Weekend Yardwork

This week was mostly spent working on a spreadsheet for the Web Development team. Jacob is still out at his dad's house until the first. Andrea goes back and forth between three houses. Kris wins a prize for working a weekend 12-hour stretch and then goes to can pears. And I spend the weekend with yardwork and some airsoft work in the basement.

Excel-lent Spreadsheet for WebDev
This week, I was given a project by Theresa - create a Web Development Customer database in Excel. We had roughly 250 customers, their addresses, and some additional contact info. The raw data was arranged alphabetically by town on several word document label templates.

In order to import the information, I had to first save the documents as plain text and then format the data into rows. Then the data was imported into Excel using the Import Raw Data function. This allows you to import data and separate it into various fields manually by selecting the spacing at which you want the data to be separated - this is why putting the data into rows is important. Because of some minor formatting errors, you still have to go through and make sure the data goes into the correct fields.

After I imported the raw data, I selected all rows and grouped the information. That will allow you to arrange the rows by selecting a specific collomn and arranging it to your specifications. Once I have grouped the information, I can the use the Sort function to sort the business name column alphabetically.

The actual data entry and formatting took roughly 3 days, So I actually finished it up on Friday. It was a good project and I am happy to say, I had it finished way faster than anyone thought and in time to get the last hour of work to relax.

Kids Enjoying their last full week of summer
Jacob is still at his dad's house. He plans to stay there until right before school starts. It is understandable considering how little else he has to do at home. Well, at least to him. He still doesn't know we have a Gamecube. He will soon enough.

Andrea has been runnng back and forth between our hous, her grandparent's house, and her aunt Leann's house. She doesn't have that much to do, either. She said she looks forward to getting back to school. Her aunt has promised her an Ipod if she can get straight A's this year. I don't think it will happen, not because I don't think she can do it, but because her poor attitude about schoolwork usually prevents her from succeeding.

The kids start to school on the 5th. Andrea will be in the 8th grade this year. Jacob will be in 5th grade. Both are excited about starting back to school.

Kris wins a Target Gift Certificate at a 12-hour work day
Saturday, Kris worked a 12-hour day at Xcel. They made a big push to get several accounts finished up and Kris' boss asked Kris to come in. They had a potluck lunch, prizes, and candy. At the end of the day, Kris won a $50 Gift Card for Target. She said she had a good time and is looking forward to using her gift card to get herself something nice. She really deserves it as she works very hard.

My Weekend
I've been working on my Cyma AKS-47 this weekend. I made a trade with Jason for a nice G&G GR16 flashhider and have mounted that ont he muzzle of my AKS. I am happy to say that the Cyma AEG has withstood rougly 8000+ rounds of heavy full auto and has stood up well. Initial testing has completed and I will begin midify the gun to my taste.

Step One is to buy a rail interface system and new grip. I plan to use the Black set made by KM. It has an "ergo" - style pistol grip and the rail system simply replaces the current foregrip. This mod will only set me back $50, but it will allow me to moung a collapsible front grip and places my red dot in a "scout" position.

Step Two will involve buying a DTP metal AKS reciever. This will add additional stability to the body of the gun. It will run about $100, unless I can fing the G&G metal body which runs $50. This is mostly to beef up the gun and add more weight.

Step Three will involve replacing all of my Cyma hicap mags with Marui Standards and G&P Mid Caps. The Cyma hicaps hold 300 - 350 rounds each, but I don't like having to wind the mags every 100 shots. So they are going to be replaced with standards and Midcaps and will likely go into the reserve slot to beef up the number of mags I have for an event.

Last summer, I had 10 MP5 midcaps which made it really easy to simply take 3-4 mags to the field at a time. The events would last about an hour, so at the end of that time, all I had to do is replace the empty ones.

Step Four is actually more of an addition to step three, but I plan to buy a Star AK 3000-round drum magazine. This magazine is electric winding so I can shoot conituously for the entire 3000 rounds. This is mostly an idea to use if I need to play the support gunner role. It also makes you a hell of a threat to know you can put 3000 rounds onto any target on the field.

