A few good words...

Backup Strategies

Scott — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:05:00 GMT

OK, so I've figured for a while that "prayer backup 1.0" was probably not a good backup strategy. We don't do that for our DVR - it has failover drives - and we shouldn't be doing that for the laptop or the desktop. I had thrown an old drive into a usb enclosure, but really it wasn't big enough to do a meaningful backup, and it had to be plugged in at a certain time of the day on each machine or it didn't back up. Guess how often it was plugged in at the right time?

Well, I bought an external terabyte drive with the intention of doing full system backups. I heard that Vista had that capability built in now, and intended to use that. Well, apparently not in the Home Premium edition, and not in the 32bit Ultimate Edition intsall I had either. Since a backup of the PC (not just the data files) was my goal I looked to third party software to fill in the void.

What I ended up finding was Acronis True Image Home 2009 - it will back up a partition while it is in use. It will do that in the format of a differential backup, an incremental backup, a full backup, and more. There are many different configuration options, but the one feature that really sold me was that it will back up only if the selected media is there. However, if it misses a backup, the next time it detects the selected media is present again it will start the backup! So now - no more having to have a hard drive at the right place at the right time of the day - Acronis handles it for me. And it's pretty reasonably priced too - the first copy is $50, but they have a deal where you can get a second copy for $20 more, and $35 / copy is really not bad.

Hopefully this is helpful to someone else in the same situation.

Doctor's Appointment

Scott — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:36:00 GMT

We went and saw the doctor today, but before we saw the doctor we were scheduled for an ultrasound.

First the ultrasound... we got to see Addie move her feet, and wiggle around and be generally babyish. They measured her and then estimated her weight by the circumference of her head. She should weigh right at about 5lb 1 oz... that puts her at the 50th percentile, right on target! Then they did some baby movement test whose name escapes me right now ... bio-physical something ... but whatever it was addie got full points on it - we have one healthy baby on our hands.

Next up the doctors visit, she was very nice as always. Shannon's blood pressure was right at normal and the doctor was very happy about that; there was some concern early on that it might get too high, but that seems to be all cleared up. Shannon continues to amaze both the doctor and me - since she got pregnant she has only taken on two extra pounds. Every time we see the doctor she says how remarkable it is that Shannon has done so well. I am really very proud of her.

That's about it - I've uploaded the ultrasound pictures and you should be able to find the in the usual media gallery. Email me if you can't find them.

Green, But Not With Envy!

Scott — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:54:00 GMT

Well, we finally got a little bit further with Addies room, so I thought it warranted an update.

First of all, we got both coats of primer on the wall, and it really did make quite a difference. The walls were actually white again, and so any color we put down after that was going to look that much brighter just for having a good base, so I was very happy with how that turned out. There were several places on the wall where the paper had come up off of the sheet rock ... various reasons there - cats, old paper, you name it... and so I had to patch those before we primed. Well, after the first coat of primer I was still a bit nervous about how they were going to turn out. With the second coat, you could barely see them at all... mission accomplished! A few places were still sticking up where the paper was peeling away a bit, so I got some general purpose glue, and glued them right back... most of them were on the old border, which definitely had to stick down or we were never going to be able to put the new border up.

So with two coats of primer and a glued down surface, we decided for sure to use the Freshaire VOC-free paint in the Arbor Vine color that I talked about in the last post. It is just a bit pricey at $38.95 a can, but the difference in smell level even while painting is huge. The first coat is now applied, and although we will definitely need another coat, we are very happy with how the first coat looks. It took 2/3 of a can to paint the first coat, so we're going to need to buy another can, knowing we won't use 2/3 of it, which is a bit disappointing given the price, but it will also be very good to have some left over for any touch up work... kids are prone to putting marks on walls.

Well, I think it looks great... I uploaded a few photos of it to the Scott Shot media gallery, but the light levels were terrible, so the photos are a) Not color correct, and b) Grainy. Both attributes that will kill the usefulness of a photo.

