Pictures
- Duane
Leinninger.com
From the field...
For What It's Worth...
April 25th, 2009:
Ah, country living: power out for 2 days.
While working on restoring our 20+ year-old lawn tractor and replacing the rear brakes on my WRX, the power went out in spectacular fashion. Wind gusts upwards of 70 mph and airsoft-sized hail beat up the Brighton area. Apparently, downed trees caused a transformer fire in Livingston County and left thousands without power. While I was able to continue with my projects in the shop, I had to make do without lights or the convenience of my air tools.
The hum of our neighbor’s generators made sleeping difficult and the next day (Sunday) arrived without electricity. After a quick check on our sump, I decided it was best to drag out our hand-me-down generator that is likely even older than our lawn tractor. I topped off the oil, added some fuel and it started right up. Emulating Brad, we powered our fridge, sump, cable modem, router, and a laptop. We were able to download the Bahrain F1 race (since our Media Center was out of commission and unable to record it) and watch it before ending the day. Power returned by evening, and it looks like everything is back to normal.
April 19th, 2009:
Archived System Update
I noticed that the webcam images in the right hand column were taking a while to render, causing the rest of the page to stall before completing. I rearranged the columns in the code and updated the CSS so the rest of the page would render before trying to build-out the right-column.
- Duane
March 26th, 2009:
Xbox helps you make friends.
We’ve owned a PS3 for several months. I’ve played PS3 games online twice. That’s fine and all because it’s the best damn BluRay player that you can get for the price… especially considering the bluetooth remote. In an effort to reduce the amount of clutter in our family room, I moved our Vista Media Center computer and our digital cable box to another room. In their place, we’ve acquired an XBox 360 to use as a media center extender. It’s excellent: outperforming a dedicated extender device twice over as well as providing HD Netflix streaming. If that isn’t enough, in one night, Gina has already spent more time playing a game (Uno) on it than our PS3… and she earned 45 achievement points. Sadly, I’ve only earned 15 thus far. Pwned.
I haven’t been able to find anyone playing games online (PC or PS3) that I wanted to join. They’ve all switched from FPS games to MMORPGs and RTS. The few PS3 friends that I have are either playing Karoake or sports games. I really liked going home and hanging out with my friends while playing games (especially because we all live pretty far apart these days and also because we all got some of the awesome new gadgets at progamerreview.com). In the one night that we’ve had the XBox, Brad spent almost an hour explaining the XBox interface and XBox live system to me. Additionally, he shared the gamertags of friends that have XBoxes as well… which already outnumbers the PS3 friends I have. Plus, the XBox users actually play games on their consoles… not just sing Karaoke and play videos. (Yes… I’m talking about you, Paul.)
- Duane
February 17th, 2009:
As the basement project continues, the bug to build an arcade cabinet returns.
I’ve wanted to build a M.A.M.E. cabinet since the first time I downloaded the premier arcade emulation package. I just never had anywhere to put one, but thanks to my brother, Christian’s, help, we’re looking forward to a warm and functional basement space. Our new basement will be divided into 3 rooms, plus utility closets and storage: a dedicated projection theater, a walk-up bar, and a small arcade/air hockey area. George shares my excitement and we’ve been plotting our home-built arcade shrines in-between projects at work. We’ll be visiting Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum for a little recon soon. Perhaps we can learn something from his years of arcade and coin-op attraction restoration.
- Duane
February 9th, 2009:
Basement project continues. Wife demands that I do hard labor.
My brother and master builder, Christian, came over last friday to survey the electrical work we need done in the basement. He gave us a list of the stuff we needed to buy and are edging closer to completing the basement. We tried to pick up as much as possible from Home Depot yesterday, but came up short in the specialty lighting department.
I’m just kidding about the demanding part. Though I admit I was pretty cranky when the time came to hang out insulated curtains in our family room. Perhaps the only chore that I dislike more than hanging curtains is painting. It went well none-the-less and we got Austin remodeling contractors to install a pet door to let our cats get to the basement without leaving the door open as well as finally fixing the broken trim on our kitchen stairs.
- Duane
