Our Fake Christmas (Tree)

Posted on by grahams
[info]coco_b

and I have never had a Christmas tree here in Boston..  Our last place was way too small, and beyond that, we leave for the last two weeks of December each year, so we not only aren’t around to enjoy it, but also aren’t around to take care of a real tree.   But since we purchased our new house and have some more elbow room, we decided to get a fake tree to get a little pre-game Christmas cheer going on… 

I’m not a huge fan of fake trees, in fact, I protested for years when my family switched to fake trees until they switched back…  But buying a real tree for our house and having to take it down and dispose of it BEFORE we leave for our Christmas holiday..  Well that is just crazy…

So we began looking for a good fake tree, which turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined..  We went to Sears to learn that all their trees were pre-lit except for one, and any of the trees that looked remotely real were $200+.  We then swung over to Target, and they too only had pre-lit trees, which was frustrating.  I’m interested in using some of the new LED lights on our tree, since they use much less power than traditional lights and I suspect they are far more durable than the notoriously awful mini-lights…   But if the tree comes pre-lit, I would have to dispose of those lights, not to mention I suspect I’m paying premium price for the lights on the pre-lit tree..  So I retreated to the Internet…

I found lots of options online for non-lit trees, and settled on a model from Christmas Trees Galore.  Obviously I didn’t see the tree in person, so I can only hope it looks good once it’s been delivered and we set it up, but it was $100 less than many of the trees we were looking at and I’m not paying some factory worker to put lights on my tree…

Work and Space

Posted on by grahams

I had been working on a custom feature addition to FlexSnap at work for the past few weeks which was keeping me off of my main project, and also off of working on the new MacBook work bought..   It came in in the middle of a project and it would have taken too long for me to switch to a different machine running a different OS.  But now that I’m “back in the saddle” I’ve moved everything to the Mac and can (hopefully) be full-time Mac at work now.

Tonight I’m heading with Howard over to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for open observatory night..  It’s not exactly astronomy weather, but we’ll at least catch the lecture…

Late Night

Posted on by grahams
[info]coco_b

and I headed over to the Girards’ home last night for some hot game-night action.  We played Fluxx and DICKtionary (think Pictionary but actually fun) and just chilled out…  Corinna was getting pretty drowsy-eyed around 1am so we retreated back to the homestead..  When we got home, our downstairs neighbors Kate and Greg were throwing a party of their own, so we stopped by to say ‘hi’ and ended up hanging out with them until like 3am.  Needless to say I slept WAY in this morning. :)

(Mostly) successful project

Posted on by grahams

For many months now I’ve been putting off a project on my car, and I finally decided the time was right the weekend to get it done.  Between my GPS, Sirius Radio, and iPod, I was having serious contention for the sole (“cigarette lighter”) power connector in my car.  After a few weeks of using a crappy 3-way splitter (and having it get knocked out by several passengers), I decided to do some wiring work in the car.

All of these devices operate on 5VDC, so I bought a Mean Well SD-25A-5 power supply with the intention of burying it in the dashboard.  Spotlight tells me that this order was placed on March 1st, so that should give you an idea of how long this project has been nagging me.  Originally I put it off because we were getting the old place ready to go on the market, then our move, then the oppressive heat of summer…  It finally occurred to me that if I didn’t take care of it soon, I would delay it further because it was too cold out.

So on Sunday I decided to finally crack open the dashboard and fire up the soldering iron.  Building the cables and harnesses went pretty smoothly, and after removing the dashboard (which I have done before), I was able to do my first “lap test” of the power supply and made sure that everything was running off of it.  Fortunately, from a Sirius radio past (which ran on 12VDC), I already had a 12VDC line coming out of the stereo wiring harness, so that made testing very easy.  That, though, was “always on” power (so I could pause the radio with the car off while I ran into a store), so I removed that harness and wired it to a switched feed.  After reconnecting everything and making sure it still worked, I disconnected everything from the power supply and started preparing the more permanent runs.  The Sirius is on a mount on the dashboard, so I was just able to sneak the power for that out between the trim and the dashboard.  But the GPS required a hole to be drilled.  I did a decent job, but it wasn’t as clean as I wanted…  I’m going to find one of those car seat plastic repair kits they used to advertise on TV to clean it up a bit…

After finding a decent spot for the power supply to live, and reconnecting all of the wires, I gave it one last test before sealing up the dashboard, and everything was hunky-dory.  I reconnected all the dashboard switches to the dash trim and popped it back in, screwing the few screws which hold it all together.  I was satisfied with a job well done.

Until the ride to work this morning, when I quickly realized that my turn signals didn’t work at all…   I got really angry, setting the stage for a bad day at work, and then when I got home I grabbed a flashlight, screwdriver, and hopedI could quickly figure it out..  Turns out than when I reconnected the wires going to the hazard switch, I accidentally put it into a dummy spot on the dashboard instead of hooking it up to the actual switch.  I’m kind of surprised that the turn signals are dependent on the hazard switch, but whatever…  Everything seems to be once again working, including my new modification.

I didn’t bother hooking up power for the iPod, since I rarely use it in the car and the traditional power socket is now completely free for it’s use.  I think at some point I’m going to put a USB connector somewhere in the dash which could power any USB device (including the iPod), but for now I’m very satisfied.

Huge Halloween

Posted on by grahams

Last night I got home from work after stopping by CVS to get some candy for the trick or treaters.  I put out the pumpkin I carved the night before and also dug some Halloween decorations out from the basement.  Quickly, the kid Frankie came from across the street dressed as a young Padawan. 

He was our only trick or treater.

:(

Total Insanity

Posted on by grahams

This weekend was totally out of control… 

[info]coco_b

and I left for the annual Halloween Party in Dryden, NY after work on Thursday…  We made pretty good time, and listened to Game 2 of the World Series on the radio during the trip..  It was the first time I had listened to baseball on the radio, and I was surprised as to how easy it was to follow the game.  I look forward to being able to listen to games on Sirius after the merger during future trips.  We went straight to the Bed and Breakfast across the street from the Hammond/Gunther (or, as I have dubbed them, The Hamsters) household.  We saw the last inning of the game, and Corinna went to bed.  I joined the party across the street and stayed up far too late.   The weekend is a blur…  I actually even had a costume this year, it only took me 5 years to actually dress up for the big Halloween party.  There was a pig roast.   There were abandoned buildings.  There was

[info]sophusalexander

who is beginning his slow reign of the human race.

Sunday, after the long drive back to Boston, we settled in to watch what became the final game of the 2007 World Series.  I don’t know if it was because of my lack of sleep, but it was a real nail biter for me…  I was so completely shredded after the game that I nearly passed out.

I finally have a Mac at work.  This is a wonderful thing, but it will be awhile before I can really adopt it as my new machine as I am really busy on some contract work (i.e. the kind with really firm deadlines we have to deliver on) for the next few weeks.