Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen's Blog

Last night I experienced another Kansas Weather Event. Starting to wonder if I had known about these things, would I have called Manhattan, Kansas home?

Last night it was rain, and lots of it. I may as well have been a solid water coming down everywhere....almost the instant it started....I could hear water pouring into my living room. I had towel handy, and the put empty trash containers along the patio door and that kept most of the water at bay.

Carpet was dry by morning.

But, then the inevitable next happened. The power flickered and then went away. I was watching TV at the time (L&O: Criminal Intent). Guess I'll have to pick up the ending later. Things were humming on the UPS. Though somethings bounced...I turned off the TV and the V880N. Seems my HDVI5 switcher isn't on a UPS. So, there was no using things while the UPSs beeped. I thought I had disabled the beeper in the UPS, but maybe it only disables if it knows there's a computer attached....there isn't so...hmmm.

The UPS handling 'lhaven' died immediately. So, no IRC. So, even though the cable modem was still working and lasted more than half an hour. And, the DSL modem never went down. I was quickly without Internet, as computers ran down. And, my wireless access points are connected to desktop UPSs. I think I should move the access point to the PowerSource 400 that was backing up my phone/VoIP/router/dsl.

I went around shutting down some other computers to help stretch the UPSs....

Seems the Lasko floor fan and the Kenmore Envirosense air purifier didn't like being on the UPS...probably the TRIAC to make low speed fan and the simulated sine wave of the UPS output not getting along. I turned these things off. And, then after pacing around for a while, and checking various light sources. And, finding it getting warm and stuffy indoors. I went out and listened on my HT to the weather spotters, and checked out the area.

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Link: http://www.tv.com/In+Plain+Sight/Duplicate+Bridge/episode/1269668/summary.html

I don't usually blog that much about TV shows I watch or have watched. But, I've been thinking about the "Duplicate Bridge" episode of In Plain Sight.

Why...because it features an Engineer. And, allowing for dramatic license...he reflected key principles of what being an Engineer is about.

He was deeply concerned about something he designed failing, he found a problem and exposed it, and later he concluded that he was also at fault and took responsibility for it. I'm sure there are all sorts of other real details that could be discussed about.

But, off to go find some other thing to watch on TV.....

Link: http://shop.nohasslegroceries.com

Years ago, when I first moved to the US. I came to live in an area where I did not have foot access to groceries or much else. Having come from a small city where I could talk to work and walk to groceries and just about everything else I needed (or use public transportation). It was kind of a shock. Of course, public transportation in the US is pretty much non-existent.

But, soon I found that Columbus, Ohio had Peapod...so I was ordering all my groceries online using Peapod, and I survived....until Peapod went away and left me with no groceries. I switched to using NetGrocer, which meant no more fresh items...but I still survived. In fact, I kind of miss those days in some ways...because it seemed I had greater variety and more creative meals than now. Though I did live across the street from work, and which gave me more time to cook before the start of Prime Time (which was 8pm, here in Kansas it's 7pm...so even less time).

Anyways, now I live halfway between a grocery store and work....its about a 30 minute walk to work. The walk to groceries is harder, because it's more up hill on the return. I wouldn't use public transportation to do groceries, though I would use it for other things. However, I was surprised to learn that there is no public transit here in Manhattan, KS. Even though of the small city I was from before, was about 30,000 and it had 6 fixed transit routes, 5 running regularly....well, could also be said it was 4 routes, where two routes had two buses that ran opposite sides of the run. It did feature a summer population boost due to the nearby military base. But, Manhattan, KS also has a military base nearby....but additionally has a University. But, transportation around and in/out of the city has been somewhat strange. Guess that's one of the big differences between Canada and the US.... Hopefully things will improve soon.

Well, on Monday morning I happened to be listening to bits and pieces of the morning radio alarm...and heard about No Hassle Groceries, I wasn't sure if I was dreaming it or not...but once I found the site and it seemed real...I made a plan to try it out today.

Only problem is that I went to the site today...and it says "We will be closed Sunday, May 17". So much for being no hassle.

Guess I'll have to go do groceries the traditional way....even though it messes up my plan to not leave home and tackle a home project that I've been putting off, because usually I'm too tired to do it after a hike.

This was also the first weekend in a long time where I didn't have UPS deliveries to pick up...which was kind of based around the idea of trying to take the hassle out of my weekend run to the grocery store.

Not sure which I'll try again....I will have deliveries to pick up next weekend....

I screwed up. Somehow I thought I already had a season's pass for Law & Order: Criminal Intent. But, I was looking around on my TiVo HD's...and found no recordings. Not sure why I didn't notice sooner, perhaps because I did have a season's pass for In Plain Sight and my check list for the day was for both these shows....

Anyways...I sadly missed the first 3 episodes of the season. After some thought, and not seeing it on Hulu...I decided to just go for it and order the episodes up using Amazon's Video on Demand service. I also got the HD versions.

