Spring grass planting, ‘The Riches’, ‘The Wire- Season 2’, ‘Nanook of the North’, Cabela’s trip, Hollywood Casino, ‘Into the Wild’, fishfinder, ‘MI-5’, ‘Weeds’
(posted from home)
(This post covers 15-23 April, 2008)
-------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 23 April-
This morning we worked on our computers. I researched the items in my startup list and removed several I didn’t need via run / msconfig / startup. Between the Glary Utilities cleanup of the registry, the disk de-frag, additional memory and startup-list cleanup, my laptop is now significantly faster on startup and in use. It’s still slower than I’d like when Norton kicks in for its daily QuickScan but overall I’m very happy with the changes.
We spent the afternoon shopping. The el-cheapo marine compass I bought at Wal-mart for the fishing boat has deteriorated in no time. I bought it in mid-February and by the time I returned from Florida in mid-March it was clouded up somewhat and I could see rust stains coming from the ‘marine-grade’ hinge pin washer. My trip into the Everglades gave it a good whack or two from overhanging branches but I don’t see why it would have clouded up so badly. I picked up another (it’s only $11) but expect I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a better one. In the meantime, I’ve set this one up as a quick-dismount item and will only have it exposed to the weather when it’s needed. We also did some grocery shopping and made a drop-off run to the Salvation Army store.
I started out on an evening walk but didn’t make it past our property. I noticed the grass is getting too high to ignore (I just cut it!!) on the ‘lower 40’. I mowed for an hour to take care of that and then spent a half-hour or so pulling the KLR motorcycle out of winter storage. I had charged up the battery twice during its storage, most recently about a month ago, and it started right up. The Concours is still awaiting its appointment to fix the overheating problem so I’ll use the KLR in the meantime.
-------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 22 April-
Today was another moving day in preparation for carpet. We finished moving everything but our desks and Labashi’s computer complex out of our offices. ‘Moving’ is a combination of discarding items we don’t need and stowing the rest in our rapidly-filling-up basement.
I also took the laptop over to the local computer store for the memory upgrade I ordered a few days ago. After the install the guy said he wouldn’t have to charge me the $75 he had quoted when I ordered it—memory prices had gone down. How often does something like that happen? He could have just charged me the quote-price and I wouldn’t have known the difference. The upgrade from 512MB to 2GB cost me $68.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘The Wire- Season 2’. This series ranks way up there for us—one of our favorites.
-------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 21 April-
I spent the morning on the computer, still working on improving performance. I then assembled the fishfinder that afternoon and read all its manuals before going for my walk along the creek road.
That evening Labashi and I watched the first episode of ‘MI-5’ and then two episodes of ‘Weeds’ on Netflix. For today, we set up the laptop on a tv table set up just in front of our normal television-viewing chairs. That worked okay but meant we both were looking a bit sideways at the picture. For the longer term I need to figure out how to connect the laptop to the television. I think that would be a snap if I had an s-video input on the television but don’t. The television does have RCA inputs, though, and I see Radio Shack has an S-video-to-RCA cable so maybe I’ll try that.
Our experience with the online movie was surprisingly good. We watched the entire MI-5 episode with no problems (like slowdowns or stops). The second Weeds episode did experience a network failure—the router halted. The only way I know out of that is to pull the power input to the router to cycle it. I thought that would mean I’d have to start the movie again but as soon as the router came back up the movie just started rolling again. Impressive! (Now if I could just solve the problem of my router locking up!)
MI-5 isn’t bad—certainly no worse than ‘Alias’ and ‘24’ for believeability—but ‘Weeds’ is absolutely hilarious. A bit over the top, perhaps, and probably not good for the education of our society’s children, but I LOVED the witty remarks and references. I don’t think Labashi’s quite as big a fan, though.
