Way back then

I stumbled upon a website called The Way Back Machine (click here for the site). The site stores websites on various days. Stillageek.com has entries from 2001-2005. I was kinda shocked. not every day is on there, but quite a few are. The sit even stored some of the photos. One photo I no longer have is one of our apartment after the fire on 09/11/2003.

The fire started by lightening striking an antenna on the apartment above. The sprinklers were set off in that apartment. Our apartment got a lot of water damage. Below is a photo of the living room.....notice something missing? Like the ceiling!

Long Trek

My best friend of 16 years, Katrina, (wow....over 1/2 my life) needed help with her computer. She lives in Wylie, TX....which is on OTHER side of Dallas.

Kelli and I live in the "Mid-Cities"...named so because its a group of cities between Dallas and Fort Worth.  Living here we can work or play in either city.

Katrina isn't the only one there. Eric and Angela also live way the hell out there. Being so far "out there" we don't visit them often. Most of the time when we visit Eric and Angela we meet somewhere in the middle. Katrina and Kelli would meet up often to have lunch....but then Katrina got laid off.

For the past few weeks Katrina was having computer problems. I tried walking her through the issue over the phone and through chat....but it didn't work. I said I would make it out there to fix her computer...today was the day.

I left home at 11:30. I put her home address into my navigation system and began driving. The navigation system took me the way I knew until I exited the tollway. At this point it had me go an odd way. Katrina lives off the same main highway as Eric and Angela. When I used the same navigation system to go to their house it took me the way I knew. For Katrina's house it took me on back roads. I checked the preferences and they were all set for the fastest way...same as for Eric and Angela. I followed the navigation system....blindly.

Eventually I got there.  She had 4 problems for me to fix. Within the first 10 minutes I had 3 of them fixed. Over the next 1 1/2 hours I worked on the last one.

Katrina's husband is in the National Guard. They use USAA for banking. USAA has a nifty deposit system. When you want to deposit a check you simply scan it into their website....and it goes straight to your account. Very easy. The problem is that when the JAVA application loads on the website and she clicks on "scan"....nothing happens.

I tried uninstalling and reloading JAVA, clearing cookies/temporary internet files, adding the site to "trusted sites" and reloading the scanner driver. Nada. I the tried Firefox (she had been using Internet Explorer)...same thing. I then thought maybe it was a Windows account issue.  I made a new Administrator account....same thing. I disabled all antivirus/spyware/phising software. Nada. I left defeated. The whole time I just kept uttering "maybe you should just buy a Mac". I never could fix the issue. Al I could offer was to backup her data and restore her computer.

The drive today was the second longest trip I have taken in my car at 84 miles round trip. The longest trip is to Eric and Angela's house at 85 miles round trip.

Talked to Kelli about Paris. She said London would be better...they speak English. Good point. London it will be.

We like the game Scene It on XBox. Kelli normally wins...she sees waaay more movies than I do thus scores better. Many times she hasn't seen the movie that the question is about....but she has read the book. Hmmm yeah.

I am in the process of upgrading the look of Byrd in the Sky. I am moving the post over one by one (cut and paste) from the current LifeType log to Wordpress. Wordpress is what powers Stillageek. I looked for software that could pull the blogs out of the current database and move them to the new one.....but had no luck. I should have all 180 blogs moved over by the end of the weekend...maybe.

American Express "My Wish List"

If you have an American Express card you can participate in "My Wish List 2008". The event allows cardholders to buy or win items at heavily discounted prices or even free. They had T-Mobile G1's for $125, Sony 42 inch top of the line HDTV's for $700 and more. They used to have high end luxury vehicles for $5000. This year they are free. Today I won a 25% off an entire Amazon.com order! Now I need to think of something to buy.

For more on My Wish List 2008 click here.

Save me from Zero!

Last night I was singing this damn song while getting ready for bed. Kelli came in saying it was stuck in her head too. I couldn't place the ad...only the damn song! Toyota please move on to a new series of commercials!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be5Xy66cwD0

Xbox 360 is more Wii like

With the new Xbox360 update...the appearance is very Nintendo Wii like. On the Wii you have to create a Mii to play games. A Mii (pronounced Me) is a character you design. Mine looks like the old me (with dreadlocks). Now on the new 360 you have to do the same thing! The menus and the feel of the menus is also Wii like. Odd seeing Microsoft copy Nintendo. Here is my Xbox Avatar.

Yes its cooler than I look currently....but the hair reminds me of my college self.

I tried to new Netflix application this morning on the 360. Everything worked perfectly. All you have to do is go online to your Netflix account and add videos to your "watch instantly" que the same way you would for a normal DVD que. I then launched the Netflix program on the 360 and all the movies were there for me to scroll through. I selected a movie and it began playing within seconds. The quality was just as good as a DVD. There are a few...and I mean few High Definition movies to select from as well.

