Our pets!?

Currently I have a bit of a zoo at home. One dog, Rags, he is a basset hound and three cats; Simon, Penny, Zoe that are aged 7, 3, and 3 months respectively and one fish. So last night my sister calls me and asks if I can take her cat Charlie, who is about a year old, until she can find him a nice home. I have not decided how this will go.

They say that people with a pet live longer and with less stress. I wonder what that study would show for people with 4 pets. Having a small zoo can be a bit of a stress of its own. Like you’re trying to sleep and the cats that have been pushing you out of their way all night now decide they don’t like being this close to each other and they all fight it out for the right to stay on the bed. Even though the cats love you dearly at this point you are expendable for warm spot on the bed. Now you have to decide if your injuries and wake level are enough to get up and spend 5 minutes kicking everyone out of the bedroom.

I will try and post some pictures. I of course have a lot.

Logitech remote control

Finally there is a remote control that is close to having it all and for the right price.If you have a home theater system at home and have the typical, Stereo, TV, DVD, CD player, DVR, HD Sat box, you get the Idea. Than you know that the remotes that come with those components will control other devices but none of them will control all of them. If they do control all of them there is usually one or a few buttons missing.

I recently got a Logitech remote. It works great and the best part it is configured on your PC through a USB cable. From the web you get updated firmware and new IR codes as new components come out. I have not found an IR device in my house that this remote can’t work. The only problems I have had with it are:
1. The off button has to be pressed hard to work. (this button turns everything off)
2. I told the remote that the volume is controlled by the stereo but if I select DVD to get to the extra DVD buttons the volume buttons try to control the DVD player. I have to press the “Watch DVD” button again before the volume button goes back to stereo.

Logitech has come out with another remote the Logitech Harmony 880. The remote is black and silver with color LCD screen and rechargeable batteries and recharging stand. There are other remotes like this but this one is only $250. Others like the Phillips pronto are $500 or more and most are not pc programmable. Here is a good review of the 880.

Great Week

This week has flown by. Monday was a holiday, worked from home Tuesday and Thursday and today is Friday. Each day this week I had to look at the clock to see what day it was and each day my guess was wrong; luckily my guess was earlier than it was. It sucks when you think it is Thursday and it is Tuesday.

This is the last weekend before the summer semester at school starts. I am only taking one class this summer and the winner is Calculus 2. Which should be a blast! (I hope you don’t believe me.) I should be able to get homework done on time since I am only taking this one class. We will see.

Computer delivered!

I purchased a computer for my mom and was able to deliver it to her last weekend. It is a pretty good computer and should last them a long time. She was very happy to finally have a computer where she could email and chat with her family. My mom’s family in MN talks to each other quite a bit in email and she was missing out. It is amazing how much you miss if you don’t have email. It is so easy to drop people a quick line or note about what is going one. A phone call requires you both to be on the call at the same time, and you have to stop and think if I call now what is that person going to be doing.

I use email to send general information about stuff not so much about what I am doing. At least I now get to send that same information to my mom.