Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen's Blog

I have been meaning to get a Duracell DPP-600HD Powerpack for some time, as a backup power solution for my CPAP. That's the intended primary use. Though I'm sure I'd find other emergency applications for it....

While Amazon/Prime would be a cheaper faster way to get it...if I was doing cash out of pocket spending....since its ~$150+tax right now, and I've seen ~13x+tax. But, pulling the trigger on actually getting despite having been hit by a bunch of power outages recently....has been a problem. Other priorities and belt tightening.

Today, I saw that the 20% off shopAMEX promotion was going on again. So, I popped over for a look. And, saw that I had enough points to get a 600HD from a shopAMEX merchant. Now the price of the unit is much higher than Amazon.com, and there is a charge for standard delivery of it...so more expensive and slower. But, since its points it has a different feel to it.

While the 600HD was the first thing I checked via shopAMEX, it wasn't the thing that I was going to purchase at first. I remembered that I'm still looking for a new dresser to solve the disintegration of my old one and the piles of clean laundry cluttering up my bedroom floor. But, there weren't any suitable dressers available for the amount of points that I had left (and I didn't want to get an advance on points). Even though this means that I'll have to buy a dresser for much more...and the procrastination on it could mean I won't get one until next year....

So, not finding a suitable dresser under my points threshold....I went ahead and pulled the trigger on getting the Powerpack 600HD.

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Link: http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=8372

My latest Woot acquisition has arrived. On 2 for Tuesday last week, they featured these Fire Extinguishers. I got 2.

When I first moved into my condo there were no fire extinguishers on the property...though I had an old halon one, and later picked up an aerosol can like fire extinguisher.

Later with an impending visit by the fire marshal, the landlord came into all the units and put fire extinguishers under the kitchen sinks. I was leasing to own at the time.

Later I become owner, and he didn't ask for it back. But, nearing time for the yearly visit by the fire marshal he went around asking for all the fire extinguishers back so that they could be inspected. It never came back. Eventually a fire extinguisher was mounted to the wall by the stairs...one on each level. Guess that was sufficient.

Plus I still had mine.

But, I had been thinking of getting additional fire extinguishers just for the sake of convenience. Though buying fire extinguishers online is hard and it wasn't really something I wanted to walk 3 miles to and another 3 miles back to get. And, I didn't think it would be something I could do on impulse.

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I've been thinking of doing this ever since I bought the condo that I had been leasing. Worried about what keys are out there.

Plus there have been two occasions where I've come home to find my front door unlocked.

First time I was still leasing, I had gone away to Calgary on Xmas holidays for a week and came home to find the door unlocked.

Second time was after I owned it, I yelled at the building owner about it and since then whenever they say they'll be around doing maintenance inside all the units...I take time off from work to make sure that my unit stays secure.

Evidently the reason is because the landlord doesn't believe in deadbolts, and won't lock them after someone has been in (even though I'm pretty sure the insurance company's discount for having deadbolts, assumes you use them.) And, like my door...units don't have doors that close properly (year round). Though my neighbor has it worse...if they don't close their door completely, it'll swing wide open on its own. And, there have been too many occasions where I've come home to see their door wide open and there's nobody home. Probably doesn't do much for the heating costs....

So, I had been looking at finding details on line about doing the rekey myself. Though not in any major hurry....plus nothing, except maybe buying completely new locksets, via Amazon.com.

Well, the new yellow pages came out a couple weeks ago...and I happened to flip it open to look at locksmiths. And, that got the gears turning again.

And, now with the upcoming trip to Penguicon...the combination of anxiety and paranoia (partly induced by my CPAP & sleep issues)....I went and called the first big locksmith add in the yellow pages and had Bandit Locksmith come out and rekey my front door.

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Today, the fire marshal showed up to test my smoke detectors...which I had been informed was an annual thing. Though I have no knowledge of it having occurring last year (and I've been a home owner long enough that I should know....)

The fire marshal showed up and poked all my smoke detectors with a stick and left. It was annoying because it uses up the battery, and I want to save the power for any real smoke during the bi-annual replace batteries and test that I do.

