This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Lunch time, so time for a quick post… uh… and maybe I’ll get some food, maybe not. :-)
I’ve been holding off on replacing my GPS just because it isn’t the highest priority to spend money on even though it has a huge orange spot in the middle of the screen that makes it difficult to use. But the wait has paid off! Garmin has announced a new unit!!!
Garmin StreetPilot c330
Our StreetPilot “c-series” GPS navigators feature a simple touchscreen interface, with automatic route calculation to any destination and turn-by-turn voice-prompted directions along the way. Selecting a destination is straightforward and requires only a limited amount of input from the user. Plus, the StreetPilot c320 and StreetPilot c330 allow you to choose between a three-dimensional navigation view or the more traditional “bird’s eye†overhead view.
For the ultimate out-of-the-box convenience, the StreetPilot c330 comes pre-loaded with highly detailed MapSource City Select street data of the entire United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The database features an industry-leading five million-plus points of interest—including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs, and attractions. (The c320 comes with a 128 MB SD card and a MapSource City Select CD-ROM for data transfer from a PC via a USB connection.)
The centerpiece of both units is a bright, 3.5-inch diagonal, 16-bit color display that makes navigation a snap. The StreetPilot c330 features dual integrated speakers for high-quality voice prompts, and an internal lithium-ion battery for out-of-car route planning.
The new StreetPilot c-series boasts distinctive and sleek styling—the only buttons are a rotary volume knob and an on/off switch. The device is secured by a suction-mount cradle that fastens to the windshield for easy portability between vehicles. Users can customize their unit’s appearance with an array of colored faceplates (sold separately).
Suggested Retail Price:
$964.27 U.S.D. (for domestic US market only)
Expected Availability:
March 2005
(via gpsinformation.org)
No detailed reviews with screenshots and such yet. I can only hope that despite what they say about it being “Easy” they have retained all the features of previous StreetPilots. The only thing that could make me not want this would be if they removed some of the “geek features” like downloading tracks to your computer, entering destinations by latitude and longitude rather than by address, etc…. But Gramin has been pretty good about that sort of thing. If this thing is feature complete, then the larger screen plus preloaded nationwide maps and everything will make it a no brainer… once enough of the critical stuff is taken care of to make an optional thing such as this a reasonable way to spend money again.
Can’t wait to see detailed reviews of this thing once it is actually available!
My left shoulder (which I injured several years ago when I went skiing with Chris on a slope that was more ice than snow because there was freezing rain, and which was beyond my essentially non-existant skill level because the kiddie slopes were closed that day) is really hurting this morning. I’m sure I aggrivated it with all the moving heavy things and sleeping on floors and air mattresses and such. Anyway, it really hurts. I should take something maybe. I think I have one Vioxx left from when I originally got treated from the shoulder, but they have that whole heart attack thing going now, so maybe not. Maybe some OTC Motrin or something. Dunno.
I had a fever a couple days ago, but it is gone now. Still have a headache and a cough though. Amy is sick too. And I am just tired. There has been a lot going on. And not enough sleep. (Although the day I came home from work with a fever, I went right to sleep and basically slept through to morning.)
I look forward to the day, which probably won’t be for a couple weeks, where we can take a whole weekend and just relax without having to worry about things we have to get done.
Abulsme.com is now up and running from the new house. Yea! It was stubborn for a bit, but with some help from Chris I got it all happy again.
I gained a bunch of download speed, but also lost a bunch of upload speed. Which makes for better web surfing and all that, but isn’t as good for running a site off of. I also no longer have a seperate fixed IP for the server. But that is all accounted for, and it is working. (As is obvious if you are reading this.)
For reference, here are my DSL Reports test results:
At the old house:
2004-10-27 23:17:30 EST: 805 / 600
Your download speed : 824753 bps, or 805 kbps.
A 100.6 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 615072 bps, or 600 kbps.
At the new house:
2005-01-06 00:05:38 EST: 2571 / 351
Your download speed : 2633624 bps, or 2571 kbps.
A 321.4 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 359534 bps, or 351 kbps.
Of course those test results are influenced by many factors and come out different every time you run them, and I just ran them once in each location rather than running it many times and taking an average, but the general conclusions are I’m sure accurate. Much faster downloads, much slower uploads. A trade off I guess.
Anyway, I’m up and running again. The disconnect order is in for the DSL at the old place.
