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My Airtunes fix

I have been battling Airtunes skipping for months now. A lot of other people have as well.

What finally worked for me was changing the wireless channel on my Netgear WGT624 router. MacStumbler showed me that 5 nearby wireless networks that were accessible from the living room are using channel 11. Three wireless networks were using channel 6. I changed mine to channel 2.

Now I can stream music perfectly with no skips or pauses in music from the iBook to the stereo in the living room (and out to the deck).

ecto settings
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Rainy lunch date

Elise and I woke up on Sunday morning to deep rumbles of thunder, flashes of lightening and the sound of rain pounding the roof.

We rolled out of bed, took turn taking showers and headed out. We returned a movie to Blockbuster and then went to the HoPot to return a patio umbrella, look at paint for the dining room and to buy a replacement water hose spray gun.

We then went to Romeo’s for a rainy day lunch date. Romeo’s has always been near and dear for Elise and me. While sitting in our booth with the restaurant practically to ourselves, Elise reminded me of the time when I took her there for her birthday a few years back. I was on the verge of death with a horrible dose of the flu.

When I first met Elise’s mom and grandma I took all the girls to Romeo’s for lunch.

Romeo’s is a great little romantic landmark on Barton Springs Road. But we think the food has changed. Maybe it was because it was a Sunday afternoon and the kitchen wasn’t sprinkling the make-the-food-taste-great magic pixie dust. I always have the Arrabbiatta at Romeo’s. Elise had the fettuccini alfredo. We both had a cup of tomato basil soup. The soup was fine but our entrees just weren’t what we were used to. I’m usually good about distinguishing flavors and textures but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was that was lacking. I don’t know. I’m at a loss. But something changed.

And then there was a the bread issue. Our waiter brought two large dinner rolls and a plate of olive oil and grated parmesan cheese. We used to get homemade Italian breads with garlic and chive butter and olive oil and grated cheese. Elise looked down at the dinner rolls with disappointment. “These look like they came from US Food Service or Sysco.”

We had a nice date nonetheless.

We then drove over to Barton Creek mall to walk off our cream-rich lunch. We stopped in at the Sharper Image and, or course, I wanted to buy everything. Elise made it very difficult for your humble narrator to convince her that we need a magnet-fueled 100 lumen LED flashlight. We didn’t get a flashlight.

We walked around the mall. We stepped into the Apple store. Elise made it very difficult for your humble narrator to convince her that we need a black iPod nano. We didn’t get an iPod nano.

We went to Dillards to look at bedding. Third time was a charm. I stood strong and told Elise that we did need a Jasmin Mini Chopper Control playset. I got my damn helicopter and when we got home I played with it. I picked up and carried cargo like a pro. I quickly mastered the throttle and pitch and flew my little chopper until the batteries died.

I brought the helicopter with me to work on Monday and told the girls that if a customer calls and I look busy, to tell the customer that I’m out flying the corporate helicopter.

After getting a couple iced mochas at a kiosk in the mall, we went to Half Price Books on South Lamar. Elise picked out three self help/instuctional books. I picked out Mötley Crüe’s book The Dirt. Elise sought to better herself in this life. I got a toy helicopter and a book on sex, drugs and rock and roll.

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What do you want to be remembered for?

The man who made me laugh. The one who was fair and honest and didn’t take anything too seriously. Everything in life deserves a smile. It could always be worse. No worries.

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Homecoming

This afternoon snuck up on me and I realized that I needed to get out of the office and get myself something to eat for lunch. I try to support the local guy as much as possible but sometimes I just get Subway on the mind.

Eating at the Subway in Marble Falls has always been a trick for me. If you don’t know me, I have borderline psychotic idiosyncrosies. I cannot eat in a restaurant by myself and have a stranger sit accross from me at another table. If I decide that I’m going to eat in a restaurant, I have to strategically seat myself to where sitting across from a stranger won’t happen.

I’ve been in a great mood all day. I’ll chalk that up to it being Friday. Today I strutted into Subway. The kid who works at Subway 9 times out of 10 when I decide to have lunch there was working today. If he’s working I usually get my order to go because this kid is a busboy. He stays out on the floor and waits for people to leave the restaurant so he can immediately wipe off the tables or sweep the floor. He’s also in charge of stocking the chip rack and swapping out the soda machine syrup.