Once I'm finished with modding the AK, I plan to buy another rifle. The AKS is really going to fill the role as a backup rifle. So I didn't really plan to do much else with it after the modding is done. We'll see how the next few months go to see where this project leads. I'll post some pics soon, I promise! :)

Yardwork :(
Sunday, I mowed the lawn. It had really gotten out of hand how quickly it was growing and due to the last few weekend of eather, I have been unable to mow. During the week, it is even harder with work. This last few weeks have been really busy and I just don't feel like doing anything wehn I get home. I spent four hours working on the yard yesterday. I may have taken less time if it weren't for the antiquated piece of shit mower we have.

Kris sold our new mower when we moved to the apartment in Chippewa two years ago. I still can't believe she sold it for $100 when we paid almost $350 for it! It was a very nice bagmower that would have spun right through this yard in about two hours. I'm kinda irked that she sold it, especially when she sold it to one of her friends who could have just as easily gone out and bought a riding lawnmower.

I told Kris after I was done that we needed to buy a new mower because this old one really is more of a hinderance to mowing than anything else. The blades dull very quickly, the drive train on it is shot, and it weighs a ton. The thing is about 30 years old and having to push that thing up the slope of our backyard is quite a workout. Also, due to its age, despite being well taken care of, it is bad need of servicing. The motor occasionally cuts out and dies after about 30 minutes. And when the botom gets clogged with mulch, tipping it over to clean it out floods the engine and takes about 30-40 minutes to settle down.

Really, the mower is a piece of junk that should have gone to the scrapyard years ago. It does work, but having to mow the same spot three times really takes away from its usefulness. I miss my LawnKing. It was really nice. And having to spend more money to get another just really pisses me off.

Site Updated!

Friday I decided to create and update the site with the new format. Kris and I have a quiet week to ourselves while Andrea and Jacob spend their last full weeks of summer away from home. Kris goes for dinner and anitiquing with friends. I bought a new Gamecube. And we may be getting new neighbors shortly.

New Site Design
I have been very disappointed with all of the glitches that came up with the old Tab design. First of all, the spacing was never correct between browsers. I believe this is largely because of using Dreamweaver, but some browsers would drag loading the page design. I didn't like that at all. Laggy site design and bugs in the Div and CSS were largely to blaim for the problem.

I had been shopping for a new design template to use and ran across this design. It was free with no copyright protection and the author didn't care, so I began tweaking the page. The nice thing about the site design is that I only need Paint and Notepad to edit the content. As simple as it is, the page has almost no bugs at all. There are a few minor glitches in the way some of the graphics are displayed, but it is minimal at best.

The Game pages gave me the least amount of worry as they were simply a balnk template and a flash embed code. The design also uses a Cascading Style Sheet to handle the style and color. I was very pleased at how quickly the page went up and how little hassle I had working on it.

This design will stay put at least until January, when I will decide on whether or not I want to further integrate the blog into the site. Right now, the Blog clashes somewhat witht he existing design. I hope to have that resolved, but I'm not overly worried about it.

Site content has been removed
Not all of Willsroom has remained in this change. The pervious site had 18 pages of content, not including the MP3 PLayer. I have completely trimmed out the buggy MP3 player, I removed the News page as the Blog currently covers all family news (the old news page was also a pain to edit), and I compiled as much of the old content into the 4 pages and 6 additional game pages.

The site map was redesigned and now actually functions correctly. The previous site page never worked right, largely because of a major glitch in the linking that Dreamweaver creates. The Site map has also been simplified and cleaned up.

Finally, I removed all MP3 files and player from the site. The MP3 software clashed with the Tab interface and usually would not work in Firefox at all. Interestingly enough, the older home-built MP3 player was the only one that worked worth a damn. As soon as I find some new music, I plan to toss it into the new page.

While I still plan to redesign the page, this design should be more than capable of supporting my page for now. As most people visit my Blog and Gameroom, it didn't seem to make much sense to continue hosting a buggy feature that didn't work half the time. We'll see how the nest 5 months of traffic do to the site.

Another Quiet Week
This week has been spent sans kids, again. Kris was concerned that they have been away for so long. But neither of them really have kids to play with around here (due largely to their winning personalities) and they have spent most of their time pissing and moaning about not having anything to do. So we give them chores to do, which they piss and moan about even more.

