I meant to cross post this at the same time, but here's my trip report from Las Vegas last week.

I had the luck of being sent to Las Vegas for a convention the week of Mar 25-29, so my wife and I decided that I should take a couple of vacation days ahead of the convention and that she'd tag along with me for the whole trip. We both love Vegas (were married in the Valley of Fire State Park) and it's our Anniversary month, so it just seemed like a great fit for us.

I researched ahead of time on coupons and such, which led me to buy the PoV from here. I'll give you a spoiler alert right away - in the 6 days that we were there, my wife paid for 2 meals. Everything else was part of a 2-for-1 coupon, so the book more than paid for itself. Now I just have to decide if I want to eBay the remainder of the book or if I'll use it on my next trip, which should be in August.

Since I was flying on company dollars and she was flying on airline miles, we were on separate airlines and arriving at different times, with me getting in early enough to go ahead and get the rental car and check into the hotel. My flight had a layover in DFW for a couple of hours scheduled, but as the plane was boarding (and after I even took my seat) it was announced that anybody who volunteered to give up their seat would get a $300 flight voucher and a first class seat on the next flight. Not being the son of a mother who raises fools, I hit the attendant button and let them know that they had a winner. Not even in Vegas yet and I'm already up $300! (The trip in August is personal, so I needed a way to pay for the ticket, anyway!) I still arrived hours before my wife so I picked up the hooptie (one of those Chevy HHR's that looks like a PT Cruiser) since it was all that they had left in the intermediate section, then checked into the Las Vegas Hilton on the Santa Anita package. After standing in line for 20 minutes to check in, the girl behind the counter told me that I could have used the Casino Guests line. I can never tell with these casino rate packages if I'm an "invited guest" or not!

I had a few more hours to kill before my wife's flight arrived, so I went to the casino and found the $0.25 Top Dollar machines that my wife loves and decided to put a $20. 15 minutes later I cashed out with $32. Not a bad start. Slots don't really do it for me, so I headed over to the Pai Gow Poker tables and bought in for $100. An hour or so later it starts getting sour for me and I cash out with $40. I take that $40 over to the roulette table to see how well I can pick the zones and manage to hit a number with $2 on it, so I'm able to cash back out with $86. May as well go back to the Pai Gow tables and see if the cards have changed yet! I buy back in with my $86 in chips and play for another 2 hours before I have to go pick up my wife at the airport. I cashed out with $126 before leaving for LAS.

Friday morning we got up and used the two free LVH breakfast buffet comps that came with the Santa Anita package - allowing us to save our coupon for another day. In all of my trips to Vegas, I'd never really ventured downtown, so we decided to do that today. We parked in the Fremont Street Experience Garage and walked over to the El Cortez, since they have the single deck blackjack. On the way to the tables my wife noticed the $0.25 roulette and since she's always wanted to play, but never at $1 per chip, we sat down and played for a while on this. We each bought in at $20 and once mine was all gone I got up and moved to the blackjack table. She was doing pretty well on roulette and was quite happy to stay there. I bought in for $40 and used the match play coupon on the first hand, which I won. I then went through a sequence of 1-win/2-loss series (3 losses in a row and I get up) until I had depleted my meager $40 buy in. I walked back over to roulette to watch my wife play for another 30 minutes or so until she was out as well. We walked over to Fitzgerald's next to try to use the Vue Bar appetizer coupon, but everything was a bit "heavy" - we wanted to go light on lunch since we were doing the Bellagio buffet that night. She found an older Top Dollar machine (2 coins max bet instead of 3 coins) so she played $20 in it and was disappointed that she didn't get a single bonus in that time. Oh, well, I think that's just how slots are. I only play them to appease my wife so that we can play some things together. We headed back down to the strip and hit the Bellagio buffet. We were both sorely disappointed - my wife is a huge seafood fan and their selection was much smaller than before, plus what she did eat wasn't all that good. Since I don't eat seafood at all, the Gourmet Buffet is never a good value to me, because I'm happy with carved beef and turkey - something available on every buffet - followed up with some mashed potatoes and a cheesecake for dessert. We tried to get our fill of creme brulee, or at least our money's worth, before leaving. We then walked the strip for a while and ended up in Imperial Palace to use one of the match play's on blackjack. I bought in for $60, lost the match play, and again went through just the right sequence of 1 win, 2 loss to deplete my bank roll in about 30 minutes. I joined my wife at some slots for a while and boosted the local economy by another $40 in the process.

