PowerBook G4

A design flaw of the titanium PowerBooks is that the hinges are made of aluminum and not titanium. Therefor they are a bit fragile. The PowerBook is a bit outdated, but it does most of what I want a laptop to do, so I wasn't ready to give up on it yet. Plus it is still stylish and aesthetically pleasing.

I was able to pick up a used hinge mount from ifixit.com for under $20 w/ shipping.

Replacing the broken hinge mount was surprisingly easy. I was lucky that only the brittle hinge mount broke and not the actual hinge itself. That is closer to the $100 and requires complete disassembly of the laptop to reinstall. I think I could have done it, but it would have been much more of a pain in the arse.

It was so easy I let Corwin finish up for me.

Weekend Images

We have bonus images this week, but Dinner is the official photo of the week. Slow cooking the beef ribs wasn't so easy as a hurricane rolled during hour two of the ribs cooking. The patio is located underneath the deck and I put the patio furniture umbrella beside the grill to help keep the water off, and my grill temperature up. And marinated vegetable kabobs is a yummy way of eating my veggies, which Anke says I need to do a better job of in order to set a proper example of Corwin and the soon to arrive Scotty Version III.

Corwin has a ball on his little swing that he got from his Opa.

Finally starting to get some green in the forest.

Corwin is all about learning how to drive. But it won't be in this car.

I'm just buzzed

This is short film of Will Ferrel and his daughter. Very funny.

Nappy Headed Moe

For the record I thought that Imus deserved to be fired, and I'm glad that he was. But this made me laugh.

Weekend

I completed my first home improve- ment project. While Dad was in town on Saturday we mounted the kitchen cabinets that I picked up for $50 and a case of beer. Anke won out and they ended up in the laundry room and not the garage. The look really nice though. Dad and I ended up buying a new hammer drill to mount them into the concrete wall. The difference that the hammer drill made, vs. the old average drill in attacking in the concrete wall was shocking. The right tool for the job.

The cabinets still need to be cleaned up a bit, but they do look nice. Now I have to find a new storage solution for the garage.

For lunch Dad wanted to order food from the Thai Kitchen. A little hole in the wall place in South O. It's a bit odd to me that the best Thai that I've ever had would be found in the Mexican neighborhood of Omaha. But I am so proud of Dad for broadening his culinary horizons. I never thought the day would come when my father would say, "Let's get Thai."

Sunday was a good day too. Anke, Corwin and I took a walk on the Fontenelle Forest board walk Sunday morning. That afternoon I had a couple of beers with Maurice at the Horseshoe casino and we discussed the finer points of IT in the insurance industry. That afternoon Casa de Parker had a winged visitor in the basement. The poor little fellow was scared out of his mind. He found a nice retreat in one of Anke's plants for a while. I eventually shooed Mr. Sparrow into the garage and he was able to find the great outdoors from there.

For dinner I fired up my new Webber grill for the first time. I'm a slut for aesthetics, and that is kind of how I ended up with an expensive charcoal grill instead of a cheep gas grill. All of the cool looking gas grills are north of $300. But I got this groovy retro Webber with the blue enamel coat for much less than that. But still more than a sane person should pay for a charcoal grill. I cooked some chicken breasts that had a Turkish rub on them, along with some onions and potato kebabs. The chicken breasts turned out freaking phenomenal. The best chicken breast that I have ever had in my life! Charcoal does rule. They were so good that I broke out my last bottle of Eibauer (Scotty's favorite beer in the whole wide world, but only available on the other side of the world) to complement my dinner. Sometimes I think that I may lead a charmed life.

Photo of the Week

This is a new series I'm starting. Once a week I'm going to try and post a random photo. Some will be recent and some will be old. Like this one. If I had to guess, I'd say it's 1991 or so. I wish when I had taken this, I had a better idea of what I was doing. The framing on it is off. The front of the Blazer should be in the picture. And the back corner of the Cougar shouldn't be cut off either. Or probably the Cougar should have been moved, taken out of the photo completely. The composition of the old mower and old truck alone would have worked better in hind site.

That old black truck still holds a special place in my heart. Who can say why. It was slow, old, ugly, rusty. And the damn thing burned my leg back in the late 70's when it had side pipes. (It didn't have side pipes the next week, however.) Left a nice little scar on my leg that looked like a goldfish, that has since faded away in the skin cells of time.

But many good times were had with it. It was the first vehicle that I can ever recall riding in. Mom and Dad got it in 1975. My folks were cruising the SUV before the SUV was hip. As a youngster, it was always a special treat to get to ride on the console between the two front seats. That was a concussion waiting to happen. Now I strap Corwin down in the middle back seat of anything he's riding in. Different times.

Later it was my primary mode of transportation a couple of times in my driving career. By this time it wasn't quite as swanky as when I was a child. Rusting like nothing else. The passenger seat and driver seat didn't match. It was beat up, so it could be abused. I recall climbing snowing hills in the old beast with Tony. Getting just a few feet from the top of one, and losing traction. Sliding down the hill, the truck turning sideways and getting sideswiped by a tree. Loading boxes in and helping Maurice move to Ottumwa. Whacking stop signs around the high school that no business trying to stop the natural flow of traffic. Taking the roof off and mudding it with Mo. But that's another picture.