Go Texans!

Texans 30, Arizona 19

Jacksonville 10, 49ers 9



This, of course, sets up the Reggie Bush Bowl on New Year's Day.

Hiding in plain sight.

I don't know how to feel right now.

There's something I've been looking for for three weeks. Something I needed to find for a special Christmas gift. Not just casually looking, but scouring the earth for. I've looked in every room, in every nook and cranny, of the house and garage. I thought it was at my parents' house so I even went back to Stockton last weekend. I brought back something and I was sure it was what I had been looking for.

But I found out this afternoon it wasn't. And all the frustration overwhelmed me, to the point where all I could do was lay on the ground and mope. Everything I had done and all the things I had tried were for naught, and I just felt defeated.

After just kind of sitting there awhile, I got up and went to my desk to take care fo some other stuff. And I found what I was looking for, in plain sight in the one and only place I should've had to look.

It wasn't that I never looked there. I DID look. Several times.

And I don't know how to feel. I should be happy. I should feel relieved. But I just feel like a dope.

Well, that should be only temporary. I'll feel better after I get to work on this "project".

Ho ho ho.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Random stuff from the past coupla months.

Unit 01 protects the instructions to my voicemail.


Sara can hardly contain herself on her first visit to the Cheesecake Factory for Uncle Ron's birthday.


A blurry shot from the Green Day concert. It looks like the band has spontaneously combusted.


I took this picture one day on my commute to show Rhonda how long I was going to be in traffic. Makes you want to move out here, huh?

(Yes, I know it's not safe to take pictures while driving. But it's not like the car was moving...)


This is my co-worker Rachna in front of the Sun Broomfield campus. She wanted me to take a picture because she'd never been in falling snow before. All that snow behind her fell while we were at lunch.


I put the books and DVDs in order in the library. It took over a week. My word, we have a lot of crap.


We also scored a rug on the Lowe's clearance hook-up, finally. It matches pretty nicely.


Lastly, Rhonda enjoys a birthday waffle at my mom and dad's house. This was after we had been to Target, Office Depot, Best Buy, and Macy's, so she should've had an appetite going.

Maybe I should rename it "Lazarus"...

I wasn't the only one sick. My poor neglected TiVo, FayeFaye, which hadn't been used since we moved (since it doesn't support HDTV), finally got booted up Wednesday night. I had been hoping to sell it to my friend at work.

Except it stuck at the "Welcome, powering up" screen.

I left it on overnight, thinking maybe it needed time for juice to get to the capacitors inside. Alas, poor TiVo was dead as a doornail.

So naturally, I cracked it open and did an autopsy (which is always fun, since the power supply is unshielded and I risk electrocution by getting anywhere near it). It turns out the 120 GB second hard drive I added was so badly fried it wouldn't even be recognized by my computer's BIOS. No problem, I took it out and fired the TiVo up.

Problem is, as part of the upgrade, the original hard drive needed the second to exist. It was like they were conjoined twins, except instead of sharing a heart they were sharing the OS.

Luckily, I still had the backup I took a couple years ago when I added the second hard drive. Lo and behold, after much tampering and swearing, the backup was restored. I put the hard drive back in the TiVo and did a "plug and pray".

And like that, TiVo lived again. Albeit with 1/4 of the capacity it used to have and none of the shows. Goodbye, 24 season 4. So long, Alias season 4. Farewell, Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Funny thing is I went through all that trouble, and I probably still won't be using it since it doesn't support high-def. Worse still, TiVo went nutty with rebates and these things are $50 now, so it doesn't even have much resale value without the extra hard drive. Still, there's a sense of accomplishment in raising the electronic dead.



If anyone wants to buy a slightly-used 40-hour Series 2 TiVo with an upgrade kit (but no upgrade), give me a holler.

On the mend.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for my health. First back pain (again), then the wonders of dry Colorado air, and now a sinus infection. I'm happy to report though I have five medications to take and at least one of them is doing something, because I feel a lot better.

It all started Sunday, when I returned from Stockton with some really severe burning in my sinuses. The roof of my mouth was irritated and swallowing hurt. I started loading up on allergy medicine right away.

Monday and Tuesday I was pretty congested, to the point where I could barely breathe through my nose. I got the hiccups about 50,000 times, which was really irritating. I would feel some nasty stuff in my throat, and I would clear my throat or try to cough it up. That would give me some brutal hiccups which would not go away with neither the time-tested "hold your breath" nor "drink water upside-down from a glass" without a significant fight. When they finally stopped, I could feel the junk in my throat. Repeat.

Tuesday night I was able to finally hock up some stuff. Problem is, it didn't stop. All night. Then in became just a dry cough. No more bronchitis for me, I went straight to the allergy doc Wednesday morning.

Wednesday I went through a box of Kleenex, but today I went through a lot less, and I feel a lot better.

Lesson learned: stay the hell away from Stockton...