Oh no he didn't

I laughed and I'm genuinely surprised that there doesn't seem to be an uproar.

Yesterday morning (Saturday 12/27) when Bill Weir was discussing the fact that their seemed to be a backlast against Caroline Kennedy as Hillary's replacement he said (paraphrased) "It just goes to show even a Kennedy isn't bulletproof". Yes he actually said bulletproof.

Funny I thought John and Bobby had proven that already.

How to spend over a grand on a 3 day weekend

I like to think I'm frugal (my wife will tell you "cheap" but I digress), so spending over a grand over the course of a 3 day weekend is pain for me but here is how it went.

Friday I was supposed to go pick up a weight bench and weights for my new "gym" in the garage. This is in relation to the issues with the gym to be detailed later. Instead, my truck ended up in the shop. We rarely get rain anymore, but of course the day that we do, my window decides it will no longer roll back up. Damage done is $500.

Saturday the Maxima goes in for the 30K service. Damage is $300. we buy the NFM's "special" formula on a 2 week schedule and we drop another $125 at Target. Also on Saturday I go pick up the weight bench which is $180.

So we are over $1000 now.

So how is any of this being frugal? Well a one time $500 on a truck is far less than having a monthly car payment, especially considering how little my vehicle gets driven. A $300 charge for service to keep a car running.

$180 to buy a weight bench. This is after the gym had such piss poor "customer service" in terms of cancelling the wife's membership. Kel got pregnant about a year into our contract which was a 2 year contract on which she was the primary. We had to continue to pay to cover her when she was unable to go. Fine, we signed a contract and we'll abide by it. We go to cancel and get a thousand different answers as to who we talk to. The goal was to remove her and make me the primary thus we no longer pay for her, and I become the primary and have to pay the primary rate but I do NOT have to go back under a contract. Depending upon who you talk to this is possible. However, when all is said and done "headquarters" cancelled both memberships. The local says they have to abide by that, even after saying there was not going to be an issue. Argh, so the weight bench replaces a monthly charge for a gym that has no sense of customer service. Additionally I no longer have to pay for gas. If I use the bench for even 3 months I break even - so I can see this a frugal purchase as well.

Lastly the NFM's food of course is a requirement. No other way around it.

How about that ...

Well this will make it two quarters in a row where I actually have a post.

Lil Miss is doing pretty good. She's teething pretty bad so we've been up a LOT during the night over the last two weeks. She is still asleep right now, and she slept through the night except for one short crying session. So why am I up right now? The muttleys decided they needed to go out at their usual time - a little before 6. Thanks guys. Anyhow the non furry monster weighed in at a whopping 17 pounds 15 ounces at her 6 month appointment. She was 27 inches long.

As for me, where to start. Well, on October 1st I start a new job. I'll still be with that large blue company, but as most of my readers know (all 1 of you) - I have been on a technical services contract for the last 4 - 5 years for a specific customer. On October 1st, I leave the world of technology behind and become a member of the BTIT team for them. That means I'll be a business analyst/tester. Services burned me out. The feeling that my only worth was the number of hours I worked got to me. The technology never doing what it's supposed to - got to me. The dealing with global resources with little to no skills - and management always turning a blind eye got to me. I really want to focus on building up the analysis skills and becoming a key tester. Of course now I'm hearing budget cuts - as the new guy that frightens me.

Some things from my work change that I have learned: I need to focus on getting my certification package ready, I need to find "mentors" across lines of business to have an "in", and I need to find out what I want to do (besides win Powerball that is)

It's the web

It's the web folks. It's interactive if you make it such. So if you post a "quiz" make it so that I can select answers and then score them. It's not that hard really.

Today is a sad day ...

Today is very sad. My home is empty except for me and the dogs. The missus has returned to work. The crotch fruit has left with the missus to be dropped off at her grandparents for "day care". It's very quiet ...

Dell catalog unsubscribe

With all of the noise on the Consumerist recently about unsubscribing from Dell's catalog, I thought I would give it a try. I used the the Home and Small Business links to unnsubscribe from Direct Mail. I'll post in a few months (sure I'll remember) to let folks know if it actually got me off their lists.

You say tomato ...

You say Tomato, I say the best router firmware I have ever seen.

I have had a Buffalo Tech G54 for quite a while now. Perhaps over a year.

The one thing that I could never ever get to work for me was a reliable wireless connection from my T42p Ubuntu based laptop. I finally got around to installing Tomato last Friday. I have not had any wireless connection issues from any machine yet. Besides the linux wireless issue appearing to be fixed, some issues I had with name resolution for CIFS (Samba) appears to have been fixed as well.

Though I have yet to try the Wii I expect it should work.

The install went well with the only snafu being that I had already changed my router to use a default address of 192.168.1.1. Apparently you can not update the firmware when the default IP is anything other than the "factory default" of 192.168.11.1 on a Buffalo router. After I reset to factory defaults things went well.