morrowlife

Here’s Loyal Reader Number One doing his Michael Jackson imitation. Except not as weird. Or sick. Or disturbed. Or anything. Look at all the dust on that thing – I wouldn’t want that in my lungs. Photo courtesy of LRN1. I think.

Pretty day out. Plenty of clouds, plenty of sun.

Well, I did it. Ordered a Voip setup from a company called Ooma. The hardware should be here in a week or so, after which I need to activate it, order my phone number transferred to it (if possible, which I believe it is), wait for the transfer for a week or two, and cancel our POTS. I’m excited about it.

Ooma hardware is pretty expensive at 200 bucks through Amazon (retail is $250). The monthly charge is quite reasonable, though: zip. Nada. Zero dollars and zero cents. They want to upsell you their premium service, and they might succeed with me. The standard service includes everything we have now plus voice mail. The premium adds some pretty cool stuff like voice mail sent to you via email and multiple lines. We’ll have to see.

I first tried ordering Vonage. Didn’t work out so well. I was able to place an order via their website, but there was some kind of “processing error” that they couldn’t explain that canceled my order but kept my account. They were unable to redo the order using the existing account name and I was unwilling to start over again, so we agreed to part as friends. I can’t recommend them, though.

Anyway. I’ve already spent the entire amount of the savings. I turned on unlimited text messaging for the family and unlimited data service for my cell phone. I hoped to get data for Loyal Reader Number One too, but the price was high. We’ll have to see if we can figure something out. They sure charge a lot for that stuff. But it’s really cool. I’m more worried than ever about my phone’s short battery life, even with the mega battery. Sigh.

So what else is going on? It’s semi-massive meeting Tuesday. My meetings don’t start until 7:00, so I rode the train and just left the office an hour early, but the last meeting doesn’t start until 9:00, making for a late night. Survival is likely, however.

Loyal Reader Number Two has great, momentous news: his braces were removed yesterday! He looks great and feels the same. Congratulations, LRN2!

No toilet news, no controversy. It’s late.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s something that just looks like a bad idea. That’s dynamite. And a pocket knife. Two things you don’t normally want to see together. Picture courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One, who survived the photo opportunity.

Nicer day than expected. I went to work prepared for rain and got mostly-to-partly cloudy. No complaints. The temperatures are back up into the 60s during the day and 40s at night. The hills are mostly green, although not yet as velvety as they’ll be in another month. Springtime is breaking out.

No post on Friday. Even though it was Off Friday, I failed to plan. Loyal Reader Number Four and I went to the temple that evening and then it was bedtime. So no post. I pity your suffering, Loyal Readers.

Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve (I really need to come up with a shortcut for them) were here for the weekend, which was nice. I hope they’re enjoying their visits these days, because I know we are. Anyway, the weather wasn’t conducive to Suburban detailage, so LRN6 did a few odd jobs on his truck and relaxed some.

As did I. I worked for quite a while to get Larry set up as a proper media center. All I lack is a remote control. And a final decision to cut the cable.

I think the thing I’m worried about most is losing the ability to channel surf. But I really doubt any of us will miss it all that much. There is just a ton of free stuff on the internet, including lots of good old shows we definitely like. Think Dick Van Dyke. The Addams Family. McHale’s Navy. Bob Newhart. Bullwinkle. Monk. Psych. And many, many others.

And yes, as Loyal Reader Number One asked in the comments, I did install Miro. It easily links to any Hulu page, which is very cool. I also have MediaPortal, which is pretty neat. Especially for the price.

The big question is whether a remote control will effective navigate Hulu and Miro, which is the source of much of the good stuff. I guess I just need to buy one and verify. Then we cut the cord.

I’m also about ninety percent convinced to cut off the house phone and go with either Vonage (or somebody similar) or that $25/year service I was thinking about before. Or even just our cell phones. That’s a problem, though, since our signal at home is so poor. Anyway, I’m thinking of using the savings to buy text messaging and a data plan for the cell phones. Seems like a good trade to me.

Opinions, Loyal Readers?

