Greg In The Desert

It’s hard to believe but as much effort as I have put into my home automation system I have not had an automated vacuum cleaner. I have always been skeptical of the Roomba’s ability to clean floors adequately. That mostly came from a few friends and reviews I read online.

I have been considering trying one out for myself for sometime and when woot.com had a refurbished Roomba 530 model for $129 I decided it was time give it a try.

My skepticism was unfounded. The Roomba 530 does an excellent job of cleaning my floors. I have been amazed at the amount of lint the Roomba has picked up (no more lint tumbleweeds floating across the floor). It also cleans up all the pieces of plastic and twist ties that the cat uses as toys. I am also impressed with how well it handles itself across uneven surfaces and untangles itself.

It probably helps is that my floors are all solid, no carpet or rugs and my house is pretty small. So far I have been able to have it clean the living room, kitchen, part of the hallway and bathroom in one cleaning session, or mission as the Roomba users call them. I think that the Roomba could also clean the guest bedroom across from the bathroom but so far it has some difficulty finding it’s way.

I have an automatic cat that kills all the bugs in the house and now I have an automatic vacuum that cleans up after the cat. Since the Roomba 530 model doesn’t have scheduling capabilities, I plan to purchase a serial port bluetooth module that will allow me to remotely control the Roomba from my home automation computer. The computer can keep track of how often the Roomba cleans and send it off on cleaning missions when the house is unoccupied.

This is turning out to be a historic year. My hometown team, the Arizona Cardinals, are going to Superbowl 43. What makes it historic is that this is this is the first NFC championship for the team. Ever.

Had they won one year earlier, they could have played in the Superbowl in Arizona.

In 1988 they moved to Arizona and played in Sun Devil Stadium. I recall going to at least one of those games. They have played poorly for a long time, it’s good to see them finally win.

Creative commons photo of a actual Arizona Cardinal bird by jhaskell on flickr.

p>It’s has been a long time since Smarthome has had a decent sale. They are offering 15% off $100 minimum purchase and free shipping if you purchase over $200. Use promo code E15OFF08 at checkout.

Offer ends 11/03/08 at midnight.

Sitemeter has received some unwanted attention this weekend when their tracking code was causing crashing on Internet Explorer 6 and 7. They have fixed the issues according to their weblog.

The problem was related to some work we were doing on the backend system for our upcoming website launch.

We’ve identified and resolved two separate but related issues -

1 – IE Users viewing pages – There was a problem with users who placed their SiteMeter tracking code outside of their HTML Body Tag. Because of the changes we made this created a failure for visitors viewing sites using Internet Explorer 7.

2 – Accessing SiteMeter and Stats – Individuals trying to access or view their SiteMeter stats by clicking on their SiteMeter logo/icons were unable to gain access. This again appears to have affected only individuals using IE7.

At this time both problems have been fixed and our services are fully operational.

For those who removed the SiteMeter code from your pages please be assured that the problem has been resolved and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

I also use Sitemeter code on my site but I stopped worrying about IE 6 working with my site a long time ago.

It’s taken me a long time to complete what now seems pretty simple. I can finally call the pocket door kit install done. Instead of going with a prebuilt frame that can be had at Home Depot, I went with a Johnson Hardware Universal Pocket Door Frame Kit. One reason I didn’t go with the prebuilt frame is because it looks like it’s not something I could take into the house and install by myself. The Johnson kit comes in a box and in pieces which were easy to install by myself.

I’m not sure how much the Home Depot prebuilt kit is, but the Johnson Hardware kit was $60 through Ace Hardware’s online site.

Next up, the electrical

For a long time the discussion has been more focused on when we would open, and we feel like now is the right time. Taos has a long-standing tradition of being family oriented, and now with so many young people snowboarding, we are turning away more and more families, particularly families that traditionally come to Taos. Opening to snowboarding allows us to refocus on being a family oriented mountain.

I wasn’t expecting this. Snowboards are designed in such a way that it’s easy to sit on your ass or your knees from an upright position. It’s those snowboarders that use this capability and stop right at unloading area of a lift or on a run, right where a skier is going and cannot stop quite so easily, that make them all look bad. Most ski lifts are designed for skiers, not boarders, which doesn’t help things either.

About half the people I know use snowboards, at least I can go to Taos with them now. I will never forget the last time I was there, I lost my very favorite Canon S500 digital camera somewhere on the slopes.

I’ve wanted a Delorean for a long time. Probably because I saw it on Back To The Future. I saw one for sale for $10,000 about 10 years ago. I should have bought it.

Looks like I might have the chance to buy a new Delorean. The people who took over the Delorean Motor Company in Texas are considering starting production again. Right now they do frame up restorations that cost about $40,000.

With 200 of the original 2.8-liter V-6 engines still in stock and facing a dwindling supply of cars suitable for rebuilding, Espey figures that within a year or so they’ll start making the cars from scratch. Their manufacturing plans are modest — maybe 20 or so cars a year. But it would be quite a comeback for a car that was given up for dead more than a quarter of a century ago.

It’s been a long time since I had a aquarium set up. I was given a Eclipse tank for free and I have the perfect place for it right next the fire place.

I still have some work to do to the lighting. The original eclipse hood was broken and ugly, I ended up throwing that away and putting a regular glass hood on. I also need to clean up some of the calcium build up. I also ordered a inline heater to go along with my fancy canister filter.

The first fish will probably be bala sharks (Balantiocheilus melanopterus), they are very hardy and can tolerate the conditions of the new aquarium. From there I will probably put in a algae eater (Gyrinocheilus aymonieri), then freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum).

I’m not surprised by this. At least they are keeping Atlantis and there’s always the movies to look forward too.

SCI FI Channel confirmed that it will not renew its record-breaking original series Stargate SG-1 for another season, but will pick up its spinoff series Stargate Atlantis for a fourth year. SG-1 aired its 200th episode on Aug. 18, and the SF series is the longest-running SF show on American television.

Ten years is a long time to try to keep the story line fresh and I’m sure the actors don’t want to keep playing the same characters for another ten years.

Caught this via Fark, things more expensive than Gas. Although gas hasn’t been $1.39 a gallon, even in Albuquerque, in a long time there’s still lots of things more expensive than Gas. The problem is we don’t consume most of those things as much as we do gas. I consumed 694.65 gallons in the last year (which comes out to about $0.12 a mile), not nearly as much as I consumed in Shampoo (I don’t use Head & Shoulders but something close).