Rock Band

Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a little gaming. Of course, we had to play some multiplayer Halo 3 - which I found quite amusing as all of the online players we encountered were using guest accounts, showing that there was a bunch of family playing together :) After some fragging and some Rocket Racing - we did some co-op Guitar Hero III. We spent quite a bit of time playing GHIII, but with all of the hype with the release of Rock Band, I was itching to pick it up. I wasn't so sure I was going to pick it up when it first came out, as it wasn't clear if it was worth the purchase. After hearing from one of my buddies, it was determined that it was well worth the money. Good thing for me, I have the most wonderful wife in the world, who went out of her way to get the game on Black Friday.

After some golf, then beer and food we were able to kick back and Rock ON! We were able to get our band together, "Yellow Salt" (name courtesy of Megan) and get through a bit of the multiplayer accomplishments.

I have to say that it is quite a fun game. So fun in fact I am currently playing the solo guitar tour and only have 9 songs left on the hard difficulty. Next step - drums on Medium ;)

Mmmm... Beer

Thanksgiving has passed, and now we are into the Christmas shopping season! But instead of talking about shopping - lets talk beer. :) On Black Friday, the entire family went out to The Sonora Brew House in downtown Phoenix.

www.sonorabrewhouse.com

I have tried a number of their beers, and I have never had a bad one. They always have a cask ale to try, as well as a strong brew. The cask ale was a pale ale and it was very tasty. The strong brew was the Deadwood Red, at 9.7%abv. Mmmm. One of the great things about this place is that you can buy a growler and get it filled for $9.00 with your favorite ale. $12.00 if you want to fill it with their strong selection.

Oh, and on top of that, their food is pretty good too!

The Holidays are here again

Usually, we start setting up the Christmas decorations and the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. This year, we are setting up about a week early so everything will be ready for when the rest of the family arrive for Thanksgiving. I guess you can call it a 'Thanksmas' of sorts because we will be doing our gift exchange at this time as well. I'm looking forward to the festivities this year, as it is always a good time to get everybody together to eat drink and generally be merry.

The plan is to have good food, good wine, good beer and play some golf too :) I'm really looking forward to the beer. We will be making a trip to Sonora Brewing Company in Phoenix, which is a place we happened into about a month ago and the food and beer were most excellent. I got a growler too, which I will be happy to fill up again to take home.

Urban Dare

One of the 'traditions' that Ed and I have every year is to race in some city race. It started out back in Santa Clara/San Jose where we would run the San Jose 10K. After I moved to AZ (and Ed eventually followed) we started running the Intel 10K. Running 6 miles gets kind of boring and we discovered another type of race, The Urban Challenge. The Urban Challenge consists of a set of fixed clues that you have to solve with the help of a support team. You would then run to the locations designated by each clue and get a picture at that location. The first year we ran the race we didn't do so well and just barely finished within the alloted time limit. The second year we did much better and finished in 10th place, qualifying us for the nationals. Being that we still weren't very good, we decided not to do nationals and just try harder the next year. Unfortunately, after signing up the next year, the Challenge was cancelled with no information as to why.

After a 2 year hiatus, we discovered the Urban Dare. It is very similar to the Urban Challenge, except that at certain locations you have to perform dares to complete the checkpoint. We were hoping for a food challenge, and maybe some water craft challenge, but we didn't get to have either. We did have trivia, a jigsaw puzzle and other simple challenges though. Overall, the race was a success. We finished in the top 10, in about 2:25 (top finishers finished in 1:52). Now that we know what to expect, we figure to do better next year and also try to get in to some kind of shape as well :)

Here's the site: http://www.urbandare.com/
And here's their blog: http://www.urbandare.blogspot.com/

Another day, another birthday

I find that I am complaining about my age more and more lately. I guess knowing that I am creeping up to and soon to be surpassing my mid 30's is something that I didn't see happening - but it is. The fact that it takes me longer to warm up, I need to do some amount of stretching and I hobble around after exercising is kind of a downer. I should be happy that I can at least still get out there though!