Jacob has been finishing up a few projects with his dad. His dad is a scrap metal collector and makes occasional runs to the scrapyard. I had also encouraged Jake to do some yardwork for his dad's neighbors as a way to earn money.

Andrea has spent most of her time between her grandparent's house and her aunt Leeann's house. As soon as she comes home from her aunt's house, Andrea has to spill the beans on how much money they spent and how much mone they have. It's been difficult trying to convince her to shut her big mouth and mind her own business. But that seems to be a lifelong journey with her.

Kris' Weekend 'O fun
Friday, Kris went out with her friends to a lovely "dinner" at one of Kris' most hated places to eat - Country Buffet. Kris hates the place because it has been the site of much embarassment for her with her daughter and ex-husband.

Kris told of Rick spending over an hour there getting his "money's worth" out of the "all you can eat buffet." She would be horribly embarassed as he would proceed to eat as much as he could stuff down his throat.

Andrea does the same thing when we've gone there int he past. She will get huge heaping plates of frenchfries and macaroni. Not only will she eat them all quickly and head back out for seconds, but she also makes a disgusting slob of herself, spilling food everywhere and getting it all over her face.

The last time she did that, she was sent out to the car. She made a huge spectacle of herself throwing a screaming fit in the middle of the store. I had to carry her out the door, to which she recieved a swat and spent the rest of the evening in the car while we finished up our shopping.

We usually just won't go back there at all, since Kris is haunted by those memories. Personally, I could care less. Their food isn't as good as the Western Sizzler, but it isn't bad. I usually take Annie and Jake to eat there or the Great Wall Buffet because its cheap and the kids can eat whatever they want. Annie is told to use good judgement and I strictly oversee her menu choices and quantities to make sure she doesn't make a slob of herself.

New "Used" Gamecube
Following a long conversation with my co-worker, Luke, I decided to buy a used Gamecube at VideoGame Star. Two years ago, I sold my Gamecube and 25 some odd games there. For which, I recieved $230 - quite a bargain as reselling goes.

I decided that since Jake was going to be gone for at least the next two weeks, I would get some peace and quiet. I bought the console, a memory card, and 6 games. I plan to go through and buy another 4 wireless controllers and several more games over the next few months. The console itself was pretty cheap and I may actually go back and buy another later.

The kids will be restricted from playing it until I get home from work. I plan to put it int he trunk or take it to work. Jake doesn't know about it yet, either. And it may be used as a reward for him after homework is done.

New Neighbors?
We may be getting some new neighbors pretty soon. Andrea and Ben, our current neighbors, who are super nice may be leaving as their lease was up in July. I really hate losing them as they are very nice people. Ben is a very well-mannered little boy that has been very patient with Jake. I hate to see them both go.

They had recently had a tragedy in the family. Their dog, Rosie, was hit by a car while Andrea was playing at a gig. They were both very upset for a little while. Rosie was a very sweet dog and I do miss her. I hope if they do leave, we don't end up with total knob nei9ghbors like the previous tennants.

August is under way

This week was quite frustrating for me at work. We had very few calls and I struggled to get my computer up and running. Microsoft has discontinued support for Windows 98, meaning I have had problems finding the correct updates. Kris and I celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary. The kids have been largely out with family, again, this week. And I struggle to get through to the area airsofters on the importance of having safe events in our area. All-in-all, it was a slow week.

Computer Woes
I began the week trying to fix the problems I had run across last week when trying to install Windows 98 on my new computer. For some reason, the computer was incredibly unstable leading me to believe the Harddrive may need to be replaced. It turns out, the RAM chip I had bought from ebay was largely to blame for the instability. I'm out my $50 investment and will have to sink yet another $50-$80 to replace it.

This will go along with the new case I will have to buy. While working on the piece of crap I got off eBay, some of the rivets that hold the mounting brackets to the inside of the frame snapped off.

Fed up with the damage to the case and the troubles witht he RAM, I decided to scrap that entire end of the project. I was going to have to buy a new CD ROM and FDD anyway and I was not entirely pleased with my current Motherboard. I went out and bought a new Gigabit mATX board that would fit in my current "Infernal Gateway" box.

