Pandora is a free music service that helps you listen to and discover new music. Your friend thought you would be interested in the lyrics to “Take Me” by “Papa Roach”
http://www.pandora.com/music/song/papa+roach/take+me
Enjoy!
Changed the prompts at work from the Christmas intro’s to the New Year intro.
New Year 2010 mixdown
#thanks I’m thankful for the pain and sorrow so that joy and love are that much more meaningful and precious.
Curtis Kline / 301-876-0257
I built a “media server” last year, buying each part a little at a time. I’ll update this post a little later to share pictures of the build itself, but here’s what’s “in the box”:
- Rackmount Server case with secured front panel
- Intel DP35DP Motherboard
- Intel Quad Core CPU @ 2.66GHz
- 4GB DDR RAM
- 4x 1TB SATA Hard Drives in RAID 10 Configuration
- Windows XP Service Pack 3
Here’s some snapshots from the Intel Desktop Utility:
DirecTV HR22 HD Plus DVR
I am the proud lessee/owner of a brand new DirecTV HR22 HD Plus DVR! The install took place Monday and I’ve been breaking it in since then. With a simple internet connection I expanded my DVR “off-the-air” to DirecTV’s On Demand service. It works the same as a cable company’s On Demand service, except I can literally download anything that has aired on DirecTV. I downloaded the remaining episodes of Weeds and I downloaded season 3 of Dexter so I can catch up before it airs again this year. I have somewhere around 50 “series” set to record, and a few auto records set up for a few actors.
I also learned that you can attach an external hard drive to the DVR to increase the storage capacity. From what I’ve read this morning, the DVR holds about 100 hours of HD programming (or 400 hours of SD footage), and word on the street puts a 500GB HDD in there (from EngadgetHD). Not bad, but being able to download everything off the On-Demand service will quickly fill that up along with over the dish recording.
The only flaw I’ve noticed so far out of the box is some stuttering on playback of recorded content. Nothing horrible, but definitely noticeable. Some posts point to a bad hard drive, but the unit is brand new. Also, moving between menus is sometimes slow, but bearable.
The HD programming is amazing, but not everything broadcasts in HD; or if you are watching a HD channel, the program will be presented in “pillar box” (black bars on the side) format. I would prefer non HD content (or SD content on an HD channel) stretched to fill the screen. MTVhd seems to only broadcast 4:3 content in pillar box on their HD stream.
For only $16 extra per month, it is almost as good as my old Tivo was. I never had any playback artifacts such as skipping with Tivo, however.
I returned last night from another weekend in Eden. My grandmother is still in the hospital. She’s been in the hospital since Mother’s Day, May 5th. :/ Her chest port that they inserted when she was operated on for Congestive Heart Failure is not healing well. It is still draining and she is in intense pain when they change the bandages. She looks bad. Her muscles are deteriorating since she has been in bed for 25 days. I still have hopes for her recovery, but I don’t know how much longer her body can fight. She had a fever of 107°F, but it was down to 100.8°F on Sunday. They say she has a very strong bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics. It’s either at, or one step below MRSA. No one can touch her now without gloves.
My grandfather, however, is doing better. He had a heart attack on May 6th, but recovered. He went back to the hospital a second time because he thought he was having a second attack, but it was just acid reflux. Outside of that my time was spent visiting with my Uncle Tom, and Aunt’s Ann, Teresa, and Margaret, and my Cousin Sue.
I plan on going down to NC every two weeks; sorta like making up for lost time.
My CB works pretty well, but I’m still going to get a “bigger” (read: more powerful) radio so I can get a few more miles of coverage. I settled on my CB handle of “SUDO” (sue-dew), a command in Linux to gain administrator access 
.
Traveling on the interstate is a great opportunity for me to Track my Gas Mileage. I got an unbelievable 36mpg on the way down; but I don’t know how. I made it all the way to 220 (past Roanoke, VA) on only six gallons.
And, finally, I have an announcement. On Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 10AM; I smoked my last cigarette. I am currently supplementing my cessation cravings with Starburst and Skittles, two of my favorite candies. I’m also drinking lots of fluids to keep my body hydrated while I cough out the years of tar smoking has built up in my lungs. I am still getting cravings, and many people I’ve talked to for support say the cravings could last as little as three weeks, and as long as a few months, if not indefinitely. I’m wearing the Step 1 Nicoderm CQ patch, which is 21mg released over 24 hours. Each day, after I take my shower, I put on a new patch. I don’t have a craving when I wake up anymore. I don’t have to smoke on the way to work. I haven’t smoked at all today, and I didn’t smoke at all on the four-and-a-half hour drive back from North Carolina.
