So the first thing that almost everyone says when I tell them our house is going on the market is some sort of "ooooh man" or "wow the market is crap" kind of statement. While I agree that we are in a buyer's market, the upside for us is the house we'll be able to buy. 2 Years ago, we couldn't find anything even remotely as good as what we were living in to move to. We're in a nice area of Portland, among some of the most sought after real estate, and schools. When you have two kids, things like good schools are important. If I were living where I grew up as a kid, we'd almost be forced to put our kids in private school, at a minimum of $1,000 a month (maybe more?) is my guess.

The other thing that's great about our location is that everything is nearby. Seriously, anything you could want is within an hour's drive. Mt. Hood, the Coast, ok, Bend is like three hours, but you get the point. Every kind of shop, service, or restaraunt is very accessible and convienient.

Why do we want to sell? We don't have a back yard, a home office, or a place for guests to stay. While our home was great while we had one child, the addition of the second has made it a lot more stuffy. Some of the things we are looking for in the next place are things we already have, and a home office, back yard, and larger common areas.

Yes, the market is slow. But our house has a lot of things going for it, and while I'm trying to remain realistic (pessemistic) there are a lot of bonuses that other houses in our development don't have:

• We back to a green belt. No building back there, ever.  There are miles of walking paths.
• We have a huge park about 2 minutes from our house, you can see if from the deck.
• We have a brand new kitchen, and all appliances. Corian counters, stainless appliances.
• The house is move-in-ready. The paint is tastefully done, and other than the red kitchen (which works) nothing is crazy out of control like you see in some places.
• The house gets FIOS internet and television.
• We have a three car garage with tons of storage. There are other three car houses in our development but they don't go on the market often.

Hopefully the combination of these things will get our house moving! We're prepared to give it 4-6 months, but I'd love to sell it in a week. We have a house we have our eyes on, but they did not accept our contingent offer. We hope that house remains unsold. If it goes, and we have an offer after, it will be a tough decision on what to do.

Here's pictures of our house.

UPDATE: Here's the public listing.

Ok, I saw a Toyota commercial or something on TV, and eventually found out that it's called 'Zorbing'.

I wanna try this, it looks like a riot. Looks like we need to go to New Zealand.

Wow, I'm going for the "No Webcam Option" that charges me $50 instead ot taking the one that's included in the price.... what the heck is this?

Trillian is notorious for doing things like this:

So the window is off the screen, no way to drag it back. Did you know you can right click the item in the taskbar, select "move" and then use your arrow keys to bring it back down into a state where you can use your mouse? I never realized that the "move" feature on the context menu (right click) of an application in the taskbar allowed you to move the window with just the arrow keys. Very cool.

It's an interesting question if you really think about it. Did you spend tons of time researching the best feature set, rates, or other reasons for choosing your bank? Maybe it was close to your house? When you think about it, choosing a financial institution is almost as important decision as buying a house. It's generally a long term relationship where you entrust your finances and more.

I bet most people get sucked in by a free toaster, or that $50 matching deposit. I'll answer the thread of this post two ways, how I used to bank, and how I do it now. Well when I was 16, I wanted a checking account, so my Mom took me to "Super Big Bank", just down the road from our house. They were always customers of that bank. They're huge, they're everywhere which would make you think it's a good place to go. It really is a good bank, but unless you're a really big customer, and have a lot of money with them, investments, retirement accounts, credit accounts, etc. you're a slave to bank fees.

After almost 20 years with them, and after MANY horror stories and I don't want to add up how much I spent in service fees later, I decided it was time to change. I had heard of credit unions growing up, but never really understood what they were. To be honest, I kind of thought they were for people that had bad credit, or were scared of banks. I was 1/2 right I guess. The huge difference between a bank and a credit union is that credit unions are generally owned by the members and operate for the members, they are a non-profit organization.

Wow. Pretty much all the benefits of a big bank, without the service fees. I had a 'Super Big Bank' credit card for years. Ran thousands of dollars in transactions through it and got no real benefit. With my credit union, I have a rewards card, and after about a year have earned a free airline ticket. 

My credit union does post a schedule of fees for it's members, but outright told me if we ever charge you a fee, just complain and we'll remove it. After more than a year, I have yet to be charged a fee. Their customer service is excellent. The nice thing about credit unions is they all sort of piggyback off each other too, so cash machines out of state don't charge a fee generally if it's a meber of the credit union network. They also offer things like Online Bill Pay, free. I've seen that some banks charge money for this! They also offer things like being able to skip a car payment one time per year (not something I've done) if you're in a pinch, or just need some extra money one month. My credit union's web site is just as 'feature rich' as the big bank that I left.

This is kind of how REI operates (but they're for profit obviously) as a co-op. So ask yourself this question again, why do I bank where I do? Especially if you're constantly paying service fees, and getting little in return other than a monthly statement mailed to your house.

