HP 'puter problems

Been without my HP laptop since last week.

Last Friday my HP laptop screen went haywire on me. Started having candy stripe baby blue lines in the background where there should have been only white. Also noticed on a black background, there was lightning looking red lines randomly streaking thru the screen.

Emailed HP thru their support website letting them know I had a problem.

I received a reply back in less than a hour and then described more in detail what exactly what was going on. Tech sent me a reply in about 20 minutes telling me that it would have to go back for repair. I then wondered if I would see it before the new year.

The box arrived 12.9 at 12:06 pm. Fex Ex surprisingly delivered it on my lunch hour (more on this latter). I gathered my puter and returned to work as it uses Fed Ex to ship packages out. It was picked up at 4:19 PM that same day. I received email latter that night from HP telling me that my return box had been shipped and gave a link to Fed Ex showing the delivery tracking. Pretty cool. It was returned by 2 day delivery so my hopes were not high of them getting it before Friday.

Checked my email at lunch Friday 12.11 and got another email that HP had received the laptop at 6:55AM. WOW. Still my hopes were not high of receiving any news before Monday.

Later Friday night checked email again and HP had repaired the laptop and shipped it back out at 1:58 that afternoon. Holy Crap that was fast! Also checked again Sunday while watching football and it was sitting in Memphis TN. Didn't think it would go too far during the weekend and was expecting it Tuesday 12.15.

Coming home from work Monday, I saw that Fed Ex had attempted to deliver it @ 11:22am. Who the heck is home at 11:22 in the morning? Yes, I was excited about getting it back, but was not going to take off work to receive it! Entered Door Tag number into Fed Ex web site and it had all the info right there. At 2:45 it was sitting at the main terminal. Swung by and picked it up, took it home and tested it out. Screen and everything was fixed as promised! All under warrenty.

Have to give HP a A+ for customer support, repair, communication and speed.

Also have to give Fed Ex a A+ for tracking and speed. (need to work on the delivery times tho)!

Kubota Cab

Winter time is here again so means some spare time to work on the cab project again.

Worked about 7 hrs on it Thanksgiving day and go both doors cut out and mounted.

Had to make my own door hinges so door would swing far enough out to allow them to be removed.

Painted them Friday and will work on door handles next.

What is Polyradiculoneuritis ???

Before I left for Business trip #2 around the second week of October, I noticed that the Benard was having trouble desending the steps off the deck. She seemed depressed since the passing of Roxy and I just assumed because of her inactivity that it was just stiffness.

Shortly after that my ex, who was watching her during my trip, took her to the vet because it had gotten worse. Several days later she informed me that Freckles had Polyradiculoneuritis...or coonhound paraliysis....Yes I had to Google it.

I found information on it here.

She is doing a lot better now but the ass end doesn't alway go the same direction as the front end. I see small improvements everyday and I guess this will disapper soon.

Thanks to Dr. Jim Nuessen for his diagnosis.

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She Picked Me

It was a sunny, hot August afternoon when I went and checked on the pups.

Our neighbors had left for a few days of vacation and asked us to “puppy” sit their newborn batch of labs for them. The pups were around 6 weeks old and all but two had their bright colored collars on designating who had picked them. The unclaimed ones that were left, a male and a female. First trip I made over to check on them, one of them opened their eyes, got up and wandered over in the makeshift pen to greet me, it was one with no collar, the female. The pup seemed to want to play around and I played with her for a bit while the rest of them were just sleeping in the hot afternoon heat. I had no intentions of getting a dog and did not want the responsibilities and dedication that went with owning a dog. Little did I know what was about to transpire.

During the next visit, I sneaked up on the pen not making a sound, and just watched the litter to check and see how they were doing. Low and behold, the unclaimed female would wake up from her nap and wonder over to greet me, the rest, still napping away. I found this rather strange and wondered if this was for real.

Several more trips over the next couple of days to “check” on them and I came up with the same results. No matter which direction I approached the pen, she always woke up and came over to greet me. The funny thing is that NONE of the other ones would even move, let alone venture over to see who was there. The biggest reaction from the bunch would be to open their eyes and look at who the intruder was. It was like they already had owners and didn’t feel the need to socialize. I figured this must be “the sign”.

