Routers Can Be A Pain

So last year I upgraded to a new router. Got the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 from Best Buy. The router itself does run good but the 5Ghz band does not cover the entire house. It comes with an extension that you just plug into the wall. That extension sucks. I couldn't fix it, Best Buy couldn't fix it, so they gave me another one. Same issue, so they replaced out the entire router. This one connects but the signal is easily blocked and drops off constantly. Have to literally be in the same room for it to stay green to have good speeds and not drop.  That's not how an extension is suppose to work.

I can also tell that it can't keep up with the speeds needed so streaming videos would go blurry or things would have a hard time loading up. It can be very frustrating.  I'm stuck with the router as it's past the time to return it.

So been looking and about 2 weeks ago I finally bought a new router.  I bought the TP-Link AC3150 router from Amazon. This router was awesome out of the box.  The 5GHz band covered the entire house, kids could tell a difference and everything just worked. Then the next day, the 5GHz band just disappeared. Couldn't see it on the network anymore but the 2.4 GHz was up and running fine. Restarting the router brought it back but then it dropped again. Called TP-Link Tech Support and the simple solution of rebooting is what I get. Considering it took me almost an hour to get through, not the answer I wanted to hear.

I let it go and sure enough, the next evening, the 5GHz band disappeared again. This time I played around with the settings myself to see what I could figure out.  I learned that if you change the name, change the channel or any modifiable setting under the wireless setting and hit save, it would magically reappear on the network.  I tried different channels, researched online but nothing really solves this problem from what I read. Seems to be an issue on more than just one router but slightly different circumstances.

So the next day when it disappeared again (I'll add that it would disappear at least twice a day) I called TP-Link technical support again. Went through everything with them, verifying firmware, checking settings and still no solution to this issue. She took my email and said that she would send it up to be evaluated. I should hear something in two days. I never received anything so I called back on day 3 after the band disappeared again.  Went through the same spill checking everything and found out the person before wrote my email down wrong. This one didn't offer to send it but said they they have tried all they could and she would work with me on getting a new one.  Told her no thanks and I'll just return it to Amazon as I'm not going to deal with a router that does this.

I finally did find one thing online that I almost think is the issue but I'm not doing the solution. The post I found someone figured out that the TP-Link router they hand could only handle 8 devices or less on the 5GHz band. Once it was set to that it would not disappear. I run around 18 wireless devices, so this is not an answer I wanted to see. That is a software issue and was why I packed up the router and shipped it back.

Every router I look at has bad reviews and it's very hard to decide on what to get. You literally are going to take a chance on anything you buy. After digging in I decided to not hold back and I bought the ASUS AC5300 router. The main reason is this router is designed for wireless and it's a powerhouse router.  Better be for the money it costs and I know it use to cost more. I get it tomorrow, so I'll post again on that router once I get it setup and see how it does.

Wow! Long time.

It's amazing how easy it is not to post.  Lots going on and haven't thought about posting as I've been so busy.  Maybe I'll try and pick this back up.

I will say I completely finished Forza Horizon 2 and all the DLC yesterday.  That was a long grind.  I'm tired of racing but Forza 5 is still there to be worked on.

I've been playing a lot of Pokémon Go since it came out.  I'll do a post on that just to show how far along I am.

It's October and I should go back to playing Star Wars Battlefront.  However, I think it's time I finally played Outlast.  I'll probably try and twitch stream that to see if I can edit the video later on to add to YouTube just to see how it works.

Finally Finishing Some Games

I finally got on a streak and I've finished shed off a few games.

The big one being Happy Wars for the Xbox One.  Getting to level 50 takes some time to do.  Not sure which was harder to get, that achievement or the one for 6 hero medallions.  I got the 6 hero medallions first but only because I got a 2nd NBK for 30 kills in a match without dieing.  I'm definitely glad to have finished it.  Loaded the Xbox 360 version yesterday and played a match which gave some free achievements in that.  Should have looked at the achievements before hand as I could get a few more without having to put in a lot of time.  I'll do them at some point just to get them.

After that I went over to Peggle 2.  I suck at finishing all the challenges but someone had a way to get all the challenges done without having to actually finish them all.  Takes a little time but way less than finishing all the challenges which I wouldn't be able to do.  So I finished all the challenges and knocked that game out.

