This project was a beast to say the least. My wife helped me with the last bits; mostly helping heft the walls into place on the platform and general helpy type stuff. Thanks for that honey!

My kids are over the moon about it, so that alone makes all the hard work worth it.

I’m tired from all that work, so I am going to make this a bit shorter then it really deserves, but if you ever want to build a tree house for your kids… call someone else. I’m busy.

Cheers

Her thing was that she couldn’t see all the builer-y type things that I was talking about. So we drew it out again; and its a good thing we did. I was adding full walls to the treehouse and she reminded me that were going with half walls to make it more fort like. This was fine with me because my only condition was that it actually be in a tree.

Anyways, after some more sketching we had our plan. That is to say, she said “build this” and I said “O.K.”. Here now are some pics for your enjoyment.

I got wood.

A sturdy Cedar tree.

And so it begins.

First brace in place.

Some more progress.

Joists are all in now. Heavy stuff.

Starting on the floor.

Thats what I have so far accomplished over the weekend. I was also able to finish tacking down the floor but got rained out before I got a chance to trim the ends. Next steps are starting on the walls and roof rafters which should go pretty smoothly. I’ll post more pics when the sun comes out again.

So what do you think? Pretty cool, huh?

A lot of times, parents get so bogged down with the meal preparation, clothes buying, teeth brushing, tucking in, story reading, bath time, dinner times, school time, that they forget one very important fact.

Having kids is, without a doubt, the greatest possible excuse you could ask for to act like a kid. I mean, how else would it be perfectly acceptable for a 30 year old to play video games in the middle of the day? Or go and poke things with sticks? Or, on occasion, enjoy a tea party with ten or twelve of your daughters closest stuffed animals?

I don’t mean to sound maudlin, but when I think about it (and forget the troubles of the day), its actually like being able to have a second, better childhood.

What brought this on, you ask? My kids tree house, I respond.

Yes, I am building, with my own hands (and many a power tool) an actual tree house in an actual tree. This fact surprises people more than anything, since kids could fall out or throw things or whatever. But anyone who had a tree house growing up will tell you that it was awesome.

When my wife first threw this idea out there, I was dreading it a bit. The time investment, the cost, the prep, the actual construction, and eventual destruction (kids grow out of these things apparently) were a lot to handle for this cowboy. Now though, after my wife and I worked through the issues and the costs and are finally getting ready to build it, I am actually pretty excited about it. I mean, I didn’t have a tree house when I was a kid. The only trees around my home in California had oranges or avocados in them, and the owners got pissed when you started climbing them.

But in Oregon, where trees are not only plentiful but downright loved, a tree house seems perfectly fitting in my little suburban neighborhood.

So the next few posts will be mostly me building this thing, which starts this weekend. I have the tree prepped, the lumber sitting in the yard, and an excited 8-year-old who is now more excited since he can see that its actually happening.

But to bring things around to a close here, let me say this: Go climb a tree. Go swing on a branch, or slide down a slide. If you have a kid, go do it with them. If not, borrow a kid (preferably with the parents permission) and just go and play. You may be surprised at how much fun you, as an adult, can have playing tag or poking things with sticks.

Cheers

If you are into mini war gaming including Warhammer and Warhammer 40K (like me), Magic the Gathering (like me too), or things involving zombies (totally), then I suggest you either go into the shop or visit knightfallgames.com to get your gaming fix. The online store will be up soon if you want to order stuff online, but for now I suggest you go into the shop to check out all they have to offer. You can also check out their busy calendar of events or chat up Chris to see all the stuff thats happening.

And, if you buy something, be sure to mention that Paul sent  you. I don’t get a commission or anything, I just like to hear the phrase “Paul sent me”. Its an ego thing.

Cheers

So if you are hosting with me (and you know who you are) then your site has been switched over to their systems. If you find your mail not working, send me a message.

…

Ok, that was supposed to be a joke, but it was bad. If shits broken, call me.

