Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Once I get all my stuff together and organized, I'm afraid I'll end up like this fellow. Is that my ultimate goal in life? Heck, no!

But seriously....this picture came from an article in the April 2008 issue of IEEE Spectrum which discusses the stockpiling of obsolete electronics.

Oh well. Better to have an organized warehouse filled with old electronics than a disorganized landfill with the same old electronics.

I spent this evening shredding old receipts and sorting out more bills.

Earlier this week, I spent a couple of hours sorting out bills from last year, and going through receipts from 2000.

It seems that I spend an awful lot of time chasing down little slips of paper.

It doesn't help that I have papers in every room of the house. I need an office where I can keep all these papers in one place.

I think I need an administrative assistant.

I used to be so organized. Now I'm just overwhelmed.

This coming weekend is Millennicon, in Cincinnati. I thought about going on Saturday, only to see filkertom and other local fans. But I'm still unemployed and don't have money for conventions. And if I did have the money....I probably wouldn't go anyway. They lost my convention business years ago. I'm quite sure I chronicled about it here some time ago.

The weekend of April 1-3 is FilKONtario, Again, I don't have the money to attend, and I don't have the money for a passport. Once of these years, I'd like to return. It's been 8 years since I last attended a FKO.

Over here in the States, we do the census in years ending in a 0. But I suspect that in some countries, they're done in years ending with 1.

Anyway, I'll play.

2011: Still in the condo. Divorced for 4 years. Currently unemployed. Worried that I might lose the condo due to foreclosure. Marcus is still around. Bubastis and Lady died in 2002. Oreo died in 2004. Merlin died in 1997. Added Mercury 8 years ago.

2001: In the condo for nearly 3 years. Happily married to my [first] wife for 2 years. Working as a contractor at GE AIrcraft Engines. Adopted two cats, Marcus and Merlin, in the summer of '99. Bubastis, Oreo, and Lady are still around.

1991: Been in an apartment in Kettering for nearly 2 years now. Dating a woman in Columbus whom I met via GEnie. Working for Battelle. Adopted Bubastis the previous year.

1981: Still at my parents' home. Counting down the days until my high school graduation.

1971: Liiving with my parents in Tonawanda, NY. In the 2nd grade at the local elementary school.

Had two interviews on Thursday.

One was with a homebuilder based in northern Kentucky. They were looking for a front-end web developer, using XML, XSLT, and Adobe Flex, for their marketing efforts. I'm more of a back-end person. And they found someone else who was more proficient in this skillset than me. (I thought I was a longshot to begin with.)

The other was with a local consulting firm who had an out-of-state client wanting to do some data migration. While the interview went well, the client got a case of cold feet and is re-revaluating their project. So this one's on hold.

In the meantime, I'm helping out a friend rebuild a computer system for one of his clients. The motherboard on it -- and presumably the CPU as well -- went kablooey. He was able to order a replacement motherboard, which came in yesterday. The motherboard was installed last night, but it doesn't seem to like having two video cards installed. I'll play around with it some more this weekend.

Continuing where I left off......

Tue 2/22 (cont'd): Skipped my mens' group and went to visit Dan and Jody (aka ethansmom) and their son Ethan at Great Wolf Lodge, where they were staying this week. Had dinner with them and played a few rounds of Uno.

Wed 2/23: Don't remember what I did during the day. Had choir practice. Affterward, went back down for another visit to Dan, Jody, and Ethan.

Thu 2/24: Drove to Columbus for an interview with Chemical Abstracts Service. I didn't know how the weather was going to be, so I packed an overnight bag. Was hoping to meet with athenawindsong afterward, but she was sick with bronchitis. I had dinner with maedbh7, her mom, and her cousin. Great pot roast (I want the recipe!) and conversation ensued. Then retreated to the Red Roof Inn (I-71 and rt 161) where I was staying overnight.