I put the order in on my TiVo HD and there were there waiting for me this morning. Kind of sad that the episode information wasn't part of the info of the on demand download....but since I ordered them in order, I guess the bottom-up would be the right order.

Now I'm caught up. Haven't seen the 4th episode yet....but that'll be on my TiVo for later...

The government went and made things all confusing.

Analog TV seems to be ending around here at various times tonight, keeping with the previous date of February 17th as the end of analog TV. While some might see it continue until June 12th.

Link: http://www.hulu.com

Today I tried out Hulu.

Because last night, the schedule bumped Life to about 3:40am. My TiVo HD didn't get it, because it apparently needed to do some kind of maintenance reboot around 3am....only it got stuck, at the just a few more moments or something like that screen.

I had to reboot it hard during lunch when I found it that way. (I was home at lunch today, because I was still un-numbing from a dentist appointment)

I noticed the absence of shows recorded last night, and eventually concluded that only one show was actually missed. Life.

So, I was thinking where can I find the missed episode... I suppose with patience, I could get somebody to send it to me on my ReplayTV. Though it would only be SD. But, then I was reading my twitter feed of the impending new release of Boxee. (It is hard to write this blog post with twitter [TwitterFox] updates popping up and stealing focus, and not giving it back)

The NetFlix feature sounds nice, but it isn't available in the AppleTV version....so I'll stick to waiting for that from TiVo.

But, it did talk of improvements with its Hulu support...and I decided it was time to check that out. First I quickly popped over to the site to see whether it would be possible to get the missed episode of Life. Then it was off to work, with it as something to try when I get back home.

Well, it turned out to be a reasonable experience. It was 16x9, not as good as HD. And, the commercials were tolerable (and interesting and relevance). It only paused once (not including when I hit pause to answer the door and get my food delivery (I think she was cute, but I just took my food....)

Now I know what to do the next time my TiVo or cable company let's me down, eh?

As the impending start of the new fall season, I noticed that my OTA HDTV tuner wasn't getting a signal for some reason..... At first, because it was like 2am, I thought maybe it was because WIBW-HD was off the air. But, since it wasn't working this morning, I started to fiddle with the antenna. The Terk HDTVlp had served me well last fall thru spring....and there just hadn't been anything worth watching during the summer, so I don't know when it stopped working. Though WIBW-HD did go off air in the spring....apparently it had taken a lightning hit. So I hadn't paid much attention to it during the summer.

But, now there's lots of new shows to check out, and I not enough HD recording capabilities to keep up. So I need the ReplayTV with OTA HDTV tuner to supplement my recording capabilities again. I still plan to get the HTMac, but now I'm waiting for Leopard to come out before buying my first Mac. (though there might still be another computer in the future...so I can run Momitsu's V880N's MMC software somewhere closer and with more storage...).

Anyways...I suspect the condo's new building outside my livingroom window is doing more than just blocking my view.... Turning it to off to the side a bit, I could some signal...but not enough for a stable picture. Probably just a narrow slit between buildings.... So I switched to the Terk HDTVa to see if I can get more directionality on receiving a usable signal.

It seems to be working now....

Meanwhile, I saw the Tivo HD was being carried by the local Best Buy...wonder if that means if I can actually get Cable Cards around here? Though I'm wondering when they'll be more than just Tivo with CableCards. Would like to keep my fleet of ReplayTVs going for as long as possible....

When I got out of the shower this morning....I guess I was in there a lot longer than I thought. I found it was after 8am.

Remembering that when I had email customer support regarding an order for blank checks I made last month, that I hadn't received. The response was to call them and then asked me to fill out a survey on the helpfulness of their response.

Well, since I was home during the window (I haven't yet gotten around to trying the now working phone in my cubicle at work )....I called and all they did was look up the info confirm my address and offer to send me another book of checks. Hopefully these will materialize, etc.

Meanwhile, I since I was hope and using the phone....I thought I would give Cox a call, since it had been more than 24 hours since they promised that I would get a response within 24 hours. (digging through my email backlog....1000+ of manually filtered emails [meaning spam and date sensitive material, removed]) I saw that I had previously gotten a response email from them, also promising a response within 24 hours....but no actual response (since that's among the date sensitive stuff I look for, though not so much the received receipt...)

Anyways....after getting a hold of a person...I had to keep repeating that I wanted an HD-DVR and not to take anyway any of the stuff I'm already paying them for. Finally, he accepted that I really did want to add an HD-DVR to my current subscription and not remove stuff.

And, not because I had threatened to do so in a previous blog entry. He didn't seem to understand why a single guy with a single TV could possibly want to watch so much stuff. Though I'm starting to wonder if I can still watch all this stuff. But, I suppose if I spent less time at work or doing work from home....I would be able to resume my habit.

Plus the new fall season is starting to pile on....

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I have cable TV and broadband again!

Had to use my own modem, rather than the free one....the installer didn't have my details for what I had ordered, and therefore didn't have that equipment. But, better to get service....and he did land a HD converter (and I had that SB5101 laying around).

Now I'm just waiting for a DPH-540 to appear, so I can do phone....