We cut the plastic off the boat and put up the canvas on Saturday. It is such a pleasure to have Chris help. He has a positive cooperative attitude that makes these things go fast. He and I dragged the plastic cover to the dumpster and were stuffing it in when one of the staff told us to stop. If we go back next season we'll know to just pile it up and leave it for pick up next to the boat.
We looked around for water spigots to connect the hose and found them only at great distances from the boat so we talked to a man at the marina store who told us, "The water isn't set up yet but they're working on it. There are only two guys in the yard and they'll get to it eventually." Not very helpful.
I took all the old zincs off and we stopped at Boater's World who was having a "Going out of business" sale. We were able to stock up for a couple of seasons on most of the zincs and got a good deal on the large one that goes under the swim platform - $50.
It was so windy and cold on Saturday that we had second thoughts about going back on Sunday but past experience has convinced us to take what we can get. It's easy to look at the calendar and think that there's ample time only to have the schedule close in on you. It was the right choice to go because Sunday was a great day to be outside with calm winds and temps in the high 60's.
Brought 200' hose and had ample length to run water to the boat. We boat soaped the entire hull and I used Teka on the swim platform. Afterward we told the yard that they could paint the bottom any time after after 4/20. She told us that they'd be glad to launch and do a sea trial with a week's notice.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
AIG Bonuses
So, last fall you're an AIG employee sitting in your cubicle doing your job. You've heard some rumblings about tough times ahead but the first time you're sure that something is really wrong is when the bottom drops out of the company's stock price. That event is followed days later by headlines proclaiming that the company is out of money. Your reaction, "Holy shit. I better get my resume together."
Weeks go by and your colleagues are leaving. Some have been dismissed as the company cuts operating expenses to try and stay afloat. Others are lucky enough to find a new job quickly. One afternoon you're on the phone talking to a headhunter and your boss asks you into his office. "Jane" He says, "Your job is on a list of those considered crucial to the operation of the business. A lot of people around here think that the company will close its doors shortly but honestly, that's not going to happen anytime soon if ever. Just the same, to ally your fears and incent you stay through this debacle, we'd like to make you this offer." He hands you a memo with terms and conditions. "Notice that there's a bonus paid early next year should you decide to stay. Think about it and let me know."
You walk out of the office thinking, "I don't know. This is a really depressing place to work. It used to be kind of a family atmosphere but now so many of my friends have left... And I'm going to have to do the work of 3 people because the 2 other guys that had similar roles to mine are gone and they're sure not going to hire replacements."
Over the next couple of weeks you talk the offer over with friends and family. Your job search isn't taking off and reports from others you know who are looking confirm that finance jobs aren't easy to come by. Companies are laying off and nobody is hiring. So you tell your boss you're staying and you sign the memorandum that promises a bonus.
Over the next few months you get a few nibbles from people calling you about jobs and you start to think that maybe you acted hastily. But a deal is a deal. Mid March comes and you're paid a bonus. You think that now you can pay off some debt and life will be a little easier.
But all the sudden Washington is abuzz with how unfair it is that those unethical, immoral, AIG bozos who ran the company into the ground were paid a bonus. You don't know anyone that you'd classify as unethical. The accusations fly about how the company took on too much risk and should be punished for their inept behavior. Risk? You're not quite sure about risk but the water cooler gossip says that Moodys had rated most of what had been sold as A+ or better. Inept? The people you know are pretty sharp and interested in doing a good job. Now there's talk about passing special tax laws that would make you pay your bonus back to the IRS.
Weeks go by and your colleagues are leaving. Some have been dismissed as the company cuts operating expenses to try and stay afloat. Others are lucky enough to find a new job quickly. One afternoon you're on the phone talking to a headhunter and your boss asks you into his office. "Jane" He says, "Your job is on a list of those considered crucial to the operation of the business. A lot of people around here think that the company will close its doors shortly but honestly, that's not going to happen anytime soon if ever. Just the same, to ally your fears and incent you stay through this debacle, we'd like to make you this offer." He hands you a memo with terms and conditions. "Notice that there's a bonus paid early next year should you decide to stay. Think about it and let me know."