The night before I made the changes, I had found an unofficial Win98SE Service Pack and had decided to give it a try. The Pack had an uninstall feature, so I figured I could always remove it. I was wrong. the changes the SP made to W98 caused additional instability and I spent the better part of Thursday replacing files in DOS so that I could get into Windows. AT 4:00 pm, I was still struggling to get into WIndows when I decided to do a simple reinstall of OS.

The reinstall copied all necessary files and saved the ones I needed. I also had the added bonus of not having to reinstall updates. I didn't lose any files and didn't have to reinstall the AV software. My Gateway was back up and running after only 45 minutes and Kris was happy we still had a running computer.

My plans for the new computer will have to be this:

• Buy new RAM
• Buy new CASE, CDROM, and FDD
• Buy new HDD
• Buy Windows XP
• Let RAM Technology put it all together

Right now, I would have saved roughly $150 if I had simply bought a barebones system from them and bought the needed components. Their similar barebone system using the same case as the "Infernal Gateway" was $199. All I needed was to add RAM, drives, and OS. Dammit!

The computer is currently sitting in a box at work awaiting travel. I will be bringing it home later this week and making my final decisions on what I will do. I am just about fed up witht he cheap crap components and knew that spending the money would have been worth the effort.

4th Wedding Anniversay -- August 8th
Tuesday was a frustrating day for me. I had to fight the computer, I had several idiotic tech calls, and at the end of the day, I had dinner with Kris. I was actually looking forward to our celebration all day and the crapfest at work just seemed to drag on and on. I wasn't sure where Kris wanted to go for supper, but I knew Kris wasn't really up for Red Lobster.

Not that we don't both enjoy eating there, but the last few visits (fairly rare for us these days, I might add) were somewhat disappointing in terms of service and actual food. I figure, for the price we pay to eat there, the staff should be a little more courteous and try a little harder. The waitresses we have gotten that last few times have been horrible. They don't really tend our table, and when they do speak, the most incredibly ignorant things would come out of their mouths.

Dread Lobster
The food has not been worth the money paid the last few times - bland, overcooked, and generally awful. Serving sizes have become absolutely rediculous for the amount of money paid for them. When I pay $35 for a platter of food, I expect a hell of a lot better - shrimp cooked the right way, salads that look and taste fresh, adequate filling and refilling of beverages, pasta that was not overcooked, and dammit, hot biscuits -- don't bring those cold, stale clods of crap to my table, ever, you make hot, fresh biscuits, I want those - I'm paying for service, not your convenience.

So the last visit, the waitress was given a $2 tip. And Kris and I swore we wouldn't come back. We can go to the Olive Garden and get the same Pasta for about half the cost and not be treated with such disrepect. To me, its worth the extra money if they are going to treat you well. Red Lobster gets low marks in my book and I don't care if we ever go back.

Anniversary Dinner
Tuesday, Kris and I went to the same place we celebrated our actual wedding dinner - TGI Friday's. We had a quiet dinner together and then spent a quiet evening at home - sans kids. Friday night, I took Kris to BWW for some wings and trivia. Again, this was done sans kids. We had a nice quiet night and were able to celebrate. We don't do it often, but it was nice for a change.

Eau Claire Airsofters
This week, I tried to get the area airsofters to get themselves up to safety standards promoted by most responsible airsofters, but it was like trying to negotiate with a brick wall. The guys are playing in a public park on the outskirts of Eau Claire and in an area where "civies" can walk through at any time. They have done nothing to secure the area, nor to take proper precautions to warn hikers. This adds up to some pretty nasty possibilities.

By not properly securing the area, anyone can wander into a "firefight" or be injured by a stray shot. Regardless of if the shot is powerful enough to hurt the person, there is the possibility they will not be very pleased and may call the police. Secondly, most people will react to a bunch of heavily-armed camoflaged men by calling the police. With no warning these guys are playing there, there is the possibility of causing a panic that may result in having the SWAT team called out.

Finally, trying to convince these guys that these issues are valid by siting similar issues other airsofters have faced across the country evokes the same "Good ole boy" attitude that has already caused much of the airsoft-related trouble in Eau Claire and which has been responsible for shutting down a business which could have helped keep these types of incidents off the streets.