Fri 2/25: It was a good thing I stayed over. There was an inch of snow on my car, and on the roads. Drove to my next interview, with Progressive Medical, in Westerville. Afterward, stopped for lunch and a trip to Half Price Books. The drive home was good; the roads were dry and clear. Picked up M from day care and dropper her off with her mom a few hours later.

Sat 2/26: Had M over for the day. Spent the day watching videos, and resting. Went to the USS Bismarck meeting afterward and cast my vote for captain.

Sun 2/27: Had M again, since I was out of town last week. We went to Entertrainment Junction and had lots of fun.

Last week, I accidentally broke the power cable that came with my Gear Head laptop cooling pad. Not surprising, as it has a very thin cable. It has a USB connector plug on one end and a power adapter plug on the other.

This afternoon, I stopped at my local Radio Shack to purchase either a replacement adapter plug or replacement cable. My plan was to solder the replacement adapter plug onto the cable. I was told by the clerk (who was also the manager) that they no longer carried parts. He explained that there was no money in selling electronics parts anymore, and referred me to another store -- Parts Express in Springboro. I thanked him and left.

Apparently, do-it-yourself electronics hobbyists like myself are a dying breed. Anyone out there remember Heathkit? They used to sell kits of electronics components that people would put together themselves. (I have an alarm clock from them. I was able to wire it up to display 24-hour time.) I think they got out of the DIY electronics business years ago. Now they specialize in kits for education.

It's a sad comment on the industry that it costs more to repair electronics components than it does to replace them. But it's been that way for years. Meanwhile, old and broken electronics pile up in landfills.

I used to love Radio Shack. I remember riding my bike to a local store as far back in 1979. I think I still have a breadboard, circuit components, and an SN76477 sound chip for a project I never completed. What do they sell now? Mobile phones, complete stereo systems and components, computer accessories, and the like. I might as well go to Best Buy instead.

I only saw half of the Big Game yesterday. I had M with me until about 7:30pm, and she doesn't like football. Instead, we watched Looney Tunes cartoons on DVD. So I missed Christina Aguilera flubbing the words on the national anthem, and most of the commercials that aired during the first half.

The first commercial I remember seeing was the one for Safe Auto, where the same guy kept getting kicked in the groin. Ouch! OK, it's somewhat funny if it happens to someone else, but painful if it happens to you. The rest of the commercials didn't peg my fun meter.

I did like the one for NFL Network which showed various clips of classic TV shows.

Did the one for Volkswagen (with a kid dressed up as Darth Vader) air?

I was at the local Buffalo Wings & Rings getting dinner when the halftime how aired. I didn't see any wardrobe malfunctions. And I had a hard time hearing the band.

Today we had about 1cm (0.4 in) of freezing rain and sleet fall here in Dayton. I think more fell in places north of where I am.

I knew last night I was going to stay at home today. I had to make two trips outside, though. One was to get my oil changed at Jiffy Lube, since my oil light came on last night. The other was to get cat food at Kroger. So I went through a few more boxes, watched TV, and napped.

I'm glad I had my in-person interview in Fort Knox yesterday. I wouldn't want to drive any distance in this weather. It was a one-on-one with the functional manager at a coffee shop. And I think it went very well.

I'm guessing I will be spending tomorrow at home as well, based on the latest weather forecast.

Sure is lonely at home alone, even with the cats. :-(

I went through another two storage boxes today. These two boxes contained empty boxes of old computer software. I was able to pull out the corrugated cardboard, plastic, and collapse the boxes for recycling at the local dump.

In the past few weeks, I have gotten rid of several storage boxes' worth of old software boxes.

I also note that software packaging in the 1990s was very wasteful. Instead of just the CD-ROM(s), they were packaged in larger boxes, presumably to combat shoplifting and to fit better on store shelves.

So why did I hold on to these boxes? I held on to them in the event I sold the software in the future. I thought the software would be more valuable (and desirable) if the software package was complete with a box.

As for most of this software, I don't think it runs very well, if at all, on my computers anymore. So now I'm also looking for places to donate the old software. Some of it is on floppy disk, and some of it is on CD-ROM.