Still Snow on the Ground...

We have had snow on the ground here for weeks. The temperature hasn't been above freezing for about as long. We haven't had much new snow, just the same old stuff. Every parking lot in town has giant mountains of dirty snow piled up all around.

Last weekend, Pam decided to clean out her closet. It was quite an effort and really looks great now. During the process, we had to sleep upstairs in the Guest Suite Saturday night. There is a window at the top of the bed and it seemed real cold. The blinds were frozen to the window and there was a sheet of ice on the inside of the lower part of the window. I guess it wasn't closed properly or something, but it was cold.

I finally got my new Cabela's parka. This is the third, and final, one. This one is Black, which is not the color I wanted, but it was the only one they had left in their winter inventories. So far, it is working well and not leaking down as the last one did.

The remote control for the living room home theater system has a couple of bad keys. I guess they were just 'loved' too much during the past three years. The Logitech Harmony support folks are letting us buy a new one for a good price, but the model we have, for the Media Center PCs isn't made anymore. So, we have to get a different model, but they are so programmable that is shouldn't be much of a problem. They are such great devices compared to all the other ones available - of which I have a whole box full and don't use...

The Home Server is working out great. I am getting hooked up with a number of online forums about them and learning a lot of stuff I never knew I needed to know before this. Soon, we will have remote access via the Internet.

Pool is working out well. The current leagues are winding down. My team is doing well in the BCA league and sucking in the Mens league. But, that is the way it goes I guess. I am doing OK in both of them, but not as good as I expected - as usual...

Felix, the new cat, is driving Cali, the older cat, crazy at every possible opportunity. Pam wants to get another cat for Felix to play with so he will stop messing with Cali. I have concerns about the potentials of that logic, but something needs to be done soon...

Snow and more Snow...

It has snowed a number of times here in DaHo. Below, you can see a picture of DaEstate with about 6 " of snow. This is the most we have had since we moved here almost 4 years ago...



Besides the cold, all goes well here. We are winding down from all the holiday fun and recovering with a lot of resting and relaxing. The other day we went to see The Bucket List at the local theater. We both highly recommend the movie. It is one of the best I have seen in a long time. We both laughed and cried until it hurt. Good stuff

Felix, the new kitty, er cat, is growing and becoming sweeter all the time. It is amazing how inquisitive and smart he is. The other day, I had a latter up and went into the other room to get a screwdriver for a second and came back to find him climbing up on the top of the rung of the latter. He just loves anything that is mysterious and unexplored. Put a box down on the floor and he will play with it for hours. He is driving Cali, the older cat, crazy more and more. He always wants to play with her and she doesn't want any part of it. Hopefully, they will both learn to co-exist better as time goes on.

My pool playing is going along. Last Wednesday, I played badly and only won two of my four games. I just wasn't playing well at all and couldn't seem to get focused on the shots. Then, on Thursday night, I was much more focused and won all four games. We shall see how it goes tonight...

I got the new case for the Home Server and installed it. It now has three large fans which keeps it all quite cool. In fact, the closet that it sits in is cooler than the areas around it, because of all the fan air flow

I also got the new emachine PC replaced at Best Buys. Because of the very cheap price I got it for, it stressed their options to replace it, but they finally found one in another store and had it shipped in. So far, it is working well. We might move it down to the bedroom and use it for watching TV as Netflix is now offering unlimited downloading of movies with any of their movie rental plans and it would save a lot of money from having to subscribe to HBO, SHOWTIME and all those cable TV movie channels.

I got my new down parka from Cabelas and it is all messed up. The liner is not down proof and leaks all over the shirts I am wearing it over. They are sending me a new one to replace it. I guess mine came in a new shipment they just got in and somehow they used the wrong materials to build them. Down requires a specific type of containment materials or it will 'leak' out all over the place. Besides that, it is a great parka...

The contractor came by the other day and got all my info on the 'humming' Radon fan under the house. Hopefully, they will replace it under warranty and I will put it in.

Well, that is about all that is 'print to fit' here in DaHo...

New DaHo Bedding

I've discovered http://www.overstock.com/. If you really love to find a bargain, then I highly recommend this site. They ship your whole order -- no matter how many items for less than $3 bucks. They also run promotions for free shipping.



Needless to say -- I have been shopping =) But, we are so pleased with the quality and value, it's crazy. I outfitted both our master bed, and the guest suite bed with luxurious fabrics and details that you can't even find here in DaHo. So, here's what I purchased and prices. Come to DaHo and ENJOY!

Their advertised pics:

Our pic: Master Bedroom, $154 Shipped

Our pic: Guest Suite, $54.95 Shipped

It's Deep and Cold too...

Well, we got about 6-8 inches of snow here today. That is the most in one day since we moved here. When Pam got home from work, I had shoveled a walk/tire track in the driveway snow for her to try and get the car in the garage. That almost worked... She got stuck about 1/2 of the way up and had to back down while I did some more shoveling to create the other tire track. Then, she tried it again but couldn't get the car going and got stuck on the road. So, I went down and pushed her and she was able to finally get it up the driveway and in the garage. She has driven snow for a long time and knows how to do it well. After that, She shoveled a path clean for her to get out in the morning, as the forecast was for much more snow. I installed chains on her car for the morning commute. They were new ones from Costco and were a total pain to get on. Once I figured out how to do it right, it went pretty well, but it still took about an hour and reminded me of another trip to Idaho from long ago...

