Leinninger.com

Gina’s birthday is this Saturday. W00t! Not only does this indicate Gina’s worldy experience has increased by one full year, but we’ll be the same age for exactly one month.

I’ve gotten the race bug in a bad way. Though we’re hoping to sell our house and move next year, Gina and I have been talking about getting a car to begin SCCA Club Racing. Ideally, I would like to get into a Spec Racer Ford, but that’s a little advanced for me… not to mention expensive. So, my thoughts drifted to Spec Miata, but that class has already become expensive… and it hasn’t even gone national yet! (I thought spec classes were supposed to regulate cost… bah.) So, after seeing a prepped Neon up-close, I’ve become fascinated by Spec Neon. Though this is a regional-only class, the cars can be converted to ITA without too much work. The parts are plentiful, and the initial cost is not prohibitive. The cars suffer from a lot of parts failure, as the Neon was never intended to be abused on the track. Regular maintenance and preventative parts replacement will be necessary (wheel bearings, brake calipers/pistons, etc.). I’ve been hunting for a car for a bit, and Gina is right with me on this. More news as it develops…

The hard disk that contained the web sites hosted on this sever suffered unrecoverable data loss. Thanks to a good backup plan, all data was recovered and the drive was back online within a day. (This could have been fixed more quickly, but I was not at home when I discovered the failure.) In addition to my “standard” backup plan, I’ve implemented a more aggressive daily backup to multiple drives. In the near future I will alter/augment this plan with a monthly tape backup. “Better safe than sorry.”

- Duane

I had to reload my media center PC from scratch over the past few days. I initially tried installing from images downloaded using my MSDN license, but for some reason this version didn’t recognize the bios of my motherboard. After much tinkering, I was able to resinstall without a hitch from my original retail discs (once I found them).

The Nvidia dvd recorder is required to view live tv, recorded tv, and DVDs. Nvidia must be close to the release of a new version, because they are only offering the 30 day trial version on their site. Hopefully my license will allow me to upgrade for free.

Additionally, since reinstalling, I cannot watch several shows I previously recorded because they are tagged with DRM that thinks I’m trying to watch these shows on another computer… which is not allowed. Knowing that most Windows users reload their computers on a regular basis as part of regular maintenance, this could be a nasty limitation of MCE. How am I going to watch Hudson Hawk?! Now I really hope that the PS3 has a media center-like option.

- Duane

A few weeks ago, Keith, Gina, Chris, Eric, and I (aka Rogerbox) got together at Keith’s and talked about the future of the band. We agreed that our time is pretty limited right now. Maybe we’ll get together and jam sometime… maybe we’ll even start practicing regularly again and do some shows. However, at present, this is pretty unlikely. We had fun, someday I hope we have more.

Technically, we’re enjoying spring in the great state of Michigan. Bah. The weather has been depressing. Though a weekend at the racetrack was nice… a little more sunshine would have been appreciated.

- Duane

A couple of weekends ago, Gina and I had a last-minute opportunity to spend a few days in Florida. So we did. The weather was awesome and the lodging arrangements were plush to say the least. Then, we came back to Michigan… where it was snowing…

Over the past few weekends, I’ve been able to give my car a little tlc. I installed the Exhaust Gas Temp. gauge (average highway EGTs are ~1300 degrees), replaced the lame nylon boost gauge hose with standard plumbing, and applied ceramic caliper paint while replacing the very aggressive brake pads with fresh, more streetable ones. Someday I might even wash the darn thing!

Gina and I visited the Novi Apple Store on the day of Tiger’s release. We purchased a family pack and won zip at the door. I went back to the store while Gina did some shopping, and turned down another door prize ticket (since I already had my chance)… and the guy behind me was an “instant winner”… so I guess my karma pool gets +1. Tiger is feature rich and smooth. I’ve only upgraded my powerbook as the Cisco VPN client we use at work is not yet compatible with 10.4. So far, the interface is more reponsive and the new features are nice, but that might be attributed to the fresh install. We’ll see what happens when I upgrade my G5.

After completing 2-straight semesters at Wayne State, I’ve decided to take the summer off and regain some sanity. I have 5 classes left and I hope to finish in just over a year. I still stand by my decision to return to school, but dislike it nonetheless.

- Duane

Spring is here in full force. Taking a cue from Brad, I took full advantage of the great weather to get the summer wheels and tires on my WRX, wash the heavily caked brake dust from my calipers, and get the open air filter installed under the hood. I’ve ordered some small exhaust parts to fix a slight exhaust leak as well as some Zaino Brothers car detailing supplies.

This is the final week of the winter semester at Wayne State. I have 2 projects to finish for my “finals,” but they are progressing well. The jury is still out whether or not I’ll be taking classes in the summer… it would help if I could get in contact with my advisor.

- Duane