Next was the Forza Horizon Fast and Furious game I got for free when they put it out.  The game should only take 3 hours but I ended up playing it over the course of the entire weekend.  Found all the extra stuff for the Forza hub.  However, I didn't find 2 boards to break and a I missed a speed trap.  The achievements are done so I might look this up to see if I can find them just to have did everything if the Forza hub counts it.  If not, then I'll be done with it for sure.

While doing all those games I saw someone doing the GoPro camera achievements so I decided to try not to miss a day again.  I always missed the weekends on it so I started last Saturday and made it all the way through 7 days watching 10 videos a day.  So knocked out an App achievement that should have been done a long time ago.

It's nice to have actually finished up a bunch of games after being stuck in Happy Wars for so long.  I actually went back and started playing my Dying Light again.  Definitely need to finish this game off.  Sucks as I just went through some arena and I lost all the stuff I had on me.  Having to find and make all new items again is going to suck.  Trying to remember all the controls after not playing for awhile is a little hard to do on this game.  Mainly the special moves you can do.

I might start up Castle Crashers along side this but haven't decided yet.  I got it for free and I'm guessing if you owned the first game it was free for you to get on the Xbox One.  Not sure if there is a time limit on that though.  I missed that it was released and just so happen was looking through the games and saw it.

Happy Wars

Finally hit level 45 in Happy Wars on Xbox One.  I'm really getting tired of playing this game.  I get kicked out more often than not so I lose all progress during the match.  I get kicked out before the match starts quite often as well.  It's just getting tiresome.

On top of that it obviously takes longer to level up the higher you get so 5 more levels is not going to go quickly.

Crossing fingers that I can finish it up this month.

Smores In a Cone

This sounds so good.

Cook S'mores Inside a Waffle Cone for a Mess-Free Treat http://lifehacker.com/cook-smores-inside-a-waffle-cone-for-a-mess-free-treat-1714141479

Finally Have My LG G4

It has been interesting to say the least since last Thursday for getting my new phone.

To start off I preordered the phone from what I thought was a true Verizon Wireless store. Come to find out on Wednesday night that the phone was $50 cheaper on the Verizon site.  It was then that I found out the store I ordered from was an independent store because she couldn't fix the price.

So the following day when the store opened I called to get the price fixed. They can't adjust it. Imagine that. A $50 dollar cheaper phone lowers my bill and the taxes I pay on it.  I'm definitely not paying the price they sold it to me for.  Since the box wasn't opened and it was staring at me in the store, I cancelled the order.  Which required me to drive out to the store as they can't do it over the phone.  That was a waste of my work day I have to make up.  Especially since the guy couldn't do the order cancellation correctly.

Once it was cancelled, I was then able to place the order on the phone with Verizon because the real store in town didn't get any leather backs in of the phone.  Was told 2 day shipping and today makes day 4 that I finally get my phone.

Getting everything setup on the phone but took a few minutes to type this up.

So far it's nice but I'm more curious if the battery is going to last me all day or even 2 from what I've seen online.

A Post, WOW!

It has been a good bit since I've made a post on here.  Just staying really busy and when I could post here, I decide to play a game or watch a movie instead.  Can't blame me for that.

I keep picking up all the free arcade games that show up each month but I haven't gotten around to playing any of them except for 2.  Halo Spartan Assault and Limbo, which I've finished both of them.

I did finish off LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. 

Oh yea, I bought the Monopoly family back and finished Monopoly.  I did not however play and beat that other mode yet.  Guess I should do that. 

I have played a little on Pinball FX 2. 

I finished off Minecraft on both the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One.  Now my daughter is hooked on Terreria so I've started playing that.  Been exploring my 1 world and I'm almost to the point of starting hard mode on that game.  Wish more of my friends played this game.  It would probably go a lot quicker on finishing off the achievements. 

I have played Titanfall some but I haven't touched it since Christmas time.  Made it half way through the game on achievements.  That's at least something I guess.

I bought LEGO Movie Videogame during Christmas along with Zombie Driver but haven't played either one yet.

What I did buy was Dying Light.  It's just like Dead Island, so if you enjoyed that game, you'll enjoy this.  Looks better by a long shot.  I'm still early on in the game but I did get to play with Ichya last weekend which made the game way funnier than going it alone.

