Luke's first basket!

He was so excited and all smiles after making his first basket. And then he proceeded to make like 4 more during the actual game. Maybe a little Kelsey in him :-)

Kelsey's team completely dominated Alameda High School on Friday night - they won like 52 to 14 - and in fact Alameda only got above 4 when Conifer started putting in some second string girls towards the last period.

Wiped out

Oh to be a kid where you go at 100mph until you totally crash.

Light reading

This is the magazine he grabbed for the drive to basketball.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NANA JEAN!

 

Lost phone and new phone

So I 'lost' my phone while in China. That's not exactly accurate. I say 'lost' - but really what happened was that I "helped someone steal my phone by leaving it unattended for a short period of time" - it just sounds less cynical to say the phone was 'lost' - but I knew where I accidentally left it, and 20mins later, it was gone without a trace.

I continue to think that we have an 'inappropriate emotional response to losing a phone' - I wrote about the experience in more detail on my Mo-Kenyan blog.

The minute I realized I had left it behind, I called and deactivated it. At $3/min in China, someone could have racked up charges pretty quickly. When I got back here I went to a T-Mobile store. I've been a customer (with a family plan) for like 12 years now - so even though I wasn't due for an upgrade discount, they took care of me. It's one of the reasons I've been a customer for so long. Their customer service is pretty good.

I bought the latest Android phone - the Samsung Galaxy IIs.

It's pretty hopped up - but the coolest thing (that I continue to be impressed with) is how an Android phone keeps most of it's configuration out in the Google 'cloud'. Meaning I just enter in my Google credentials and in about 30mins, my new phone has all the same apps, contacts, wallpaper, etc.. basically everything important to me, restored. All my eMail is also on servers somewhere, as are notes, pictures, etc. - so at least I didn't lose anything. Was a pain to change all my passwords just in case someone hacked the cached passwords on the stolen phone (Amazon, Starbucks, eMail, etc..) - but restoring the phone was actually pretty easy.

Oh - and I got handset insurance on this one :-)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

EASTMAN KODAK HAS FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY. SEEMS THAT NO ONE WANTED TO BUY FILM ANYMORE.

 THEY NEED A NEW PRODUCT. HOW ABOUT 

BUGGY WHIPS?"

The Treadmill Incident

Danielle and I decide to buy a treadmill from Costco to stay in shape during the cold winter months. Now I have no issues with running in the cold, but unlike my crazy brother, I don't like to do it in the snow. Danielle mainly wanted it as an alternative to her elliptical. Whatever, that is not really relevant to the story.

So it was being shipped via UPS Heavy Freight, delivery on Friday the 13th. An omen if I ever saw one. I figured that it would be delivered by two big Bubbas. An extra $20 and I could get the thing put in the basement. Easy as pie.. The UPS semi pulls in front of the house and out gets....wait for it....a sixty year old guy....alone. Hmmmm, suddenly the idea of getting this in my basement was further quashed by the idea that I may not even get this in my house.

So Carl, as his nametag said, has a pallet lift and a liftgate on the truck. He barely can pull it up the driveway and I realized I would be lucky to get it in the garage. He does "muscle" the lift into the middle of the garage and dumps it off. Great.

So I open the box and take most of the loose parts into the basement. Now for the 350lb base. I get my appliance dolly, strap it on and I am ready to go. I suddenly realize that this thing is quite wide. A measurement with my tape and I discovered it would not fit through my side door without turning it sideways. However, I am pretty smart, I know my front door is much wider. So I trek the dolly through the snow that was on the walk, up the front porch and into the house. Easy cheesy. Hmmmm, my basement door isn't wide enough...doh! Now I realize that I can't do this alone. Time to wait for help.

Dani comes home and helps keep the dolly upright while I turn it through the door. With the two of us, we can conquer any obstacle. . We get it through the door and I start lowering it down the stairs. Natalie, my number one supporter says "boy that looks heavy. You better not drop it."

So I get the machine in the basement. It takes about two hours to get it together. I plug it in, flip the switch...and... Zip, nada, nothing. I check the switches, cables plugs...no good. I call the help number that says they have Saturday support....oh, they are closed. I send an email to customer support and wait. Up to the cottage we go.

Today being Monday, we come home and I still have zero response.. I call the support number and get a new message "sorry we have technical difficulties, please call back later.". My confidence in this company is at an all time high.

Now is when my engineering degree comes in handy. First lets check the ribbon -cable to the console - no power. Now we take the main unit apart and check the power cord, master switch and fuses - 110 volts and all fuses are good. Finally, lets check the main transform circuit for power - Zippo. Hmmmm.

I trace the incoming power wire and find the common attached to the circuit board..but there is no hot wire attached. I trace the hot coming from the switch. It goes into a bundle of zip tied wires and never comes out. I unbundled the wires and here is the hot wire with a clip, attached to nothing. I check the circuit board, guess what I find? A receiver labels AC Hot and nothing attached. I plug the wire into that and everything comes alive when I plug it in.

I reassemble the machine and am pretty happy that I don't have to worry about sending this monolith back or dealing with scheduling a tech. Danielle gets on her machine and away she goes.

I just got an email from the company...."did you plug it in and turn on the power? Does the plug have power?"

Great, thanks for the help. I sent them a nice email complaining of manufacturing and quality control. I am sure it will make it to the CEO ;-)

That's all the time I have.
Thanks, you've been great!

-TTS

THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER...

...OR AT LEAST, OF THE WINTER SEASON. TONIGHT... TOMORROW, THE FUN (SNOW) BEGINS.

ENOUGH, ALREADY!

VOTE NONE OF THE ABOVE. 

Politics is like the weather.. Everybody complains about it but no one does anything about it.

AND WE STILL HAVE 10 MORE MONTHS  OF  THIS. IF IT WASN'T AGAINST THE LAW, I WOULD SAY, HEAVEN HELP US. 

As Ward Cleaver would say...

...it's back to the ole "Salt Mines" today. 13 days off was fantastic, the most time I have ever taken off. I got to spend a solid week in Michigan with the Sheens, then still had a ton of days off with Brendan when I got home. I will miss sleeping as much as I wanted, but it's nice getting back to a "schedule."

BTW - they never revealed what Ward Cleaver actually did for a living. I'm guessing since he always dressed in a suit and tie he wasn't REALLY working in the Salt Mines. But then again, June Cleaver cleaned the house in a skirt, heels, and pearls so...who knows. Those were some crazy times.

Here is a picture of actual Salt Mines, just in case you were curious.