I guess the name “Greb” meaning grave digger, or digger in general holds up. When I was in North Carolina digging ditches in North Carolina, he claims that I bent the pick axe as seen below. I guess I don’t know my own strength.

I thought I friend my CPU last night. I was messing around inside the case while it was on. After doing a little changing, I walked away. I came back about 5 to 10 minutes later only to find my computer shutting on and off. Everything was blinking on and off. I thought the power supply cooked and was cooking everything else with it. But then I noticed something. Putting my finger near the CPU fan did not scrape my finger like usual. The CPU fan had stopped. I gave it a little spin, and it grinded away. So I shut it off, and and pulled the fan and heat sink. The heat sink was too hot to handle. Luckily (after several minutes of searching) I found an extra P4 fan that I had laying around. Plugged it in, and I was up and running again.

I am sitting here in my truck at some hotel picking up Internet access. I am currently in North Carolina as I was helping my father with some ditch digging. Man am I sore. However, tomorrow will make up for it. Tomorrow, I am driving along side the Smokey Mountains, then all the way out to Tennessee. I am looking at some land out there that I may invest in for a future vacation home. I just have to get all the coordinates. Then I will either head back home on 75, or maybe go visit Jessica in Savannah, Georgia, however, that is quite a bit out of the way.

It is 4:15 in the morning, and I am getting ready to leave for North Carolina. I will be gone for the weekend. I am helping my father with some ditch digging. It should be fun. I’ve got my new truck, and have it packed with everything I need, including food. Jessica is probably going to Savannah in Georgia while I am gone to see her friend Valerie. And to see her friend Xander I am sure.

I was in WalMart last night shopping for a few things I needed for the trip. The power went out. In a Wal-Mart. It was quite interesting. You could hear a slight panic throughout the store and people were fumbling in the dark (only the emergency lights were on). Everything except the front cashier were up. And over the intercom, we were told they would only operate for 20 minutes. The power came back on in about five. Does WalMart not have a generator system? I know it’s huge, but couldn’t it run stuff like every third light, some of the freezers (so they don’t have to throw out food), and of course the cashiers?

Anyway, I have a long ride ahead of me (I get there around 3:00), so why don’t you give me a call?

This is unbelievable. I mean, do they not teach modern astronomy in Canada? What is worse is what the audience said!

I hate to see it go. It’s been a part of me for so long. Those fun times we had together. Those hot summer nights and cold winter days. The thrilling ride I got. I am of course talking about my Mustang Convertible. It is officialy for sale. I’d like to see $1,000 out of it, even though it is pricey for a “car” for someone as the tranny is shot and the A/C doesn’t work. It is however a great parts car and would make some Mustang lover happy. Sigh.

RSS – Random Shutdown Syndrome. This is the newest feature of MacBooks. They randomly shut off. Jessica’s is suffering from it. I believe I have discovered the problem thought. Poor Design. That’s right, Apple has a poorly designed laptop. I found a program that makes the CPU run at 100% on the Mac. The computer shut off within a minute. It heated up, and crapped out. I put a notebook cooler under it. It ran for about 10 minutes, until I picked it up to pull the battery, then it shut off. The notebook cooler kept the bottom cool. Apple, in their infinite wisdom of trying to make the thing look “cool” seems to have not thought ahead about airflow. Being that the case only has one airhole in the back, that doesn’t create flow. It has to come from somewhere and go somewhere.

Anyway, I took it to the Apple store since I was in Tampa anyway today. I asked the guy if I could remove the hard drive so I didn’t have to worry about backing it up. He said (while sounding like the boss in Office Space) that they need the hard drive in it to test it. So I asked what would I do if I had secure data on it. He suggested turning some encryption on in the hard drive. I also mentioned that Dell actually asks me to remove the hard drive before giving it to them. Well, I don’t feel like doing any kind of encryption, so here is what I am going to do. I am going to remove the hard drive, and put in a blank one. He never said it had to have a bootable system on it (hence if it was encrypted, they couldn’t use it), just that it needed a hard drive in it (“to test”). What I don’t understand is how a repair facility doesn’t have test hard drives laying around to use for “testing” purposes. I do. I have lots of equipment laying around. I guess I am a more advanced computer repair shop than Apple is. Go figure.

So therefore, the “Genius” at the Apple Store is a doofus.

I just got a call from an advertising agency. They were trying to get me to buy an ad on some posters that will contain the the basketball schedule for Lakeland High School. Now, for one, I am from Jenkins. However, I really don’t give a crap about sports or “competition” of sports. So I tell her that I really don’t want to be supporting a sports team. She tells me it’s not supporting a sports team. “So wait, none of the money for the advertising goes to the school?” Nope. It all goes to the advertising agency. The school gets absolutely nothing out of it. I told her that I don’t want to support an advertising agency, and she says that I wouldn’t be, I’d be support my own business. Well, I am not desperate for business, and I told her that businesses put ads on things like that, because it looks like they are supporting the community, which is a good thing. A little more bickering, and she ends with “Good luck with your community.” In case you are wondering, the agency’s phone number is 563-322-8693 according to my caller id.

On another note, FOX SUCKS for ending the Firefly series. I just watched all the episodes that were aired on Monday on Sci-Fi. I must say, it was a great show. If you’d like to see it, I will keep it on my MythTV for a little while longer… or export them to MPEGs or something.

I must say, I have to hand it to Toshiba on their Satellite 5105. I have one here in my shop that is having problems charging. The connector on the motherboard felt loose. So I took it apart to check it out. Every screw to take it apart is coded. B4, F6, etc. I can easily bag them up as I go along. Now, the amazing thing. The power connector… it is not soldered onto the motherboard!

The connector just slides in and out of the case making it much harder to break! Go Toshiba! So that leaves it to the power adapter, which is pretty shady.

Jessica leaves a razor in the shower. Well, when I am in the shower, I stand with my back to the water, and the razor is behind me on a little shelf. From time to time, it falls down and attempts to attack my feet. Well, this morning, the razor was on the other side of the shower. I saw the razor fall down on the other side, then bounce off the floor and over to my feet on the other side of the shower. In fact, behind my feet, where it always falls to when it is on the other side. I swear her razor is out to get me.