After some intense conversations with Linda, we decided to go get a pink collar and put it on her so that we knew that I was the one she wanted.

Linda and I were truly blessed to enjoy training her while she was young, and enjoyed the company and companionship of her over the next 13 years of her life. Anyone who came over to the pool or to watch football in the garage always got to meet her, and she was equally happy to see them too. Freckles and her would just enjoy being around the crowd. Roxy was always excited to see Linda when she came to get them and she frequently enjoyed walks with her. I was always amazed at how smart she really was.

That all came to a end today, Sept 28, 2009 when we had to put her to sleep.

You will be truly missed by Linda, Freckles, Kathy, myself, and the pool and football gang.

Rest in peace Roxy.

Cell Battery Drain

Friend of mine told me that the biggest drain on a cell phone was when it was looking for a signal.

Low and behold I recently had a chance to test that theory out.

Was out pretty much in the middle of no where and had trouble getting a signal inside of a building I was working in. My battery was fully charged before I went to work, and by noon it was down to one bar.

Seeing my life is full of little experiments, that night I charged it again and left it in the car. The battery at noon was still charged and again too when I left that that night.

That was only two days tho...

Third experiment was the same as day two and the battery was still fully charged at the end of the day. Day four, I took inside and left it on the desk all day. By the time I left, I had the "low battery" flashing at me.

Soooo.

That theory is correct !!!

Did some looking on the net tonight and found this and some other ways to save on battery drain.

Bad Credit ?

I have bought my last 6 trucks from Shottenkirk Chevy and thought I had a pretty good relationship with them. 5 of them were brand new, all 6 were paid for in full.

Imagine how surprised I was today when my favorite service advisor informed me today that I am longer able to have an account and charge my $26 oil changes. Services must be paid for at the time of service.

Travel Options

Before taking off on my last trip south to see my honey, a friend of mine mentioned that I should look into renting a car rather than drive my 6400 lb Avalanche.

Looked on line at Enterprise and they are running a 4 day special with unlimited miles.

Did some quick math and figured that it would be $60 more renting a car, but figured out that it would be worth it to keep the miles off of the truck.

Went there wanting to rent a full sized car but the lady there suggested this stylish sports mid sized thing since it was the only one that has cruise control (strange).

Stopped in Hannibal and got fuel but didn't pay attention to amount or price. First stop for fuel was in Ft. Campbell. Was thinking this is where I normally stop in the truck and was thinking that the fuel mileage was going to be the same as the Avalanche. Much to my surprise this mid-sized beauty only held 10.001 gallons. Quick math also told me that 365 miles into 10 gallons was 36.5 miles a gallon !!! This is double what the Chevy is getting. Sweet!

After I returned, I collected all my reciepts and took the car back and tallied up the total costs. The Avalanche used right at 80 gallons on a round trip. Gas spent on the rental was 41.2 gallons. Rental car costs were 101.17 for the weekend so the total difference between rental cost and fuel vs, the fuel alone on the truckster was $2.07 higher renting.

Got the real expence of driving a suv from this site, so the real expense of driving the truck jumps up with mait. and tires cost added another $83.20 onto the truckster total which makes it saving me some $85 dollars renting.

Sweet!

Blog Delay

Haven't been blogging lately because:

Been busy with summer stuff.

1. Old computer died.

Forgot password to blogger.

Mainly the last one.....

Garden Science Project

Seen that "upside down" tomato plant thing at the store and decided to do my own version. Used 2 five gallon buckets, one blue, one black. Know for a fact that tomato plant like the warmer soil so did a little experiment on my own. Used 4 of the same tomatoes from the same flat to make the results even.

Planted one in the bottom of each bucket and one in the top. Have watered and fertilized them at the same time and the same amount.

As you can see the results are somewhat skewed at the time.

Both of the plants in the bottom of the bucket are stunted on growth side of things. The one in the black bucket top has the most growth, but both the bottom one in each bucket both have a 2" green tomato on them.