-------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 20 April-
Labashi and I went on a ‘date’ today—to Cabela’s. When we were in Michigan a few weeks ago I had planned to go to the Cabela’s in Dundee to get a first-hand look at some goodies I had seen in the catalog but didn’t get around to it. I’ve been talking about going to our ‘local’ one by the end of the month to spend my about-to-expire discount card and my accumulated rewards points and Labashi wanted to look for some clothes. Good enough excuse for a Sunday drive!
I bought a fishfinder (sonar), a Humminbird PiranhaMax 230 Portable, for the fishing boat Maypo and I share. This model isn’t an upscale one by any means (have you priced fish-finders lately?) but should work well for us. We will be able to easily detach the display from its quick-release mount on the steering console and move it to the deck near either of the fishing chairs. The quick-release will also provide an easy way to remove the unit from the boat between fishing trips in order to keep it out of the sun, winter’s freezes and away from the eyes of potential thieves. The portability also allows us to use it on our shared canoe or our kayaks and we can take it along on travel where we intend to rent a boat. And if we eventually decide to permanently mount it for the season, the display is the same one as the permanent-mount version. We could simply unbolt it from the portability case and mount it on the console. The transducer can similarly be used either with its suction-cup portable mount or a permanent mount.
On the way home we stopped at the new Hollywood Casino at Penn National in Grantville. We don’t generally go to casinos since it seems very unlikely we dummies would come home with any extra money when the casino guys and all their buddies spend their lives figuring out how to take our money from us (and make us feel we’re being ‘entertained’!). But we did want to see how classy this one was. Not bad! Not bad at all. The place was very busy. I didn’t see many smiles, though. Just row and row after row of ordinary-joes and ordinary-joe-ettes scowling at the screen and pushing the button.
We checked out the restaurants and bars and they didn’t seem exorbitantly-priced ($5 for a hamburger at the sports-bar, for instance). The classy-restaurant menu looked decent but similarly out-of-reach (price-wise) to other classy-restaurant menus we’ve avoided.
With that assessment, you may think I didn’t like the place. That’s not really the case. We just don’t happen to be slots or horse-racing fans so it’s a bit of a mystery to us what the fuss is all about.
That evening we watched ‘Into the Wild’, the Sean Penn movie version of Jon Krakauer’s excellent book about Chrisopher McCandless. I see the top critics on RT give it a 74 and that seems low to me. I’d give it at least ten more points, well into the ‘This is a GOOD movie’ category. Highly recommended.
-------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 19 April-
I spent the day on the laptop today. I researched a Word-Outlook address book problem, finally got my Adobe Reader upgraded to the latest and then tried to install the Netflix Player to try out their online movies. That turned into a bit of a problem. Netflix determined I needed to upgrade to Windows Media Player 11.0. In trying to do that I found I had to determine if Windows Media Center had been updated to Update Roll 2. But to do that I had to update Windows Updater. But to do that I had to install Genuine Advantage…etc, etc. I finally worked through the chain of updates and—ta-DAH, was able to use the Netflix Player. I used it to find additional TV series to add to our Netflix queue (I restarted my Netflix membership last week). I watched the first episode of the British series MI-5 and ordered the first season on DVD. I also watched a bit of ‘Monarch of the Glen’ and ordered Series 1. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the online movies. In my 50-minute viewing of MI-5 Episode 1 I saw two momentary pauses. But the bad news is the online
I called the local computer shop and ordered a memory upgrade. My laptop only has 512k and Netflix recommends 1 GB for movies. I had found the memory online but the local guy is selling it for about the same price, doesn’t charge shipping, (but does charge tax), and will install it for free.
That evening we watched ‘Nanook of the North’, the 1922 silent documentary by Robert Flaherty. What a treat! We also loved seeing that Nanook lived just across Hudson Bay (and a little further north) from Churchill (we were in Churchill last summer). Highly recommended.