I went out to eat with my family and friends over the weekend to celebrate my birthday. Typical night out would be to go and have Sushi since I don't get to normally have sushi. Instead we hit up 'Fogo e Brasa', which is a Brazilian steakhouse. Mmmm, I love meat. Basically, you have some salad, etc to start the meal, then they bring the rice, beans and fried bananas. After that comes the meat. The servers walk around the restaurant with large skewers of meat and you just eat to your hearts desire until you pop. To top it off, they have a very nice dessert cart to push you over the top at the end of the meal.

Did I say I love meat, yet? :)

Back on the court!

Encroaching on my 6 month anniversary of my surgery (March 21), I have officially gone back to the volleyball court. I played my first game since being out since December this passed Sunday. I must admit I was very nervous going in to play. All I have been doing prior to playing was going to PT, doing some running and that's about it.

Given that playing volleyball doesn't take a big amount of cutting (like football or soccer), my Doc gave my the go-ahead to play. He doesn't want me to do any major cutting activities until my 9 month anniversary.

Once I got into the game, and that first whistle blew, my intentions of "not playing too hard" were thrown out the door. Of course, it didn't help that we only had 4 players on the court against 6. Overall, the experience was positive. I was able to play pretty much to my expected potential. My timing is WAY off with my ball striking, and my serving is still pretty rusty. I did experience some soreness in my knee though. The good thing is that the soreness is due to my patellar tendon, and not my ACL. The patellar tendon is where they harvested the graft for my new ACL, so there is additional scar tissue in the area causing it to be much more taut than usual.

I told my physical therapist about the soreness, and she is concerned about developing tendonitis. She taught me some massaging techniques to use on the tendon to keep the blood circulation good, and to keep the fibers in proper alignment. It also helps in breaking down the scar tissue. After she performed the massage, my knee felt significantly better - so I know what I need to do to keep my sanity at a reasonable level :)

It will be a while before I hit the sand courts though - at least another month.

Our House, 6 years later

After mowing the lawn this morning, I realized I haven't really taken any pictures of the house since we were taking frequent pictures during it's construction. Here, you will see the house during it's final stages of construction.

The trees are still very small, the bushes are small and the garage door still isn't even painted. Fast forward to this morning...

I would say that the grass looks pretty darned good 6 years later :) We lost our first tree that was in the lawn from a storm, so we put in a new one in a slightly different location. The bushes have gone through many iterations of trimming, we expanded the driveway and put in a small patio in the front. The exterior of the house has been repainted to get rid of the awful rose/pink hues that were very apparent in the original paint job. The basketball hoop was put in when we got the driveway extended as well.

All in all, the house is holding up fine. I wonder how big the trees will be in another 6 years...

Replacement power supply

I have replaced the power supply in my new machine. When I figured out that my existing supply couldn't provide enough juice, it didn't take me long to decide to get a new unit. I headed over to Fry's Electronics and picked up a 650W Toughpower Thermaltake modular power supply.

It's a pretty nice power supply, sporting a 14cm fan for cooling (the bigger the fan, the slower it has to rotate to get equivalent flow, resulting in less fan noise) and modular cabling for a cleaner installation. With this new power supply, I have no problems running the extra intake fan and the rest of the components.

What next? Well, I will probably get myself one of those 750GB drives, as they are so cheap nowadays...

PC build

I was getting pretty up with the loud fans in my current Dell XPS system, so I decided to put together a new computer with quiet in mind. Don't get me wrong, my Dell system treated me well, and never gave me any problems. It's still a good system, and has all the bells and whistles: 1.5 GB memory, a recent Radeon Pro vid card, 19" LCD an extra HD, etc, etc. The problem with the design is that it uses a bunch of fans to cool off the video card, processor and power supply. Instead of using larger fans, it uses a bunch of small fans, which really makes a difference in the noise level.