Away from games, my laptop and printer died on me.  So ended up buying new ones of those.

Kids are always swamped with something going on, so busy with them a lot more as well.

So there's an update for everyone on stuff I'm at.  Let me know if you get Dying Light.  Would love to play online with someone versus running it alone.

Thanks MS, I Think

I got a free code from Microsoft tonight for Limbo.  An Xbox 360 game.  

Yes I still own an Xbox 360 that my kids play on but I own an Xbox One.  I play on the new console now.  Why would you send me a code for the older system when you can see I have the newer console.  

Thanks but no thanks for a game I'll probably never play.

Fitbit Flex - 2 Lights, 1 Blank, and 2 Lights

Well, the first Fitbit Flex my wife got died after 4 days.  So we exchanged it out and 3 months later, it's not working. Been having issues but this time I saw that it showed 2 lights, 1 blank light and 2 lights before it went into try to charge.  There is nothing in the manual for this and finding anything online is even worse as nothing is out there on this.

After researching all I could, finally called the company to see what they would do.  With the device syncing up to their servers, they can see that the battery in the Fitbit is not holding a charge anymore and went bad.  They would never say exactly what those lights meant but I'm going to associate it with the battery going out in the Fitbit, which is therefore a dead unit and unusable.

We were past the warranty but they wanted a receipt for when it was purchased.  I didn't have it but knew the dates for when we bought it.  Since they can see that we were on our 2nd device and when we connected it to their servers, it shows the dates when it was done.   Since I knew the exact dates for when we purchased it, and they could see it in their system, they waived needing the receipt.  So we have a new Fitbit on the way.

Mountain Bike Update 3

Well I continued trying to get the gears right but I was unable to fix the gears.  I even got it to the point of the gear was falling off the chain.  So you can really mess this up even seeing what to do online.  So don't go overboard on adjusting the gears.

There is one bike shop in town that everyone knows but I just don't like the place.  They wanted $70 to get the bike right.  All I wanted was the gears fixed.

A friend of mine told me that a new bicycle shop opened up recently near him.  Looked it up and called him.  Explained everything and he told me he'll make it work for $15.  Told him I'd be there later that afternoon.

So took the bike and come to find out, the back part of the gear that hangs down was bent.  No way I would have known that.  He bent it back out and showed me this type has so much play in it is easy to mess up.  He showed me one he had in his shop and how much more sturdy it was.  You could really tell the difference between the two.  His was only $20 too.  He tweaked it and got all the gears changing properly.  He only charged me $15.  Told him I would send anybody I know there to him.  He was really knowledgeable on everything with bikes.

So I take the bike home and I have only one issue with the gears.  When I'm in 7th gear and I shift to 6th gear, it won't shift.  If I go to 5, it will go to 5.  Then if I go to 6, it will go to 6.  With all the issues I've had, I can just deal with this until something happens and I replace out those parts.  For now I've been riding around the neighborhood without any other problems.  From what the bike shop owner told me, this bike doing real mountain biking wouldn't last and something would break.  For what I'm doing, he said it was perfect.  So I'll eventually take it off road so I can see how it does.

Final conclusion if you buy this bike.  Take it to someone to get it tuned in properly after buying it.  even if it's $70 as it'll be worth it if you really like the bike otherwise you should just fork out the money and buy a $500+ bike where this stuff won't happen.  Well, it could but less chances of it happening.

Mountain Bike Update 2

I got the parts for the bike in on Monday but I was thinking I was going to get a full back tire ready to be put on.  A quick take off and put on type of deal.  In the box was the rim and in another box inside that box was the gears.  The handles were in the box just bouncing around.  Good thing they are just rubber.  There were to big black round discs off the side on each side of the rim to keep it straight up and to help it from getting damaged.  If something heavy got on that box, it would have bent it pretty easily.

So I researched online for how to move the tire over.  It looks fairly simple to do if you have the right tool for the job.  Which of course I don't.  The guy at Wal-Mart said he would fix it if I brought it back in with the parts.  I called to confirm it and made sure he would be there on a day I could come.

When I took it in, he had it all swapped out in like 15 minutes.  It looked straight and I couldn't see any wobble in the gears.  I could tell that there wasn't enough air in the tire just like last time. I didn't say anything but I knew when I got home I was going to need to check it all out again.

