Justin Buist

Archive for April, 2010

Random Updates

April 30th, 2010

I’m bored, so here goes. Some of this is money saving advice so it might be useful.

- I don’t “get” the lady that shipped her adopted son back to Russia. For one Russia sounds like a shitty place to grow up. Second, that flight had to have been expensive. Why didn’t she just tan the kid up and send him to Angelia Jolie?

- Sometimes I forget Amazon.com started out as a bookstore. I signed up for their ‘Prime’ service almost a year ago which, for $80/year, gets me free 2 day shipping on anything they sell. I buy almost everything from them now. Just the other day I got a pull-behind spreader for my lawn tractor from them. Hell, we get our laundry detergent from Amazon now.

- Speaking of which, because we’re doing the cloth diapering thing we switched the laundry soap to ‘Country Save.’ It’s cheap, I think. I never really priced laundry soap all that much. We get 40lbs of the stuff (in 10lb boxes) shipped to our door for about $52. Based on our current burn rate it’ll take a full year to work our way through that 40lbs. And that’s with doing a load of diapers every night.

- A couple of months ago I went to unplug the night-light in our bedroom used to keep us my wife from stubbing toes when getting up to tend to the baby in the dark of the night. Sucker was HOT. Duh, incandescent bulb, inefficient as heck, gives off heat. Ordered up an 8 pack of LED night lights from Amazon for something like $17. Now I have photo-sensitive night lights all over the house. No more dark hallways. Yay! And they all run on less power than that single old night-light probably drew. Double yay!

- I need to update my blogroll. There’s probably 8 sites on there that don’t exist or that I don’t read anymore. Plus I’m sure I added some new ones to my RSS reader since I last published it.

- I’m a big fan of NiMH batteries in frequently used or high-drain devices like video game controllers and digital cameras. Problem is they’re like $3 for a single stinking battery AA at the store. Recently ran across BatterySpace.com and you can buy them for $1 each. Haven’t ordered any from them yet but I will in the future.

- Speaking NiMH batteries I’m a huge fan of the Engergizer 15 minute charger that we got about a year ago. I can no recharge dead batteries faster than running to the local Meijer and buying new ones. Super cool.

- Another bit on NiMH batteries: The “D” cell NiMH batteries I see in stores are just an AA battery stuck in a D case. Seriously, they’re a rip-off. They’re only rated for 2500mAh which is what the AA batteries are. You can get 10,000mAh “D” cell batteries over at BatterySpace.com I’ll probably be buying some soon because so much of our baby gear (like the swing) requires a “D” cell.

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Posted in Blogging

Arizona Immigration Bill

April 28th, 2010

I don’t like it and I don’t think it’ll stand up to any sort of legal challenge.

That said, I understand that residents of Arizona are rather annoyed with illegal immigrants coming over and committing crimes and want the Federal government to get involved. I get that, but I think they went about it in the wrong way.

So, here’s my plan for Arizona.

You want the Feds to start helping? Take every illegal alien convicted of a crime that would warrant jail time, present and future, and put them on buses headed for DC. Drop them off at the steps to the Capital and set them free. Maybe sprinkle a few around the apartments inhabited by our Congress Critters while they stay in DC during the week. Maybe send them weekly updates on the types of folks they just dropped off on the door steps too. “Juan Murderer: Convicted in 2008 and released in 2010 outside where you work. We gave him back the murder weapon because it was just taking up space in our evidence room. Can’t convict him again anyway so we didn’t need it. Sleep tight!”

That’ll get their attention!

I’m half joking there but I’m half serious too. We need to be able to keep dangerous criminals out of this country and with that we need to be sure that if we deport a dangerous criminal they don’t just wander on back in.

Now, when you say something like that folks look at you and think “ZOMG! You’re racist and think Mexicans are going to kill us and rape our wives!” No, that’s not the case. I grew up in Ottawa County, Michigan, USA. We’re big on agriculture out here, an industry I spent a significant number of years in, and I can guarantee you I’ve worked with a whole pile of illegals in my life. I like them. I really do. They aren’t any different from the rest of us, aside from the few criminals, and we have a good share of them in our native population as well.