I like to be proactive about things. There are times that I have to send someone an email on a certain date, or remind someone of a certain thing on a certain date, typically in the future. Well when I know about these things I've used sticky notes, calendar remidners, and other seemingly stupid ways to remember to do something. I was poking around OutLook today and figure out I can set a date to send a mail. So a colleague asked me to remind him of something on Dec. 4th. Well I'll be traveling for work (I'll have my computer with me) and may not be in the mindframe to remember to send him an email.

So I've composed the message that I need to send, and then clicked the 'options' menu item. Under the 'Delay Deliver' item on the 2007 Outlook Ribbon, I then chose:

   Do not deliver before: 12/4/2007 11:40 PM

I know I'll be in the office then, and my machine will be running so the mail now goes into the outbox, but sits there until then. So at 11:40 (ish) it will be sent out, no need to remember!

Make sure you realize that you must have OutLook open and be connected to the exchange server for this to work.

My good friend, Scott (a Type I diabetic) is trying to raise $50,000 this year to fight diabetes. Now that he's working for Microsoft, he has all kinds of cool contacts, like people that will help him rent out Vancouver's Cinetopia and let a bunch of geeks come play Halo 3 on their 50 foot tall high definition screens. I'm in.

Your $25 (or preferably more) donation goes straight to the American Diabetes Association and gets you in for a night of Halo 3 in Hi-Def! Five hours of gaming, can you take it? To sweeten the deal, I'll state that I'm terrible at this game, so if you want to come an 'pwn' me... it won't be hard.

Here are the details:

• When: Thursday evening, October 11th, 7:00 - Midnight
• Where: Cinetopia - Map & Web site
• Register: http://iammasterchief.com/ with the RSVP code "FIGHTDIABETES"

It should be a blast. More details on Scott's site.

 I'm headed to Las Vegas this Monday through Wednesday. I'm going with one of my best friends, it's something we try to do once a year, especially since we don't work together anymore. We'll play a lot of poker, and Eric has told me that his last trip he learned to play craps. So I suspect I'll be learning to play craps this time, apparently it's a ton of fun.

Poker is my favorite thing to do there. Nothing high stakes really, just a little $2/$4 limit Texas Hold 'Em. Keep an eye on my camera blog, I'll be updating it with random pictures from our trip. We fly out Monday morning @ 8:30 AM and come back Wednesday night around 11PM.

I'm looking forward to three days with no kids, is that bad? I'm sure that when I get back I'll be glad to get home.

Sure, there are places where you can save a lot of money by sacrificing customer service. I have a couple of examples of why I shop where I do.

The Bad - Save a Nickel Spend a Dime
I once bought a television from Video Only. I bought it solely on price, they were $400 less than other places, and I was convinced this savings would outweigh any issues. I was sorely mistaken. A few months after purchasing the television (and an extended warranty) the unit started having problems. I called up Video Only expecting to have them help me out, I mean the set was only a few months old! They told me to talk to the manufacturer, and there was nothing they could do. I was bummed, having bought several different electronic items from Magnolia Hi-Fi in the past, I expected an experience similar to how Magnolia operated, I was wrong. After hours of phone calls to Hitachi, and working with their service department, I finally had an appointment for a tech to come out and fix my broken television.

The tech came, replaced some things, and said I was good to go. Ok, so it wasn't that bad, until the set broke again, and I had to repeat the process. This happened about 6 times. At one point they wanted to take the unit to their shop and completely rebuild it. This is when I freaked out and called Hitachi directly, I stayed on the phone for hours, insisting they send me a completely new unit, they finally did.

The moral of this story is that the $400 I saved was no savings at all. If you look at the amount of time, frustration, and stress I was caused the $400 is a joke. I would have gladly paid even more than that to have a company like Magnolia simply refund my money, or just get a new set, let them fight with the manufacturer. I understand statistics (I'm not a pro...) and realize that no matter how good a manufacturer's build process is, there will be a percentage of 'bad' products sent out.

The Really Bad - Bad service, bad workmanship - blame the customer?
We recently hired Home Depot to replace some vinyl flooring in our home. To make a long long long story short, they caused damage to our house during this installation. Thousands of dollars worth. While dealing with the store level on this was good, the corporate and claims adjuster level left a horrible taste in our mouths. The claims adjuster promised us one thing, and then dodged our calls for 2 weeks. When I finally got a hold of him, he promised something else, and when I pressed him on why he did not return my calls for two weeks, he replied "I don't have an answer for you."

All part of the claims adjuster game I'm guessing. I'm glad that when I go home from work, I don't feel dirty. I can't see how this guy/company (Sedgwick Claims Management) lives with themselves. We finally reached an agreement, but it also involves the store level refunding my labor charges for ALL of the flooring in my house. The claims adjustment portion left us about $700 in the red. Sure, I could get a lawyer and all that crap, but the thought of dragging this out, and further deliberations makes me ill. All in all in the end, we're out about $250 dollars. And while we shouldn't be, and the principle of the matter again, makes me ill, I'm just glad for it to be over and done.