Saturday morning we woke up a little late and decided to hit Terrible's for their breakfast buffet before going out to Red Rock Canyon. We used our 2-for-1 coupon, but later found out that when you sign up for their players club, you get a 2-for-1 as well. They had removed the omelet station from the buffet and the pastries were a bit stale, so unlike our usual experience at Terrible's, had we paid full price I don't think we'd have gotten our money's worth. Entertainment, however, was tossed in for free. We were seated next to a table of rowdy latinos that apparently decided that since most Americans can't speak Spanish that it was OK for them to speak as loudly as they wanted. At the center of this table was a man that I'll call Wannabe Mexican Gangsta (WMG). WMG had apparently already consumed about $12 of the $4-per-bottle vintage sparkling wine that is included in the brunch and the waitress was attempting to cut him off. He then takes one of the plastic champagne glasses belonging to another guest at the table, tosses the sparkling wine onto the carpeted floor, and then tells the waitress that his friend now needs a refill. The waitress gives up and gives him the refill. To top it off, WMG sets up a second glass in which to soak his shrimp. I can only assume that he thought the shrimp would absorb the alcohol from the cheap sparkling wine, but I also noticed him drinking out of that glass. There's simply no accounting for taste, apparently. After breakfast we went downstairs to play some slots and blackjack. I bought in for $40 on the blackjack table, lost the match play and again went down to zero. This is apparently not my trip for blackjack. I found my wife over at a slot machine called Rich Little Piggies, where she had managed to win a decent amount. I put $5 in the machine next to her and came up empty before we called it a morning and drove out to Red Rock Canyon.

When we were planning our wedding we had narrowed down our choices to two - Red Rock Canyon or Valley of Fire. I am SO glad that we went with Valley of Fire, because after being there, Red Rock Canyon was simply a disappointment. Don't get me wrong - I think that RRC would be awesome if I were wanting to climb and/or rappel it, but for just normal hiking and the sheer beauty of all the rock, I think that Valley of Fire is far superior. Just my $0.02.

After our drive through RRC, we stopped off at the Red Rock Casino. We both knew that the days of our staying in the strip hotels were coming to a close because of what we consider a slide towards the short term sucker profits (and the MGM Grand is such a stellar example of that) so we wanted to check out some of the neighborhood casinos in this trip. The 2-for-1 buffet coupon helped me get her out there, too. Before dinner she went off to find some penny slots and I sat down at Pai Gow for a $100 buy in. At our pre-arranged time of 5:30 PM I got up with $140 and headed towards the buffet. My wife had apparently managed to milk a $200 profit out of the penny slots, so she was in a good mood as well. We had the buffet but I have to say, both of us were rather unimpressed with it. Even with the 2-for-1 it was disappointing both in quality of food and selection. The desserts were some of the worst I've had. After dinner we went back to our spots - she to the penny slots and I back to Pai Gow. I shouldn't have gotten up for dinner - I buy back in with my $140 and walk away when I get down to $85. My wife managed to get another $50 or so out of the penny slots. We headed back to the Hilton and played a bit more before hitting the sack. I tried the new Mini Pai Gow table for about 2.5 hours and treaded water with $60.

Sunday we get up and use our 2-for-1 coupon at the Hilton for breakfast, then before checking out we each go to play our games. I sat down at the mini pai-gow poker table and bought in for $50. 2 hours later I got up with $80. We checked in to the MGM Grand (the convention hotel, though not where the convention was... yes, I know, confusing) and also traded out the my-money rental car and picked up the company-money rental car. Payless had a total of 5 cars left when I went to pick up the rental and as luck would have it we snagged the convertible for a no-fee upgrade. My wife then informed me that my driving days for the rest of the trip were pretty much numbered. Dinner was on another 2-for-1 coupon, this time at the Silverton. We were rather disappointed in their buffet, too, especially after seeing the "Chocolate is a health food" signs. The desserts were horrible and the entree selections were so-so. However, at 2-for-1, not bad. Once again we split for our separate areas - pai gow for me and slots for my wife. I again treaded water with a $60 buy in and an equal cash out. We both got pull tabs for signing up - my wife got 5,000 points and I got the mystery gift, which they were out of, so we planned on coming back before we left town.

