Category: General

As I mentioned earlier, we ended up buying a new refrigerator, a new washing machine, and a new dryer.  The refrigerator was supposed to be delivered on Friday, but it actually arrived yesterday.  I had to quickly move the old fridge, clean behind it, and get ready for the delivery of the new fridge.

We were planning on moving the old fridge downstairs into the kitchen area in the basement.  We thought it would be nice to have a back-up fridge for times like Thanksgiving and Christmas when we have a bunch more food in the house than we usually do.

Tonight, I measured the old refrigerator.  Uh-oh.  It was too wide to make it through the door to the basement.  Oy...

So last night I took the doors off.  That wasn't the easiest thing to do.  The refrigerator door was easy.  The freezer door?  Not so easy.  The water supply for the ice maker goes in through the bottom of the door and the electrical supply for the ice maker goes in through the top of the door.  But before too long, the doors were off.

Then my sons and I muscled it down the stairs.  Having the doors off allowed us to slide the fridge through the door without making contact.  After we got it through the door, gravity did most of the work.  We mostly had to guide it carefully down the stairs, keeping it away from the walls.  For the last few steps, gravity tried to do the job faster than I wanted it to.

But now the fridge is in the basement, the doors are back on, it's plugged in and working just fine.

And of course, this just reminded me how much I hate moving.  Good thing it was only a fridge!

I had the opening night dream again last night. Maybe it's because I'm no longer scoutmaster and I have even a slight possibility of being in a play again. Anyone that's been on stage might have had the dream.

It's similar to the dreams I still have once in a while about college. I dream that it's the end of the semester and I still have tons of assignments to complete and then I show up for the final exam and I don't recognize anything on the test.

In the opening night dream, I'm backstage, going through my script one last time before I go on stage, and then I realize that I'm not anywhere even close to memorized and that I've missed all of the blocking rehearsals. I go on completely unprepared, hoping beyond hope that the other people on stage will be able to help out and fill in. It's a horrible, horrible feeling. Usually the dream ends a few lines into the play, because usually I wake up in a cold sweat, happy that it's only a dream.

There are a lot of things about being scoutmaster that I'm going to miss, most of them having to do with the wonderful young men that are the scouts in the troop.  However, there are a LOT of things that I am decidedly NOT going to miss:

• Figuring out how to pay for summer camp
• Friends of Scouting drives
• Extra meetings
• Using up a week of my vacation for summer camp  (Though the summer camp itself, I AM going to miss.)
• Round Table meetings on the first Thursday of the month
• One evening every week taken up by a troop meeting
• Figuring out how to pay for equipment
• Stressing about safety on outdoor activities.
• Potty humor.  (These ARE 12- and 13-year-old boys, you know.)
• Stake Courts of Honor  (Sorry, but it's true.  I HATED them.)
• People who wonder how I, as scoutmaster, could let my son get a drivers license before he became an Eagle Scout.
• Clueless parents
• Making sure Fast Offerings are gathered on the first Sunday of every month
• Discipline issues when things don't go well
• Deciding whether or not I can take another week (or two) of vacation to go to summer camp with my own sons who are both older than 13 years old

I have to make a list like this so I'm not so sad about all of the wonderful experiences I AM going to miss.

6:00 am - Wake up and try not to roll over and go back to sleep.  Fortunately, this isn't a typical Sunday.

7:00 am - Stake Priesthood Leadership Meeting.  If I didn't have this meeting, I'd still be asleep until...

8:00 am - This is when I usually wake up on Sundays

9:00 am - Ward Choir practice.  We're getting ready to sing one song the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and several more songs on Christmas Day, which is on a Sunday this year.

11:00 am - 2:00 pm - Church.  Yes, we crazy LDS people have three hours of church every Sunday.

The rest of the day is usually spent with family.  Unless I have a Young Men Presidency meeting.  Next Sunday, the Young Men Presidency has a two-hour meeting for training and planning with the bishopric.

Sometimes there are other meetings as well.  I work with the 12- and 13-year old young men in the Ward, and we have a Deacons Quorum Presidency meeting once a month.  Last week, there was the "Priesthood Preview" meeting for the 11-year-old young men and their parents, followed by an Eagle Court of Honor for one of the Young Men in the Ward.

There always seems to be other meetings.  I'm not complaining TOO much though...  At least I'm not in the bishopric.  Then I'd have meetings all day long on Sundays, PLUS other meetings throughout the week.

8:30 pm - M*A*S*H time.  Usually the whole family watches an episode or two before going to bed.  It's fun family time.

9:00-ish pm - My wife goes to bed.  After she goes to sleep, I get some more "me" time, that seems to be rather sparse these days.  I'll usually play my guitar or read a book or do something else I've been wanting to do.

