I’m still here, I promise…

Greetings one and all. It’s me…Scott. Do you remember me? I’m still alive and kicking. Since my last update, I’ve been rather busy with work and other stuff…but to give you an idea, I’ll tell you all about it!

I’ve been working on a computer mod project for a while and finally finished it. For it, I took one of the old style radios that are kind of just a wooden arch design, tore all the guts out of it and turned it into a computer (complete with new working switches and cool light up buttons). Yeah, it sounds totally cheesy, but it looks cool. Still not 100% done with it (still need to find something to do with the tuner dial area). What did I make it for? Well, I’m glad you asked…I loaded all of my MP3’s to it and have it hooked up to the TV and receiver…that way, I can play music through the receiver and surf the internet on the TV in the front room (if I wanted to, that is).

The day after I hooked all this up to my receiver/TV combo, a strange thing happened…the TV died. I’m not talking about “the colors were funny”…no, I mean, “it won’t even turn on” type death. Being the enterprising sort that I am, I decided I would try to fix it. So, I did some searching about on the internet and found out that there were two points of failure for my model TV…a $1.60 thermal fuse, and a $1000 ballast. Decisions, decisions…which to try first, right? Hah…yeah right. I ordered the fuse knowing full well that if that didn’t work, I would be faced with spending $1000 on a 5 year old TV, or roll that money over into a new TV. Well, the part came in gingerly wrapped in a bubble mailer. I had, wisely I thought, ordered two fuses just in case I broke the first one, and besides…$1.60 wasn’t enough to really worry about. Rook and P-did came over to try and help me “repair” the TV (well, Rook helped…P-did…well, he was there getting into mischief more than anything…then again, I can’t expect a 3 year old to be a wunderkind TV repairman). After a bit of soldering and disassembly, and then more soldering and reassembly…we plugged in the TV and, with everyone far enough away from the TV in case the back of it blew up, hit the power button. The green light came on and blinked…and blinked…and blinked. And then…the red light of doom flashed before our eyes. The simple fix hadn’t worked after all. Well…we decided that maybe we could have some fun in looking at how the TV worked, so we started gingerly taking it apart. We quickly reached a point where I said, “Wait…are we going to try and put this back together? I’m only asking because we are quickly going to reach a point where I’m not going to remember anymore where things go.” Rook just smiled at me and I knew…I just knew…this TV was never going to work again. After an hour or so, the TV was reduced to a pile of disassociated parts…and a Zip-Loc baggy full of screws. RIP Old TV.

The picture for this post is actually a picture of the new TV (a Toshiba Rezga 37” LCD…MUCH better colors than the old one) and to the right you can see the computer project in all it’s glory.

Yesterday, I got a wild hair and decided that Mt. Helena needed to be hiked. Bear in mind that the high has been in the 40’s for the last couple weeks. I started hiking from Base Camp, where my friend had dropped me off (I wanted to buy a carabiner). It’s not that far, really, from the base of Mt Helena, but it’s all uphill, of course. After making it to the trailhead, and starting the hike, I noticed a marked increase in the amount of snow and ice and mud and wind. Ooooh the wind. While I had planned ahead as much as I thought I needed to (my pack contained a jacket, a hat and gloves, a Nalgene water bottle, a small thing of matches (hey, you never know), and an MP3 player (who wants to freeze to death without tunes?!)), I hadn’t really dressed for the occasion (shorts, long sleeved t-shirt, baseball hat and sneakers). Well, I trudged on anyway and came to a stretch about 40-50 yards long of snow covered ice that slanted to the right…where a nice, non-gentle, tree covered, drop-off was. I looked back downhill, and then back at the ice. I’m sure you could see the indecision…continue up, or admit failure and go back down. I ended up going “4-wheeler” (hands and feet on ice and snow) and made it up past that area. No precipitous drop-off fall for me…yet. I finally made it to the top and took some pictures which, of course, didn’t come out well. On the way down, I decided to go the other way down because that 40-50 yard stretch wasn’t going to be any easier going down than it was up. The Prairie trail is a zig-zag trail for a while, tree covered and, wouldn’t you know it, icier for a MUCH longer stretch (about ¼ mile) than coming up. Yay. Instead of going down the trail, I just cut it all off and went straight down the hill, blazing my own trail (if any Helena Park Commission folks read this…I’m sorry for not following the trail). I finally made it back to Rooks house, where my truck was parked, went home and showered, and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Anyway, I am still alive, enjoying life, meeting new folks (more on this some other time, perhaps) and generally just having a good time.