If the restaurant isn’t crowded, I’ll find a booth where no one could possibly sit in front of me. Except for the busboy, whenever he’s done bussing and he leans against the facade’s inside window and buzzardly waits for the next crumbs to sweep. He just leans there, looking around at all the tables and will eventually makes eye contact with me which makes my skin crawl. It’s not him in particular… it’s just one of my “Seinfeldisms”.

Today he was there. I was in such a great mood that I didn’t mind him being there, even the thought of him buzzarding didn’t break my stride. I was in such a great mood that I didn’t bother strategically seating myself. I went out on a limb and sat at the second table closest to the window.

The busboy decided to sweep. He swept right next to the table at which I was sitting.

“Hi! How are you doing today, sir?”

“I’m doing great today! How ’bout yourself?” I retorted.

He said he was doing fine as well. The busboy is mentally handicapped and has a fantastic attitude which only heightened my own.

He then asked, “Are you going to the Homecoming tonight?”

I hadn’t been asked that question in over a decade. I was taken aback for a moment. I grinned on the inside and thought about Marble Falls; the quaint, eclectic small town that takes great pride in high school football.

“No. I’m not from here.” I responded. At that point that I felt like the lone biker stopping in at the small town diner for a bite to eat before making my way west to the other side of the States.

“Where are you from?”

“Austin.”

A brief exchange in small talk ensued and quickly ended at the busboy was summoned to stock the chip rack.

“Homecoming” I kept hearing. I kept grinning. Homecoming was such a fun thing.

My chipper spirit and I continued on with lunch. I eat the exact same thing every time I eat at Subway. A 6″ Club on Italian with chipotle sauce, lettuce, onions, bell peppers, olives, banana peppers, jalepenos and cucumbers. I never eat the cucumbers on my sandwich. I always take them off and eat them before my sandwich. I think cucumbers on a sandwich are weird but I want to get my money’s worth so I eat them the way that I do. I always get a bag of Miss Vickie’s jalepeno potato chips. That’s my Subway order, every time. I eat my chips before my sandwich.

I was 3/4 of the way through eating my sandwich and Mr. Mel Gibson-lookalike UPS driver walks into the restaurant. I didn’t pay much notice until he went through the line, walked through the restaurant and set his food down on the table across from me. It wouldn’t have bothered me except that he set his food, drink and newspaper on the side of the table with the booth that faces me. I just knew he was going to sit facing me. 90% of the other tables in the restaurant were available but he chose that one.

He put his food and paper down and went to the bathroom. It was at that point when I scarfed down the remainder of my sandwich. He came back and sat down just as I was taking my last two hurried bites. Sure enough. He sat down directly across from me, facing me.

I absolutely hate that.

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Lunch date and two tickets

After over a year my wife finally came up to Marble Falls to have lunch with me. That’s one of the things I miss most about having to commute and hour to work… not being able to drive a short distance to meet Elise for lunch.

So we had a nice lunch at the Bluebonnet Cafe. Well, my lunch was good. I had the open face pot roast. Elise had a bland open face chicken fried steak. Afterwards we walked next door to the pottery shop on the corner of Hwy 281 and 3rd street. I drive by this store at least twice daily and have yet to stop in to look at the wares for sale. We found three items that we agreed we really liked so I’m going to make a special trip to Marble Falls this Saturday to pick up some pots and deck decorations.

We had a nice late lunch but had to make it short as Elise had to get back to Austin for a catering.

45 minutes after leaving, Elise called my office. She was waiting for the police officer who had just pulled her over to finish running her plates. She had no inspection sticker and expired insurance.

I think I’m partially to blame for both counts. Texas recently changed the design of our registration stickers. The short of it, I, for some unknown reason, removed the Jeep’s inspection sticker and replaced it with Texas’s new registration sticker. So Elise has been driving around with two registration stickers, that look nothing alike, for a few months.

