Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Gina flew off to the Philippines on Friday the 28th and arrived on Sunday the 30th. While, this isn't necessarily a normal definition of time travel, the there are several things to keep in mind here.

For instance, I spoke with her while I was making dinner this evening (Monday night), this while she was on her way to breakfast on Tuesday morning.

The is already in tomorrow, while I am still in Today!

Ok, Ok I know she isn't really in the future. But that type of mindset may help you understand this next bit.

So my wife's birthday is on the 29th. She was on the airplane for her birthday. However, I would like to think that she was crossing the international dateline (though I am pretty sure she was a few hours away from that when the airplane crossed that median).

However, as far as I am concerned she ended up skipping the 29th, thus negating her birthday for this year.

And as it so happens, this year is her 30th birthday.

Which means that if she skipped the 29th of March, then technically she never turned 30, so she gets to be 29 for another year.

Apparently someone at work made a joke about how she isn't turning 30, she is just going to be celebrating the first anniversary of her 29th birthday.

Anyway, Gina is having a good time in the Philippines so far. She is going to be there for about 2 weeks, returning to Austin on the 12th.

That means that I am living it up bachelor style with the dogs.

I am trying to get them to respect me more. I am pretty sure they think I am just one of the pack, except I'm extra tall and have thumbs (which come in handy for opening things like cans of food and treats).

John finished up the gate he was making for Gina. It is custom fit to go across our wider than normal opening between the living room and the dining room. The height is perfect, not too high and not too low. The couple of previous gates we have had (from Wal-Mart or Target) tended to be too high, tends to make for banged up shins.

John does great work, when I get a chance I will post some pictures. John stated that if anyone else is looking for a custom crafted gate he might start doing them as part of his side woodworking business.

Well, I am going to see if I can finish my expense report tonight.

Laterz

Let me first give my thanks to the guys over @ Brake Specialists Plus in Cedar Park for getting the Corolla fixed up in time for me to get to Dallas.

I was afraid that they would not be able to get the car done in time, as they did have to remove major parts of the engine and transmission to replace the rear seal that was leaking oil.

While I was there settling up my bill of $993 (and change) a guy from AutoZone stopped by and was attempting to pitch them on buying parts from AutoZone. One of the things that I heard come up in conversation was the quality of the work that Brake Specialists Plus. I took the opportunity to chime in that they have always done really good work for me, and to thank the guys for fixing up my car.

I then proceeded to drive to Dallas. Luckily I had almost a full-tank of gas, as I was running late and stopping to fill-up the tank would definitely make me later than I wanted to be.

I did however manage to make it to Dallas in time for the Mavericks game. It has been a significantly long time since I had attended an NBA game. The last one that I can remember attending was at The Palace (in Aurburn Hills), watching the Pistons play someone that I cannot remember. That had to have been 15-17 years ago.

I went to the game with the President/CEO of NetworkIP, Pete Pattullo. (NetworkIP is the parent company of Jaduka.) He ask me if I had been to an NBA game lately, as to prepare me for the amount of advertising that I would see at the stadium and during the game. He also prepared me for the 'Vegas Show' like nature of the game, as during every break they had some sort of thing going on.

Now, the most interesting thing that I saw in regards to advertising and filler content was, the 'Merchandising Special of the Night'.

Ummmm, so here is the thing. There are shops, selling various forms of Dallas sports memorabilia, that is cool. But the 'Merchandising Special of the Night' was like a live 30 second infomercial for whatever product they are attempting to sell more of. That night it was a book written by the coach of the Mavericks.

It was presented by a nice lady, whom I assume is some sort of Mavericks celebrity (unknown to me), and one of the Maverick's cheerleaders.

But the kicker, the real coup de grace was that at the end of this short infomercial, they announced that 'This Merchandising Special of the Night is brought to you by Adidas."

OK, your fscking kidding me. The live infomercial was sponsored. More power to the Mavericks advertising sales people. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the kids with the mops and towels that keep the floor clean during the game were sponsored by JaniKing.

The Mavericks beat the Clippers 103-90.

Anyway, I did not notice any oil leaks under the car. And the car most definitely had full electrical power. The car also seemed to be a little bit quieter. In case I have forgotten to mention the Corolla was once VERY noisy, but since they tuned the timing belt, the Corolla had instantly become a lot quieter.

Well, I am finally taking a couple of days off. Gina is going to the Philippines soon, so I have taken today and tomorrow off.

Laterz

So for the last couple of weeks I have noticed that there is some oil leaking under my car. While more noticeable than a little drip, it was not enough for me to panic and rush the Corolla into the shop. They had just replaced some belts and tuned my timing belt, so I know they had to open up part of the engine that has oil in it, I figured that something just needed to be tightened.

This morning at 8:10 am I found out that is not the case. We had dropped the Corolla off at the shop last night after dinner and a trip to CostCo. But for a reason relating to copper and electricity. The alternator in the Corolla had finally died.

For the past couple of months (possibly three months) the little battery shaped light on the console has been flashing (or sometimes just stayed on). The battery (despite looking very bad) is fine. This meant that the alternator was on it's last legs.

Well, last night after dinner, Gina dropped me off @ CostCo (we had left my car there earlier). I started it up and turned on the lights and cranked the radio. I noticed that the console lights looked dim, I dismissed it as possibly just my own slightly neurotic issues with light and visibility. However, after cranking the dimmer up to the max brightness the lights still did not get to what was their normal brightness.

