Trey’s Blog

As some of you may know, I’m involved with the local YMCA in several programs.  In fact, most aspects of my life have some tie to the Y.  I’ve got my daughters in a Parent-Child Program designed to build the relationship between parents (fathers in this case) and their children.  With this solid relationship, our children should have the foundation to grow up to be great leaders in their communities.  I’m also apart of the Langham Creek YMCA Board.  Being on this board is an honor for me, and I really enjoy seeing the positive impact we have on the community.  We are currently running the Partners Campaign, which collects donations to help those less fortunate in our community participate in programs offered by the YMCA.  It is very fulfilling helping others, and I have found the YMCA to be a great outlet for this.

Things I’d like to get. I know this list can seem infinite at times, but for some reason when my birthday or Christmas rolls around, I can’t think of anything.

• another Tivo (preferably HD)
• an AppleTV (Take 2)
• PED3 for my iPod Touch
• Any Apple notebook G4 or Intel
• Blu-ray DVD Player (with Profile 2.0)

This time my random thought came from a friend of mine, Jason Brinkle.  He had an interesting question about stuff we put into our bodies and their impact.  He asked the question, is eating a fatty dinner (i.e. Chicken Fried Steak) equal to smoking a cigarette as far as the health impact on your body?  Both share the fact that the user has been educated as to the long-term effects, and both still choose to consume.  I had never given that much thought, but it is a very good point.  Circulatory health or Respiratory health?  What do you think of the comparison?  Leave a comment.

Since starting to pay attention to the HDTV advertisements lately, I have noticed a feature that is being mentioned quite a bit. That feature is the QAM tuner, which comes integrated with most HDTVs. I had never heard of it until recently, and decided to look it up. I was surprised to find out that the QAM tuner can receive unscrambled television broadcasts sent by the cable provider through the standard cable lines. If you are wondering what this really means, it means that most cable companies are satisfying their FCC obligations by providing more broadcasts (some HD) outside of those being broadcast through your current setup. Extra Channels? Not really, most are just the same as you find on your Basic Cable package, but this varies on location, not just city. Specific areas can vary as well. For the record, I’m right between Katy and Cypress, Texas, Northwest of Houston and our cable provider is now Comcast (formerly TWC).

With my current setup, I have Basic Cable, with roughly 70 channels, and I have an OTA (Over-The-Air) HDTV Tuner pulling my local network broadcasts, which is about 10 channels. To my surprise, this Samsung HDTV Tuner I’m already using has a QAM tuner as well. I ran the cable line into my tuner and had it search out channels available. I found about 50 channels being broadcast between what we consider channel 75-100. I know that sounds like strange math, but anyone who has dealt with OTA broadcasts will confirm that many channels will feature subchannels. Our NBC affiliate has 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. None go higher than X.3 with OTA, but with QAM, many will go as high as X.11, thus cramming many channels into the 25 range mentioned above. Of the 50 I found, only 5 were being broadcast in HD, but the good news is that 4 of those 5 I didn’t have access to prior to this. The new channels I found were USA HD, ESPN HD, National Geographic (in HD), Music In HD. The other channel was PBS, which I had access to with OTA and I must say, they do a phenomenal job with providing good HD content separate from their standard broadcast. Strangely missing from the HD broadcasts were the other major networks, NBC, ABC, CBS, WB, etc. I’m not going to rule them out just yet, because they may not have been broadcasting those particular shows in HD, but it was 8:00 PM CST when I did my test. We’ll see when I try again.

To find about more about QAM Tuners visit WikiPedia.For a good list of HD Channels and their listings, check out CNET’s HDTV Listings page.

Anyone who knows me should know that I have truck fever right now. My first two vehicles were trucks and I always feel I’m lacking utility without a truck. I also have an interest in diesel engines, for their power, fuel efficiency, and alternative fuel options. Yesterday, I was talking to my friend, Travis, about my Dodge Grand Caravan, and I said, “I’d consider keeping it if I could replace the engine with a diesel.” With that said, I decided to research anyone adding this feature to their minivans. Apparently, not enough people are out there with the know-how to do this, and also have the drive to write about it online. What I did find was information about Chrysler’s plans to release a 2.8L turbo diesel option for their minivans starting with the 2008 models. Here’s the twisted part. Though they are manufacturing these in the U.S. and Canada, they are not offering them for sale in the U.S. or Canada. That’s right. These are being made for the sole purpose of exporting them to Europe, where diesel demand is high and emissions standards are lower. In my opinion, diesel is very viable, but lacks the marketing and education in the U.S. A good marketing campaign could have a great impact on the stigma left in the minds of U.S. consumers who only remember slow, stinky diesels of the 70s and 80s.

It looks like I’m still in the market for a 2001-2005 Dodge 2500 Cummins, or a 1999-2005 Ford F-250 Powerstroke.

Surely, most of us have heard this statement at least once. It is typically used to provoke acceptance of mixed foods before consumption. You know, when your green beans get intermingled with your mashed potatoes, and other such events. I disagree with this premise that we should be contently solely because “it all ends up in the same place anyway.” I believe there is value to be had with proper preparation and consumption of food. For instance, imagine eating a dry bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats with a glass of milk. No joy there. Very dry. Another example could be eating a bowl of dry oatmeal with a glass of warm water on the side. Again, no joy. Each item in these scenarios will no doubt end up in the same place, but with no pleasure along the way. Though it may sound like I wouldn’t ever mix food, that is not the case. Some foods do taste good together, but this falls in line with my argument that taste should determine what we mix, not that “it all ends up in the same place anyway.”