This week we were very fortunate, we received a huge blessing. We have been looking for a new dresser or tall chest of drawers for Adelaide for about a month now. The cheapest thing we could find was an Ashley 3 drawer "chest" for $160 at Mathis Brothers... it felt cheap, and we were very disappointed. Still, we thought that it would probably be enough, and we could always buy something later. Knowing that Grant works there, we called to find out if he would mind bringing it home one afternoon. Grant had a different idea. Basically, there have been a certain kind of dresser being brought back frequently that we happen to very much like the look of. Without any impropriety involved, Grant suggested that we wait until the next one came back, and he would hold it for us (with permission from his boss) instead of taking it to the As-Is showroom. The tall chest normally sells for $400, but had typically been getting marked to $160 because of minor damages.

We thought that being able to get one of those tall chests would be fantastic. We liked the dresser more, but if we could get the tall chest, we would be extremely happy. Besides which, the dresser costs $800, and would probably get marked at $400 for As-Is... and we didn't have that kind of money for a dresser, even if it was a great deal.

About a week later (last Friday) we got a call from Grant. They had not had a single tall chest come back, when previously they had been getting back 3 a week... but he had just gotten back a dresser and wanted to know if we were interested. Shannon and I talked about it and decided if they could price it at or below $350 we could probably afford it somehow... so we said sure, find out, and we'll see. A few hours went by... and finally a call back. The merchandiser had looked at the dresser and set an as-is price for it. With the damage considered, they were willing to sell it for $200!

I left work and was at Mathis Brothers in under 20 minutes despite Grant's protestations that it could probably wait until after 4 when I got off work. No way was I letting that dresser sit there any amount of time without being paid for!

So we are very grateful... to Grant for getting us such an amazing deal on a very beautiful piece of furniture that we could never have afforded otherwise, and foremost to God who saw fit for us to receive it.

OK, I know what you are thinking ... what was the damage that could knock six hundred dollars off of the price??? So I will tell you.

One of the screw-in legs broke. Not to be repaired. Oh well, I like it better without the feet anyway.
One of the drawers refused to close all the way.

Woah... that drawer ... that could be a deal breaker, right? So we get it home expecting to have to buy new drawer runners, and decide hey, let's change out the color panels on the front of the drawers to green like the room is, and change the handles to the bear ones instead of the concentric circles. We do that, and then decide to look at the drawer to see what is wrong with it. We pull the drawer out of it, and what do you know ... two of the feet are sitting behind it and are the reason it wont close all the way. We pull the feet out, and the drawer closes all the way. Amazing.

There are no dents on it, no scratches, no breakage ... nothing except the feet had to be taken off.

We are trully blessed.

The Art of Construction

Scott — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:18:00 GMT

No updates for a while... so I'll put one up before work today.

We've got a bit of Addie's room done. There's a base coat of primer up on all the walls, although we have another coat of primer to go before we can put on a coat of color (light green!). We'll probably end up putting two coats of the color on though, so there is still a serious amount of work left just in the painting. We're going with a VOC-free paint called Freshaire from The Home Depot. Supposedly you could paint a hospital room with the paitients still in it if you use this stuff... very odor free, and apparently good for the environment. Maybe, I guess... all I know is that it's good for Home Depot's bottom line, at $35 a gallon!!! It's been taking about a gallon per coat. So we still have $70 worth of paint to buy. If you want to see the color we're using, go to the Freshaire Website and select the Colors tab. We're using Arbor Vine.

We picked up a new air conditioner, because the one in Addie's room wasn't working well. We're going to move the 8,000 BTU one in our room to Addie's room, and we got a 12,000 BTU Frigidaire for our room. The 8,000 didnt quite get cold enough in our room, but Addie's room is significantly smaller, so it should do fine in there. Also, Addie doesn't need the room to be a freezer... so that will help.

