So yeah. If I want to go to Europe I need to get a current passport. Mine expires this May. So last Monday I went into the local post office and mailed in my passport renewal form (good thing they allow me to type in all the info into the PDF and print, I hate filling those things out by hand), my old passport (yes, I get it back..they say), and my $75.00 renewal fee.
Turns out they cashed the $75.00 check yesterday (Friday) four days after I mailed it, so I checked the passport status online and sure enough the status says:
We have finished processing your passport, and it has been mailed to you.
So I should get it next week. Now that is a quick turn around time. I am impressed.
The HDMI port on my TV has been acting up over the last few months. Most recently while watching Heroes on DVD. At random times I lose signal from the DVD player for 1-2 seconds. This bugs. I have also seen this when plugging the 360 into the HDMI port as well. Sucks even more when you’re in Live rocking it up at Halo and in the process of beating someone down when the screen goes dark for a second or two. When it comes back.. you’re dead. That really sucked btw. Soo.. I checked my little warranty I got when I purchased said TV. I have four years. Good thru May 24th, 2009. So tomorrow I will give old “Repair Master” a call and see what they can do for me. I’m not expecting much, but who knows.
However, looking at new TVs I found one that will suit my needs quite nicely. The Samsung HL-T5676S. Same dimensions (more or less) as the old one. I have a fitted place for the TV in my home, cant be more than 52 inches wide or it wont fit. This one is 1080p, mine is only 1080i/720p. This one is only $1199 online + shipping. Mine.. well, was quite a bit more when I bought it. This one has THREE, HDMI ports.. mine only one. So do I try and sell my existing one to pay for the majority of the upgrade? I was thinking $700-$800?? Seems like such a shame for the price I paid for it.
I’ve gotten many a good hour out of Mr. Existing TV. But, just was thinking .. if some family member or friend would give me $800 for it, I could use my state tax refund (if it ever shows up) to pay for the remainder.. Hmm…
At work we have a Cisco 6513 switch. It’s pretty huge. Has 13 bays for cards to go in and do their thing.
Unfortunately, I only have 120V power feeding the beast. I have two 2500W power supplies, but
thanks to the gay 120V power, I can only use 1200W of that. Sucks, I know.
So, here comes Cassidy with a new card he wants to pop into slot 12. It’s a 16 port GBIC blade,
basically to replace the 8-port one on slot 13 (see below) with added fancy stuff. Unfortunately,
it doesn’t look like I’ll have enough power for it.
To top it all off, I ordered a 16-port copper Gigabit blade as well today for this chassis. There’s
no way it’ll get power either. So something has to be done.
Option #1: Convert to 208V power.
Option #2: Get DC power supplies and supply the 6513 with power via DC.
Option #3: Cry and try to keep the tears away from the power.
Option #4: Pop in all the blades I want so it uses both power supplies (not redundant),
but if one of the power supplies dies, there wont be enough power for everybody.
Here’s the output of the “show power” command for all to see:
coreswitch>sho power
system power redundancy mode = redundant
system power total = 1153.32 Watts (27.46 Amps @ 42V)
system power used = 1099.98 Watts (26.19 Amps @ 42V)
system power available = 53.34 Watts ( 1.27 Amps @ 42V)
Power-Capacity PS-Fan Output Oper
PS Type Watts A @42V Status Status State
---- ------------------ ------- ------ ------ ------ -----
1 WS-CAC-2500W 1153.32 27.46 OK OK on
2 WS-CAC-2500W 1153.32 27.46 OK OK on
Pwr-Requested Pwr-Allocated Admin Oper
Slot Card-Type Watts A @42V Watts A @42V State State
---- ------------------ ------- ------ ------- ------ ----- -----
1 WS-X6K-SUP2-2GE 145.32 3.46 145.32 3.46 on on
2 WS-X6K-SUP2-2GE 145.32 3.46 145.32 3.46 on on
3 WS-X6148-RJ-21 100.38 2.39 100.38 2.39 on on
4 WS-X6548-RJ-21 121.80 2.90 121.80 2.90 on on
5 WS-X6548-RJ-21 121.80 2.90 121.80 2.90 on on
6 WS-X6548-RJ-21 121.80 2.90 121.80 2.90 on on
7 WS-X6500-SFM2 129.78 3.09 129.78 3.09 on on
8 WS-X6500-SFM2 129.78 3.09 129.78 3.09 on on
13 WS-X6408A-GBIC 84.00 2.00 84.00 2.00 on on
So I’m planning a trip to Europe this September. I have accumulated enough miles for a round trip ticket to Europe and back from Las Vegas.. and not just riding coach, but riding up in the “Business Elite” section (BOTH WAYS!). Yeah, I know. It is the only way to fly transatlantic. No really.. it is.
My little sister Sammi is also coming along. We’ll be departing Vegas on the 10th of September and heading to Amsterdam. Arriving there the morning of the 11th. We’ll have plenty of time to play, because we don’t head back until the 25th of September..from London.
So if anybody has any recommendations on where we should go during our two week trip to Europe please speak up. Obviously we’ll hit Amsterdam and London, but anything else? Paris? Switzerland?
So I was chatting with my sister last night about dinner. It went something like this:
SISTER: Dinner is at 7:30pm.
ME: Good, because The Office is on at 8pm, NEW. IN HD.
SISTER: TiVo it, so you can start 10 minutes into it and dont see any commercials.
ME: My TiVo doesnt do HD 
SISTER: All the shows you ever watch are in HD, why dont you get a TiVo HD?
ME: $$$. Maybe you can get me one for Christmas or B-Day
SISTER: How much are they?
ME: $300
Turns out NewEgg has one for $249. I bought one, and a 1TB SATA drive to hack/upgrade the internal 160GB drive. This will allow me to record those shows that I love to watch in HiDef (OTA) and not have to worry about interrupting my busy schedule to work it around the HD schedule.
I originally bought my TiVo Series 2 DVR at least three years ago. It has done well, I originally upgraded its drive to a 360GB when I bought it. Before I even turned it on, I did the magic “Blessing” to get the new drive to work.
Here’s hoping I’ll get another 3-years of great DVR action from TiVo HD.
Orrin and I went to the Priesthood Session this evening at 6pm. Somewhere during the beginning of it we see some old man (like in his 70s) with a sling on his arm (we’ll call him man#1) stand up and say something rather loud and insulting to another old man (which we’ll call man#2 who was also in his 70s) in front of him. It sounded like he wanted to go outside and fight him, even though he had a broken arm (Which he mentioned). A younger looking man (we’ll call him man#3) sitting next to man#1 took man#1 out and I guess calmed him down. Man#3 came back eventually, man#1 didnt.
3/4 of the way through the conference we see man#1 come back in.. point to man#2 and say “that’s him”. Man#1 leaves again, and in comes police officer #1 and #2. Police Officer #1 takes man#1 back out, and police officer #2 stands on the aisle and points to man#2 and uses a finger to get him to come out.
From what we gathered man#1 was loud, man#2 told him to quiet down. Man#1 got offended and wanted to fight #2.
Priesthood session I’ll never forget.
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Talking to Pete about my mortgage payment just barely.
ME: freaking mortgage..
ME: there goes another $1600
PETE: see? see why i don't want to buy a house?
ME: but I get to write off the interest.. and build equity.
ME: so it's like an investment that pays twice.
PETE: it's called paying a dollar to save 30 cents.
ME: i'd rather have my own house than rent
ME: because then it's like paying a dollar.. and losing a dollar
ME: ...so it costs you $2
PETE: that's pretty awesome logic
ME: i know.