I was cruising down the access road of 183 about to merge over and get onto the highway, when the radio rebooted.

This freaked me out, as I had been in a car before when the battery had completely died (after the alternator died) and surprisingly the vehicle will come to a complete stop, quickly. Not wanting to repeat that event, I immediately shut off the radio and even removed the faceplate, seeing as it was shining quite brightly in comparison to the console lights.

I stayed on the access road, in the hopes that if the Corolla did finally drain the last of the battery I would at least be able to get the car into a driveway, rather than have to call a tow truck while on the side of the expressway.

I also immediately called Gina who was probably about 5-10 minutes ahead of me. I asked her to wait for me to follow me home, so that in case I was stranded, I wouldn't be alone.

The battery lasted long enough for me to make it to the Brakes Specialist up in Cedar Park (my mechanic of choice).

I woke up early this morning and headed over to the mechanics to drop off the keys and inform them of what needed to be done. As I also was due for an oil-change, and wanted to inform them of the oil leak that I had noticed.

When they called me this morning shortly after eight o'clock, they informed me that the 'rear seal' between the engine and the transmission had busted (I forget the word he used). He informed me that there was oil all over the under-side of the engine and that I should have noticed it earlier.

Well, so my theory on this is as follows.

They recently tuned my timing belt, in doing so they gave me 'more power'. This tuning had two effects on the car, I do indeed have more power between 10 and 50 miles per hour, I can feel the car accelerate faster. It also made the inside of my car a heck of a lot quieter.

I believe that because the timing belt on my car had been in that state for so long in the 'less power' mode that when it got 'more power' it broke the seal. Because, I didn't notice any oil immediately after they did their work, but a couple of days later.

Well, the damage bill for the alternator + rear seal (and I assume the oil-change) is about $900.

This price tag brings to mind the idea of a new car.

However, $900 isn't too bad considering I don't have a car payment now. And even if you combine the alignment and other work I had done when they were doing the tuning of the timing belt, that makes the 2008 care charges about $1400 (including the alternator&seal).

That is still well below a $300 a month car payment.

So I am willing to give the Corolla one more chance. Brake Specialists are currently doing whatever they are doing to fix everything.

I am hoping they will have all of the work completed by 3pm. However, I am expecting a call from them around 2pm to tell me that they won't be able to finish it all. This means that I will need to rent a car this afternoon.

Because, I am driving to Dallas this afternoon (hoping to be on the road by 3pm) for some meeting tomorrow.

I am glad that the alternator decided to finally die yesterday, rather than while I was on my way to Dallas.

Anyway, back to the grind.

Laterz

Let me first apologize to everyone out there for the lack of updates.

It has been a crazy three months.

So, I am on my way back from the ETech show that just wrapped up in sunny San Diego, CA.

I ended up waiting until almost literally the last minute to book my flight out here.

In looking for flights that were not going to cost me the company an arm and a leg for my screw-up, I found several flights that were OK in price. There was one absolutely STEAL of a deal, like $250. However, it was going to be leaving too early for me to assist with the breakdown of the tradeshow booth and what not.

As it turns out there would also have been another problem with that flight as well. It was going through Dallas (if memory serves).

Dallas, is currently experiencing what we in Michigan would call a normal day of snow (mixed with a little bit of sleet).

Now, I am not saying that planes are better at landing in snow and sleet in Michigan than they are in Dallas, but I know that the airports in Michigan are equipped and experienced on how to handle that kind of weather.

I took an early flight from San Diego to LAX, hoping to catch an earlier flight to Austin.

No such luck. When I scanned the departures board for a flight to Austin, I was dismayed that I saw a TON of canceled flights to Dallas (DFW).

My co-workers Bill and Jack are based in Dallas and quite possibly will not be making it back home tonight.

I feel for them. But I am very happy that I didn't end up with a flight that would have gone through Dallas.

So, back to me being at LAX for 5 hours.

Seeing as I caught the earlier flight out here, that meant that I consolidated my time here at LAX, rather than breaking it up between the hotel lobby, San Diego commuter terminal and then LAX. I was already going to have about a 2 hour layover here anyway.

But ultimately, I think I much prefer to be able to find a place to sit down and catch-up on stuff, rather than have to worry about getting from one place to another in a set amount of time. That same mentality could by why I get flustered when playing RTS games when the 12 year olds that I always end up playing against (when not playing against Jeremy) rush me and win the game. Too much going on at once to concentrate on, plus I am absolutely sure they are cheating.

I have had the opportunity to catch-up on some work while I have been here. I need to find a power outlet, because even though I now have a 12-cell battery, there is always the Eternal Search For Power.

I need to write up a more formal post and put it on the Jaduka blog about my ETech experience.

But I will say this, I think it was a good tradeshow for us, the conference sessions were wildly diverse, and I did not have to look for a power plug while in the conference sessions (they were under the chairs). However, I did not have a lot of luck finding a chair in the couple of sessions I was able to attend (standing room only in the Google:Android session).

Laterz

Update: Found power at a "Samsung Mobile Charging Station" I will upload a picture later.

I am out in San Diego @ the ETech Tradeshow.

Laterz