And so then I said

I need to update that photo at the top of this screen. Well not this screen as the screen I am typing on looks nothing like what you are seeing. No I need to update the photo at the top of the screen that you are seeing. Kinda old. I no longer have that laptop, it's now serving duty in Sacramento. Oh yeah Jami if no mouse is still screwy I have an idea...might be a loose cable. Call and I can easily walk you threw making sure the cable is on well.Anyways Kelli got her new door installed. The backdoor to our house was a nearly full glass door. (Viewable to the right of this screen in my Flickr Photos, click on Photos From My Flickr if you don't see it) Nice...but she could not install a pet door. She instead bought a new door and had a hole cut into it for a pet door. The new door has dual pane glass with built in mini-blinds in the middle. Having them built in means no dusting and they will never get tangled! The window is on the top half and with the bottom half consisting of the dog door. The dog door is "smart" door which can be set up to only allow her dogs through by placing a transmitter on their collars. This was if we leave for the day or even weekend we can let them roam around with no fear of another animal or a really small person coming in. So far the normally retarded Vegas is the ONLY dog to have no problem going in and out. Lilo who is normally the 2nd smartest dog must be forced through then one she is out she just stares inside....having to be repeatedly called to come in. Doogie is doing pretty good with it.Low carb still going well. I am going to clean off and up my grill.Kelli and I haven't gone on a vacation since August 8th. A record! I was looking at my pay statement for my next pay check thinking "that's a lot more money than I normally get." The reason? No travel charges! I pay a small fee ($11-$15 per flight per person normally for coach) for Kelli and I to fly. Although it's a small fee....my paycheck is small as well. We were planning on going to Chicago for a day trip Saturday. The Hurricane changed that. The winds and rain will likely delay flights in and out of DFW Saturday and Sunday.Oh....I have no idea what the title of this blog means.

A lot of time to think

Being away from home for 4 days at a time (Estimated at 73 hours of time.....but who's counting...oh yeah...the airline) gives me a lot of time to do....nothing. I need a damn hobby or something to do while I sit in hotel rooms. I thought doing ChaCha.com would be fun. But it's not. They lowered the pay rate so it's really not worth it anymore. Learning a new language came to mind...but the audio tapes I <cough>bought<cough> are boring. Rosetta Stone comes to mind. I gotta find something though. Amarillo, TX is a dust bowl of nothing and the hotel is in the middle of it. Santa Barbara, California is very nice...but I get 9 hours between the time I land and the time I depart again....gotta sleep somewhere in there. Right now I am in Little Rock, Arkansas in the downtown 1/2 ghetto part. Nothing to do besides watch drug deals (great view from the 11th floor of the hotel) and thugs run around. Okay this area isn't that bad...but you won't catch me walking outside after dark...and I even have the "right" skin color to be outside. I think I might buy a book or two. It's been years since I have read a book non job/aviation related. I thought my laptop would keep me interested....nah. I can only surf around for so long before I go nutty. Hmmm 6:30PM now....the van picks me up at 5:15....gotta sleep atleast 7 hours (normally 6...but I have to fly though Chicago tomorrow so I need to be EXTRA alert). So that leaves 4 hours of finding something to do. Bleh.

IR and glass

So I found a solution to my camera issue. Run both software versions at the same time and buy a big ass hard drive. The new camera (with its crystal clear picture!) records continuously at the rate of nearly 40GB per day! I still can't get motion base record to work (thats how my other cameras record). I bought a 500GB hard drive (which was crazy cheap!) to use just for the new camera. The old cameras use barely 100 GB for 4 cameras for a MONTH worth of video!

Speaking of the new camera I have it in the front window. The picture and ability to pan is very nice. A problem cropped (pun intended) up. The IR lights blind the camera partially at night due to the window pane. If I set the camera at an extreme angle then the glare goes away but so does the ability to pan. I am not sure a way around this. I can't put the camera outside as it's operating range is from 32F to 113F. It would die in the winter. Anyone have an idea?

I am currently in Amarillo. I flew in last night. I will travel through Dallas this late afternoon and then spend the night in Santa Barbara, California and the following night in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eating low carb on the road for breakfast is a little harder than I thought. After much mind fumbling I found the best solution is a low carb shake and a bar. All other meals are easy. I brought a bunch of nuts, slim jims, tuna and sugar free candy for other times.

