iPod Touch

By admin | December 17, 2008

I have the best wife ever.  Have I mentioned that before?

My wishlist was pretty short this year and few electronics were made the list.  So Heidi decided to get me something way better than anything on my list…..a 16 GB iPod Touch.  I love it already.

My old iPod is a 6 GB Mini, 2nd generation.  I got it FREE from an online bank by opening up a checking account for a year.  Pretty sweet deal.  And this old iPod has served me well.  4 half marathons, countless hours at work.  But it’s a joke compared to these new iPods like the Touch.

Now I’ve got 10 GB more space not only for music but for apps, videos, and photos.  There are so many cool applications available online, many for free.  Here are just a few that I already installed:

The only bad thing about iPods is having to use iTunes.  I still hate iTunes.  It’s slow, hogs memory, and stupid about importing music.

Topics: GeekStuff | No Comments »

Heidi is on Facebook!

By admin | October 4, 2008

My beautiful wife has finally come around to the idea of Facebook. Last night she created her profile and now we’re friends! It will be interesting to see how much she uses it. Ironically she will probably end up using more than I do….which isn’t a lot.

Wait a second! Now I’ll have to start monitoring who is trying to poke her! Not cool.

Topics: GeekStuff, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Airstream restore: tear out interior

By admin | October 4, 2008

We have started tearing out the interior of our 1973 Airstream Sovereign.  Here’s a list of what we pulled out:

Removed the couch

Topics: Projects | No Comments »

Good-bye Brett Favre

By admin | September 8, 2008

What a relief to see Aaron Rodgers’ debut tonight.  All the media coverage of Brett Favre whining about his inability to make a decision about retiring was really gettting old.  Tonight is Rodger’s chance to silence all the critics….five minutes left and it’s likely the Packers will take the victory.  Rodgers has been pretty solid tonight.  So far one TD throw and a QB sneak.  Hopefully all the pundits will shut up and the Pack will be able to move on.  

Life without Brett Favre isn’t that scary, really….

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Our Airstream

By admin | August 30, 2008

We bought an Airstream.  Thirty-one feet of sweetness.  Yea, it’s got a full kitchen, bathroom & shower, bedroom and lounging area.  No big deal.

Our Airstream and lot in Clear Lake, MN

Heidi and I were out at the Clear Lake Airstream Park hanging out with the Wolleat gang last weekend.  There happened to be an open house for the park….how convenient!  After seeing this lot and the Airstream we couldn’t pass this deal up.  So we bought it.  That’s simple, right?

Our 1973 Airstream International is going to be a project this fall and winter.  We’re going to rip out the carpet and some of the cabinets this fall.  We’ll paint the interior, re-do much of the cabinets, and then get it ready for winter storage.  This winter we’ll reupholster some of the furniture and get new draps made.  We’ll be ready to rock out next spring.

More pictures of our Airstream.  Stay tuned for updates!

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Greendimes.org

By admin | August 15, 2008

I am sick of junk mail.  Credit card offers, student loan consolidation, clothing catalogs, etc.  We are now getting more junk mail than real mail.  A few months ago I had heard of Greendimes.org.  So I finally checked it out and I’m really excited.   They have 3 levels of service starting with a free version which I’m starting with.  It gives you access to a large list of catalogs and companies for which you can opt out of their mailings.  For a meer $20 you can have them do it for you.  A small price to pay for all the paper and time which will be saved.

I hope to monitor my junk mail pieces every week to report back the decline of junk mail.  Stay tuned.

Topics: Green | No Comments »

Qwest DSL vs Charter broadband

By admin | August 15, 2008

For those of you who hate Charter Communications as much as I do, you might not want to keep reading.

Disclaimer aside, I fell off the broadband wagon, again.  It’s been a couple of years since I cheerfully called Charter to inform them I would not stand paying them money every month for their underachieving bandwidth and horrible customer service.  Since then I’ve used Clearwire and presently Qwest for all my surfing, torrenting, and every blue moon–a blog post.

I ended up terminating my Clearwire contract because the signal was really bad at our house in Sauk Rapids.  I felt bad about leaving them at first, but after 3 months of arguing about a sneaky clause buried in the Term & Conditions (which I digitally signed; which means there was probably a 5 row tall textarea with monster scrollbar action needed to read everything; which means I probably didn’t want to read through it with a creepy install tech at my place watching me over my shoulder).  Where was I going with this?  Oh, buried in the T/Cs it states you have to give 90 days notice before your 1 year contract expires to terminate the contract.  I specifically asked their sales guy termination of contract when he was pitching it to me.   He lied and I didn’t bust him on it. 

On to Qwest.  I figured I’d give Qwest a try for a few simple reasons.  1) Qwest was the only major telecom to NOT sell out customers to government spying.  2) DSL has always been a favorite acronym of mine…no idea why.  3) They were basically my last option.

To give you a perspective of how bad I hated Charter bad then, here is the deal I signed up for with Qwest: 30$/month for 1.5 Mbs  Say WHAT?  Yes, it was about half the bandwidth Charter offered in lowest package but the same price.

Last month I found out my Qwest price was a 9 month promotional price.  So the rate is now 50$/month for 1.5Mbs.  Bullocks!

So I put my tail between my legs while I called Charter to try out their service again.  Tonight I have Qwest and Charter both hooked up to the internets and the bandwidth tests have been nice to see.

Here is Qwest:

Here is Charter:

I ran this test 3 times on each connection with fairly consistent results.  Charter’s 5MB broadband is about 4.75 mb/s down, 500 kb/s up.  Qwest’s 1.5MB is barely 1 mb/s down but 500-600 kb/s up.  But the kicker is Charter is cheaper (even after promotion ends).

Why does Qwest not even attempt to be competitive with Charter?  Qwest has slower internet, phone, and offers satellite packages from DIRECTV.  Charter has way faster internet, phone and mega cable.  It’s no wonder why everyone has bundle packages with them.  There is no suitable alternative in our area.

Topics: GeekStuff | No Comments »

Bloedow’s Bakery

By admin | August 13, 2008

While in Winona this weekend, I had to stop at the best bakery of all-time, Bloedow’s.

I first stopped here during a school field trip in 8th grade. During the first 2 years of college at Winona State I made frequent trips down Broadway to Bloedow’s. They definitely helped out with the “freshman 15″. Nowadays I only make it back to Winona maybe once a year and one of my first stops is always for donuts.

No website. No wi-fi. No expensive coffee. Just great bakery products…especially my fav, the raised glazed donuts.

Outside Bloedow\'s Bakery in Winona, MN

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Tyler John Gray

By admin | July 16, 2008

Born at 9:32 am on July 15th. 6 lbs 10 oz and 18 1/4 inches.

Congratulations Amy and Travis!

Topics: Life | 1 Comment »

Birthday T-shirt

By admin | July 7, 2008

I got this sweet T-shirt (Heidi’s is on the left). Ashley & Alyssa made them for us. This was an idea I told them about a few months ago…going to be the next hot T-shirt.

Topics: Green, Life | No Comments »

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