I just feel like rambling, so this is likely to be a very disjointed, ADD sounding post… ah well… :) Some of this will be “catching up” kinda stuff, and some will just be whatever pops into my head… deal… ;)
Let’s see… First off, last night, Kris and I make crispy chicken sandwiches from scratch… well, not, like, TOTALLY from scratch… the buns were bought, and we didn’t acutally raise the chickens, but you know what I mean… we breaded and fried them ourselves and, DAMN, were they good… hopefully we’ll be able to duplicate the results next time we have a craving….
OOOH, tomorrow Kris and I have tix to see Carbon Leaf playing at Starr Hill… Should be pretty awsome… I think at the last concert of theirs we went to they said they might be recording this show (and, I guess, the one tonight… it’s a two night gig) for a live album… that would be pretty sweet… or something… I dunno, I’m really excited though… :)
Hmmmmm… let’s see… Politics… I hate politics… I started to write a bit about the whole Terri Shaivo thing, but I’m going to refrain… There are tons of things that scare me and even more that piss me off about this whole mess, but I think most of all I’m just saddened that this woman’s final days were turned into such a media circus… I’m sure that’s the last thing she would have wanted…
Wow, that was a real downer… let’s move on to something more uplifting… Like geek stuff, that’s always fun… :)
The Car PC is still working pretty well. I forget if I blogged about it, but I replaced the original power supply and start-up/shutdown controller a couple months ago, with a unit that has both integrated together… That seems to be working out really well. It’s a lot more reliable than the old one (hibernate actually works now) and it made the inside of the case a bit less crowded, which is always nice… because of the way it’s wired up though, I had to change some of my power wiring around. The LCD monitor now runs directly off cars wiring, not through the power regulator… also, I had to pull out the power supplies for the wireless router, etc too…
I think my summer project is going to be redesign and upgrade of the whole system. Here’s some of the things I want/need to do:
- Upgrade PC to Windows XP SP2
- Remove TV tuner/antenna (I never really use it anyway)
- Add secondary fuse box with so that everything isn’t just running of the wiring for the cigarette lighter
- Devise new iPod mounting location, or install the iPod control option for my stereo (I need to see this in action first)
- Rearrange console so that the touchscreen is where the A/C controls are now, the stereo is where the monitor bracket is, and the A/C controls are where the stereo is (might now be as hard as it sounds)
- Find way to better ground system to eliminate alternator whine
- Find working wireless networking solution (current NIC causes PC to lock up… I either need to find a patch, or a better NIC that can have my antenna modded in)
- Investigate options for AUX inputs and AUX interrupts (in other words, find a way to deal with iPod audio, PC audio, and navigation audio all at the same time)
- Try to get portable broadband and in-car wireless working
- Looking into options for backup and under-car cameras
Holy crap that’s a long list…. We’ll see if I actually get to any of that… ;)
In other geek news, my wonderful (and trusting) girlfriend allowed me to install a iPod charger and aux input in her car a couple weeks ago… Once we figured out how to pull her dashboard apart it actually was pretty easy to install… I should have taken some pics of the assembly and install process, but I didn’t think of it… Kris didn’t want a fully mounted dock like I have in my car, just a cable coming out that she could connect the iPod to… What I ended up doing was getting a little connector (I can’t remember the name) that had the standard dock connector on one end and a firewire and line out on the other. I then got a mini-jack to L/R RCA cable (actually, it came with the connector) and a firewire cable to run from where the iPod would sit, to behind the dash. I put them together with some cool blue mesh wire sleeving, and put some heatshrink on the ends to keep everything nice and tidy… It actually turned out looking pretty cool… Inside the dash, I had to wire up an accessory cigarette light port for the charger, and then two adaptors to get from the L/R RCA to the CD chagner/AUX imput on Kris’ stereo… but once everything was hooked up (and once we replaced the fuse for the cigarette lighter, which apparently had blown sometime in the past) everything worked like a charm…
Ok… I’ve probably rambled enough… :) Though, I feel like there’s more to tell… I never really blogged about the trip Kris and I took to Baltimore over spring break (lots of fun, but kinda chilly… there was an Irish pub involved though, so that was pretty cool), or the adventure of trying to teach my dad to use a PC (we’ve gotten to e-mail, but not web browsing and IM), or things at work (kinda crazy, but exciting, and hopefully getting better once I’m back full time with one department), or FYP (I can’t believe tech week is less than two weeks away), or the updates to the website (I’m testing out google AdSense adds… and yeah, comments seem to be busted, *shrug* I’ll have to look into that) or, ummmm, yeah, I think that’s it… :)
Sigh, back to work I guess….