Team Esteve

Please either drop your present ridiculous position or sue me.

via NFL, Saints fans dispute ownership of ‘Who Dat’ – ESPN.

Dear Bobby,

I also am a life-long (S)aints fan.  Apparently, though, one of us understands our beloved “Fleur de Lis of the swamp’s” place in history more than the other.  I do appreciate the effort though.

Miami Dolphins chop block Bobby Jindal – - POLITICO.com.

For those of you who don’t know, I decided to abandon my Tivo and put a computer in our bedroom to act as a media center. I found a good deal on a computer that had a Media Center version of Vista pre-loaded and I already had a TV Tuner card, IR remote and Remote control. A couple of hardware pieces and I was set. Not only am I currently using it on our tube TV via S-video, I’m ready to output via DVI for video and Digital Audio for output when we upgrade our television. The last piece I bought was a bluetooth Keyboard/mouse combo so Kristen can facebook from the bed if she wants (and I don’t have to stay 3-feet from the TV if I want to upgrade drivers or surf the web).

With all that complete, I thought I was set. If I’m blogging about this, then we all know that statement was incorrect right?

Right.

So I’m about to hop on the Elliptical trainer and watch an episode of The Soup from last Friday when the remote stops responding. I had already started playing the episode so I wasn’t worried about it at the time, but thought it was odd. So tonight I decided to tackle the problem. I went onto the interwebs and found a troubleshooting ‘guide’ on HP’s website. I put guide in quotes because it boiled down to this:

1) Did you replace the batteries?
2) Is the IR receiver blocked?
3) Is the receiver in your device manager?
4) Does the red light light up when you press a button on the remote?
5) You’re doin’ it wrong.

So after going through their ‘guide,’ I googled a little harder and found the site The Green Button. Mercifully they actually care about Media Center and its community. I found a lot of helpful information and finally found out the real problem:

One of the battery contacts in the remote has started to rust.

I followed their advice and cleaned the contact with rubbing alcohol and reset the remote by putting a peper clip between the + and – contacts, reinsertted the batteries, and now it’s working again.

Major props to The Green Button Community. You saved me from a VERY frustrating night.

It doesn’t matter whose GrandPa I’m talking about. Just know one thing about him:

GrandPa has the time, brains, and resources to build a freakin’ ROCKET LAUNCHER!

But seriously, my dad saw this PVC-based rocket launcher on TV and went out on the interwebs to find plans. Of course he improved on the original by building the tripod (the original plans had someone holding the launch tube and getting wet when the thing took off). He uses a bicycle pump to pressurize a 2-liter soda bottle with water in it, and pulls the string to send it soaring into the air (and onto the roof and if we’re not careful into the neighbor’s yard).

So while you’re trying to figure out how to be cooler than my dad, here are a couple more videos of launches.

So I have my 20th High School Reunion coming up and it got me to wondering why people go to those things. For the record I missed my 10th because I was in a college friend’s wedding. I do want to go, but I probably won’t. Long story, issues with communication with the organizers, blah blah. Given my choice, I would go though, but I don’t know why. With the Facebook, the Twitter, the MySpace, etc, it’s easy to find and contact people you used to know so it’s not the “I want to get in contact with old friends” reason. That may be a nice excuse, but I think at the end of the day, people really want to see if they were right.

Right about everything, right about anything. Right about what they thought they were going to be in life, right about where they thought everyone else would end up. Right that they were too good for that two bit town, right that they are so much better off having stayed put. Right that they picked the right college, the right job, the right wife, the right husband, had the right number of kids, right that they didn’t bring kids into this crazy mixed-up world.

But why is bring right so important to us? At the end of the day what does it benefit us to be right? How long does that smug sense of satisfaction last? Even if it lasts for 10 years until the next class reunion then what? You go back for the next one and re-validate yourself? Will that re-validation last 10 years the next time? How satisfying is it to prove yourself to yourself for a second time?

Personally, I’d like to go back to prove to myself how wrong I was. I’d have a safe bet that I didn’t end up the most successful person from my class or the most traveled or the coolest or the sexiest (trust me, I’m sure on that one) or the most talented or the most anything except maybe the most upper middle classiest, and maybe even the best karaoke singer, but who wants to brag about those things? I’d love to show up and help everyone else feel better about themselves. If everyone else is showing up to be right, then there has to be that guy that people can point at and say “I may not be the best but at least I’m better than THAT GUY!” I can be that guy. I WANT to be that guy. If I can make someone feel better for, maybe 10 years, then so what if someone else thinks they’re a better karaoke singer than me, or is cooler than me or better looking?

We know the truth, right? And at the end of the day that’s the important thing.

Right?

Gasucawa,
Jason

Last night at Victoria and Albert’s was amazing. All the food was incredible. I was a little concerned at first that the sizes of the courses weren’t going to be enough to fill me up but by the end I was more than full. Today, the weather finally held out for most of the day. We spent the first half in Epcot riding rides at Future World and going on a Kim Possible Mission. We also took in some of the Flower and Garden Festival sights. Then we hopped over to Disney Studios to finish out our list of things to do. Tomorrow morning is the first day of Star Wars Weekends so I plan on being there extra early. Wish me luck.

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Weather isn’t cooperating with my picture taking. Here are some pics of day 3 and 4. The flower and garden festival is great to see over in Epcot and the Segway tour is a MUST DO for adults. I took some pictures from the phone and when I get home I’ll try and post those.

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Animal Kingdom was fun. Only takes about 6 hours when you don’t have any kids.

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First day of WDW in the books. Here are the pictures.

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