Wii gave in
Finally gave in and got a Nintendo Wii for the family. Wow, when you start at just $199 retail, it seems cheap. $500 later (even after 20% savings), you realize that is with only one controller, no rechargable batteries, and no games. Also, it doesn't come with hi-def cables or anything. From the start, it is obvious that this is much less of a serious gaming platform than the XBox 360. It will only do up to 480p (and the nasty jaggies are pretty obvious in some of the games). It doesn't have any Dolby 5.1 ability (not even sure if it will play back DVD's). Still, it does what it does very well. And that is play fun family interactive type games.

I got a 2 station charger (x2), only because they were on super cheap sale for $15. I am sort of not liking it, though, because you have to remove the ruber grip from the controller to put it in the cradle, and the wrist strap also sort of gets in the way. They have a nicer "inductive" charger that would have probably been better, but almost 2x the cost. Here are a couple of "essentials" you also probably want:

• Nyko Wand x2
  
• Nyko Recharging Station x2 for 4 total batteries
  
• Wii Fit Plus
  
• Wii Motion Plus grip x2
  
• Wii Motion Plus Wand
  
• Additional Nunchuck
  
• Wii Sports Resort with additional Wii Motion Plus grip
  

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- posted by Jeff @ 3:31 PM | 0 comments

 
Spring Break
After driving almost 2500 miles in around 38 hours over 10 days from Boise, ID down through Salt Lake, Las Vegas, into Phoenix, AZ, up to Flagstaff and through the Grand Canyon and back, we are glad to be home! We took the boys down to visit their cousins (my brother and his family: Aric, Crystal, Trysta and Taylor and Sarah's sister and her family: Laura, Preston, PJ and Makayla), all in the Phoenix, AZ area. My parents were also down there, having spent most of the winter RV-ing in the warm climate. We had a great time visiting and seeing the sights! There were fountains and volcanos in Las Vegas. New bridges going up below the Hover Dam. Air Force Thunderbirds at the Luke Air Force Base airshow. Roller coaster rides and minature golf at Castles & Coasters. Zoo animals and friends at the Zoo in Phoenix. Beautiful landscapes in Sedona and at the Grand Canyon, as well as Lee's Ferry. Winter snows in Salt Lake on the way back (plus 50+ mph winds!). A great time in all.
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- posted by Jeff @ 5:51 AM | 0 comments

 
R/C Planes
Been playing around with some R/C Planes again. I use to do this about 15 years ago, but sort of got busy and the gas powered ones were a pain to keep running well (and messy) and I seemed like I was always repairing the planes more than flying them. But now, they have really come a long way in the foam planes (Depron and EPP) for strength and super light weight. Also, the motors and batteries are producing some insane power to weight ratios. These are brushless 3-phase motors, weighing under 24g on many and lithium polymer (LiPo) batteries, that can typically carry 2200mAh at 12.6v for less than 8oz.

I've even sort of been thinking about dabbling in some of the FPV, which is First Person Video flying, mostly with electrics and big wing loading soarers. You fly the plane remotely and have a very light weight camera mounted on the plane (many times, connected to servos and a gyro head tracking unit that responds to your head moving around) and it remotely broadcasts the video back to a receiver unit that you watch on head mounted goggles. There is all sorts of stuff to put on there, including full video layer HUD display and even GPS tracking, waypoint, autopilot and speed/altitude information all real time.

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- posted by Jeff @ 12:26 PM | 0 comments

 
Spring has sprung?
We are trying to decide if it is even reasonable to expect that we would have any additional time for another toy (especially up at the cabin in the summer, it sure would be nice). Buying used helps shave a lot of money, and it is a pretty good buyers market right now for a lot of things. Job situations and economy are always a concern, but I think right now, it is probably not a bad thing to be in a little bit of debt if you can continue to respond to short term emergency cash flow needs. Anyway, we are considering a 2006 19' Bayliner 195 Classic Runabout, just to play on the water with the kids. Not that they/we don't have ENOUGH hobbies and diversions, especially with how much the kids have been enjoying riding the motorbikes.

We actually took the plunge and and went ahead and bought it. Not sure what we are going to do with it now...it won't fit in our garage down here...


