Steelers, Hogs, Hot Water, No DSL, and a 32-inch LCD....

Well, what a crazy weekend this has been! :-) Last time I posted, my folks' water heater had just let loose its fury, Auburn was supposed to clean house with the razorbacks, Big Ben was going to show 'em how it's done, I had Internet connectivity at the house, and our 26-inch, 12-year old TV was sitting in the entertainment center....

It turns out, my Dad pulled off one heck of a whizz-bang job getting the water heater swapped out and the new one hooked up. My Dad is like most Dads... Take whatever shortcuts you can to get the job done and Mother off your back.. :-) But, after seeing the job my Dad did, I was surprised at the care and thought he put into making sure everything was just right. I know I couldn't have done as good a job! Way to go Dad!

Most people that know me know I am not a huge Razorback fan. I am a Pittsburgh-born Yankee who moved to Arkansas and never left (By definition, a Damn Yankee). Over the years, I have come to enjoy watching and listening to the Razorbacks. When the "experts" in the state were talking about the whooping the Hogs were going to get, I knew we (Hogs) were in trouble. Instead, Arkansas showed the nation just how good they can be. I was very impressed - blown away, really. Awesome. LSU, on the other hand, got their butts handed to them. Not that I really care, but I do like LSU....

Which brings me to Pittsburgh and Big Ben... Look, when Ben came back at first, he had just gone through the summer after an accident and an appendectomy. We cut him some slack. The next week, we still gave him the benefit of the doubt. Last week, he didn't even have to play. I am a huge Ben fan, but my loyalties lie with the Steelers as a whole. Get Ben out of there. Charlie Batch won the first game, and Ben hasn't won squat. As a coach, you have your star players, I know. But, COME ON! Get Ben out of there and let Batch take a whack at it again. That's all I'm sayin....

Friday, I get home to discover that DSL is acting up. After some troubleshooting, I realize it is not my problem, so I call Centurytel. I know, they have a script they have to follow, and like a good boy, I worked the woman on the phone through the script. She was even polite enough to tell me that she could tell I knew what I was talking about but that if I could be patient and work through their dog-and-pony show with her, she'd get me the help I needed. It takes guts to admit to your customer that the customer actually KNOWS something... Anyway, the problem was not one that could be fixed remotely and we should have DSL by Monday noon. Turns out, everyone on our "leg" was out, and we all started calling to complain. Of course, that did not good since a field tech actually has to lay hands on the DSL service box, but at least they knew we weren't a bunch of techno-illiterate hicks... :-) I really got her when I mentioned that I traced to problem down to one set of IP numbers, which were the WAN (that is, DSL network) side of things. Maybe I should consider changing careers... LOL... I'm kidding.... really... i am...

So, while DSL was out, I needed something to occupy myself with... After spending Saturday in Texarkana (Emily went to a skating party - her first trip to the roller rink!), I decided to bite the bullet and buy a 32-inch LCD HDTV. As my son said, "Man, that is TIGHT!" The Steelers got their butts kicked, and I watched it all unfold (collapse?) on our new 32-inch LCD! Now, THAT'S football! Even better, it has a SVGA connector. In English, it means I can hook up my laptop to this puppy! Oh, yeah! I can't wait to try out a game or two!! :-)

Whew! And that isn't even EVERYTHING that went on this weekend! We played some football, played with the goats, Daisy, and other animals. We ate at the Cold Stone Creamery, had Sunday lunch (Shan made French dip sandwiches! YUM!), and I started reading about PHP Game Programming since the books I had ordered for my son's new pet project had come in. Of course, I told him he could read the book, install Apache/php/MySQL/etc on their computer and have fun learning it, too. I was not much older than he is when I first cracked the book open on a brand-new Commodore 64 and typed in my first few lines of code.... Man, that seems like ages ago now... And, now, you can run an emulator on your screaming fast PC that will run a Commodore 64 in a window while you surf the web, listen to your iTunes library, program a little php, and watch a DVD all at the same time..... Amazing.