A big thank you to Jonathan at GoDaddy for hanging on the phone with me for 45 minutes while I asked a lot of silly questions about stability, mail, whatnot.

Cheers

…

I thought as much. I didn’t think of anything either. It seems that, the older I get, the more pessimistic I get about making them. The last few I have made seemed to fail within a month, so I guess I just stopped making them.

Perhaps, in the grand scope of things, these silly attempts to better ourselves through a significant, annual event are supposed to fail. I mean, if we were really meaning to stop doing this or start doing that, wouldn’t we be motivated enough, if the cause was important enough, to just start doing it as soon as possible?

I personally, do not need an event like that to start or stop something if its important. But in the spirit of things, my New Years resolution will be to post more entries on my blog. What’s yours gong to be? Go on a diet to fit in that bikini (dudes need not respond if this is your goal)?

Will my resolution actually happen? Maybe. Possibly. Stay tuned to see if it does.

Cheers

I hoped on my wifes computer (it being right next to me) and a quick Google search later, found the cause of it. Apparently, after a time, the batteries on MBP’s can swell. I though this was a joke. I mean swelling batteries?

Although I wasn’t laughing when i flipped over my laptop and took out the battery (which, after 2 years I have never done). The casing around it was peeling away, and the side that touches the keyboard connector was horribly bowed. I set it aside, plugged into the wall and restarted and now, thankfully, my system works normally.

However, one thing disturbs me. Firstly, the techs who replaced the screen a few weeks ago didn’t notice this. Not a huge deal, surely. But what I didnt know at the time is that when a battery swells like that, its nearing the end of its life and can, and there are many articles that document this, explode.

I asked the Apple support people this and they confirmed that, yes, a certain amount of time after the swelling starts, the battery can explode.

Um, what?

So here I am, with what amounts to a ticking timebomb sitting on my lap, wondering how the techs who worked on my system missed this. One of the guys said specifically that they inspected the entire system and it was fine. Obviously, this doesnt include a physical examination.

I will, however, be pointing this out to the tech when I go back in there tonight to get a new battery. Hopefully they will, in the future, look out for such things as I would think that replacing a few batteries is preferable to having a few dozen lawsuits against you from people with scorched laps and lost computers.

We’ll see. In the mean time, check your batteries people.

Cheers

UPDATE: I took it in to the Apple store this evening and, not only did they get to me a half hour sooner than I thought, but they replaced the battery without question. He said that the old one was part of a bad batch that the manufacturer put out (metal shavings in the lith-ion cells). This is the third time that someone has told me that something on my laptop, my very expensive laptop, was part of a “bad batch”. If this happens again, I’m demanding that they give me a new MBP instead of constantly replacing dodgy hardware. Maybe it’ll work. – Thanks

UPDATE 2: My coworker (boss, really) just sent me a picture of this MBP. He started noticing funny things happening and took a look at the underside. His battery was swollen also (the plot thickens). The only difference was that his is REALLY swollen (like, its almost a sphere). It cant be part of the same “bad batch” as mine since he got his MBP almost a year before me, so something is definately fishy with Apple batteries.

Now my only concern is what happens if this battery issue arises in the new MBP’s? The ones without the removeable battery? Scary stuff, probably. – Cheers

The back story: I was using my MBP, working away, and all the sudden my screen gets covered in vertical pink bars. Like every other pixel column was pink and the rest were normal. I took it to the store and they said they needed to replace the screen (clamshell replacement they called it). They had my computer for 5 days. It was really annoying having to go back to my PC that had none of my files on it.

Anyways, I suffer through it and get my MBP back with a shiny new top on it (they couldn’t save my stickers, oh well). Everything is fine for a couple weeks and then the vertical lines come back. But inlike last time, it was only for a few moments. OK, I thought to myself, a slight hiccup.

Only it happened again. And stayed for a few minutes. And again, for a few hours. And finally, it spat out blue vertical lines at me so I took it back to the apple store.

The tech (the same one who worked on it before) said that sometimes new and old hardware can cause degradation, and that I needed to replace the clamshell again.

