Threw this together this evening using the data from Highway Manager on my Treo. I plan to use it as my signature on PriusChat. Unfortunately, I generally generate data fairly slowly, only needed to fill every couple of weeks. The two close data points were from driving to northern Maine and back.
Yeah, I know, I’ve only been posting about the Prius lately. I just can’t help it, it’s a major purchase, and it’s like a giant geeky gadget. What am I to do?
What I do need to do is get it registered this week. I think I’m going to go for vanity plates again, but KYZOKU really doesn’t feel like me anymore, so I’m going to get something different. My current thinking is to get 2BTHCKR, but I’m open to suggestions at this point. My coworkers came up with a bunch of ideas, of which LSFILNG was my favorite, though some variant of ONCALL would also be appropriate. I’d kindof like to avoid the xxMPG that you see on so many Priuses.
Tuesday night I became the proud owner of a shiny new magnetic gray 2007 Toyota Prius! I’m loving it so far, it’s like the ultimate geek car what with the SKS, the ICE, the MFD and all the other great TLAs in the vehicle. I’m looking forward to apply a few hacks to it, including the EV mode button and figuring out how to feed video into the MFD and get the screen touch data off of the AVC-LAN.
I would have pictures of it, but my Nikon Coolpix 5700 has become non-functional. There seems to be an issue with the CCD or something connected to it, as the image contains basically random horizontal lines that jump around. Luckily, this appears to be a known defect, and Nikon offers a free repair for it. So I should have pictures of the Prius once I ship that off and get it back.
Update: I didn’t change anything, just left the camera in the car overnight, and this morning it’s working fine again. I think the camera must have absorbed some of the Prius’s newness and magically fixed itself. Or something.
So, another birthday come and gone. Nothing terribly eventful this year. Delia gave me a tool bag along with an RJ-45 crimper and a Cat5 stripper, so I can finally make my own cables without having to use tools at work. She also picked up a business card holder for my desk at work, and some additional coasters for the apartment.
I’ve also been on a bit of a spending spree lately, picking up some new shoes from Zappos (online shoe buying is so much easier than offline), a new mouse and laptop AC/DC adapter from Woot, and a new 2007 Toyota Prius which should arrive on Monday or Tuesday.
So, life seems to be going pretty well at the moment. I’m being transitioned to a different position at work, which will give me a wider variety of things to work on. Looking forward to it, though I’ll not be in the full swing of it till the end of the project we’re currently working on, which is still 2-3 weeks off. I’m still enjoying the work, the whole development cycle is so much cleaner than it was at SimPro or Net-Temps. It’s just a great place to work.
I’m also getting my finances in order finally. I was hoping to be caught up this month, but it looks like I’ll be all up to date by the end of April instead. I’m pretty much down to just getting caught up on rent and a couple of utilities. Amanda’s finally been able to start paying her share of the rent again, now that things have be sorted out with her new job and she’s started getting paychecks. I plan on opening a secured credit card with Bank of America soon, which should help my credit get back on track. I’d like to be able to get into a new car by the end of the year, and perhaps get into a condo in a year or two.
Speaking of vehicles, I’m open to suggestions on what to get. I’ve been happy with the Focus ZX3, though I think if I were to go for a Focus again it would be the ZX5. Also considering the Toyota Matrix or the 5-door Mazda 3. Ideally I’d like something with all wheel drive for the winters here.
Ah well, I thought I had more to write, but it’s just not coming to me at the moment.
Well, I haven’t done a real update in a while, so here goes.
A few weeks back I was arrested for driving under a suspended license. My license had been suspended due to failing to pay a ticket for an invalid inspection. Yesterday was my court date, and everything’s cleared up now. I’ve got my license back and my registration is valid again. During the time I wasn’t driving my car the battery managed to die, however.
Normally, changing a car battery is pretty simple, but of course, this time had to be difficult. First, I had a fun time just getting the old battery disconnected, mostly due to not having the right tools (trip to Sears fixed that) and the amount of corrosion on the terminal (baking soda and water are your friends). Then, when putting the new battery in, I managed to break one of the terminal clamps. Ford, for some reason, decided to use a kindof odd clamp. Rather than having a normal bolt going perpendicular to the terminal, tightening the clamp down, they had an odd T-bolt with angled parts on the bottom that forced the clamp closed as you tightened it down. It didn’t work very well, and I managed to snap the bolt. So, I also got to make another trip to Home Depot and the auto parts store to grab a new terminal and a hacksaw to cut the old terminal off and replace it. I got it in the end though. All happy now, yay!
In other news, work is going pretty well, I managed to get our notification system working again today, though I still have to do some work on it over the weekend, I think things are starting to look up again.
Also, it looks like we’ll be moving next weekend, hopefully into the apartment on the other side of the river above ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
kyotemusings. I still need to give my application to the landlady and do whatever paperwork, and figure out where to get the deposit and first month’s rent from, but I think it’ll come together. I guess I should do the standard call-to-arms for moving help. We can probably use all the help we can get moving stuff next weekend. We’re hoping to get most of the boxes and stuff over on Saturday, then rent a U-Haul to get the furniture on Sunday. We also need to go down to Lowell to get the table and chairs that MA Dan is letting us have.
I guess that’s about it. I should take some shots of the new place and post them in the not too distant future.
delicious