Menu

Author

243 posts

Avery Electrian

All of the power outlets stopped working in our garage.
The lights work though.

Avery ranch message board suggested:

Call Thane Wilkins at 748-9448.
Just got out of the hospital.

> RKE Electric Inc.
> DBA LONESTAR ELECTRIC130
> Red Bird Trail
> Georgetown, TX 78633
>
> 512-869-6259
> 512-635-0544 (Cell)

Left voicemail.

Ken Shipman 512-587-7615
Busy until March 30th

Or

Rick Neely http://www.neelyelectric.com/home
Left voicemail.

We use Robert Ybarra for electrical work and have always been very happy to recommend him to friends. You can reach him at 512-296-3420. –Patty
Saturday Afternoon. 3-4pm
Send text with address!

Jim (Clovis’ recommendation)
512-845-7618
Gave advice to try to save the service call:

Check ALL GFI resets.
All are fine. Except garage, can’t trip it.
Turn on lights in garage, turn off breaker to confirm that breaker is doing what we expect.
Not the breaker.

Paulo replaced the GFI, works great.
He needs to add “electrician” to his resume.

Car Battery

So after 4+ years, my car (2008 Camry) battery seems to have died.
The dealer wanted $500 for a new one. That seemed a bit nuts.
I called a couple places locally and they didn’t sell the battery.
Online was better: $232 with shipping, but it would be 5 business days! Couldn’t wait that long.
Just told the dealer to go ahead and replace the battery after talking him down to $350, but the total was just under $400 after tax, labor ($10) and disposal ($3).
Then ISCA pointed me to Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/82nk7tp
$171, but still 5 day shipping. Oh well.

Wifi Stereo

We have wifi and music on my desktop.
I’d like to play that music in the kids room.
Something llike:
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/wireless-music-systems/devices/squeezebox-radio-black
Would be good, but something less expensive.

Nokia 6800a Unlock

My work phone died (screen shows white all the time) so I’m messing around with my old phones. I got out my old Nokia 6800a and put my work SIM in it, but it was locked. Google lead me to: http://www.peters1.dk/unlock/nokia/online.php?sprog=en which correctly gave me the unlock code #pw+317346746545441+7# and I happily unlocked my phone.

I get the impression this phone uses some seriously old tower technology because my speakers make a lot of noise when I send/receive text messages and calls. Might have to go back to another phone.

Old iPhone repair

Trying to save my old iPhone 3GS that we gave to my bro-in-law. Second time he has broken the glass. I finally got it replaced and now I see

20120102-211037.jpg

This could be due to my repair job. While trying to separate the bracket from the unit, I pulled off a black film that goes between the new glass and something under it.

Is it toast?

Leap Frog Tag – Impressions

We got Julia the Leap Frog Tag “system” for christmas.

I get it out of the box, put in batteries and try to read a book. It repeats over and over (each time I touch it to the book): have your parents connect you Tag to the computer to download more books.

So I read you have to download the audio for each book to the tag. Hrm, ok.

Come to find out there is special software (free download) to sync what books you want to the Tag (pen). It can hold ~30MB, which each book being ~1.5MB it can hold about 20 books. Luciana bought a LOT of books so we can easily fill it.

The software on the computer seems a big odd. First, you can download any/all books to your computer and apparently sync any/all books to your tag. Obviously you have to own the book to trigger the audio. But the download to computer then sync to tag is a bit weird. I guess since you can only have 20 books on the Tag at a time, I can see having them offline might be good. Oh, the bad part: It doesn’t indicate what you’ve already downloaded and what you’ve put on your Tag in one place.

Hopefully it encourages her to read, which she seems pretty interested in, regardless of the Tag.

Super Shuttle Jerk

So, am I crazy or is this guy a jerk?
I scheduled a super shuttle for our 5pm flight. They tell me they will be
there between 2:05 amd 2;20pm. I think that’s kinda early, but whatever.
He gets there at 2:06pm, we aren’t ready (I broke a toe so I can’t help,
we have a 1 month old baby who decides when he wants to eat, a 4 yr old
who is semi-helpful, if she wants to be). At 2:20 he says “I can’t be
here all day, its been like 30 min.” Then at 2:40 he says “its been like
an hour.” He continues to make comments like this the entire time.
I’m pretty laid back (I let my wife yell at people cuz I normally don’t
get upset) but he was pissing me off. It wasn’t like he was nice and
then got rude, he was rude from the very first whif that we might be
late. He litterally says when he arrives and we tell him not to take
our bags to teh van because we still have to move stuff from carry-on
to checked bags: “i didn’t sign up for this.” (maybe he can make “more”
money driving more people? in a day…)

He gets on the phone with his company and asks for advice, they tell
him to charge us $15 for every 10 min past the pick up time.

My family comes out at 2:45 (i was waiting in the van with my
daughter cuz we were ready and I can’t carry jake with crutches).

If we hadn’t have the entire van rented to ourselves and wew ere holding
up other people, then I could see a problem. but we paid for teh whole
van (because of the number of people, car seats, luggage, etc).

While driving our daughter has a toddler episode because she is
sleepy and realizes she left her red shoes at home…the guy says:
“I have kids, but I’m trying to drive.” Maybe I was already biased
by now, but i don’t think he said this very nicely (I don’t think
a single word that came out of his mouth was ‘nice’, maybe it is
just the way he talks, who knows).

He drops us off and tries to get the extra money after my FIL gives
him a $5 tip (there was a $5 tip already added to the bill). We
tell him that was not disclosed at the time of the reservation and
we won’t pay it. He leaves.

I will be contacting Super shuttle about this BS, and make sure we
don’t have this guy on our return trip.

Money Saving Switches

I was thinking about how long the fan can stay on in the bathroom and wondering if there was a timer.

These look very good:
http://www.lutron.com/Products/StandAloneControls/Timers/MaestroTimer/Pages/Overview.aspx

Though a little pricey at $44 each.
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=202065252

Wonder how long till they pay for themselves?