While I was waiting at home, I got an email that the fire marshal was showing up for their annual inspection at work today.

I commented to the state fire marshal that it was kind of annoying to take time off from work to let them into my private home. And, additionally, that the same day they want to inspect my place of work.

the state fire marshal was only there to inspect state property....and that maybe it was the city fire marshal that had shown up at my home, but it seemed odd.

He would call the city fire marshal and find out if they had been at my home, etc and get back to me. They did, and they told me the city fire marshal would be contacting me. He did, and had he known that some units at Collegiate Villas Condominiums were privately owned, he would've checked with the building owner to find out which units were. So, why didn't the building owners care about us condo owners?

Even though I still had 299 days left to my current subscription, I decided to nuke Norton Antivirus 2009 from my computer. Disabling stuff on it just so that I can use my computer was getting annoying.

First I had disable so that I can run BOINC projects on my computer, this means there's that annoying red X on the tray icon.

Today, I couldn't check my email because the inbound email scanner was broken....another thing that needed to be disabled. And, there were other quirks that seemed related, but I wasn't sure.

Of course, I don't like being unprotected. So, my employer has a site license for AntiVirus software...all on site computers are required to run it, but additionally employees and students are allowed to run it on their own computers. Once upon a time, it was Norton Antivirus that the University provided. But, a couple years ago they switched to Trend Micro. I think they just renewed for another 3 years.

So, I have installed Trend Micro. It has the annoying habit of identifying stuff that I want to run as spyware or malware and not giving any choice but to remove it....and without asking me. I had identd running on my desktop, probably left over from when I used a Windows IRC client. I vaguely recall that there was some other reason I had it, it didn't do anything dangerous...it was configured just to make whatever service that wanted to find it happy. But, during the Trend Micro installation...it silently saw it and uninstalled it from my computer.

A few years ago, it was uninstalling a home watching webcam software. It had classified it as spyware and kept removing it. Ya...it is spyware, its so I can spy on my home when I'm not home and see if anything is happening. I don't use it anymore, though I keep thinking I need to have something back again. Though I'm looking for something that is not computer dependent....

Oh well....

I guess I forgot that a big sales event was coming up....but, I happened to look at Sears and that air purifier that I wanted was on sale. The idea for another air purifier shuffle is forming.

But, then I was thinking of a UPS to filter out the small power glitches....and once again, sales this weekend. I first went to best buy, to find a cheap UPS...and saw that the 1500VA Geek Squad UPS was on sale. So, I started trying to map where that UPS would go, and it it free up a small UPS. Then somebody mentioned that Staples featured a small UPS for cheaper and better than the the one I was looking at from Best Buy.

So, after some though, I decided to go with that UPS (APC 550VA BE550R)...$20 off for $40 before $10 rebate. Decided to pad the order with 3 cases of bottled water to get free shipping.

The Sears EnviroSense Air Purifier has the problem in that it defaults to off after the slightest power interruption. While the Surround Air that I recently got, seems to have no such hangups.

So a small UPS to keep the EnviroSense Air Purifier happy seemed the fix to that. Though not sure I want the noise of UPS in the bedroom. Of course, the laundry right by the bedroom door...so it isn't really a big fix. Nobody said I had thought this through extensively. But, I do plan to get a big UPS eventually, and it'll be a refurbed SmartUPS to back up the other half of HT setup. But, I guess that will have to wait to later in the year.

Though I suppose what I could do for it being a small cheap UPS...is remove the noise maker.

Hmmm....we'll see...

Link: https://www.intermaticstore.com/dt17recall.pgm

Amazon.com sent me an email notice informing me of a voluntary product recall of the Intermatic DT17 that I had purchased from them a while back.

It indicated that any date code ending in 'A', 'B', or 'C' along with 40Z to 52Z were affected. A quick check shows mine is 13B.

Visiting the recall site, it appears you submit a claim and they send you a postage paid mailing carton to collect the recalled timer and then send you a new one. So, at least its free. But, it means that I'm without my timer in the mean time.