I bought a 12 month (with a free month...so 13 month) XBox Live Gold card from Amazon for $38.99. This is way cheaper than the normal $50.  We will see how it goes.

Box of photos

I got bored while Kelli was exercising and went to my office closet and pulled out the only box in there. Ok that's a lie...I pulled out the only box I could get out without causing an avalanche. The box contained may photos from my college years and before. I found the best photo showing my previous hairstyle and scanned it in. Scanners...I remember when they first got "cheap" at $150. The interface was horrible. The scanned images were just barely decent...but it worked. I still have a scanner (obviously) that I use a few times a year (like tonight). The first photo is a fraternity portrait while the second one is a homecoming photo (wallet size so a little more fuzzy blown up!) from high school from 1994.



I went to homecoming with my best friend of going on 16 years Katrina. I was really skinny in High School...I think my low point was 150 pounds at 5'10.



I do have several photos that suffered water damage at some point over the years and are stuck together. Anyone know of a safe way to separate them?? I also have a bunch of slides....might need to ask Santa for a slide scanner....and a negative scanner....prolly a combo unit.

It's Official

Absolutely cutest and best niece WEST of the Mississippi river. There is an equally special niece EAST of the Mississippi....but I don't have photos of her.

Saving the juice

So after our crazy nuts $300 power bill in July, I went on a power saving spree. I automated computers to turn on and off. I unplugged a lot of devices that are rarely used, and I started using a lamp in the living room versus the ceiling fan lights. Now all of our light bulbs are compact fluorescents so even the ceiling fan lights use to same amount as one regular bulb....but the lamp uses 1/4th of that! Anyways with all of my reduction in use I lowered the bill by $60. This includes the extra power used by having my mother in law here for a week and me sitting at home a lot instead of flying. Since I have a line next month (a line is a set schedule of flying) I will be gone 18 days in September. I will predict our power bill will go down another $30. Good times.

When in airports always look for FREE wi-fi first!

So I am in Chicago. I flew in and sit for 3 hours. Anyways I fired up my Macbook (loving the 13 second boot to ready to use) and logged on to Boingo thinking it was the only "real" wifi here. After paying $5 (charging it to my T-mobile bill really) I heard an overheard announcement stating to set you SSID to Concourse for Wi-Fi access in the terminal. Sure enough I changed over. FREE! DOH! So word to the wise (and frugal) always try every hotspot before paying.

Weekend of geekiness

I finally got around to upgrading the security camera computer. I was really leaning toward a dual core computer upgrade. Then our power bill came. We hit 1725 kWh used in one month resulting in our first ever $300+ power bill. I then began thinking of building a more "green" computer as well as automating the turning on and off of the existing computers.

Fry's had a $59 motherboard and CPU special on sale this weekend. The CPU is an AMD Athlon LE-1620. The CPU is a single core and just 45watts of power used. There are some CPUs that use just 35 watts. The CPU used in the security computer was a Sempron 2500+ using 62 watts. While at Fry's I bought 2 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM for $19 (after $20 mail in rebate). The RAM is actually faster than the RAM in my main computer...I might swap them. RAM prices have fallen over the past two years. I paid $160 for 2 gigabytes of "fast" RAM January 2007.

From my storage closet, I had a brand new case I bought after a "free after rebate" deal from Frys sometime last year. I grabbed that and a "free after rebate" high quality power supply and a PCI-express video card. I then assembled the computer. I used spare hard drive and then loaded up the operating system. The computer runs pretty cool and quiet. Total cost? $80!!! Well the hard drive should be thrown in at $60. Still $140 for a pretty nice computer that will do little more than record video all day.

After that was done I converted the old security computer into a bed side computer. This invovled mostly removing the security camera software and extra cooling fans.

I bought Windows Home Server after trying it out for a few months. I figured I could just throw in the CD and upgrade it from Windows. That didn't work. I then began getting random reboots so I decided to just back up the important data and reinstall everything link new. I still really like Windows Home Server. The software is super easy to use and requires very little in the way of user intervention. To save power I shifted all backups to be done between 9PM and 1AM. The server will then turn itself off at 1:10AM and turn back on at 7AM. My main office computer which spent several months turned on 24X7 will now only be used when I am actually sitting infront of it. I mostly use it for email and gaming. I get the same email on my phone anyways.

I'm hoping the computer changes as well as other power reductions done around the house will lower the power bill below 1500 watts use this month.

New Swag

Got a box full of McCain stuff...new yard sign, button, sticker for my car....and the piece de resistance.....my NoBama shirt!

