Leinninger.com

From the field...

For What It's Worth...

January 9th, 2004:
Archived System Update

The gallery is now in place. Check it out!.

The previously convoluted URIs are now much easier. I’ll gradually convert all of the in-site navigation to the new (shorter, easier) address scheme.

- Duane

January 7th, 2004:
Archived System Update

I’m slowly re-working the gallery system for viewing images. I need something more automated. The new system is much better. Check out the beta.

- Duane

January 5th, 2004:
New Years. New Basement. New Video Accelerator.

Gina and I rang in the New Year with the inaugural “Redford Dinner Club” meeting at Brad’s place. Fun, fun. However, I was feeling a little under the weather from the start, so we called it a night relatively early.

We made up for that early night with an early morning start on our basement-remodeling project. With some slightly used commercial carpet, a lot of cutting and trimming, a good bit of taping, and lot of patience, we have a more presentable entertainment area. It took 2 solid days of work, but the end result is worth it. I also finished of the last remaining detail from last year’s project, the kitchen. A few edge tiles were missing near our counter. I admit, I’ve been putting this off for a while. I really wasn’t looking forward to trimming tiles individually with a dremel. All said and done, it wasn’t too hard… just a little time consuming.

The onboard GeForce4 MX in my gaming PC was sadly underpowered. I thought I would get by with the limited amount of gaming I do. But, since there’s a LAN party approaching and Gina and I tried to play Uru with little success, I’ve upgraded to an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro accelerator. Very nice. The one game I’ve been obsessed with recently is Need For Speed: Underground. Entire features appeared after installing the new card. Detailed 3D people swarm around your car when you win, lights and scenery blur when you hit the NO2, and generic Import models start each race. I am most assuredly ready to get my game on at the LAN party next week. (3DMark03 Results Here)

- Duane

December 31st, 2003:
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

I’ve been so busy that I’ve neglected updating my blog. Work is insane, as usual… but the insanity has been kicked into high gear. In the financial sector, things change very quickly, and pressure has been added to make very precise, technical changes very quickly. So far, so good.

Christmas has come and gone. Our usual Cannonball-style holiday rally was as exciting as ever. All said and done, we travelled to the Grosse Pointe area (a few times), Frankenmuth, Clarkston (a few times), and a few places in between. We had to cancel a visit to Warren due to weather, but we’re planning to make it out there in the next week-or-so.

Decorations, gifts, food, friends, and family. Our first married Christmas together was very nice. (Pictures coming soon.)

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. There are a handful of parties to go to, but we committed to one pretty early… at Brad’s place. Sorry, George. There is a small chance that I’ll make it out to that side of town tonight, though.

Hope you all had a great Christmas/ Hanukah / Kwanza / Festivus and have a prosperous New Year.

- Duane

December 21st, 2003:
Christmas cookies and spark plugs.

Gina’s parents, Gina, and I spent the day at her parent’s house. We decorated cookies in the morning then Glenn (my father-in-law) and I retired to the shop. We changed the spark plugs on the Spec Racer (sounds easy… but it’s not), and updated the master switch wiring. Ah… my kind of holiday.

I’ve started looking into the finer details of the SOLO 2 rulebook. Everything I want to finish on my WRX will fit nicely into the STX class… except for the electronic boost controller that I’ve already installed. So, either I’ll sell that, or figure out a way to easily switch between the factory controller and EBC.

- Duane

Devtroit