In my perfect world we’d have borders that looked like the checkout lanes of your average supermarket. People would pile up and somebody would run the equivalent of a NICS check on them. If approved they come on over.

6 comments »

Posted in Politics

Diaperless Babies

April 27th, 2010

A baby without a diaper sometimes appears happier than when they’re wearing one. I get that.

However, when they get a HUGE smile on their face, well, that means they just went and peed on whatever they were laying on. I don’t quite get that.

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Posted in Parenting

Bowling Pins Beware

April 26th, 2010

1,000 rounds of Federal .40S&W showed up on my doorstep this afternoon.

God bless America! Bulk ammo shipped right to your door.

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Posted in Guns

Even More Droid Stuff

April 26th, 2010

I swear some day this will end.

I might have been a bit harsh on the WiFi thing. The laptop I’m on just lost WiFi connectivity a while back so what did I do? Pull out the Droid and fire up the Wifi Spectrum Analyzer app. Turns out my neighbor has an AP working on channel 1 just like mine is. Odd, since mine is configured to channel hop to the cleanest area of the spectrum.

Switched channels. Laptop works, giving the Droid’s WiFi stuff another shot.

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Posted in Tech

More Droid Stuff

April 24th, 2010

I took some heat in the comments about reading SMS messages while driving and found something that I think will work for me: SMSReader. When the app is running incoming SMS messages are read aloud. Problem solved. Sorta. I’ll get to the later when I talk about the Locale app.

This has also made me realize I only get an SMS message every 2-3 days when I’m actually driving. I used to get a lot more on the old phone because I used Google Calendar to set all kinds of reminders for myself and it was configured to send me an SMS. Now that the phone runs the calendar app natively I get a totally different tone and know that it’s just an automated reminder, I look at the clock, and I know what the reminder is for.

I’ve also enabled Google Latitude on my Google account. So now my phone has me LoJacked. I did it so that my wife can see where I am at any given time. My idea, not hers. Figure it’ll prevent calling to ask how far out I am on the drive home, not that I mind it, but I like automation. I’ll see if it proves useful or not. Right now I’m just having fun with it. A good friend of mine with a Droid uses it too so we can both see where each other is at any given time. That’s been kind of fun for me. And I know I can always turn it off for a bit if I don’t want to be tracked by the two people that have access to the data. Well, aside from Google’s staff.

Speaking of GPS there’s an app that has me really tickled pink: Locale

This thing lets you change the phone’s config based on things like time, location, being plugged in, battery status, orientation, and a couple more. I’m just using time and location right now.

Example: Default config for me is to have the ringer on, GPS on, and update my GTalk status to “Mobile.” More on the GTalk thing later. This is the status that is set on the phone whenever I’m not in an already predefined condition.

Then I have another condition for “Home” which flips the GPS off (saves power) and resets the ringer to be on and at full volume.

Then I have another condition for the office I work at which again flips the GPS off, GTalk status to “On Site” and sets the ringers all to vibrate only mode. As soon as I get within 100 feet of their building, boom, it all happens automatically.

I leave and I go back to “Default” and the ringer comes back up, GPS is back on, and my wife is able to chart my progress home. And anybody on GTalk (which I use for work in one case) knows that I’m on my mobile handset and not at a computer.

I just added a new condition today that says if I drive through a particular intersection between 4 and 7pm it’ll send her an SMS message saying I’m on my way home.

I’m in love with that app. Unfortunately it cost me $10, but I think it’s worth it to never worry about forgetting to my phone on vibrate while in a meeting. I’m also hoping they add a few things, maybe plugin developers will do it, maybe it’ll be in the main app, who knows? Hell, maybe I should start writing plugins.

I want it to launch applications when certain conditions are met. I’d also like it to be able to detect when I’m driving. Both should be pretty easy. That would allow me to make sure that SMSReader app I mentioned before is always running if I’ve been traveling faster than 25mph within the last 5 minutes. When I no longer meet those conditions kill the app because I don’t want my SMS messages read aloud if I’m standing around at Home Depot.

