The Best Laid Plans

Originally I’d actually had plans for today, which is rather unusual.
It was my intention to head out into the world and get some shopping done.
Most notably I was going to find a solution once and for all for the Audio/Visual mess that has cropped up from me trying to have both my TV set and my ATI All-In-Wonder card connected to my digital cable box via RCA connections.
So far I have yet to find a solution that would allow me to have them simultaneously connected. It always has to be one or the other, as I’ve been unable to find a switch box that has multiple A/V outputs. Most have multiple inputs, but that really doesn’t do me much good.
I was also finally going to pick up some speaker wire so that the wire feeding my surround speakers wouldn’t be sticking out in the middle of the floor.
Beyond that I was going to do some “impulse shopping.”
However, most of my plans were disrupted by me agreeing to give Brian and Kathleen a ride to the airport early this morning.
I had toyed with the notion of simply staying up all night, but ultimately decided to just turn in relatively early.
Even so, I only ended up getting about four hours of sleep.
And even though it was Sarah’s gentle voice softly rousing me into wakefulness, when my alarm went off I still found myself thinking “What the fu…?” as I’m not accustomed to being woken by my alarm on Wednesday morning.
Especially not that early on a Wednesday morning.
Still, eventually I got up and headed over to Leesburg to pick them up.
Brian actually drove to the airport (we took his truck, as their luggage wouldn’t fit in my car), and then I simply had to drive the truck back to their house.
When leaving the airport I was still feeling a little groggy from my lack of sleep, so I missed the exit that I’d intended to take. I shrugged and thought “I’ll take the next one.”
Then I missed that one.
And the next one.
Still, I was in relatively familiar territory, so I figured I’d get a chance to exit onto some familiar street.
Exits, however, were not presenting themselves, and suddenly I realized that I was driving in the HOV lane.
For those of you not familiar with it, the HOV lane is a commuter lane designed to essentially reward people for carpooling.
Of course, it’s a requirement that you have more than one person in your carpool, otherwise you’ll get pulled over and ticketed.
Getting pulled over for driving solo in the HOV lane would be bad enough, but getting pulled over for driving someone else’s vehicle in the HOV lane would undoubtedly be much worse.
So naturally I was eager to get out of there as soon as possible, but it was beginning to look as though that wasn’t possible, as the HOV lane is essentially closed off from the regular lanes of traffic around it, and seems as though I was going to end up in D.C., which is something I definitely didn’t want.
Eventually, and with great relief, I spotted an exit from the HOV lane onto Route 7, which I took immediately.
Ultimately I ended up adding another ten miles or so total onto my trip, which annoyed me, as I really just wanted to go home, but I still had to go to Leesburg to drop off Brian’s truck and pick up my car.
I considered simply going home first, then picking up my car later, but I decided that I just wanted to get it over with, so I stared wistfully at the exit to Ashburn as I drove wearily past it.
Once I’d gotten my car I decided that, since I was up and out and about, I might as well stop at McDonald’s to pick up some breakfast.
Without thinking, though, I took the Greenway home, which while very convenient in that the Ashburn exit brings me practically right to my apartment, going to McDonald’s would be slightly more of a challenge, as it would involve either turning left against several lanes of traffic, or else turning right and then making a U-Turn.
Ultimately I decided that I would just go home and call McDonald’s a miss.
Once I got home and got back into bed, though, my stomach, roused by the notion of breakfast, wouldn’t allow me to sleep.
So I got up and broke out the Bisquick and got to work on making pancakes. I was going to cut the recipe in half, since, as I’m so often reminded, I am only one person and have no one else to cook for. So I put in half as much Bisquick, half as many eggs (one as opposed to two), and, in my bleary-eyed stupor, the full amount of milk. It took me a while to figure out why my batter looked so runny, and at the end of that particular while I cursed profusely before tossing in another egg and an additional quantity of Bisquick.
On a positive note, though, the pancakes turned out very well (my griddle continues to be one of my favorite purchases), as did the omelet I made to accompany the pancakes. The bacon, though, was sadly less than stellar. I think it was the particular brand. It's a shame, since, as most people who know me are aware, I really love bacon.
I tried to convince myself that, as one person, I didn’t need to eat ALL of the pancakes in one sitting.
I failed to convince myself of that, though, and as a result spent the rest of the morning feeling fat and bloated.
After gorging myself I finally took a shower and decided that I would go ahead with my original plans for the morning.