Monday turned out to be a mostly free day for me as the convention only had registration to do. We headed over to Red Rock Casino to give their buffet a second chance and we were certainly glad that we did. The breakfast buffet was probably the best breakfast buffet we'd had on the trip. My wife and I both played some slots afterwards - I put $40 into her penny slots that she'd made so much off of and was lucky to walk away with $20. We got enough points between us to get a scratch card (we didn't know that you had to collect the cards on the day you made the points, so we basically lost 3-4 from Saturday night) that my wife turned in for some photo scrapbook. We then drove out to Sunset Station because for some reason I thought there was a match play this year, but I was wrong, so after my wife played a few dollars in the slots unsuccessfully and I made about a $20 donation to the Henderson Chamber of Commerce, we headed over to Green Valley Ranch. At this point we're definitely sounding like a broken record, but when we arrived she headed for some penny slots while I went to play Pai Gow. I had great conversations at the Pai Gow table and managed to even come out ahead (buy in at $60, cash out at $78) after about 3 hours. We then used the 2-for-1 coupon on the buffet and were completely impressed. GVR's buffet was by far the best we had during our trip. My wife said that the seafood was much better than even her previous trip to the Bellagio, especially because they had hot crab legs, rather than just cold, soggy ones. I myself made a few trips to the mongolian bbq station - at this point I was ecstatic to have something prepared just for me, but the food and sauces had an excellent taste to them. I love good Asian food, which is why I usually stay away from Chinese buffets. While still not truly authentic, it was really good stuff. The desserts were good, but not fantastic. After dinner we went back to our games for a bit and both of us basically came out even. We collected our scratch cards and got 4,000 points out of them.

Tuesday we hit the Rio for the breakfast buffet with the 2-for-1 coupon (it was fantastic) then I had my conference all day and my wife picked me up and we went back downtown. It was getting a bit chilly, so we decided to just go straight over to Main Street Station for dinner and not walk through Fremont Street. We used the 2-for-1 coupon on the buffet and I spent several minutes just looking up at the ceiling in that gorgeous dining hall. Main Street Station is simply a beautiful place inside - if only the exterior alluded to that. As I said before, my wife likes the seafood. I guess it just makes sense that she's not big on red meat. Well, Tuesday night is t-bone steak night at MSS, so she hated it. The steak was ok, but generous. Most of the sides didn't seem to have much flavor. The desserts were hit and miss - we once again found a dessert that looked like a mousse in a chocolate shell but tasted like you imagine used kitty litter would taste. At first we thought it was just the Red Rock's, but apparently there's a market for kitty litter mousse. Go figure. Maybe it's popular with the Wannabe Mexican Gangsta crowd. After dinner we drove down to the El Cortez so that my wife could play some more $0.25 roulette. I bought in at $20 again and blew through it in about half an hour. I then took my last $40 of the bankroll and sat down at the blackjack table, where I made my last donation to the Downtown Rehabilitation Fund. My wife's $20 lasted her until about 10 PM, at which point I told her that we really needed to go to bed. She started betting all of her remaining chips, but would keep winning! I told her to cash them in, but she wanted to play them all out. Around 10:30 we finally were ready to head back to bed.

Wednesday, our last day in town - I spent all day at the conference and my wife joined me for the last half of the day (open to the public and plenty of goodies being given away). We then went back out to the Silverton to collect my mystery gift and see what she could get with her 5000 points. We used the free tapas/dessert coupon at Mi Casa and the $15 of comps that we'd built up on Sunday night to pay for her dinner and mine was on the expense account. The food was excellent and I needed a wheelbarrow to leave the table. My wife then decided that she wanted to learn to play Pai Gow, so she gave me $40 and we each bought in for that amount. She lasted longer than I did, so I helped her with her cards for probably the last hour and a half. She enjoyed herself and now I think we have a table game that we can both play. We'll probably test that theory in Tunica this summer.