I’d also like to be able to set multiple locations for a single configuration. I work in many areas, so it’d be nice to have one “Office” config with the 4-5 places I tend to be working at. Likewise I can take a number of routes home from them so being able to add them all to the “I’m coming home” SMS message thing would be helpful.

I know I said I was going to talk more about GTalk but I’m not going to. I need to make that in to a whole new post because I’m going to diverge into a new area. I want to keep this one about the Droid, the next will be about the future.

6 comments »

Posted in Tech

Officer Super Friendly

April 20th, 2010

89 year old woman pulls a .22 caliber revolver on a home intruder, fires, misses, and he flees.

Ok, that’s all good, only problem I have with her missing is we don’t know where the bullet finally landed but it seems to have caused no harm so we’re cool there.

Police show up and what do they do?

“This is a .22. And the police reloaded it for me,” said Turner.

More police like this, please! “Oh, you shot at a guy? Here, let me take that gun and put some more ammo in it for you as thanks for your community service.”

Also, they caught the guy. Thumbs up all around to everybody involved. Well, aside from the asshat that tried breaking down her door. He’s a dick that’s lucky to not have .22″ holes in him.

6 comments »

Posted in Guns

Baby Update

April 19th, 2010

So, Eleanor is just over 3 months old now. She’s to the point where she’s actually becoming her own person now which is just awesome to watch.

It’s also become pretty clear that my “control freak” thing is genetic. I swear my wife’s genes have given up at this point. She looks almost exactly like me when I was her age. Hair is going blonde, our facial profiles are the same, and she’s got giant ears that stick way out from her head.

And there’s one more thing.

She’ll probably want to kill me if I keep this post up until her teenage years, but, she’s also got a tail. Sorta. Every guy on my dad’s side of the family has a tuft of hair just above the butt crack. Really fine^* blonde hair, but it’ll get to be 4″ long or so on us. Eleanor has it. No idea if it usually carries over to the women on a regular basis and I’m not going to start asking them about this on Facebook or anything.

I laughed pretty hard when the wife noticed it. It was pretty much the nail in the coffin that my genes were the winners. Called my mom right away to let her know about it too.

Right now it’s funny, but if it doesn’t go away I’m probably going to be spending some money when she’s about 12 for laser removal of lower back hair. Also, I guarantee this post is going to get pulled well before the time that she can actually read.

*: The hair is so fine on me that I can grab a handful and yank it all out without any pain. Looks painful but it isn’t.

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Posted in Personal Life

This post brought to you by: Derp

April 19th, 2010

So, went to the range on Sunday to do a little shooting. I haven’t actually shot a pistol since October-ish of last year. Yeah, I know. I had a kid, stuff happens. I’m ditching the shotgun stuff and going back to pistol work for a while.

Anyway, I took my Glock 23C (a carry gun) and Walther P22 (piece of shit). Ran about 60 rounds of .22LR down range and switched to the Glock for another 25 rounds. OK, I can still hit a piece of paper at 7 yards without any real effort. Did notice I’ve got a bit of a heeling problem though. That’s new.

I get home and a bit later the wife, kid, and I are heading out. So rather than reload carry ammo in the Glock magazines I fish my J-frame S&W 442 out of the safe, still in its holster, and strap it to my belt.

Three hours later I’m home again, watching the dogs make poopie in the back yard, and get a niggling feeling. Pull gun, swing out cylinder: It’s unloaded.

Yeah, last time I carried it was 3 weeks ago and I stopped for a pint of beer at a place I used to be a regular at. That required unloading the gun and putting it into what we call “transport mode” here in Michigan.

Not the first time I’ve realized I’ve been carrying an unloaded gun around. A while back I discovered it was either my Glock 23 or 21 had been toted with an empty chamber and full mag.

You feel like a pretty big idiot when that kinda thing happens. And then you feel compelled to share it with others. Go figure.

Worst part is you can tell a 442 is unloaded without even swinging the cylinder out. I should have known the second I pulled it out of the safe that it was unloaded.