What’s funny is I had been getting onto Elise about getting her registration sticker renewed. I thought it had long since expired. I was always looking at where the registration sticker should be, which is where it was but seemed to have expired. The inspection sticker (which was actually the recent registration sticker) was up-to-date. I wanted to get this all squared away because I’m in the process of moving the lien on the Jeep from our old credit union in Temple to our credit union in Austin and for paperwork reasons needed the expiration date for the registration, which I thought was expired.

So that’s one ticket for Elise.

The next ticket is for expired insurance. I might have received a current proof of insurance card from our insurance company somewhere in the telephone book-thick paperwork that they send me once a month. I most likely threw it away. I’m pleading the fifth here, but that might have happened only because I think it’s pretty stupid all of the paperwork that is sent from our insurance company.

And to make things more difficult, I recently wanted to leave our insurance company because I found a better deal through Progressive. I called our exisiting insurance company and told them I wanted to cancel our policy. I explained why and they were quick to find a way to keep us as customers. Part of this deal meant that I would need to open my own policy and have two of our vehicles in my name. This means we have two separate policies that require two phone book-sized stacks of paperwork that are crammed into our mailbox once a month.

I don’t want to read all of that tangible paper crap. I pay my auto insurance bill online. If I want to read insurance crap I’ll go to the insurance company’s website and read the crap that I need to read there. Crap.

Crap is a funny word. We shourd reprace arr of our L’s with R’s…

“I tord this joke at the company picnic and everyone raughed and crapped their hands.”

Erise and I have a 50/50 rerationship. I’rr take harf the brame for these tickets.

I guess it will be hard from this point forward to convince her to drive out to Marble Falls to have lunch with me again.

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Labor Day Weekend 2005

My mom and dad came up on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with us. Elise was catering a party and I got home around 6 p.m. Too tired to cook I ran over to Double Daves and picked up a pizza for dinner.

Elise came home in time for pizza and chatted with my parents. Since it was the beginning of the month, I spent a couple hours in the office paying bills. Since selling the trusty Shadow last week, I decided to take that cash plus some and pay off one of the other vehicles. When I get in “mad pay off loan mode” I tend to strap us for cash. So, it’s Ramen and ketchup for the next couple weeks.

Saturday was guard the TV and watch college football day. I got off the couch a couple times to eat. Later that afternoon mom, dad and I headed out to Lakeway for Clay’s 19th birthday party. Just as we reached Bee Caves we got a flat in my parents’ car. Dad and I, with nowhere near Indy pit stop crew speed, changed the flat and went on to the party.

We got home from the party shortly after Elise got home from working all day. We were all exhausted and went to bed.

Elise left early on Sunday morning to head out with the girls for Kim’s bachelorette party. I figured that this would be a good opportunity for me to move the house’s thermostat from one wall to another. See, our thermostat was originally and strategically installed in the dead center of an 8′ wall. This entire wall was dedicated to the display of a little thermostat. We would much rather hang a nice framed photograph or painting on this wall. So I decided to move the thermostat.

After disconnecting the thermostat I went into the attic where I worked quickly and immediately found the five conductor wire that leads from the attic and down through the wall to the thermostat. I pulled on said wire. The wire wouldn’t budge. I pulled harder. It became a fight. I pulled on the wire so hard that I heard the AC compressor turn on and then off. I didn’t think anything of it.

I eventually pulled the mangled wire from the wall through the attic. I learned that I didn’t have quite enough wire to drop down into the new wall. Off to the HoPot.

An hour after splicing the new wire, dropping it down the wall and hooking up the thermostat, I had no AC. The fan didn’t turn on. I tried the heater. Nothing.

I scratched my head and eventually consulted my dad. He had no suggestions. It was getting close to 1 p.m. and the house was going to start getting hot.

The week prior I found an electrician on craigslist.com. At the time I was wanting someone to come out and run electricity to the deck. Now I needed someone for my thermostat wiring. I called the guy I found on craigslist and asked if he knew anything about thermostat wiring. He assured me that he did and he was at the house an hour later.

Five hours later I had a working thermostat but still no air conditioning.

So I did what most people would do in this situation. I cranked up all of the ceiling fans and dad and I went to the HoPot for more lumber for the deck rafters.

