Monthly Archives: May 2007

Albuquerque Wants Free WiFi Citywide

The Mayor of Albuquerque wants free WiFi for everyone in the city.

a two-tiered wireless Internet signal covering the entire city that will support not just the basics of Web surfing, e-mail and the like, but phone service and video. Those two tiers are a free, 1 megabit signal for anyone and a premium service at 3 Mb for a “reasonable” cost.

Of course Comcast and Qwest don’t like it. I say screw ‘em. Qwest especially doesn’t seem interested in offering extra services and Comcast would probably force everyone to pay $10/month for cable before you can use it. It’s the technical issues and money that will keep this from happening.

One wireless provider estimates it would cost $25 million and would require a access point on every building in the city, I think that’s overblown. They cite the problems that Rio Rancho has had completing it’s network. I thought Rio Rancho had completed it’s network.

I hope they try it anyways. I could use some free wifi when I have to drive into Albuquerque

Don’t Fall For The Free Puppy Scam

Puppy scams are popping up in Arizona online and print classified ads, where the seller appears to be local and offers free English bulldogs or Yorkshire terriers. But when contacted by email, the seller says he or she is in Africa on a religious mission and promises to ship the dog overnight for a few hundred dollars.

Uh, that’s enough right there to raise the red flag on me. If I Couldn’t pick up the animal in person, then forget it. Apparently some people are not quite so savvy. savvy?

Link

UFO Themepark To Be Built In UFO Capitol Roswell, NM


It could happen only in Roswell. City officials want to help build a UFO-themed amusement park, complete with an indoor roller coaster that would take passengers on a simulated alien abduction. he park could open as early as 2010. The city has received a $245,000 legislative appropriation for initial planning, but the park would be privately built and managed. Requests for proposals will be advertised next month. City Planner Zach Montgomery said the project will cost “several hundred millions of dollars,” but a more accurate figure hasn’t been determined. A roller coaster similar to the one proposed by Temmer is currently under construction at another theme park for almost $100 million, Montgomery said.

Roswell considers a UFO-themed amusement park

Third Bear Captured In Albuqerque Metro Area

New Mexico game officials have snagged another bear in the Albuquerque metro area – the third in eight days.Residents of the Southeast Heights reported seeing a black bear at about 1:30 a.m. near a mobile home park in the area of Central and Juan Tabo.

Third bear captured in metro area – kob.com

Rapid Weaver 3.6 Is Released And I’m Switching

Rapid Weaver 3.6 was released today with some significant improvements. One of which is multiple categories in the blogging module. I won’t go into the whole list here so check out the MacUpdate page.

I’ve been watching the development of RW for a while and I think it’s good enough to use as my Blogging platform. Unfortunately there’s no way for me to import the 1300+ entries I had my Blosxom blog. It’s also missing a few other things that Blosxom can do, but does a lot of things it can’t.

A link to the old site is here until I can figure out a way to import the entires. The RSS feed should remain the same.

Install Of My Living Room Ceiling Fan

Living Room Ceiling FanI installed a ceiling fan in the living room today. It’s the simplest, most basic ceiling fan I could find, an 60″ industrial ceiling fan from Home Depot.

This fan is controlled through my home automation computer like the other fan. Unfortunately the only PLC compatible fan controller that exists is the Lightolier Controls Digital Fan Control (CCWHISPLC) which costs over $100, I have one for the kitchen ceiling fan and it works great. Besides the high cost of the CCWHISPLC it is also X10 only. I’ve decided to use a SwitchLinc V2 Dimmericon for the living room fan. Dimmers don’t make good fan controllers. They usually cause a humming noise and can damage the fan.

To eliminate the hum from the fan controller I could implement a work around by Ed Cheung. It’s a passthrough device that properly switches the speed without humming or damaging the fan. The cost of this device is about $50. A Switchlinc is about $45. Together I’m getting close to the price of the CCWHISPLC, but at least it would still not be X10. I’m still pondering this option.

The last problem with this fan is it hangs a bit low. My ceilings are 8 foot high and this one hangs about a foot down. I think I can cut down the 6″ rod about 4 inches which should help.

Late Night Visit By Rio Rancho’s Finest

I’m sleeping on the couch tonight because I have a bunch of crap on the bed. I get settled in and start to doze off when I get a loud nock at the door. That freaks me out. I don’t have unannounced visitors at the house at this time of night. I look through the crack in the blinds and I see a Rio Rancho Police patch.

Yikes! I search around for my pants. I open the door and there are two Rio Rancho cops with flashlights out. They ask my name then ask me if I know a few other people. Never heard the names. Then they ask how long I lived here, if anyone else lives here, etc. Eventually, they realize I’m not the droids they’re looking for.

Another lady comes out of the darkness with paperwork and they start discussing it. Not sure what was going on but I suspect they were trying to serve warrants. They ask me a few more questions then they decide to leave. I’m sure they also ran my plates since they asked if that was my truck.

I’ll give them this, they sure are stealthy. I heard several cars drive off but I didn’t hear a single thing when they came to the house, except for nock on the door.

Now I have to try to get back to sleep.

Kitchen Storage Solution, Open Shelving

When I bought this house, the first thing I worked on was the kitchen. I had hoped that I could keep the cabinets and refinish them up but they were in too bad of shape. I didn’t have a lot of money. I installed the majority of the cabinets that I could afford, plus I needed to do some construction before I could put all of them up. I used the Mills Pride brand from Home depot.

Here we are a year and a half later and I’ve have some money to put up more cabinets. Home Depot is apparently not carrying Mills Pride anymore, in fact Mills Pride’s website says it’s under construction. I’m not about to trash the cabinets I already put in and start over, so I decided to use some open shelving.

IMG_8402.JPGIMG_8400.JPGThere’s an area between the microwave and the wall I plan to nock down. I’m dying to nock down this wall, but I’m not quite ready yet. I really need some shelving here to hold food related stuff when I’m cooking. My “pantry” was next to my sink, which was an original cabinet and a pain to access. By placing open shelving in both of these locations I can easily access things that I use frequently and hide the rest in normally closed cabinet. I like steel wire shelving. Normally shelving like this is expensive so I used less expensive shelving normally used for closets and made them adjustable.

So far it’s working out much better than I imagined. Having the extra cabinet space and having easy access to spices while still having them off the counter has been terrific. Cost of materials for 3 shelves 27 inches long, 3 shelves 31 inches long, 12 brackets and 4 wall mounts was about $80.