Even if we don't have kids I really enjoy my MULTI ACTIVITY VEHICLE (that was for a crazy ass Aggie who insist on calling it the M word!). The versatility is nice. I have more cargo room than most small to midsize SUVs and get much better gas mileage. On a trip to see Eric and Angela last weekend I got 30.2 MPG. The Mazda 5 is EPA rated at 22 city and 27 highway. Getting 30 MPG is very nice. Having my tires set at a higher PSI than stock helps get better than EPA mileage. I also like the styling and overall value. I got everything (leather, HID headlights, sunroof, auto climate control, 17 inch wheels etc). I wanted except navigation and vehicle skid control (helps keep the car straight in wet conditions) for under $20K. The only reason I would get rid of it is if Kelli wants a new car when my lease is up. I drive soooo little right now (I am averaging just over 700 miles a month so far) that I could easily take her well used Prius in 3 years and be fine. Or I could buy my own. Honda is coming out with a Prius fighter that will get similar mileage for WAY less money. The car should be out next spring/summer.

My cell phone is almost 2 years old. When I bought it the phone was cutting edge. Now it's just average. T-Mobile is launching it's 3G network very soon along with a rumored 16 new phones in the next 4 months. One of the phones will be running an operating system by Google. I am in a pickle as I would like the phone...but I might get a 3G touchscreen phone powered by Windows so I can load my logbook (used to keep track of my flight tim) application on it. Right now my phone is powered by Windows Mobile 6...but its not a touchscreen. Because it's not a touchscreen my logbook program isn't compatible and I have to carry another Windows powered PDA (personal digital assistant). I would like to go down to one device...ahh....choices! There are a bunch of unlocked phones that fit my needs on eBay....and some are even 3G! Bleh.

Time to relax in Amarillo till this afternoon. Then off to beautiful Santa Barbara.

Make stuff compatible

So Fry's has a very nice network camera on sale. The camera is the Lexus of cameras. The camera can pan, tilt and has night vision. The pan and tilt part means I can turn the camera 360 degrees via a internet browser and tilt it almost 90 degrees. I bought two because they were on sale for $99. They are made by the same company that makes my current cameras, Airlink. Airlink sells networking equipment only through Fry's and for the most part the products are just rebranded D-Link products. I get the camera home and hook it up. The video and picture quality is far superior to my existing cameras. I get happy. I then try to add the camera to my current Airlink security camera software. That's when the crap happens. The new camera is not compatible with the existing Airlink software!!!! The software that came with the new camera is no where near as useful as the old software. The old software allows for motion based recording and I can exclude certain areas (such as the leaves on trees on the area of one window where the sun rises). The camera was just released by Airlink. I can hope that new software will come out with more functionality. I dunno. I can set it up to simply record 24X7 and dump out old video. This sucks. Very nice camera hampered by limited software.

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.

What is work?

Working. I haven't done it in a while. I go fly planes mind you. But I don't work. I have fun. The only time I really "work" is when I get exactly 8 hours of "rest" between duty periods...i.e. over night trips. When I land at 10PM and depart at 6AM...that's work. I end up getting 5-6 hours sleep to work a 14 hour duty day with 4 or 5 flights mixed in. Flying tired is dangerous....and it is work to me. Most days though...I go fly around a multi-million dollar aircraft at hundreds of miles per hour...with one hand on 24000lbs of thrust and the other on the flight controls. I sweep around clouds to make it comfortable for the people in the back. Every now and then I am packing up my stuff in the cockpit (I literally build a little nest on my side of the plane) and a voice from the back says "thank you" or "nice flight". I turn around and smile most of the time. Today one comment stopped me. A lady poked her head toward the cockpit and said "Thank you for getting us here safely". I had never heard that before. I did make it as smooth as I could. I avoided big turbulent clouds. I made a smooth descent from 38000 feet and I made a very nice landing with minimal "throw you forward in your seat" braking. Anyways I wish everyone could do something that is just plain fun. I have a blast flying.

The Blues

I have got bluetooth blues. My TMobile Dash smartphone has been acting up lately. I decided to do a hard reset. After doing do the phone was responding much better. Everything was great. I was happy. I then tried to simply re-pair it with my car navigation system. I remembered last time I did so it took a 3rd party application from Jetware (www.jetwaremobile.com) to get everything working. The software simply had to be installed while I paired with my navigation system. It worked perfectly. This time I tried simply pairing up. No dice. I then installed the 3rd party app.....still no dice! WTF?!?!? Software *should* be reliable. X + Y should always equal Z. I know except when Windows is involved. My phone runs Windows Mobile 6. I have searched the net and tried editing the registry and another 3rd party app....still no dice. I am now reflashing the ROM on my phone to the default Window Mobile 6 ROM. If this doesn't work......then one more 3rd party app and then I will just wait until the next phone arrives. Damn annoying. There are tons of forums concerning the Pioneer Bluetooth module and Windows Mobile.