Another Word for Nerd

I recently got my $40 digital TV transition coupons, and found that the local H.E.B. grocery chain was selling a digital-to-analog TV “converter” (it’s a tuner with RF and AV output) for $40 + tax.

A few days later, I came home with a pair of the converters for a grand total of $6.60. On my way home, I stopped by Electronic Parts Outlet and picked up a couple pairs of “rabbit ears” antennas and a matching adapter (spade lugs to F-Male).

Tonight I unpacked it all to try things out. I’d first thought about running the AV output into a box I have that takes composite video and gives VGA out, but that would leave me with no audio.

Digging through my junk box, I found a little 3.5″ LCD display that takes AV in and has a speaker. Bingo!

I present the Ten Dollar Digital TV:

Philco TB100HH9 Converter Box: $3.30
Antenna and adapter: $6.70
Junky LCD Display: Free

I ended up just breaking down and doing it myself.

Here’s the 8926A (Omega-style bezel) with the new green bezel insert:

I’ll probably swap out the black bezel insert on the 8926C with a better black one this weekend.

I sit and think about getting older.

I turn 34 later this year. Everything between age 21 now has just been a blur. Too much of being a workaholic. Too much waking up on a Thursday and thinking “The week’s gone by already?” Too much time spent not accomplishing anything that really matters in the long run other than paying bills and getting by.

I’m seven years older than my parents were when they had me.
I never thought that I would own a house - but now I’m in my *second* home.
I’m making four times what I did in my first “real job” at ioNET in 1995.

I never thought that I would find someone to spend my life with who could put up with my quirks, hobbies, and tendency to be a workaholic. I’ve been with Amy for TEN YEARS now - a third of my life - and we’ve been married for seven of those years.

I don’t “feel” like an adult. I still feel like a kid who is “managing to get by”.
Does this ever change? Do you ever grow older and finally feel “grown up” and mature?

Amy and I met in person for the first time on February 14th, 1998. Due to stuff going on, we weren’t able to properly celebrate our 10th anniversary on February 14th this year.

We were married on March 31, 2001. So, we’ve been together for ten years, and married for seven. I think we’re going to spend our seventh wedding anniversary just relaxing at home, considering that we had a new HVAC system installed today (our old AC was mismatched, and turns out it was causing some condensation problems).

For anniversary presents, we each bought the other new computers. I’ll be upgrading from an “early 2006″ 2Ghz CoreDuo iMac (20″) to a “late 2007″ 2Ghz Core2Duo Mac Mini with a 20″ Acer flat panel.

I have NO IDEA what I’m going to do with the iMac after I migrate everything over. It’s still in decent condition (has been my main system 24/7 for the past two years), works fine, and has another year of AppleCare left. I may just end up putting it back in the box and storing it.

I finally got most of my knife collection together for a picture.

I still want a Gerber Mark II, but they’re too expensive now since they’re no longer made.

Update: My ebay purchase of a Commander I Mark I variant finally arrived, and it’s in perfect mint condition - original box, and it still “smells new”, like leather and ozone.

Now I just need to find a Mark II or a Command II (single-edged version of the Mark II, made for cities or states where double-edged blades are illegal).

I’ve had an iPhone since they came out last year, and ever since I got the phone, I’ve been on the search for the perfect iPhone case.

I started out with an iPhone Total Body Skin from BestSkinsEver (ShieldZone sells an identical product, at a higher price). This protects the screen, and adds some not-really-needed protection to the back and sides of the phone that gives me some peace of mind.

First, I started out with a generic snug form-fitting rubber/plastic case bought off eBay. It was okay (better than nothing at all), but didn’t quite fit right and started to “sag” and get loose after only a month or so.

My second iPhone case was the Incase Leather Fitted Sleeve for iPhone. I bought this one from the Apple online store, using part of the store credit that Apple gave out after the iPhone price reduction. It was in use less than a week; the case didn’t fit properly (too tight) and the stitching started to put little divots/indentations into the screen and body protective film. The port access holes never lined up right, and the leather bits on the sides of the phone would “roll” one way or the other. I eventually just took it off and threw it in a drawer somewhere.

