Nathan Alter:

We had an area of the house on a particular circuit breaker switch.  All those outlets on the switch went out at once, but the circuit breaker wasn’t tripped.  There were no GFI outlets in that area either.  With these annoying tamper resistant outlets that builders are having to use to meet code, you have to jiggle and shake plugs to get them plugged in.  In this case, it probably loosened the wiring behind the outlet, which disconnected the other outlets, the electrician said.  Seems like the tamper resistant requirement was made without the hardware being ready for primetime.

I ordered a very tall mountain bike from jensonusa.com.  Tall bikes are a bit hard to find locally.  I wanted disc brakes because I figured they’d be easier to deal with than V brakes, which always seem to get misaligned.  I got the bike and it was mostly assembled, but came with gobs of manuals for the various parts.  They really need a quick assembly guide for noobs…there really wasn’t too much to do, but it took me days as I read over all the manuals.  I must have applied the brakes with the front wheel off at some point because the front brake pads squeezed together so that they wouldn’t allow the front brake rotor in.  That’s when I figured out I have hydraulic brakes that need oil.  I had unscrewed the brake assembly trying to get the pads apart and precious oil oozed out.  After lots of research, I found out that you just pry the pads apart with a screwdriver.  After finally getting the bike set up last night, I rode it a bit…had to get clippy shoes and all.  I’ll have to put more oil in that front brake, which will be another adventure.  Presta valves are a pain because the cores can’t easily be removed for sliming unless you get special tubes.

Have earbuds that keep falling out?  Try pulling up on the top of your ear when inserting them.

Evin and family came through town the other day and kindly took us to Annapurna’s.  It’s a kinda veggie/gluten-free/hippie Indian food restaurant.  I liked the chai and some of the food.  But it seems like the concessions they have to make to gluten-free kinda ruin some of the more traditional dishes.  Apparently, I loves me some gluten.  Anyway, it was great fun to go there with them and we found a great portabello sammich.

On the 4th of July, we drove out into the desert and a trail to the top of some volcanic rock hills.  Nice view of the city out there.  Saw a millipede and tarantula.  Later watched fireworks…big displays as well as illegal displays all over the neighborhood.  The legal fireworks these days in a city are just sad.  Would you like a fountain, a fountain, or a fountain?  How about a fountain?  You can’t bomb ant dens with a fountain!

I’m looking for a tall mountain bike with disc brakes so I went shopping yesterday.  There’s a new Trek store on Menaul.  They seem to have a good range of prices…from 200 something to the thousands.  More importantly, they have a good range of sizes in store…including the elusive extra large ones.

Sean and I took a bike ride out into the desert yesterday and finally found a route without sand.  The sand sucks the fun away, you see.  We found where they’re piling all the volcanic rocks from all of the new development out in the desert…as well as some illegal dumping.

Extremetech has a nice article right now on building gaming PCs for various budgets.  The Radeon HD 5770 sounds like it’s the card to get at the moment…if I could get myself to trust AMD’s video drivers.

It’s 2010 and Windows 7 is here. They’ve finally found a way to organize those pesky MIDI files.

I recently got what seemed to be a nice pair of ear buds on sale.  They were discounted from $100 to $20.  They had small earpieces that looked like they would fit well and even a durable nylon cord.  Unfortunately, they kept slipping out of the ears and had bad static problems on my cranky Zune, which reboots at the slightest amount of static shock.  They also got uncomfortable pretty quickly.  So, it was back to the trusty, cheap, and comfortable skullcandy ear buds I’d been using.  They may not sound great, but they stay in the ear, have no static problems, and most importantly, can be worn for long periods comfortably.  As with anything you buy on Amazon, try sorting the reviews by lowest rating and see why some people hated them.  If you’re going to have problems with something, it’ll probably be covered there.

Installing a toilet…the Home Depot video on the web made it look so easy.  Wait…”put a rag in the hole to stop the wafting of sewer gases into the house”?  Ew.  The video failed to mention that you’d be missing several wingnuts and washers from the toilet you bought at Home Depot.  That must be why the corner of the box was ripped off.  No inventory in the instructions, so you don’t notice it until you’re mostly through.  Ah well, we made do.  And a one hour home maintenance job took me only four hours…and I still didn’t finish…and the tank is leaking now.  Yay, fun!

This is more for other people having the problem, but if you get a Roku box and it connects to the wireless network and connects to your local network but doesn’t connect to the internet and you started using OpenDNS a long time ago, make sure you’re using OpenDNS’ updated DNS servers on your router, which are at the time of this writing 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.  I had OpenDNS’ old DNS IP address and it wouldn’t connect to the internet.  Use the new one.  That is all.

The keypads on our alarm have become unresponsive on the buttons we’re always pressing.  Some keypads work by having the button complete an electrical circuit.  You can test whatever keypad you’re working with by opening it up and touching the button contact with a piece of aluminum foil.  If it activates the button, you can glue a piece of aluminum foil over the back of the keypad over the worn-out activator.  Use clear fingernail polish or krazy glue…and generously apply it.  If it works, you don’t have to replace the whole keypad or  remote or whatever has worn out.

I wonder if compact fluorescent light bulbs were not so long-lasting as we were led to believe. I’ve filled the house with them and they go out quite often…more so than incandescent bulbs. I theorize that the average house has light switches that don’t provide even current as you turn them on and the bulbs can’t take any variation. Maybe there are better bulbs out there or something? Maybe some that can withstand fading.

UPDATE:  These things are going out all over the place.  They are Feit Electric flourescent bulbs.  Avoid them like the plague.