Started at Wally World this am getting a load of groceries and such for Martha. Back here to get tomato plants we had forgotten to load. Then the long trek west and south. Made a piss stop at Winn Dixie in Pell City where we also got some bananas to eat with the sandwiches we had for lunch. Then south another 4+ miles to the boat launch where we usually eat. Did the lunch bit while watching the local critters (birds, ducks, dogs)play their little critter games and then loaded back up and headed on to Calcis. Unloaded and hauled the stuff inside then I went back out and found an implement of destruction and removed the plant life from the tires (again), then planted the tomato plants we brought down. Cleaned up a bit afterwards and sat in the truck reading till Cat got done inside, then we headed back north and east. Stopped at the American Thrift Store and found 2 HP 3300C scanners at $3.88 each which we loaded in the cart. Made a run through the books and picked a few to come home with us then made a quick pass through the bins and found some craft stuff that looked salable, and checked out. Or Cat did while I went to the truck. When she got to the truck it turned out the scanners were on a 70% discount so only cost $1.30 or so each! Came on in and unloaded then got a monitor which I loaded up and we carried over to my folks house and installed on my Mom’s computer to replace the one of hers that went out last night. Loaded up the dead one and came back home. Unloaded again and then started a pan of rice and reheated stuff from last night for tonights supper. While it was cooking started a loaf of bread going for sandwiches tomorrow. Ate and then checked out the scanners. One was dead and the other worked fine. Swapped the logic/power board in the dead one with the one from the one we already had that was streaking and it came up and worked fine. So now have two working hp 3300C scanners!
Starting to feel a bit better now that I am taking D-Ribose again. Found a place online that has the same stuff that Apple a Day sells and shipped to the front door is almost $10 a bottle cheaper. And that’s not counting fuel or time to get it.
Not sure what we are going to try to do tomorrow, guess we’ll figure it out when it gets here. Whatever it is, till then… 😉
Tags: Blog 365, Daily Grind
Technoprimitive 3 
May 30, 2009 at 10:44 am |
$2.60 for two HP 3300 scanners. Not bad! Being able to fix the non-working one is even better. By the way, if the stepping motors in that other scanner are good, and you don’t want it, one of the guys that the son works with is building a CNC machine and looking for scanner stepping motors. Just FYI.
Had a Friday. School is out, so things were somewhat less hectic. Had a message on my phone when I turned it on, and headed to the cafeteria at the elementary school first, after going to mail a bill I had forgotten to mail for two days. Just been too busy, but still wasn’t late, just wasn’t as early. Went to the cafeteria and did a little makee/learnee with Excel. The folks there are still climbing the learning curve with spreadsheets (as am I with Excel 2007–Micro$oft’s motto is “what have we moved today?” and the answer is “Freaking EVERYTHING!”) and I gave a few more lessons. They are learning fast, and automating (as in having a template ready to go with formulas and such) nearly everything they do, which is helping them spend less and less time on the paperwork, and more on the cooking/serving/cleaning. Checked out the setup in the cafeteria itself (where the kids eat, as opposed to the kitchen, where the office is) where the acting/assistant principal was going to have the end-of-the-year faculty meeting. He had made a slideshow on a DVD to show, and I made sure everything was hooked up right and hooked the sound up to the PA so that everyone could hear well. No doubt….I had compressed the music with Audacity to reduce the run time–sped it up 12%, then reduced the pitch by 12% so that it didn’t sound like the Beatles were still using helium ala “Oob-la-di oob-la-dah”. I don’t know if anyone picked up on it or not. Kinda amusing.
Went and paid the mortgages, and picked up breakfast at Hardees–hadn’t done the Evil Fastfood Breakfast in a while. At both drive-throughs had trouble with the truck wanting to overheat. Guess I need that new radiator to go with the new fan clutch. Oh, well…had to wait forever at both places–EVERYONE seemed to pick that time to go to Wachovia and Hardee’s. Went back to the workbuilding to eat and start setting up a couple of Macbooks for two teachers to acquaint themselves with over the summer. Worked on that a while, and then got called to the old gym to talk with the music teacher and someone from Gadsden Music about getting a decent sound system in there. As I told the music teacher, whatever she could talk the PTO into paying for (and we have a very good/generous PTO–really great folks, help out in a LOT of ways) would be fine with IT, since we have NO money for that–or much of anything else. Proration blues…we kinda did the Apple “Good-Better-Best” thing as to what we needed to do the basics, and what would be nice, and then what would be REALLY nice. I expect we’ll start with the “Good” and move up later. We’ll see. While I was over that way I waylaid the assistant principal and got him to help me take the big projection screen down and pack it away. MUCH easier/faster than putting it up. We loaded it on my truck (I had driven to the gym anticipating getting the screen) and took it to Central Office. Stayed there a little while and then went back to the workbuilding. Was doing this ‘n that, waiting on the boss to show up as threatened, then about 1:00 decided to go eat. Saw the boss’s vehicle parked at CO, so I went there. After waiting for him to get done with whom he was talking with there, we talked about the various things coming up, and the usual changes for the summer/upcoming school year. As usual, a lot of things that may/may not be feasible coming down the pipe, but we’ll do our best to get them working. Went to get a salad from Wendy’s and went to the workbuilding to work on the Macbooks a little more and try out the new video cards we got to replace the ones that wouldn’t do dual-video. We got two cards the same price, one ATI-based and the other NVidia-based. The NVidia had more RAM, so I hooked it up first (even though the documentation wanted the onboard video disabled before using the card) and it worked from the get go. Well, it showed on the boot, and went away when Windoze loaded, but that is typical. Loaded the driver from the CD, and dual-video worked fine. Started “Dr. Strangelove” running on the new card to be sure it could handle video (no problem) and then just for fun started another movie on the onboard video on the other monitor. (Both monitors were NEC 19″ LCDs–looked pretty good!) Kinda trippy having two movies playing at once. The sound tracks were a little confusing, to say the least. Got everything loaded up and went home around 4:00. Stayed around the house awhile, and then the wife and I went to Casa Fiesta and ate supper. Carried a good bit home with us. Went to Wally World and bought a few things (a few things more than we started out for, of course) and then went by the high school where I set the alarm for my boss. Some people had been working on some stuff there and he was supposed to go by and set the alarm after they were done, but something came up and he asked me to. No problem, in-set alarm-out again. With the detour on the way home from Wally World and all it took about 90 seconds. Went home and had a glass of wine and a couple of chocolate chip cookies (a teacher I had compiled/burned a bunch of videos for gave me FOUR different kinds of chocolate chip cookies!) and we went to bed fairly early.
Up and going now. Will try to get outside and rearrange the storage building some in a little bit. Hope your day goes well!
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