Yes, I know – you can’t stay awake with this fascinating monologue going on. Well, let’s liven this thing up a little. Today’s controversy: How do I get in on this deal?

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a sign inside the mine Loyal Reader Number One recently visited. They try to please. One of the things that struck me about his latest pictures is the condition of all the wood inside the mines. It looks brand new, yet those mines have presumably been abandoned for quite some time, and the wood was presumably in there for a reasonably long period before that. Nothing seems to wear out. As opposed to the pictures he shared from his Utah mine trips – those places look pretty ramshackle. I wonder what the difference is. Picture courtesy of LRN1.

Beautiful, warm, sunny day. It was a shame to spend essentially all of it indoors. It’s supposed to be nice again tomorrow and Saturday, so there’s hope.

I enjoyed attending the branch’s Elders quorum presidency meeting last night. Like all the other branch meetings, it was conducted entirely in Spanish. The good: I’m still able to comprehend essentially everything without having to translate in my head. The bad: I’m finding myself having to think a little harder than I did as a young man as I speak. Hopefully, sustained practice will help me overcome that.

The weekend’s here, and it promises to be somewhat busy. It’s Stake Conference weekend, so we have temple night on Friday, leadership and adult sessions on Saturday, and the general session on Sunday, which promises to be the sparsest day schedule-wise. I’ll do a bunch of girls camp work Sunday to keep myself busy.

Other weekend activities include a possible visit from Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve. LRN6 wants to work on detailing the Suburban on Saturday, which would be great, although my availability will be limited, so we may have to reschedule. We’d like it if they came anyway, of course.

I also need to have a serious look at the pool and pond filters. Maybe I can get that done on Friday. The filters Will Ever Be With Us.

I checked out the additional mine pictures LRN1 linked to in his comment to yesterday’s post. Excellent photos – thanks for sharing. Highly recommended viewing. Since all these photos are the property of somebody else, I’ll refrain from posting any of them here.

Here’s a revolting development in the media center world. I don’t think the Old Media will ever really get it, do you? Every time it seems like there’s a chance, they do something like this.

Today’s odd news: The Maytag repairman has a problem. I wonder how lonely he’ll feel in a jail cell.

There’s even some toilet news today: It’s getting more expensive every day. The news isn’t all bad, though – the Maytag repairman may be getting a break.

That’s it for tonight. See you tomorrow.

Here’s a position familiar to owners of British vehicles since time immemorial. Even extremely expensive British vehicles. Picture courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One; taken during his recent mine exploration expedition. The guy with the Ford truck had no car problems.

No rain today, for the first time in several days. There’s still a lot of standing water around, as observed from my train window. It’s supposed to be dry through Friday, after which the daily rainstorms resume. Still no complaints – we need all the moisture we can get.

Got the media center program installed on Shemp last night. Its documentation says my machine is fine with the exception of the memory – I have 256 MB and it wants 1 TB. It actually runs (and looks real nice to boot!), but does so VERY slowly. I really need to start looking for some memory for both Shemp and Larry. They won’t really be useful until that happens. Then I can add remote controls. And then some new HDTVs. Then we can start saving money on television!

No toilet news. No links. Maybe tomorrow.

That’s it for today. I’ve been seriously sleep deprived this week and need to do something about it. Such as getting to bed on time.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s an unidentified mine explorer exploring a mine. Looks dark down there. I’m still working on the “why” (link warning: amusing YouTube video with sound) before I can get to the “when,” “where,” and “how.” Photo courtesy of Loyal Reader Number One.

Slept in this morning after getting the new computer (new name: Shemp) working perfectly last night. I still plan to install an open source media center application. Haven’t decided which one yet. Maybe not tonight, though. It’s already after 9:00.

Anyway. I’m feeling much better – the headache is basically gone and even the throat feels a little better. Cautious optimism reigns.

Worked a little on Girls Camp tonight. One step at a time, I’m getting there.

No toilet news tonight. I don’t know what’s wrong. So we’ll have to settle for wedgie news. That’ll teach ’em.

See you tomorrow.