Happy New Year!
Friday, December 31, 2004
Thursday, December 30, 2004
We Have An Offer!
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
LavNav Toilet Night Light
Beyond its obvious value for use in your home, the LavNav also provides an ideal solution for RV's and motorhomes, portable restrooms, and yachts and other boats having living quarters attached."
Vroooooom!
What Are The Odds?
Spirit, which had to stop to dislodge a rock, is still climbing the "Columbia Hills". It's tough going, and Spirit experiences slippage of up to 80% as it climbs the hills."
Tsunami Information:
Sunday, December 26, 2004
The Holidays
1) Drive at least 4+ hours in one day. Bonus points for heavy fog and rain in the dark. Double Bonus Points if you tell your spouse that they are not doing their job as a passenger by not creating stimulating conversation or worse yet closing their eyes and maybe even taking a nap!
2) Communicate with a difficult person. This includes: Boring conversation, a one sided conversation, a story you heard last year or every Holiday, any type of story about that persons children or anyone with a voice that involves more nose than thoat. Bonus points for leaving the conversation and shooting 'The Look" at your spouse, showing that you are about ready to snap. Double Bonus Points for avoiding that person for the rest of the function or for leaving early.
3) Eating food on paper plates. Bonus points for having to bend the plate into a 'U' shape to increase its' load bearing capacity. Double Bonus Points for having to be told to use the plates and not just stand in front of the table and forage right out of the serving plates.
4) Having to watch some cheesy home video made by someone who thinks they are Steven Spielberg just because they own a video camera. Bonus points if you had to watch it more than once. Double Bonus Points if you manage to have to use the rest room during the showing and slip out.
5) Having to keep one Christmas get together from the other Christmas get together because you know the two parties would never get together. Bonus points if at some point you mention something that screws up the timeline but then put it back together with no one figuring out you messed up. Double bonus points if you think you fooled them but you didn't. (You'll never know... you might as well get some points for it, right?")
6) Dropping some type of food or liquid on the host carpet or floor and making a half hearted attempt to discretely clean it up. Bonus Points if the said food falls from a 'U' shaped plate. Double Bonus Points if didn't try to clean it up but just did the side to side look to see if anyone else saw and seeing that no one did you just walk on.
7) Calculating in your head the known value of your gift to them versus your preceved value of their gift to you. Bonus Points if your gift kicked their gifts' ass! Double Bonus Points if your gift was much cheaper than it looks or re-gifted from the 'secret' get together from #5.
8) Doing 'just a little' snooping while using the bathroom or walking to the bathroom. Bonus Points for reading any prescription bottles. Double Bonus Points for using any holiday decoration for drying your hands.
9) Watching someone save all of the bows and refold wrap, "You know, for next year." Bonus Points for ripping the person doing the saving. Double Bonus Points if you normally do it too, but since your not doing it now, you act like you never do it.
10) Taking an awful digital photograph of someone, showing them the photograph because you know it's awful, having them beg for you to delete it, telling them you will and even going through the motion of doing it but don't so you can use it against them later. Bonus Points if you know who you are. Double Bonus Points if you did the same thing to me!
Disclaimer: The above 10 items are put together as a joke and in no way represent my joyful holiday get togethers. It is not my intention to upset or offend anyone in anyway. ...but, Oh MAN! did my gift kick your gifts' ass!
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Success!
The Computer That Would Not Live.
So the plan was hatched. I had a nice Dell case, 400 MHz Pentium 2, 196 megs of RAM, 8 Gig Hard disk, 4x burner, and all of the little things that would make a decent internet surfer, non-gamer, utility rig. Just what my sister needed. I lovingly gathered all of the parts and began building what I thought would be a 2-3 hour job. I was wrong.
Open it up, clean it out, hook up the drives, connect the cables, clear the CMOS, close her up, plug her in, and push the power button. Floppy drive does a head seek... and does not stop! It sounds like a jackhammer and I can acutally feel the vibrations through the case. I kill the power and reverse the IDE cable. In other words... My fault. Second power up, RAM check freezes in mid stride. Kill the power and reseat the RAM. Third power up, no devices detected, none. Tear it apart, reseat everything, re-run the cables, try again... You starting to get the idea? This continues for a long time with many strange events with no rhyme or reason.
I am now on my 3rd hour and I just got the thing to boot up and have started to install the operating system on it... and the CD-ROM dies! That is okay because a have another one. DEAD! Three hours gone, have to go and buy a new CD-ROM drive tomorrow, and this thing is supposed her friggen Christmas present. So much for the easy computer build. Fruit cake is starting to sound a whole lot easier!
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
This One Hits Close To Home
Yea For Internet! Boo For Inflight Cell Phones!
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Site Of The Month!
Welcome to SeatGuru.com, the ultimate source for airplane seating and in-flight services information.
• Do you want a seat with extra legroom? A seat with a non-restricted recline? A seat that is extra quiet?
• Would you like to compare the First Class, Business Class and Coach Class seat pitch and seat width of different airline carriers?
• Are you traveling for business and need to know which airplanes have laptop power at your seat and what type of adapter you'll need?
• Have a long flight and want to know what type of in-flight entertainment is featured on your flight and what movies are playing this month?
http://www.seatguru.com/
High Tea At The Empress!
High Tea At The Empress!
Originally uploaded by Richard Whitten.
