RIP, Mr. TiVo.

I came home from work today and turned on the TV. Seinfeld was on, so I started watching that. Sabrina called me, so I talked to her for awhile. College Championship Jeopardy came on. At some point, I looked over at the TV screen and it was black. Maybe I accidentally sat on the remote and turned it off. I checked. The TV was on. Hmm. Maybe TiVo was being weird. I unplugged him, waited a bit, and then plugged him back in. The “Almost there…” screen came up. Then rebooted. Then the “Almost there…” screen. Then a reboot. Repeat. Repeat. I was scared.

Then Frances called me, so I told Sabrina I would call her back, since I hadn’t talked to Frances in awhile. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out why TiVo is scaring me. As much as I can figure out, he’s had a hard drive failure.

Now, I’m sure most of you know, the sweat, blood, and money that I have poured into TiVo in the past two and a half years. I upgraded his hard drive to a nice 120 gigs. I reworked his silly series 1 box into being able to use the Internet instead of the phone line. And all of this I did, using a faulty motherboard on my old desktop. So I spent many hours yelling and throwing things to get it to work.

So, what are my options? I could get a new hard drive, maybe a bigger one, and try to salvage the stuff that is on the drive. Or I could get a new TiVo.

If you haven’t looked at TiVo lately, they’ve come a long way. My series 1 box….records stuff. That’s about it. With a series 2, you can download the files to your computer, burn them to DVD, set up recordings online, check the weather, etc. I go to TiVo’s website just to see how much that would set me back, since I figure a new nice sized drive would be about $80.

Well, right now, they have a deal where you can get a refurbished series 2 TiVo for free with a year’s subscription. Well, of course, I’m going to have TiVo for a year. I can’t live without it. So, I ended up ordering a free TiVo, which should be here in about a week.

But first, let’s have a moment of silence for TiVo #1.

I suppose most of the recordings on there are replacable. There will be reruns and whatnot. It’s just going to take a few months to find that great episode of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and I’m sure they’ll never show that little animated short “Drink” on there again, but maybe I can find it online.

Or, if anyone knows if there’s a way to maybe transfer recordings from a potentially bad hard drive from a series 1 TiVo to a series 2 TiVo, let me know.

I added a new little feature to the site.

Now when you are viewing the folders in the photo gallery, you can click on a link that sends you directly to a related blog post (if there is one). So if you ever find yourself wondering why I took 15 pictures of ducks one day or why there are random pictures of the streets of Knoxville in the middle of all my birthday party pictures, you can click on the link and maybe find out.

I still plan on doing a major overhaul of the site. Maybe Friday. Not sure. I have an idea of what I want to replace the non-functioning calendar with, but I’m not sure how long it will take to implement it.

Anyway, things are going pretty good right now. Boxes are almost all unpacked. Hopefully I will get all that finished up this weekend or the next. Planning a board game party (slash apartment-warming party) for next month. I’m excited because Jason and Becka might be coming up to see my new place, and (cross your fingers) maybe even Sabrina!

I need to go reserve a Wii.

And now a word from Jack Johnson…

Well I was sitting, waiting, wishing
You believed in superstitions
Then maybe you’d see the signs

The Lord knows that this world is cruel
I ain’t the Lord, no I’m just a fool
Learning lovin’ somebody don’t make them love you

Must I always be waiting, waiting on you
Must I always be playing, playing your fool

I sang your songs, I danced your dance
I gave your friends all a chance
But putting up with them
Wasn’t worth never having you

Maybe you’ve been through this before
But it’s my first time so please ignore
The next few lines cause they’re directed at you

I can’t always be waiting, waiting on you
I can’t always be playing, playing your fool

I keep playing your part
But it’s not my scene
Want this plot to twist
I’ve had enough mystery
Keep building it up
Then shooting me down
But I’m already down

Just wait a minute
Just sitting, waiting
Just wait a minute
Just sitting, waiting

Well, if I was in your position
I’d put down all my ammunition
I’d wonder why’d it taken me so long

But Lord knows that I’m not you
And if I was, I wouldn’t be so cruel
Cause waitin’ on love ain’t so easy to do

Must I always be waiting, waiting on you
Must I always be playing, playing your fool

No, I can’t always be waiting, waiting on you
I can’t always be playing, playing your fool

My first blog post from Nashville!

Well, I’ve moved to Nashville, unpacked most of my stuff, washed EVERY SINGLE article of clothing I have, and started a new job. Right now I’m sitting here watching an episode of House Hunters about a couple named Jason and Becka. Ha.

When I got to the apartment complex on Friday to move in, everything was crazy because a building was on fire. There were flames shooting out of the building. It was insane. But we managed to make our way around all the fire trucks and police cars and get everything moved in. (No one was hurt, by the way.)

On Saturday, I went white water rafting on the Hiwassee River with my friend Diana from high school and a few other people. It was fairly tame, but I still flipped out of the raft once and did a couple somersaults underwater. It was way fun.

Then Sunday, I spent the ENTIRE day doing laundry and moving the living room around. It’s basically set up now; I just need a TV stand to put my new TV on because it is too heavy for the one I had before (which is practically broken from the weight of the last TV). So my TV, TiVo, DVD player, and game systems are all sitting in the floor right now.

Today was my first day of work, which was a little overwhelming. I went in at 9, spent an hour filling out paperwork, then went to a board meeting which lasted an hour and a half, ate lunch, went to a meeting in the government building downtown about a project I will be working on, came back, got introduced to everyone, and then came home. Whew! Two meetings on my first day! So far my favorite perk of the job is getting a pass for the parking garage that I can use any time.

I brought home my laptop to set up, but I don’t know if I’ll get to that tonight or not. The cable guy came about 20 minutes after I got home. I went to set up the internet after he left and kept getting an error message. I knew everything was set up right so I spent an hour on hold with Comcast before they finally got on the line and fixed it.

Which is where I am now. I’m almost done unpacking except for a bunch of little stuff and I still have to set up the sewing room. After I do all that and I get a TV stand, I will take some pictures. I love the red wall in my living room. It makes apartment-living a little less blah. I just need to get the pictures on my walls.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy fourth of July!

Well, as most of you probably know, I’m moving to Nashville in less than two weeks.

I accepted a job offer to be a technical analyst with Tennessee Anytime, and I start on July 17. It is a bittersweet decision because, while I’ve been really antsy to get a new job, Ben will not be accompanying me to Nashville. Instead, he has plans to move to Chicago and try to figure out his life. Hopefully, things will work out for the best.

So, I’m apartment hunting right now. My last day of work here is the 11th, so I have from the 12th to the 16th to get moved into a new place and set up. Talk about stress.

I won’t be going to AWA or Dragoncon this year, unfortunately.

I hope everyone has a great fourth of July.