10:30-ish pm - Bedtime.

And they say that Sunday is a day of rest?  :D

Yes, I've been a bit under the weather. I had to take a sick day off of work, which bugs me because I'm trying to save up my Paid Time Off so I can do family things and scouting things like that.

I know, some of you are reading this and wishing that you had such a thing as Paid Time Off. I'm grateful that I can take a day off of work when I need to and I don't have to worry about how I'm going to make up the Time I missed so I don't take a hit in the budget.

It is also nice to have a way to work from home. That way, I only had to take ONE day of PTO instead of three. It's also nice for my team members because I didn't feel like I had to rush back in to the office, where I would cough and sneeze and spread wonderful viruses everywhere.

Still, it stinks to be sick. I didn't get to swim yesterday and my eating has been completely off. I'm going to have to reset my diet/exercise plan when I'm feeling better again.

Health is one of those things that I am often grateful for only when it seems to be in short supply.

Today's date (in a "short year" format) is 11/11/11.  It is the last day until January 1, 2100 that is a "binary day" or a date that can be represented with only ones and zeros.  It's the last binary day I'll see unless medical technology makes it possible for me to live until I am 130 years old.

So to celebrate this last Binary Day of my lifetime, here are some fun links:

Learn all about binary

Binary to Text (ASCII) Conversion Tool

Learn to count in binary on your fingers

Make a binary calendar from Lego (project 24 in this book)

 

I hate it when a major appliance has a problem.

A few months ago, our washing machine was making some pretty terrible noises. It was not pretty. I opened up the back (it's a front-loading machine) and saw that there was some abnormal wear on the large pulley that turns the drum around and around. This wear was causing the pulley to wobble back and forth. I ordered a new pulley, installed it, and for less than a hundred dollars, The washing machine was as good as new.

Also in the last few months, a plastic part on the ice dispenser our refrigerator broke. Again, I ordered a part, replaced it, and it's been working ever since.

The washer is starting to die. Again. In the same way. Ugh.

So now we're off to get a new washer and dryer. (We think that the dryer is causing little stains on our clothes, so it needs to go too.). And while we are at it, we're going to get a new refrigerator. We bought the one we have back when we moved into our first house back in 1998. It's more than 13 years old, so who knows when it's finally going to just die. And while we're at it, we're going to look at dishwashers because one we have is leaking. That one makes me the most angry because we bought it when we moved into this house in 2006. *grumble grumble*

This is why we have savings, but these things aren't supposed to happen all at once!

After looking more closely at the dishwasher, I found a screw loose.  (In the dishwasher, not my head, silly people.)  The screw was keeping the dishwasher door from closing all the way.  When I tightened the screw, it didn't leak a drop of water.  Hooray!  I won't have to replace the dishwasher just yet.

However, the washing machine is sounding worse than ever, and this evening, it was showing error codes instead of spinning the water out of the clothes.  I'm out of time on that one.

Older son's iPod quit working.  Well, it didn't really quit working.  Just one tiny part of the iPod quit working--the sleep/wake button.

He got it for Christmas last year.  He's had it for less than a year.  We bought it from amazon.com.  We bought it less than a year ago.

So we opened up a service ticket with Apple.  That part was great.  It was really slick...really smooth.  All I had to do was take the iPod to a UPS store and they packed it up and shipped it overnight to the Apple Inc. facility in Sacramento.

Side note:  The iPod went from Orem, Utah to Salt Lake City, to the Sacramento airport, to the Ontario, California airport (what the??), back to the Sacramento airport, and then to the Apple facility.  Quite the well-traveled iPod!  It still arrived the next day.

Then I received an email from Apple stating  the following:

Your IPOD TOUCH (4TH GENERATION) has been inspected by Apple technicians, who have determined that it has been subjected to accidental damage or misuse, which is not covered by the warranty, the AppleCare Protection Plan, or other Apple repair program. Therefore your original product is being returned to you unrepaired. You should expect to receive it within two business days along with a letter that gives details of this assessment.

What?? Older son is extremely careful with his electronics.  He takes very VERY good care of them.  He always ALWAYS had it in his Speck CandyShell case.  It wasn't misused.  It wasn't accidentally damaged.  Seriously.

So I called Apple.  They could tell me NOTHING.  However, they said that there would be an enclosure with the returned iPod explaining what the problem was.  The Apple tech even explained that often they even include pictures of the damage.

On Monday, we had a door tag from FedEx.  Nobody was home when they tried to deliver the iPod.  I stopped by home on my way (which was absolutely NOT on the way) to class, grabbed the door tag and picked up the well-traveled iPod.

I opened it up, and the note inside said this:

Dear Apple Customer,

Thank you for choosing AppleCare Service.  To ensure the highest level of quality and reliability, all work has been performed in an Apple-approved screening facility.