Sure enough, he only put like 5 lbs of air in the tire.  I just don't understand how hard it can be to read the tire PSI and put 50 in as required.  So I pump up the tire and test the brakes.  They are way too loose.  I had to fiddle with that and finally figured out the pad was up to high on one side to the point it was hitting the tire.  It should be even on both sides and hitting the rim to stop.  Once I got that adjusted I had to get the left side of the brake to move out as it was rubbing the rim the entire time.  After some more research online I figured out how to adjust it better and now its set up perfectly just missing the tire all the way around.

Now the moment of truth arrives for the gears.  Take it for a short spin down the street and the front gears shift smoothly.  The back gears switch very smoothly as well until I went to gear 7.  It wouldn't switch to gear 7 at all.  So more research and I'm getting close to getting it to switch properly.  I ran out of time though and I need to get some time tomorrow to finish fixing the gears to switch properly.

I did switch out the new grips on the handle bar.  The new ones inside hole were a lot smaller than the ones I took off.  It took some twisting to get them on and they are very snug now.  They didnt move in during my fear testing runs but will see how they do when I go for a longer ride.

I'll post one more up update once I finish with the gears and give a good ride.  YouTube is your biggest friend if you need to figure out how to do anything on a bike.  Some things you can do but others you need the pepper tools.  If you dont have those tools, you'll need to buy them or take the bike somewhere to have them fix and adjust everything.  I plan to buy the tools later on when I have to fix something on the bike.  For now though I am using the store and company to fix the bike for no extra cost.  Outside of gas and my time.

Mountain Bike

So I invested in a mountain bike to get some exercise in and to ride around with my kids.  I didn't have a bunch to invest so was looking at retail stores.  I did research and read reviews on a few bikes.  I ended up liking a Hyper Havoc bike from Wal-Mart. Here's a picture of the bike.

Green is my favorite color but they have black and blue for colors as well.  The green color wasn't available anywhere near my local area.  Plus it showed out of stock online.  The blue was out of stock as well.  Black is like the only color you can get.  Finally found a green one an hour drive from my house and that's when all the fun begins.

The bike was ordered at 7 am online to be picked up.  Order went through fine and it showed the bike would be ready at 11:40 am that day.  I should get a text and email that it's ready.  So 4 pm rolls around and I haven't gotten anything.  I called the Wal-Mart up and the employee tells me the bike is still in the box, it hasn't been built, and the person who puts them together has already gone for the day.  That didn't sit well with me so I asked to talk to the manager.  Told him the situation and he said the online store shouldn't put that information on the order.  He said I would also never get another email or text on the bike from them either.  He said he would send up a report to them in hopes of getting it corrected so it's not confusing for customers.  At this point I had 2 options: 1. I could go get the bike in the box and put it together myself.  2. I wait until tomorrow and pick it up put together.  Told him I would wait since they will put it together, plus I've never put one together before so it works in my favor.

I called the next day around lunch time and the bike is ready.  Drive up and get the bike with no problems.  Now is the part where reading the reviews online matter.  I knew from what I read that they never put the bikes together properly and I needed to check a few things. 

First thing I checked was the tires.  Every tire shows what psi you put in them right there on the tire.  It's not hard to figure out.  The front tire was at 25 psi and the back tire was at 20 psi.  The tire shows 50 psi on it so I had to pump them up.  The manager praised his bike person but now the doubts rise quickly.  I adjust the seat for my height which is just a clamp to hold it, so no problem doing that.  I get my kids and we go for a short ride.  While riding the bike keeps making a rubbing noise, the grips where sliding off the handle, you can hear the gears grinding and the gears are slipping.  I see the brakes are rubbing on the tire as it goes around.  Head back to the  house and I work on adjusting the brakes.  I can't get it right for anything so I spin the tire around and sure enough the tire is not straight.  You can see it going in and out hitting the brakes.  Read online this happens so I got a small wrench to try to adjust the spokes as I don't have the spoke wrench tool.  They make 3 sizes of those spoke wrench tools and the manual does not tell you what size you need.  (On a side note the manual doesn't tell you how to change the gears on the bike either.  You would think that would be something it should have?)  They run about $7 a piece so you would need to buy all 3 to make sure you get the right one if you try to fix it yourself.  Saw you could use a wrench but don't use any with the grips or you can mess up the spokes.  I own a small wrench but it slips even though it looks like it's turning.  So I ended up warping the tire more as some did turn but others didn't.  So now the bike is messed up to the point where I can't ride it.

