Monday
Woke up at 5:00 AM to make sure that Bob was awake. Bob and Wendy left around 6:30 AM. Worked from home. Took a quick nap in the afternoon. I left the house around 5:30 PM and headed to the airport to renew my night currency. Conditions were just fantastic. The moon was almost full, there were just a few high wispy clouds, the wind was calm, the air was as clear as a bell and as smooth as glass. I did two laps around the pattern, then flew over to the house, then south along the intracoastal then back north along the intracoastal back to the airport for my final landing. I took our old Panasonic PV-DV400 MiniDV tape camcorder and put it on a full sized tripod that I bungeed to the seat. Unfortunately, it swiveled to the left a bit, so the view wasn't quite as good as I hoped. Still, it was interesting to watch.
Tuesday
Took the morning off to fly the Civil Air Patrol C182R. Had a nice morning. Ceilings were only 2500 feet, but that was enough to do a few laps around the pattern and some steep turns. Landings were pretty good. Video taped the flying using the camcorder. I had purchased a PCMCIA firewire card for my work laptop a number of years ago (pre USB 2.0) so I could back it up to an external hard drive. I slapped it into Jeanie's laptop (which has a native i.link port, but I don't have a 4-pin to 4-pin cable, only a 4-pin to 6-pin cable) and the drivers self installed and the video editing software that was preloaded (Microsoft Movie Maker and ArcSoft Showbiz) both were able to pull the video from the camera without a hitch. After flying, I went to Publix to pick up a few items for Jeanie, went by the bank and got two rolls of the new Zackary Taylor $1 coins, then went to Staples. I had hoped to pick up one of their $29 after rebate 3 handset DECT 6.0 phone sets, but they were out of stock both in the store and online and they wouldn't give me a rain check - grrr! I did end up buying a combo (black and color) pack of ink cartridges for our trusty HP Deskjet 970cxi printer. Normal work from home afternoon.
Wednesday
Normal work from home day.
Thursday
Was awakened at 3:30 AM by what felt like a bug crawling on me. I got out of bed and was tempted to take a flashlight and look under the covers, but didn't want to awaken Jeanie. Went into the office and heard the main home PC making a clicking sound that I immediately recognized as a dead or dying disk drive. After just a bit of problem determination, I deduced that it was my D: drive, which is my main data drive. Of course it had been a few weeks since my last backup, so I wasn't a happy camper. I pulled the drive out of the case and crossed my fingers that the old "put the drive in the freezer trick" would work at least long enough to allow me to get the data off the drive. After an hour or so, I reinstalled the drive, and to my delight, it spun up. I quickly copied the critical data to the G: drive, then when it appeared that the drive might last a bit longer, I did a full backup to my network storage server.
About the time I started the data copy to the storage server, I heard Jeanie squeal from the bedroom. Apparently, what I thought felt like a bug in the bed was in fact a bug in the bed - a large "tree" roach. Even though I try not to kill bugs (preferring to just take them outside and set them free - unless the bug is of the biting variety) I dispatched this roach down the commode.
Fortunately, I remembered that I had a spare drive in an external enclosure, so I formatted it, copied the data from the failing drive to it, then swapped the drives. So far, it appears I dodged a bullet. I can't fault the old drive for failing. it did have over 50,000 hours of powered-on time on it. Its replacement is a veritable "pup" as it only has about 7,500 hours of run time.
Friday
Worked in the morning. After lunch, I went to the doctor and got my seasonal flu shot, then went on-island and got a haircut, then stopped by GoPC and picked up a new power supply. I decided to buy one locally rather than from NewEgg because I didn't want to wait the three days it would take to ship so I was willing to pay $15 extra dollars for a slightly inferior unit. GoPC only had one option - a CoolMax model v-500, 500 watt power supply with a 120mm bottom mounted fan. As an interesting aside, I discovered that on the picture on the box, and on all of the pictures on-line, the power supplies are shown upside down - so that the customer can see the fan. The reviews are mixed on NewEgg on this particular model, with some complaining that it is noisy and may not last that long, but at least so far, it is quiet (quieter than the old PS), and given that the power requirements of this particular PC are modest, I am hoping it will last until I decide to replace the PC with more current technology.
I then went to Wal*Mart and picked up a new battery for the BIOS in the PC, a couple of grocery items and a $10 metal flex style band to replace the fake leather band on my $9 watch. For whatever reason, the fake leather band is just too uncomfortable for me to wear the watch on my left wrist. I'm not sure the new band will work for me either, and the clasp style band on my other watch (which is quite heavy) is also not so comfortable, so, I might just have to give up on the idea of wearing a wristwatch and stick with the dorky watch I wear on my belt loop.
After returning home, I installed the new power supply, and since I had the case open anyway, replaced the video card with a slightly more powerful one I had in my "spares" pile. I finished doing that and got the PC back up and running just in time to dial into a work teleconference.
Another benefit of the PC challenges I had over the last few days.While my main PC was down, I logged into my Bellsouth email account via the browser interface to check my mail... imagine my surprise when I discovered that AT&T has been filtering my mail and that a whole bunch of mail never made it to the POP mail on my PC because it got automatically redirected to the spam folder on AT&T's mail server and therefore was not available to be POPed. Looks like I'll have to periodically check email via the browser for a while and unflag any mail erroneously marked as spam until I can train AT&T's automatic filters.
