Fogo de Chao...

My co-workers treated me to my favorite resturaunt for my B-day lunch...

Mmmm, meat....

Nice Place to Hang Out in Buchead

(note: there is a little sarcasm intended by the title)

Component 'amplifier'

I think I finally found out why all the displays on HD TVs in stores look like ass..

Another GPS Route Post (Bush, LA Trip)

I still haven't found a way to embed this into my blog, so here is a link:

Bush, LA Trip

This is going a little too far...

Louisiana Pictures!

I have edited my pictures and they are in the process of uploading! (a little with 388Kbps upstream). So far I have uploaded:

• Covington 2007 Mardi Gras Parade - Floats, beads and people acting silly.
• Covington School Nostalgia - A collection of the schools I attended in Covington.
• Random Covington Shots - The interesting to the bizarre; and a few shots of hurricane damage in Mandeville.
  
  

My Trip from Covinton, LA to Atlanta, GA

Here is a neat mapping program I discovered on Manglox.net. This sit allows me to take GPS logs from my Mio Digiwalker (exported in .gpx format) and overlay them on a map to show my trip times and speed (can be some incriminating evidence there):

Even cooler is this data overlayed on Google Maps- but I haven't figured out how to make that work as an embeded part of my blog...

On the Home Stretch...

Right at 100m

200 Miles to Go...

300 miles to go...

Heading Home

mardi gras in covington

Back in Covinton/Mandeville

A fairly uneventful trip- save for something not agreeing with my digestive track... I hate public restrooms, but I had to stop twice on the way here. Arby's: Clean and top notch. Burger King: looked like that restroom from the beginning of Trainspotting... :o)



I think I will make some phone calls and grab a few things from Walmart (grooming items forgotten on purpose- I need some new stuff and this gives me the chance to do a little quick shopping) and call it a night...

under 50 miles to go!

I had to make a 'pit stop' in Daimondhead, MS- hopefully my last stop before I get to the hotel!

Blogging on the road...

I was trying to upload posts at stop during my trip- but something isn't happening...

230 miles/ 3:32 to go!

Leaving for New Orleans in the morning...

Vacation time!



My first week of vacation for this year starts tomorrow (technically it started on Saturday, but I have been slow to get on the road) and I am headed down to New Orleans/Covington, LA to see some of my friends and re-experience Mardi Gras (for the 20th or so time...)



I decided on a hotel room at the Best Western in Covington (some strange nostalgia about that place) for Monday and Tuesday night- Wednesday is either head home or crash at someone's place (depending on my mood).



Things to do while I am there:

• Take some pictures of my former homes in Bush, LA (yes- that is a town name) and Covington, LA.
• Have lunch at The Times Bar and Grill and Semolina's
• Pick up some King Cakes for the guys at work
• Hang out with old friends
  
  
• Try to look up old girlfriends/crushes (from way back in my high-school days)
  
  

I also fixed up my laptop and actually got World of Warcraft to run at a decent rate (most of the graphics turned down); I tried under Windows XP and it sucked- but I installed Vista (Home Premium) and it runs like a champ! (No areo glass. I even have it running via a Verizon wireless broadband EVDO card (setup instructions for Vista)- so I can play WoW if I get stranded somewhere with no internet! (yea, the word 'obsessive' comes to mind).



No packing yet, put clothes are washed and a list of everything has been made (gotta love MS OneNote); I will do all the gear stowing tomorrow and leave around 11ish EST. Drive time is about 7 hours (doing the speed limit- lol) and I get an hour back going to CST- so I am estimating hitting Covington around 7:00pm (gas and restroom breaks added in).



I hope the new podcast downloads are decent- otherwise I may be fairly insane by the time I get to Louisiana! :o)

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Vista, Vista...

Vista was running great- until I tried to install Alcohol 120% this morning (at 5am as I couldn't sleep).



I needed to burn an ISO of Ubuntu 6.10 server and the built-in tools for Vista do not seem to allow this (and Nero still does not work 100% because of the codec conflict)- so I decided to try out old reliable Alcohol 120%.



On install I got an red warning that the drive was unknown- do I want to continue? I (of course) said yes and the computer rebooted a few seconds later. I assume this was for the virtual CD drive (which I really do not need).



I rebooted and within 3 seconds of logging in it finds and unknown device and tries to load the driver again- and gives me a great BSOD.



I tried booting in save mode- but I still get a BSOD.



Rather than fighting it, I wiped the drive and installed Windows XP Pro (I tried a parallel install and it dies as long as Vista is on the drive- maybe there is a new NTFS format?).



Luckily I decided a few installs ago to move all of my documents, pictures, etc. to a network drive (which is also being backed up once a month to a different physical drive on my impromptu server).



I guess I may wait until Vista SP1- I am getting tired of re-installing WoW and The Burning Crusade!

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Plasma TV Power

Whew- I thought my 42" TV was getting ready to fail on me- the one that I purchased in late 2005....



I was getting a strange 'chirp' when I powered on my TV in the morning- one that sounded kind of like a capacitor getting ready to die. In addition, my TV was 'background' power cycling every morning at about 8:00am- I would hear a click and the above mentioned chirp and then it was off again.



It looks like I had too small of a UPS in-line with the TV and it was starving the TV for power. I use the UPS for line conditioning and they have a little better chance of absorbing a power spike than a normal (ceramic capacitor based) surge suppressor strip.



Occasionally the UPS would start beeping like a fool and I would have to power cycle the UPS to silence it- this usually occurred right after a utility power blink. This was a sign that the power supply was too small as the battery could not support the return load.



I was using an APC desktop power strip (325VA); last night I purchased a 500VA system and the TV now sounds like it is should; no chirps and no random power cycles (at least so far)!



Lesson for the day: don't under-rate the battery backup you need for a device- it is always better to over-rate and have a little extra!

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