-------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 18 April-
I spent the morning catching up on the blog and preparing and mailing my membership application for the local sportsmen’s association shooting range. That afternoon I drove into Wal-mart to pick up some additional storage boxes for our new-carpet move and to look for new tires for Mocha Joe. The storage boxes turned into a problem when I found Wal-mart no longer has the style I bought before and I don’t like either the price or style of the new ones. I went over to the other York Wal-Mart, hoping for the best and they indeed did have some different ones—but still not quite ‘right’. Eventually I found some good ones on half-price sale ($5) at Tar-zhay.
That evening we watched the 4th episode of ‘The Wire, Season Two’. Excellent stuff.
--------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 17 April-
Today I mowed the lawn for the first time this season. My old-beat-up 1970-something mower appeared to be locked up but that turned out to be a simple thing. The last mowing last year was very wet and that led to a thick mat of clippings under the mower which SOMEbody neglected to clean. Over the winter they dried out into a thick mat and that mat was somehow jostled and fell into the path of the blade, blocking it. After clearing that, the mower started on the first pull.
Afterwards I had some business at the bank and needed a motorcycle ride on such a spectacular day (mid-Seventies and wonderfully dry) so I did a quality-control check at the Camp Hill Starbucks.
On the way home I got behind a very slow roadside-spraying truck and after a bit noticed my temp-gauge rising into the red. Something was wrong. The cooling fan never turned on and the gauge just kept climbing. I turned at the first opportunity and the additional airflow helped for a bit but I was in a losing battle. I managed to make it home and called the bike shop but can’t get in until the end of the month.
That evening I drove over to the West Shore Sportsmen’s range to check it out. I enjoy my trips down to Freedom Armory but between the $11 per-half-hour fee and rising gas costs, it’s getting expensive. It’s a longer drive for me and the half-hour shooting session makes you feel rushed to shoot more, think less. And my shooting needs some think-time!
That evening we watched ‘Survivor’ and another ‘The Wire-2’ episode.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 16 April-
Today I finished turning over the soil on three more relatively small plots on the lawn in preparation for planting. Because these areas didn’t have nearly so much old grass roots and the soil was better, it only took about three hours. Afterwards I cleaned up and rode the Concours into Starbucks for a coffee-and-Times ‘job-well-done’ break.
I then buzzed over to Stonybrook Gun Shop and shot the breeze with owner John. He says guns are selling very well everywhere—so well, in fact, he’s having trouble getting stock. I’d like to take a look at a new Ruger pistol which just came out. He says he has only been allocated one so far (which went out the same day) and if he had fifteen of them he could sell them all immediately. He believes the uncertainty about the upcoming election and the Second Amendment case at the Supreme Court is fueling a general firearms buying spree.
On the way home I stopped at Dick’s Sporting Goods and talked with the gun-counter guy while checking ammo prices. I learned of another venue for clay sports which offers a time-slot open to the public. It’s an Isaac Walton League facility in the Dallastown area. And it just happens to be near a Starbucks. Hmmm, I’ll have to look into that. That could turn into some “shoot-and-sip” (okay, “shoot-then-sip”) outings.
That evening we watched the first two episodes of ‘The Wire, Season Two’. What a great series.
---------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 15 April-
We spent the day with shovels, rakes, and pitchforks today. We still have a long way to go in preparing for the new carpet in the house but we also need to get some yard-work done today before we get too late in the season for grass-planting. Last Fall we ran out of time in planting new grass. We could have gotten all the digging and planting done (I think!) but we would have been unable to keep it all watered so we left several areas for Spring. I spent today removing a dense over-coating of dead grass roots and intermingled weed growth on a 15 x 30 area, then used the pitchfork to turn the plot over. Labashi has decided to change two planting beds into regular grass areas so worked on that. We wrapped up both projects pretty much exhausted for the day by 1600. We then watched two episodes of ‘The Riches’, had supper, then watched two more to finish out the Season One disk set. We liked this one very much. The writing is pretty good and has little jokes to watch out for (example: a mark calls his bank to transfer funds during a sting. The name of his bank is ‘Rio Dinero’.) Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard are terrific. Highly recommended.