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- posted by Jeff @ 12:29 PM | 6 comments

 
Snow Mover
Picked up a used 2007 Arctic Cat H1 650 4x4 this last weekend for a reasonable price (it is black). Looked at a couple, and sort of really wanted a polaris sportsman with EFI, but for the price, this should be a pretty good unit. I haven't seen Arctic Cat too much in the ATV business, but this thing is HUGE. with 12" of clearance and over 700lbs, dry, it is almost more like a jeep than a 4-wheeler. It even has a standard Class III 2" hitch for pulling trailers and stuff around. I ordered a 3000lb winch for under $100 off ebay for it, and it came with a spay tank and some other bags and stuff. Hope Sarah likes it and can take it with us riding (she can be the cantina...grin). Looking at what it will cost to put a snow blade on it to move snow as well.


Update:Got a Gorilla 3000lb ATV Winch for it as well off ebay, which I'll use to lift the Warn snow plow blade I also got. And, to top it all off, a dual stage 24" 5.5hp Troy Built Snow thrower. I sure hope it snows...grin.


I also ended up picking up a 2005 Mirage 7x12' enclosed trailer for moving stuff.


And an ultimate snow mover, a used 2006 Polaris 700 RMK 159" that had 150 miles on it.


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- posted by Jeff @ 4:52 PM | 0 comments

 
Happiness...
So, I'm sitting here, drinking some of my own 2.5 year old aged hard apple cider (no...I'm not drunk, and I just poured the glass), listening to some soft "5 star" personally ranked music on my PC, my two boys are helping each other play a video game (actually HELPING, not fighting and saying, "Thank you Riley!" and "Do you see any more bad guys? No. Thanks!"), Sarah is humming and packing and getting presents ready for our trip to see her folks and sister and her family in our brand new GMC Yukon (thank you RIMM and AAPL), and I'm just plain happy. And I realize I've had a very happy life...not just the last 10 years, which have been the happiest, all with Sarah and now the boys, but a VERY HAPPY life.

I know money doesn't MAKE happiness, but we have been very fortunate not to want too much for that (everyone can always use more, but we have had everything we ever needed, thank you mom, dad, and Micron). It is funny how "relative" money is. We write checks and transfer money, buy vehicles worth tens of thousands, and pay mortgages on hundreds of thousands, but until you actually HOLD $5000 in your hands in $50 or $100 bills, it is hard to put it into perspective. I can't even imagine what some of the CEO's of companies do with it all...maybe it all desensitizes you and even makes you more unhappy (grin...at least I can pretend that is the case). They throw around a couple million dollars for BONUS. And corporations throw around a BILLION dollar type figures every quarter (Exxon and Intel routinely post $2-10 BILLION dollar quarterly PROFITS...wow).

I know environment doesn't MAKE you happy, but my environment hasn't been fraught with worry about being shot in the streets by roving bands of militants or government hit squads or my children taken from me (thank you to every single man and woman that has given their lives and a PART of their lives to secure that freedom for me and my children). I know success doesn't MAKE happiness, but we've been blessed with more successes than I can count (most of all, our two boys...thank you Sarah). I also realize that many of you with less may beg to differ on that (it is easy for me to say all of this when I have it). To that I won't argue. I don't think I've endured any significant measure of hardship or sacrifice, compared to many. Each of us probably has to answer that for himself and decide if they have a legitimate complaint in their lot in life. I can't answer that for you. I know at least ONE person that was handed a most undeserved suffering and blame without complaint. Volunteered for it, in fact. To stand in all of our places for ALL of our wrongs, including the imputed original sin that each and every one of us bears, regardless of how "perfect" we may be...

Most of all, I think I know that happiness, at least MY happiness, is a mental attitude and a personal and private relationship with God enabled through His son, Jesus Christ. A basis on something unfaltering and unchanging and not flawed by anything of THIS world, because it is not based on ANYTHING of this world or any one or material possessions (granted, I find myself routinely caught up in all of that too, and it takes sanity checks and rebound to stabilize, rationalize and move forward)... Thank You Col. R.B. Thieme for teaching me all of this. And, appropriately enough, at this time of season, thank you Jesus Christ, for your wonderful sacrifice that you made on the Cross so many years ago, to provide a path for EVERY person to experience your exceeding and eternal grace and happiness.