The computer I built is based off of an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor, running at 2.4 Ghz. Here's a list of components:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor
• 2 GB G-Skill DDR2 memory
• 320 GB Western Digital SATA drive
• Intel P35 based motherboard
• Lite-On DVD Rom and DVD-RW drive
• 3.5" internal memory card reader
• Antec Solo Case
• Gigabyte 8600 GTS Silent Pipe 3 vid card

Not quite the 'gamers machine' but it should do just fine for the amount of gaming that I actually do. The benefit to this machine is that it is very quiet, especially since the video card doesn't use any fans. Oh, I also got a 22" widescreen Samsung LCD monitor as well :)

Problem: I added an additional intake fan to the machine, and it failed to boot. Doing some research, I found that this is caused by too much power draw and the culprit is my power supply. I picked up a Rosewill 550W power supply, but I guess it just doesn't have enough oomph to cover the computer all the peripherals and the case fans. For the time being, I have disabled the intake fan and will be buying a replacement power supply sometime in the near future.

I'm very happy with the build, and the monitor is quite nice.

Water Damage

If you are familiar with Arizona, then you are probably aware of our so-called "Monsoon Season" where during the late afternoons we get rather large storm cells that bring dust storms, rain and plenty of lightning and thunder. What qualifies us entering this season is 3 consecutive days of 55 degree average dewpoint. We have had a number of heavy rain days now, and after our last big storm Tammy saw some water damage to one of the walls in the gameroom. As you can see, the paint was rather easy to peel off. I had to figure out what the source of the water was, so I hiked up into the attic to scope things out. Initial thoughts were that the vents in the roof were leaking and letting in water because of the large amounts of rain that we have had. There were indications of water coming in from the vents, and what I assumed was dripping down to an area that was obviously wet, and created a small hole in the insulation.

Tammy made a few calls to different contractors to see if we can get somebody out to give an estimate of the damage. We finally called 1-800-FLOODED. They have been doing a bunch of larger jobs in the area because of the recent rains, and informed us that our damage was very minimal in comparison to the $100K plus jobs that they are also doing. They setup a few air movers to circulate the air around the damaged wall, and also poked a few holes to improve airflow within the wall itself.

After a couple of days of drying out the wall, I noticed that the wall wasn't drying out enough as there was still a wet spot on the wall. It hasnt' been raining all that much during this timeframe, so I decided to go back up into the attic to double check the cause of the moisture. After further inspection, I found that the water was dripping from the A/C blower. Instead of the drip being caught by the emergency drip pan, it was dripping onto the insulation, and eventually destroying the wall. So, we had to call the A/C maintenance folks to get things fixed up there.

The problem ended up being a clogged P-trap. Usually, these things are supposed to last 8 - 10 years, but for some reason, this one clogged early. Above is a picture of the removed clogged area. With the P-trap clogged, the condensation drip was backing up into the unit, causing the overflow and eventual leak. Now that the P-traps are fixed (got them both replaced) there is no more water dripping into the house and we have finally dried out the wall.

Now I have to patch up the wall, retexture some spots and repaint! Whee!

Back to PT

Those 4 weeks off really took it's toll. Not being presented with a consistent enforcement of my exercises, I admit I have not been following up very well with my exercises. Now that I have started PT again, I am sore. I don't think I have been this sore after exercising in a while, and all I did was about an hour of work.

One of the defining moments of my therapy yesterday was after I did 2 sets of 20 lunges. I was introduced to a new jumping drill, to get me started with my more aggressive regimen. I step onto a small platform (probably 6 inches off of the ground) and jump off, landing and exaggerating my landing some to make sure I have proper absorption of the impact. My first jump? I almost collapsed on my landing. :) I guess I needed a little rest before continuing on.

Now that I am cleared for using the elliptical (and we will start running soon as well) things should start progressing much quicker. I can't wait for more torture!

The summer months

You know, the Phoenix area is great during the winter. The summertime, eh, not so much. A couple of nights ago, it was pretty miserable trying to sleep. I have my thermostat set for 80 during the evenings to try and save a few dollars on our electric bill. Usually, this temperature isn't really that bad when you are sleeping, but for some reason both Tammy and I just couldn't stand it.

