Doorbell Chime

Back in May of 2009 we decided to repaint our living room. In the process I removed the doorbell cover and chime. No big loss, I didn't really miss it (in fact we kind of regret having a doorbell at times now), but it did leave some wire's hanging out of the wall. I finally decided we needed to do something about the wires. Sure I could just reinstall the old one; everything worked, but I've never liked the whole look of a plastic box sticking out of the wall (If something goes on a wall it should be decorative or functional.) While, the doorbell cover is marginally functional (it covers the ugly chime,) it doesn't do anything but sit there and detract from the rest of the decor in the room. On the other hand a thermostat while it can be ugly it displays the temperature and allows me to control my environment (functional.) It was decided that our new doorbell chime should be decorative as well as functional.

The process of finding anything decorative my wife and I agree on is a lengthy and often stressful one. But along and alas we finally picked a new chime, the Craftmade Hand Carved Scroll Design Chime in Matte Black - (CH1515-BK.). After it arrived and we opened it up to take a look. It has real glass with an Tea stained/frost to it and the whole thing is very solid. After holding it up in place we decided it would look really awesome if it had a light in it, (considering it looks like an old time lantern.) I said, "Sure I can do that."

HDTV

So the other day I was looking at some of the new HDTV's and came across all this hype about needing an HD antenna for free over-the-air broadcast. I thought to myself okay that's cool, but it just wasn't settling right. Later that day it hit me. You don't need a new antenna! The frequencies for UHF/VHF haven't changed, the only thing that has changed is how the information is sent on those frequencies and the bandwidth that is taken up by each station.

So to clear up the confusion here are a few links to info and such about antennas for digital TV:


Can I Use My UHF/VHF Antenna to Receive DTV?

Introduction to Over-The-Air Antennas

Digital Television (DTV)

Teach the USA to cook.

After watching the video I went and looked at my son's milk that he gets from school (yes same as the ones in the store.) In 8 oz. of "1% Chocolate Lowfat Milk" there are 24 grams of sugars. Ounce per ounce, about the same as in a can of soda! And we think this is helping our kids?

But, he also doesn't drink it everyday and I know how to cook and make him a healthy dinner. Can you?

To blog or not to blog...(or Ramblings of a Techie gone Foodie...)

When I created this I was sure It would be easy to come up with something to write about once a week let alone once a month. I envisioned writing about projects, ideas, concepts, hacks, and whatnot. I haven't done much of that, and it's been forever since my last post. Lately I haven't done much with technology aside from the day to day use.

No, my current focus appears to be cooking and food. New foods to explore or recipes to try. I can't be sure if this is permanent or merely due to the holidays and all that has been consumed in the past three months, but this blog has surely seen the deficit. To such an extent that I'm very intrigued with starting one for food and recipes and ending this one. But the question becomes once I start that one will it really be any different than this one? Fallen by the wayside, waiting for something ingenious to happen!

I guess only time will tell... meanwhile (and since it doesn't cost anything) I will probably start something about food and see where that takes me. If anything I will have a place for both of my passions.

If you are however reading this please do comment or email me. Maybe something may spark my interest and continue this endeavor.

The best dang drink in the whole world!!!

Okay, well this all started a number of years ago during a trip to San Luis Obispo, CA. Now this being a collage town there is usually one street that is packed with stores. And not just your regular shops, I mean everything and anything you could think of. Most of them not more than 500 square feet.

Back then I had a taste for really spicy things. So when I saw anything touting spicy and/or hot it was purely natural to go into the shop. It was in one of these specialty shops (that I can't remember the name of now) that I found it. I had tried the salsa, peanuts, and other things. Now it was time to wet my whistle. So I went to the small drink chiller and that's when I saw it, ginger ale. I thought, "great I loved Canada Dry Ginger Ale", this should be good. But, it came with a warning. This wasn't your typical soda, the fizz doesn't come from the carbonation. It's more of a bite your tongue and kick you to the ground fizz, and it's from the ginger.

The Living room

So that was it! We finally had it. Enough with the boring bone white walls, yucky carpet that covered the entire front room and dining room. Yes I said dining room. Really why would you put carpet in a dining room? With kids let alone adults it's insane to keep clean. Anyway Catherine and I decided it was finally time to redo the main floor of our townhouse.

Apple's MagSafe Power Adapter

Update: It's up to Apple's discretion and I'm not sure if they are still doing it but, if you bring your frayed adapter into the store they may just give you a replacement. As long as it isn't to mangled and shows normal use.

Now I'm usually a big fan of Apple but some things they just don't get right. I got my MacBook Pro used, not a bad deal everything works great but noticed a bulge in the cable by the MagSafe connector. I thought nothing of it but I was still cautious, trying to not bend it wrong and eventually have it break. Well, over the course of a month the cable started to deteriorate. So much for being cautious. This last week it would only work if I held it just right. I had enough! I thought okay I’ll just get a new one. Sure, for $80 from Apple! What a waste of money when the only thing wrong was a bad spot in the cable. Okay so it’s a little more complex than that. The insulation was melting, the wires had poked through and started looking like steel wool. Not a good sign!