Oh, I forgot to bring my monitor for the server, so all the setup I did today I did using my projector that I normally watch Tivo and DVDs on, projected onto a 2 foot square area of a blue wall. Hey, it worked!
The next posts will be about something increadibly interesting I’m sure rather than a new connection for the abulsme.com server. Stay tuned!
While I was at work today, the cable guy came and turned on the broadband at the new house.
Even though cable might not be as good as DSL for this purpose, I’ll be attempting to move abulsme.com there later tonight. So there will be some downtime. And hey, cable might not be ideal, but a couple months ago I was running this website off a dial up 56k connection! It will definately be better than that!
Today was a late day at work, but it is finally time to leave. To do more packing and moving! Yea!
Got up at 7 AM yesteday. Amy to school by 7:30 AM. Time for a breakfast at Denny’s then we got the moving van at 9 AM. Started loading it up immediately. I thought work was closed yesterday. Turns out that was a miscommunication. I was supposed to be there. Ooops. Too late though, we were knee deep in moving furniture. Amy came home from school at 2:30 PM and immediately fell asleep. (Sick it seems.) Truck loading continued until around 8:30 PM. Back home and unleading by about 9 PM. (The dog really needed a walk when we first got home… it had been 14 hours.)
Then the unloading. All of us were tired and cranky. Unloading was done by 2 AM. We had moved everything to the old house that was too big to fit in a car. The rest would come slowly in carloads. Brandy noticed though that the truck wouldn’t start any more. We crashed by 3 AM.
6 AM the alarm rings. 7:20 AM out the door. 7:45 Amy in School. I make a quick trip to work, then head to a doctors appointment. Last word I had from Brandy is that she had called U-Haul and they would have someone call her about the truck and wouldn’t charge us for being late as long as it was because the truck was broken.
So I headed to the Doctor. A urologist. For follow up on those kidney stones. In addition to the usual “fill this cup please” I had some fun “bend over” and “let me squeeze that” type examinations that involved rubber gloves. (I’m being sarcastic when I say fun.) In the end, they just scheduled me for a bunch more tests. Kidney stones are unusual in people my age, even with a family history, and the recurring UTIs I get as well in between stones (which may or may not be related) make it even more unusual. Apperantly my “frequency” is also abnormally high for a person my age, especially at night. So, I have a few tests prescribed over the rest of January, with a follow up in early February. Oh joy. One of the tests is just X-Rays. If more kidney stones are actually large enough to be visible on the X-Ray (as I believe 2 of the 3 I passed over the last month were)… oh, did I mention the 3rd one? That was last week. It was tiny, but shaped like a needle. Sorry for not posting pictures. Anyway, if there are any big enough to see, he may recomend the ultrasonic stone busting lipotripsy thing rather than just letting them pass. We shall see. My dad had that a few years back. It did not sound pleasant. Although perhaps more pleasant than the stones themselves.
Sigh. We’ll see if after this round of tests they actually have anything useful to say. Last time I had a bunch of tests (around 2001) they didn’t come back with any useful info. Just “Yup, you have kidney stones. Drink lots of water and cranberry juice and avoid carbonation and foods high in calcium, and if it starts to hurt, take these pain pills.” Thanks.
Anyway, about half way through the Doctors appointment, I realized that I did not have my phone. But Brandy was supposed to update me on what was happening with the truck. Including perhaps needing a ride back from the UHaul place if she did end up returning the truck. So when I got out of the Doctor, I headed straight back to work… um… OK… um…. I stopped at a drive through coffee place because I was about to keel over from exaustion.
When I got to work I found my phone and started checking my voice mail. There were EIGHT missed called from Brandy. I started listening. Lets just say they started out happy, but got less and less so as they progressed. I ended up rushing to meet Brandy and eventually all was OK, in the mean time though, Brandy had had a very bad day. I’ll leave it to Brandy to decide if she is going to tell any more of that story. We’ll see if she posts anything about it on her blog. :-) I feel really bad for not having had my phone. Most of what happened to Brandy could have been avoided. Oops. :-( Between moving the furniture and this morning, Brandy may be fairly out of commission for days. :-( I’m very sore myself from the moving and such, I can’t imagine how Brandy is feeling. :-( We probably should have coughed up the extra cash to pay movers instead of doing it ourselves. But we are trying to conserve where we can. Sigh!
OK. Doctor’s appointment over. Coffee helping me stay sort of awake. I’m now back at work. Breaktime over. Time to do some work for some of our best clients. I have several things that need to get done today. Time to do them.
