Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Internet, Even When It Rains

Greetings,

Since the good folks at Hoosier Broadband came out and mounted what looks like an 8’ pole to my roof and pointed my antennae at a different tower, all has been well in internet land. We even maintained a good connection during the worst of the storms over this past weekend. It makes me think I might be able to work from home full time if I so desired. I might need to pay the extra $25 a month to go from 256 up / 768 down to 512 up / 1024 down though to make it work. There are times during my job that require me to share my desktop and 256 up is not quite enough oomph to do it without some buffering problems. No matter, I have a good connection for what I need it for and I can always go up a level in my service if need be at a later date.

We did make a run to Meijer’s to pick a new deck of Uno cards. I was surprised that it was only $4.44 as I was expecting $6 or $7. It is just plastic cards I guess and you could probably play the game with (2) decks of regular cards (10’s = 0’s, jacks = skips, queens = draw twos, kings = reverse, and maybe jokers = wilds) but $4.44 is an OK price for me. Currently in the race to 10,000 points between the daughter and I, I have a lead of about 700 points (6,011 to 5,318) but the lead (that was once over 1,000) got down in the lower 500’s tonight before I made a small run. She is wearing me down and no lead is safe even though we are 60% of the way done. We have played 285 hands so far. The son and I have started a separate game to 10,000 points and after 85 games I am leading by over 800 points (2,241 to 1,454). The son jokingly claims I am cheating when he goes out and I have only low cards left in my hand. He also claims I am cheating when I have nothing but high cards in my hand to play toward the end or when I have a wild or draw four at just the right time. I pointed out that it is not possible to cheat no matter what I have in my hand and then he decided I was watching the cards somehow as I was shuffling. He gives me too much credit. The real reason I am winning as he plays with a very steady pattern and I can usually tell (like in poker) what is in his hand. The daughter is much tougher to read so she is staying closer to me thus far. I think I need to get a shuffling machine or something as my fingers are quite sore from shuffling 3 or so times after every hand.

Another thing we bought at Meijer’s was a wireless keyboard and mouse (Logitech S520). It was on clearance for 1/2 price and we have been wanting one of these for a while now. We use our 32” flat panel (el cheapo) TV as our computer monitor and it was a pain to get up and walk to the keyboard and mouse when we needed to. This was $30 well spent. The daughter thinks it is really cool to sit on the couch and surf her favorite site.

Much like last year at this time, I have started the diet and exercise. Last year I started on 24 April and this year I started on 01 May. I have a head start this year in that I am 16 lbs lighter than last year at this time. I still put on 15 lbs or so over the winter so my goal is to get back to where I was (around 180). Since 5:00 comes early I need to get off of this computer an into bed.

Jon

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