We had a good fourth of July. Didn't do much, just cooked out. Didn't spend a bunch of money on fireworks, mostly just watched everyone elses... good times. Why pay money just to light the fuse, eh? We did get some firecrackers, which I'm sure we didn't use inside city limits. Not sure what happened to that orange in my driveway

Oh, I ordered a new remote for MythTV from NewEgg. Several posts online about it being compatible with lirc for use in conjunction with MythTV. Looking forward to putting the keyboard away again... it was much nicer just with a remote to access MythTV. Gonna have to match one of those buttons to a script that kills any instance of mythfrontend and restarts it though... had a bit of trouble needing that lately. Yes, I did just geek out a bit... I'm sure you'll survive.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on, I'll leave you with a nice link to what is probably the smallest bluetooth adapter I have ever seen! That's almost as good as built-in.

More Mouse Mishaps (Madness!)

Scott — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:37:00 GMT

This is almost getting to the point that this is a mouse review site or something... seriously, I must have tainted hands, because my MS mouse died again! So I sided with the unholy maker again because of a very tempting $30 mail in rebate. I ordered it from NewEgg right before I left for falls creek and it got here while I was gone. Well, the package arrived, and since I just got home today I only just opened it. Turns out, somebody else had opened it before NewEgg sent it to me! So I didn't install it ... I have no idea why someone else returned it, but I'm not willing to risk it was just because they didn't like it... there are too many manufacturing defects that could be slow to reveal themselves with mice to take the chance; even when they manifested themselves quickly to the previous buyer.

I've emailed NewEgg to see if they can rectify the problem. I'm sure given my previous outstanding experience with their customer service that things will go well.

Falls Creek ... I'm sure I'll write my usual book and a half, but not yet. This much I can say though... it was different this year; I realize that sounds kind of obvious ... but it was different in non-obvious ways. I'll have more on that after our morning service tomorrow.

Laptop Hunting

Scott — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:06:00 GMT

I started a laptop fund with my birthday money, and with a small bonus that I got from work for completing a project. I'll add to it the money that I'll get for selling my existing laptop (the stand-alone built in DVD player still works, making it a great portable DVD player) which will mean that I'll have $205 towards that tasty new Dell Inspiron 1720 that I've been dreaming of.

Since this is my blog, I'll also take the chance to do a little advertising. I'm looking for some development opportunities that could net me some extra cash too, so if you hear of something someone wants... send them my way. I have very reasonable development rates for small projects when I want something bad enough.

Seriously though, no project is too big or too small. For small projects I can complete the task myself at rates you wouldn't believe, and for larger projects or projects where time is of the essence, I can have the project fully managed with a dedicated resource team to complete the work. I give a full estimate of work, cost and project duration before I begin so that there are no surprises. Please contact me for more details if you or someone you know are interested in retaining my services.

Jealousy, I have known thee

Scott — Sun, 18 May 2008 03:38:00 GMT

Everyone knows I love my Victorinox Swiss Champ. I've carried it by my side for about ten years now. In fact, it is so useful that I have two of them... just in case! But tonight, I saw the mother of them all. Jealousy, have I known thee, and thy name is XAVT. At a MSRP of over $400, I think I'm not going to have one... but if anyone feels generous... I could be REALLY grateful

Again with the laptop...

Scott — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:19:00 GMT

My laptop has stuck out AGAIN! Second time in under a month that pushing the power button to turn it on has no effect at all. The power light indicates the thing is fully charged, and the built-in DVD player still works. But it straight out refuses to boot up. I priced a nicely configured Dell Inspiron 1720... it cost $1338. Dell has a coupon right now until May 29th that gives 30% off (code is H873GJC2846CV5), which makes it $936. Add tax and that brings you to about $1016. That is really cheap, but still... might as well be ten thousand for all it matters. Until it gets to about half that, I can see it's not going to happen any time soon. The only thing that sells for half that would a little 15.4" integrated graphics number ... I'm not interested in that, that's the same as what I have now (although yes, I do concede it would at least boot). What I'm saying is that those things about my current laptop already irritate me, so I see no point in spending that much money on main features that I already know will irritate me.

About the only thing I can say is that I hope the google ads start getting very interesting to you folks. I'd never say for people to click things just because I need money, I'm sure that would be against AdSense's policies... but maybe you need Printer Ink, maybe you need to buy a new Dell Laptop too, or maybe you're suffering from Asbestosis... and today is the first time you see an ad and you think "Wow! I should click that!". I mean, if that is the case... I'd be a sorry person to tell you not to click it .... wouldn't I? :)

Things That Go Bump...