I had mentioned that I would be trying to continue a tradition this year of going to every Presidential Inauguration since I was old enough to vote, no matter who won. Well… with the new house and moving and everything, that just does not look like it will happen this year. We have enough “unusual expenses” at the moment to deal with, and this is just one that although it was a nice tradition, is not on the “required” list. So I’ll be watching this one on TV I think.
A shame, but that is the way it has to be I think.
We rented a UHaul today for all the furniture. We’re in the process of loading the truck right now. Lots of things to move. And to move them, one first has to move the things in front of and on them. So a break occationally is welcome.
But come tonight, we’ll actually have some furniture in the new place. Not everything we need, but some. That will be good.
This is the view from our back yard.
It is the 17th tee I believe.
There are people coming and going teeing off every few minutes all day long.
The distance from the edge of our property to the teeing off area is probably about 20 feet I would guess. Haven’t measured, but it is close regardless.
I thought Chad would appreciate it.
It won’t stay there long though. Word is that the golf course has been sold to developers and a new housing development will be there instead within the next 2 to 3 years. Maybe sooner. That sucks a little, but on the other hand we probably got the house for a bit less because of it. So we’re OK with that.
Moving is moving right along. Right now we are going back and forth to the old house several times a day, loading up both cars with boxes every time we do. On Monday we have a UHaul to do the furniture. (We looked at having pros move the furniture, but it would cost about 5 times as much as the UHaul so decided to do it ourselves again.) The idea will be to move everything too big to fit in a car on Monday. The rest we’ll keep getting a car load at a time until everything is there though.
We’ve been staying at the new place though. No beds yet, so it isn’t the most comfortable in the world, but it is all part of the “this is now home” thing. Brandy has painted the kitchen and is redoing the paper stuff in the cabinets and other things like that. We’ve been washing and cleaning all over. I’ve been trying to figure out some of the pool gadgets, but we won’t REALLY get into that until after we’ve had it professionally cleaned at least once. (We got a check at closing for that since without the screen and with the pool left unmaintained for months, it is a mess… although they did remove the plants and tadpoles that were living there prior to closing.)
Oh, and we of course got the DirecTV and projector and DVD player and everything all set up. Had to have all that right away.
DSL is not available at the new location (too far from the CO for reasonable service) so we are going the Cable route again. Should have an install date by Wednesday. Hopefully it will be installed shortly after that. I’m hoping for this week, but it may well take a couple weeks. The data line for the house should be active Tuesday though, so we’ll have at least dialup there.
Oh, and I started to set up the data line, and the first phone number it suggested for us when translated to words spelled 321-ORGY-DOLL. But there was a computer glitch and we had to start over. (The stupid online BellSouth thing didn’t like Safari and kept giving me an error on the final form telling me that I had to be over 18 to register even though my year of birth was properly 1971.) The second time we got 321-SALT-MAP. Too bad, although I guess Salt Maps are OK too. I like salt and I like maps. So all is good. NOTE: This is going to be a data only line, for the Tivo and the like, so if you call it, don’t expect anyone to answer.
Well, it is time to take another load to the new house, so I have to sign off for today.
We don’t have those pictures we promised yet, but will by later this week. Promise.
It is official. Our new address is:
1457 Meadowbrook Rd NE
Palm Bay FL 32905
Please make a note of it. We’ll have the mailbox up there and start switching mail over this weekend.
Now the hard part starts. Brandy is anxious to go buy paint and start changing colors around, so I won’t write much. But the final walkthough and closing all went without incident. We went by once to use the keys for the first time. We’re now busy calling utilities and such to put everything that needs to be in our name in our name. And I’ve called the screening people to try to get that moving too. We have the deposit for them out of escrow.
Now as soon as I get out of this suit into something more appropriate, we’ll be heading to stores to get the appliances ordered, the mattress ordered, and paint and cleaning supplies… and the move has begun!
Brandy promises more pictures, including interior pictures, once we finish cleaning.
Last night I was going through my paper “in box” to make sure all the financial transactions I had receipts for were entered into Quicken and all outstanding bills were paid and such, just to make sure that everything was in order, and we knew exactly what the money situation is for closing, and more specifically for after closing, when we start having to spend money on immediate needs to get the place ready to move in. (For instance we need a washer and dryer and a mattress and such.) I was doing all that until around 08:00 UTC.