You walk out of the office thinking, "I don't know. This is a really depressing place to work. It used to be kind of a family atmosphere but now so many of my friends have left... And I'm going to have to do the work of 3 people because the 2 other guys that had similar roles to mine are gone and they're sure not going to hire replacements."
Over the next couple of weeks you talk the offer over with friends and family. Your job search isn't taking off and reports from others you know who are looking confirm that finance jobs aren't easy to come by. Companies are laying off and nobody is hiring. So you tell your boss you're staying and you sign the memorandum that promises a bonus.
Over the next few months you get a few nibbles from people calling you about jobs and you start to think that maybe you acted hastily. But a deal is a deal. Mid March comes and you're paid a bonus. You think that now you can pay off some debt and life will be a little easier.
But all the sudden Washington is abuzz with how unfair it is that those unethical, immoral, AIG bozos who ran the company into the ground were paid a bonus. You don't know anyone that you'd classify as unethical. The accusations fly about how the company took on too much risk and should be punished for their inept behavior. Risk? You're not quite sure about risk but the water cooler gossip says that Moodys had rated most of what had been sold as A+ or better. Inept? The people you know are pretty sharp and interested in doing a good job. Now there's talk about passing special tax laws that would make you pay your bonus back to the IRS.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Diggin' in the Back Yard
What a beautiful weekend. Temperatures in the 70s both days.
We had given up running the washing machine because of the overflow problem so on Friday I contacted the septic service and they agreed to come out on Sat. When Gary got to the house he poked around in the back yard for a while but didn't locate the lid of the tank so he decided to come back on Sun with a small back hoe. He dug from the house along the pipe and eventually located the top of the tank about 10 ' into the back yard.
After he cut roots out of the drain pipe K filled the washer and drained it a couple of times without problem. Gary built up the top of the septic tank with cinder blocks so now the lid is under only inches of dirt. We were curious about whether we had a field drain or a cesspool so there was more digging to discover where the exit drain went. He found a cesspool about 15' further back from the septic tank and declared it to be in good shape. We asked him to build up the top of that too so its lid should be easy to find if we ever need to.
He pumped the tank (1000 gal capacity) and called it a day. The real test will be this coming weekend when clothes washing starts in earnest.
Total cost for digging, raising the 2 lids, and pumping was $860.
We had given up running the washing machine because of the overflow problem so on Friday I contacted the septic service and they agreed to come out on Sat. When Gary got to the house he poked around in the back yard for a while but didn't locate the lid of the tank so he decided to come back on Sun with a small back hoe. He dug from the house along the pipe and eventually located the top of the tank about 10 ' into the back yard.
After he cut roots out of the drain pipe K filled the washer and drained it a couple of times without problem. Gary built up the top of the septic tank with cinder blocks so now the lid is under only inches of dirt. We were curious about whether we had a field drain or a cesspool so there was more digging to discover where the exit drain went. He found a cesspool about 15' further back from the septic tank and declared it to be in good shape. We asked him to build up the top of that too so its lid should be easy to find if we ever need to.
He pumped the tank (1000 gal capacity) and called it a day. The real test will be this coming weekend when clothes washing starts in earnest.
Total cost for digging, raising the 2 lids, and pumping was $860.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
TV Continued
I had concluded that the vertical bar on the screen had disappeared and when the dispatcher called me on Tue I told her to cancel the ticket. It started to eat at me soon after I hung up the phone so I inspected the TV again and the bar was back. Whoops. I called the repair place back and and re-opened the ticket. Since then I've noticed that the distorted bar fades in and out. Sometimes it's very apparent. Other times it's not noticeable.
The tech came today and dragged in a box that was about the size of the TV but it wasn't a replacement. It was a new panel. The equivalent of a new picture tube in the old days. The first thing he said to me was, "I don't know why people buy plasmas." "Huh?", I said. He said, "They're always breaking." Wish I had known that before I bought the TV.
Took him about 40 minutes to swap out the panel. TV looks great!
The tech came today and dragged in a box that was about the size of the TV but it wasn't a replacement. It was a new panel. The equivalent of a new picture tube in the old days. The first thing he said to me was, "I don't know why people buy plasmas." "Huh?", I said. He said, "They're always breaking." Wish I had known that before I bought the TV.
Took him about 40 minutes to swap out the panel. TV looks great!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Bid Accepted
The agent called today to let us know that the seller accepted our bid. The fun begins.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Adding to the Gadget Collection
Over the last year I've read about more and more media content becoming available over the internet. Whether it be old, new, free, paid, high definition, or standard definition there's a lot out there. Sources include iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Joost, and many of the TV networks.
I had mixed results with Media Center PC's in the past. In 2005 I was interested in cable TV through the PC but there were no HDTV cable card tuner cards for PC's. In addition the Gateway PC I was using could not connect to the DVI connector on the TV and I had to fall back to component. I knew that the picture was degraded because the Comcast cable box connected directly to the TV's DVI port and displayed a beautiful hi-res picture. I used the Windows Media Center for several years but was busting for a better HDTV solution.
When they came on the scene in 2007 I grabbed a Tivo HD and have never looked back. It's a great machine that keeps many hours of stored HDTV shows ready for viewing at my family's whim. And it plays music from iTunes over a home theater sound system via a digital audio connection. It even displays my pictures from iPhoto right over the network. In addition I can watch streaming video from YouTube, Amazon, and now Netflix. But what about all the junk that I can't watch via the Tivo? I need more hardware.
So about a month ago I had the idea to build a media center around a Mac. The first thing I did to check the feasability was to connect my MacBook to the DVI connector on the HDTV and Voila - a nice hi-res renedering of my desktop! This had a lot more potential than my old Windows Media Center configuration.
I considered the expense for a while and decided to pull the trigger on a Mac Mini ($585). After upgrading the memory($28) from 1GB to 2GB I gave it a place of honor between the stereo and the TV and started connecting cables. Great picture on the TV but there was an overscan problem. That is the TV only displayed about 90% of the image from the computer. Hmm... Never had this problem on a Mac before. They've always been just plug and play with any chosen monitor. But I knew from Windows that there were great drivers and auxillary programs that let you adjust the video ten ways to Sunday. Nope, not on a Mac.
There is a program called DisplayConfigX($12) for the Mac that lets you add new resolutions to the list of available ones in the System Preferences pane but I spent a lot of time reading about the effect of such adjustments as horizontal front porch and vertical back porch followed by hours of trial and error only to emerge with a right sized TV image that vibrated up and down. As a last ditch effort I sent an email to the developer asking what I could do about the picture that moved up and down BUT it is 2 weeks hence I have still not heard back. I am not that patient!
A couple days after sending the email I began to seriously consider a flat panel TV. I thought that at 1080p resolution it had to be compatible with the Mac. If not I could always fall back to good ole VGA. Yeah, yeah, VGA is analog but I've seen some great looking VGA monitors. Guided by Consumer Reports and other research on the web, I decided to purchase a Samsung PN50A550 ($1,486 delivered) from butterflyphoto.com. A few days later the delivery men brought it upstairs, unboxed it, looked it over with me and said, "Please sign our voucher indicating that there was no damage in delivery." I did. I swapped the new TV for my old one. Plugged in the cables and... Holy Shit, still an overscan problem regardless of what resolution was selected in System Preferences. After bouncing around for a while I found that the TV has a video setting called 'just scan'. They should have called it 'perfect fit' because the computer image fits perfectly. The only downside is that if you try to watch the Tivo with the TV in the just scan mode you'll see the carrier modulation at the top of the screen and to get rid of that the TV's picture mode needs to be switched from just scan to 16:9.
That night, as I was watching the TV, I saw a vertical bar of distortion on the left side of the screen about .5" to .75" wide. It was faint and only visible in certain scenes with particular colors and brightness. So I called ButterflyPhoto who directed me to Samsung warrenty repairs. I was not pleased but have learned that the easiest way to resolve these situations is to follow their guidance and, if it's not resolved their way, then you can bitch and moan about how you followed their instructions and it's still broken. The Samsung rep seemed to think that this was SOP and agreed to send a tech to the apartment. It has been 6 days since my conversation with Samsung and the tech never showed up or called. I've not gone ballistic because the bar seems to have magically disappeared.