Scott — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:48:00 GMT

Exciting stuff... just this week I got to feel Adelaide kick for the first time. We've found she's quite contrary, she will kick a few times to get Shannon's attention, but the moment that Shannon tells me that Adelaide is being active, she stops moving! It's infuriating! In other news, we made a trip to Lowe's the other day to look at paint. We picked up about a half million swatches in varying shades of pink and green. We haven't decided exactly how the colors will go on the walls yet, but we're working on it. Shannon has exceptional taste in color and layout, so I'm sure we can't go wrong. So you can see the kinds of colors we are working with though, just look at the ladybug crib set on our Babies R Us registry... they pink and green are a perfect match!

A Little Resurrection?

Scott — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:09:00 GMT

Last night my Averatec 6235-EE laptop decided to give up the ghost. It didn't power on at all. The built-in DVD player feature was still working, but nothing else would. I removed and reseated both the memory, and the hard disk drive... to no avail. I charged it for hours, no dice. I tried powering it up with the cord in, with the cord out, with the battery in, with the battery out ... nothing helped. And I was just a little bit upset about it all. Shannon might recall it a little differently.

I tried it again this morning for no particular reason, and got the same result... oh well. I left it plugged in all day, and went to find out exactly how much it would cost to replace it... knowing full well that I wouldn't be able to anyway. I priced out a Dell Vostro 1700 for about $1150, which was a good price for the config... but it might as well have been a million... you know? Well, this evening before we took Bri out for dinner I decided to push the button one more time. No idea why, but I did it. And what do you know... it powered up.

I don't think there's a moral or a point to the story except ... I'm very happy that my laptop works again!

Dale Dug a Hole...

Scott — Tue, 06 May 2008 04:10:00 GMT

Well, the hole from the plumbing is finally filled in. I have three shiny new cleanouts just barely peeking their tops over the soil level. Once the rain settles the soil in a bit more I'll trim them to be just beneath the soil level... we had a Bobcat to push the dirt back in and thank goodness for it ... it would have taken FOREVER without it. Although I'm really tired now, having this burden removed is actually very relieving for me. It had been causing a bit of stress waiting for the hole to dry out again after each rain. It took about two weeks to go from full of water to fully dry... and we had been getting drenched every two weeks lately. It's supposed to T-Storm again tonight, but all that will do now is make that dirt settle in better... isn't life great? :)

Dreaming of (a) Malibu

Scott — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:28:00 GMT

So today while we were running errands out in Bixby (we went to Conrad Farms Market) I stopped in at WestLake Ace Hardware to get another key cut for our new (old) '06 Malibu. Turns out that despite the small key size, and the car salesman's protestations to the contrary, the key actually does need to have a transponder key. We'd been thinking lately of trying to pick up another remote anyway, so I did a bit of eBay trawling... a fond pastime. I found a reputable trader that was selling both the blank key, and the remote start keyfob... so I was even able to save a bit on the shipping!

Well, of course it's always hard to just buy the one thing on eBay, it seems that no sooner do you click the buy it now option, and something else grabs your attention. Well, Shannon and I had also been talking about putting in a home security system that would monitor the doors and Adelaide's window. So I found the model I wanted, and we were going to wait a bit to pick it up ... but wouldn't you know it ... eBay had one of those there for $139... normally sells for $250. So who can stand to miss out on that kind of bargain? Shannon also found a couple of puzzles she wanted, and before you know it we've made bids or won at least five auctions. Yikes. [Edit] Well, at least we didn't get the home security kit yet... turns out the kit normally sells for $186, and the eBay item was $140 + $16 shipping... that's not quite enough savings for a "like new in box" item for me. Oh well.[/Edit]

So while I love eBay, it's also a little bit evil. I think I better stay out of there for a bit. Also thought I'd mention that we've decided on Adelaide's room colors... light sage green and light pink. You can see the colors best in the crib set. It's easier to see in the store at Baby's R Us. Speaking of Baby's R Us, we registered there the other day... that was kind of fun. But only because I got to play with a laser gun, you know? :) Anyways, for those interested, here is our baby registry.