I'm pretty frustrated so the next day I called the only bike shop in town and they charge $70 for a full tune up on the bike.  I'm not trying to spend more money on a bike that wasn't right to begin with so I call my local Wal-Mart, twice, as the lady answering the phone didn't have a clue.  Asked for the manager and she was more than helpful.  She told me to bring the bike in and her bike employee would look at the bike to fix it.  So I took off a couple hours from work to get the bike and take it to him.  Walked into the back with him and he is trying to adjust the brakes to make it work even when I told him the tire is not straight.  I had asked him earlier if he had spoke wrenches, which he said yes but I didn't see any around.  He never tried to adjust the spokes at all.  He finally said the tire was just bad.  He went and pulled a tire off another bike which was better but it still isn't quite straight.  It is better than the one I had though. 

While he was away I was checking out the gears in the back to see if they lined up properly.  While looking I saw that the chain was always touching this metal part that the chain went through.  Asked him if it should do that and he said no, it should touch at all.  He adjusted it some to to keep it off.  The other thing I noticed while he was gone was the gears on the back tired.  When you spin the tire, there is a wobble to the gears.  He said he had never seen that and knows it shouldn't be like that.  I was out of time and had to get back to work.  So I left the bike with him while he worked on fixing it.

I came back later that day and he had it ready.  Said he grabbed and replaced out the back tired but it did the same thing.  So the wobble is still there.  I called up the company since I can't find this green color anywhere else and I'm trying to keep the bike, not return it for a refund.  They initiated my 1 year warranty and are sending me a whole new back tire with gears.  I'm also getting new grips to replace the ones I have now.  They shipped it UPS ground so it's going to be a week before I even get the parts to see if this is going to fix it.  Good thing I get 90 days to return the bike back.

So while I'm waiting, I'm going to ride this bike to see if it's worth keeping.  I've rode it three times now.  Twice with my kids and once by myself.  After the first ride I realized the guy never pumped the front tire up to 50 psi and it was at 25.  So stupidly aggravating when I told him about it, yet he still did the same thing the other guy did.  So pumped the tire up like it should be.  He adjusted the front brake so good that if have to stop immediately, it literally stops the front wheel.  The back tire goes up and I literally almost went over the handle bars.  Yet the back brakes do stop me but are loose.  I can tell they are not right as the brakes almost touch the handle bar when I pull on them.  If they touch, they are not adjusted right.  So I'm going to have to adjust the back brakes to make them tighter.  I hope the tire isn't warped any where because if it's going in and out. I'll never get it adjusted right.  At least it'll be good practice before the replacement part comes in and I'll have to do it anyway.  I still think the front tire is not quite straight but it's pretty close, so I'm not messing with it.

After riding for 30+ minutes on the bike, the seat is definitely too hard.  My butt was starting to hurt and I was ready to get off the bike.  So if I keep the bike, I'll be looking at getting a new seat.

Another thing I already bought was a pair of gloves with my fingers exposed.  The grips on this bike dig into my hand and they were hurting the entire afternoon after I got done riding.  Having the gloves gives me padding and helps my hands out a bunch.  So yet another investment.

I'll post an update or I'll update this post once I get the new parts in and test out the bike with them.  If it's not worth keeping the bike as it's still bad, I'll be looking for a new bike.  If anyone has any suggestions on a good cheap bike, please let me know.

Ways to Not Yell at Your Kids

This was a good article and have me some good points on things to do.

"How to Stay Calm and Not Yell at Your Kids (Even If You're Really Mad)" http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/vip/~3/p9O4rpAGYng/how-to-stay-calm-and-not-yell-at-your-kids-even-if-you-1452033657

High School Football

I'm at my first High School football game since I graduated High School.  Not my old High School but at my wife's cousins game as her girls are cheerleading. Definitely interesting to watch this game with the family.  Still enjoyable though.

Been a Bit

It's so easy not to post when you're constantly busy.  Lets see if I can sum up everything in small bits.

