MichaelandChrissy.com

My Dell XPS Gen5 computer was high-end stuff when I bought it in 2005.  I updated the video card and memory last year at about this time, thinking that these would be the last upgrades that I would be able to make before buying a new computer.  I was wrong though, since it turns out that my Intel 955X chipset motherboard was capable of handling a multi-core Intel processor, as long as it has the latest bios (A04).  I wasn’t sure if the XPS Gen5 could handle a processor greater than a Pentium 4 until just recently, but I was happy for the chance to prolong the life of my computer.

I didn’t see the need to upgrade to another Pentium 4 chip, since that would only increase the speed to 3.6 Ghz at the most.  However, the Intel 955X chipset in the XPS Gen5 can handle any of the Pentium D 900 series processors as well.  The Pentium D is essentially like two Pentium 4 chips strapped together.  I settled on the Pentium D 940, since it is as fast as my old processor (3.2 Ghz).  Also, the 940 is cheaper and easier to find than the 950 (3.4 Ghz) or the 960 (3.6 Ghz).  There is an 800 series for the Pentium D line as well, but the front side bus isn’t split amongst the two processor cores on these earlier releases.

The downside is that my machine won’t necessarily be any faster, since the processor still runs at 3.2 Ghz.  The difference is that there are now two processors running at 3.2 Ghz, and they run at the same time.  So multiple programs running under Windows will run equally fast, without having to share processor time.  The new processor also has twice the front side cache (2×2 MB) as the old one.  Single programs, like my very needy video games, will run at relatively the same speed, unless they are optimized to run on multi-core processors (I’m thinking Crysis right now!).

I got very lucky and found a brand-new boxed Pentium D 940 on eBay for $80.  Other boxed 940s were going for at least twice that amount online.  I had seen some OEM processors (just the chip, no fan or heat sink) going for only $75 before shipping, so I got a pretty good deal.  When I opened up the XPS Gen5 though, I found that the fan and heat sink that came with the processor would not fit on my motherboard.  I would have to use the old heat sink, a monster cooling tower with two fans encased in a shroud around it (arguably better than the one that Intel sent).

The problem was that I didn’t have any thermal gel compound.  The new heat sink had some on the bottom though, all ready to smash up against the processor.  I took out my pocket knife and scraped off the compound from the heat sink, then spread it the best that I could on the business end of the old heat sink.  It looked like hell, but I’m hoping that it evens out a bit once the processor heats up.  I’ll have to keep an eye on the temperature for the next few days (especially once I start playing games on it) to make sure that it doesn’t overheat.  With luck, this computer should last me another couple of years!

Halloween always reminds me of GWAR.  I used to have all of their albums, and I went to their Halloween concert in Chicago every year.  I took Chrissy to a GWAR concert once, when we first met, and she enjoyed it.  I was pretty young, still in high school, when I first saw them on MTV in 1989.  I was shocked to find that MTV Music actually had that footage on their web site from so long ago.

I was browsing the GWAR videos on the MTV Music site when I found their cover to Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out”.  This made me terribly happy.  I had heard the track before, but it didn’t have the same impact as seeing the band, in full regalia, playing one of my favorite songs (many of Alice Cooper’s classics rank as favorites).  It almost makes me want to go back and see them in concert again!

I guess I’ll always be a GWAR fan.  I still sing “The Road Behind” in the shower.  Hopefully nobody notices…  There are very few CDs that I carry in the car, and GWAR makes up about half of them.  When I’m not listening to news radio, I jam out to GWAR, Alice Cooper, or Marilyn Manson (I was the only guy at his concert in a polo shirt).  It helps with the commute, even if it makes my driving style a little aggressive.

I’m not sure how scientifically accurate this is, but BunkBeds.net estimates that I would survive for a mere one minute and nineteen seconds if chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor.  That’s based on my fighting skills, jumping ability, and bulldog tenacity (or lack thereof).

survived for Michael
1 minute, 19 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

That hardly seems fair.  I’d like to think that I could fake out that dino with some quick moves and then strangle him Jabba-style with his own chain.  I’d probably be eviscerated with his powerful forward claws though, but not before putting up a good fight!  Aiden has bunk beds, so I should go practice.

survived for Chrissy
54 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

UPDATE: Chrissy read this post and decided to try her luck against the Bunk Bed of Doom.  She didn’t even last a minute!  However, I just raised my chances by 20 seconds by adding the possibility of throwing her at the velociraptor.   “I don’t have to outrun the raptor, darlin’, I just have to outrun you!”