Once I’d gotten dressed, though, I remembered to check the shipping status of the keyboard/mouse combos I’d ordered over the weekend. When I checked I saw that they were on the truck ready to be delivered to me.
I figured that I probably had enough time to go out and do what I wanted before the delivery, but ultimately I decided not to risk it.
So I decided to wait.
Waiting took the form of falling asleep on the couch for about three hours.
That seemed to be the right amount of time, though, as shortly after I woke up the lady from FedEx was knocking on my door.
After opening the shipping packaging I discovered the reason that I was able to get the keyboard/mouse combos so much cheaper than the regular retail price was because they were OEM versions.
OEM means “Original Equipment Manufacturer.” Essentially I got the same package that a computer manufacturer might get for the purposes of selling with a new computer system.
This wasn’t really a problem; it simply meant that they didn’t come with any software installation CDs (though being HID [Human Interface Device] compliant they didn't need drivers, so I just had to download the software necessary for accessing their special features) and the only documentation was a rather anemic “Quick Start” guide.
Still, hooking up a keyboard and a mouse, even those of the wireless variety, isn’t especially complicated.
I set up Munin, my secondary computer, first.
Everything worked fine, but I found that Munin was no longer able to connect to my wireless network. I thought that it might be interference from the new wireless devices, so I decided to leave it alone for the time being and see what happened when I set them up on Hugin, my main computer.
There was no evidence of interference there; the wireless network got along just fine with the new devices.
So I went back to Munin and played around with it before finally discovering that it had basically just lost the network settings, as I noticed that my network wasn’t listed in its network setup.
So I put it back in, entered my WEP key (which allows the computer to authenticate on my network), and voila!
However, after the next reboot I discovered that it apparently can’t hold onto the information after being shut down.
I decided to troubleshoot that particular issue some other day, though.
Once I was done with getting everything working there were a couple of other things I needed to attend to.
Most notably I no longer had a free USB port on Hugin to plug my graphics tablet into, as, unlike my old keyboard, my new keyboard doesn’t have pass-through USB ports built into it.
There were a couple of things I could have done to resolve this without venturing out into the world, which I was actually reluctant to do at this point, as it was no fairly late in the afternoon and traffic would be ramping up.
However, the best option for dealing with this problem, I decided, was to pick up a USB hub.
So I ventured out into the world. The “world” in this case turned out to be Circuit City.
While I was there picking up the hub I decided to see if I could find the A/V solution I was looking for. The pizza-faced kid working there suggested something that I found less than appealing, and which, I ultimately decided, wouldn’t really work anyway, so I just bought the hub and left.
The other day I discovered that Office Depot currently has a really sweet deal on a really sweet laptop computer. After rebates, it comes to only $600.
Circuit City, however, has the same laptop for the same price after rebate, but their deal is even sweeter, as the initial cost before rebate is $100 cheaper.
I was very tempted to buy it, and to be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely certain why I didn’t. After all, I could use it take the place of Munin and spare myself the expense of buying Brian’s LCD, thereby essentialy only spending $200 more than I was planning to.
Still, even if it is a very good deal, I’m reluctant to shell out that much money ($850 before rebates) on something that I really don’t need.
I was also tempted by some of the 19” LCDs they had on sale, but, as with the laptop, I didn’t give in to temptation.
On the way home I had something of an epiphany about a minor problem I was having with Munin.
While they are extremely cool and work very well, the USB wireless adapters that allow my computers to connect to my router are rather thick, and in the case of Munin that thickness makes the port next to the one it’s plugged into almost entirely inaccessible.
The wireless adapters actually came with these weird little USB cables that essentially serve as extension cords for the USB ports. I had been plugging one of them into Munin to make the USB 2.0 port in the back more easily accessible for plugging my mp3 player into it (the front access USB port on Munin is only USB 1.1, which is much slower).
However, with the receiver for the keyboard and mouse plugged into the USB port on the back, there was no room for plugging the “extension cord” in.
As I said, on the way home I had an epiphany, and what I realized was just how monumentally stupid I can be at times. The whole point of the “extension cords” that came with the wireless adapters is to allow you to plug the fat adapter in without blocking the other ports.
It only took me a little over a month to figure that out.
*Sigh*
So once I got home I plugged the adapter into the USB cable and plugged the other end into the computer. This freed up a port for me to plug the other cable into, making the port more easily accessible for plugging my mp3 player in.
In any case, there are a couple of things I want to do before TV makes me its slave for the night (Smallville, Mythbusters, Law & Order), so I guess that’s it for now. I may be back with another entry later.