Shay’s Blog

I hate garage sales since most of the items for sale are worthless junk. I know that that you can find some very good deals, but for the most part it is a waste of time. Though I do enjoy going to the community garage sale that Addison has once a year. It occurred last weekend. I got up early which is a big deal for me (I am a total night person). Most of it is baby stuff and other assorted junk, but this year I found a lady selling some Linksys routers. I managed to get a WRT300N and a WRT54G for 45 bucks. I thought I got a pretty good deal on them since amazon sells the WRT300N for $129. I really did not need to 54G model, but it does not hurt to have an extra.

I flashed them both with dd-wrt which is an open-source firmware. I have been using this on my current router. It is a nice product that adds a lot of nice features to the router. I have been using the SPI firewall and the static DHCP features of it. I made the WRT300N my main router since my Macbook Pro supports the 802-11N draft standard. I configured the other router as a client bridge which I use to connect my Audiotron MP3 receiver to the network. I have been using a Linksys WET11 Bridge which only supports B which is two revisions behind the current draft N standard. The other reason I wanted to get rid of the WET11 was it only supported WEP which is a much older wireless encryption. I am now running WPA which is much more secure.

It took a while to get the client bridge configured, but I got it working. I did have to turn on the SSID broadcast to make it work, but it is seems to be working fine now. This leaves me with my original router, but it is nice to have a backup just in case one of the other ones stops working.

Tonight is game six of the Dallas Mavericks / Golden State Warriors playoff series. I was reading the Dallas Morning News today, and saw this column by Jean-Jacques Taylor. The topic of the column was how Dirk Nowitzki’s legacy was on the line tonight. If you are not aware the Mavericks and Dirk have a reputation of being soft in the playoffs. They have the best record in the NBA this year. Last year, they got over the hub of my favorite team, The San Antonio Spurs and then cratered in the finals to the Miami Heat after going up 2 games. They lost the series 4-2.

The Mavs won 67 games this year, but went down 3-1 to The Warriors. Dirk and the Mavs played well in game five at home to win to make the series 3-2. Now tonight, there is 5:28 left in the game, The Mavs are down 24 points. Dirk has scored six points. You be the judge, is Dirk super talented and is unable to raise his game in the playoffs, or is he a victim of the situation? Anyway, unless there is a colossal meltdown by The Warriors, Dallas will be the first number one seed to be bounced out of the playoffs by a 8th seed which has never happened since the NBA went to a seven game series. Go Spurs!

DeAndra (my sister), Paul (her husband), and I went to see Body Worlds today.  It has been here in Dallas since December.  We just got around to go to see it.  It was interesting, but I found it go on a bit much.  They had quite a few different bodies dissected  and posed.  You got to see lots of different organs, muscle tissues, tendons, ligaments, nerves, and bones.  They had lots of different organs including those that are healthy and those that were diseased.  The audio tour left a lot to be desired in my opinion.  On a lot of the full-body exhibits, the audio tour would simply have the creator talking or answering questions that were not applicable to the exhibit.  He was trying to inspire people to live healthier by mainly speaking out against smoking.  He was not very inspiring in his speaking.  I think it would create a lot more impact by speaking about the current exhibit and letting the organs speak for themselves.

With today being Earth Day, I thought I would share some of the my personal values that have changed a lot. Growing up and while I was in college, I was much of the mindset that the Earth was there for mankind to exploit for its own use. I used to think clear cutting and development was a good thing. It is interesting and kind of scary to look back and reminisce on my previous ideas and values. I really was wholeheartedly was into that kind of thinking. I am not sure where it came from exactly. I was very pro-business and pro-corporate America. I used to think Michael Milken was unfairly convicted and jailed. Scary isn’t it?

Anyway I have dramatically changed my views on the planet Earth and the environment. I switch to a clean renewal energy (wind) about three years ago. I started to take recycling a lot more seriously. I have been eating quite a few organic foods. I have also try to avoid products that are harmful to the environment though this can be hard to do. I am not anti-corporations, but I do very much believe in corporate responsibility.

Enjoy Earth Day, and remember to keep thinking about the environment everyday of the year not just today.

Does anyone else think that store closing sales are kind of a scam these days? I swung by CompUSA in Addison today. It is one of the stores that is closing. I had gotten a new computer bag at Fry’s a few weeks ago for my MacBook Pro. It was 20 bucks at Fry’s. CompUSA had the same model for 60 bucks and a 25% discount. Wow, what a savings. I can get from a closeout which you cannot return for 40 bucks or 20 bucks from Fry’s. CompUSA also has open computers for 5% off. What another another great discount. I also noticed other behavior at the closing sale for Ultimate Electronics. Just my two cents.