We have a stand alone fan that we have put in Josh's room to keep him cooler (his room is above the garage, so it gets WAY hot in there). I had to grab the fan from his room in the middle of the night and put it back into our room to cool us off. Don't worry, Josh was already in our bed as usual.

This prompted a trip to the store to buy another fan. I must say, last night's sleep was much more comfortable with that fan running!

HP refresh

The date is getting nearer!

Finally.

After all of that waiting for my MP3 player, it finally arrived. Unfortunately, it arrived while I was in Santa Clara for work, so I didn't get to play with it until Wednesday. To recap, I got the Meizu M6. I originally ordered the 4GB unit in Black, but they are pretty much sold out everywhere right now (at least where you can get it for a reasonable price). So I opted for the White one after one of the managers from Walgreens.com contacted me with the information about the delay with the Black units. I am okay with the White unit, even though it looks kind of like an iPod :).

I paired up the player with a new set of JVC in-ear headphones. The combination couldn't be better. The sound is incredible from this player - and the sound manipulation capabilities are quite good. You don't get just 'treble' and 'bass'. You also get a full equalizer and a few built in DSP modes. Transferring music to the unit is very easy. After upgrading to the most recent firmware, it works seamlessly with WMP11 (Windows Media Player 11) for syncing. You can also just drag and drop any files into the 'music' folder as it shows up as a removable drive within the file explorer.

There is loose support for album art as well, with the firmware update of course. You need to copy the .jpg of the art to the folder where the music resides, and rename the file to match artistalbum.jpg (at least I think that is what it is) and the image will be displayed when the file is being played.

With all the niceties of unit, there are some drawbacks. Limited video support where you have to run it through a converter for support. There are some audio issues as well. At the end of playing an MP3, and there isn't a natural 'space', the mp3 will stutter a couple of times before continuing to the next song. Nothing super bad, but it can get annoying. I just hope they clear up some of the issues in their next firmware update.

The wait is unbearable!!

I have been waiting, and waiting and waiting and waiting.

My mp3 player (a Creative Zen Nano Plus) went through the wash (and dry) cycle a while back and while it still works, it drains a battery in about 2 minutes. So, into the market I went for a new mp3 player. I am not really interested in getting a hard drive based unit, as it has the moving parts instead of a solid state memory. The less moving parts, the more durable the product.

With so many different units around, I was basically sticking to the mainstream competitors of Samsung, SanDisk, Creative and Apple as well as a few others. I immediately threw out any Apple products as viable alternatives as I don't really care for being trapped into using iTunes and the limited format support. My daughter has an iPod, while a great little product and user friendly, I really don't like iTunes. After more comparison shopping, I was down to 2 different units. The Creative Zen V Plus and the Sandisk e260. Both had their positives and negatives, but I have read that the Zen V Plus has reliability problems while the e260 sound isn't all that hot.

A bit more research I go!

I ran into a pretty nice site called http://www.anythingbutipod.com/ which covers all sorts of mp3 players not named iPod :) This site covered everything. From here, I learned about the very cool Cowon D2 and the Meizu M6. It was one of these I was then deciding upon. The Cowon D2 is an all touch screen model that does video, but the prices are a bit higher. The Meizu M6 on the other hand can handle videos, has an Apple like interface (but you don't have to use iTunes) has great sound and can be had for a little over $100!

Now, that I have found the player I want, I found that I can get one for under $100 from walgreens.com from all places! It was on pre-order until 6/11, so I went ahead and ordered it - I figured it was worth the wait.

But is it really? Walgreens is really getting to me right now. Their customer service number is always busy, and their email response time is slow. I have contacted them twice already wondering why the unit hasn't shipped yet. Hopefully they will let me know what is going on tomorrow. I'm sick of waiting.

Got a new vehicle

Yes, a new car. We traded in Tammy's Honda Accord for a new crossover SUV. The vehicle we selected was the Hyundai Veracruz. It's a very nice ride. I have included some pictures for your enjoyment.