It's a girl!

Scott — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:53:00 GMT

First of all, make sure you go to the Peanut Gallery, we posted the new ultrasound pictures that we got on Wednesday... but before you do, you probably want to finish reading this post!

So... Wednesday... what an experience! What can you say about it? It was really awesome (yes... awesome) to be able to meet our daughter, and to see the first glimpses of personality. We were totally not expecting that. We kind of just expected to see the baby laying there, in a fetal position... but instead, she was really active, and moved a lot. At first we thought it was just the technician's style/movement ... but it became evidently clear that this was our daughter moving, and it was awe-inspiring ... so yes ... awesome is a good word to describe the feeling.

When we were trying to get a good profile picture of her (well, the technician really, but we'll claim some involvement!) we got a view of her, but not profile! As the technician moved the wand, our daughter moved too ... and "next thing you know" ... we were being mooned. By our unborn child. Amazing. Unfortunately, the technician neglected to print that one out... we would have really liked to have that one! Although truth be told ... it was kind of difficult to tell it was her butt... mostly you can just see the bones, but the way she moved, and by the technician's reaction we knew we had just been shown baby butt.

We do also have a picture to show the gender ... but we didn't upload it. It's not exactly nice, you know? But the technician assured us (as much as they can, I suppose) that our baby "looks very much like a girl".

Aside from that, we had a good long think about what we wanted to name our daughter. Most of you know we had been thinking about a couple of names; well, today we finally decided which to use. we want you to know we REALLY appreciate all the suggestions you gave... it was very helpful to have some outside input to the process. It was hard to decide, and we know that most of you had a distinct preference for Hannah out of the names we were considering...in the end, for a multitude of reasons (and a lot of 'yelling testing sessions') we've chosen Adelaide Renae Blomfield. Yep, the last one was the easiest. But for the naysayers ... you can name your child anything you want, including Poopersmella Tiddlywinks Pieface. Really. And the doctors won't stop you. And the law has no problem with it. Or Consuela Banana-hammock. Ask Phoebe from friends about that one, I have no idea why you'd chose it. Poopersmella on the other hand ... that's a wonderful name. Even if Shannon says not...

So go have a look at Pooper--- aaah ... Adelaide's new pictures... I scanned them, so somebody should at least look at them and let me know by way of a comment or something!

A matter of introduction

Scott — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:04:00 GMT

Almost everyone makes them... I'm talking about New Years Resolutions. Maybe you made one to lose weight, to lose a vice, just to enjoy life a bit more, or maybe even to make an important life decision. Shannon and I decided our NYR would be to have a child this year... so what a surprise it was when January 2nd we found out that we were pregnant!

Yesterday we finally got to do what I think every purposeful new parent anticipates most... go for the first ultrasound. It's quite an overwhelming feeling when they show the baby for the first time. We were lucky enough to catch the baby on a day where we got a good profile view, and you can very clearly make out the head, body and even the arm buds. It was amazing to hear the baby's heart beat, it was quite fast, but very steady.

I'd like to introduce you all to Peanut:

Many people are very insistent that Peanut is a girl. I honestly have no preference (I'm just thrilled to be a Dad) but I think it just might be a boy. Of course, if it isn't I'm going to come back here to edit this blog post though!

We've uploaded all three of the ultrasound pictures so that you can look them over.

Kristi isn't well... :(

Scott — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:05:00 GMT

Kristi was having chest pains Friday and went to the emergency room at Hillcrest in a hurry. They've ran all kinds of tests (cat scan, MRI, EKG, EEG, heart cath) and they can't seem to find what the problem is. We're all really worried about it, and Kristi could really use your prayers. Pray that the doctors would be open to the voice of God to receive the wisdom needed to diagnose the problem, or to know that He has healed her completely of whatever was ailing her... His Will be done.