This is awful news for those trying to file right against the deadline. I hope they are able to print their returns and get them in the mail. I can completely emphasize waiting the last minute. I have been known to be a huge procrastinator. Good luck to all those affected.

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Alicia and I had a busy weekend. It started out on Friday with us seeing “The Night of the White Pants” at the Angelika. It was shot here in Dallas. The house used in it was across the street from Alicia’s sister’s old house. Alicia got a glimpse of the house in one of the scenes. The movie was entertaining. It was neat seeing some of the Dallas in it. They shot on Swiss Avenue at the fore mentioned house, Deep Ellum, Adolphus Hotel, Fountain Place, and Double Wide. It is worth a watch especially if you are from or live in Dallas.

On Saturday, we started with lunch at Ozona. They have according the D Magazine and dallasfood.org, the best chicken-fried steak in town. We both got it and agreed it was good, but certainly not the best in town. We went to see another movie at the Angelika later that day. The movie was called “First Snow”. It was a very well done thriller which starred Guy Pierce. It was funny. The last thing I saw Guy Pierce in was “Factory Girl” which he starred as Andy Warhol. I kept picturing him as Andy Warhol during the movie. I would definitely recommend “First Snow” if you enjoy intense thrillers. We stopped at Harry’s Frozen Custard after the movie and got some custard.

On Sunday, Alicia and I went to the Dallas Museum of Art and The Nasher Sculpture Garden for the Matisse exhibit. It was good, but I felt that the Nasher was piggy-backing on DMA’s exhibit.

I have had my macbook pro for four days now. It is fun experience. I got vista installed using bootcamp. I have purchased parallels, but unfortunately they do not support vista using the bootcamp install. I hope they will release a version in a few days for this. Apple just officially support vista under bootbcamp a few days ago.

I got my email switched over to Apple’s Mail app. I had to use a two-step process for this. First was import it into Mozilla’s Thunderbird from Outlook. Then I used a program called Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to convert the thunderbird folders. From there I was able to import my mail into the mail app. I got NeoOffice installed and running. I also got IWork up and running.

It has been fun and a little frustrating learning the Mac OS. I think it is a better interface and os, but the keyboard changes create some challenges for people switching. The whole hide vs. minimize takes some time to get used to. I would highly suggest it. You can always run windows either through dual boot (Bootcamp) or virtualization through (Parallels or VMWare).

I will post some more news as I get more acclimated to the mac.

It has been a long time since I have posted. I am not sure why I have not felt like blogging in a while. Let me give you a quick update on what is going on my life.

My thinkpad died a couple of weeks ago. It is probably the system board. I have been kicking around getting a macbook pro for a while. Once my laptop died, I decided to pull the trigger and get one. I am making this post from it. I really miss having a laptop so I am stoked to get a new one.

I shopped around and decided it was cheapest to get to from amazon. I got a 15″ model. I was seriously thinking about getting the 17″, but I decided the 15″ would be the better decision. I ordered it last week, but amazon took a week to ship it.

I got it this evening. I am running the updates on it now. I hope to get my mail imported from outlook as soon as it is finished updating. Then the next step is installing neo office and then Vista.

Cirque du Soleil is here in Dallas.  Alicia and I have tickets for this Saturday’s (February 24, 2007) show.  We are both looking forward to the show.  We went to a very fun and interesting Cirque du Soleil event on Saturday at Borders.  The artistic directory of Corteo, Richard Dagenais, the main character, Jeff Raz, and one of the acrobats, Rebecca Jose spoke at the event.

Both Alicia and I really enjoyed hearing them speak.  I was amazed at what Rebecca Jose said.  She was formerly a rhythm gymnastic.  She auditioned for cirque.  Rebecca then spent a year learning to “fly”.  She described her main routine is being thrown between two men that are six meters apart which is almost 20 feet.  I cannot wait to see her routine.

Richard Dagenais was very well spoken.  I think his native language his French.  I got the impression he was French-Canadian.  The cirque shows sound very well run.  Of course you never know till you experience something like that from the inside.  I do know they are under a phenomenal amount of pressure.  Be sure to check out the series that originally aired on Bravo called “The Fire Within” which chronicled the preparation of another cirque show called Varekai.