Happy Birthday Aunt 'E'

I want to wish my sister a happy 21st (wink, wink, lol) birthday today. Aunt "E" you ask? My son when he was really small could not say her name (Sheila) so he just called her "E". Now both kids call her "E". Happy Birthday Aunt "E".

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Singing the praises of EBAY

On Thursday last week my power adaptor for my laptop decided to die. The one shown here on the left is the original Dell equipment the one on the right is the replacement I bought. The problem with the old one is that it had a short in the part that plugs into the wall. I will most likely save the rest incase I come across a replacement somewhere for that part. I am currently using one of the replacements to write this blog entry. This one powers up the laptop just fine. Since my laptop is my main source of computing power in my house I thought I might stop at a local store and purchase a replacement. Surely someone in town had one that I could purchase and it shouldn't be that much.


WRONG! I stopped at a local store and much to my suprise the total cost was $109.99 + taxes. I was shocked! I thought surely I can beat this price. This is 1/2 of what I can spend to get a new laptop, so off to ebay I went. I first tried to search for the part in Ebay and it wasn't found so off to Google I went and Google found it in Ebay. The total cost was $18.98 shipping included. I bought two of these for $38.56. I use the laptop in my car with a power inverter so I can plug the second one in in the car and just leave it under the seat. Needless to say I got two for less than I could buy one at the local store. The seller had this to me in two days priority mail via the United States Postal Service. Needless to say in all my time on Ebay I have had only one bad auction and that was before EBAY canged the way sellers are rated. Sellers are rated on how fast they ship, how well the item is described, how reasonable the shipping is, and ect. They are rated postive, netrual, or negative.

Installing a 12 Volt DC power drop in my 1997 Camry

On of my hobbies is railfanning. I go out an watch and photograph trains. At times I take certain pieces of electronic equipment with me to add to my experience. I recently decided to make setup and operation of the equipment easier. One of the problems I have is the cigarette lighter plugs in this 1997 Camry don’t work when the keys are not in the car and the switch is not in the accessory setting. Therefore there are times when I leave the keys in the ignition with the window down on the car so that my equipment still operates. There is also the problem when I go to start the car it shuts down some of the equipment anyway. I also can’t operate my ham radio equipment at the high power setting. The solution to the problem was a direct power feed off the battery to the cockpit of the car.

Today I had all the parts to install the direct power feed. I ran the wire to the battery, I wired in a toggle switch to turn off everything beyond that point, wired in a test item that if I lost it wouldn’t be a big deal, then attempted to wire up to the battery and this is where things got ugly. I have a car alarm in the car that I don’t know how to operate. So when I reconnected the battery cable the car alarm goes off. I was doing everything to turn it off and nothing seemed to work. I finally figured it out and got it turned off. I finally got to throw the toggle switch and yea it works! I turned the power off at the toggle switch wired in my ham radio and wired in a power inverter (converts 12 volt DC to 120 volt AC) this gives me household outlets under the passenger seat. I double checked all my wiring and threw the switch again and everything worked without the keys in the ignition. My problem is now solved and I didn’t electrocute my self. I also installed a bigger wattage power inverter that I had on hand since the one I was using barely ran the equipment I wanted it to run. Sometime this week I will have to take it out on a test run to see how it works out. Sounds like fun.

There should be a law against whining

On my way back from my daughter's graduation I stopped to take this photo. I couldn't agree more. Please "Stop Global Whining". Please stop whining in general. I think we need to outlaw whining. I am not sure who plastered this sticker on the stop sign, but I agree. I, however, don't agree with defacing public property. I at the moment can't stand it when I hear someone whining about life. People seem to whine about everything any more. People let's just get on with life. Whining about it won't help. I unfortunately used to be one of the whiners, but I found it didn't help at all and sometimes just made things worse. Oh well, I guess the people who are whining need something to do because they are board or something or they are hoping to get their way.

Congratulations Ashley!

Went down to Decatur tonight for my daughter Ashley's pre-school granduation. My daughter is the one on the far right. They had a little show with singing by the children, presented certificates to each child for graduation, and gave each child a gift. This was followed up by a meal. It was fun to see her at this event. Up Next: Kindergarden

You got to love wrong numbers

I was out in my yard mowing the lawn and decided to come in for a rest and a drink. Sat at my computer while I was drinking some pop and my phone started making noise to remind me that I had an appointment that I wasn't going to. I went to the phone to shut off the reminder and noticed that I had a missed call. The call came from an Ohio number that I didn't reconize. I did recognize the area code so I thought it might be something related to the kids (from my ex-wifes families area code) so I decided to dial the number back.

A young lady answers the phone and I asked who it is. She ask who I was and I told her there was a missed call and I was wondering who it was. She said her girl friend had given her a phone number and she thought she had it memorized, but had dialed me by mistake. I told her she had a wrong number and hung up. Well about 10 seconds later my phone rings again and it was the same person. I asked who it was she gave me her first name then asked me mine. I gave only my first name. I told her again she had the wrong number. What happend next made me chuckel and brought a big smile to my face. I said by and started to hang up and before the phone was hung up I heard her say "G#d Da#n he sounds hot!". LOL! If she only knew. Needless to say I still have this grin on my face. I don't know if it was a prank call or a wrong number, but I got a good laugh.

Yes Virgina there are still phone booths

Just like a blast from the past there it is. Yes, I have spotted two of these babbies in town recently. I thought all the phone booths were gone or just a thing from the past. This one, sadly enough, was missing the door. The only thing I didn't see was Clark Kent rushing into it to change.

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