Fine, I said. But this time I keep my laptop. He said they would order the part and let me know when they had it. Super, I thought to myself.

Skip to today, the Apple store calls and says they have the part. I call back and ask how long it would take to swap it out (last time the tech said it was simple, once they get the part). The man on the other end said that, if I drop it off Saturday, I may have it back by middle of next week. If I drop it off today, Thursday, I may have it by Monday.

Fuck. That. Noise.

Why, if this is a repeat repair, was this not given a little higher priority? Also, since they have the part, it shouldn’t take that long (according to the first tech I spoke too), so why the long wait?

Other people ahead of me, the man said. Somehow, this did not make me more understanding. I can not afford to have my system down for 5 days again, and this plea fell on deaf ears. Erg.

So what am I to do?

Well, the vertical line thing isnt happening at the moment. Im taking that as a sign that my system doesn’t want to go back again, since its behaving properly now (much like my kids do after I threaten them with chores and/or face washing). So I think, for the next day or so, I will keep working. I have five days (the length of time they keep the part in-store) to drop of my system so I will probably leave it over the weekend and, hopefully, be able to pick it up Monday morning.

I just really expected the Apple Store to be a little more sensitive to my situation, much like their adverts claim they are. Oh well, it would be the first time an ad was misleading. It just sucks it cost me 5 unproductuve days to find this out.

-Cheers

It is a bit nice to connect with my sisters and my mom though (if she did the whole social thing), but for the rest of the extended family… I would have to say that its weird.

Perhaps I should have talked to them more than once a decade. Oh well.

Cheers

I know that a lot of people like Popcap games. They are fun. Ridiculously fun. One of their more fun games is called Peggle. My whole family played it and they loved it.

A few days ago I noticed that they had a version of Peggle for iPhone. I though ‘finally, my 3 hand-writen letters a day produced something’. I checked the requirements and from what it said I could play it on the iPhone. I quicky clicked the Buy link in iTunes and plugged in my phone to sync.

Now, I was checking the apps and noticed something not sweet. The version was for the iPod (video and nano-video) but not for the iPhone or Touch. Go back to the app store page and in small print it said “Not compatible with iPhone/Touch”.

Begin short-lived temper tantrum.

I immediatley contacted Apple who in turn said “we do not offer charge reversals for mis-bought products”. So I contacted Popcap to inform them of the problem I now had. The requirements for their software were pretty clear in saying that it would run on the iPhone. Going back to the site I realized that it was a blanked statement for all of their mobile software.

So I sent their CSR gurus an email explaining the whole deal and asked them to please update their requirements boxes as I cant be the only person to make this mistake.

The got back to me the next day (surprisingly) and said they were sorry for Apples response, and offered me a coupon for their games. They also asked for my mailing address which was kinda weird.

I sent them my address and thanked them for the coupon and told them that I appreciate them changing their website. All is now right in the world.

Skip to the following Saturday. I return home to find a UPS note on my door. I go get my package and was again surprised as it was from Popcap. A smallish box with something soft inside is what I guessed from the vigorous shaking I did.

I open it up and was delighted by what was inside.

Lots of fun stuff

Inside was 5 cute Chuzzles, a stuffed Splork (a character from Peggle), bookmarks for their Bookworm Adventure game, some pens, a branded cap, and a set of Peggle character card.

Now, most would say that this wasn’t a great lot of stuff. But I say this is fucking fantastic! Not only are they neat little things (my kids loved the Chuzzles), but I was greatly heartened by the fact that someone cared about their customers to this extent that they put together a “customer love” box. I was seriously pondering graciously returning it with an appreciative note (the original charge was only $4.99 after all), but these things are neat (plus the cat already chewed on a chuzzle).

In short, a great deal of thanks to the customer service department (Dana in particular who wrote me the follow up) of Popcap Games. This is one of the few companies that really try to make its customers happy as best they can. I would say they soundly succeeded in this instance.

- Cheers

Update: Here are some images of my kids playing with the stuff. Not really relevant, but damn cute.