Colorado Springs

Herein lies pictures of our most recent trip.  More on who/what/how/why later.

Been too long

I think going almost two weeks without a blog post is kind of a record for me.  It’s not because I’ve been sitting around . . . we’ve been busy.  Gina was gone, then we went out of town for the Fourth.  Then back a couple of days and then we took off for Colorado Springs — Gina had a work thing, and Leah and I just hung out.  We just got back last night.   More details to follow . . .

But I got some posts I need to start writing.  About book, dishwashers, and other events. Stay tuned.

Digital Converters — Mission Accomplished

After a rocky road I finally have digital converters hooked up to two older TV’s that aren’t hooked up to DirecTV.  Gina tried to convince me that two is a better idea and then, after all the storms lately, I as finally convinced that, yes, we do need two.  (You see, heavy storms block out DirecTV.  Not generally a big deal, but this spring and summer it has been.)

I was a little on the ball and got our two coupons from the government.  And then they sat there for a while. But,  they expire after 90 days!  

Gina has been gone most of the week and Leah has been staying at her uncle and aunt’s house.  I went over after work, had dinner, got Leah to bed, and then came home.  One night on the way home I decided to see if Kmart had any digital converters.  And they were sold out.  Sears was also on the way home and I stopped in and, nope, they had sold out too.  I continuing on home and then I saw Shopko, which Gina likes to go to because no one else ever does.  I thought, “No one shops there!  Surely they have some left!”  But apparently people look for hard-to-find items at Shopko because they didn’t have any left either.

Leah was back home with me on Friday night.  On Saturday afternoon we set out to find two digital converters and we weren’t going home until we found some.  We went to Wal-Mart #1 and was told they sold the 20 they had in stock that morning (it was now about 2pm). I then drove to Best Buy. The sales guys proudly said “Yes we have them!”  and took me straight to an empty shelf.  Yes, they were sold out too, and the sales dude was just as disappointed as I was.

We then journeyed on to Wal-Mart #2, which is really straight south of Best Buy a few miles.  I didn’t even see an empty shelf there so I asked a sales guy.  He gave me a simple “Nope” and we went on.

By now, I was getting discouraged and Leah was getting antsy that we were going to all these stores and were not buying anything!   But SuperTarget is across the road from Wal-Mart #2 — maybe they have them.  But do they take the government coupons?  Well, I could just ask.

The sales guy at SuperTarget was busy so Leah and I were just walking around looking for the converters or an empty self but didn’t see either one.  As soon as the sales guy got free, I saw them. A huge pile!  I really couldn’t believe my eyes!!!  So I asked the sales guy if they take the government coupons and he said that they did.  So that is how we got our digital converters.  I then told the sales guy that he was probably the only one in town that had any left but he didn’t act like he believed me.

How well do these converters work?  Most of the time the picture is good.  Sometimes the picture freezes but that happens much less at night than during the day.  There are channels that come over digital that do not come on analog airwaves or our on DirecTV like 62O, which don’t think is really all that great.  NET2 is a good thing, though.

So shop early if you want your digital converters! Or you will be driving all over town . . 

Dump the Pump Day

Did you know that today was Dump the Pump Day?  No, I didn’t either until about 3pm.  But a day about raising awareness about Public Transportation couldn’t be more timely than now.  Wired has a great little write-up about it.

Of course, I didn’t know about it because Omaha’s public transportation didn’t participate.  It would have been a good opportunity to raise awareness about the bus system in Omaha and, at least, have given free express rides to the commuters to and from downtown so they can try it out and see what it is like.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again — too bad Omaha’s city government has no vision for public transportation.

Interviewing from the Other Side

Today was a first in my career — I sat on the other side of the interviewing table.  In others words, I was the job interviewer, not the job interviewee.

To be fair, it was an internal interview and I also knew the guy and encouraged him to apply.  I’m also not a  decision maker.  My manager asked me and other members of the team that weren’t decision makers to sit in.  His reasoning was that we were going to be working with the guy and he would like our impressions.  I was up front with my manager — that I encouraged him to apply in the first place (though he asked me about the position first) and he said he was fine with that and said he’d still like my impressions.

So I went. It was a little weird not being the one that is nervous,  but trying to see how this person will fit in with the team was hard.  As well as, “What did he mean with that answer?”