Enclosed you will find your original iPod.  We regret we were unable to complete the service you requested due to one of the following conditions:

[ ] A diagnostic evaluation has determined that your iPod requires service because of an external cause such as accidental damage.

[ ] A diagnostic evaluation has determined that the iPod has internal damage related to a liquid spill or submersion, evident by the pink/red color of the liquid contact indicator (LCI).  The LCI is located inside the headphone jack.  Please refer to Apple online documentation (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3302) for more information regarding the LCI in your iPod.

...Blah Blah Blah stuff about out-of-warranty service Blah Blah Blah...

Sincerely

AppleCare Service

Notice that neither option was checked!  And no other information was provided.  No photos.  No written information.  NOTHING.

We looked up the LCI information in the Apple Knowledge Base, and there was no pink or red color in the headphone jack or in the dock connector.  So we were back to square 1.  We still had absolutely NO information about what was actually wrong with this particular iPod.

I set up an appointment for the next day to have an Apple tech give me a call.  After holding and waiting for a while for the tech to find the photos of the repair, the tech decided that the website/tool that he uses to view repairs isn't working because it wasn't bringing up any photos.  He took my number and said he would call me back when he got the tool to work and he would email photos of the repair.

An hour later, I finally got a call back.  They never could find any pictures of the repair, so they're going to repair/replace Older Son's iPod.  Hooray!

Thanks, Apple!

Did you vote today?  I know, it's not a big election this year.  No Senate or House of Representatives seats are up for grabs this year.  Nobody will be elected President of the United States this year.

But sometimes, these "off-year" elections are actually more important.  You can vote for people closer to home that can actually make a difference in your local community.  Municipal elections often can make a bigger difference to you in your day-to-day life than other, supposedly "larger" elections.

If you haven't voted yet, get your voter information and get out and cast your vote.  If nothing else, it buys you the right to gripe if your candidates aren't elected.  ;)

 

I've never liked Daylight Saving Time.  It's an annoyance to me.  It would be nice to live in a state like Arizona that has decided that it's useless, instead of a state like Utah whose inhabitants have generally decided that it's useless, but whose legislature hasn't.

I thought that the idea came from Benjamin Franklin, but apparently, he only suggested the idea in a satirical way when he was an American envoy to France.  The anonymous letter suggested that the Parisians could save money on candles if they woke up an hour earlier to use morning sunlight.  The same letter proposed a shutter tax (to further save money on candles--without shutters, more sunlight enters and candles are not necessary), as well as waking people up by firing cannons and ringing church bells at dawn.

My deepest apologies to Ben Franklin for the times that I have directed grumbles at him because I thought he had come up with the idea.

The only interesting thing I remember about Daylight Saving time was back in 1974.  Yes, I remember a couple of things from 1974.  The previous year, Richard Nixon signed into law the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973.  Supposedly, this was to save energy.  Said Nixon:

"We have taken a number of actions to meet the energy crisis, and more will have to be taken. Many require inconvenience and sacrifice. But daylight saving time on a year-round basis, which will result in the conservation during the winter months of an estimated equivalent of 150,000 barrels of oil a day, will mean only a minimum of inconvenience and will involve equal participation by all. Unlike many of our other initiatives to deal with the energy crisis and to accomplish the goal of self-sufficiency in energy through Project Independence, these savings will not require research, new technology, diplomacy, or exploration."

 

I doubt that Daylight Saving Time has any net effect on energy usage.  As a native american once said, it's like cutting an inch off of the bottom of a blanket and sewing it on the top to make the blanket longer.  If there are more hours of daylight during "leisure" hours, people are going to go to beaches and parks and sporting events, and I can almost guarantee they aren't WALKING to those places.  If anything, I would think that Daylight Saving Time actually increases energy usage--especially when it comes to petroleum products.

The effect of this Energy Conservation Act was that Daylight Saving Time started on Sunday, 6 January that year.  My older brother was in the first grade and usually walked 4 blocks to the grade school.  I remember my mother being worried about him walking to school while it was still dark--even keeping him home until it started getting light outside.  Why this particular thing sticks in my mind, I have no idea, but it probably contributed to my negative opinion of Daylight Saving Time.

As a software engineer, anything I do that deals with dates and times has to be smart enough to know if it's Standard Time or Daylight Saving Time.  Every time Congress decides to change the starting or ending time of Daylight Saving Time, it causes work for a lot of software engineers in the world.

At any rate, most of you reading this blog entry, like me, must set your clocks back an hour before going to bed tonight.  Enjoy the extra hour of sleep, because you're going to wish you had it back in a few months.

Yes, a few months down the road, we're going to cut that inch off of the top of the blanket and sew it back on the bottom.