Category Archives: Christmas

UPDATE: Oh yeah, my blog. . .

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I’ve been focusing more on photography again and neglecting my blog. I’ve been chasing after wildlife, and trying to get my gigs of photos at home sorted, tagged and uploaded to flickr. When I first started, I didn’t have a good plan for keeping my photos sorted, so now I’m paying for it. Thanks to Adobe Bridge CS3, I’m making short work of it.

I’ve also been experimenting with geotagging, or the correlating of GPS data with the exif data of photos. I think I have a semi working method involving a laptop in the car running Delorme Street Atlas 2008 and some great software available on both Mac and PC. There are much better ways to do it, but this method used existing hardware/software to my inventory to proof the concept without paying out any monies.I’ll elude to writing something about it at a later date, but don’t wait holding your breath, o.k.?

Finally, I’m angrily waiting for the Amazon Associates program to pay me for the referral fees from you folks shopping through my store. For 4 straight months now I have far exceeded the minimum amount for payment, and received no payment to date. I’ve been fed “We’re looking into it” for 2-3 weeks now and latest inquiries have gone unanswered. I’m sure an in depth write up will occur soon as well.

As far as the Dude you’re getting a Dell story, things turned out ok in the end. Anonymous got the machine, albeit by driving from Concord to Portsmouth to pick it up at the DHL location the Saturday before Christmas. Where he was in line with other folks picking up their Dells. A long and frustrating tale goes along with that, but it’s a new year. He also got a small refund for the annoyance.

So as I eluded, I’ve been taking photos, so here are some of the latest.

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Dude, you’re getting A Dell SCREWED!

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This list of events comes from a coworker that is trying to get a nice present for Christmas.

Good luck dude.

Dec 8, 2007 – Purchased a Vostro 1500 from the Dell Outlet Store online. Good deal – $609.00

Dec 11, 2007 – Laptop arrives quickly. Looks like a nice machine. But, the battery wouldn’t stay locked into the machine. It looks like there are two clips that hold it locked into the case, but they’re broken off..

Dec 11, 2007 – Called support talked to Patrick, who sent me a replacement battery. He was apologetic, Patrick tells me he’ll call to follow up to confirm that everything is ok. I packed up the laptop and waited for the battery.

Dec 11, 2007 - While packing up the laptop I took a look through all the accessories. The power cable they sent me doesn’t fit into the power adapter. The cable is a standard monitor/pc power cable. Uh what? Did anyone check this thing out? Broken battery and incorrect power cable?

Dec 11, 2007 – Called support AGAIN, talked to Arvin. Arvin walks me through the same stuff again and looks up the cable and sends me the cable. This is getting annoying – especially the explanations about getting put on hold. Yes, I know it will take a little while. Yes, I’ll hold on. Yes, YES YES!!! Just GO DO YOUR WORK! I understand the concept of being put on hold. This is not new to me! I’m interested in getting off the phone sometime today so please go do whatever it is you need to do!

Dec 12, 2007 – Battery arrives. It has the clips intact and works. Though it only has two bars of charge left – the clip-less battery was full. So I can’t do much since I can’t charge the battery – remember… no power cable. Doh!

Dec 13, 2007 – New cable arrives. Guess what? It’s not the right cable. This one has three rounded prongs. I need two rounded prongs without a ground, that’s angled and plugs into the adapter. They sent me Dell Item Number 5N020. This shouldn’t be this hard. Hell, the guy even checked my original order to find the cable that goes with the adapter’s correct part number. That’s pretty logical right?

Dec 13, 2007 – Called support again, talked to Tammy. Tammy apologized again and says she’ll find the right part number and send me the correct cable. She says the cable will ship overnight today and I’ll have it tomorrow. She also tells me that she’ll call to follow-up as well. I wait. Again.

Dec 14, 2007 – Tammy calls to tell me that the package shipped overnight and would be arriving today. Great, that was nice.
Dec 14, 2007 – Power cable arrives. It’s the SAME incorrect cable. Again. Wow! Could this be worse? This time I received Dell Item Number K2490.

Dec 14, 2007 – I called again and talked to Suresh. He offered to have a 3rd replacement cable sent. Yeah about that third cable…. No thanks. At this point I want a whole new power adapter and cable set sent. This thing is a gift and I want it to work before Christmas. What’s the change that I get a 4th incorrect cable? Pretty high in my estimation.

Dec 14, 2007 – He put me on hold to check with his supervisor and came back to tell me that a power adapter and cable "set" was going to take 1-2 weeks to ship. What What WHAT? I questioned whether all new Vostro laptop orders were now delayed a 1-2 weeks because they were out of power adapters. Of course not. But my adapter wasn’t part of a new machine, so those are delayed. Are these not the same power adapters? Is this the difference between ordered a refurbished vs a new system? Did anyone even CHECK this laptop and its accessories?? So I end up with 1-2 weeks. Yeah that’s not gonna work. I explain that 1-2 weeks isn’t an option.