My third iPhone case was the DLO Jam Jacket. This was a big improvement over the generic rubber sleeve case and the leather fitted case. However, I don’t use the iPhone earbuds and don’t need to carry them around, so I used a razor blade to cut the “earbud holder” off the back of the case. I used that case for six months or so; my only real complaints are that the texture and “tackyness” of the rubber used tends to attract dust and dirt and that the holes on the side for volume and mute access aren’t very user-friendly (I often had to just pull the top part of the case off the phone when I needed to get to the mute switch).

I was at MicroCenter tonight, and ran across what is, for me, the best case for the iPhone - the XtremeMac Tuffwrap. It’s got the same basic shape and “grip” as the DLO case but without the headphone stuff on the back, and has nicely-formed ports for access to the lock button, side buttons, and bottom dock connector. It came with a TuffShield screen protector, but I’m not using that because the phone already has a protective skin permanently installed.

Other than the generic rubber case I first got off of eBay, the XtremeMac Tuffwrap is also the cheapest case I’ve purchased for my phone, at $19.95. I don’t think I’ll need to find an alternative!

I had the worst two weeks of my life (wife in the hospital, dog had to be put to sleep) but things are getting better.

Max, our Saint Bernard.

1999-2008.

We did all we could.
I was with you at the end, there was no way I was going to let you be alone.
I held you in my arms as long as I could, and I know you were comfortable.

I miss you, buddy.

Got out of bed this morning (I’ve been sick for the past three days), walked into the office, and my external 250G hard drive (a Western Digital combo USB2/Firewire unit) is making “CLACK. CLACK. CLACK” noises. It’s dead.

I lost a bit of stuff obtained via BitTorrent, along with lots of PDF archive documents, some work I’d done scanning a 300-page book to release as a PDF (with the author’s permission), and worst of all, the 40G of scanned comic books I’d collected over the past three years. I have nobody to blame but myself - I had another external 250G disk here that I’d been intending to hang off the Airport Extreme and use for backup for months now, but I never got off my ass and set it up.

After I finished being angry about the dead drive (which was TWO MONTHS out of its one-year warranty), I hooked up the other disk and set up Time Machine to do backups of my internal drive for now.

Thanks to a consulting client of mine, I’ve got two 500G Hitachi SATA disks on the way that should be here early next week. I’ll be putting each of them in a gutted Sun 411 disk enclosure, replacing the internal SCSI bits with a Sabrent USB2 to SATA adapter.

Once those disks are ready, I’ll be dedicating one of them as a Time Machine backup disk, with the other in two partitions; one for “critical” data (will be backed up) and the other for non-critical data (not backed up). The single 500G external for Time Machine should be plenty to keep a “rescue” copy of all the data on my internal (250G) drive and the 250G “critical” external.

This will leave my current USB2-based external 250G disk that I’m using for Time Machine until the 500Gs get here; I’ll either keep it detatched and hook it up once a month for “last ditch” backups, or hang it off the old Dell SC420 in the other room that does nothing but rsnapshot backups of my colocated server in Austin.

I’m in the market for a used solid-state HF (shortwave) receiver, a proper “tabletop” model, but unfortunately Houston doesn’t seem to have much of a local amateur radio “scene” that I can find.

The last time I hooked up my 2-meter transceiver, I heard ONE active repeater in the area, and that was after about half an hour of searching. As for any kind of local “swap meet” or forsale/wanted list, none seem to exist. There are some clubs down around NASA, but that’s a way from here. There’s Houston Amateur Radio Supply, but they’re a half-hour drive away and don’t have anything used for under $300.

I’ve tried eBay, but keep getting outbid by a dollar or two at the last minute for the last three auctions that I have bid on. One for an Icom 720A, one for an Icom R-70, and one for a Radio Shack DX-300.

Anybody reading this have (or know of) a solid-state HF/shortwave receiver sitting in someone’s closet that needs a new home? I have a budget of $150.

(I’m trying to rebuild my “ham shack” in the process of upgrading to a General-class amateur radio license from my current Technician-class)