By the time we got home it was too late to work on the deck so I cooked a couple t-bones and ribs for dinner. The outside temperature was cooler than that of the house so dad and I stayed outside most of the night. Mom stayed in the house and was miserable.

We all went to bed around 11 and the temperature inside wasn’t that bad. I think my bedroom was in the upper 70s with two fans blowing.

On Labor Day my dad and I labored. We woke up at 7 a.m. and started fixing the rafters on the deck. Dad rigged a makeshift tool used to straighten the 2×6 rafters as I nailed down 1×4 cross beams to keep the rafters in place. Ten hours later we had all of the cross beams in place and nailed down.

Elise came home from her camping bachelorette party early in the afternoon and mom and dad left later in the day.

We sat semi-miserably in the warm living room and watched TV until 10 o’clock and went to bed. Despite being totally exhausted from working on the deck in the hot sun all day, I didn’t sleep well at all.

I woke up this morning and called ARS Service Express and have an AC technician coming over to the house this morning. Hopefully I’ll come home tonight to a nice, cool home.

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Back in my day…

I have a Visioneer Paperport 3000 parallel flatbed scanner that I received as a generous present from my parents almost ten years ago. It used to connect to my Windows PC via a parallel cable that was daisy-chained with the printer.

Since my Windows box crapped out on me again I moved it to the guest bedroom. Now I don’t have a scanner because the iBook doesn’t have a parallel port. This old scanner doesn’t have a USB port so it’s basically useless to me right now.

I ran over to CompUSA after TKD tonight to shop scanners. Seeing how I don’t do much scanning these days, I decided against paying for a new USB scanner. I do, however, have a very important image that I wanted to scan tonight.

So I drove home sans a USB scanner. On the way home, I found myself saying aloud, in my best Grumpy Old Man as played by Dana Carvey, “Back in myyyy day… we didn’t have fancy things like You Essss Beeee!”

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Dodging Katrina

Katrina
Katrina

Matt e-mailed this morning to let me know that he and Gabrielle (and the cats) are safe in Houston after having just moved into a house in New Orleans!

Hey Everybody!

Thanks so much for all your emails and phone calls over the last couple of days. It means the world to us to know you are all there. Here’s what we know.

As some of you know, we are in Houston at my Dad’s house. All the animals are fine, we are fine. Just worried about where all this will put us. The road in and out of the city are littered with trees and debris. The twin bridge that runs to the west bank (our version of the golden gate bridge) is gone. There is no clean running water, no electricity, lots of snakes and “swamp-things” running around the hood.

We spoke to our landlord last night for the first time. She is a head nurse in the ICU at the only remaing hospital. She let us know that except for a missing fence and a couple of broken windows the house is fine – no water damage that she could see. That was good news. The sad thing is, we dont know what it will be like to come home too. With a million homeless people, contaminated water, and no power, it could be like living in a Mad Max movie……and I’m no Mel Gibson!

Thanks again for all your help and concern. We will be alright. Just pray for those 20,000 in the Superdome! yikes!

-matt & gab

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Fried stereo and little sleep

Elise and I ran a few errands yesterday. We were listening to a Podcast on the iPod shuffle (very hard to do if you want to listen to a particular episode) when all of the sudden the tape adapter would fast forward and stop. It would play a few seconds of the Podcast and then stop as the adapter tried to fast forward. Eventually the tape deck in the truck started clicking, the tape adapter’s reels continued to spin in fast forward and there was no more Podcast.

Frustrated, Elise pressed the eject button. The tape adapter came out of the tape deck and the stereo switched to radio mode. In radio mode the stereo found itself in a perpetual state of seek, scanning every radio station but not stopping. We just watched as the channel numbers cycled over and over at a rapid speed.

I’m wondering if I should summon the scholarly minds of the Ford Forums.

In unrelated news: I couldn’t fall asleep last night. Elise fell asleep on the couch at 10:30. I woke her up and we both went to bed at 11:15 and I just layed there.

I layed there.

I layed there.

I rolled over.

Still haven’t yet fallen asleep I finally lean up and looked at the clock. 1:30 a.m.