I've been using this timer to control my Hot Water Pot....to cut down on the amount of unnecessary on time of this appliance. Even then, sometimes its probably on more than it needs to be. But, having the Hot Water Pot is kind of a convenience thing....

I guess I can go back to leaving it on all the time for the gap.

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Today, I needed a flashlight. So, I dug into my drawer and pulled out a small LED flashlight that I keep for emergencies.

It wouldn't turn on.

I opened it up, and crud poured out. The battery had leaked and destroyed the flashlight...that's another flashlight destroyed by Duracell batteries.

I tried new batteries, but the light wouldn't work anymore. There weren't any other flashlights handy...so I was screwed.

Now I need to buy a new emergency flashlight...or more.

Well, it is that day of the year where I need to remember what all gadgets I have...so I can check that the clock has automatically moved back an hour, or move the clock back an hour. And, some its a matter of remembering what button or switch to move to make the correction.

I'm sure I've missed a few devices, in fact I've intentionally skipped two....gadgets that exist for other reasons, and the time display on it doesn't matter nor will it bother me (since I don't look at these gadgets much)

I can't remember what I set the outdoor min-max thermometer to....but I think I can live with the min/max reset time being an hour off one way or the other.

The only annoyance so far, is my atomic clock (in the bedroom) didn't adjust itself. In previous time transitions it had worked fine, but this time around it didn't.

This is also the time of year that I check the lamp timer on my TV. 1040 hours It has been about 11 months since I replaced it. So, I suppose that means I'll have another 3-4 years of life before it is time to replace the bulb. Though I don't know if I'll hold out that long before I get a new TV. I suspect I will, since there are all kinds of other things to upgrade/replace first. But, LED engine and 50" is kind of something I'd like to have. And, more digital inputs is another.

Finally, I went around replacing batteries in and testing the four smoke detectors in my condo. Wonder if I'll hear anybody else testing their smoke detectors

Some time ago, I noticed that I wasn't getting weather alerts from my weather radio in the living room. It was annoying, but I could still hear the one by the bedroom. But, that one was getting touchy/scratchy as well.

But, then with the recent bad weather, especially the tornado...which fortunately hit while I was out of town and missed me. 'cause I'm not sure what I would do if I were home. I should try to remember to ask if there's some place near by that I can go seek shelter for tornadoes.

Since all the weather radios that I've had have been all the same brand.... Oregon Scientific. And, I've had a few over the years stop working....I've contacted them on it, but they said because I've had it over a year and they had discontinued it...I was SOL.

So, I been meaning to replace them with ones made by another manufacturer...but as long as they are still working....

Well, last night another killer thunderstorm...and neither weather radio made any noise. I decided that maybe it was time to see what's up. Though just as I was about to order....the living room one started to do a Flash Flood alert but cut out mid-alert.

I knew that ambient RF noise in my living room was pretty high, I haven't determined if its the stuff in the room or something external....I suspect its both. Since some of the noisier parts aren't near any of my electronics. Though it there's enough stuff that there might just be lobes and stuff.

I decided to try find another place in the living room for my weather radio to see if that would make a difference. I couldn't find any spot that was near an outlet and a flat surface to set it down on that would work. As I was about to conclude that it just wasn't as sensitive at it used to be, etc. I remembered reading somewhere that the area is covered by 3 different overlapping NOAA stations....and no one station specifically associated with the area.

So, I tried checking the other channels....because maybe the coverage pattern off the stations has changed.

Well, I found that one of the other channels was stronger....enough that I got a full flash-flood alert (though those are the ones I don't really care for....I'm not in a flash flood area, and waking me up through the night just annoys me even more. Wish there was some further selectivity. I seem to think that newer units do have this capability...so perhaps I'll check some other day).

It is still kind of scratchy....and other receivers don't get the channel at all (or not any better than the other.) So, maybe there's just no good weather alert radio coverage for here.

Meanwhile...I just got an email from Ginger People that bulk sizes are available [again] finally. But, no email from Thinkgeek on the [new] item that I've been waiting for, but want to use my coupon that expires on June 30th.....