This is not my beautiful house...

Just having one of those days where I'm not quite sure how I got here. Not in a bad way. Sort of taking a step back and looking at my life, wondering how I wound up where I wound up and what's next. And yes... I've been drinking.

Me... Master Criminal

Well, one thing I learned this weekend was how to break into my house.  Which apparently is not all that hard, since I was slightly inebriated at the time.  

Now, before you ask, I was fully lucid (or as close as I come) when I left my keys on the counter.  

So after having a neighbor buzz me in, and several manly attempts at kicking the door in, resulting in nothing more than footprints (cop shows are crap.)   I found a way in.  Points for anyone who can tell me how. 

Car-to-Car Chat: Sony Patents Talking Headlights - Gizmodo

Car-to-Car Chat: Sony Patents Talking Headlights - Gizmodo

This could be useful. Pretty cool if cars could really communicate real time. Of course we'd all still get rear ended by the idiot in K Car station wagon who didn't have the tech...

Projects for this weekend

1. Easter Vigil Mass - It's a marathon of music
2. Organize Softball team for Summer
3. Surround Sound Speakers
4. Get Stacker system working for Directivo
5. Upgrade TiVo Software
6. Transfer Quicken data to Mac
7. Get my free printer
8. Gesturing SW for Mac
9. Seriously, isn't that enough?

iMac

So I finally broke down and bought a computer. Been without one for about 6 years. Just using my work laptop when I needed it. But it's been acting up lately and I thought it would be nice to have one at home to expand my use of.

Given that I spend oodles of time making phones work with my PC and just making my PC work I decided it was time to make the jump to Mac. Yes, an iMac with Intel inside. Yes, the ability to dual boot did influence my decision, though I haven't done that yet. Mostly I didn't want to have to twiddle a lot. I just wanted stuff to work.

Observations so far. iTunes import was beautiful, found my airport and everything. Still synching the iPod with the PC though... Network setup was also super easy. The hardest part there was figuring out the iMac's MAC address to tell my router. iPhoto is nice, but i have to redo all of my folders and labels from Picasa. Not sure I'm sold on iPhoto yet. Oh... I have a LinkStation on my network, and the iMac found it and mounted it with ease.

Safari and even the Firefox for Mac are lagging a bit behind their windows counterparts... but might be lack of experience. I do like expose. I can't adjust the mouse tracking to be fast enough for me.

Biggest issue is transferring Quicken data from PC to Mac. It is not straightforward at all. Intui basically says you will lose info, and refers you to a data transfer service to do it manually. I think I found a way to do it in steps without losing too much, but may have found the first reason to install windows (you know, besides that I can.) Also need to find a gesturing program for Mac. I have one in Windows and like Vespa's industrial strength hair dryer, ' I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT'

Vonage Good

I've had vonage for 3 months now. I like it. Once I got past the firewall setup on my router it worked great. No QoS problems at all.

My favorite feature has to be that I get an email when anyone leaves a voicemail, and I can then listen to it over the internet. Since it's a wav file that you download you can easily replay sections to get phone numbers or whatever.

I highly reccommend it. Oh and feel free to tell them kerrnal98 referred you!

Kudos

To the Apple store. I bought an iMac and no one mentioned the $100 rebate on printers. The rebate requires the printer and computer to be on the same receipt, so I called. They called back letting me know that I could return the computer and buy a computer and printer together. Free printer here I come.

Moment of Zen

I need one... now.

Pool Anyone????

My New Pool table
Originally uploaded by kerrnal.

That's right, I'm just a flat screen, mirror ball, and jacuzzi away from the ultimate bachelor pad.

I get all my great ideas in the shower

Shower White Board

Great idea.... I wonder if it's 'dry' erase board.

That's a sweet feeling...

When you pass a Porsche Cayenne on the freeway in your Prius hybrid. Doing 90mph at 45MPG. Booyah! If you buy a Porsche, ya better use it.