I rolled over. I put my feet outside of the sheet and comforter. I layed on my side. I switch sides. I turned my head one way, then the other way. I rolled over. I meditated and thought about nothing. I just couldn’t fall asleep.

I didn’t want to get up and do anything in fear that I might overly stimulate my senses and make it that much harder to fall asleep.

So I just layed there for what seemed like forever.

I don’t know what time I finally fell asleep but I think it was somewhere near 10-minutes before my alarm sounded.

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Saying bye and Honey do

On Saturday morning the winning bidder of the trusty Shadow auction and her son showed up to pick up the bike. We chatted for a while as I signed over the title. They’re great people and it’s good to know my bike is going to be ridden someone who will really enjoy it and take care of it.

I watched from the driveway as the Shadow made way to its new home. It was a sad morning indeed.

I didn’t have time to dwell on the loss or be reminiscent as I had a list of projects and chores to tend to. It was 10:30 in the morning and time to get up in the attic. A month ago I bought 100′ of speaker wire and swivel speaker mounts so I could put speakers out on the deck.

I climbed up into the attic, made my way to the opposite side of the house, fished through insulation to find the coax cable that goes down the living room wall and out behind the TV armoire. A new hole needed to be drilled through 4-inches of of wood to drop a string down the wall to pull up the speaker wire. I crawled back through the attic and into the garage to get my cordless drill and my spade bit. The drill tuckered out on me. My backup battery was dead.

Off to the local hardware store for a corded drill. The local hardware recently went out of business. Then it was off to the ol’ HoPot. I picked up a reliable corded drill and a 1-1/4 spade bit. I got home and it was up to the attic again. It was 1:30 at this point and probably 200-degrees in the attic. August + Texas + Attic = Hell. I sweated so much that it looked like I just got out of the shower.

It was so hot that I thought I was going to puke and pass out but was bound and determined to run the speaker wire. I was finishing up in the attic and making my way back toward the garage. I had a flashlight, extention cord and my new drill with the new spade bit attached. I lost my balance and had to take a large step so my foot would land on a rafter instead of falling through sheetrock. In doing so I stabbed the back of my calf with the spade bit. I heard it puncture my skin and I became light headed.

I installed the speaker mounts, installed the speakers, ran my wiring and now have music on the deck. And a Band Aid on my calf.

Elise had to go to work later that afternoon. I took some clothes to Goodwill, ran to the bank, had the oil changed in the truck, went to Bed Bath & Beyond for kitchen gadgets and then to Pep Boys for an air filter.

Christine worked for Elise that night so I went over to John’s place for a guys night in. John, Jack, Josh, a deep dish pizza from Mangia and a football.

I got home after midnight and Elise and I stayed up until after 3 a.m. talking our jobs. Man, we’re party animals.

We didn’t get out of bed until 10 this morning. I finally fixed the water softener that hadn’t worked in a month or so.

While at John’s last night we saw an ad for Furniture Row… no interest financing until 2010. So Elise and I went furniture shopping this afternoon. We didn’t find anything.

Next stop: the grocery store and finally home. For dinner I made a hot & crunchy fried trout with habanero garlic tartar and a late summer sauteed vegetable salad.


Crunchy Trout

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Fried Trout

Trout filets
Corn Flakes, crushed
Crushed red pepper
Chile powder
Cumin
Salt

Wash and season trout with salt. Dredge in beaten egg bath. Dredge in breading mixture. Fry in hot oil.

Habenero Tartar

Mayonnaise
Sweet pickle relish
1/2 habenero chile, finely diced
Red poblano pepper, finely diced
Garlic, diced

Sauteed Late-Summer Salad

Green squash, julienned
Yellow zuchinni, cut on bias
Fennel, sliced (use leaves for color and extra flavor)
Cherry tomatoes, halved lengthwise
Asparagus
Lemon to taste
Salt to taste
Fresh basil

Sautee in XVO


Crunchy Trout

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iTMS Bamboozle and tha Rasta Willie

I had heard a lot about Willie Nelson’s new “reggae” album recently. I passed it off as some overly-hyped thing that usually turns me off…

I don’t know how it came up but Elise and I started talking about Willie Nelson tonight as I was looking into a new flatbed scanner on eBay while sitting at the bar and while Elise was making a milkshake in the kitchen. I hit the iTunes Music Store and sampled Willie’s song: “I’m a Worried Man“. Elise and I, without prompting nor a head nod, immediately found ourselves in a groove. Elise was twisting and bobbing while blending her milkshake. I, at the iBook, stationed at the bar, was deeply and rastafarianly bouncing and turning my head in two directions to the rhythm. We could have easily been the b-roll for the opening credits of The Cosby Show. It was hot.