I was playing with an interesting new web toy today.  It’s called “Wordle“, and it makes images of words based on text (or web sites) that you give to it.  Wordle takes all of the words fed to it and jumbles them up into a nice cloud.  This one was created using the words from the “Family” page:

You have a lot of control over the word cloud.  There’s a good selection of fonts to choose from, as well as an array of color options (including a custom palette based on colors that you provide).  You can also determine if words should be horizontal, vertical, or a mixture of both.  It’s easy to get lost in the details, or just click “randomize”.

The second word cloud was made from the RSS feed from our web site.  I deleted the word “Vaseline” from the cloud by right-clicking on it and clicking “delete”.  That was helpful. Wordle is really simple to use, it’s fun to play with all of the options, and it makes some pretty neat images to decorate your blog with.  Give it a try!

Erik Kastner put together a neat little tool called “Spell With Flickr” that accepts a word through any web browser and returns a set of pictures that spells that word.  The results are pretty awesome, and you have the option to re-select a letter image by clicking on the letter itself.

Aiden:

The script uses the images from a Flickr group called “One Letter“.   Who would have thunk that people take pictures of single letters in the street and then post them to Flickr?  You even have the option to use the images in their original size or square them off for uniformity (these have been squared off).

Gavin:

The tool also allows you options to do the same thing on your own site.  You can download the source code or just copy the relevant HTML code from the results page.  I was able to post Aiden and Gavin’s names by copying and pasting the code provided by the tool.   So check it out, and send random messages to your friends!

It’s been getting a little chilly here lately. Last week, the temperature dropped to fifty degrees during the night, and I’ve been wearing my light jacket in the mornings. Chrissy dug the flannel sheets out of the closet, the first sure sign of Fall. Flannel sheets are great: they keep you warm and toasty in bed when the weather starts getting colder.

When I first moved out on my own, I bought a brand new comforter for my brand new bedroom. The sales person told me that I’d be happier with new sheets as well. She had me feel the high thread count (read: expensive) sheets to see how great they were. I splurged a little and went with the good stuff, and discovered the joy of silky soft bedding.

I used the high thread count sheets year-round until I met Chrissy. She liked them, but not all the time. The high thread count sheets are great for spring and summer, but winter and fall require something more cozy.  Flannel sheets fit the bill nicely.  I wasn’t thrilled when Chrissy first tried to replace my sheets with flannel, but now they’re a cold weather tradition.

It is time to renew my license plates, but my car is up for emissions testing.  I drive a 2002 Acura RSX, and this is the year for all 2002 cars to get tested in Indiana.  I find it hard to make time to do these things, so of course I waited until the last minute, despite being prodded by Chrissy to act.  I was already late for work one day due to a LakeNet board meeting, so I decided to stop in at the emissions testing place real quick.

So I took my car in and it failed.  I got three error codes: P1163, P1298, and P0420.  P1163 means that there is a problem with the oxygen sensor that monitors the catalytic converter efficiency.  P1298 says that the load detector that regulates the oxygen sensor may be broken (or the oxygen sensor is bad).  And finally, P0420 says that the catalytic converter is not operating at peak efficiency (or the oxygen sensor is bad).

I took the car into the local Honda dealership, where I get my oil changed, and they ran some diagnostic tests.  It turns out that the catalytic converter is fine, but the oxygen sensor is indeed broken.  Acura sells the part for $350, but it will cost $425 with installation.  Why is it that replacing a lowly sensor is only slightly less expensive than replacing the entire catalytic converter?

Well, as it turns out, I could have bought the same sensor at Auto Zone for $175.  Half off? Why didn’t I go with that?  It’s the time constraints.  It would take a week to order it through Auto Zone, and after that, I would have to find someone to install it before I lose my drivers license for having expired plates.  If I pay the extra money and have the dealership do it, I can turn around and get my plates just-in-freakin-time.

So today, my car is in the shop, and it’s costing a small fortune.  Unfortunately, with the economy going to crap right now, it’s not really the time to volunteer to pay an extra $200 when I shouldn’t really have to.  I really shouldn’t have procrastinated.  It seems that every time this happens, I say that I’ve learned my lesson.  And overall, I should really listen when my wife tells me to get off my butt and get things done.