The Good - Pay more to Begin with
My wife recently bought a swimsuit top from Nordstrom. We don't shop there exclusively, but we do hit their sales, and when we want something fairly specific, we do end up there from time to time. We love Nordstrom rack (same great service and return policy - lower prices).  The top was not super expensive, nor super cheap. Could she have found something elsewhere comprable for a lower price? Probably. She wore it one day, and did not like the fit, the liner was coming out in the pool, and there was some threads coming out. She went to return it the next day, no issues. They instantly refunded the money and apologized. This is what I want when something that we've purchased does not meet our expectations.

The Really Good - Pay less and Get more
I'm a huge fan of Costco. I've even upgraded our membership to the $100 executive level. We get 2% of our purchases back each year, last year we got a check for $178. We did have some big purchases last year, but we're trying to shop exclusively (when possible) at Costco. Sure, it does not make sense for everything, especially things like produce or other items you don't want in bulk. Costco is an amazing company, between their warehouses and online store, you can get just about anything.

We had purchased a vacuum at Costco a while back. Recently it stopped working, I was not that upset as I thought it was a cheap one, and it was probably time to step up to a nice one. We were in Costco on Saturday, and looked at their Dyson. It was awesome and had a five year warranty too. The problem? $469, ouch. A random customer walked up and gave his accolades on how great it was, how they couldn't live without theirs now, and the price - though high - was worth it. I'm not opposed to spend money on something if it will do what it's supposed to do, as long as it does it well, and will last a while I'm willing.

I told my wife, let's think about it. We both started to get a little frustrated that our other Vacuum was only a year old. On the way out I hit the customer service desk, inquiring if they could see our purchase history back a year or so ago. The gal at the desk told me she could go back to 2000! Wow, impressive. She said, yes, you bought the Vacuum back in Sept 2005. Ugh. Almost two years old, I guess I can't return it. I was baffled when she told me, "No if it's stopped working, bring it in with all the attachments, manual, etc.... we'll refund your money, you paid $199.99 for it!"

So now, I can return my old Vacuum and essentially apply the refund of that to the new Dyson. Costco rocks. We went back on Sunday, returned the broken one, and purchased the new one. The new Vac is so much better. I encourage you to support places like Nordstrom, Magnolia Hi-Fi, and Costco. I know there are other places that operate like this too, but just remember, you're the consumer, when something does not meet your expectations, it's up to the place that sold it to you to make it right.

One of the things you have to remember when trying to save money on a bigger than normal purchase, is that your time is valuable, it's worth money too, your free time is probably even more valuable than money you save when a purchase goes awry. Keep this in mind, the hours of hassle you experience could cost more than the savings in the long run.

I'm sometimes criticized by my wife that I don't get out and do new things. I'm always dinking with the computer, the xbox, or something in our garage or house. So Saturday my daughter and I took an introduction to rock climbing course at our local gym. It was a lot of fun. We even went back again the next day to partake some more. I think this is something I'll try to do with my daughter at least once or twice per week. She kicked my butt at it, almost making it to the top of the 30ft. wall her second day. I made it up about 15ft or so, even though I was on a different course, I think she'd still rub my face in it. :)

 The picture at the right is Katherine about 2/3 up the wall, and the club instructor literally climbed up in 10 seconds to coach her to go up higher. It was amazing to watch. With the instructor up there, she was able to make it about 3 moves from the top!

Where's the pictures of me? You don't want to see that. My kid looks like a pro compared to me on that wall. Maybe someday I'll post a pic of myself. :)

I thought that this was hilarious:

But seriously, Apple announced the actual battery statistics for the iPhone.

Now I realize that these are probably the BEST circumstances for battery life, like if you were in a vacuum in space? But, it's encouraging to see that it will have a decent amount of battery life.

Standby time 250 hours.
Audio play back 24 hours.
Talk time of 8 hours.
Video play back of 7 hours.
Internet usage of 6 hours.

The screen is also going to be comprised of some form of glass surface, rather than plastic. This will hopefully be a good thing to prevent scratching and provide better clarity.

AT&T Stores will be closing @ 4:30 PM until 6:00 PM on the 29th of this month to prepare for the rush of people going to purchase a phone. They plan to stay open till very late in the evening to support the demand. We'll just hope that they have enough phones to go around.

I'm planning to go to the store around 3:00 ish... if there is a HUGE line, I'll be leaving, if not, I'll probably wait the three hours.

For a few years prior to this post, I had played in a poker league called The Northwest Poker League. It was a great league when it first started. People respected the game, generally played well, and were enjoyable to be around. As word spread like wildfire there was this poker league you could play in that was free, the league began to fracture. You'd get the drunk person (as most venues were in pubs or taverns) that would sit down at the table and play terribly, and be belligerent and irritating.

The Northwest Poker League accrued around 6000 players, and decided there name "Northwest Poker League" was too short minded, they needed to be able to expand. So they renamed themselves "The Great American Poker Tour". Kind of a stupid name, but from that point on things just got worse. Their business model relied on bringing players into 'venues' (bars, restaurants, night clubs, etc.) so they would purchase food and drinks. I always would buy a drink, or a meal, or something to support the league, but most people did not. It's a tough business model, they're offering a free service with very high operating costs. Generally each venue had 2 poker tables, 2 dealers, and an investment of 5-6 to pay those dealers.  I know some venues paid upwards of $250 a night to have the league operate from their location.