Thursday morning we used the 2-for-1 Bally's buffet coupon for breakfast and then headed to the airport for our separate flights.

So, for 6 days in Vegas, I was down about $300 give or take, but got that $300 voucher, so I consider it even. We both loved the neighborhood casinos and concentrated our play there so that we can try to get some hotel offers. I know that we won't get much on the small amount that we played, but you have to start somewhere. We're used to the Mississippi casinos where you can play $10 blackjack hands for 2 hours and walk away with two buffet comps and get the casino rate for your next trip. I look forward to the next trip!

Well I got up early this morning to head to Vegas and got to my BNA->DFW flight with plenty of time. The flight took off on time and was uneventful - I had an aisle seat and was able to snooze a little bit. I had a 3.5 hour layover scheduled in DFW before moving on to LAS. The flight was delayed for about 30 minutes while waiting on a crew, but we got boarded and I settled in to my seat - 25C. Then the announcement came - they were looking for a volunteer to give up their seat and in return they would get a confirmed seat on the next flight, lunch and a $300 voucher on American Airlines. Since my wife isn't arriving in Vegas until 9:30 tonight, it made sense to take advantage of the offer. I got up and walked back up to the gate where I was told that I wouldn't need lunch because I was getting a first class seat on the next flight. Yay! Of course, that was in theory.
I got to the gate for the next flight - scheduled for a 3:10 departure - and they were already oversold. The gate attendant showed some frustration at what the other gate agents had done for the earlier flight, but she said to wait and she'd see what she could do. It looked like I was getting screwed on this one as 3:00 came and nobody had volunteered their seat, but then they started checking on the seats that hadn't been claimed yet - one was for a woman in first class that got stuck with a later connecting flight. So, in the end I got a $300 voucher, first class on the next flight and still made it in time to get the rental car and checked into the hotel before my wife arrives.
Hopefully I can now take this voucher and turn it into a ticket to come back out here for DEFCON.

I had to go to Philadelphia last week for work. I packed on Tuesday night, checked the forecast, and saw a high of 55 F for Friday, so basically just a long sleeved shirt and I should be fine. I get up there on Wednesday afternoon and the weather is perfect. Over 70 F and I'm driving around Lancaster County with the windows down. Wow, I love this weather. Then the forecast changes. Now a Nor'easter is on the way in and there is supposed to be 4-7 inches of snow by Friday night. Well, that's ok, the class is supposed to finish early on Friday, so I can try to catch the 4 PM or 5:35 PM flight instead of the 8:10 I was originally booked on.

Friday morning I woke up, looked out the window and saw what I figured was rain. I turned on the TV and saw that schools were closing all across the area. Wait a second, don't Northerners make fun of us Southerners for closing schools? Crap, this must be pretty serious. I got checked out and started walking out to the car - eh, not too terribly cold for just having to walk 100' or so, and then I got out from under the canopy to discover a sheet of ice on the parking lot. Ugh. Well the next earliest direct flight home was at 7:35AM, so it won't do much good to head to the airport now. I make it in to class and the schedule is adjusted to allow most of us to leave at the lunch break around 11 AM, which I do. There are three wrecks on I-476 on the way to the airport - people apparently drove too fast on the ice, got into a spin and collided with a tree, or a wall, or another car. I dropped the car off and took the shuttle to the terminal. By the way, make sure you know if you're on US Air or US Air Express when you go to Philadelphia. They fly out of two separate terminals and oh, hey, they're not connected. You have to walk outside to get between them. Not so bad if the weather cooperates, but we've already established that it isn't doing so.

