What to do without the Internet?

I put my son down to bed and came downstairs to check on the Software Update Server I setup at work (I'll have some hints on this when I get a chance), only to find that my computer wouldn't connect to the Internet. I restarted and had the same problem. I went over to the cable modem, saw the blinking lights, restarted it, flipped on the TV to see snow and dialed the cable company (I memorized their phone number years ago when problems were quite frequent). The tech I spoke to asked me to restart my cable modem, I told him it was pointless as I had no cable TV, but he insisted. So, I just said, OK, walked into the other room, grabbed my computer, my cellular modem, and walked back into the TV room. The tech asked me to plug the cable modem back in, so I said, OK and went about my business of writing this post. Of course, I didn't bother to do what he said because I had no TV picture, so obviously I wasn't going to have a working cable modem! I love calling tech support and having people read from scripts.

Crossing my fingers that they figure this out before the cows come home. It isn't a problem on my end. Uggh.

Bye, Bye ReceiptWallet

Today brings to an end my active involvement in ReceiptWallet. As readers of my blog know, Mariner Software bought ReceiptWallet. Today was the official passing of the baton. We initiated the domain transfer that could have taken up to 6 days, but within an hour, receiptwallet.com was in the hands of Mariner Software. All email, support, sales, etc. is now handled by Mariner. I'm not going away and will be available to Mariner as needed and I hope that they tap into my wealth of knowledge every now and again (I have learned something in the last 2 1/2 years of doing receipt/document management).

Now it's time for me to close my PayPal account associated with ReceiptWallet, purge stuff off my virtual private server, and do some more housekeeping.

I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad. I have very mixed emotions; ReceiptWallet has been part of my everyday life for a long time now. I'll no longer be answering support tickets everyday and won't be getting the "I love your software" email messages. However, I won't be doing support which will be a big relief. Now I have to figure out what to do with my newly found free time.

Oh the joys of plumbing problems

Friday night as we were about to goto dinner, my wife tells me that she sees some water running down the driveway. I took a look, saw a pool of water near the water shut off, shut off the water to the house and asked her to call a plumber. After I turned the water off, I could still hear the water running, so I knew there was an issue between the house and the street. I shut the water off at the street and the fun began!

The plumber took a look and gave me an estimate; as he would have to chop out concrete on our front patio, it wasn't going to be cheap. The next morning, the plumber, Brandon, arrived, and started jack hammering the concrete. After a little while, he knocked on the door because he had to show me the problem.

It looked like a rubber hose was connected to our main water line. This, obviously, wasn't up to code. After a lot more jack hammering and digging, Brandon couldn't find the other end, so he gave me an estimate on running a new main water line. Brandon asked if we had Quest piping in the house; this type of pipe is polybutylene, it was only used between 1978 and 1995. Our house was built in 1973, so it wasn't used originally when the house was built.

While Brandon was digging and jack hammering, I did more research on polybutylene pipe and became convinced that what we saw was polybutylene and at some point, a repair had been done and instead of putting back copper, a cheaper alternative was selected.

Around 3 pm, I saw that it was going to take Brandon awhile to dig the trench to the straight and I wanted our water turned back on, so I offered to help. Well, we didn't finish the trench, but Brandon duct taped the broken pipe and put a rubber coupling on top of it in hopes that it would last enough for a few showers (you really didn't want to smell me after digging for 3 hours). I went instead to say goodnight to my son, turned the water on and quickly realized that the temporary fix wasn't going to work; water pressure dropped almost immediately.

I ran outside to find water shooting in the air. I went into the garage, looked around to see what I had and found some PVC. I cut the PVC lengthwise and grabbed some zip ties. I put one side of the PVC on the top of the pipe and the other on the bottom and zip tied it altogether. That managed to hold for 2 showers and then I shut it off.

Sunday came around and we managed to lay the pipe and Brandon got a chance to do some plumbing! Who knew that plumbers had to be ditch diggers, tree trimmers (Brandon had to cut a tree root), and concrete destroyers.

So while we now have water restored, I have to get concrete poured to patch the front patio; at this point. I'm not sure that I want to undertake this as we'll have to get some tiles replaced and who knows if it will match and if the concrete pour will be level with what we have.

The amount that this cost me reminds me of a Fraiser episode where Niles Crane is talking to the plumber about cars and the plumber said that he was getting rid of his BMW, the same model that Niles has. Niles asks why and the plumber said that he upgraded to the next bigger model of BMW which makes Niles mad because he can't imagine a plumber making more money than he. I know how much work went into this and with any plumbing problem, you really don't have much of a choice.

Another MacHeist Bundle and More Tempers

I've waffled on what I think about bundled software like that being offered at MacHeist at a steep discount. My latest ramblings have been supportive of it. As a consumer, it's great to get lots of stuff for just a little amount of money. Will I use everything in the bundle? Unlikely. However, I've used some of the programs I've bought here and there. For the most part, I might use 1 or 2 programs, but just in case I have a use for something else, I know I have it. For instance, today I used GraphicConverter to convert some graphics; I would not have bought GraphicConverter at full price (the awful UI really puts me off).

One person has been ranting about it and basically saying people are cheap for buying it. Well, I bought it (still waiting for them to fix their system as they took my money, but didn't deliver me anything; they underestimated demand which is surprising considering how well the last 2 have done) and I don't feel cheap. I see some of the developers gaining a customer that they would never have had. The developers have a chance to sell me an upgrade later and that may just happen.