Our purchase was incredibly easy. We worked with an employee discount program which gives us basically invoice price. We found the vehicle we wanted in stock, worked the financing ourselves, received a check and just walked in to buy.

No haggling, no annoying salespeople. Quite possibly the easiest car purchase I have ever gone through. :) Sorry for not adding much to this entry, but I gotta run to PT

Physical Therapy

It's been a while since I have provided an update on my recovery status. After I was on partial weight bearing for those 2 weeks, I was able to ditch the crutches. Thankfully, the transition to walking again wasn't too bad. I was off the crutches for about 4 days before I went in for my first physical therapy session. I must say that the physical therapy is pretty enjoyable; being able to push myself some with exercises that don't stress my ACL. I'm going through some electric stimulation, stationary bike, balance exercises, step ups and lateral step ups and other side step exercises. On top of that, I get an incision massage and ice to end the session. The sessions take about 1.5 hours and I am in them 2 times a week.

I have 3 more weeks of therapy until I take about a month off. During that month off, I will continue with my own exercises at home. But when I go back to therapy I will be cleared to really push the envelope. I know that my physical therapist will like that - she seems to enjoy the fact that she has somebody to push around.

Sad state of the NBA

I really don't want to get into details - as it's all over the sports news right now.

Diaw and Amare have been suspended for Game 5 of the Western Conference semis. I'm really not liking David Stern right now. How is it fair that when Horry (from the Spurs) intentionally commits a flagrant foul on Steve Nash - a couple of players want to make sure their star player is okay and the players who are concerned get suspended? 2 guys suspended to 1 against the team that did the wrongdoing? You have to be kidding me.

No wonder Stern cancelled his plans to watch Game 5 in person.

Suns Round 1 triumph

You know it! The Suns finished off the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs earlier on Wednesday. The game just before theirs was the Spurs/Nuggets matchup which decided who the Suns will face. The Spurs won their series, so it was up the the Phoenix Suns to finish off the Lakers! The final game was won with our frontcourt of Marion and Stoudemire. Nash had a sub-par game, but was still efficient enough to get the job done.

I am so looking forward to this next series starting on Sunday! Another plus? I'm going to the game!

Star Wars Personality Quiz

I got this link from my friend's blog http://klepzig.vox.com.

Oh, the joy to be a nerd.

Another recovery update

I had my last appt last week to get my next steps in my recovery. While I still have to use the crutches to get around, I am cleared for 50% weight bearing on my leg. This allows me to try and get around with one crutch. Now, this was pretty difficult when I first started, but now that I have had a couple days of practice with it I am pretty good at getting around in this manner. I still use both crutches when getting around most of the time, but when I need to carry something, or am going short distances, one crutch is good enough. I have to get around in this manner for 2 weeks, then I can start full weight bearing. With full weight bearing, I get to start my physical therapy. It will be nice to start getting the strength back in my leg. Not using it for such a long period of time really has done it's job in making it weak.

More HD-DVD

I recieved my VGA cable for the XBox 360 the other day. Of course I couldn't wait to set it up. I couldn't do a full setup (the wire is routed in front of the entertainment center right now) but it is working just fine.

I have a Samsung HLS6187W DLP HDTV hooked up to my 360. This unit has a 'game mode' which bypasses some of the video enhancement circuitry, allowing for increased response time between the video game system and the TV. I am using 'game mode' with the VGA connection to the TV. With recent dashboard updates to the XBox 360, the VGA output to the TV can be set to 1980 x 1080 (I think that's it) which is the full resolution of the set. When I first hooked it up, I had a bit of underscan on the set (underscan is when the picture doesn't fully fill the screen). This was easily corrected using the P. SIZE setting on the television. After stretching out the video, I couldn't be happier.

Not only does using the VGA adapter provide 1080P resolution for video games, it also allows for full 1080P from the HD-DVD player! Of course, I immediately put in King Kong to relish in the splendor of 1080P when watching a movie. It's a sight to behold.

Go Phoenix Suns!!!