The Great American Poker Tour (GAPT) began to experience a mass exodus of sponsors. Venues could not justify the expense. And despite the weekly emails from the founders BEGGING people to buy food and drinks, the league went from 12 or so venues to 5 ish. I finally got fed up with seeing the familiar faces of people that would not pay anything to play. I stopped going. Hence no real poker posts on the blog for quite a while.

Well, there's a new league in town and they are doing SEVERAL things I tried to get the GAPT league to do. Here's a breakdown of how the new National Poker Challenge league (NPCPoker) is doing that I think is GREAT for the game, and for the league.

• NPC Poker has rented a physical place and it's a dedicated poker room. (NO GAMBLING is going on here, and it's all legal) This solves the problem of being reliant on a retail establishment to cover the expense of having the league operate out of it.
• NPC Poker is NON SMOKING. This is so huge, most of the venues I played from previously allowed smoking. That was another reason I quit playing. Even with the retail non-smoking bill that's coming up for vote, it's still nice to be able to go home smelling like I did when I arrived.
• NPC Poker limits the amount of games you can play for one of their leagues. Thus a player can only play 10 games per month and are not able to skew their stats by playing more frequently. Unlike the GAPT where players can play every night of the month (almost) just showing up and signing in, these players have an edge on someone who plays a few times per week, no matter how crappy the play.
• NPC Poker has multiple leagues and ways to play.
• NPC Poker has other games than just Hold' Em.
• NPC Poker allows you to schedule your games weeks in advance, and you can show up minutes before the game starts. GAPT required you to show up almost 45 minutes prior to the game starting, (in order to get you to buy food and drinks supposedly). This was time generally sitting in the smoky environment just 'waiting'.
• NPC Poker charges a monthly fee to play. Looking at their fee schedule it may seem expensive, but if you play well, and finish high, there is a lot of money to be won. If people feel like they have something at stake, they're generally going to play tighter, and potentially give off more tells about their game.
• NPC Poker encourages people to respect the game and play well

So I've played two games so far, finishing 3, and 1st respectively. It's been refreshing because I've actually been able to bluff, steal pots, and play good poker. Unlike the GAPT, where people were just looking to suck out on you, the people at NPC have something at stake and something to strive towards.

After talking with the four guys that started this league, I've come to find out they are all ex-airline pilots from Northwest Airlines. They pretty much got dropped from NW after the whole 9/11 thing, and they've been looking for their calling. This seems to be it. NPC Poker started in Nashville, TN. The Bloom brothers (the owners) have bought a franchise right from the NPC parent organization in Nashville. You'll soon see many other cities coming in the future.

I read a book called "Poker as Life: 101 Lessons from the World's Greatest Game"; on page one it says, "If there is nothing at stake, there is no point." Amen.

I like to find places that I like, and frequent them. Consistency is a good thing. If you know your meal, service, and atmosphere will be good the majority of the time, you're more likely to relax, and have fun while you're spending your hard earned money. There's a place that my wife, friends, and I enjoy a lot, it's the Portland City Grill. We've only eaten at the restaurant twice, both extremely special occasions, one paid for by my folks as an anniversary gift, and once on our dime. But don't fret, because there's a way you can experience the great views, great food, and great atmosphere, significantly cheaper. Happy hour. I know they do it during the week but don't know the exact details. I'm going to tell you about Sundays at the Portland City Grill.

Every Sunday, they open at four and have happy hour until close. The best way to get in and assure you'll have a seat (read good seat), and totally enjoy yourself is to ENSURE, you're there before 4PM. We try to get there w/ at least 5 to 10 minutes to spare. Their address is:

30th Floor
Unico/US Bancorp Tower
111 SW Fifth Avenue
Portland, Oregon  97204

You can park right in the garage of the same building, they'll even validate your first hour of parking. 

The Grill is located on the 30th floor of the U.S. Bank building just a few blocks off Burnside on 5th. If you take Pine S. from the waterfront side, you'll drive right into the garage. Park near the elevators, you'll see signs to the Grill. Here's the catch, most people wait in the lobby until the elevators are unlocked allowing access to the 30th floor. We typically get in the elevator in the garage about 3-5 minutes before 4PM. And like a kid using an ATM, or elevator, heh, I just keep pressing the 30th floor button until it finally lights up.

Just last week this tactic got us in front of the mass of people that rushed in. You'll only need to employ this tatic if you want a window seat, and trust me, you do. Happy hour is only good in the bar, so once on the 30th floor, you briskly walk in, and find a good window seat, we like to sit as far from the bar out overlooking the river. The prices are CHEAP (for food). Appetizers range from a paultry $1.95 - $4.95 and include things like Sushi, a yummy burger, fries, Caeser salad, prawns, mini pork sandwhiches, Bruscheta, and a ton more. Four of us ate about 3-4 appetizers each, had 2-3 drinks each, and a $10 dessert, with tip spent less than $100. Not bad for a night out on the town. After 5PM there is a piano player, and the music is pretty good.

