Things are coming together for “the move.” I’m almost done packing all my stuff, or deciding what stays here and what can come with. My car is almost fixed up; just waiting on the new bolt for the wheel. We also received the packing material and return ETA from eMachines so it looks like Meghan’s laptop will be back well in time for me to take it with on the trip as a jukebox. I don’t even need to buy any furniture or appliances now, since my uncle has decided to divest himself of pretty much everything he owns in preparation for his move into a smaller place. I even scored my late grandpa’s homemade air-compressor so I can run the air tools Meghan inherited from her father. It’s like Christmas in July.
I also went through some of the outdated game consoles that we collectively had kicking about collecting dust. There were 4 Atari 2600 consoles, ranging from a venerable 1st generation unit with fake woodgrain trim to a small, sleek late 80s discount version with fake aluminum trim, and of course, piles of games. There would have been even more had I kept mine rather than (perhaps foolishly) selling it, along with 36 game cartridges, in a garage sale before leaving Blind River for the princely sum of $25.
There was also the requisite Commodore VIC-20; while not my first system, it was still dear to my heart. Unfortunately the old Tandy MC-10 and TRS-80 Co-Co 2 systems were, I think, given away long ago. Additionally, 2 SNES consoles were found in good working order, with games. Two NES consoles were also found in the pile, one functional, one functional but disassembled (can you guess which one was mine?) with games galore. There used to be more games for it, but I foolishly lent mine to a “recovering” alcoholic, who proceeded to pawn off half my games to buy beer and vodka before I ever realised what happened. At least I got to drink some of it (I always wondered why he was never stingy to me with his booze).
We ent up donating one of the NES machines to Meghan’s sister, and I had already given the PSX to my sister last week. My parents expressed some interest in hanging on to one of the Atari units. Whatever ends up surplus, I will likely try to auction off on eBay; I hear some of that old junk has actually appreciated in value.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 3:36 AM EDT
9 Comments »
Picked up my new rims today and had them installed and balanced. Turned out very well; I’d say 90% of the annoying vibrations are gone now. The ones that are still present are fairly minor and only show up from 65-75 MPH, then go away beyond that. I can live with that. The only other solution would be to have them high-speed balanced, but that can wait. Other things could be the cause of the rest of the vibes too; shoddy transmission, possible slight brake rotor ripple, slight misalignment of some miscellaneous driveline component. In any case, I’m sure it will be straightened out when I swap transmissions.
Well, without further ado, pictures:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 2:10 AM EDT
No Comments »
I have been lacking in the posting department lately. Things are happening, but all at once and I’ve been busier than usual as a result. The other part is that while things are in fact happening, nothing is being resolved, and I prefer posting once things are done happening, if you know what I mean.
I was going to post several days ago, but forgot why. I was going to post just Saturday night, but things just didn’t work out. You see, after D&D, I was out walking and there was a wicked display of Aurora Borealis going on in the northern sky, one of the few things I will miss about this miserable place. I wanted to post about it, but it would only have been truly relevant if I could get some nice juicy pics up here to sweeten the story. Unfortunately I couldn’t manage to coax a nice shot of them out of my digital camera; in fact, I couldn’t coax anything black night sky out of it. Though I got a beauty shot of a tiger moth. Want me to email you a pic
of it Luke?
What else has been happening? Minor shit mostly. I’ve been going through the stuff at my late grandpa Bes’ house to see if there is anything I can use in the move. My uncle lives there now and he wants to get rid of everything in preparation for moving into an apartment. I accept. So far, I’ve garnered a king’s ransom in tools, furniture, appliances and other useful things. For example, I’ve landed a complete, tasteful bedroom set, fridge and stove, couch and chair, end tables, lamps, 60-piece fridge container set, extra plates, utensils, cups and pots, air compressor (!), ramps, sabre saw, drills, grinder, vice, clamp set. . . the list goes on and on.
What else… I ordered a new set of rims for my car to replace the bent ones. Not the ones I wanted, but these were cheaper, almost as good (read: lightweight), and still fairly good-looking.
Meghan ordered a laptop computer from tigerdirect.ca last week. A great deal on an eMachines M6805. Athlon 64 3000+ CPU @ 1.8GHz, 512MB RAM, onboard wireless-g, 15.4 inch widescreen, 60GB hard drive (4200RPM unfortunately), card reader, CD burner/DVD reader, and finally, ATi Radeon 9600 with 64 MB dedicated video memory. Unfortunately, it has a small problem. There is a loud crackling sound that erupts randomly from the left speaker, regardless of volume settings. Sounds to me like a simple fix, a shorted wire or something, but I can’t fix it without voiding the warranty, so ‘RMA time’ it is. Which sucks because it’s doubtful that we’ll get it back in time for the move, and since the problem is intermittent, they may not even find it to fix it. I’ll be extremely annoyed if, after 6 weeks, we get it back and it still does it. I was really hoping to use it as my jukebox (via a cassette adaptor) in the U-haul on the way to Windsor, since 6+ hours of the same songs over and over on the radio would be unbearable.