I have been a Phoenix Suns fan for quite a while. With the Suns making it to the Western Conference Finals 2 years in a row, there are high expectations for them this year. The NBA playoffs kicked off this weekend, and the Suns are playing the Lakers in the first round.

They just finished up the game, and The Suns won 95 - 87! I wouldn't say that the series has gotten off to a great start, as they only scored 39 points in the first half. But they finally found their groove, and seemed to shake off those jitters from the first half. One down, 15 to go. 15 you say? Yup, you need to win 16 games to win the championship :)

Next game is on Tuesday, and they better win this one. I don't want to see a repeat of the series going to 7 games like last year!

HD-DVD

It's all about time. And after some time, I finally decided to give the next generation High Definition portable media a try. One of the things that is holding back this technology is that there are 2 competing standards vying for supremacy in the consumer space. One is Blu-Ray, the other being HD-DVD. Think of this competition being similar to the VHS/Betamax competition way back when.

Both formats have their benefits and downsides, and it is still not very clear who is going to win out. So, instead of forking out $500+ dollars on a standalone player, I decided to take advantage of owning an XBox 360 and picked up Microsoft's addon on HD-DVD player. It was a breeze to hook up, and after a software update I was ready to play high definition videos. HD-DVD is capable of outputting 1080P resolution to the TV (and thankfully, my TV handles 1080P through HDMI and component) Unfortunately I am hooked up through component to my TV, and there is a limitation in the HD-DVD licensing (at least this is my understanding) that you cannot output greater than 1080i over component. So I am basically running at 1/2 the resolution that I can run.

So, what do I do? I have gone and ordered a VGA connection cable for the XBox 360, which will allow me to view movies in full 1080P resolution. :) I will give you an update on how all that is going about when I get it all set up. Of course, it is going to take me some time to get this done as I am still pretty limited on my mobility.

recovery update

Not too much has been going on over the passed week or so. I am still walking around in crutches not being able to put any significant weight on my leg. What I am able to do is touch weight bearing. What this means is that I can use my foot for balance when using the crutches, but that is about it. The Doc showed my how to use my crutches in a way so it mimics walking. I guess that is supposed to be better than me just swinging my bad leg around and not have it touch the ground.

I am also still using the leg immobilizer whenever I am out of bed. This is going to continue on for another 2 weeks, then I should be able to get around with out it on. Of course, when that 2 weeks is up, I won't be able to put any weight on my leg, but at least I won't need the immobilizer.

Since my last update, I have removed the dressing off of my knee (incision area looked pretty cool with those staples in there) and have increased my flexion in my CPM machine to the max value of 120. At 120, when I first start the machine and my leg reaches about 105, my knee starts to get extremely tight and it does get quite painful. But after the first iteration things feel pretty good, and there is really no pain.

Speaking of pain, I have been off of pain medication since late last week. When I went in to see the doc on Friday, he asked how the pain was and if I needed any additional prescriptions for it. I told him the amount of pain I have (virtually none really) and he mentioned that over all of the patients he has had, I am only around the 20th that didn't require much pain meds to get through the day this early after the surgery. Also, during my last visit to the doc, my staples were removed and I can finally take a proper shower (I am sure my wife is quite happy about that one) :)

I will be pretty much doing the same thing every day for the next 3 weeks until my next appt, when I should be able to do some weight bearing on my leg. That will be nice when that time actually arrives.

layed up

Well, I am back at home after the surgery. I wish I could say it was everything I expected it to be, but unfortunately it wasn't. My initial expectations was to go in, have the surgery and be able to be weight bearing on my leg a few days after the operation. There were some complications.