Road Rage - Illinois Version II

First Pic is a Road Kill semi that mistakenly

read the road construction speed limit as 25

rather than 45. Added 15 min to the GPS

arrivial time.

Pic #2 here is "Scooter" . He was on a what I think was a 125 cycle doing 70 down the left hand lane from Ft. Campbell to all the way to the Georgia border. He spent 80% of his time in the left hand lane doing 70 MPH. Bike would not do anything over that.

Pic #3 is just some random dumbass that was crusing in the left hand lane that I passed on the right because he was doing 68 MPH.

Pic #4 is a pack of pokeys I got behind, as you can see the time stamp at 9:22 am. Notice the SUV in the lead on the LEFT who was going 70.0001 MPH who thought he deserved to drive in the left hand lane.

Pic #5 shows more or less the same cars 22 min later all following the same person.

Solar Pool Heat

Bought this on Ebay about 2 years ago. It's 2 panels 2' x 20' I mounted back to back on top of the pool fence. Have then titled about 45 degrees to the south. Panels are made of black PVC tubing that has multiple tubes running end to end. The water enters in the top, runs down the length of the panel and back again. Hooks up between the filter outfeed and pool inlet. This one came with a diverter valve that limits the flow thru the panels. Idea flow is 12 - 15 gpm.

Pool temperature, on a bright sunny day, raises about 1 degree an hour. The pool is 20' x 40' so it holds about 20,000 gallons of water. Before I installed this about the same sunny conditions, it would raise only a half degree and hour. Nice thing that I have also tried that if the pool temps get too high, you can run the filter and panels at night and it will act as a radiator and cool the pool off a few degrees.

For the first year I just had them laying out on the deck but decided last year that they were worth keeping. Have hard piped them up for easy removal during winter months.

May Showers bring....

Flooding.

Road Rage - Illinois version

On a recent trip I discovered this sign has absolutely no meaning what so ever to some drivers.

The stretch of road I experienced this on was Highway 24 from Paducah Ky. to the Georgia border. 260 miles of pure living hell for me because of a few drivers NOT following this simple sign.

It took me a little while to figure out just exactly what was causing the repeated bottlenecks along this stretch of highway. After following a pack of 20 vehicles for 40 miles, I finally found out.

It's lefty's.

Not left handed people mind you, but the motorist that think it is their god given right to travel down a busy highway and permanently stay in the left hand lane regardless of their speed.

Don't know why these people do this either the fear of being called slower or lacking the ability to change lanes, but my cruise control was off more than it was on.

So as a PSA and important driving safety tip, I have thought up a couple of tips that motorists can use to find out if they need to change from the left hand of the highway to the right.

First, traveling .001 to 1 mph ABOVE the posted speed limit does not automatically qualify you to reside in the left hand lane. Move to the right.

Second, if you glace up at your rear view mirror and the traffic behind you looks like the drive thru of Starbucks on free coffee day, you probally need to change lanes. Move to the right.

Third, if the traffic passing you out your passenger side window is equivelent to the traffic in the oppisite direction, you probally need to change lanes. Move to the right.

Lastly, If a black Chevy Avalanche with Illinois plates passes you in the right hand lane doing 89 mph, the driver giving you the double bird, and you can't read lips but it looks like every other word he is saying begins with a "F", you probably REALLY need to change lanes.

PLEASE move to the right.

Redoubt erupts

Alaska's Mt Redoubt erupted overnight.

Will be interesting to see the Web cam when light hits it this AM.

Bamboo

During my recent trip south, I dug up some Alabama Bamboo and brought it back to plant here. Don't know if it will grow or not.

Don't think it liked the trip back in the back of the Avalanche because after two weeks it has not straightened up much.

Endless Gas

It's a Brinkmann Pro Series 4400.

I bought it at the end of the 2006 summer closeout sale. Picked it up for $125. Didn't want to spend too much in case this little experiment didn't work. Looked for a natural gas grill, but after shopping around, the price was a little more than I wanted to spend. Searched the internet for some info on how to convert a propane grill to natural gas and presto ! I found this site. There are several other links on this page that have useful information on doing this.

