Broken iPod Classic 30GBs

Well with the purchase of Robyn's 8GB iPhone, I was now the proud owner of 2 30GB iPod Videos, on was mine, 2 years old with a cracked LCD screen, and Robyn's Apple Refrub, that the battery went bad after 4 months of ownership. I finally decided to get Robyn's 30GB fixed, instead of taking the iPod to the Apple Store at Columbia Mall or shipping it to Apple to be fixed, I found that a long time Apple Mac store and repair shop MacMedics, was running a iPod repair shop too, call iPodmedics (www.ipodmedics.com). It was $60.00 to get a new new battery and a tune-up for Robyn's iPod, and I could drop it off for service. My iPod would have been $90.00 since I needed a new screen , and iPodMedics would replace the battery as part of the service. So I dropped off Robyn's old iPod around 10:30 in the morning, and received an email to pay for the iPod repair via Google checkout, the prefered way iPodMedics handles the transactions, around 2:30pm. A 4 hour turn around on getting the iPod fixed was great, so I restored Robyn's iPod and I'm using it for my video and music. My old iPod with the cracked screen I decided to use it as a portable 30GB hard drive till the battery goes, and I finally get it repaired, or scrap it.

Working on blog

I'm slowly working on the blog settings. Enjoy the new Chelsea FC template.

Home Sick

I got Lucy's stomach bug, and I'm feeling terrible. On the other hand my refinace is starting t look promising, I have some good numbers to go on.

Busy week

This has been a busy week at work, I have been running around trying to get things accomplished, but running out of time to do them.

Facebook

I'm starting to like using Facebook. So far it's fun, talking to school mates from the class of 93'. Please join and look us up.

Another day

Boy, girl scout cookies came in, so I had to give them out to the teachers and get the money from them, for Emma, still have one teacher to give the cookies to. I'll be delivering them to work tomorrow. I have started working on my midterm for my class again, I'm about 3/4 of the way done with it, so I hope to have it finished by friday so I can start my homework. The wife is going out right after the day care kids leave to start working on costumes for Halloween. I hope she will have fun.

Had it with the Robyn leaving on trips

She has to make it up to me this time. I was getting a knot out of Blackie and he just bit me and hard. I had to hold and get him out of the house so he wouldn't bite the girls, so I got blood on the carpet and allover the deck. Then Molly told me she was going to get her pj's on, and as I was looking for band aids to stop the bleeding, I found her using strawberry shower gel as hand lotion, which she got out of the linen closet. She had all in her hair on her hands. Also, she spilled the bottle on the floor. After all this I couldn't find any band-aids and I needed a carpet cleaner to clean up the shower gel. So I called my parents who were just leaving the debacle called Navy Homecoming, and my father brought over the carpet cleaner and so band-aids for me. Needless to say I cleaned the carpet and fixed my thumb for the time being. Molly and Lucy will be going to bed here shortly as I'll drink a cup of Joe and relax. To top it off the wife spent a lot of money this weekend in Dallas, most of it was at the American Girl store in Dallas, and some of it was X-Mas and birthday presents, but I thought how much she spent there was a little much, and that doesn't include her spending at the King Tut exhibit, or the places she went today. Oh well time for the girls bed time, my cup of Joe, and I have to start laundry, my day is never done. At least my school project and homework is done, I just have to post on a couple of responses, and I done for homework this week, next is to finish my mid-term and next weeks homework.

I'm back

I'm back to posting on blogger, I'll leave the other site on wordpress for the time being. Not much as happened since the beginning of the month when Google p/oed me in moving. I have to say using text msg and sms makes blogging easier with Blogger than Wordpress. I'll leave the other site at Wordpress for the time being, since it's only there as a marker till I find out what is happening with the car.

Updates

Well this week has been a wash, one co-worker is off for the birth of his third child, my supervisor has been in Nashville for most of the week for meetings, and that left me in charge for this whole week. It hasn't been bad, just busy, with th administration part, traveling to Baltimore Police Department, Headquarters to check network connections, for one of the groups I support, that will be doing a temporary move for about a month or so.

Now for home, my parents went to Nashville for my cousin's wedding Robyn and I were trying to go, but money was tight. My cousin's soon to be wife is named Robin, so I really wanted Robyn Strauss to meet the new Robun Strauss. With that said I have to take care of my parents dog till late saturday. Also, Robyn is going to Massachuetts this weekend for her uncle's memorial service. So far I haven't even started my homework for college yet. It's going to be a long weekend.

The rest of you have fun!!!

New Blog

My wife will kill me later on this one, but I started a blog for my future Studebaker Avanti restoration. Click here.

Twitter

I have started a Twitter account going to try it out to see if I like it better than Facebook.