This is a great way to enjoy seeing Portland from a vantage that you won't get to that often, and keeping your night out on the town very reasonable. The picture above was taken from our seats about an hour after sunset.

I was able to find the happy hour menu on their site.

Switch the frogs to the opposite side within 2 minutes.

Green Day - American Idiot.

All I can say is this has to be one of my top 10 albums ever. Green day calls it a rock 'opera', I understand what they were going for, the album is awesome from start to finish. The second track, "Jesus of Suburbia" is a 10 minute song that changes tempo 3 or four times. It's probably the best track on the album.

If you get a chance, check out the live concert of the American Idiot album, where Green Day plays a live show in England to 130,000 people over two days. It's called "Bullet in a Bible". It's produced well, and is well worth the $14 (especially if you have a video ipod).

Anyways, I know this album has been out for several years, but I just have to say how great it is, start to finish.

I was tagged by Travis, so here's my five things:

I've worked for some pretty amazing clients as a web developer:

Right out of college I worked at a web development agency that gave me the choice of working on the http://www.weyerhaeuser.com/ corporate site, or the U2 World Popmart Tour Web Site (not online anymore...). Ummmm hmmmmm which one would you choose. I've done work for Reba McEntire too. Just about three years ago, I had an opportunity to do three professional poker player site's in conjunction with UltimateBet.com. Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, and Dave "the Devilfish" Ulliot. I'm an avid poker fan, and have seen all three of these guys all over TV. While I did not get to meet any of them, I did get an autographed book from Phil Hellmuth.

I used to be a snow ski instuctor. I taught snow skiing to kids as young as two, all the way to sixty plus years old for about seven years. I originally did this job starting in high school to subsidize the cost of skiing, and found that I really liked teaching and working with people. I worked for a ski school at Snoqualmie Pass, WA, at the Ski Arcres ski area. I worked for one of the largest ski schools in the country.

I'm an avid wood worker. I've taken a break for the past year or so, mainly because there's no furniture left to build, but I feel like I'm about to start up again. I primarily like to make furniture, and I tend to find something I like somewhere, and then duplicate it, building it better, stronger, and for about 1/3 of the cost usually. Along with wood working, I can pretty much do any sort of home improvement thing. I have ALL the tools, and a lot of the skills. I worked for general contractor for a few years, he taught me many things.

I've recently become an aspiring photographer. Well I guess I can't call myself a photographer yet, but I'm going to take some classes, and learn about photography. I purchased my first digiatl SLR (well any SLR for that matter) just a few months ago. And while I'm still an 'automatic' shooter right now, I'm enjoying the things a SLR camera can do, that a point-and-shoot can't. It's awesome to be able to shoot five or six photos in a second or two. I'm excited about becoming better, and sharing this with people.

I have a highly addictive personality. When my work got an XBox 360, it became pretty apparent to me that I needed to get one at home, as I easily could have snuck away to play it at work too much. I tend to go in long spurts of addiction, and right now my addictions are (in no order of importance): xbox, poker (I have limits, and no, I don't have a problem), learning photography, and my major addiction is electronics. Yeah, the second I saw the iPhone, I knew I'd have to have one. It's a sickness really.... :). I'm lucky to have a very cool wife, and while the electronic purchases sometimes push the envelope, she's a damn good sport.

I'm tagging Jon, and Jason.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is an invaluable resource for parents with small children. How often do you have someone want to 'save you money' and give you their garage sale, or hand-me-down item? The chance to save money with kids is almost always a great thought, as things kids use, especially when infant - toddler, tend to be used for a short amount of time.

Use the CPSC web site to look up product recalls. Check out really important things like cribs, walkers, high chairs, rattles, you know, the stuff you use daily. Let's face it, if there is a flaw with a product, especially related to safety, kids are going to expose it - quickly.

The CPSC site is awesome. You can subscribe to get recalls via email, you can browse the site, or even aggregate their RSS feed! They have concise bulletins explaining why something was recalled, how to return it, and what you're entitled to as a consumer.

Back when our first child was born, our mother in law brought us a play pen she had purchased at a garage sale for pennies on the retail dollar. We were happy to not have to shell out the $80 - $100 for a new one. But after a quick check on it, and finding out four children had died, and numerous other incidents reported, $100 just didn't seem to matter.

And it's not just children's stuff. It's all products. I had a dewalt rechargeable saw, and had to get the battery replaced as the one I had was a fire hazzard. Again, not something you'd know until it was too late.

Check it out.

One of the biggest frustrations I have with IE 7 right now, is that I can't move the "refresh" and "stop" buttons. They are hanging out at the end of the address text box, like a couple of uninvited party guests.

Who had the brilliant idea, that these buttons needed to permantently live there? Does someone out there know how to move them? I want them by the 'back" and "next" buttons!

First off, if you're reading this, and you don't know who Comcast is, or you have dish, let me tell you how lucky you are.