==== end of post =============
(posted from home)
(This post covers 15-23 April, 2008)
-------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 23 April-
This morning we worked on our computers. I researched the items in my startup list and removed several I didn’t need via run / msconfig / startup. Between the Glary Utilities cleanup of the registry, the disk de-frag, additional memory and startup-list cleanup, my laptop is now significantly faster on startup and in use. It’s still slower than I’d like when Norton kicks in for its daily QuickScan but overall I’m very happy with the changes.
We spent the afternoon shopping. The el-cheapo marine compass I bought at Wal-mart for the fishing boat has deteriorated in no time. I bought it in mid-February and by the time I returned from Florida in mid-March it was clouded up somewhat and I could see rust stains coming from the ‘marine-grade’ hinge pin washer. My trip into the Everglades gave it a good whack or two from overhanging branches but I don’t see why it would have clouded up so badly. I picked up another (it’s only $11) but expect I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a better one. In the meantime, I’ve set this one up as a quick-dismount item and will only have it exposed to the weather when it’s needed. We also did some grocery shopping and made a drop-off run to the Salvation Army store.
I started out on an evening walk but didn’t make it past our property. I noticed the grass is getting too high to ignore (I just cut it!!) on the ‘lower 40’. I mowed for an hour to take care of that and then spent a half-hour or so pulling the KLR motorcycle out of winter storage. I had charged up the battery twice during its storage, most recently about a month ago, and it started right up. The Concours is still awaiting its appointment to fix the overheating problem so I’ll use the KLR in the meantime.
-------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 22 April-
Today was another moving day in preparation for carpet. We finished moving everything but our desks and Labashi’s computer complex out of our offices. ‘Moving’ is a combination of discarding items we don’t need and stowing the rest in our rapidly-filling-up basement.
I also took the laptop over to the local computer store for the memory upgrade I ordered a few days ago. After the install the guy said he wouldn’t have to charge me the $75 he had quoted when I ordered it—memory prices had gone down. How often does something like that happen? He could have just charged me the quote-price and I wouldn’t have known the difference. The upgrade from 512MB to 2GB cost me $68.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘The Wire- Season 2’. This series ranks way up there for us—one of our favorites.
-------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 21 April-
I spent the morning on the computer, still working on improving performance. I then assembled the fishfinder that afternoon and read all its manuals before going for my walk along the creek road.
That evening Labashi and I watched the first episode of ‘MI-5’ and then two episodes of ‘Weeds’ on Netflix. For today, we set up the laptop on a tv table set up just in front of our normal television-viewing chairs. That worked okay but meant we both were looking a bit sideways at the picture. For the longer term I need to figure out how to connect the laptop to the television. I think that would be a snap if I had an s-video input on the television but don’t. The television does have RCA inputs, though, and I see Radio Shack has an S-video-to-RCA cable so maybe I’ll try that.
Our experience with the online movie was surprisingly good. We watched the entire MI-5 episode with no problems (like slowdowns or stops). The second Weeds episode did experience a network failure—the router halted. The only way I know out of that is to pull the power input to the router to cycle it. I thought that would mean I’d have to start the movie again but as soon as the router came back up the movie just started rolling again. Impressive! (Now if I could just solve the problem of my router locking up!)
MI-5 isn’t bad—certainly no worse than ‘Alias’ and ‘24’ for believeability—but ‘Weeds’ is absolutely hilarious. A bit over the top, perhaps, and probably not good for the education of our society’s children, but I LOVED the witty remarks and references. I don’t think Labashi’s quite as big a fan, though.
-------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 20 April-
Labashi and I went on a ‘date’ today—to Cabela’s. When we were in Michigan a few weeks ago I had planned to go to the Cabela’s in Dundee to get a first-hand look at some goodies I had seen in the catalog but didn’t get around to it. I’ve been talking about going to our ‘local’ one by the end of the month to spend my about-to-expire discount card and my accumulated rewards points and Labashi wanted to look for some clothes. Good enough excuse for a Sunday drive!
