Don’t Break The Chain?

I just read a few quick articles on "Don't Break The Chain", and it looks like something I can do.  Will blogging become one of my daily tasks?

 

This looks like something that would motivate me.  It is something that may have motivated me when I was younger.  I have had motivation issues for a long time.  This is something that I would love my kid to get a handle on when he gets older.  I would also hope my significant other would join me in something like this, because she needs to get her blog off the ground! 

 

I am going to try do it, and start today. 

 

I will start with 3 daily goals, and spend at least 15 minutes on each goal.  Work, Exercise, and Maintain House/Computers.  I will add another task as I see fit.  As I have a day job, the work task is going to be easy to do, Monday through Friday.  I will consider maintaining the house on the weekend "Work", since they require seemingly a lot of maintenance.  So the first 15 minutes of house maintenance on the weekend days will go towards work, and the 2^nd will go towards Maintain House/Computers.

I thought those quadrotor toys were good for military applications or just really lame toys, but this I can agree with!

Great Scot! Mini Flying DeLorean Is Best Use Of Quadrotors To Date [Video], from Jalopnik

Another type of post.

This is more of a post to myself, that may be informative to others.

 

First, this is pure awesome!

http://gizmodo.com/5682370/are-you-telling-me-you-made-a-deloreanout-of-cake

 

These links I want to look at later:

http://leatherbound.me/  Compares ebook prices.

 

Eventual plan of Decluttering.  First I need to get out of my procrastination about decluttering.

http://zenhabits.net/identify-clutter/ Specifically this list of nine tips for reducing clutter:

1.       Does this thing work?

2.       Would I replace it if it were broken or lost? If not, I must not really need it.

3.       Does it seem potentially useful—but never actually gets used?

4.       Was I “saving” it?

5.       Does it serve its purpose well?

6.       Has it been replaced by a better model?

7.       Is it nicely put away in an out-of-the-way place? Just because things are nicely organized doesn’t mean they’re not clutter.

8.       Does this memento actually prompt any memories?

9.       Have I ever used this thing?

More about this list are at the above link.

 

Car Update and more!

Cars

My new car has been in the States for about a month now.  Two weeks ago my wife and I went up to Illinois to turn ’07 335i in, and pick up the ’11 335i.  Unfortunately, the traffic coming into the Chicago area was horrendous, being a Friday night, with bad weather, and all the construction on I-55 in Illinois, put us in a tired mood to do anything but get the car.  We did get some deep dish pizza from a local place, and it was pretty darn good!  The drive back was not as bad, but we were able to stop in Arkansas to spend some time with my wife’s grandparents (bio-father’s side).

Other

In other news, we are finally getting ready to complete the paperwork needed to be able to apply to adopt a child.  Working on the autobiography part is the toughest part apparently.  Especially for me since I am not a creative writer by any means.  The first draft of my autobiography looked like computer code describing my life.  I wonder why?

Right before we drove to Illinois, we bought a used Yamaha WaveRunner.  From the family jet ski expert, it’s a pretty good one too.  Running around last week to register it, the trailer, and get my ’11 335i registered correctly with my preferred plates was a big hassle, but we got it done.  And then all the little extra things needed for proper jet ski operations started to kick in, life jackets, anchor rope, tongue jack for the trailer, hitch, ball + ball mount, hitch lock, hitch coupler lock, 7-4 pin adapter for the wiring harness all adds up!  I am sure I am forgetting something.  But we did take it out to Eagle Mountain lake this past Saturday.  It is a lot of fun, and will be a fun project of sorts keeping it maintained, and learning all the quirks you have to deal with, that comes with owning a watercraft.

My paperless initiative is progressing.  My piles of papers have not really increased too much since scanning in and shredding whatever comes in the mail.  I still have lot of work to do though.

Now that there is more room in the garage, I might get the shelving units from storage and set them up in the garage.  There are a lot of loose pieces in the garage that I would love to be able to get off the floor and into some sort of organization.  I should probably fabricate some wooden chocks for the trailers wheels, to replace using bricks.  It might be handy to fabricate some extras too for when working on the cars in the future.

Car Shipping Update

It looks like my car was received at the terminal in Bremerhaven, Germany at 0755 this morning.

Kanuck on the Bimmerfest.com Euro Delivery forms pointed me to a webcam pointing at the terminal that my car is at. Up until tomorrow (July 8^th), the ship “Boheme” is docked there. It is a dark green and white ship with the words “WALLENIUS WILHELMSEN” on the side:

Bremerhaven Automobile Export Dock Webcam

My car will be on this ship for the journey to The States. Here is a larger picture of the ship:

It has been a long time since an actual blog post has been posted here!

Cars:

If you did not know, I picked up another BMW, again from the main BMW Factory in Munich, Germany. I dropped it off on June 21^st in Frankfurt, and the boat it is booked on (according to the shipping company) is heading to Bremerhaven at about 14 knots as I type this. The boat is scheduled to leave there on the 8^th of July with my car aboard.

The trip was a lot of fun. I was able to get 2 laps on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in my car, which was amazing! We also went to Brussels and Zurich. Here are some pictures: Best of 2010 Europe Trip

Computers:

The computer I built last year in June is working nicely. I love Windows 7, and recommend going straight from XP with it, skipping Vista. Basic Specs:

Intel i7 920 Quad Core (Each core has 2 CPUs, so 8 total!!)
Asus P6T Deluxe V2 X58 Motherboard
Nvidia GTX 285 Video Card connected to a Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital running 3 Samsung 22” LCDs
6GB RAM
500GB SATA HD
Coolermaster 850 w Power Supply

We also have a Windows Home Server computer by Acer that I have only great things to say about it. I just wish I could find an out of the way place to put it while staying on the gigabit network.

As an update to my CD-Ripping project, it is done, and the iTunes library has been transferred to the new computer.

My HOTAS project is on hold.

Gadgets:

I received a B&N nook eBook reader, and it’s great, I love it. I am reading more now!

I ordered a iPhone 4. AT&T has been treating me ok, but I am not happy with their new plans and policies. 2 years is a short time for a locked in phone, for me. I have had the same RAZR for about 5 years now. My wife has a HTC EVO 4G on Sprint, and it is pretty cool, and good competition for the iPhone. The one thing I really don’t like is the size. It is big. I want to be able to put it in my pockets with ease! And there are some apps I could not find that I use quite a bit on my iPod Touch. My new phone should be arriving soon!

We have a auto feeding scanner now, so it is really easy to go paperless. I have started, but I still have a long ways to go before I can eradicate a lot of the piles of papers plaguing my office and storage.

Everything else on my old list is pretty much on hold or completed. I am adding gadget talk now to this blog, because computers are slowly getting replaced by gadgets!

Apple iPad?

Looks fun, but if they are going to make something in between an iPhone and a Laptop, should it not include a camera? My thought is that this device would be great for video phone calls, so put one on the front facing the user, like laptops and netbooks have. Having a camera facing away from the user on a device this size, I think it would be too awkward to be taking pictures with.

Does the WiFi only iPads have a GPS chip? Or will the WiFi+3G versions only have exact positioning?

Do I want one? Yes and no, but I would rather wait to see what happens next year when they upgrade it, like they have been doing with their iPhones. I like my wife’s Acer netbook, but I think I would want a camera for videoconferencing with the tablet.

I am already probably going to buy an iPhone come June when they release the new model for the year.