Spend a little time on Google.com and it is hard not to notice they seem to have a product for everything. Of their vast product line, I’m utilizing these on a regular basis:

• GMail - Free Email
• Google Calendar - Free Calendar
• Google Reader - RSS Reader
• Google Analytics - Web statistics
• Google Products - formerly Froogle
• Google Documents - Online Office/Productivity Tools
• Google Maps - user friendly mapping site
• [updated] YouTube - Online video sharing
• [updated] Picasa Web - Online photo sharing

I’m not even scratching the surface on the great tools this company is offering. For anyone looking to get their feet wet in the World Wide Web, this is a good place to start.

[update] I’d like to thank Imelda for reminding me of the programs I missed.

I’m not certain how many cities actually have these Red-light Cameras installed, but they are designed to photograph anyone who enters the intersection after the traffic light turns red.  Believe it or not, these have been around for more than 40 years.  My thought is this:  How many resources are involved in removing footage of emergency vehicles (Police, Fire, Volunteer Fire, EMS, etc) as they are probably captured several times a day with this system?  Is there someone employed by the city to check each photo?  Are these emergency vehicles emitting some signal that tells the cameras to ignore them as they blast through the intersections?  What do you think?

Have you ever noticed that when you drive with the windows down in your car, you get a tunnel effect of wind and noise?  I wonder how much this constant current of wind is damaging our hearing.  This is not to mention the ‘wind buffeting’ you get when the windows are opened just right and you get that louder vibrating woofer-like noise.  So up with the windows and save your hearing because common sense tells me those frequencies won’t last long against those cool breezes.

Yesterday morning I woke up from a dream, but of course I can’t remember it now. What crossed my mind was how we dream. I’ve read that we do most of our dreaming in REM sleep, but I haven’t heard at what rate. Do we really dream in real time or do we dream at a much faster rate since our bodies aren’t fatigued by all of the action? It sures feels like I’m cramming a lot of dreaming into such a small portion of my sleep state. Anyone have thoughts or links to studies on this matter?

This year I purchased my first diesel, a Jetta to be exact, and I did so to gain fuel efficiency.  The Jetta TDI compared to it’s gasoline counterpart is head and shoulders better in the fuel arena.  The standard engine gets about 32 MPG highway, while my TDI gets 42 MPG with combination of highway and city miles.  In fact, when I did my research a year ago, I found that as long as diesel prices do not exceed gasoline prices by $0.80 per gallon, my TDI would be more efficient than the gasoline version.  The point of this story is to now point out that gasoline has moved above the price of diesel in my area.  At the station I frequent, gasoline is now $2.99 while diesel remains at $2.75 per gallon.  I found another Kroger in Cypress, Texas that offers diesel for $2.66, E85, and gasoline all at the same station.

I recommend everyone get a diesel powered car.

What is being done?

The time has come for the first of many camper projects. This time, I’ll be outfitting my popup camper with a receiver hitch to allow the use of a bike rack while in tow. This would be very easy for larger RVs since they typically have a 4″x4″ bumper with many choices of bike racks aftermarket. However, the standard popup camper bumper is only 1″x3″, which hardly offers an easy solution.

What is the plan?

the bumper is slightly offset from it rail mounts as they are only 1″x2″ leaving approximately 1″ gap between the bottom of the bumper and the side rails. It was decided to purchase an 1/8″ thick 2″x2″ square pipe to be fitted across from side rail to side rail. To account for the gap mentioned previously, grooves will be cut lengthwise in the square pipe and the pipe will be fitted tightly to each side rail. After the pipe is positioned, small spot welding will add to the strength of the new bar. With the new bar in place, there are now two points to which a receiver hitch can be mounted giving it the strength we need to support 200 lbs of bicycles.

What we need to purchase?

2″x2″ steel square pipe 52 inches long, Sawzall blades for cutting through metal pipe like butter, and a receiver hitch combo bar. The combo bar is similar to a hitch extension, but is only the receiver portion straight through. I found this at etrailer.com in 6″, 8″, 12″, and 18″ versions in their Fabrication section. The 18″ was my choice since it would leave plenty of room for cutting away excess if necessary.

Steps

1. cut support pipe to fit between side rails
2. measure distance between bottom of side rails and bottom of bumper, then cut a 1″ groove (1/8″ thick) that distance from the bottom of the pipe
3. cut through one side rail near the rear bumper to allow access to slide the new support into place
4. once in position, make spot welds to assure to movement and good bond with side rails
5. weld the cut made in the one side rail to put bumper back into original position
6. put spare tire back into place, then clamp hitch receiver into position
7. put empty bike rack into receiver hitch to check for clearance
8. adjust receiver distance from end of bumper as necessary allowing for full access to bike rack pins
9. remove bike rack and spare tire
10. weld receiver hitch into place
11. for added support, run a bolt up through the receiver hitch and the support bar
12. sand bumper
13. paint with high gloss black paint

Pictures

before project

new support bar resting across side rails.

Support bar is now welded in place.

Receiver hitch ready for installation

Receiver hitch installed and painted

Bike rack fits nicely in the new receiver — I know I painted this sloppily

Let’s go camping!!

Project Summary

The project was a success. I now have a place for my bikes when I’m hauling my camper. Most of the time was spent waiting for the hitch receiver to arrive, but as projects go this one went pretty quickly. There are a couple things I would have done differently. I should have ordered the hitch receiver before starting the project, but at that the time, I had no idea the fabrication receivers existed. The other thing would be to tape off the camper rear before spraying the bumper and hitch receiver. It shouldn’t be that hard to remove the paint as it is not that much, but it could have easily been avoided had I taped off that area.