It turns out that my patellar tendon is quite long. It was something like 15 mm longer than what the Dr. expected, so he was not able to screw in the 'bone to bone' portion of the tendon into my femur. He said something about using the sutures to pull the tendon through the femur, and using some kind of washer and wrapping it around to secure, or something like that.
The advantage of having bone to bone contact is the fact that the tendon is better set in place, allowing for a somewhat faster recovery. Being that only half of my tendon is screwed in as expected, I am not allowed any weight bearing on my leg for 4 weeks! So I basically am going to be layed up in bed at home for the next few weeks as the graft adheres into place. Good thing I am able to work from home, or I would be SOL. Right now I am in my CPM machine, which is bending my leg from 0 to 40 degrees of flexion. I am able to add 5 - 10 more degrees each day, until I max out. I have to do this about 5 hours every day! There is no way I could perform these exercises and go into work. Also, the fact that I am required to be immobilized whenever I am moving around, pretty much limits what I can do effectively. On top of that, I also have to do my physical therapy exercises, which are supposed to help keep my leg atrophe at a minimum while I can't actually use my leg.

At least I have my Percocet!! Boy, that is some good stuff :)

My incision from where they harvested the tendon is stapled shut right now, and I can't get it wet until I get them removed, which won't be until next Friday. You know what that means! Sponge baths!

Surgery is tomorrow

I'm finally going in for my ACL reconstruction surgery tomorrow. They are going to keep me in the hospital overnight and discharge me on Thursday. I know everything that they are going to do, from harvesting the replacement tendon from my patella tendon to screwing it into my knee. The only thing that I am weary about is the recovery process and the inevitable pain that I am going to go through.

Well, at least I get some downtime for the next few days. I will take advantage of this time by reading "Harry Potter: The Half Blood Prince" again to prepare for the upcoming release of the 7th and final book of the series. I just finished "Order of the Phoenix" the other day so prep for the release of the movie.



I may even catch up on some movies :)

Rump Shakers

.

For Christmas, one of the presents I got from Tammy was what she calls "Rump Shakers". They are actually tactile transducers that attach to the furniture to give the movie audience a more immersive experience. I was given 4 transducers (Aura Pro Bass Shakers) and a subwoofer plate amplifier. Now, being that these things are installed on the couches (as seen in the first picture) I had to wire them up somehow. This gave me the opportunity to cut a few more holes in the house. Of course, Tammy wasn't too happy about that, but after all is said and done it looks pretty good.

This is what I purchased:

A roll of RG6 coaxial cable
A bunch of 14 guage speaker wire
a couple of mounting plates with some 'old install' wall boxes

I cut a few holes in the walls and ceiling to fish the coaxial cable through. The origination point is right near where the subwoofer is on my sistem in the entertainment center. The final destination is near the back corner of the room. This is an ideal drop for the line, as one of the future upgrades I want for my system is a new subwoofer, and that corner would be perfect for it, as it is a cylinder subwoofer that is pretty tall :).

After feeding the wire through the house and terminating the wires with the needed hardware and attaching it to the plates, I replaced all of the drywall holes I cut, filled in the cracks, sanded and applied knockdown texture. Last thing was to paint. I must say it does look pretty good, and you can't tell that I had to cut a number of holes in the wall to get these things wired up.

I hooked up the transducers to the plate amplifier underneath the couch, wired them up in series and parallel and after some level adjustment, eveything is set! I must say, it does make your movie enjoyment that much more satisfying, as every low end 'boom' or rumble that is usually only an audible sensation is also relayed into the couch by shaking and vibrating it. It almost makes it feel like something is missing when you watch any other movie without the capability installed.

What a great present!

ACL update

I went to the doctor for my followup about 2 weeks ago. His review of my MRI concluded what we have come to before, my ACL is torn. Positives? Well, he said I had the best tear you could have. An acute ACL tear with no additional damage to the surrounding area. I do have a small tear in my meniscus, but it didn't seem to concern him any.

I wanted to get the surgery done ASAP, but with all of the activities coming up (Ed's wedding and the DisneyWorld trip) we figured it would be best to hold of the surgery for a time where I could properly rehab without extraneous activities. So, I got a scrip for a brace (I am gonna go for a custom one) and will be heading in for surgery on March 21.

In the meantime, my knee feels pretty good, with the exception of having a bit of instability. I was able to enjoy some volleyball during Ed's bachelor party, but I restricted my playing making sure I didn't jump any. I experienced some swelling, but that quickly subsided. Now if I can get my fat ass to exercise some...