I awoke this AM to find that Comcast had totally revamped the menu systems on my set top box. I didn't like them  before, but got used to how they worked, and while not stellar, they weren't really that bad.

We like to have Good Morning America on in the AM when we're getting ready, eating breakfast, and rushing out the door. I turned on the TV and clicked MENU, instantly I was confused. The menu is all pixely, and terrible looking, when in HD mode, it used to be crisp and clear, but I can get past that.

Ummmmmm where the Hell is my HDTV option? It's like GONE. What the hell, hmmmmmm, click menu again, and this 'quick menu' thing comes up that allows you to choose an option quickly, instead of choosing it from the menu.... I don't really see how it saves time but I digress. So I notice a new icon, way off to the right, HDTV, ah, there it is!

I click left, expecting the menu to wrap, and to go from the first item to the LAST item. It doesn't. Now instead of 'menu, menu, navigate down twice' (four clicks) I'm forced to click 'menu, and six clicks of navigation to the right' (and then enter).

Ohhhhh man that's dumb. Ok, so I don't really have an option. I go to TV Listing for HD by time. Ummmm there's two channels listed. WTF? Where did all my HD Channels go? I notice that there are little < and > carats at the top of the page, no no no... you're kidding me.

They've apparently grouped the channels by some sort of category. So now instead of paging down the available channels by time, I have to right click, right click, through all of their predefined categories.

The other option is to choose search from the main menu, some more clicks through their ridiculous interface, and choose HD. Resulting in the same view described above.

Tell me who their usability expert is, I'd like to punch him in the face.

Here's the free way to do it.
http://www.engadget.com/2005/10/18/how-to-get-tv-s...

After reading all the steps involved with this approach, I opted to spend $25. And while the transfer process of transfering a show from your tivo to your computer is painfully slow... I tend to move the shows off my tivo to my computer while I sleep.

The upside is you can set it to automatically create portable versions whenever you transfer shows to your computer. So when I wake up in the morning, all my iPod files are ready to by synch'd.

I just upgraded the blog to Das Blog 1.9!

I'm also giving the Windows Live Writer a try, it seems really cool so far (this is my first post with it).

I'm totally sick right now, and have been home with the kids all weekend, my wife was at the beach with friends. I'm glad she went, but I can't wait for her to get back.

Transferring a DVD onto a video iPod should be a simple task. I figured it would be easy, slap a DVD in a drive, and say copy to iPod? Ummmm no. Not even close. After following about 10 different sites advice on how to do this, and after installing god knows how many programs, I think I've finally found a good way to do it.

It all started off with either getting all audio, or all video. Once I finally got both audio and video onto the iPod, it was way out of sync. It was so frustrating to finally see the movie start, and progressively get out of sync towards the end.

So I spent $45 on a program that seemed to do it well (at least the demo 5 min did it well). It sucks. Don't buy IMToo DVD Ripper Platinum, it sucks. In theory it would be good, pop the DVD in, choose the platform you want to export to, and that's it. But the audio is off majorly. I checked with their tech support, and they gave me several different settings to try, all of which did not work. I'm gonna have to get a refund.

The following details are my best guess at this stuff so far, and a combination of programs that I've found helpful and that work well. The great part is they're all free.

• DVD Decrypter
  Although this program is 'gone' there are still plenty of places you can download it. The software will decrypt the copy protection on your DVD, and allow you to copy it to a .VOB file to your hard drive. To copy just the main movie off the DVD (and not all the menus, etc.) select "Mode" and choose "IFO". In the Input section, open the first tree option and find an item w/ the length of the movie (typically the first item) and select it. Now just click the DVD > Hard Disk button. It takes a little while but it's ripping your DVD content to a .VOB file on your hard disk.
  
  
  
  Pay attention to the following settings below: Make sure that File Splitting is set to "None" so you get your .VOB in ONE file, instead of 1GB chunks.
  
  
  
  
• DVD Shrink
  Very similar to DVD Decrypter, but a better UI.  The same kind of deal here, put your DVD in, if encrypted it will present you for the region of the DVD, choosing the correct region will allow Shrink to remove the copy protection. Open the "Main Movie" folder, and choose the longest title (usually title 1). Then click the backup button and viola! a .VOB file is written to your hard disk.
  
  
  
  Pay attention to these settings: Uncheck Split VOB files, it's easier to work with one file.
  
  
  
• Jodix Free iPod Video Converter
  The UI is not all that clever, but this FREE program converts your .VOB files into .mp4 (iPod video format) and it works really well. Just load your .VOB file into Jodix, and answer a few questions, choose the resolution you want, and this little gem generates a .mp4 file you can add into iTunes and then sync to your iPod.
  
  

I won't go into all of the other programs I tried that did not work. The programs noted aboveseem to do what I want. I've ripped five movies, all with perfect success.

I realized that one of the reasons I don’t post a lot, is I get irritated with Das Blog’s posting pages. So I decided to venture into 2003, (ha ha) and give Blog Jet a try!

 

I have a bunch of posts I’ll be making over the next few days, dealing with current baby stuff, a really irritating .NET bug (Microsoft calls it a ‘known issue’), and the trials (mainly) and tribulations (few) of squishing DVDs onto a video iPod 5.5g. (What a fricking pain in the …. you know.)

If anyone has some good tutorials on how to get a DVD onto a video iPod, please point them to me, as I’ve just found that it’s a major pain so far. There seems to be a lot of information on the web, but a lot of it seems to be inaccurate, or even more trouble than it’s worth.

Let’s get one thing clear, I’m not shelling out $9.99 – $12.99 to iTunes, that’s for sure.

Update: I'm dumping BlogJet for Windows Live Writer. WLW is free, and I like it better than BlogJet.

Wish me luck, and keep an eye on www.johnbatdorf.net/camerablog.aspx, that's where I'll be posting pictures in real time of our adventure. Jeff & Brent from Seattle, as well as my good friend Eric will be tearing it up in the casinos and bars! It should be a good trip, we take of Tuesday AM, and come home Thursday @ 11:00 PM.

We're staying at the newly rennovated Treasure Island. We're planning to play a bunch of poker, maybe some Blackjack too. We'll see.

When a business touts a benefit, like having free wifi when you get your oil changed, it makes me happy. I can sit and geek on the net, check email, etc, do something productiive when I'd normally just have to sit. This was a big thing the dealership we purchased our car from kept telling us.

When they offered me oil changes for the car for life, for $299, I did the math, and thought, heck... why not? So the first time I came to get the oil changed on the car, I was happy to connect to their network and have something to do while I waited.

But it did not work. I could get an IP address, but could do nothing more. I unplugged their router, rebooted thier cable modem... to no avail. I complained to the service department, and they said they'd get it corrected.

Today, our second oil change same issue. In fact, another user was griping about the same thing. So I finally got frustrated and determined with the level of technical abilities here, that their access point was probably wide open.

A quick trip to http://192.168.0.1/ gave me a username/password dialogue, no password. Man I gotta love that.

I was in. A SHITTY Dlink router. After about 3 minutes I found the problem. They were essentially blocking all of the common ports. The genius that set it up was probably trying to allow it. I removed all the filters, rebooted, reconnected and viola! I'm posting this message.

I told the dealership that I'd send them a bill. I was slightly kidding, but at least I know I can connect to their access point any time now, and solve things myslef. I'm happy again now.

Jake is officially 8 weeks old. I don't really know why we have to talk in weeks when it's a baby, but people do. They don't say 2 months, it's 8 weeks, or 16 weeks, it's really kind of silly. Anyways, the big news is that last night, he went to bed @ 10:00 PM and did not wake until 5:15 AM! It was awesome.

To those of you that read without kids, you laugh and probably say, "Whoa.... 5:15 that sucks!" But let me tell you, it's way better than 1:00 AM, and then again at 3:00 AM. 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep is about as good as we can ask for at this point.

We attribute it all to routine. We're essentially training this kid how to behave, based on the methods we employ to create a 'schedule' for him. Around 8:00 PM, we start winding down, we do a quick bottle feed, and then just kind of 'chill' till 10:00. At 10:00 PM we put on some lullaby music, sit in the rocker, do the last feeding, swaddle him up TIGHT, and rock till he's sleeping.

He's then laid down to sleep in his crib, and, if we're lucky, we get seven hours of sleep.

I'll post some more pictures soon.

This went around the net a while ago, but I still find myself loading up this little gem occasionally. I think these guys are actually pretty talented, watch the 'drummer' at the end of the video, it totally reminds me of 'Animal' from the muppets.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4462791062611472906

WHEN YOU PURCHASE APPLE PRODUCTS.

Yeah, that's right. What am I talking about? Well my iPod Nano died, a few months short of the 'one year' warranty. The screen went bad, like tons of other Nano owners. I was relieved to find that I had all the original packaging, and the receipt.

So a trip to the mall was in order. We arrived at the Apple store, to be greeted by a friendly salesperson that informed me I needed an appointment to meet with a 'Genius'. I had called earlier and explained my plight, why didn't they tell me to go online and schedule an appointment!!!!????

Anyways, I was able to get an 'appointment' about 1/2 an hour later, so I sat at the 'Genius" bar, and watched a few sessions of people trying to understand the complexities of their apple hardware (read sarcasm).

There were quite a few people with broken iPods, and not just Nanos either. One guy had his iPod go bad, and they informed him it was under warranty, but he had to pay $29.95 for shipping and handling to replace it. I was confident that I would not have to pay this, after all I had a receipt, and all, this guy had nothing but a broken iPod.

So it was finally my turn, after close to 45 minutes, they took my iPod, and tried all the fruitless steps to revive it as I had done. They finally agreed that it was a hardware problem, and would replace it, for $29.95.

I was furious. But I kept my anger inside, and tried to rationally explain to the guy, that this seemed like extoriton. If you ask me, $30 seems like the amount most people would pay to get a new iPod, any more, and you're risking some really mad people.

Several other people were there, and they all thought this seemed like a shady business practice.