Dec 14, 2007 – So he says he’ll sent the replacement cable. Fine. Whatever. I make a point to ask for the dell item number. I was told the item was number DF771. I ask him if he’s got an image of this thing, so he can describe what it looks like. No such luck. So, I tell him to hold as I do his work and search the internet for a picture. At this point I want to see the damn thing, before he ships it. It looks right.

Dec 14, 2007 – Suresh tells me I’ll get the cable in about a week. WHAT? A week.? Prior to this everything was shipping overnight. I questioned why it would take a week and he told me he could not be certain that it would come in 1-2 days. Ok so "I can’t be certain" about 1-2 days means I guess he can safely say "in about a week". I have no choice at that moment, but to accept to have a 3rd replacement cable sent, Fine. Send away. I’m not holding my breath.

Dec 14, 2007 – At this point this is just stupid. Was this laptop even checked? How could it have been certified refurbished with a broken battery and the incorrect power cable? If this had been taken care of swiftly, I wouldn’t be so annoyed or question the purchase as much. But this was just stupid. I went online and requested an RMA. I’m now waiting for confirmation.

Dec 14, 2007 – To make this crazier, I still need a laptop. So I check out a few deal sites and low and behold the same laptop is currently selling for $50 bucks LESS than the refurbished piece of garbage I got. And its NEW!!! Vostro 1500 $549! Save $410 instantly, it’s a better deal all around. It’s the same laptop and this machine had a larger hard drive to boot – 160gb instead of 120gb. I added another gig of ram and pulled the trigger. And now… I wait. Again.

What could Dell do to convince you to remain a customer?

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Faces of Christmas

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Last night I was stuck in Half Life 2, part of The Orange Box for my Xbox 360 (Just Buy it if you can). When I paused it to take a breather I started looking around at our decorations and realized just how many icons we have for the upcoming Christmas holiday. Some even argue that Christmas isn’t even the “High Holiday” if you will, stating that Christ’s Resurrection could arguably be the more defining moment for Christianity.

Either way, I decided I should document what we had in the house that could be icons of the holiday. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Kwanza.

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Belated. . .

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I’d make a horrible Dad. I know it. Know why? Got any clues? Well, in 2006 on 10-25 at 9:57 P.M. I posted my first article here on Brickblog. Why, I remember when this blog was still in diapers, I was excited to get 1 visit after posting oh so many articles. To date, I’m up to 4,694 visits since I installed Google Analytics (November 9, 2006) to track such things. Truly amazing. What’s even scarrier is when I analyze what kinds of articles bring people to my site, I see when you search for d40 vs d70 my site comes up #1 in google.

So lets think back to what brought this blog to life. . .

Oh thats right, those damn raccoons. They’re still around, in fact I had great fun, ehr, I mean I was left no other option, then to shoot one a couple weeks ago with my paintball gun while I had the electric fence repurposed on the garden for the summer.

But of course, I wouldn’t be here with such an audience if it wasn’t for my peeps. Those folks that both read my insane ramblings, and those that link to my blog. So since I can’t thank every single one of you by name, I’ll be certain to report out what WordPress tells me are the good folks linking to my site.

Thanks!


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Whee!

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Christmas shopping wraps up early for some. . . While out running errands this morning, it was pouring. So when at one of greater Somersworth’s strip malls I pulled the car up to let Amanda in without getting wet. I jokingly roled down the window and told her she could get in only after she walked down to the game store and bought me a Wii. . .

After starting to drive away a few times when she came to the door, I let her in the car. A few jokes later resulted in pulling back into a parking spot and going in to the store. The next few minutes turned to a blur. I asked the sales associate how much a Nintendo Wii costs, if they had one in stock. The reply was a bit shocking. He told us the price, and said they had a few out back. Amanda then looked at me and said, “sure, if thats the only thing you want for Christmas.”


Note, when I posted this, this linked to way over-priced Wiis.

I bit. We brought it home, and considering the 7-day return policy we tried a game of Wii Sports bowling. It rocked. We played around with the few things in the menu and had fun noting cool little stuff like when I twisted my hand the pointer finger spun around on the screen, and when downloading something, Mario ran across the screen collecting coins instead of the typical downloading bar.

We then packed it up and put it away until Christmas. Pout.

So. . . What should I throw on the Christmas list for games, accessories, etc? Games I typically like include Medal of Honor, Halo, Red Faction, Final Fantasy, and Dark Alliance II. Its been since the NES that I’ve ha a Nintendo in the house. I liked what I saw when trying out Wii Sports, and when playing WarioWare at a friends house I had a blast! So help me out and throw out some suggestions for gotta haves, skip ems, etc.

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