Then I decided that this might be a really good time to get the “Sam’s Net Worth” graph going again. I’d been slowly pulling the data from Quicken to do this over the last month or so, each time I did bills I had been printing a report with one quarter’s worth of net worth data at weekly intervals and putting that data into Excel where I was graphing it in my own peculiar way. (Not satisfied with the graphs Quicken produces out of the box.) At the rate I was going, I was adding a quarter’s worth of data every couple weeks. It would be a few months before the graph was up to the present and ready to post. So I decided to accellerate that and enter more data.
Well… Next thing I knew it was 12:00 UTC. I’d extended the graph so it now covers July 1994 to December 1998 though. I thought about continuing straight through until it was up to the present, but it would take a few more hours, and I was exausted, and frankly it was already the time I should be waking up. So the Sam’s New Worth Graph’s return will have to wait a bit longer. (It will be soon though, I’m going to be carefully monitoring things as we adapt to this move and the new conditions… as usual of course the web version will have the vertical axis labels removed, so folks can see trends, but not actual numbers.)
Anyway, finally headed to sleep. Then Amy woke up and started popping her head in every ten minutes. She wanted all kinds of things! She was up and ready to go. She’d set her alarm for some ungodly early time for some unknown reason, and had actually woken up. (She often sleeps through it.)
Anyway, I finally got to sleep. It is now 3 hours later. I am up again. Just woke Brandy up to go get Amy up (who of course fell back asleep). I am about to go hit the shower and get dressed and ready.
90 minutes from now we meet our agent for a final walk through of the property. There are a couple things they were still supposed to be working on which should be fixed by now, even at this late date. (The money for the screen is still going into escrow, some of which will be released to the contractor immediately after closing for them to schedule the work, the balance paid when the work is done… probably not for a couple months yet given the continued backlog for that kind of work.)
3 hours from now we go to the actual closing.
When that is done, we will have a house.
Then we have to start getting everything in order. We have planned out how we will do a lot of things. Others we decided to wait until we could actually be in there to even plan. There are a bunch of things we will need to buy right up front. We have worked out a preliminary budget we will have to live within for those sorts of things. (As well as a tentative budget for the amount we will need to live on PERIOD once we are in the new environs.)
Stress Stress Stress!
But this should be good.
If all goes well, which I presume it will, we’ll take some pictures of the new place and post here late tonight. And I suppose we’ll announce the new address then too.
Oh well. Gulp. I need to get ready. Already not really enough time to get breakfast or lunch or anything before we meet the agent. Maybe coffee.
Oh, have I mentioned I am sick as a dog right now too? Yucky cold, nasty cough, and lung reading thing under 400. Bleh! I probably should have tried to get more than 3 hours of sleep.
Oh well!
I’m usually not much for the bottom of the line models, I tend to always try to get the maxed out version of whatever product line I am getting in the theory that I will be happier with it longer, but this is probably a good move for Apple. A lot of budget-minded people who would never consider Macs before because they only had higher end models might consider this:
Apple to drop sub-$500 Mac bomb at Expo
With iPod-savvy Windows users clearly in its sights, Apple is expected to announce a bare bones, G4-based iMac without a display at Macworld Expo on January 11 that will retail for $499, highly reliable sources have confirmed to Think Secret.
The new Mac, code-named Q88, will be part of the iMac family and is expected to sport a PowerPC G4 processor at a speed around 1.25GHz. The new Mac is said to be incredibly small and will be housed in a flat enclosure with a height similar to the 1.73 inches of Apple’s Xserve. Its size benefits will include the ability to stand the Mac on its side or put it below a display or monitor.
(via TivoCommunity)
In our case, we have a couple old Window’s boxes of Brandy’s which could probably be cobbled together with the best pieces of both boxces to make a adequite working computer for Amy, but putting a Windows machine on our network, with all the problems Windows has, stikes fear into me! Cynthia just called me yesterday cause her machine is absolutely infested with spyware, trojans, and viruses and she is having trouble getting it clean again. Sure, you can be careful and keep a Windows machine clean. But it is just more work. YOu actually have to think about those things. Although the situation may change, at the moment you just have a lot less of that to worry about on a Mac.
Not to mention they are just cooler and better in every other way imaginable as well. :-)
Anyway, a budget level Mac might fit the bill perfectly.
I think she would prefer a laptop though. :-)
And then Brandy will need one too.
And I need one too.
OK, budget was just broken. Oh well!
And, I should also submit, this is from a rumor site with a spotty track record. Sometimes they get stuff right, sometimes they don’t.
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