Following up on my earlier post, my car kit has an issue; the speaker in the Garmin sounds like crap and is too low (I think the car kit has the amplification, but the speaker is distorting the sounds). So, tomorrow it is back to Fry’s to look for an external CB (marine) speaker that I can mount under my center console. I also wired the car kit using only the front left speaker, so maybe if I wire all speakers together, I can get decent amplification with a decent speaker (there is probably a flaw in this theory, something to do with impedance I’d guess).
My car is a storage shed
For those that know me well, know that I’m a bit compulsive when it comes to keeping things neat. I’ve kept my car this way for a long time and kept it uncluttered, but (in my old age), I’ve relaxed a bit when it comes to being neat. Now my car is more a general purpose storage area. I have several bottles of water rolling around (who knows when you’ll need water and I’ve actually used some), a large first aid kit (that’s primarily so when I cut myself I can put a bandage on), a hat, and other miscellaneous things. While I attempt to keep things arranged, it really doesn’t bother me anymore.
Handsfree car kit installed!
Way back in January, I mentioned that I bought a Parrot CK3100 handsfree carkit for my cell phone. Unfortunately I had to return the kit because my phone kept rebooting the car kit. After hearing about the impending legislation requiring handsfree cell phone talking (car kit or headset), I decided to take another look. I read on forums that the kit now worked with the Samsung A900, so I decided to give it another shot. I went to Fry’s (a store I hate, but I knew that they had the kit and I could return it if it didn’t work), searched the shelves and found 1 left, but it had been returned (the upside is that it was $10 off). Having seen a brand new one before, I checked the contents and everything looked intact. I also knew that installing the car kit would be a pain, so most people would get intimidated when they saw the directions which gave me hopes that it was never used.
So, I go the kit home, hooked it up to a 12V supply and saw that my phone kept rebooting it. I checked the firmware and saw it was old. I updated the firmware and things seem to work fine, so I decided to install it the next day (today). I thought and thought and thought about how I was going to install the kit knowing that my car had some funky premium stereo and it wasn’t just a matter of connecting a phone hours. In the middle of the night, the solution came to me. I’d use the speaker hooked to my Garmin iQue 3600 car kit and let the handsfree car kit be the amplifier. This would make the install much easier. Another thing that made things easier was I decided that I’d use wire taps into the existing wires and forget about trying to do things without touching what was there.
The install took a good 5 or 6 hours and I only cut myself once. After I was figured everything out and was going to put it back together, I tested it and it didn’t work with the stereo on. Either the wiring diagram for the stereo was wrong or the wire I tapped into didn’t provide continuous 12V power in the accessory position. So I just tapped into the auxiliary power connector and everything was happy.
The kit works quite well with my phone and I’m reasonably impressed. Now we’ll just have to see what happens on the road. It is real cool to be able to turn on the car and have it pair with my phone. I was using a Bluetooth headset, but I’d have to turn it on everytime I got in the car and put in on my ear.
Mounting the LCD was another feat of engineering, but it turns out well. I also made it such that I could disconnect the speaker if I wanted to take my GPS unit with me. I could have drilled some holes in the dash, but what I did is good enough.
Training with the Garmin Forerunner 305
It’s now been over 4 months since I started using my Garmin Forerunner 305 to train for the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon. I managed to complete the marathon and am now training for a half marathon. At first, the Forerunner was more of a gimmick in helping me train, but now it is integrated into my training. I use the current pace to see where I should be at based on how I feel. By now, I know the distance on most of my runs, so while the total distance initially helped me, it is more now just telling me how much longer until the pain stops! I’m also very interested in my heart rate, so uploading my data to MotionBased allows me to see how I’m doing in trying to bring down my heartrate.
Unlike some others, I’ve had no problems with the unit and use it 4 days a week. It is an excellent training aid, even for the beginner. I know I’m a geek, but without this gadget, I’m not sure that I would have been able to complete a marathon and I don’t think running would be so enjoyable.
You work with computers? Can you help me with my problem?
This is one of the most common phrases I’ve heard in my career when I tell people that I write software. For awhile, I was going to say that I designed and manufactured toilets it was getting so bad. Why do people think that just because I write software, I know how to fix someone’s wacky computer problem? I have enough problems of my own keeping my computers running. To top it off, if I say I write Macintosh software, people are in awe and without fail have a Mac with some obscure problem. If I wanted to fix computers for a living, I would be a consultant and save the day, but I’m not a people person and frankly, I don’t like computers all the time.
LEGO City construction has begun
After a few false starts putting together my LEGO railroad, I’m finally making progress. My first few starts failed because I kept short circuiting the track and trying to do complex stuff such as running 2 engines at the same time on different loops with 1 controller. I went ahead and ordered a second controller off eBay (still waiting for it) for < $10 shipped (new ones are over $40) so that I could have 2 independent tracks. One track being similar to an elevated (L) train in a city such as Chicago and the other being a freight train. To complicate matters, I wanted to have the freight train track cross my road sections as much as possible at right angles.
So while I still have a lot of work to do (I want to make the upper track go through a building and have to build some stations as well as more buildings and vehicles), I am making progress. I know that I’m crazy as I’m spending lots of time playing with a child’s toy.
Here are some pictures of my mess:
I started a LEGO frenzy!
In a post last month, I mentioned that I believed that LEGO was in violation of the Star of Life trademark for their rescue series. I contacted LEGO to inquire about it as it is important to me that this trademark be used for true emergency medical related uses and that when someone sees this mark, they don’t just write it off, but can rely on its meaning. LEGO responded that the trademark was from a government agency and as such, it didn’t have “copyright protection”, according to their legal department. (Trademark and copyright protection are different.) They said, “As long as LEGO Systems Inc. makes an exact replica of the vehicle on which it usually appears, we would not be violating their rights. Therefore the depiction of the Star of Life logo is not in violation of any trademark infringement.”
OK, fine, I didn’t quite believe what they had to say as LEGO was using the trademark on replica buildings as well as replica vehicles. I figured they just thought I was a wacko and basically ignored me. In an interesting twist, I received a followup email from LEGO today indicating that their designers in Denmark weren’t aware of the trademark registration (which was kind of my point, it may have already been diluted too much that people don’t know its proper use) and they’ll research it further. They also said that they’ll discontinue using it if they find they are in violation. Hmmm…I think this means stock up on this year’s rescue sets as they could be gone before you know it, similar to LEGO using a red cross years ago for the rescue series; I’d put money on it that the American/International Red Cross objected to its use. (From what I understand the Red Cross objected to the Boy Scouts using the red cross on a skill award and it was changed to a green cross.)
I’m lazy
Yes, I’ll be the first to admit I’m lazy. No, not the kind of lazy where I’d sit around drinking beer and watching football. I’m talking about finding the easy way to do something. In this case, I was looking to build a table to hold my new Lego trains. I designed 2 tables, each being 3.5′ x 7′ with legs and wheels. After going to Home Depot and pricing out the materials, I determined the price would be about $200 and require at least a day or two of building it. Somehow I got the brilliant idea to look at a ping pong (for those that want me to be accurate, table tennis) table. A regulation table is 9′ x 5′ and most of the ones consumers get fold up and have wheels. While not he exact size, this was an excellent solution. I asked one of my neighbors with a pickup truck if he’d help me pick it up and then I put it together when I got home. It is going to work out well and required a minimal amount of effort on my part.
Value of Lego bricks
In my searching, I found out that new Legos cost $6.99 per 1/4 pound at Legoland which is $27.96 per pound which seems very high, almost the price of gold :-). On eBay, I’ve found many lots of bulk Lego bricks from various sets. Using the $28 per pound price, I started comparing bulk lots on a per pound basis (including shipping) and only bid up to about $4.50 per pound. I’ve seen some auctions go to several hundred dollars for less than 20 pounds of Lego bricks. These aren’t new bricks and come from random lots. The pictures on the auctions don’t really tell you what you’re getting, so I’m really confused as to why people keep driving up the price. For now, I’ve purchase a total of 21 pounds of Legos (in addition to the 10 or so pounds I bought a few weeks ago). Hopefully this will let me build what I want.
Do people forget to comparison shop?
In my obsession for getting Legos, I’ve been following a bunch of auctions on eBay. Some of them are kind of humorous to me because they are priced higher than ordering new direct from Lego or they say “hard to find” when they’re on the Lego website. In addition, I’ve found some other items that are cheaper on a site called BrickLink which is a conglomerate of people selling Lego sets. One reason, I’d guess for not buying direct from Lego is that the regular shipping is via UPS from Connecticut. Since I’m probably the furthest you can get from CT in the continental US (ordering stuff from LL Bean would travel a longer distance), the shipping is slow (the rains last week didn’t help) and frankly, the boxes are not packed well. The outer box and many of the inner boxes were dented, but nothing was broken. It must be hard to break Lego sets short of stepping on them.