So, I bought the song, “I’m a Worried Man” for $.99 from the iTunes Music Store. I played the song 4 more times on the stereo in the living room via AirTunes. The bass was awesome… the hardwood floors were rumbling.

I revistited the iTMS and sampled more of the Countryman album. All of the songs are fun. It really is a great album. I haven’t listened to the lyrics yet – but it’s one of those albums that you just crank up while driving to New Braunfels in route to a killer toobin’ adventure. It doesn’t matter so much the lyrics, it’s just a fun album from a head bobbin’, neck jigglin’, Cosby Show intro perspective.

So I decided to buy the entire album (or “record“). Since I had already purchased the “I’m a Worried Man” song, I was asked if I was sure that I wanted to buy the entire album. What was I to do? 12 songs on the album. I had already purchased one song for $.99. There were 11 songs left to purchase. $9.99 for the entire album or pick the other 11 songs that I hadn’t yet purchased for a total of, yes, you guessed correctly, $9.99.

Could I return the one song? Instead of omitting one song, I purchased the entire album. So the music industry got $.99 out of Joe Consumer. It was for a Willie Nelson album… and a pretty cool album for that matter. I have some awesome en-route to a toobin’ music for next year!

On a personal note: my family moved to Cat Spring (population 17 and a coon dog) when I was 11-years-old. My parents had donkeys (Domesticated Ass would be great name for a band) for agricultural write-off purposes as they had a house on 35 acres of property in the country. Our donkeys received awesome names like: Dolly Parton, Earl Campbell, Kathy Whitmeyer, Loretta Lynn and Willie Nelson. I have a deep-rooted and personal relationship with very important people. And donkeys.

So now I’m groovin’ to reggae music by Willie Nelson. All I see in my head is a donkey hanging out with Ricky Williams and they’re both buying music from the iTunes Music Store.

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Last Ride

I got home from work at 8 o’clock tonight and quickly mowed the lawn, edged and blew the grass clippings off of the driveway and sidewalks. I walked into the garage and stopped to look at the trusty Shadow. There it was… shiny black paint and chrome. I put the key in the ignition and the garage was illuminated by the headlight. I pulled the choke, turned the key and my faithful steed came to life.

I wanted to crank it up just to make sure everything sounded okay before Charles and his family come to pick it up tomorrow morning. Everything sounded great. I listened and stared. My old friend turned, looked at me and said, “Come on, let’s go. One last time.”

I obliged.

I saddled up and reved the throttle so the straight pipes could echo in the garage.

The trusty Shadow and I went on a peaceful ride. I wanted it to be one to remember. We took Slaughter up to MoPac and headed south. We curved onto Hwy 45 and took in the baby blue glow of the hill country sky as dusk began to pass. I held back a tear or two as it set in that this was our last ride. Then a bug hit me in the forehead.

We turned right on 1826 and I gunned it just for old time’s sake. I thought about all the miles I put on that bike. All the places we had been. It was my only source of transportation for years. I’d been through a lot with that motorcycle. It’s a great bike and has a lot of years left in it.

It was a great last ride. The temperature outside was comforting, the air was thin and all I could smell was grass and trees. There were very few cars out and of those, none were trailing us. We could go as we pleased.

I pulled into the garage and left the engine running for a bit so I could listen for one last time. I turned off the engine, dismounted and stopped to look at the trusty Shadow again. Riley walked into the garage, looked up at me and meowed. He and I are in-tune. He knew that this was a deep moment for me. I picked him up and we shared a final look at the ride I’ve always known as trusty.

I’m going to miss my old friend…