The line for ticketing is about 120 people deep when I get in it. I knew that since I needed to reschedule that I couldn't use the kiosks, half of which said "Out of Order" on them, anyway. It takes 2 hours to get up to the counter and I ask if there's any way I can get moved to the 4 PM flight and the agent happily prints out a boarding pass for me. Happy because I was clueless about the fact that nothing had taken off from PHL since 10 AM that morning. By the time I make it to the very end of the terminal where my gate is, they turn off the monitors. Ok, that's odd. Then I notice that all of the crews are coming out of their planes and walking towards the front of the airport. Uh oh. 10 minutes later they announce that all flights to and from PHL were cancelled for the rest of the day. I knew that it would be pointless to try to get in line to reschedule now, so I called the travel agent and had them secure a seat for me on the 7:35 AM flight for Saturday, then try to find me a hotel room. Oops, everything near the airport is sold out. There's a Hampton Inn 5 miles away that wants $300 for their last 4 rooms. I don't think so. Finally I get a room at the Hyatt downtown for $169 - if I can manage to get there. After 2.5 hours waiting in the taxi line, I manage to get a shared taxi that's going through South Philadelphia. There are two bright spots to this - first, I have a cab; second, we drove by Geno's. Even though I couldn't get out and grab a cheesesteak, it's always fun to drive by there.

I got up at 4:30 AM to check the weather and decide whether or not to go back in to the airport. The sleet stopped around midnight, so the interstate has been cleared off, at least. All other roads, though, are covered in icy slush. I got dressed and headed downstairs only to find that no taxis were coming by. Fortunately for me a private town car had been called for someone else at 5 AM, but then they called and canceled on the driver at 5:05, so he was sitting around fuming because of no fare for this hour. He cut me a break ($60 instead of the normal $100) on the fare and took me to the airport. At 5:30 I got in line for ticketing, about 60 people back. At 7:10 I got my ticket for the 7:35 flight and ran down the terminal to the gate. Once we got on the plane we couldn't get backed out, though! They tried the tractor, then the tractor with chains on the tires, and finally they had to chisel the ice away from the wheels to get us going. Never a good sign. Then we had to very slowly make our way across the ice covered tarmac to the deicing station. 3 hours later we were finally in the air and on the way back home.

PHL could have handled things a lot better than they did. US Airways could have handled things a lot better than they did. I left out a lot of crap that could have been avoided with better customer service - such as having one agent standing out by the lines to make sure that the kiosk users didn't jump in front of those that had waited for 2 hours - and there was a lot of that happening. The taxi line issue was just ridiculous. Anyway, I'm home and I'm leaving for Vegas on Thursday. I'm pretty sure I won't get iced in there, but even if I do, I'll be a lot happier about it.

Whew! Well it has been about 5 months so far, but as of this week I will be done with the IDCP Facilities Management course at Marist University. What the heck is that, you say? Well, it's pretty much the only certification offered in the industry of data center management. I already have a slew of other certifications that don't really relate to what I actually do. For instance, I've had my Novell CNE, my Microsoft MCSE, and have a still current Red Hat Certified Engineer certification. I'm also ITIL Service Management Foundations certified, which is a lifetime certification. Along the way I've had dozens of other product specific certifications that no longer mean anything to anybody. The IDCP Facilities Management certification has been an exercise in learning that a lot of what I have had to pick up "the hard way" doesn't really have a clean and simple solution lots of times. Only when you have the luxury of designing a brand new data center before the first check has been written can you make it somewhat easy, but that's just a relative statement. There's a lot involved with keeping all the facilities running that allow the computers to stay up all the time.

One of the luxuries that this will provide me is that I will no longer have to try to fit in quizzes, exams and discussion times during my small amount of down time. I've made it a goal for me to be ready to test for red belt in Tang Soo Do by the next testing period, which I believe is in April. That's pretty ambitious, but if I get back to going 3 times per week for the next 6 weeks I should be able to do it.

I ordered a Bo Staff and some protective gear for Tang Soo Do last week and every day since then I've been tracking the package. For days and days it continued to say, "On time for scheduled delivery on 01/25/2007," which was yesterday. Alas, it did not arrive. Now it says that it has been rescheduled for 01/29/2007. I guess it's being delayed due to all of the storms across the plains states (it's coming from AZ) but still, I want my toys!

