Stuff Archives

There's not a lot to say other than congratulations to Michael Phelps for a feat that may not be beaten for a very, very long time (if at all). Amazing to think that he's won more gold medals than some countries will.

After everything that's been going on with me I can probably be forgiven for asking myself the question “am I dead yet?“ (the title of a song by GBH) particularly when I woke one morning this week with several vultures circling overhead.
Turns out that one of the deer featured in the Bar-B-Que article I wrote a couple of weeks ago has died in the garden. It's actually in the open part of the garden, not the bit that's fenced off. Very difficult to tell what happened - it may have been hit by a car and then crawled down to the bottom of our garden where it died. Anyway, I thought about taking a photo of it, but thought that too grim. The photo below was a great idea, but it didn't come out very well. It's of the two turkey vultures in the photo above sitting on a branch above half a dozen wild turkeys. You're kind of going to have to take my word for it as you can't really see either the vultures or the turkeys very clearly. If it came out well, I was going to put it up on the caption competition page with something like “Mother: I've told you not to play with your food. Child: It wasn't me - it just got up and walked off.”
Anyway, even though I didn't get the photo of the turkey vultures above the turkeys to come out, I did spot my little offspring on the sofa in my office when I grabbed the camera and here's what came out with a one off shot:

Many times over the last few weeks I've challenged Karen over the ability to picture things dimensionally. A good example of this has been when we've been cabling the house and I've said that all you need to do is drill through this wall and it comes out in the garage and then you just run the cable down and through the wall into the crawl space here ... and she's kind of looking at me with a blank stare of “if you say so.”

So why is it that when I just went to Home Depot to buy some piping to use as an umbrella stand (long story - I've mounted a pipe on the railings of the balcony so that we can put an umbrella in it to keep off the evening sun so we can eat outside) ... so why was it that when I bought the piping that comes in 10 foot lengths did I get to my car before I figured out that it wouldn't fit inside. To give me a little credit, I have a convertible and I'd thought that I'd just take the roof down and have it hanging out a little - I just hadn't realized how much. Thankfully nobody had a camera (that I'm aware of) and I just went back into the store to get the pipe cut in half.

About the only thing more embarrassing would have been to be walking down the street and to look up, at all things, at a Macy's sign such that I walked into and tripped over a fire hydrant. But that would never happen ... would it?

Spam, spam, spam, spam ....

As well as being a cool song and sketch for Monty Python, it's also the name given to unwanted mail - particularly electronic mail. I'm not telling you anything you didn't know.

When I was in hospital my doctor emailed me and it got blocked by my spam filter. Ever since then I've gone into my “spam box” to check that other important mail is not being filtered out.

I do find it interesting how some of these mail messages are being titled. I commented somewhere about getting a message to “increase the size of my banana” which was one that caught my attention. And I have to say with my lack of musical talent, I have no idea why I'm receiving a bunch of emails offering me a bigger organ. I dread to think what noise I'd make if I was let loose with one.

Anyway, sticking with the same theme, I had a bout of emails with the title “update your penis” like it's some sort of software. Maybe even a piece of hardware that's now due for a firmware update which, if you read in all the puns, is probably what they're getting at. But it did get me to thinking what if you could just update your penis? Would you see someone in the toilets taking a quick glance to the side and exclaiming “oh my god! You've got the new penis 2.0”. The person with the update being really happy that somebody noticed but not really wanting to let on - “err, yes”. Then you'd get into some surreal conversation around “well, how's it working for you? I'm thinking of getting one myself.”

Then I thought - that's probably why someone invented spam filters - to stop me having stupid thoughts.

I posted some pictures last week of some of the visitors to the garden. Well, we've had three deer (mother and two babies) decide to pop round and eat some of the plants and trees in the garden.And the number of wild turkeys have increased to about 15.So don't be surprised if you stop round and get offered venison or a turkey burger.

As I've moved into the new house I've started to do some DIY jobs in order to get things sort of looking how I want them. Basically an excuse to play with power tools. Probably not the most sensible thing given I'm on blood thinners, but it's boys with toys and you just can't suppress that urge.

Now, most people probably grew up with their fathers passing on the philosophy that if you're going to buy a tool, spend the money and buy a decent tool that will last you a life time. Well, me being me, I've completely ignored that advice and gone with the theory that a) I'm really not going to be doing much DIY and b) so long as the person who I pay to come out and fix the mistakes I make has the decent tools that's all that matters. Just so you can get a sense of the quality of products I'm buying, I bought a jigsaw for $15 the other week. Mr O asked whether it as a 700 piece floor jigsaw, but, joking aside, a jigsaw puzzle would cost a lot more that $15.

Anyway, armed with my new jigsaw I set about cutting back a cabinet to fit a new TV that I'd bought. This lasted all of two minutes until I realized that I couldn't fit the jigsaw in to cut round the bit I wanted, so I ended up using a sawzall which is even less refined than a jigsaw. Good job I didn't want an even line - I'm sure that would have been easy to do. I've gone for a more wibbly-wobbly look so that it looks a little more creative.

The other thing I've done is Cat-6'd the house so that I can channel TV through the house over a computer network. Very clever setup, I've got two networks - the primary takes the main computing so this server, work computer and Karen's computer to the Internet (and the phone as we use VOIP). There's then a secondary network for the TV to keep the streaming separate from the Internet Traffic. I've got two digital TV feeds into a computer (with the new ATI TV wonder digital decoders so that you can get premium channels) through Windows Media Center (by far the best thing Microsoft has produced). This computer is hooked up to the main TV and then I've got two linksys media center extenders and an XBox 360 feeding another three TVs. One of the connections is wireless and, for the most part, seems to stream HD OK. Really just means I can use a computer as a DVR and feed TV, music etc. through to any room in the house. (With the ability to change channel in any room of the house and not having to buy a digital decoder for every room). With the house being on the side of a hill, this kind of made it easy to do the cabling as you can stand up in the crawl space under the house. Below is a quick picture of the cat-6 between the two routers and a printer.As it happens, he is the sixth cat I've had although technically he's the seventh I've been around as my folks had a cat when I was born (many, many years ago).