Books and Movies 1

Books

The last great book I bought and read was John Adams, by David McCullough. It was an impulse buy since I was watching the HBO Mini Series, based on the book starring Paul Giamatti. After Reading the book and when I caught up to the mini series, I stopped watching the mini series after I noticed that it was condensed and ended up not following the book to a point.
Now, I purchased a new book that I wanted to read, when it was released in England last fall. On the Edge, My Story. By Richard Hammond of Top Gear, it's an autobiography of sorts, but has a story of him rebuilding his life and world after an accident in a Jet Powered Dragster during a taping of a segment for Top Gear. Here is a link to Amazon UK, that has a video that he did about the book. Check it out http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edge-Richard-Hammond/dp/0297853279/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221354692&sr=8-2.

Movies

I haven't been to the movies since the end of May when Robyn and I saw Iron Man, a great movie that is on my buy list for Sept. 30th. I have watch a few DVDs my current viewing is Barbie and the Diamond Castle, because it is on all of the time due to Molly loves it. Next is Batman: Gotham Knight, the animated DVD by prominent Anime directors. Batman is voiced by Kevin Conroy who did the voice of Batman in Batman the Animated Series, Justice League, and Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond. It was visually stunning DVD, a must buy, since it happens right before Dark Knight.
Stargate Continuum was another great DVD, a must for fans of Stargate SG-1. Last is The Forbidden Kingdom, starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan, this was a great movie, I wished I saw in theaters back in April, but I waited for the DVD release this past week. The action scenes and cinematography was superbly done, and the old style wire tricks were great to see, like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Saturday Night and stuck home

It's Saturday night and I'm stuck home with the baby, who is sleeping at the moment. I have entered my class work for next week for my Systems Analysis and Design class. Tomorrow I'll start Chapter 3's classwork, and finish posting to the 1st week's conference. The wife went to a dessert party over at her aunt's house and took Emma and Molly, so I only had one kid to worry about. Which was nice of her.

I'm just about done installing Ubuntu 8.04 and Windows XP pro, in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, so I can now run multiple operating systems virtually on my computer. Installing Linux in Microsoft's Virtual PC is a pain but Virtual PC 2007, SP1 made it a little easier, but these two websites made it easier to install Ubuntu 8.04 as a virtual PC. http://arcanecode.wordpress.com/ and http://blogs.technet.com/seanearp/archive/2008/05/13/installing-ubuntu-8-04-hardy-heron-in-virtual-pc-2007.aspx.

Also, I'm messing around with Sysinternal's new application called Desktops, which allows a window user to have up to 4 desktop running, like Gnome/KDE for Linux users, I'm coping files and working on my virtualised computers on one desktop, and typing this in another desktop. All I need to do is press Alt 1 through 4 to switch between them. Pretty neat I do say myself, check it out here, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx.

Rough couple of days

As the title suggests work has been a bear since yesterday aorund 11:00am, when my phone system at work went down again, and still acting up throughout today. that is the least of my worries, for most of the day I have been working at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, part of the Executive Office of the President, fixing and finishing computer issue that one of my old co-workers never completed, and told my supervisor and me that he completed the work orders. I'm basically done there, I just need to extend a network drop, and check a patch cable in the wiring closet.

As for school work, I'm trying to stay at least 2 weeks ahead and I'm starting to fall behind in submitting next weeks classwork. I really need to get this done due to my second class starts in 2 weeks, and it look like that class will be a bear.

The Start of School

Ah school has started, and Emma is now in the third grade, and Molly starts Pre-K. All this means is my wife gets a break from 2 kids three days a week, and I have to start up and take college classes again, already a week ahead in my Systems Analysis and Design class.



My Skins blew their season opener, with a loss to the Giants, but the Ravens won theirs so that balances things out. I haven't had a chance to look at the World Cup Qualifiers from the weekend yet to check England, Germany, and USA scores, but I will later.



Today we had a birthday party for the daughter of one of our family friends, so that ate up most of the day besides going to BJ's and Freshworld, in Pasadena.



Last bit of news is that I picked up Mario Kart Wii during Tropical Storm Hanna, and I love the game.

Labor Day Weekend

Summer is finally over, so far this labor weekend, we went to our friends house in Calvert county last night we all ate, the kids played, and us adults played Phase 10, I lost horribely. Today the In-laws are over, and I'm cooking on the grills, I have started the charcoal to put on my Weber and Thermos kettle grills, to cook the hamburgers, hot dog, and corn on the cob. I may have to start the Weber gas grill to finish cooking the corn don't know yet I don't think 22.5 inches on a kettle grill will be enough room, but we will see. Everyone have a safe and happy Labor Day.

Oh boy what a day

Part 1: Registering for classess and MD DPSCS

I hate taking classes, I'm trying to take IFSM 461 System Analysis and Design at UMUC, as one of my electives for my Database Management Certificate, and I had problems registering due to the fact the class has a prerequisite of IFSM 300. With this the school wouldn't register the class, but after talking to 3 different people and explaining that I took IFSM 410, which require IFSM 300, without any problems I was finally able to take it. That was my biggest hassle today, and tomorrow isn't shaping up to be any better.