Last night I went to class and my sparring pads had come in, which is good, because the instructor decided to do an entire class on sparring. I did learn some good new techniques that I'll be looking forward to using. I also managed to hurt myself, or at least help someone else to hurt me. I went to deliver a roundhouse kick at the same time as my opponent. I can still feel it in my left shin this morning. Ow!

When I lived in Atlanta (1995-1999) I had formed a lot of friendships through the internet - namely IRC. We hung out in EFNET on #atlanta or #atlantaga, depending on which channel had fallen to the latest skrypt kiddie exploits, as EFNET is so prone to doing. Anyway, I had a good friend who went by the name of Spastica, who ended up dating another friend of ours from the group, named CyberChrist. This week I received news that CyberChrist had died after a toxic reaction to wheat (Celiac Disease). I managed to find enough mutual acquaintances to get Spastica's phone number and gave her a call. It was good to talk to her, but I wish it was under better circumstances. To make the situation even harder, today would have been CyberChrist's birthday, so rather than cancelling the birthday party, they are continuing on but as a wake. A good old fashioned "Irish Style" wake (even though he wasn't Irish), where friend gather together and talk about the great times they had with the departed, have a few drinks, and celebrate the person that was. I wish that I could be there. The theme for the party is pirates, because CyberChrist always wanted to be a pirate. Though I only got to talk to him occasionally since I moved back to Nashville, I still have fond memories of the parties at his apartment, or his upstairs neighbors, out in Dunwoody. He was always hospitable and fun to be around.

Right before I got married I made one of my last big "bachelor purchases" of a 42" plasma television. It was pretty. Very pretty. For some reason I went against my regular routine and actually bought the extended warranty. Good thing, because 1 year and 10 months later, I started getting vertical lines in the display of various colors. I called up the warranty company and they told me that there wasn't a repair center for Middle TN, so I was entitled to a "comparable unit" or a full refund of the purchase price. Not being the child of a mother who raises fools, I took the full refund. Big screen tv's have come down in price significantly in the past 2 years, so with my refund I was able to get a 57" HDTV rear projection screen, an extended warranty, and even had enough left over to get a new lens for my wife's camera.

The warranty company had said that they would send someone out to get the TV. Six weeks went by and still no word from them, so I called them up. They then tell me that I can dispose of the TV however I see fit. Hrmmm. I wonder how hard it is to fix this thing? I called around to a couple of the authorized repair shops (closest one is 90 minutes away) and explain he problem. I'm told that the average cost for repair is $600-$800. Yikes, there goes my free "bonus tv". You can get a new no-name brand (just like this one was) 42" plasma for under $800.

A little Googling tells me that this is either a control board (blown transistor) or a faulty ribbon cable. I think I'll take the back off of it and see what I can come up with - I definitely can't screw it up any worse.

You know the best thing about cheap, yet wonderfully utilitarian parts? They're cheap and you get a lot of use out of them.

You know the worst thing about cheap, yet wonderfully utilitarian parts? They're cheap and you tend to forget the importance of remembering where you put them.

The MythTV box that I used to have downstairs in the living room used an RS232 IR blaster for the remote control interface. This was great, because I could use one remote control to handle the TV, DVD Player, and the MythTV box. I was using an old Comcast digital cable box remote, because it could control multiple devices and with the help of lirc and irw I was able to capture the codes for controlling a cable box and simply using those to control MythTV. Pretty much the same features as a DVR - up, down, right, left, chan+, chan-, vol+, vol-, menu and select.

Then it was time to upgrade. I upgraded my best MythTV box in the house with a shiny new AMD Athlon64 x2 dual core processor and moved the still-quite-nice Athlon 2800+ system down to the living room. The old living room machine was scavenged for parts and became my wife's new desktop - she finally let me upgrade her from that Dell PIII-750 that she'd been using. Anyway, as is the case with many manufacturers, MSI had assumed that nobody really used RS232 ports anymore, so they didn't put one in the MSI MEGA 180. Ouch. I moved my Firefly USB remote downstairs and figured that would be good enough.

