For the last three years almost, I have been watching movies and programming with Visual Studio, and surfing the net on a Sharp 65" DLP projection TV. For some reason a few weeks ago, it started to make this sound sort of like a jet engine revving up for take-off, and almost as loud. Since I bought the thing through Co**co.com, I decided to give them a ring to see what I should do to get it repaired. I sent them an email through their customer service link, and a few days got an email back telling me to take it back to my local Co**co warehouse for a refund. Refund? I bought this set in November 2005. Couldn't believe it, so I went to the local warehouse. Sure enough, customer service says, just bring it back in any time.

Well, the thing is truly gigantic, so I disassembled the stair railing I built about 2 years ago, and called in some guys for help. The 4 of us managed to wrestle the thing up the narrow stairs and get it loaded into the truck, where I proceeded to drive it up to the local store. I was astonished when in fact they brought out some paperwork and a check for the original purchase price, with tax and shipping. Turns out that Co**co.com's policy in 2005 was "bring it back for a full refund" without *ANY* time limit! Essentially I had full use of a 65" DLP projection set for almost three years FOR FREE!

Without further ado, I happily took my new check in my pocket, and my credit card in my other pocket, and proceeded to purchase a new 52" LCD set which I am using now. It's not nearly as gigantic, but it IS big... And it's got a much higher native resolution so development and surfing on the big screen were never better.

Just wanted to get the word out that if someone has some electronics they bought from Co**co.com before they changed their policy to 90 day returns, just bring it back to the store for a full refund!

Then buy a newer better one for half the price WOOHOO!

Today we decided that since it was cool enough and not raining, it might be a good time to get some of the log piles in the yard from the last few years of downed trees consolidated into a single pile (not on the lawn area). Its about 8' vertical and about 100' up the hill, but we managed to get about half of them rolled up the hill and stacked in a pile on some old plywood.
Even though it was cool, it was still a log of work to get about a thousand pounds of logs rolled up the hill and stacked... I would just have started splitting them except we already have about half a cord split and stacked... Perhaps I will look into a fireplace insert to keep the heat costs down this winter...

Hauled some more lumber and plywood up to the garage after church today. Put together the first of the two side walls. These are 6' high, and will hold up the low side of the roof. I decided to keep them simple, with just a 27" window in the center. Here is the first one completed.

Here's the back (inside) view.

I rolled it out to the treehouse on the dolly. Sounds easy right? Of course it is. Unless the wall weighs 60lb and is almost 8' wide. And it's downhill about 6'. And there are low spots on the grass. Nevertheless, I persevered and got it down to the treehouse where I placed it next to the ladder.


Then I began construction on wall #3.


5 Blue Angels jets flew by in formation just a little south, at 1:43PM. It was nice to at least catch a glimpse. Next year perhaps we'll go. After another hour, I had the second wall constructed, a duplicate of the first.



Now, it was time to haul it down to the treehouse... I paused to rest a moment and get a picture.


Now, I just have to figure out how I am going to get 300lb of walls up 10'...


More to follow.

Spent about three hours and a lot of hard labor this morning putting together the first of the four walls for the treehouse. It was drizzling slightly, so I dragged all the wood into the garage and assembled the pieces together on the garage floor. Here is the first section completed..

Then, I cut the top angled pieces, and chopped off each of the vertical studs at the right place. I screwed and nailed the top angled pieces to the cut studs, and applied the next piece of plywood. I marked and cut the plywood for the window and the roof line and put them all together. My wife and I hauled the hundred pound wall out to the yard and propped it up under the treehouse.



Now, I just need to figure out how to get that enormous wall (and three others) up to the platform...

It's so annoying when software gives me an option to do something, then just doesn't do it. Firefox 2 (and now 3) is a very nice place to browse. It has lots of cool features like tabbed browsing. I love this feature, and tell Firefox to open all pop-ups in a tab instead of a new window.

For some reason there is one stubborn link that opens it in a new window anyway. After a bit of research, I discovered that there IS a way to fix it!

open the about:config page, and change the "browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction" setting to 0 (zero).

This seems to do the trick! No muss no fuss. Does this work in 3.0 as well? Let me know if you have tried it out...

Here is a test link:
John Boal's Blog


If it opens in a tab, you've fixed it!

Today I made some Swiss Pancakes, just like my mother made me when I was a boy, and like her mother made for her when she was a girl.

They are not "pancakes" in the conventional [buttermilk] sense, they are more like crepes. But, the French already have a copyright on that I think. They are pancakes in the sense that they are cooked in a hot pan. They are very thin, and we would always just put a thin layer of jam or jelly on the inside and sort of roll them up to eat them. Pretty good stuff! Here's the recipe, enjoy!

Swiss Pancakes

• 2 cups flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/8 tsp salt [optional]

Mix liquid ingredients, and sprinkle in flour while stirring, a bit at a time so it doesn't get too lumpy. A few little lumps are OK.

Heat pan on medium heat and spray on some olive oil or canola oil - just a small amount. The pan doesn't have to be really really hot, medium heat works best.

Use a ladle to scoop up some batter and drop it in the middle of the pan. Using a spatula, spread the mix out starting from the center, and try to keep it in a mostly circular pattern. Keep spreading the batter out from the edges until there isn't any more batter to spread. Let it cook for a few seconds to a minute, then turn it over and cook it for a minute on the other side.

Serve warm, with jam or jelly. Makes enough for 3 hungry pancake eaters.

Finally got an hour to spend on the streaming chart page from the weather system. I managed to refactor the code to improve the accuracy of the plotting of points and the labels on the axis, which didn't quite match up... Let's just say that this code is "legacy" code and we'll leave it at that... It's not the kind of thing I'd want to admit to really, being a test driven developer.. but hey it was written many years ago and I just didn't have the time or inclination at that time to test it properly. My bad. One of these days I'll get to it. Right after the treehouse. And the deck. And the new bathroom. And the kitchen remodel. And the new workshop. Did I mention the lawn needs mowing too?

Anyway... the charts are working better now, enjoy...