawn! Another hour of shoveling to clear the sidewalk and driveway apron of the heavy sticky snow (a small shovel full weighed at least 50lbs). I was also nice enough to clear most of the corner of sidewalk/street where the snow pushed by the plow and was up to my waist.

Today, Thursday, we got another 6 inches of snow. Luckily this was the lighter, fluffy variety that's easier to shovel. However, the ground is much colder now, so it doesn't release from the pavement as nicely as it did on Monday. I shoveled for an hour this morning, but used the snow thrower on the driveway apron where the plow had pushed it so high and hard that I really couldn't shovel it in a reasonable amount of time.

Traffic wasn't nearly as bad today and I was able to get into work at my normal time. It's still snowing, however, so there will be plenty to shovel when I get home today too.

I love winter! It's good exercise. ;-)

Wedding photo idea

2006-03-15T20:35:00.000-06:00

So I had an idea yesterday, while going over the budget for the wedding...

Everyone talks about getting a bunch of disposable cameras instead of a photographer (because they are damn expensive), and I was momentarily thinking the same thing, but then I came up with a twist.

What if we got four or five quality digital cameras (like a Canon Rebel XT or Nikon D50)? We would hand them out before hand (and probably have to give brief lessons) and have a few people use them to take photos during the wedding and at the reception. I imagine that the quality of the photos would be no worse than a disposable camera, and hopefully they would be quite a bit better. The twist is, at the end of the evening we would raffle them off (all but one, I want one for myself) for $25 a ticket.

Five Rebel XT cameras or seven Nikon D50 cameras would cost about the same as hiring the professional photographers that we've been interviewing. With about 150 guests, if everyone buys a ticket at $25 each, all of the cameras are basically paid for (and I get one for free!). If only 4 people buy tickets, then I'm no worse off (monetarily) than if I had hired a professional photographer. Any other number of tickets and I'm ahead (fewer and I e-bay the extra cameras, and more and I have at least a little cash to offset the expense).

Seems like a reasonable, if not ecstatically cool, plan to me. It has basically no downside (since you can often get really lousy pictures even with a professional photographer). And it has the upside that four to six guests would be very happy at the end of the night. Sara doesn't like the idea of selling tickets at our wedding, and I can understand that, but I still think it's great idea. I'll probably be soliciting opinions on this, so don't be surprised if I bring it up in conversation. :-)

Arrested for wearing a T-shirt

2006-02-02T15:56:00.000-06:00

It's been bugging me a while and I had to just get some thoughts down on...

I'm wondering why the people charged with protecting our Constitution don't seem to agree with it or even do much to protect it when they don't agree with those who are doing the talking.

We've all heard about the people that are denied access to Presidential campaign speeches because they're not one of the faithful, that that's shameful enough. But, when people get arrested for the t-shirt that they are wearing, haven't we crossed some sort of line that leads us away from "free speech" towards "totalitarian regime"?

Cindy Sheehan gets arrested for wearing a t-shirt that has printed on it the number of US soldiers dead in Iraq to the State of the Union address. While I could see her being escorted from the building if she was also making a scene about it, arresting her for wearing a t-shirt seems a bit totalitarian to me. What part of free speech and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances don't they get? I mean, come on, it's the #1 Amendment to Constitution (see billofrights.org for a refresher course, if you need one). Did they not even bother to read it half way?

Of course all charges were subsequently dropped, but they never should have been filed in the first place! The government is supposed to work for us, not against us. It has unlimited funds and time, and the average innocent citizen just can't stand up against that sort of power.

I also wonder about this guy arrested for wearing a "Give Peace a Chance" t-shirt at the mall that sold it to him. I don't know where that stands legally, but it does make me think that people need to lighten up a bit.

Remember, free speech means letting someone shout at the top of their lungs ideas that you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. It doesn't mean that you get to throw those people that you don't agree with in jail.

Wedding plans

2006-01-22T21:54:00.000-06:00

I hadn't posted anything about Sara's and my engagement because I wanted to be able to tell everyone in person first. I've mostly done that now, and if I haven't told you in person, well, sorry.

We got engaged back in November, actually on my birthday. I asked her to be my birthday present, which I thought was better than asking on Christmas or Valentine's Day, and only slightly more cheesy.

Ever since then, the wedding plans have been the 400lb gorilla in the room that no one wants to confront. We talked about it a little, but with very different ideas of we each want we hadn't made much forward progress.

Sara wants a big church wedding (preferably in the Saint Paul Cathedral) to make her parents happy. I want something small and informal, preferably a destination wedding, because I detest pomp and circumstance and don't really like being the center of attention. Not being a practicing Catholic makes me an unlikely candidate for the Cathedral too, but I figured I would jump through whatever hoops they would require to get back in their good graces in time for a big wedding.

We booked a local mansion, Cedarhurst, that does outdoor weddings and receptions and thought we were well on our way, but the realization of the expense of the whole undertaking kept weighing on me, though I tried not to show it. I know that Sara was concerned about it as well, and she tried to calm my fears by saying that her parents would pay for some of the wedding.

A week after putting our deposit down at Cedarhurst we had a long talk about what we each wanted from the wedding, what our parents might want, and what we were willing to settle for. In the end, we decided that a small destination wedding was the way to go, both in terms of cost, and in terms of a ceremony that we both could live with. Hopefully her parents will understand and won't hold it against me.

So, our Oct. 14th wedding is off (which is good because it wasn't looking like we were going to get the Cathedral -- it's a solemnity day and they might not be able to have a wedding that day anyway) and we're now going to be planning the wedding I've always dreamed of -- something informal on a beach in the tropics. Maybe I'll even get a steel drum to play...

Holidays in NYC

2006-01-04T10:54:00.000-06:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, I've been quite busy lately (though none of it was really interesting).