I’ve also been working my ass off on finishing up my D&D campaign before I leave. I’ve been Dungeon Mastering the same game with the same story arc since fall of 2000. This will mark the first time I’ve ever truly finished a campaign, so it’s kind of important to me. It may sound silly, but this is how I unwind, and one of the few creative outlets that I don’t suck at (music is the other, but I’m really rusty). Anyway, I’ve only got a few sessions left to cram the end of the campaign into. The high-level player characters (and their painstakingly gathered army) are standing at the gates of the castle from whence the evil came and have only to bust in there, discover the portal that leads to the demon dimension where they can end the misery of the realm by vanquishing a vile demon-queen (or not). We should be able to pull it off in time.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 3:05 AM EDT
No Comments »
I was determined to blog about something tonight, and earlier, I had something thought up, but now I’ve nicely forgotten.
Let’s see, what’s happened this week? There’s been some MSN conversations… that wasn’t it; some packing - not terribly exciting. Let’s see, got a new high score at Bookworm, which is not all that news-worthy. Got some used wheels for my car only to find out that they are bent worse than the ones that are on there now… I was waiting until I actually had something nice on there to post about it. What else? Switched my neuro-tech e-mail from a forwarder to my shaw account over to IMAP, finally (in preparation for moving).
None of those things are at all interesting. I was convinced that whatever I was going to write was interesting.
Been watching more TV than usual lately; mostly Overhaulin, and other car-restoration shows, and the British comedy, “My Family” which follows the typical whitebread american formula, but is actually funny because it employs the famous English sense of dry humour that I’m so partial to. Again, nothing to write blog about.
D&D? No, I seldom write about that. News? I think I may have given up on doing that. Meghan’s new laptop? Not here yet. The awesome flash Castlevania game that Luke told me about? I doubt it. The bizarre dreams I’ve had all week? No, it wasn’t that either.
Looks like I just plain forgot. Maybe it’s true what they say about TV rotting one’s brain. Maybe it will come to me later. Or maybe not. Who knows. The important thing is that I said something. Even if it was about nothing. Hey, it works on Seinfeld.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 4:35 AM EDT
2 Comments »
Lots of juicy pics here from the carshow, which I judged both this year, and last. There were a lot of cars returning, as well as some fresh ones. Everything from an early 20th century Ford to a 2002 Chevy Monte Carlo. So if you’re interested, by all means, go check out what I would consider the highlights… just don’t bother if you’re on a modem though.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 2:12 PM EDT
7 Comments »
Last night on the MSN instant messaging network, using various clients, a reunion of sorts took place. Luke, James, Rob (get a blog dude!!!), and myself joined up in a 4-way chat. While that kind of thing is nothing extraordinary, and has been considered downright ubiquitous on IRC channels for many years, it was rare for us. Normally we only get together at Christmas time for but a few hours.
Luke called it a “virtual Iron Horse” after the seedy establishment that we were near-permanent fixtures in during our tenure at W.C. Eaket. Many an afternoon was spent there discussing the politics of the day, things we had read, the latest in computers, the music we were into, and the general goings-on in our lives. Now, we weren’t the only ones involved, others joined us frequently as well (Ben Post, Wes Guppy, that NARC that showed up briefly), but we were the mainstays of ‘the scene’ there.
Unfortunately, after moving to the Sault, I drifted from the circle for a time, but thanks to technology (blogs, chat, email), I can come back; we call can. I was reminded somewhat of the things that brought us together in the first place. I was reminded to try my best not to drift again (or moreso than has already occurred). Good friends are important; when you recognise them, hang on to them as long as you can… they’re irreplacable.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 5:43 PM EDT
6 Comments »
It has recently come to my attention that, collectively, Meghan and I have way too much stuff to move with our original plan. This orginal plan consisted of 4 cars and one small utility trailer-load of stuff, and only one trip. Quite simlply, that ain’t gonna work. The list of things to bring along only continues to grow, recently underscored by the option to bring along a recently liberated washer and dryer set.
I guess some background on the place we found is in order. A two bedroom upper level duplex, with one garage bay, workshop/laundry room, large kitchen, and patio, in a nice suburban neighbourhood. Not much to look at on the outside, but it’s alright inside. In any case, I have no pictures yet, as it was still inhabited when we looked and I wasn’t about to take pictures of someone else’s things without their permission. It was not the place we wanted, but I won’t get into that for fear of breaking my bloody keyboard.
Anyway, the laundry available hook-up allows us to bring a washer/dryer and avoid wasted saturdays at the laundromat, while the workshop and garage make bringing a lot of useful tools a must.
So, here is the list of things to bring:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 4:38 AM EDT
5 Comments »
Back from Windsor, at last. Made pretty good time, but now I’m beat… more later.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 2:23 AM EDT
No Comments »
This is just creepy…
Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can at 3:12 AM EDT
11 Comments »
Ahahahahahahahahaaaa…… Awesome.
Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 2:09 AM EDT
1 Comment »