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CERT Helicopter Training
Last winter I took training to become a member of CERT which is Community Emergency Response Team. I figured maybe someday I can put my EMT skills to use (I've been an EMT for 12 years, but never worked as one). Today was the second part of training for an add on module where we were able to learn about the San Diego Fire Rescue department Air (helicopter) Operations. It was pretty neat learning about the helicopter and how to work around it. I took a bunch of pictures and we even got to spend taxpayer dollars by flying all of us around for a few minutes (there were about 30 of us, so we had to fly in shifts).
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Las Vegas
This past weekend, my wife and I went to Las Vegas for a family gathering on her side. (Why we went to Las Vegas, we're still wondering; her family sits around and watches football all weekend. Can't we do that in California without the smoke, gambling, and crowds?) I'm amazed at how much money is in Las Vegas and how much people spend. A large majority of people lose money (otherwise Las Vegas wouldn't have money). I just can't understand how people can afford to drop so much money. I was watching one lady playing 2 $1 slot machines stuffing them with $100 bills and just hitting the button. She wasn't really winning and just kept feeding it. Seems to me, she lost a few hundred bucks in a few minutes. To me, it just seems like flushing money down the toilet. My wife had a good time playing the penny slots. I had no luck and lost about $5 in the penny slots in a matter of minutes. She played for a few hours on about $3.
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Video over Cat5
While working on my audio, I was reading in forums about video over Cat5. This sounded like a great idea to me as my experiments with video over 2.4 GHz wireless were pretty poor. However, there were mixed reviews on some of the forums. So, I decided to wire in Cat5 from our TV/TiVo to our bedroom on the other side of the house because it was easy to do while I was doing the other wiring. I was reluctant to buy the components online as I'd have trouble returning them if I didn't like the results. I saw that my least favorite store, Fry's, seemed to have similar components, but was always out of what I wanted. On one trip to Fry's (I was looking for a punch down block which you can't really find elsewhere), I found the parts I needed made by Unicom Electric. I hooked everything up when I got home and was amazed that the quality was pretty good given the distance and conversions (I got the S-video modules; my TiVo outputs S-video, but my upstairs TV only has an RCA connection, so I needed another adapter). That was great for audio/video, but what about controlling the TiVo? I had already hooked up the TiVo to the audio system and the audio system will repeat IR signals from all the volume controls. Perfect! The next question was, did I have to point the remote at the wall which was behind me? Well, the Harmony 520 remote I bought has an IR signal so powerful, that I aim it at the TV and it seems to bounce around the room and hit the volume control.I'm extremely pleased with this. At first, my wife always thinks I'm crazy with my gadgets and technology stuff, but when she actually gets to use them, she changes her mind pretty quickly. We can now watch TiVo in our bedroom which is great for when my wife falls asleep before me.
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Received my new phone!
The UPS guy shows up with my new phone. I open the box and found my new Samsung A940 phone. Wait a second, I ordered a Samsung A900. I could almost understand if I ordered on the phone, but I ordered on the website and got confirmation: