Backyard Mister


Backyard Mister
Originally uploaded by JayDreyer.
I made this for the kids yesterday based on some instructions from www.instructables.com. It cost less than $20 and the kids love it. It's just PVC glued together with these mister jets that you can get at Lowes. Jack helped me put it together, and the kids are thoroughly testing it as I type this.
 

Comment | posted 07/20/2008 01:04 PM


I'm a bad blogger

OK. So I don’t post anymore. It’s not that I don’t want to post. I do. I really do. I’m just really lazy. Really. Lazy.

So I found a solution. Kind of. Well, sort of. I’m not sure. It’s a site at tumblr. Yes, another site with a name that’s missing a vowel. Ha. I set up a site at http://kaline.tumblr.com/. It does what I want – it lets me post things quickly without jumping through a bunch of hoops, which is what slows me down at the moment. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s slowing me down.

It’s pretty bare-bones, nothing fancy, just quick posts here and there. At some point I’m going to figure out how to manage all of this. Maybe combine things into jaydreyer.com, or move everything to Tumblr, or move everything to Wordpress. I don’t know.

I’ll keep you updated. All 5 of you. Hang in there!

Oh yeah…if you’d like to play along, I was thinking of getting another domain name. I named my tumblr blog “chop, chop” (Caddyshack) but, unfortunately, some wise soul already bought the domain name chopchop.com (bastard). Then I started looking for top notch. Yeah, gone, too. Way gone. I could buy it for $7500 or something, but I passed. My brain is stuck so help me out.

 

Comment [2] | posted 04/11/2008 11:18 PM


Got $3 Million to Spare?


Wow. Almost as surprising as me entering a post on my blog is the size of this guy’s music collection. Amazing. All for the low, low price of $3 million (that’s the starting point, btw). My collection fits in 6 big plastic tubs and 100GB of hard drive space (not counting my Duran Duran and Huey Lewis vinyl, those are on loan to the Smithsonian right now.) As you can see, this collection needs slightly more space.

FYI, you have to pay shipping charges for this. I’m not sure what UPS charges to ship 3 million albums and 300,000 CDs. Maybe the white board guy can figure that out for me.

 

Comment | posted 02/21/2008 12:05 PM


I'm a Mac Daddy

OK…so I gave up and joined the cult that is Mac. Maybe it was the commercials. Maybe it was the desire to be hip. Maybe it was Steve Jobs’ turtlenecks. Whatever. I’ve given up and joined the Mac herd. That’s right. Mr. Windows finally gave in to the dark side (or the good side) and swapped out Vista for Leopard. So far, no complaints, whatsoever. It’s actually been WAY easier than I would have imagined, and the family is happy, as well. I just got tired of the nightly re-boots that Vista performed and threw in the towel. Just for safety’s sake, I purchased VMWare Fusion so that I can run my old Vista image in the Mac. No problems with that, either. We’re addicted to Microsoft Money so this allows us to keep using it. Other than Quicken, there aren’t any alternatives to Money that are well regarded so we’ll stick with it for a while.

Like I said, there haven’t been any problems with the Mac so far, and I haven’t been able to find anything I could do on Vista that I can’t do on the Mac (other than MS Money). There are some differences, but they haven’t caused me any trouble, nor has DeAnne had any complaints (always the most important factor).

Further sinking myself into the Apple cult, I also, finally, picked up an iPod Classic 160GB. Boo yeah. Every tune I own (90+ GB) is available to me now when I ride the bus into work. No more sitting there going, “Damn…I wish I could listen to Men at Work right now…” Problem solved. No complaints with it, either (although, it sounded like many folks have had problems with the iPod Classic…) Also, if you have a DMP that can play video, I highly recommend checking out the Onion’s videos. Fantastic.

 

Comment | posted 11/16/2007 12:33 AM


Trip to California

OK…so this trip happened, like, months ago but I thought I’d share the pictures, anyway. The whole family went out to San Francisco for my sister’s (Paula) wedding and I took a bunch of pictures, which you can see by clicking the collage above. Highlights included attending a Giants game (check out the cool pics of Mr. Indicted…they are SWEET), seeing the Smashing Pumpkins at the Filmore (3+ hours…incredible), and the wine country out in Calistoga. Something about the house we stayed in in Calistoga gave me really bad sinus trouble…never could figure it out. My dad says it was the trees, and I can’t argue with him. It was something and it made me miserable.

Without saying…Paula’s wedding was the highlight of the trip. Hard to believe my littlest sister is married but that’s life! I’m very happy for her and Alex. I’ve got another great brother-in-law now. (He helps with my landscaping questions, and also plays a decent guitar.)

Blogged with Flock

 

Comment | posted 11/16/2007 12:11 AM


Test Post from Flock

Just seeing if this works or not…

 

Comment | posted 11/15/2007 10:57 PM


Scarecrow Festival


BIG Scarecrow
Originally uploaded by JayDreyer.

Hey all! Long time, no blog! Lot’s of new stuff happening so I’ll get some stuff out soon. Anyhoo…here are some photos from the Scarecrow Festival we went to in Belle Plaine, MN. It was at Emma Krumbee’s Orchard and Farm . Can’t say it was all that great, but the kids had fun, and Jack got to ride both a pony AND a camel, and not many people get to say they did that in the same day. Plus, someone made a Fonzie scarecrow. Enjoy!

 

Comment | posted 11/04/2007 11:29 PM


Buy me stuff. Please.

Believe it or not (and I won’t blame you if you fall into the “not” camp), I get complaints that my Amazon wish list is too hard to find. I believe this is true because I don’t receive goodies in the mail every week from Amazon. So, to make it easier for everyone to buy me stuff, if you look on the right hand side of the web site you’ll see the fancy new Amazon Wish-List widget. You can scroll through it, mock my selections, and then order whatever you want. Have fun and go nuts!

 

Comment | posted 10/02/2007 02:47 PM


R.I.P, Netbank


Hey! It’s been a while. I’m still alive. Thanks for asking. Anyway, I arrived home from work on Friday to find out our bank of close to 10 years, Netbank, had been shut down by the FDIC. Huh? Is this 1929 or something? Will George Bailey come out and tell me not to withdraw my money because it’s in Mary’s house and Fred’s farm, etc? You can read more about the details here.

We were locked out of the site over the weekend but it looks like we can get back into it now. It appears that ING has taken over the bank and our money is safe (FDIC insured means we’re covered up to $100,000…I think we just make it under that cap.) No worries because we’re now in the process of switching things over to Fidelity. We already had a bunch of stuff there, and this will let us consolidate some more. They actually have a pretty sweet setup where we get free checking, 3.5% interest, free checks, free bill pay, reimbursement of ATM fees and some other goodies. We’ll see how it goes.

 

Comment [1] | posted 10/02/2007 02:46 PM


The Sandbox


IMG_0197.jpg
Originally uploaded by JayDreyer.

Last weekend I wrapped up construction of a sandbox for the kids. I had to wait on the canvas to arrive so it took a week longer than expected, but I think it turned out great. It’s made primarily out of cedar, with pressure treated decking material for the bottom and the legs. The top is a roof with gables, rafters and the whole bit, wrapped in Sunbrella weatherproof canvas. It took about a day and a half to build, and the garage smells nice with the cedar sawdust! You can see more pictures by clicking on the image on right. They all look about the same, though!

 

Comment [1] | posted 06/05/2007 11:45 PM


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