Back of the shirt


Front pocket area

Gonna have to downgrade

So I have had the Caddy of airplanes (for American Eagle way) since I started. Won't last for long. Due to downsizing of the industry I will very likely be forced out of my plane by a more senior pilot. I am currently #75 on my plane in Dallas. They are reducing staffing by 43....I am 12 from 20 from the bottom...not looking good. What is looking good is the fact that I have a union! Since I will be pushed out I have the possibility of pushing out someone more junior than me. Who will then push someone else out until there in no one left to push...then those guys are on the street. I am working up a game plan. I think I might go for the ATR...a huge turboprop aircraft. I would likely be able to hold a steady schedule...but the pay for the 2nd year (starting in October for me) is much lower than the jet. I am going for quality of life versus high pay. I was really down about the whole thing when I found out. I really enjoy flying the CRJ700....but at least I will still have a job...well I should still have a job....I might be forced out on the street as well.

We were supposed to go to New Orleans this weekend with Lacy and her brother Greg. They were going to use American Airlines buddy passes from Lacys Husbands sister. That deal fell through. Booooo! I was then thinking of going to the Bahamas....but I can't find a really nice affordable resort. So right now we are penciling in Cozumel, Mexico. I have Wednesday thru Sunday off. The resort I am looking at is the same one Eric and Angela visited recently. They had a good time. All depends on flight loads (only one flight in and out per day on American) and weather...(major storms near by).

If we don't go out of the country we will likely stay local and maybe take a day trip to Shreveport or.....somewhere.

I'm really hoping I can stay in my current plane. It's the only one in the American Eagle fleet with fresh coffee....all other planes have coffee delivered in a big thermos that was made hours ago. I really like fresh coffee. It's also the only plane that can fly at 41000 feet. There is a certain cool factor and safety factor up there. Cool because...it's high. Safety because we can out climb the weather.

Who knows.

I was in Little Rock Saturday night, home Sunday night, Des Moine, Iowa last night and now Kelli is going to Los Angeles tonight. Oh the traveling family!

Red ring of death

So our XBOX 360 has had an easy life. For a long time it just sat....unused except to watch TV via our media center or DVD's. We recently began actually playing it. Well two days ago it started locking up while playing games. I thought it was just a scratched DVD. Last night we got the "red ring of death".



I started looking online. Apparently the first batch of XBOX 360's had heating issues. The CPU and GPU (computer parts for most folks) would overheat and kickoff a hardware failure. Boo. Assuming we had just a one year warranty (I have since learned Microsoft has extended the warranty to 3 years for this issue!) I went online for a fix. Somehow applying new thermal paste fixes the issue. Odd. Whatever. There are several Youtube videos explaining how. I went to Fry's and bought a new tube of Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. I took apart the XBOX after watching a few how to videos. I put it back together...and still saw red lights. I then ran a diagnostic....which appeared to have cleared the red lights. I won't know for sure until I connect the cables back up. since we use the 360 for a DVD player and it was down, I had to dig out a DVD player to use. Once its over I hope the 360 works...if not...gotta think of a plan B.

I have earned over $60 answering questions on ChaCha.com (text 24242 to try it out...again IT'S FREE!). I get about 20% of the questions being dumb or immature (should I break up with my boyfriend/what the longest penis in the world), 40% phone number and addresses and 40% trivia questions. I am learning quite a bit.

For now we are watching Dream a Little Dream, Kelli had never seen this 80's gem. Kelli is incredibly smart....but she just now figured out what SAT stands for as in the SAT test. Odd.

My car won an award!

Ok not my actual car...but the car model! I truly do really like my car. It's my 2nd favorite thus far (I have owned 10 cars...favorite is my 1998 Cadillac Catera). The interior of my Mazda5 is very well done. The texutres are perfect, the shapes just right and the room is amazing. There is so much room inside of this pretty small package. The 5 isn't much bigger than my former Toyota Matrix. Anyways, the Mazda5 won interior of the year!

 Original Story Here

MAZDA5 Earns Ward's AutoWorld's Interior of the Year Award

June 4, 2008

The 2008 MAZDA5 has been named Ward's AutoWorld's "Interior of the Year" in the "Popular Priced Truck" category. Thirty-six outstanding vehicle interiors representing 13 manufacturers competed for top honors in the annual competition.

Over four weeks, members of the editorial staff of Ward's AutoWorld spent time with each finalist vehicle to evaluate its interior. Winners were decided by overall points earned. To be eligible for the competition, the vehicle or its interior had to be new for 2008. The MAZDA5 triumphed over competition from Nissan Murano, Saturn Vue, Ford Escape, Subaru Forester, Dodge Journey and Toyota Highlander, among others.

"We're honored to have won Ward's AutoWorld's 'Interior of the Year' award," said Jim O'Sullivan, president and CEO of Mazda North American Operations. "The MAZDA5 is proving to be exactly what consumers want -- a versatile, fuel-efficient vehicle that combines the functionality of an SUV with the ride and handling of a car. This is a great vehicle that hits right at the heart of the market, and promises to grow in popularity as fuel prices soar."