Come on, face it. Apple knows I have no choice in the matter. Am I going to throw my busted Nano away over $30? Hell no. And that's where they know I'll pay the blood money.

I think it's a SHADY business practice, and I'll be looking forward to Microsoft's iPod Killer, whenever it comes out some day. I'll certainly think twice before making another Apple purchase in the future.

Rant over.

So last night, seemed like any other, we watched Alias, and Lost. Played some XBox, etc. Standard same old same old. At about 11:45, my wife got up and said she was not feeling right. I was still up because I'm a night owl, and I can't seem to go to bed before midnight for some reason.

I went upstairs, and we tried to figure out what was up. She had serious abdominal and back pain. Since she is only 30 weeks into the pregnancy, we knew what was going to happen. We'd call the nurse line, and they'd send us to the hospital.

After the on-call Doctor called us back, we were getting dressed and headed to the hospital, I was pretty sure that it was overkill, every time I've called the nurse line they are convinced you're going to die. "Ummmm hi... yeah, I've had this headache for a day now, it's not bad, but should I just take some aspirin?" Nurse: "Ummmm no, you need to get to a hospital right away, this could be brain cancer!"

You get my sarcasm, I hope. So after calling a dear friend to be at our house from midnight (she had to get up at 5:30 AM to get to her job) to be there for Katherine, we were off to the hospital.

We went into the ER, and they sent us up to the Birthing Suites. They put Dawn on a monitor, did some tests, and after about an hour and forty-five minutes, they determined she was having small contractions! So I guess it was good we went in after all.

Well, it was too soon for Jake to join us, so they gave her a shot in the arm of (Phynetnyl?) to basically stop the contractions.

By the time we got home, it was almost 4 AM. I'm a tired one today. But, I'm very glad that we went in and that everyone is doing ok now.

I usually don't post stuff like this, but a friend sent this link, and all I can say is man this gal gets clocked. I'm not sure what led up to this, but it looks like news footage from a court building. If you listen, the clockee mentions something about "THC in her system".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6640225987281635407&pl=true

So I live in a decent neighborhood, it's not like Donald Trump is gonna land anywhere near where I live, but I also don't worry too much about crime, or 'hooligans'. It's kind of like Pleasantville, without the idiosyncrasies that made that movie creepy.

So in a neighborhood plastered with sidewalks, why do people walk down the side of the street? I just don't get it. Here's the capper, yesterday, I saw a woman pushing a baby stroller down the street. When she got to parked cars, instead of using the sidewalk, she walked past the cars in the middle of the street.

I see this many times per week. Walkers, runners, moms. What the hell? I don't get it. Then to top it of you get these awful looks when you drive past them. Can someone explain this to me?

My friend, and coworker, Scott Hanselman is going to raise $10,000 in support of Diabetes research. Scott is an amazing guy, and I challenge you to help him meet his goal. They are over 80% of the way there, and you can help. If you've read scott's blog, then you know what an intelligent, interesting and funny person he is, but read this article he wrote, and you'll be even more amazed.

He's not bitching, he considers himself lucky he has his life under control.

Every little bit helps, even a $5 donation will get him closer to his goal. Click the banner below to go to his Walk-a-thon team site, where you can see their progress.

Although we've known for a couple of weeks, and told most of our close friends and family.... I'll post it here, we're having a boy. Due July 6th!

I'm gonna be so glad to have a boy in our house. Since I'm the only guy in the house I think there's a litte too much girl drama going on in our place sometimes! :)

At the time of writing there are Xbox 360 premiums available at sears.com.

It's a low priced bundle, and I think it's worth it for what you get:

• Xbox 360 Premium (w/ hard drive)
• 2 Wireless controllers
• Rechargeable battery pack
• Project Gotham Racing 3

It's $519.80. The xbox premium alone is $399.99, an extra controler retails for $49.99, Add the game for another $49.99, and the battery charger is another $20 or so. So it adds up to what they're charging. You're going to want an additional controller, and a game to start off with anyways.

Project Gotham racing is a great 'starter' game, and is a lot of fun to play.

Get the bundle from Sears here:
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.doBV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=
TOYS&pid=05891098000&subcat=Video+Game+Hardware

I found this using xbox.clambert.org - Good luck.

I've upgraded to the latest version of Das Blog. Working out the bugs now.

This thing looks sweet. Ok, I'll be the first to admit I have an electronics habit almost as bad as some people's drug habits. This thing looks so damn cool. Each key is an LCD display, allowing you to display any image to any key. Really cool stuff. For gaming, this is huge. You can customize the keys to display “run“ “shoot“ or whatever the game requires. This is cool for obscure game settings that are critical during play, but not used for the basic game play.

There are some other cool things too. There's a bank of keys that you can assign to do whatever you want. Note the picture above, explorer's and iTunes icons appear on their own keys. I think that is neat. You could conceiveably have a screen saver that ran across the keys on your keyboard. I would imagine we will see an endless onslaught of 'skins' for your optimus keyboard just like all the bad skins for winamp.