There are few things that touch that deep emotional response in me that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, or causes goose bumps and a tingle to run up and down your spine. Watching Braveheart in my kilt standing on my couch while Mel Gibson yells "Freeeeeeedom" (grin...I'm kidding...mostly). Hearing Celine Dion sing "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" (I know...I'm gay and I listen to Cold Play). Actually HEARING, cognitively, the words in a perfectly produced Shakespeare play with a great red wine (again...gay...I know). Catching the perfect surf wave and riding it in a kayak and then doing a combat roll out. Watching the rain fall from boiling dark clouds in Stanley, ID. Jumping in a 12 foot deep canal filled with drifted snow. Stepping off the plane in Marsh Harbor, Bahamas. Perfectly composed perl script (gay and nerdy). Hitting the perfect set of whoops on my dirt bike and riding as hard and fast as I can, all by myself at Black's Creek until I can't see straight anymore but grinning like a school boy, stopping at the top of the peak and looking at Devil's Hole and the South Fork of the Boise River...wow. Remembering hunting pheasants and ground squirls with my black lab when I was 12, Daffy. My Mom and Dad. Riding Moab Rim on a mountain bike at sunset. Perfectly lighting a computer rendered Lego scene (ultimate nerd, probably not gay...but definatly lucky-to-ever-kiss-a-girl nerdy). Seeing my boys run to me when I come home every day. Knowing that I live in a free country and the sacrifice others have made to guarantee that. Most of all, hearing my beautiful wife tell me she loves me; my best friend. All of these are, responses. Wonderful, but not the BASIS or source.

I hope that all of you can find this happiness and the sanctuary that salvation provides from what is our life in Satan's world. With the Hope that has been granted to every person, unconditionally for them to accept, this world CAN be a most wonderful and beautiful place. I hope to see you all in the eternal after life and compare stories. I'm truly shamed that this is not a bigger part of my daily life.

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- posted by Jeff @ 6:44 PM | 2 comments

 
Cascade Property - Take 2
We continue to look into building a cabin on our property up in Cascade. We would really like to build a very beautiful log home (that just happens to end up being almost 3000 sq-ft by the time you include the finished basement...crap!!!), but the price to build is insane (like over $175/sq-ft, not including a garage, or the property). Now we are looking at what would we be able to get into already built for similar money (and would it be worth just buying that). We found a place that we put an offer on, but we weren't totally in love with it (well, Sarah is, but I still think building on our site would end up with a much nicer view).

Update: Well, we accepted a counter offer from the seller on that place, and it is including a LOT of the furnishings, a gun safe, two snowmobiles and a storage shed.

Below are some pictures of the place we are buying.


Update: We picked up a new 2008 Yukon 4x4 for Sarah (traded in her Honda Odyssey minivan) and for going up to the cabin in the snow.


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- posted by Jeff @ 8:23 PM | 0 comments

 
Quality Entertainment...Matt Nathanson
This has truly been a year in coming and vastly overdue. Sarah and I went to a local winery to listen to Toad the Wet Sproket concert last year. This guy was up on the stage tuning a guitar. To be honest, he had old jeans and a dumpy shirt and I thought he was one of the support guys up there just getting sound checks and stuff. Well, he keeps strumming some short chords, and then stopping, playing with stuff and humming to himself while we all talked and drank wine...but I keep listening, because there are a couple catchy parts and he seems like a really good guitar player.

Finally, he actually starts talking to us. "Hi. How you all doin'". Well, he talked to us. I mean, really talked to us and joked. It was great. And at the end of the show, I kept humming this one tune I had heard (car crash...which at the time he first started singing it, I thought he was saying "I want to feel a cat's a$$", LOL). Anyway, we bought his "Live at the Point" and "Beneath these Fireworks" albums. Quite possibly the best entertainment I've ever gotten for my music dollar. That was a year ago. And now I just wish I could find his "Please" album, so I could buy it for "Hold Me". Matt Nathanson has more songs per album on my "favorites" ranking than any album I've ever had. My wife wants to have his baby, or at least go to another one of his concerts. Grin. Listen to his albums. They grow on you and somehow, I never seem to get tired of them like a lot of albums do.