I contacted the Eau Claire County Sheriff's Department about this matter to get their input on this issue. I hope this is taken a little more seriously. I have been able to somewhat convince the older airsofters of the importance of playing on a secure site. But I'm afraid these other players are going to end up causing an incident. Right now, all I can do is wait.

I've been patiently waiting for airsoft to take off in this area. Now that it has, I almost wish it hadn't because of the idiots that have come out to play. I know I have the support of WAA, as responsible play is responsible play. But these guys don't seem to care about any of that and are only focussing on "having fun" no matter who gets hurt in the process.

New Computer up and running!

This last week was a real difficult one. We are jumping between projects at work, the kids have been running in and out all week, Kris and I have been running haywire, and the new computer is still in production phase.

New Computer: More Work is Needed
Monday, I recieved the final component of my new computer - the case. Unfortunately, it was not the cae I ordered and the seller was going to require me to pay an additional $50 just to get the correct case. It was there mistake and all they would offer me for this was $5 off my next purchase. I was not pleased.

The New case in very light and has a cheap chrome and silver plastic panel. The USB patch and sound cables that run the front audio/USB panel are very cheap and difficult to interpret, so the front - Easy Access USB/Audio Ports, as on the Infernal Gateway, are disconnected. More on that later.

I assembled the new computer on Tuesday and installed Windows 98SE. Unfortunately, Microsoft has pulled all support for WIndows 98 from its Windows Update site, so I cannot download the needed updates. Also, tracking these fiels down has been almost impossible. I wish to god Microsoft would have created a final Service Pack for Windows 98 with all the last updates. It would have simplified everything.

Well, I installed 98 and left work very happy as everything was working. The next day, I came in and nothing in Windows 98 worked at all. I had to reinstall the OS several times. I then tried to install XP Pro and Home on with even worse results. The conclusion was that my Maxtor 20GB HD, that I have had almost longer than my Gateway, itself, is failing. Fun! SO I'm going to have to buy a new hard drive, no big surprise, but it is still a pain in the butt. Tack this on to the $40 to buy a new CDROM (or maybe DVD-ROM) , FDD, and $87 for my copy of WinXP Home, and it will drive the total cost of my new machine to almost $400! Any Savings will be largely gone at this point. Here are my final tallies:

• Motherboard - $35
• Processor - Free
• GFX Card - $56
• 1 GB RAM - $50
• Case - $50
• CD/DVD ROM - $28
• FDD - $12
• 80 GB HD - $60
• Win XP Home - $87
• Total - $378

And here are the resulting System Specs:

• 2.4GHz P4 Proc
• 1024 MB RAM
• 128MB Nvidia GX 5500 GFX
• 80GB HD (primary)
  
• 20GB HD (secondary)
  
• DVD ROM
• Windows XP Home
• 450 Watt Power Supply

Nice! I will send pictures as soon as I get them.

The Kids' Weekend
THis weekend has been quiet and peaceful. Andrea has been getting ready for her Sunday Sleepover with Heather while Jake spent the weekend with his dad. July was out with quite a storm, but the house has been nice and quiet most of the month.

Andrea conned Kris into having her friend Heather stay over on Sunday. Heather had just gotten back from her grandparent's house in Montana and Annie almost died not getting her daily fix of flapping at her for 2-3 hours. ANnie's other friend, Candi, moved without telling Annie. I suspect this is largely due to the way Annie treated her, but you really never can tell with kids these days.

Jacob has a tournament on Monday that Kris is going to make the girls go to. Annie is already throwing a fit about it. But I suppose getting an extra three hours with Heather might shut her up for a while. Jake got a Foamdart shotgun from Wal-Mart. The shotgun is a breachh-load double-barrel shotgun. The darts fit inside two shells which are placed in the breach. Opening the breach cocks both sides and then you can give it two squuezes to fire individually or one big one to fire both. Unfortunately, as brilliant as the concept is, the actual execution is severely lacking. SOmetimes it fires, but most of the time, it doesn't. It has already been exiled to Rick's house as Kris doesn't want it in her home. ~~ ya prolly shouldna bought it then, huh?