I bought a fishfinder (sonar), a Humminbird PiranhaMax 230 Portable, for the fishing boat Maypo and I share. This model isn’t an upscale one by any means (have you priced fish-finders lately?) but should work well for us. We will be able to easily detach the display from its quick-release mount on the steering console and move it to the deck near either of the fishing chairs. The quick-release will also provide an easy way to remove the unit from the boat between fishing trips in order to keep it out of the sun, winter’s freezes and away from the eyes of potential thieves. The portability also allows us to use it on our shared canoe or our kayaks and we can take it along on travel where we intend to rent a boat. And if we eventually decide to permanently mount it for the season, the display is the same one as the permanent-mount version. We could simply unbolt it from the portability case and mount it on the console. The transducer can similarly be used either with its suction-cup portable mount or a permanent mount.
On the way home we stopped at the new Hollywood Casino at Penn National in Grantville. We don’t generally go to casinos since it seems very unlikely we dummies would come home with any extra money when the casino guys and all their buddies spend their lives figuring out how to take our money from us (and make us feel we’re being ‘entertained’!). But we did want to see how classy this one was. Not bad! Not bad at all. The place was very busy. I didn’t see many smiles, though. Just row and row after row of ordinary-joes and ordinary-joe-ettes scowling at the screen and pushing the button.
We checked out the restaurants and bars and they didn’t seem exorbitantly-priced ($5 for a hamburger at the sports-bar, for instance). The classy-restaurant menu looked decent but similarly out-of-reach (price-wise) to other classy-restaurant menus we’ve avoided.
With that assessment, you may think I didn’t like the place. That’s not really the case. We just don’t happen to be slots or horse-racing fans so it’s a bit of a mystery to us what the fuss is all about.
That evening we watched ‘Into the Wild’, the Sean Penn movie version of Jon Krakauer’s excellent book about Chrisopher McCandless. I see the top critics on RT give it a 74 and that seems low to me. I’d give it at least ten more points, well into the ‘This is a GOOD movie’ category. Highly recommended.
-------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 19 April-
I spent the day on the laptop today. I researched a Word-Outlook address book problem, finally got my Adobe Reader upgraded to the latest and then tried to install the Netflix Player to try out their online movies. That turned into a bit of a problem. Netflix determined I needed to upgrade to Windows Media Player 11.0. In trying to do that I found I had to determine if Windows Media Center had been updated to Update Roll 2. But to do that I had to update Windows Updater. But to do that I had to install Genuine Advantage…etc, etc. I finally worked through the chain of updates and—ta-DAH, was able to use the Netflix Player. I used it to find additional TV series to add to our Netflix queue (I restarted my Netflix membership last week). I watched the first episode of the British series MI-5 and ordered the first season on DVD. I also watched a bit of ‘Monarch of the Glen’ and ordered Series 1. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the online movies. In my 50-minute viewing of MI-5 Episode 1 I saw two momentary pauses. But the bad news is the online
I called the local computer shop and ordered a memory upgrade. My laptop only has 512k and Netflix recommends 1 GB for movies. I had found the memory online but the local guy is selling it for about the same price, doesn’t charge shipping, (but does charge tax), and will install it for free.
That evening we watched ‘Nanook of the North’, the 1922 silent documentary by Robert Flaherty. What a treat! We also loved seeing that Nanook lived just across Hudson Bay (and a little further north) from Churchill (we were in Churchill last summer). Highly recommended.
