Here’s an idea

Instead of having the FM transmitter as a separate accessory to transmit music from a smartphone to the car radio wirelessly, how about integrating it into the smartphone itself?

For the record, it came to me in a dream last night.

Well, that was scary

I just had what you might call a first world problem.

Got up to bring the laptop into the bedroom with me for the night, and the wi-fi adapter disappeared. Not in the network adapters window, not listed in the device manager, even the “Wake Up on WLAN” setting in the BIOS was grayed out.

Some sort of connection must’ve came loose. So I did what any self-respecting geek would do and tore that mother up. I grabbed my screwdriver, started unscrewing every conceivable screw I could find on the outside of the case, and got in deep. Real deep, man; all the way to the motherboard. I found the adapter, found the connection to the motherboard, made sure it was in tight, and put everything back together. And when I rebooted, it still wasn’t there. Plus, I hadn’t reconnected the sound card, either.

Back in, got the sound card back, rebooted again…still nothing.

Then, the sound that indicates a device has been connected kicked in, and there it was. Not really sure what happened there, possibly a loose wire somewhere that will eventually be my downfall. But hey, I learned that I can dive right into something without so much as a reference guide and put it all back together without any leftover screws.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to collapse from post-adrenaline rush exhaustion.

*plop*

Long car rides make for the best of friends

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from my mother. My sister-in-law was feeling ill, and would be unable to take my little brother back to the airport in the morning. The flight left at 7:30, so he had to be up there at 5:30 to check in. This meant we had to leave at 3:30 in order to be there in time.

Naturally, I was unable to get any sleep before the trip began. A couple cups of coffee before we left, and that’s all I was running on. We hit the turnpike, hopped onto I-75 just outside of Toledo, and began the northward leg. The trip was rather uneventful, and my brother was even a few minutes early for check-in. So what if the plane departed 30 minutes later than scheduled?

The best part of the trip was my other passenger: my mother. The last time we drove in a car together, I was 17 and getting a few more hours in behind the wheel before I finally got my license. It did not go very well; my eyes weren’t the greatest and I didn’t have my glasses yet. When we got home, she swore up and down that it would be the last time she ever got in a car with me behind the wheel. And that’s the way it went for a little over 14 years. Until early this morning. We talked, we laughed, we let the GPS do its thing and we weren’t steered wrong the entire length of the trip. I didn’t want it to end, but the mail hadn’t arrived yet so I was without my paycheck. She went back home, and I promptly went to bed. Then got up. Then went to bed again.

Is there such a thing as road lag? I think I may have it.

Memory Dump

Just some random things that have been rolling around in my head:

-I’ve come to the realization that I’m a bit of a wild man….in my sleep. I’ll go to bed at night, the bed is made, the pillow at the head; by morning, the covers are on the floor, the pillow is folded over in half and the mattress is sitting off-kilter from the box spring. Like many people, I don’t remember what I’ve been dreaming about the night before, but it must have been exciting to cause all this destruction of my bed.

-I’m really, REALLY glad that the Election has finally come and gone. I’m not very please that the legislature is still divided between two political parties, but maybe the two sides will learn to work together to benefit the country. Also, monkeys might come flying out of my butt.

-Speaking of Politics, Karl Rove. Is this guy delusional or what? After Fox News Channel’s Decision Desk declared Ohio would go to President Obama, Rove snapped. The whole thing led to a person at the Decision Desk being interviewed on the air about the logic behind the call, shredding through Rove’s arguments against it with a machete of facts. Do all Republicans have such a disdain for facts? (By the way, this may be the only time you see Karl Rove and logic in the same paragraph. Mark it on your calendars.)

-I’m listening to the live broadcast of this week’s TWiT as I type this. Leo’s off on vacation, so Sarah Lane is hosting with Martin Sargent (This Week in Fun reunion!) and David Prager. Download it as soon as you finish reading this.

-It’s looking more and more like there won’t be an NHL season this year. I’ve lost count of how many labor disputes hockey has had since Gary Bettman took over the commissioner’s office, but it’s getting to be too regular to tolerate. The schedule through the end of November is already wiped out and the Winter Classic in Ann Arbor has been (pardon the expression) put on ice. A new wrinkle in this year’s work stoppage: Donald Fehr. Last time he was involved in a sports labor dispute, the 1994 World Series didn’t happen and the 1995 season began with scab players. Something’s not working in the NHL, and it’s time to make a change.

-If you follow my Twitter feed at all, you know I spent the better part of my Saturday night upgrading my trusty laptop to Windows 8. It’ll be a few days before I have something to say about it; suffice it to say there are things I like and things I don’t like about it. It’s going to take a little getting used to doing things differently than I’ve been doing for the last 11 years, and it’s driving me nuts on occasion. A little bummed that Facebook won’t be developing a native Windows 8 application, but Twitter will be. And if it’s anything like the iOS and Android versions, it should be the best thing to happen to Twitter since…the last thing that happened to Twitter.

-Has anybody used Microsoft’s SkyDrive before it was integrated into Windows 8? Be honest.

-Banging this post out in ZenWriter before I transfer it over to Windows LiveWriter to post. Not a bad little program; it puts itself front and center so that nothing else going on with your PC can distract you from your train of thought. More on that to come as well. Thanks to Kristina over at The Baker Street Babes for mentioning its existence.

-Yesterday was Veterans Day. Thank you to all who served, all who are serving now and all who are yet to serve.

Well, that was interesting

Spent last night in the company of local members of Fark.com in Toledo. We gathered, we drank, we arm wrestled for some odd reason, and we went home. Made a few new friends, didn’t make a fool of myself, and felt pretty darn good about the whole darn thing. And then I woke up with a pretty darn good headache and a name tag on my blazer (which I dropped on the floor right after I came home). Wouldn’t trade last night for anything. Well, maybe for a win at the arm wrestling.

It’s been a pretty weird couple of weeks. My best friend in the whole world, Brandon Wolford, has made his way down to Lexington, Kentucky to pursue his dream. He’s got a great gig that pays well, he’s getting his life on track, it’s the farthest away from home he’s ever been. Despite the fact that he’s no longer just a half an hour away and willing to pick up the lunch tab when I’m a little low on cash, I’m happy for the guy. And once we get our schedules synched up and figure out a way to record our Google+ hangouts, we can finally get our podcast up and going. I think the move is going to add a new dynamic that we couldn’t possibly have if we were still both here in northwest Ohio; it’ll give the two of us a differing perspective on the issues and events we’ll be discussing.

Now if I could only get my head to stop aching…

There should be a universal plug-and-play standard between the brain and the fingers

The data rate between the two is wildly fluctuating at the moment. The brain is spewing out things at a rate of God Only Knows What, but the hands (up until a few seconds ago) were not translating to the keys. And upon hitting the period on that last sentence, it started all over again.

So I did a video thing today