Category: General

Having just returned from the madness that is CES I can say that there are far more cool must have gizmos out there than I have either time or money to acquire. I have to give special props to my old employer Creative for their new, Microsoft driven portable media center. Time will tell if it is the real deal or just another flash in the pan.

As for me, I’m currently holding out for the DirecTV HD TiVo unit coming in April. At $1K it ain’t cheap, but then again this thing records HDTV and SDTV with 4 tuners. If this doesn’t get me to buy the flat panel HDTV, nothing will.

Oh, and my maybe, sometimes, I wish new car is finally shown: the C6. Mmmm, 400hp.

At a friends’ request, I joined a new site called LinkeIn. It’s about contacts, and reaching out to those people’s contacts in order to do business. Looking a bit harder at the news blurbs about the site (and others like them) I wonder if I’ve just signed up (and sent invites to others) to be seriously spammed.

In general, I believe in the idea that “x degrees of seperation” communities will work. I’m just not sure that they can be all business or all personal any more. I have contacts that I work with daily that are both categories, but I wouldn’t think of asking them to pay for the privledge.

I’m sending this quick post from the road in Incline Village (near Tahoe), NV. I’ve just spent the past 3 days skiing until I nearly dropped. Given the ambient temperature (20 F) and the conditions (blinding snow storms and fog) I’ve gotten in some good runs. Pictures to follow later.

In the meantime, enjoy a happy new year. I’ll be crumpled up in a corner somewhere with some Advil 🙂

I spent the last few days assisting some friends of mine work on their house, and I decided to note a few things that are interesting (to me at least):

1. I can still remember how to paint walls w/o wearing as much as I roll on
2. Filling holes and sanding is still not any fun
3. Watch out for bookshelves: some items may shift, could fall, and cause damage to your head
4. Construction dust can and will go everywhere it can, even if you have covers
5. There are never enough hours in the day to get stuff done, nor are there any “on time” schedules or “on budget” projects.

Armed with this information I am now convinced that I should never buy a house, or at least not one that requires so much work. When would I ever have time to sleep?

Sometimes things get old, dirty, and forgotten. You just have to toss them out. Other times new stuff gets broken and you have no choice but to toss it. Today I had to do both, only it was all RC airplane related. I’m now down to a single flyable airplane, after the total loss of my newest airplane, the spitfire. Why? Lame new batteries. For the second time.

So, rather than complain (who’d of thought?) I’m in the market for a new .60 size plane, and probably some electronics as well. Sucks to be me.

So I’ve decided to see how much I can scare myself by putting a bid in or a home. When all the costs are final I’m sure it will be the most expensive thing I’ve ever had to write checks for. From what I hear, there are tax benefits somewhere down the line. Funny thing is that all the money out of pocket to get started doesn’t make waiting for a refund/rebate seem feasible.

And before someone asks, no, it isn’t cheaper to live elsewhere and fly in on a daily basis. I checked that math out before I did the deal and the costs are just too high, travel time aside. So its the poor house for me!

Just got back from two days (kinda) of skiing and demoing another pair of skis. It was good weather and some fresh powder (California wet style) at Bear Valley. Sleep and food wasn’t so good but luckily the skiing made up for it. Only 3 hours from home to boot.

I’ll be glad to get some sleep now… and to get som Advil too.

So it is the end of another week of work and Tivo watching. It’s also the beginning of another all-too-short weekend where I can clean up around the apartment, do some gaming, and of course, vegetate in front of the Tivo. Is this great or what?

I’m beginning to think it’s “or what”.

I managed to sneak in some pretty good skiing this Friday at Kirkwood with Paul. Considering I haven’t done much exercise so far this winter and I haven’t skiied in a year I did pretty well. At least nothing came back broken.

The 4Runner had its first snow workout, although it was mainly gritty road conditions that caused extreme dirtyness, not ice or snow this trip. I may have chewed up the brakes as well since they are starting to stutter again. Grr.