The week before Christmas Sara and I took an early flight to JFK to visit with my dad and his third wife, Karen, at one of his time share condos in Manhattan (across from Carnegie Hall). Unfortunately, this was the first day of the Metro Transit strike so the normally hour long ride took nearly three hours and we arrived in the lobby just when dad and Karen had given up hope of us arriving in time to see the show at Radio City. We gave our bags to the bellman and were off to walk the 5 blocks to Radio City. We made it with about 10 minutes to spare.

The show was their usual Christmas Spectacular, though from the way-back seats, it's not so spectacular. I was glad that we were behind the artificial snow so none of it landed on us, but the view was about what I would see on my 55" TV.

The next day we were limited in our travels because of the metro strike and Karen's artificial hip, we wandered around in a very small area, staying near 5th Ave and Broadway. The Christmas shopping rush was in full swing and I was almost able to buy the perfume my mom wanted at the Bulgari shop on 5th Avenue, but they were sold out.

That night we saw "The Producers" the movie which everyone but me loved. I'm not a fan of musicals, but it was OK.

On the third, and last day, of our trip, Dad, Sara and I wandered down to Rockefeller Center to see the rink and tall tree. The murals inside Rockefeller Plaza were quite interesting, but unfortunately we entered from the wrong entrance and read them backwards; giving the impression that a mighty civilization had deteriorated in a simple agrarian society.

Dad and Karen drove us to Grand Central Station so we could get the bus back to the airport. The transit strike had just ended an hour before, but that didn't do anything to help traffic. It was worse than ever with people trying to leave town for the Christmas weekend. They dropped us off at about 4pm for our 7:15pm flight. We stood in line for about 20 minutes before we got on a bus and went nowhere fast. At one point a lady walked into traffic, and with a heavy French accent asked if we could take her to JFK because she was late for her flight. Our bus driver informed her that he had no empty seats and she would need to buy a ticket across from Grand Central.

When our bus finally got to our terminal at 6:45pm we were sure that if we made our flight it would be as the doors were closing. Luckily no one was in line to get a boarding pass (though one lady cut in front of us saying that she had a 7:15 flight, we got the next agent because we were closer to that agent). There was basically no line for security (the Delta terminal) and our gate was #1, so we didn't have an issue getting to the gate a little before 7pm. And, lucky for us, the flight was delayed an hour.

Leaving the Minneapolis airport was almost as exciting as at 11:30pm the credit card reader that figures out how long you've been parked didn't want to read my card. I must have inserted and removed my card 50 times before Sara suggested that we just back up and try a different reader (my card is constantly giving me grief, time for a replacement). Thankfully the second reader read my card on the first try and we were gone. I didn't relish the thought of trying to find someone to let us out at 11:30pm on Dec 22nd.

Moving Sara

2005-12-28T17:26:00.000-06:00

Saturday the 17th, a coworker, Sean, and I moved most of Sara's belongings from her downtown St. Paul apartment to my house in Cottage Grove. Luckily the snow of the past few days had stopped, though the high for the day wasn't likely to make it far into the double digits.

Renting the U-Haul took far longer than it should have (30 minutes or more), though because the rental place didn't have a chance to check in the U-Haul, I got the use of the moving blankets for free. Some of the blankets had been used to prevent slipping on the steel floor of the truck and were icy/sandy/yucky -- and while I wouldn't have ever thought to use a clean blanket for that purpose, we used the dirty ones to prevent us from sliding all the way down the truck.

Moving Sara's stuff wasn't too bad, she had (thankfully) gotten most of it boxed up and she only had a few large items. She was, however, on the second floor and even in single digit weather I worked up enough of a sweat to justify wearing only a T-shirt.

The real fun came when we were done and wanted to leave. The back driveway, that the trash man uses, has some broken concrete, and I thought that the multiple inches of compacted snow (about 8 inches had fallen that week) would even out the lip in the driveway from the broken/sunken concrete, but apparently it didn't and that lip (and the snow/ice) seemed to be all it took to prevent the U-Haul from backing out of the driveway.

I gave it more gas, hoping that I could burn through the ice. After a while I got a lot of smoke from the passenger side tires, but no movement. I tried rocking the truck back and forth. It got going a little bit after a while, but never made it over that lip. I tried turning the front wheels, but that only works on front wheel drive cars.

At that point I looked over at Sean and asked if I should go forward down the driveway in hopes of getting up some speed, or would I just get stuck farther down the driveway. Sean pointed out that the tow trucks just use a winch with a long cable, so it doesn't matter how far down we get stuck. Right-o, down the driveway we go.

I went down about 15 feet and tried from there but the truck wouldn't back up. Uh-oh. Well, let's go farther down the driveway (about half way, say 50 feet). Whew, the truck would back up from there. I tried to get a running start, but it wasn't enough. Though the speedometer read close to 40mph, the truck was only going about 2mph and that wasn't enough to get us over the lip. I did this many times. One time I almost made it out, but the truck slid sideways and started to take out the recycling cans (large 64 gallon trash cans) on the side of the driveway and I had to stop.

This went on and on for over 15 minutes. I was surprised with all the tire squealing/smoke and engine revving noise that no one ever came down to watch (or point and laugh) or complain. Eventually the snow/ice was worn down enough so that when I gunned the truck from about 65 feet down the driveway, and kept the rear wheels spinning at 40mph the whole way, I got enough momentum/traction to get over the lip and out of the driveway. Whew. No need to call road side assistance, but I was sure that I put on at least two miles (at $0.99 a mile) in that driveway.

After that, it was pretty standard unloading the truck kind of stuff, though everything in the truck was at about 5 degrees F, which required us to wear gloves to be able to handle any of it. Thankfully I'm not a professional. It's hard work.