With the recent passing of the legendary James Garner I have once again tossed the hit TV series “The Rockford Files” onto my Netflix streaming list. I had gone through the series a few years ago, reminiscing about my childhood, but this time it was to honor the memory of James. It is astounding how well the stories hold up to time. Written and filmed in the mid 1970’s, the...
Unless you just arrived from Mars, odds are high that you have see the panhandlers working the off-ramps. It is a pretty simple scam. Look scruffy, carry a sign with a sob story, and make eye contact with the drivers waiting at the light. While there might be some seriously needy people, the vast majority of them are completely a scam. Oh, yeah, some will have heartbreaking stories, but take note...
I felt a little bad in my last post ragging on Comcast. Apart from their tech whiffing on connecting the cable last Friday, and the snafu’s until their technician was here on Tuesday, it really wasn’t their fault. Today, I have more awesomeness to report. We had far too much stuff in our small apartment, so until Thursday, I hadn’t even unpacked our Plasma TV. Naturally, I...
Over the 4th weekend, I took a couple of days off (Thursday and Monday) to drive my dogs from Tucson, where they were staying at a pet lounge, to our new home in San Jose, California. The drive was fine, we rented a big Dodge Grand Caravan, as we wanted there to be enough room for the boys, and all the crap they need (beds, food, water, our bags, etc). Although Barbara was worried that it would...
At work, we are being split into two companies. A week ago, my computer was supposed to be migrated to the new domain. So I followed the directions to the letter, and naturally it failed. That night, I had a nightmare. That instead of just switching domains, that my laptop automagagically upgraded to Windows 8. Metro interface and all. <shudder> Fortunately, when I woke up, I found that I...
Our timing was impeccable. All through the last year, the housing market in Phoenix was literally on fire. Values were rising, houses were flying off the shelf, and we saw that our home had some serious appreciation. Then we put it on the market. SLAM that door shut. Suddenly inventory went from less than 4 weeks to more than 6 months, and it turned from a seller’s market to a buyer’s...
When we first moved to Arizona, I splurged and bought a Tivo. It was an old one, and it was wonderful. Worked great, super intuitive interface, great integration. Back then it had to call Tivo every day to get the latest listings. In 2006 or so, we went HD, and upgraded to a Series 2 HD, with the cable cards. With the exception of a failed HD in 2012, replaced via Weaknees, it has been wonderful...
What a shock. Where I USED to live, it will be 106F today. Here (Santa Clara) it will be 79. The local people will bitch about it being HOT. I have a lot of DMV stuff to do, alas, California is nowhere near as efficient as Arizona is/was. When I first relocated to AZ back in 2003, I walked into the local MVD office in Tucson at about 11:00AM, took a number, and before I could sit down, I was...
Intro: I recently was relocated from our satellite office to the mothership in Santa Clara. I was expecting it to be different. Of course I had visited before, so I wasn’t a babe in the woods, but it is a culture shock to go from a small ~ 100 employee satellite office to a site with a few thousand employees. 5 buildings, lots of hallways, and a lot of long timers. Observations: Coffee: We...
I own a nice car, a 2005 Honda S2000, and about 99% of the time I wash it in my driveway. With the move and the selling of our house, I have neglected it, so prior to it being loaded on a transport truck to get it to my new home, I took it to the local car wash. Ugh. It reminded my why I prefer to wash it myself. They do a terrible job. The amount of crap they don’t get off is astounding...