Chrissy and I bought a “Sleep Number” mattress from the local Select Comfort store about two and a half years ago.  Chrissy’s parents had let us try their Sleep Number mattress and we really liked it, so we decided to buy one because our old mattress was sagging terribly in the middle.  The problem was that these things are really expensive.  But considering that we paid $1100 for our Sealy Posturepedic, and it was hard to sleep on after only four years, we figured that the investment was safe because Select Comfort offered a twenty year warranty.

Like every other Sleep Number owner that we’ve ever met, Chrissy and I really love our mattress.   Recently, however, Chrissy’s side starting losing about half of the air pressure during the night.  She called customer support, and they told her to inflate the mattress to her favorite setting, then remove the tubes to the pump and cap off the mattress.  After two days, the air pressure remained constant, so customer support concluded that it must be the pump or the hoses (which are one piece since you can’t remove the hoses from the pump).  We would need to replace the unit.

This is where the twenty year warranty should have kicked in, and we should have gotten a new pump sent to us in the mail for free.  Unfortunately, this was not the case.  We were not aware that the replacement pumps are only free for the first two years of ownership.  After two years, Select Comfort pro-rates the cost of the pump at 20% plus 4% for each year of ownership, up to a total cost of $500.  Because the pump was two and a half years old, our portion of the price of the new pump came to $160.  This was highway robbery!

First of all, I would not pay $500 for a plastic air compressor at Sears, so I’m not sure what makes Select Comfort think that this thing is worth $500.  Secondly, someone should have said something about this obvious loophole in the warranty, since we didn’t think that we would be spending any more money on our damn-expensive mattress for the next twenty years (aside from the $100 pillows; again, ridiculous).  If this had been told to us during the original purchase, we would have thought twice about buying it to begin with.

Needless to say, we bought the replacement pump.  It took about a week for the new pump to arrive, Chrissy and I installed it and now her side of the mattress works fine.  I’m still aggravated that this wasn’t covered completely under warranty.  They should really come right out and say that they have a two year warranty, and you’re kind of on the hook for anything after that.  I’m just wondering if the new pump is covered for another two years, or will I have to pay the pro-rate of the original pump once this one dies in another two and a half years?

I’ve been uploading a photo a day (actually three photos per day) to Flickr for the last 31 days.  It hasn’t become an abominable chore yet, but I have found it difficult to make time for new pictures every day.   It’s also a bit of a pain to edit every photo once they’re sent, since Picnik takes forever and a day to load, but the results are well worth it.  In fact, you can already see how Aiden and Gavin have changed over the last month.  The long term results should be very gratifying.

I learned of a 3D photo gallery tool called FotoViewr from a friend on Twitter.  You just pop in your Flickr handle, select a subset of pictures to display (by set name or by tag word) and then choose a 3D format.  FotoViewr then creates an interactive photo gallery of your last thirty photos.  I really like the “wall” format, shown above, but the “floor” format is also very cool.  There are also links to each photo on Flickr and a full-screen mode (although my monitor resolution is too high to make this work well).

The best part is that you can embed a FotoViewr gallery in any blog post.  This would come in handy if I uploaded lots of pictures to Flickr, but I’m only using it for my 365 projects now.  There’s even a WordPress plugin to show a FotoViewr gallery on your blog sidebar, but it might be too small to see clearly.  I’ve downloaded it and will play with the settings on our blog later.  Expect more FotoViewr galleries from us in the future!

Last summer, I was mowing the back yard when I noticed something big and green clinging to our wooden fence.  I stopped the mower to get a better look, and it was a praying mantis!  I don’t think that I had ever seen one up close before, so it was kinda cool.  I invited the neighbor kids to check him out, and the younger one named him “Bob”.  Bob hung out in the back yard for a day or two, but we didn’t hear from him much after that.  We figured that he went off to get his head eaten.

Today, Chrissy was heading out to the garage with the boys when she spotted Bob coming down our driveway.  He was making his way back to our yard, where lunch was plentiful.  He was pretty wary of Chrissy though.  She got the kids into the CR-V and then checked on Bob to make certain that she wouldn’t run him over, but he was already near the gate to the back yard.  Good ol’ Bob.  I’ll have to keep an eye out for him when I mow the lawn next weekend.