Darkavich's Daily Ramblings Ramblings of a Mad Sys-Admin

December 16, 2005

Timber!!!!!

Filed under: Items in the Pensieve — Darkavich @ 10:06 pm

Well we decided to remove the Torrey Pine tree out of our back yard. This tree, while gorgeous was a big pain in the neck. It woudl drop needles like crazy… Clogging the pond and cover the entire ground. The tree was well over 60 feet tall. The scary thing is it’s not even half the height it would grow to.

TP-bottom

The removal process was incredible. The guys climbed up the tree and started removing limbs. They would swing them around using ropes and creative cuts making them land in the exact spot they wanted. It took them about three hours to bring it all down.

I now have lots of firewood now. I have to rent a log splitter though so I can break it up into smaller pieces. Anyone that wants to come over and help, is more than welcome.

We left the stump in the ground because it may make a decent base for my train bridges. It’s too awkward of a hill to grind it out. Once we clear the hill we will have a better idea of what we have to work with.

December 15, 2005

EyeHome (A misserable failure)

Filed under: Muggle Tech — Darkavich @ 10:45 pm

I had great hopes for this tool. It is a device that lets you play video/audio/photos from your mac. The concept is perfect; the implimentation is horrible.

It has a remote that is impossible to understand. I had to keep looking at the quick reference guide to know what the buttons do. The remote performed poorly, unless I had it sitting right in front of the unit. There is no quick skip or quick back, so when you fast forward you end up going way past, then have to rewind. The one positive was it allowed you to change the screen ratios on the fly. This was a very usefull feature. The multi-media features were pretty good. But for Video it was a poor performer. Also, the composite video required a very tight connection to work. (I think it was a bad connection on the unit).

I think they have a long way to go before they will be ready for prime time or replace my ReplayTV. I rarely give up on a device after 25 minutes, but I lost my patience with this unit very quickly. Thank goodness I bought this on amazon.com, so returns are cake.

The search continues…

Disney gallery (Did you know it was there?)

Filed under: Disneyland — Darkavich @ 10:04 pm

Angie and I always go to the Disney Gallery. This is a place to see some old disney memories or behind the scenes information about the park.

This time the entrance had a model display of mainstreet with an N-gauge train around it. The model uses the collector pieces of all the new main street buildings. I am looking for a web site that has information on these.

If you have never been here, check it out. It’s up the stairs above The Pirates ride.

disneygallery

What a cool new ride

Filed under: Items in the Pensieve — Darkavich @ 9:57 pm

We rode the new Buzz Light Year attraction! Wow, what a very cool ride. This is a car ride, like many of the kids rides in the park. The ride is interactive, you get to shoot targets during the ride. Each target is worth points, and more points if it is lit. You compete against the other person on the ride with you.

A very cool new ride. Oh wait, did I say that already?

I scored 43,550 points on my 1st ride. About 1/10th the score of the daily record. I can’t wait to go back and try it out again.

Where not to stay

Filed under: Disneyland — Darkavich @ 9:53 pm

Well it never fails that whenever I try to pick a new hotel to stay at we have a bad experience. This time it was the Desert Inn. I wanted to stay accross the street from the entrance this time. I figured, that it would be convient to just walk over to the park and back again when we leave.

I was wrong. First off, I waited about 5 minutes before I got any help to check in. After checking in, I noticed that we were required to leave the parking lot by 2pm on the day we checked out. I mentioned that this was not documented on the web site or the reservations. I just got a blank stare.

The room was on the 5th floor. The shower did not work, I could not turn on the water without extreme difficulty, and the hot/cold knob just spun without changing the temp. The drain would not work. It kept shutting off while it was draining. I finally had to disassemble the drain so that the water would drain.

In the middle of the night, the plumbing above us was dripping every few seconds. It was quite loud and kept us awake.

The breakfast was toast and juice, what a crock.

Anyway, I think it’s back to Candy Cane Inn. I just need to stop trying to find other hotels and stick with the one we know is good 😉

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