Then, a neighbor stopped by later on with his 4X4 four wheeler with a snow shovel on it and cleaned the entire driveway off for free. What a nice guy. He wouldn't take any payment for all the work, but Pam fixed him a nice cup of hot chocolate for his efforts.

The new case got here for the Home Server machine and I installed it last night. It all went great and this new case is a good one. Lots of internal drive space and big fans to keep it all cool in the wiring cabinet closet.

The new Emachine is being replaced by Best Buys as the hard disk is fried. It was a hassle to get it done with the Geek Squad, but all is good at this point.

I finally found the source of the nasty hum in the bedroom. I did have to go under the house and finally found the problem. It is a Radon/Crawl space fan that basically sucks all the air out of the crawl space and blows it out keeping the crawl space warm and dry. I never even knew we had such a fan, but now I do. It has a 5 year warranty and we have only been in the house for less than 4 years, so I am going to try and get it replaced under warranty. The problem is that the contractor that installed it is long gone so it will probably be fun...

Well, tomorrow should be 'interesting'. I will report on how it goes here in DaHo...

2008 is Strangely like 2007...

So far, this new year is just like the previous one. Weird... The weather is still cold, my pool playing hasn't changed and all the same stuff that needed to be fixed, still needs to be fixed, and the list goes on...

But, the Christmas tree is gone. I had to cut it all up to just a pole and bags of branches because it was so dried out. But, it got done and is gone to the big Christmas Tree farm in the sky.

The Home Server is working great. I am in the process of moving all of the important data over to it, which it automatically keeps redundantly on two separate disks and it has successfully backed up all the machines each night for most of the week. It also warns you of all problems on any of the computers it manages, so you can resolve them. Anybody that has important data and less than 10 computers, should check these little Home Servers out. In a short while they will be all over, but right now HP is the only company selling them and they cost from $500 to $750 - depending on the amount of disk they have. They are pretty amazing little units that provide a simple, yet elegant, solution to problems that have been around for years.

While Tom and Jade were here, the new E-machine computer had some sort of disk problem that Tom said woke him up one night. Then, all sorts of other issues started happening so I took the E-machine back to Best Buys yesterday after rebuilding it to stock – replacing all the upgraded case fans, memory, power supply, cables, etc. They agree the disk was trashed when they tried to use their ‘special Geek Squad’ utilities on it. So, they said they would swap it out. They didn’t have the same model so they were going to sway it out for some other computer at the same price point. When they saw that I had only paid $109.99 for it, at the Black Friday sale, they freaked saying that the cheapest, and less capable, computer they had would cost at least $399 and I would have to pay the difference. That wasn’t going to happen so I suggested that I buy one of the 320 gb disks that were on sale last week for $59.95 and they could just put it in, they said that they couldn’t give me the last week sale price on it - Grumble, Grumble… So, I started getting a little pissed off at that point and their manager called around and found another new one at some other store and they are sending it to swap out. So, I will have to rebuild it hardware and software wise when it arrives… Big cheap computer fun…

The last two nights I played in my pool leagues. On Wednesday night, I won all four of my games. The rest of the team also won four games between them all, so we ended up tying the other team at 8 to 8...

I was driving the Lincoln and somehow the front bumper under panel got hung up on a bolt coming out of the concrete parking stop in the parking lot and tore it loose. When I tried to drive home, it was banging around so I returned and got it taped up and took it down to a body shop to get fixed for free, since the body shop owner is the pool team captain.

Then, last night, I ended up getting 32 out of a possible 40 points, which was not up to my standard, but crap happens. There were a ton of people in there and it was really hard on the eyes. Then, last night something really weird happened. When I came home from playing pool and went into the bedroom, I noticed a petty loud 60 cycle hum coming from the corner of the room where the entertainment center lives. I thought it must be some component or electronic thingie was flipping out and started troubleshooting. We unplugged everything a couple of times, went outside to check if the air conditioner unit was somehow on and checked all over and can find nothing. There is nothing in under or over that living area, that is powered or has anything that could generate such a noise that I am aware of… It went on all last night and is still going. It is driving me crazy. There also is no hum in any room close to it – just in that one place… We have also had a circuit trip from the same general area, but not that plug, a couple of times lately. I really don’t see how that is connected, but…

I am going to have to put together some sort of a directional listening device and try to isolate the source. If that doesn’t work, its hammer time, I guess…

If you don’t hear from me again, there was probably some nasty animal or electrical nastiness that got me under the Dahouse…

Where Are All The Pics?

2008, Day 3.

There has been plenty of text lately, but no pics.

Well this blog entry should rememdy that.

Ryan & Chris

Johnny and Joshua

Mr. and Mrs. Tom'eh Brook

Two Peas in a Pod!

Sisters Jasmine and Jade

Too Adorable!