Just demo'ed a couple songs from Cary Brothers too, who is touring with him right now. I really like his new album. "Who You Are" and "Ride" from the Zach Braff show, "The Last Kiss". Drat...wish I could catch them in concert.

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- posted by Jeff @ 9:07 PM | 0 comments

 
Remote Disk
I've been through my fair share of HDD's and have tried a couple different NAS drive bays. I have always ended up being a little disappointed for various reasons (most of which has been trying to find a dual drive enclosure with gigabit ethernet support and RAID for a reasonable price). I came across the Western Digital World Book II Terabyte drive at Costco today for $344. It was a bit steep, but try finding a Terabyte of SATA twin drive's PLUS an enclosure that supports gigabit ethernet anywhere.

I'm still trying to get a good feel for it. It is only getting about 10% efficiency of the gigabit bandwidth on my computer for some weird reason, and it is taking over 5 hours to copy 83GB of DVD rips...which seems slow. Averaging only 5.3MB/sec, which is about half what a 100 Base ethernet would do (check this reference for a base line of SATA drive read/write speeds as well as memory and nand flash speeds), let alone a gigabit ethernet setup. Something is VERY wrong. Reading online reviews, it seems to indicate similar problems.

Figure about 35MB/sec for R/W access on a SATA-150 drive locally (this can range from 20-50MB/sec depending on where you are on the plattern). Also, figure on about 60-65MB/sec for R/W access on a SATA-300 drive locally (again, depends on where you are at on the plattern). Figure a typical USB flash drive is about 5MB/sec, and 100-Base-T is about 12MB/sec. Figure striped SATA-150 is roughly 70MB/sec. Main memory DDR2 pushes 5-6GB/sec and gigabit ethernet pushes 125MB/sec. Firewire is ~48MB/sec. Raid-0 (striped) SATA-300 is roughly 100MB/sec. Puts things in perspective.

So, I returned the World Book and bought a Dlink DNS-323 NAS storage and put a 500GB Sammy SATA-II drive in it. Even this NAS is handicapped by less than stellar write/read speeds, but at least it is one of the higher performers I could find on Tom's Hardware. Seems like the dedicated chip doing the conversion from the network traffic to the SATA interface is the biggest problem. Hopefully they can improve it with improvements on the firmware, which is running GNU public code that they said is woefully brute force and not very optimized. This new unit is averaging 18.3MB/sec on sustained write transfers (and about 31% utilization of the gigabit ethernet port). About 3x more than the world book.

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- posted by Jeff @ 3:49 PM | 0 comments

 
Digital Picture Frame
I have really been wanting to get a nice digital picture frame for my office to show off all my pictures of my two boys. Seems like the static frames I have grow out of date SO FAST. I got my wife an 8" Pandigital frame with 128MB of internal flash and 800x600 resolution from Costco for Mother's Day. I created a slide show of her and the boys and even played a song in the back ground. She loved it. The frame isn't too bad, but some of the back grounds are very grainy and dithered (you can tell they are NOT doing full 16-bit color). Also, now that we have it, I really would like to power down the display from 10PM to 7AM (not sure why, it just doesn't seem right to have it on all night). I also don't like how far back it tilts when sitting on a desk. I may try to reduce the color depth manually on some of the photos in a better program and then upload them to see if the darker back grounds look less dithered, but initial trials didn't work out too well.

I really want one of the Philips 8" frames. It has a clock feature, auto off setable times, and can even apply sepia effects to the photos (though not randomly, I don't think). When you see it as an 8" frame, it is actually the diagonal. And while Philips calls this an 800x480 display, they say only 640x480 is viewable??? Anyway, this is just a little smaller than a 5x7" photo. I sort of want a 6x8" or 8x10" display for home, but that is getting pretty expensive still.

Now, I also see a Mustek PF-T80R 8" frame that has a piano black finish and features a clock and all sorts of other settings (not sure about the auto-off). It is pretty expensive at $299, though. And it doesn't have WiFi like many other frames up in this price range...

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- posted by Jeff @ 10:11 AM | 2 comments