Dave Williams' Web Log

August 2010

comments to dlwilliams at aristotle.net newest entries at bottom

08/20/2010:

Up and online again. I've been feeling so poorly the last few months I just gave up on a lot of stuff, but now that I'm feeling better I'm trying to get some of the backlog taken care of. Of course, fall is approaching, and the arthritis is usually hell when aggravated by fall allergy season... nothing to do but keep on truckin'.

Looks like we're going to have to have a talk with the cancer doc. He wanted to schedule an appointment to talk about each biopsy or MRI, then have the MRI done, then come back for him to talk about it. Our insurance company is already being pissy about the four surgeries, and they're refusing to pay for those unneeded visits. I don't blame them a bit, but talking to the doctor's office staff makes talking to grass look useful.

Hopefully we don't have to deal with these people again, at least after it's all done. For an office with six (count 'em, SIX) receptionists... apparently nobody is delegated to answer the phone. All you get is an answering machine, and someone will call you back at their convenience. In a day or two. That's not exactly my idea of good customer service.

08/21/2010:

Still working on the Crack House. Well, occasionally, anyway. It has been over 100F and very muggy, and between age and illness I haven't gotten much done on it in a few months. I do have the south wall of the living room studded now. Yep; the wayward outer joist is pulled in with steel weldments, a wall header is attached to the outboard ceiling joist, and long Torx screws join the header to the wall and the joist. It's a bit hard to visualize, but the joist sat about half an inch inboard of the wall, and the wall wasn't attached to anything at all - the upper section just flapped in the wind. Now it's attached to a study T-section (2x4 screwed to a 2x6) near the top. I'll have to go up into the attic to add an attachment for the very top.

I understand that these were originally "temporary housing" for WWII war workers, and the houses were prefabbed and put up on site (I've found railway routing stickers inside the walls and floor panels) but some of the construction is beyond bizarre.

08/22/2010:

The old IDE DVD burner died. I seem to get about nine months or so out of one, ever since 2003 or so when it was a $250 4x CD burner.

The new burner is a SATA 48x. It worked for a week or so, then started making an occasional coaster. I'd noticed the discs were awfully hot when they came out... but that's normal, right?

Just for kicks I took the side off the machine and reached inside to touch the drive. Hot. I didn't think to use the laser thermometer on it, but it was too hot to keep a finger on very long.

After thinking about it for a while, I pulled the burner and removed the bottom cover. Some work with the drill and nibbler, and I mounted a spare power supply fan and made some vent holes. The airflow path isn't great, but I was limited by the way the drive was arranged internally.

I didn't much like the idea of blowing dirty air through the drive, but it was worth an experiment. So I plugged the fan in and burnt a disc. Perfect. The burnt disc came out slightly warm. Also, some "coasters" in the dead-disc pile were suddenly readable.

I guess the anticipated use of a burner is to make an occasional CD or DVD, install software, or maybe play a movie DVD. Burning several DVDs in a row exceeded the thermal capacity of the drive.