Tomorrow I have to a major software problem at Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Their IT staff, the bunch of idiots and don't get me started on them, renamed and change the ip address of a MS SQL server, which cause my company's case management software not to work. The fix is easy I just have to delete the database settings and rerun the setup and point to the new ip address. This is a major hassle I'll be there for a few hours fixing this.

Part 2 Laptop issues

My laptop decided to crash again today, so this is the 3rd reinstall since I applied the A12 bios to run the CPU fan all the time on my Dell XPS M1330 laptop, to help the defective Nvidia Moblie 8400 GPU. I'm getting tired of reinstalling, hopefully this will be the last reinstall for a while (I seriously doubt it). Took me all day to reinstall, but on plus is I install Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, and I actually enjoy it, I still like Safari and Mozilla 3, but if IE8 can almost pass the Acid 3 test when the RTM comes out in a few months I might have to ditch Safari and Mozilla.

Testing sms again

Facebook

I started a Facebook account, I kinda like it. It's something different to do. Still I won't give up blogging, since it's easier for me to do, with my cell phone. Need to look at Facebook apps for my HTC Mogul phone from Sprint.

Chilling on a sunday

Helping the wife get some house work done today, not much else going on. I signed up for two college classes at UMUC, IFSM 420 Advance Database Concepts, and IFSM 461, Systems Analysis and Design. The later of the two will be a little hard, since I took the class before and had to drop it since the professor was actually awful. Go here to see her rating at Ratemyprofessor.com, http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=544243. Also, today I did start a Facebook account, search for Eric Strauss, Pasadena MD. Maybe I'll watch some Premiership soccer on Fox Soccer Channel, in a bit.

Ipod screen cracked LCD

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Checkpoint CCSA/CCSE Training.

Sorry for the lack of entries, but I have been at training all this week in Northern VA. I have a one hour commute from my house to New Carrolton Metro Station, and then another hour commute to Ballston Metro station where the Global Knowledge training center is. The instructor is great, he really know the material, but is funny as heck. Going to miss the class, but I won't miss the commute.

Been a couple of days

Been rather busy the past few days. I still haven't started my homework for my SQL class I'm taking. Work on Friday was busy since my supervisor were out so that left me in charge of our IT department for the day, had issues at our main site most of the day, luckily the help desk took care of most of it. As today was a run-a-round day. Bank, gas, and 2 birthday parties for some friends kids. Tonight I got stuck with the Molly and Lucy, and the Hanna Montana concert movie; while Robyn went out to have some fun, and we shipped Emma over my parents house. We are off to DC tomorrow with Emma, and then I'll be at Checkpoint Firewall training in Arlington, Virginia all week oh joy of joys.

Another Day and another dollar part2

We the motherboard was bad in the Dell Optiplex GX620, so it will be replaced tomorrow. I'm currently waiting for dinner to finish cooking, and then I may head over to my parents house as Verizon is there setting my thier FIOS service. Also, I need to install my father's new Intel Dualcore processor. All this is will probably be about the same time the wife takes the kids over to Rita's for custard or italian ice. More later.

Another Day another Dollar

Well work is off to a slow atart today. All I really have to due today is work on a Dell Optiplex GX620 mini computer. It had a bad sata hard drive, but now I'm getting bios errors with the built-in nic. I'm starting to think the motherboard is bad too.

Mobile Blogging Part 3

Boy i'm starting to enjoy mobile blogging. I'm currently at the doctors with the eldest, since it seems she might still have her ear infection.

Mobile Blogging Part 2

Testing mms blogger.

Mobile Blogging Part 1

New Show

I found a new show to watch called Keitai Sousakan 7, it's about an organization to protect the net, with transforming cellphones called Phone Bravers. It's pretty neat most of the episodes are pretty good, even though the show is geared for kids in Japan. Right now #TV-Nihon is subtitling the show. Please check it out.

Ugh...

My wife is really starting in to the blog sphere. She went live with the Strauss House blog. http://mom2emmolu.blogspot.com/. Summer is almost over, and I have done nothing really fun except for see some of our relatives, since the beginning of the month. All of that is done now, so I need to concentrate on work and school now. I have 3 weeks of my college class left, and then it's on to the last 3 classes, I need to get my certificate in Database Management. It looks like soccer is done for Molly and Emma for the fall, Molly will be doing dance while Emma will just focus on Girl Scouts. This will free up my time considerably to work on two of the three classes I need.
Work is busy like always, I'm in a week long training class to learn Checkpoint NGX firewall next week in Northern Virginia, that will be a pain, due to the hours of the class and the travel time to get there.

Oh well back to the grind.

The Strauss House BLog

My wife Robyn decided to start a blog for the family. The blog is locate at http://mom2emmolu.blogspot.com/. Enjoy. I'm going to start working on my blog hopefully later today or this evening.

Shoot, It has been a while

It's been a while since I posted here. I have been very busy at work and  home. I'll post more later.

Changes

I'm messing around with Blogcrowd templates to see which one works the best for me. I'm still debating on moving to something else entirely.