The three-row, six-passenger MAZDA5 is a multi-activity sports vehicle infused with sports car inspiration. The interior brags spaciousness and comfort. The stepped floor allows for more legroom for all especially those sitting in rows two and three. The second row has separate individual seats that slide, recline and fold flat, providing maximum versatility for passengers and cargo. The third row seats are split 50/50 and can be tilted forward individually and folded flat to create a flat load area. With the rear-most seats folded flat, carrying capacity is an enormous 44.4 cubic feet.

Interior storage is spacious and thoughtful, with multiple open and covered compartments. Flip the center-row seat cushions forward to access the under-seat storage or fold the tray down from the front-passenger-seat-back. Hide the things that make life more convenient in the center armrest or in a covered flip-out storage bin under the center-right captain's chair cushion. There's also an illuminated glovebox and half-liter bottle holders in each front door pocket, and even covered storage under the floor behind the third-row seat.

MAZDA5 is powered by a 153-horsepower 2.3-liter four cylinder engine and can be fitted with either a five-speed manual or five-speed sport-shift Sport AT automatic transmission. Priced from $17,995, the MAZDA5 is available in three trim levels -- Sport, Touring and Grand Touring.

Source: Mazda North American Operations

 

Good weekend

We had a good time in Sacramento. The last week has been trying on me. I only slept in my own bed twice! I went out last Tuesday for work and stayed in Amarillo. I slept in my own bed Wednesday, leaving Thursday staying the night in Little rock. Friday night I stayed in Lubbock. Saturday and Sunday I slept in Sacramento. Jet setting is fun....but can be tiring.

I am very conservative in many of my opinions. One that is in the news in California is Gay Marriage. Prior to being part of The Richmonds, I was firmly against it. No way no how. "God said Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve," was how I rolled. Well my sister in law is a lesbian. All of the thoughts I had on how lesbians and gay men acted turned out to be mostly false. They are quite normal people. OK they are normal people. At my niece's first birthday party this weekend there were several lesbian and gay couples there. I didn't feel uncomfortable or freaked out like I would have if I had not joined The Richmonds.  The topic of gay marriage came up and I politely stated my opinion that I fully support gay couples to have all of the rights and benefits of marriage....but they can't have the word. I am not terribly religious but believe that the word marriage is a Christian concept of one man and one woman joining to become one. That's just the way I feel. Jami and Priscilla have a wonderful relationship and will do great raising my niece Haley (although they refuse to adopt my concept of giving a child Vodka when they are teething or crying!).

I have finally completed my car stereo installation. I know I said I was done before, but I damaged an interior panel that I had to order. Crutchfield.com picked up the part cost as their instructions were flawed. I installed the part today and now all is well. Finally.

This week for work will be no work. I don't think so anyway. There is a a 4 day trip that opens tomorrow. I am pondering picking it up. Below is the schedule. It has flights to places I haven't been before. First night in Harrisburg, PA, second in Cleveland, third day has trips through Chicago (I hate the O'hare airport) and Nashville, TN (never been there) then an overnight in Little Rock, Arkansas followed by an early morning finish Saturday in Dallas. I will ponder it. Otherwise I will get the whole week off paid if I want it. Oh the worries of an airline pilot :-) .
DT EQ  FLT STA DEP    STA ARR  AC FLY    GTR  GRD     ACT
SKD 04 E7 3847 DFW 1725   MDT 2125    3.00
D/P SKD  3.00        P/C  0.00  TL  3.00
HALF DAY COUNT MDT  2
SKD TL  3.00  ACT TL  0.00
SKD ONDUTY  4.00 ODL   9.05
SKD 05 E7 3604 MDT 0730   DFW 0935    3.05        1.50
SKD 05 E7 3635 DFW 1125   CLE 1505    2.40
D/P SKD  5.45        P/C  0.00  TL  5.45
HALF DAY COUNT CLE  2
SKD TL  5.45  ACT TL  0.00
SKD ONDUTY  8.35 ODL  14.25
SKD 06 E7 4382 CLE 0630   ORD 0700    1.30        0.55
SKD 06 E7 4166 ORD 0755   BNA 0920    1.25        0.35
SKD 06 E7 4026 BNA 0955   ORD 1130    1.35        1.50
SKD 06 E7 4037 ORD 1320   LIT 1505    1.45
D/P SKD  6.15        P/C  0.00  TL  6.15
HALF DAY COUNT LIT  2
SKD TL  6.15  ACT TL  0.00
SKD ONDUTY 10.35 ODL  13.35
SKD 07 E7 3746 LIT 0540   DFW 0645    1.05        0.35        ‡