So, what's gone on since the site was last up? Well, one of the things that's happened is that it's now against the law to talk on your mobile phone in California. Something that's been against the law in the UK for many years ... apparently as nobody really seems to take it seriously.

Well, it's caused a little stir over here as some people are complaining that it targets only one specific distraction. Some people have also made the point that it's OK to use a computer to send an email, but not to talk on a mobile. That said, I doubt there's really that many people on the roads checking email otherwise they may have targeted this.

Anyway, not one to want to break the law, I've thought I'd give a go at shifting things around. It's not illegal to eat in your car so I thought why not get all my calls done, then take lunch whilst I'm driving - should still be able to get the same efficiencies. Obviously it needed to be something simple, so I thought a sandwich would fit the bill. Nice thought, but I cut myself twice whilst trying to cut the baguette, got butter smeared all over the passenger seat when I had to slam the breaks on as I nearly ran a red light and lost a piece of cheese somewhere behind the seat as I was trying to grate it. And if you think that's bad, you don't want to know how much mess just having a drink caused. Freshly squeezed orange juice maybe good for you, but it's a nightmare to keep the squeezer steady whilst you're driving.

The housing woes seem to continue. I suppose woes is too strong a word as it's really not that bad. Our buy seems to be fairly straight forward - we got ready to go on that a while back - sorted the mortgage out and removed all the contingencies etc. etc. Really just waiting for the cash from our sale to seal the deal and move in.

The sale of this house has been problematic in the sense that our buyers struggled to get a loan (apparently due to the banks imposing more restrictions post the sub prime collapse, but I'm not really in a position to comment as we didn't see this ourselves) and then there seems to have been some confusion over the actual close date. We'd been working off the one in the contract which strangely is the right one. Anyway, it seems as if it's all worked out. The close date on the contract should be tomorrow on Monday and it looks like everything's going to work out on that date. So really it's getting exciting.

We were over to sign our documents on Saturday and decided to go out for one of our walks. For anyone interested, I'm using the Bay Area Hiker website to find these trails. It's a great site that gives you details on what to expect. So, why was I surprised when I ended up absolutely knackered after walking a trail for 1.7 miles with a 500ft elevation change? I don't think I actually realized what I was embarking on until it was too late.

The trail was at the Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve and is really nice. It's a path about a foot wide wandering through the thick wooded area of a hillside. Great trail to walk and we heard lots of birds, but unfortunately you couldn't really get any clear pictures as they were just jumping from branch to branch inside the trees. In fact I only managed to capture two birds.

Interestingly though, the first one is a Spotted Towhee - something I've not seen before. The second is an American Tobin which is very common.

OK - so any of you that have been following all the entries on this site, the photos as well as the blogs, will know that I've taken to hobbling off on walks and taking photos of animals (birds really). I like being outside and the photography gives me a bit of a challenge as well as a reason so it works quite well. I seem to have become interested in it since Karen and I went on safari last year.

Anyway, the avid reader will know that I wandered round a some ponds at a sewage plant. As I noted in the text above the photos it was actually a really nice place and definately one of the best when it came to wildlife. Still, if you looked at the photos you may wonder why I took a picture of the warning sign letting you know that “ponds contain waste water effluent.”

Well, it was for this article. Personally I think the sign should simply say “beware floaters” as it hits home a little better. You do have to look at the water carefully to see if the shadows under the water are carp or someone's second hand steak with a side of sweetcorn, but that's not the point of this article either. It is to tell you of the words I've been teaching my little boy. Examples of words I've used are:

• log
• skid mark
• dump
• trump

You get the idea. That said, I've typically been using these in their true sense of their intended meaning, but in that double entendre type of way, so, for example, whilst watching the auto racing on the TV I may comment that a car left behind a rather large skid mark when it crashed. William then picks up the word so when he plays with his cars he crashes them round the floor and says that they left a large skid mark. The joy then comes when Karen's not in the room as I can then look at him and tell him that he needs to tell his mother what happened. Next thing, he runs off to tell his mum “I've just left a big skid mark on the floor” to which I can't stop laughing and Karen gets really annoyed.

There is a rumor that one day I will grow up, but in the meantime - beware floaters.

But it's even further to get your car serviced!

I was randomly clicking away and found myself on the Nascar.com website looking at the standings after Kyle Busch came second in the Craftsman Truck series at the start of his "triple header" weekend where he races in three states in three days. I think it says he'll cover about 800 miles between races as he attempts to do this. (And I hope he does and continues to get good results).

Anyway, whilst watching the various NASCAR races, the commentators, from time-to-time, plug the fact that you can go onto the website and search for NASCAR approved services - such as getting your car serviced. So I saw the link for this and thought I'd take a look to see what local garages have signed up. Well, local is probably not a good word to describe it. The closest fuel / auto service to me is a mere 2,241.95 miles away in Washington. Seems that Sunoco (the official race fuel of NASCAR) are the only approved fuel / auto service vendors of NASCAR and they are only on the East Coast.

I think I'm supposed to service the car every 5,000 miles, so it's good to know that when I got back from this service I would have an entire 8 miles to enjoy before having to do it again. It also made me wonder whether this would be a more difficult challenge for Kyle Busch - to get my car serviced.