Boy was I wrong. The Firefly is RF only, so there's no way to tell it how to turn off the television. WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) of the MythTV box went steadily downhill. So then I started researching remote control interfaces so that I could try to get a replacement. USB IR receivers cost in the neighborhood of $35-$40, which I thought was just outrageous. Not only that, it wasn't so easy to find them. Then I found the DVICO Fusion MCE Remote for $19 with the USB IR Receiver - I thought I was golden at that point.

Oops.

Even though the DVICO Fusion MCE Remote has a "power" button, it's not programmable. Even though the remote uses IR, the receiver apparently doesn't talk to regular IR remotes. I fear that it may be using IRDA, which a regular remote simply won't do. *sigh*

Then I found a guy in Hong Kong selling USB->RS232 converters on eBay for $.99 each with $3.99 shipping. Ok, fine, I'll buy 4, especially since the retail outlets want $20-$30 each for the things. Finally the converter arrived yesterday and I got it recognized under Linux. All I have to do now is plug in the RS232 IR receiver and load the configuration file!

Now where did I put that cable...? Yep, in this quest to find a usable IR setup for the downstairs MythTV box I managed to lose the receiver. At this point I guess I'll go ahead and order two so that I can also have one for the upstairs PC, but yet again I'm having to wait for a new part. Ugh.

Everybody seems to be focusing on the Logitech Harmony remotes since they'll talk to pretty much everything, but I don't have $250 to spend on a remote (the top of the line) these days. Even the low end models still bring in $60 each on eBay. Just out of my price range.

Machine information
This machine's load average:

* 1 Minute: 0.4
* 5 Minutes: 0.33
* 15 Minutes: 0.52

Disk Usage:

* Directory: mediaroom:/myth/tv
o MythTV Drive #0
o Total Space: 439,418 MB
o Space Used: 88,749 MB
o Space Free: 350,669 MB
* Directory: rohan:/media2/myth/tv
o MythTV Drive #1
o Total Space: 190,743 MB
o Space Used: 99,523 MB
o Space Free: 91,220 MB
* Directory: rohan:/myth/tv
o MythTV Drive #2
o Total Space: 50,560 MB
o Space Used: 2,249 MB
o Space Free: 48,310 MB
* Directory: livingroom:/myth/tv
o MythTV Drive #3
o Total Space: 50,543 MB
o Space Used: 34,530 MB
o Space Free: 16,012 MB
* Total Disk Space:
o Total Space: 731,266 MB
o Space Used: 225,053 MB
o Space Free: 506,212 MB


-----

Saturday night I cursed up a storm as the 250GB drive I had in my mediaroom MythTV box went belly up. Then on Sunday I looked at the sale ads in the paper and saw that Best Buy had a 500 GB SATA-II drive for $149. Now once I get my 250GB drive replaced (it's still under warranty) I'll have 1 TB available for recordings!

One may ask why I would need that much space unless I was pirating movies. One look at the 500+ real DVDs in my office and the 'pirate' part of that question goes away. Anyway, simply put, my son loves Sesame Street, and therefore, we love Sesame Street. Soon that will grow to another show, and another, but for now it's a good thing to have. Right now I've got about 20 of his favorite episodes saved, but still, that's not that much space. However, take the number of hours in a weeknight that we're home - roughly 4. Now subtract out the time spent feeding him, cooking dinner, and feeding ourselves - we'll call that 1.5 hours. That gives us 2.5 hours left to watch tv - but wait, he's in the room with us and even if he's playing, as responsible parents (yeah, right) we can't put on that episode of CSI that was recorded the other night... So we watch Sesame Street until he's ready to go to bed.

Right now we're back in the thick of shows starting back up after the winter break, so I'm recording a lot more than I have time to watch. The shows that I really like (Heroes, Jericho, Las Vegas, etc) get recorded in HDTV, which is up to 8 GB per hour. SDTV is about 2 GB per hour. Yes, I know, I could have it automatically transcode to a more compact file, but that takes so much time to do.

So it all comes down to this - Sesame Street.

I made some corrections to some problems that I found while giving my presentation on Friday and have posted the file online here.