Saturday
Went to the CAP monthly squadron meeting. Jeanie and I were going to go to the annual Fernandina Beach Christmas pet parade, but it was cold and rainy, so we decided not to. I was going to take my 4 old dead UPSs to the city recycling, but the CAP squadron commander happened to mention that he had just purchased new batteries for one of his UPS, but then the UPS itself died, so he ended up taking my 4 UPS to see if he could rebuild at least one working one out of my four plus his (he is very handy in many ways). Returned home, picked up Jeanie and we ran a few errands on island, then went back home. Jeanie made her first attempt at cooking paella. After lunch, we watched "A Dog Named Christmas," a Hallmark Hall of Fame production made-for-TV movie based on the novel by Greg Kincaid that we had DVRed. The movie was predictably heartwarming and sweet, and Jeanie and I both enjoyed it. In particular, the acting of Noel Fisher was exceptional. In the evening, we watched the last two episodes of Monk. I believe the final series ending episode was one of, if not the, best series finale I have ever seen.
Sunday
Coffee at the airport then Atlantic Flying Club monthly meeting. Then went to Lowes and Wal*Mart to get some stuff, then home.
One item of stuff I got was another new $10 band for my $9 watch. Well, technically, I got two new watch bands - one a "long" version of the standard Timex style flexible metal band and the other a metal link/clasp type band. The "long" flex style band was too big - the watch would just roll around my wrist. As expected, the link/clasp style band was also too long initially, but it was adjustable. After doing a bit of Googling, I found instructions on how to remove links. I was able to get the first two out relatively easily, but the last one was a bear. Fortunately, one of the other items of stuff I purchased was a 4" pair of vise grip pliers that turned out to be instrumental in getting the last link out. With one last adjustment to the band - which hole (out of the seven or so) the flex links were attached to on the clasp, the band was "just right." I wore the watch all evening, and I forgot I was wearing one - which is just what I was hoping for. I repackaged both of the other replacement bands I had purchased and will return them to Wal*Mart next time I go.
Another item of stuff I got was a plastic two step stool. I had been looking for one of these for a while. The reason I wanted one is that I figured out that I could use a stool to help me build strength as I endeavor to increase my ability to do pull ups. I have actually continued to use Jeanie's gift to me of the Iron Gym pull-up bar by Pro Fit that I initially "installed" on September 20. I can now do one and one-half pullups from the 90 degree (palms facing my ears) position and 1 1/2 chinups from the palms facing my face position - i.e. I can pull myself up (chin above bar) from a standing start, lower myself all the way down (knees bent so I don't touch the floor) and then pull myself all the way back up and then lower myself back to the standing position. What I had been doing was using a one step plastic stool to "assist" me in doing additional repetitions. I would stand on the stool and then use my legs to reduce the amount of weight I was having to support with my arms. The problem was that the stool wasn't quite tall enough to allow me to get my chin above the bar, so I didn't feel like I was getting a full range of motion in these assisted pullups. The two step stool allows me to get my chin above the bar. The downside to the two step stool is that I end up doing a pretty deep knee bend at the bottom of the pullup, so I'll need to be careful about not over stressing my knees. One other good outcome from Jeanie's gift is that in addition to the pullups (in addition to the two sets of 1 1/2 unassisted, I do 10 assisted from the 90 degree handles, 10 assisted close grip palms facing and 10 assisted wide grip palms away) I also have added some glutes exercises, crunches and pushups. While I've hit a plateau on my weight loss efforts (I've been the same weight for 8 weeks now), I believe I am replacing some fat with muscle, as I am now able to fit into a pair of pants that Jeanie bought for me a couple of months ago that I couldn't wear comfortably then.
The last part of our weekend was attending the annual Civil Air Patrol Fernandina Beach Senior Squadron Christmas party. As it was last year, it was held at the Amelia Island Golf Club, which is part of the Ritz Carlton. Jeanie was absolutely stunning in a slinky black dress complimented by a black sparkly three quarter length jacket. The dress really highlighted her beautiful waist, and she was by far the prettiest girl at the party. In fact, when she first modeled it for me at home, it took all of my self control to not just take it off of her right there and ravish her on the spot. I had fun deciding which of the half dozen or so Christmas ties I have to wear. I ended up wearing my Looney Tunes tie which is one of my favorites. Dinner was okay. There was a salad with walnuts and dried cranberries that had a tasty dressing, a salad with marinated squash (yellow and green) that was boring, a boring orzo and boring new potatoes. There was no fish dish, so we had no protein. The highlight of the main course was an acorn squash that was dotted with dark chocolate. It was delicious. I wasn't too thrilled with either of the deserts, but Jeanie said she mildly enjoyed them. I did enjoy getting to socialize with some of the members that haven't been that active lately and getting to meet a few of the new members. After dinner, we walked up to the Ritz lobby to look at the giant gingerbread pirate ship. The S.S. Amelia is 17-foot high and 12-foot wide and is made from 1,200 pounds of flour, 900 pounds of sugar, 3,000 eggs and 15 gallons of milk. The pastry chefs and carpenters at the Ritz logged more than 300 man-hours on the completion of this annual project.
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Posted by David at December 07, 2009 06:45 AM | Categorized under: A day in the life, Flying, TV