-------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 18 April-
I spent the morning catching up on the blog and preparing and mailing my membership application for the local sportsmen’s association shooting range. That afternoon I drove into Wal-mart to pick up some additional storage boxes for our new-carpet move and to look for new tires for Mocha Joe. The storage boxes turned into a problem when I found Wal-mart no longer has the style I bought before and I don’t like either the price or style of the new ones. I went over to the other York Wal-Mart, hoping for the best and they indeed did have some different ones—but still not quite ‘right’. Eventually I found some good ones on half-price sale ($5) at Tar-zhay.
That evening we watched the 4th episode of ‘The Wire, Season Two’. Excellent stuff.
--------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 17 April-
Today I mowed the lawn for the first time this season. My old-beat-up 1970-something mower appeared to be locked up but that turned out to be a simple thing. The last mowing last year was very wet and that led to a thick mat of clippings under the mower which SOMEbody neglected to clean. Over the winter they dried out into a thick mat and that mat was somehow jostled and fell into the path of the blade, blocking it. After clearing that, the mower started on the first pull.
Afterwards I had some business at the bank and needed a motorcycle ride on such a spectacular day (mid-Seventies and wonderfully dry) so I did a quality-control check at the Camp Hill Starbucks.
On the way home I got behind a very slow roadside-spraying truck and after a bit noticed my temp-gauge rising into the red. Something was wrong. The cooling fan never turned on and the gauge just kept climbing. I turned at the first opportunity and the additional airflow helped for a bit but I was in a losing battle. I managed to make it home and called the bike shop but can’t get in until the end of the month.
That evening I drove over to the West Shore Sportsmen’s range to check it out. I enjoy my trips down to Freedom Armory but between the $11 per-half-hour fee and rising gas costs, it’s getting expensive. It’s a longer drive for me and the half-hour shooting session makes you feel rushed to shoot more, think less. And my shooting needs some think-time!
That evening we watched ‘Survivor’ and another ‘The Wire-2’ episode.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 16 April-
Today I finished turning over the soil on three more relatively small plots on the lawn in preparation for planting. Because these areas didn’t have nearly so much old grass roots and the soil was better, it only took about three hours. Afterwards I cleaned up and rode the Concours into Starbucks for a coffee-and-Times ‘job-well-done’ break.
I then buzzed over to Stonybrook Gun Shop and shot the breeze with owner John. He says guns are selling very well everywhere—so well, in fact, he’s having trouble getting stock. I’d like to take a look at a new Ruger pistol which just came out. He says he has only been allocated one so far (which went out the same day) and if he had fifteen of them he could sell them all immediately. He believes the uncertainty about the upcoming election and the Second Amendment case at the Supreme Court is fueling a general firearms buying spree.
On the way home I stopped at Dick’s Sporting Goods and talked with the gun-counter guy while checking ammo prices. I learned of another venue for clay sports which offers a time-slot open to the public. It’s an Isaac Walton League facility in the Dallastown area. And it just happens to be near a Starbucks. Hmmm, I’ll have to look into that. That could turn into some “shoot-and-sip” (okay, “shoot-then-sip”) outings.
That evening we watched the first two episodes of ‘The Wire, Season Two’. What a great series.
---------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 15 April-
We spent the day with shovels, rakes, and pitchforks today. We still have a long way to go in preparing for the new carpet in the house but we also need to get some yard-work done today before we get too late in the season for grass-planting. Last Fall we ran out of time in planting new grass. We could have gotten all the digging and planting done (I think!) but we would have been unable to keep it all watered so we left several areas for Spring. I spent today removing a dense over-coating of dead grass roots and intermingled weed growth on a 15 x 30 area, then used the pitchfork to turn the plot over. Labashi has decided to change two planting beds into regular grass areas so worked on that. We wrapped up both projects pretty much exhausted for the day by 1600. We then watched two episodes of ‘The Riches’, had supper, then watched two more to finish out the Season One disk set. We liked this one very much. The writing is pretty good and has little jokes to watch out for (example: a mark calls his bank to transfer funds during a sting. The name of his bank is ‘Rio Dinero’.) Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard are terrific. Highly recommended.
==== end of post =============
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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