WARNING: If you are not sure of what you are doing, Do Not attempt this.

The tricky part, after getting the natural gas line to the grill, is to drill out the jets to the proper size. It's pretty much hit and miss of drilling out the burner jets. I just matched up the drill bit with what the propane on was and jumped up 2 numbers at a time until I got the flame I wanted. I think I went to a 52 drill size.

Another word of caution here is don't drill it out to big.

I've had this working for about two years now and can honestly say that I grill out much more now that the days of checking if you have enough propane to grill out are gone. I still like to grill with charcoal during the lazy days of summer, but this is the next best thing if you don't have the extra time.

Kubota Cab Project

Updated 2.22.09




This weekend's events included adding lights, marker lights and wiring them all up. Went with LED marker lights since I found out the Kubota alternator only puts out 14 amp. There goes the Bose sound system I was going to install......



Also go the back panels cut out, painted and installed. Back and front glass put in. Top put on, bolted down and halfway painted. Tried to put the back glass panels in but too many nasty words came out of my mouth during this. Have to practice on this to get the hang of it.

Got the cage painted and the top on (not here) . Hope to get a lot more done this weekend....!!!

Kubota Cab Project

Spend too much time on the internet snooping around and I eventually find something that sparks my interest. This guy did a great job on making a Cab for his BX22 Kubota. I was looking to buy one for mine, but have decided to see if I can try to build one my self. Started sometime around the 17th of Jan, but haven't kept my nose to the grindstone on it. I will try to take some pics as this goes along.

Here's what I have so far.


Tack welded everything together, then changed my mind and re-did to to bolt together. Like maybe someday I might want to remove it?

More on this as it devolves.

Superbowl

Nothing Better than Wings on the grill.......

.......Some Frank's EXTRA Hot Sauce......

.....and 110" of Superbowl !!!

Winter Blues

Cell Phone + Radar Detector + I pod
+ Back up Camera + 5 degrees =

Dead Battery

Who would of thunk it?

Global Warming

Current conditions in Anchorage Alaska 1.14.09:


Tonight... Occasional sprinkles or flurries. Lows in the lower to mid 30s. East of the seward highway and along turnagain arm... Southeast wind 50 to 80 mph with gusts to 105 mph. Elsewhere southeast wind 25 to 40 mph.

Thursday... A chance of rain in the morning...then rain likely in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 30s to lower 40s. Southeast wind 15 to 30 mph. Along turnagain arm and higher elevations...southeast wind 30 to 45 mph increasing to 50 to 65 mph in the afternoon.


Current conditions in Quincy Illinois 1.14.09:

Overnight: Mostly clear, with a low around -7. Wind chill values as low as -25. North wind between 11 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.

Thursday: Sunny and cold, with a high near 3. Wind chill values as low as -25. Northwest wind between 10 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.


Al Gore can kiss my fat frozen ass!


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1.12.09

Today is my 11th anniversary at Wis-Pak.


4015 days of Fun!

Yellowstone Rocking

The University of Utah Seismograph Stations reports that as of 1800 MST on 2 January 2009, seismicity of the ongoing Yellowstone earthquake swarm continues. Over 500 earthquakes, as large as M 3.9, have been recorded by an automated earthquake system since the inception of this unusual earthquake sequence that began Dec. 27, 2008. More than 300 of these events have been reviewed and evaluated by seismic analysts. Depths of the earthquakes range from ~ 1km to around 10 km. We note that the earthquakes extend northward from central Yellowstone Lake for ~10 km toward the Fishing Bridge area, with a migration of recent earthquakes toward the north. Some of the dozen M3+ earthquakes were felt in the Lake, Grant Village and Old Faithful areas. Personnel of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory continue to evaluate this earthquake sequence and will provide information to the NPS, USGS and the public as it evolves.

LED Lighting

Although it only uses 1.5 watts of electricity for 40 watts of lighting, I'm not really sold on these yet.

Just like CFL's, they don't work with dimmers.