GeezLouies.net

Was looking through craigslist for random stuffs. Saw someone selling an Ipod for $25… the only thing was the LCD screen was shot. So my first gut instincts was “trouble, yet interested.” You can’t beat a deal. So I email the guy for more info. I’m still a little hesitant, but it is such a good deal.

We decide to meet at Jerry’s sub in Fair City Mall at 7PM Monday night for the exchange. But wouldn’t you know, we had guests visit us. Friends we haven’t seen in a while, they stay and chat… by the time they leave, it’s about 6:59PM. I’m sweating… my $25 Ipod is waiting at Jerry’s and I’m about half hour away. I call him real quick and reschedule to meet him the next day. He was pissed, but I guess he wanted to unload it. I find out he’s a college kid that just bought a newer Ipod. Anyways, he agrees to it, and the pickup went without a hitch. So everything worked on the Ipod except for the screen.

I go straight to Ebay to see if anyone sells screens. Of course, lots of screens for sale. So I order one… then noticed that that they charged me sales tax… which means the seller is in Virginia. I email the seller. He lives in Alexandria. Okay, I work in Alexandria… I ended finding out that he used to work at my current work. He quit and is headed down to FL. Anyways, he lets me pick up the new LCD screen and gives me a quick tutorial on how to open up the Ipod.

So that same night… I decide to fix it. I first watched the video at http://www.ipodhowtovideo.com/video/videolcdreplacement.html. Of course it only takes that guy five minutes to fix it. How hard can it be? I spent about 30 minutes trying to pry the ipod open. It’s much harder than it looks… but I manage to do it even after breaking the soft pry tool the guy gave me. Success!! Anyways, installation was much easier than expected. The only hard part was opening the darn thing.

So for future reference… If your Ipod is having issues… fixing it is much easier than you think. Parts are found on Ebay and all you need is time (patience), steady hands, and guts (there’s risk you will destroy your ipod)…

That is the story of my $25 Ipod. And it works!!

One Ring
Well, here’s google’s attempt to gain another foothold in conquering the world. They have one ring to rule them all. Grand Central users have now been upgraded to Google voice. Invites are not available yet, but the features are quite rich… You have voicemail, SMS, ability to transcribe voice mail to text, 1.00 of free credit. They have this feature called ListenIn which allows you to listen to voicemail being recorded. You can either pick up or just let the call be recorded… similar to screening answering machine.

I’ve connected my wife’s cell, my cell, and my office number to the number google gave me, so that whenever someone calls that number, all our phones will ring. You can also set it up so that only some ring or have the person directly sent to voicemail.

I’ve also included a link on Geezlouies.net so that you can call me. No international calls yet.
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The Loaner
When the gas prices were around $4 everyone wanted a way to save money on gas. People started driving more conservatively and even went to the extreme of hypermiling. A friend of mine used the scan gauge until he got a Toyota Prius. Since the Prius already has a built in display for MPG and other fun facts, he lent the scan gauge to me to try (which I have yet to return).

You can buy this online for about a hundred fifty bucks. You attach it to your OBD-II port usually found underneath the dashboard (ours is under the driverside). I tried it for the first time today and to my surprise I don’t drive as efficiently as I originally thought. Here are a few observations of the trip home from Springfield to Centreville VA according to the device on our automatic, six cylinders, 1999 Nissan Quest minivan.
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So with the renovation of our house came a home warming gift of a brand new Visio 42″ flat screen television. Of course you don’t want to watch analog with that so we needed an antenna. I plugged in our old rabbit ears what we borrowed from a friend at church but haven’t returned yet. We were able to get Fox and ABC intermittently, and also the MHZ channels which included Russian, Chinese, and South African channels as well as the ION (formerly known as PAX) TV, these channels included ION, Qubo, and Worship channel.

We wanted the regular NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX so I ended up going to Best Buy to buy an antenna. Because I was on a budget, I didn’t want to spend more than fifty bucks for an antenna. The first one I bought was the RCA Amplified HDTV Antenna. I got it on sale for $39.

It was flat and pretty stylish, but it all it did was get a more stable ABC and Fox, but CBS was intermittent and NBC was non-existent. I looked up some more resources on the internet about signal strength and direction of the antenna, but still couldn’t get what I wanted.

So, I actually went back, returned the RCA antenna and picked up another one. This time it was a Terk – Amplified Indoor antenna. I bought one for around $44.

This did a little bit better, but we still didn’t get channel 4. It has a nice swivel base that allows you to adjust the antenna as you wish. But I was getting desperate, I didn’t want a $50 antenna that didn’t get me any stations.

So I looked online to see if they had any resources for building an antenna.

I found this on the makezine. It involves making an antenna out of coat hangers. I ended up cannibalizing our old rabbit ears to get the 25-75 Ohm transformer to connect with the coax cable, but other than that everything was made from scratch. Unfortunately, we just recycled most of our metal coat hangers at the dry clean, so ended up using left over copper wire cable taken from the renovations.

I’ll post actual pictures of it when I get a chance, but needless to say, I was able to not only get NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, (as well as MHZ and ION) we also got all the various PBS stations, spanish channel and a bunch of analog signals… I saved myself 50 bucks, and only had to borrow my mother’s drill to build this project.

Instead of attaching it to a iron pipe, I took one of our pole lamps and attached it there using some left over coat hangers.

Do yourself a favor and build one… and if you still have the receipt to your old antenna, return it to the store.  You should have all the materials at home and you will be amazed at the results… Happy watching!

(p.s. my wife is pressuring me to get cable)

So we’ve been out of the house for about a month. Things have been progressing pretty well. Cabinets, countertops, appliances, bathroom, tiles, bathtub, shower, sinks… all have been done. But there is still a few things to touch up. And lots of cleaning needing to be done.

DIY ELECTRICAL
So I had to do a little electrical work. It’s funny that after four years studying electrical engineering, I never got any real practical experience being an electrician. What DID I do in college? Anyways, there are some pretty simple stuff you can do without being an electrician. First thing of course is to look at how the wiring works.

Rule#1 Study what actually works and then apply to whatever doesn’t work. First rule of DIY Electrical.

I’m not sure if the thing is up to code or not, but it sure felt great to have electricity surging through my body. Thanks to the circuit breakers for saving my life multiple times today. I didn’t have a multimeter on me, so instead of just going out to buy one, I decided to test each wire to see what they did. I left the breakers on. Closed circuits are the most fun because whatever load you have turns on. For example the living room fan was wired incorrectly and couldn’t be shut off. That was an easy fix. I just looked for the two wires that created the closed circuit, opened it, connected them to the switch and voila, a quick fix. I accidentally touched some of the metal when the circuit closed creating a tingling sensation that went through my body.

Rule#2 Trial and Error is probably not the best way especially if you have no idea what you’re doing…

There were a couple three way switches meaning that a light or some other load can be switched on/off at two locations. This was a little bit harder because there were more wires+ground. The wiring was old, so I had to replace them with newer wires. That’s an easy fix if you have those while connector things you just twist on. Anyways, it took me a while to figure out what turns on and what turns off. I also had multiple times touched the ground to another wire… shorting the circuit and creating a nice light show. Thank God for circuit breakers because I could have been in deep trouble. I mean six feet under deep. :P But it was a fun day where my life was at risk…

Rule#3 Make sure your circuit breakers are working.

SHOCKED
This is what happens when you do electrical work yourself.

IRONY
I thought this one was extremely ironic. Probably the only box that got smashed during the renovations.