Torn ACL

yay. (yes that was sarcastic).

I learned the other day that I have torn my ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) in my left knee. I was hoping that it wasn't this bad, but it is. The injury occurred early December while I was playing some sand volleyball. The game was going great, everything fine and dandy, until I went up for a spike. The hit was mediocre at best, but it was going in. While watching the opposing team dig up the ball, I landed awkwardly. My left leg must have landed first, where when it struck the sand (rather hard, I might add as the sand needed to be tilled) it buckled inward. Really a weird sensation when your knee goes in the wrong direction. From there I felt a 'pop' and a sharp pain. I immediately went down, crawling my way to the sideline of the court.

I tried my range of movement right away, and found that I could move the joint without much problem. It was sore of course, but movement was possible. As the pain subsided, I was able to get up and walk (rather gingerly). The pain gradually lessened as the day went on, making me believe that my injury wasn't all that bad. I figured I would wait it out to see how things progressed.

After a few weeks, the pain went away, and I didn't really feel instable during normal walking and standing on one leg. I decided to give the knee a try following the New Year. I was able to warm up and actually start the game. My knee felt kind of weird, but nothing I couldn't run around on. Then it happened. As I was getting more comfortable on the court, I went up for a simple hit strong side. The hit was fine, nothing too great, but as I came down my knee buckled yet again in the same manner it buckled before. This time, no 'pop' but a slight onset of pain. I quickly walked off the court so I could get out of the way of play. The pain went away pretty quick, and I was able to jog around a few minutes later. I didn't dare get back onto the court though. This second occurrance was my queue that something wasn't right and I had to contact the Dr.

I made an appt with Dr. Schenk, the same Dr. that took care of Briana's severly sprained ankle. I had to get some x-rays done before the appt, which were clean. At the appt, the Dr. did a simple examination of my knee by grasping my right knee first and moving it around testing the amount of movement. He went to my left knee and proceeded to do the same thing. He went back and forth a couple of times and asked me, "Do you feel any difference between the two knees?" I told him that the left one felt more loose. He told me he felt the same thing, which indicated with pretty high confidence that I tore my ACL. I made an appt to get an MRI done on my knee so the Dr. could evaluate the images to conclude on his findings and to see if there was any additional damage done.

I got the MRI done early this week, which wasn't all that exciting. Just laying there listening to the radio while they took pictures of my knee. It took about 30 minutes and I was outta there.

I am still waiting for my next appt with Dr. Schenk, which will be in a week or so. I did get a call today from my PCP in which they left a message. They just had me call back to the message center, which I guess the Dr. will call me back later. Being that I didn't have to get a recorded message and that I had to leave a message for them to call back that could only mean bad news. I will need to wait and see what they have to say.

Back to the grind

Happy New Year everybody! I know that the New Year was over a week ago, but I just never really felt like updating my blog. It was a busy Holiday season yet again. This time we drove up to Utah to visit my Dad and Virginia. This was our second visit up to Cedar City, and was the kids first 'White Christmas'. For the trip up, we had to route our trip through Las Vegas because of a small weather system that was traveling over the scenic route that probably would have created much stress and havoc on the trip. Fortunately, when driving through Las Vegas, we avoided the storm and was able to make it to Cedar City in good time.

While in Cedar City, we hung out around the house quite a bit. We were able to get out and do some sledding with the kids. It was a good time to visit with my Dad, Virginia and her Son's family. The kids had a great time in the snow, and it looks like we are going to be making future trips to Flagstaff to play in the snow.

The drive back was a very nice drive. We drove through Jacob Lake, which was a very scenic and traffic free drive. We even got to drive through Colorado City... ooooh. Believe it or not, I drove the ENTIRE way back. Yes, me, the guy who feels like falling asleep after only driving one hour made it the entire trip home!

Right now, I am working on installing one of my Christmas presents. I will post a separate post about all that when I get to upload some more pictures from the camera. Until then, c-ya!