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Wish List
My birthday is coming up. If anyone is looking for ideas, check this out. Don’t be fooled by the price, it’s close to half that price at local retailers. Yes, still expensive, but I will have this TV. Looks like I’ll need to increase the deposits in my Christmas club. 
August 21st, 2005 
Tags: Pressure Washer
Man, who would have thought it would be so difficult to find a decent pressure washer for a good price. When we started the projects of re-staining our deck and fence, we wanted to give them a pressure wash first. We bought a 1650 psi pressure washer from Fleet Farm. It seemed to work well, but eventually the trigger handle became stuck and you couldn’t detach it. We decided to return it. Next, we bought a 1750 psi “Husky” pressure washer from Home Depot. It was $20 less and features more PSI, so we thought it was a good deal. Upon getting it home, it only lasted a few hours before the spray wand started spraying erratically. Again, we returned it. Even though the electric models are generally more convenient, portable, and easier to maintain, we were frustrated with our experience with our first two electric pressure washers and decided to look around at the more expensive gas-powered pressure washers.
We went back to Home Depot. They had some really swank models with Honda and even Subaru engines. Unfortunately, they cost a bit more than we wanted to spend. So we went to Sears to check out their selection. We ended up buying a 2550 psi Craftsman with a 6.75 HP Briggs and Stratton engine. We got a great deal on it because it was a return. It turned out to be a very sweet choice. It had all the features we wanted, excellent power, and was easy to use. After having used a gas-powered model, the electric ones clearly suck in comparison. This thing cleans the wood at a fraction of the time! Our lawnmower is also a Craftsman. So far we’ve gotten very decent value and service from Sears.
Lesson learned: Electric pressure washers suck. Pay more for gas.
Our First Macintosh
We bought a used iMac G3 (450MHz, 128MB RAM, OS X 10.1) from a friend. It was a good price, and we thought it would be a great way to sink our teeth into a Macintosh (at least in a way beyong what we’ve been exposed to by supporting them). I also thought it might be nice for testing web pages and other stuff. It runs pretty well, albeit a bit slow. I think we might throw some more memory in it. It’s a pretty nifty little machine.
Some may remember that I actually started on Apple’s back in the day. Apple IIe’s in grade school, and my first computer was an Apple IIgs, which offered a finder very similar to earlier versions of Mac OS (but was somewhat useless without a hard drive at the time). I switched over to the IBM-compatibles because BBSs were the big craze and anyone who was anyone with a BBS ran it on a DOS machine. Plus, Mac OS prior to X were simply dreadful, in my opinion. Since then I’ve used Windows, Linux, and OS/2, but have always sheepishly come back to Windows. Perhaps this time will be different. I like the BSD core OS X has, and I’m looking forward to the new Mactel machines.
Enjoying the Vue
Wanda and I just leased a new toy – a red 2005 V6 Saturn Vue. We decided having two cars just wasn’t cutting it anymore, so we decided to upgrade to the Vue. It’s a lot of fun to drive, and we like it a lot.
Know anyone who wants to buy a 2002 Mitsubishi Galant in excellent shape?
Media Center Follow-up
We loved our HP m1050 Media Center so much that I decided to build one for our entertainment system. I got the old machine that the m1050 replaced repaired (new motherboard), purchased a remote control and a TV tuner, and slapped MCE 2005 on it. It works splendidly. We can now pause, rewind, and record live TV, check the weather, play media files (even my old MPEG4 MST3K collection!), and listen to FM radio with onscreen controls. Best of all, the on-screen TV guide is included with MCE 2005, so I don’t have to pay Time Warner for a set-top box to get it. And I only spent about $200 to upgrade it, which I figure will pay off since I won’t have to pay recurring fees like other PVR devices require, and it’s fully upgradeable. Now we’ll just have to see what happens when HDTV is mandatory…
Off-Road Segway
Check out this swank 4-wheel Segway, called Cantaur. It will be interesting to see if it’s vaporware, whether it can make it up a modest hill, and whether the average American will need to take out a second mortgage to afford it. Cool, nonetheless.
LEGO Mindstorms Rubik’s CubeSolver
Recently I was made aware of JP Brown’s Serious LEGO web site. Most impressively, he describes how he created a Rubik’s CubeSolver robot out of LEGO Mindstorm parts. It’s simply amazing what some people are capable of while others feel compelled to compete for this year’s Darwin award. Oh the humanity!
Black Friday 2003
So how did y’all score on Black Friday deals? Shoot me an e-mail and tell me about it. I got a 2.6Ghz eMachine (80GB hard drive, 256MB RAM, CD-RW/DVD) from Best Buy for $199! I also pick up the Lite-on 4x DVD burner for $80 (supports both formats) and a 1000 watt (total) car audio system for $99 (two 10″ speakers, box, and amplifier).
Toolbox PC
As some of you may know, I’ve been working on my own Toolbox PC lately. I’ve finally finished it. Click the link for pictures and a list of what’s under the hood.
My New Computer
Christmas is just around the corner folks! I can’t wait to try out my new case, new Gigabyte motherboard with 2.53GHz P4 processor, 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM, Mitsubishi 18″ flat panel monitor, and 160GB striped RAID. What are y’all getting?
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