There is a wallet card that came with the patches that I carry around with me. It lists the reasons I’ve decided are why I need to stop smoking, or what I hope to gain:
Prolonged Life Increased Lung Capacity Not having to stop what I’m doing (or go outside) to smoke Save Money Restore Vocal Range (I’ve lost my high-tenor capacity) One less thing to carry around in my pocket everywhere I go Stop Coughing
Ironically, alcohol sobriety is not as important to me as becoming a non-smoker. I smoke way more than I drink, and in my opinion, smoking is slightly more damaging to my health than the occasional inebriation.
Busy signal after parking a call, or when someone hangs up before you? Want to enable intercom auto-answer? Try these settings on your Grandstream’s WebGUI under Account1:
Background: If you’re a Sirius Satellite Radio subscriber, you used to be able to listen online for free as part of your subscription. This was very handy if you didn’t want to have to set up a second dock in your office for your radio; you could just go to Sirius.com, enter your username, and password, and stream most of their music, talk, news, and comedy stations right on your computer. It was so convenient and, I thought, a very kind gesture to their loyal customers.
Maybe six months to a year ago, I saw an offer to “upgrade” my listening experience online to “premium” sound quality (128kb) for only $2.99 a month. I thought, “Sure, why not try this. I don’t mind throwing a little extra money at Sirius, they’re really great! And, if I don’t like it, or feel it’s not worth paying for, I’ll just downgrade and revert back to my “basic” internet quality.
Well, I wish I could tell you that the premium sound quality sounded as good as any other internet radio station streaming at 128kbps. It didn’t. In fact, I couldn’t notice any difference at all. But, I kept giving Sirius the extra $3 anyway for a few months. A few days ago I called into customer care to discontinue my premium internet subscription. I wanted to just revert back to the standard subscription. The rep asked why, and I said I couldn’t tell a difference between the premium and the standard. The rep thanked me, and disconnected the call, revoking my premium subscription.
So, today I tried to log in and stream Hits 1, only to find out that Sirius has changed the rules of the game, unannounced to me. You can now only stream their programming on the internet if you pay the premium subscription fee. They no longer include any streaming access with your subscription for your radio. I didn’t get a letter or an email, and the rep didn’t notify me of this change and try to keep my subscription active.
Feeling like the company has turned its back on its subscribers, I sent the following to Sirius Customer Care:
I recently removed my premium subscription to Sirius Internet Radio because I couldn’t tell a difference between the premium quality and what I had before, and I didn’t want to pay the extra $2.99 a month for something I only use rarely when I’m at my office. I listen to my Sirius radio in my car all the time when driving (and I drive a lot).So when I downgraded, it wasn’t until today that I found out Sirius had changed its rules regarding internet radio: it is no longer included with your subscription, even at the “basic”, non-premium bitrate.
Well, that’s lovely. I don’t recall getting an email or a letter saying your policy was changing and you were no longer including internet streaming with a radio subscription.
I’m disappointed that Sirius has made this move. I’ve been a faithful subscriber for many, many years, with minimal service interruptions. I’ve been enjoying nearly every channel Sirius offers, but this has left a very sour taste in my mouth. I understand charging subscribers who want to upgrade the sound quality of the internet stream, but charging all your current customers to listen to a lower quality stream? It just seems trite.
Thanks for listening,
Curtis Kline
Hagerstown, MD
Our current telco at the office is Fibernet. Luckily, I was still here finishing up some things and I noticed the old phones ringing as they do before they forward a call to the trixbox; however it sounded like three calls came in back-to-back.
Suspecting something, I tried calling the trixbox from our old phone system. BUSY. Oops. So, I tried calling a few other numbers, no issues. I called our other trixbox in Cumberland, and that call completes just fine. Something fishy was going on with calls to 304-579-xxxx. So I called customer support for the old telco and was advised they are having a power outage that affects service in our area.
I asked them to do a permanent call forward, but I just checked and the forward had not been completed yet. So, for now, just forwarding to our secondary trixbox in Cumberland.