I had mixed results with Media Center PC's in the past. In 2005 I was interested in cable TV through the PC but there were no HDTV cable card tuner cards for PC's. In addition the Gateway PC I was using could not connect to the DVI connector on the TV and I had to fall back to component. I knew that the picture was degraded because the Comcast cable box connected directly to the TV's DVI port and displayed a beautiful hi-res picture. I used the Windows Media Center for several years but was busting for a better HDTV solution.
When they came on the scene in 2007 I grabbed a Tivo HD and have never looked back. It's a great machine that keeps many hours of stored HDTV shows ready for viewing at my family's whim. And it plays music from iTunes over a home theater sound system via a digital audio connection. It even displays my pictures from iPhoto right over the network. In addition I can watch streaming video from YouTube, Amazon, and now Netflix. But what about all the junk that I can't watch via the Tivo? I need more hardware.
So about a month ago I had the idea to build a media center around a Mac. The first thing I did to check the feasability was to connect my MacBook to the DVI connector on the HDTV and Voila - a nice hi-res renedering of my desktop! This had a lot more potential than my old Windows Media Center configuration.
I considered the expense for a while and decided to pull the trigger on a Mac Mini ($585). After upgrading the memory($28) from 1GB to 2GB I gave it a place of honor between the stereo and the TV and started connecting cables. Great picture on the TV but there was an overscan problem. That is the TV only displayed about 90% of the image from the computer. Hmm... Never had this problem on a Mac before. They've always been just plug and play with any chosen monitor. But I knew from Windows that there were great drivers and auxillary programs that let you adjust the video ten ways to Sunday. Nope, not on a Mac.
There is a program called DisplayConfigX($12) for the Mac that lets you add new resolutions to the list of available ones in the System Preferences pane but I spent a lot of time reading about the effect of such adjustments as horizontal front porch and vertical back porch followed by hours of trial and error only to emerge with a right sized TV image that vibrated up and down. As a last ditch effort I sent an email to the developer asking what I could do about the picture that moved up and down BUT it is 2 weeks hence I have still not heard back. I am not that patient!
A couple days after sending the email I began to seriously consider a flat panel TV. I thought that at 1080p resolution it had to be compatible with the Mac. If not I could always fall back to good ole VGA. Yeah, yeah, VGA is analog but I've seen some great looking VGA monitors. Guided by Consumer Reports and other research on the web, I decided to purchase a Samsung PN50A550 ($1,486 delivered) from butterflyphoto.com. A few days later the delivery men brought it upstairs, unboxed it, looked it over with me and said, "Please sign our voucher indicating that there was no damage in delivery." I did. I swapped the new TV for my old one. Plugged in the cables and... Holy Shit, still an overscan problem regardless of what resolution was selected in System Preferences. After bouncing around for a while I found that the TV has a video setting called 'just scan'. They should have called it 'perfect fit' because the computer image fits perfectly. The only downside is that if you try to watch the Tivo with the TV in the just scan mode you'll see the carrier modulation at the top of the screen and to get rid of that the TV's picture mode needs to be switched from just scan to 16:9.
That night, as I was watching the TV, I saw a vertical bar of distortion on the left side of the screen about .5" to .75" wide. It was faint and only visible in certain scenes with particular colors and brightness. So I called ButterflyPhoto who directed me to Samsung warrenty repairs. I was not pleased but have learned that the easiest way to resolve these situations is to follow their guidance and, if it's not resolved their way, then you can bitch and moan about how you followed their instructions and it's still broken. The Samsung rep seemed to think that this was SOP and agreed to send a tech to the apartment. It has been 6 days since my conversation with Samsung and the tech never showed up or called. I've not gone ballistic because the bar seems to have magically disappeared.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Bidding Opens
We put a bid on a condo in Weehawken this morning. Started at 15% below asking. Our RE agent was horrified! By the end of the day the seller had asked for our best price which turned out to be 7.5% below asking. So we wait.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