A shot from the archives offered as a replacement for lack of good photo opportunity during todays journey.
Stopped By The House Last Night...
I am typing this from the Rogue Regency in Medford, Oregon. A lovely meal from Taco Bell and I am now tucked away in my room working on the blog. The whole world must be working on their blogs, as the site is very slow tonight. I was going to take a photo today on my way down but since the leaves have now fallen off of all the trees and it was smoggy there were no good shots to be had. I'll go dig up an old one from the archives.
Special Offers Inside LOTR Extended Version...
1) For $3.00 you can get an Extended Version Slipcase. This case will hold all three extended version DVD's in one box. Offer ends March 31, 2005.
2) If you purchased the first release of the movie 5 months back you can get a $5.00 rebate since you bought the extended version. Offer ends March 31, 2005.
I ordered the slip case, and will turn in the rebate next. Now what to do with my left over $2.00?
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Locked Out...
Friday, December 10, 2004
It has been a week!
We have had someone look at the house each and every day since putting it up for sale 7 days ago. We wonder what people coming through say, think, and look at. It is a strange thing to have someone come and look at your stuff while you are gone at work! The cats know all of this of course, but won't tell us.
This week at the new house the kitchen and bathroom cabinets went in. We picked out all of the flooring and carpet and such last weekend so it will not be long until that all starts going in. We are trying to stay calm and not get too excited as the deal is not done yet. When our house sells it will be a good day with much celebration!
Well I am off to play online.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Interesting!
Monday, December 06, 2004
The Joy Of Home Selling
This fine duo of stories comes in two parts:
Part One - ‘The Key’
We arrive home from doing errands and buying groceries today and begin unloading the Jeep into the kitchen. We are both ready to be done, ready to just hang out for the rest of Sunday and maybe watch a movie. Deb and I pass each other a couple of times in the garage as we make trips back and forth from the Jeep to the kitchen counter. I enter the garage with the last load and find Deb standing in front of the door into the house with a look on her face, “Did you lock the door?” “No, I’ve just been hauling stuff back and forth.” “The doors Locked and my keys are on the counter.” Says Deb. So we both remember the emergency key we have stashed in the garage for this very reason! And then we remember me giving that key to the real estate lady for the lock box! Crap! Now we are hosed. No key, food inside the house the needs to go in the fridge, no car keys to drive for help, my cell phone is almost dead and might be able to make one more call. Thinking. Who will it be? Janet the lady who cleans our house! I call, she’s there, and says she will drive the key over! Whew, thank goodness that is over, now we can get to relaxing…
Part Two – “We’d like to show your house’
So now we spread out, doing laundry, pay the bills, I tear out the cat door to clean it, thinking about changing into my pajamas and then the phone rings, we don’t hear it because we are working on messing up the house just a little bit more. “I would like to show your house in the next hour and a half if that is okay… click” Deb hears the ‘beeb’ of the answering machine and listens to the message, we are not happy! We stop everything, clean up the whole house, and head out into the world for the next hour and a half. We do a whole lot of nothing as we imagine what it would be like to just be sitting on our butts at home. Two hours later we get home but there is not the required card from the home sales person on the counter. What’s up? We wanna be home! Deb calls the lady and asks if she has been to the house or is still coming? “Oh, what’s your address? Ahhh, no we didn’t make it there cuz it got dark.” Wow, that must have been a big surprise when it got dark like that!
The above stories took up 3 hours but is seemed much longer than that. I feel better now.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Sites Still Under Attack!
Switched To A New Photo Host
Jeep!
Jeep!
Originally uploaded by Richard Whitten.
As I set here in the dark at 3:00am I dream of being out in the woods somewhere tooling around in the Jeep with no top!
Volcano Is Washington States's Biggest Polluter
The volcano spews 50 to 250 tons of sulfur dioxide into the air each day. That compares with about 120 tons a day from all the state's industries combined."
Friday, December 03, 2004
Happy Birthday Loren!
Thursday, December 02, 2004
TiVo Is The Future... Accept It!
Pending - Off Market!
The future home of the Whitten's is now on hold awaiting the sale of our current residence.
Check Your Credit History...
Sometimes Free IS Better.
'The Swarm' 2 Is Almost Here!
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Home Update...
Settled on a deal with the builder that gives us a 3 month guarantee for first rights to buy with no possible bump in position on the new house. The upside of the deal is, as long as we sell our current house in the next three months our new house will be waiting for us off the market and locked so no one else can buy it out from under us. The downside is, if we screw up and can not sell our house or back out of the deal in any way the $3000 bucks we gave the builder to hold the house becomes his! So cross your fingers... or, come buy the house!
Our current house is now up for sale! I arrived home today to a large "For Sale" sign in the front yard. Tommorow I am told we will have our first walk through with an interested party. The upside of this deal is if we sell the house we are one step closer to moving into the new one. The downside is, I now have to make the bed every morning and pick up my underwear off of the floor!
Saturday we go and pick out all of the internal organs of the new house. This includes, Carpet, Wood Flooring, Light Fixtures, Appliances, Molding around the Fireplace, and some other stuff I am sure. The upside is, we get to spend hours picking out just the right parts for our dream home. The downside is, we get to spend hours picking out just the right parts for our dream home.
That's it for now. Well, it is off to make some Mac & Cheese and Kool-Aid... The new rule is: Buy a new house, step back a decade in the quality of your dinner!