Work was getting really stressful so that was no fun.  Luckily I got to take a 5 day vacation and was able to relax.

Got caught up on work since the government shutdown so not as stressed out at work.

Mom went into the hospital on one weekend but she is doing fine now.  Looks to be nothing serious.

Been playing Eternal Sonata and actually beat it last night.  To get all the achievements requires another run through of the game but I'm not doing that.  I want to play MW3 before the Xbox One comes out and I've got 1 month to get that game beat to a point I'll be happy with.  So I'll be starting that today.

Still playing Clash of Clans.  I did a trophy push and made it all the way up to Crystal League 2.  I couldn't make it to 1.  Everyone at that level has TH10 already with the inferno towers so winning on Def more so than not is hard to do to keep the trophies.  So me and Ben (co-leader in my clan for TheWretchedOnes) decided to drop to farm as he was trying to get there as well and couldn't make it.  So now we are upgrading all our defenses and getting to TH10 before we push again.  We want to make master on the next push.  So just been earning some money by dropping down in trophies.

The Castle Story game I've been playing on my iPad with my wife opened up some new adventures finally so we are back into playing that more.

IOS7 has made my wife's iPad get really hot and drain the battery down.  Seems to be a big issue with all the devices on the upgrade.  Somehow mine isn't doing it or the wife's phone.  Hopefully one of the patches they put out will fix the issue here soon.

I canceled my Xbox One order with Microsoft.  Mainly because Best Buy put up the Day One console yesterday for preorder.  So I preordered it from Best Buy to get the reward zone points and get some money back from the purchase.  Something is better than nothing and I was getting nothing with Microsoft.  Maybe it'll help me keep my elite status with them before my time runs out and I lose it.

That about sums it up.  I'll try to get back on track and post more again.

Fast and Furious 6

Finally went and saw this yesterday with the wife.  Yes I know Superman came out but I had a way to go out with the wife and we both wanted to see this movie so it trumped Superman.  Ill be going this upcoming Friday to see Superman.

So back to Fast 6.  We really enjoyed the movie.  The only part that they pushed over the limit was the catch in mid air.  That's just not gonna happen and he wouldn't have gotten up if it did happen.  That's all ill say on that.

Still, the driving and stunts they did were still good.  If you have liked the previous movies then you will like this movie.

They definitely set it up for number 7 very easily.

Backtracked to Eternal Sonata

Talking with the wife other day and she said I needed to finish all my games before we got it.  That's going to be a hard feat to accomplish considering all the games i own that i haven't even played yet.  She said to start on the oldest so I pulled out Eternal Sonata.  

Took me a little bit to get the game of playing and get back i to the story where I left off but now I'm enjoying again.  Actually popped 2 achievements the first 2 days I played it but none sense.  It's a low scoring game and it takes a 2nd play through to get all 1k in the game.  I don't think you can get over 340 on your first run.  It's that or less depending on how much you find and do in the game.

Im still playing some GOW just to mix it up some but will see how long or how many I get through before the year ends.

Nashville, TN

Drove up with the family to Nashville, TN where my wife grew up this past weekend for the Memorial Day weekend.  Had a good time.  Definitely a lot to do in that city.

Went over to the Parthenon in Centennial Park, took the kids to the Charlie Daniels park a few times, the kids really enjoyed the Adventure Science Center, went downtown to walk around to hear the music playing and go in some of the stores.

Went over to the Loveless Cafe, It was an hour and 40 min wait just to be seated.  That or you could do takeout and get it in 15-20 mins.  So we did takeout and grabbed a picnic table outside that opened up.  Was some good food.

I finally got to eat my first real White Castle burger.  It was pretty good.

Had to go by Red Robin, they always have good burgers.

Tried a new place called Cori's Doghouse.  They have all kinds of ways to make hotdogs.  The bread is like texas toast put together for the bun and they are some big hot dogs.  It's definitly worth trying as it was pretty good.

Went by this Chuy's resturant for mexican.  The chips and salsa were fantastic.  It's worth going for that alone.  The food was interesting.  I didn't like what I ordered that much and my wife didn't want the spicy meal she got.  So we switched plates and we both enjoyed our meals.

Ended up taking the kids swimming at the hotels indoor pool.  My youngest is finally starting to get how to swim.  After 2 hours of working on it, I was glad to see some progress on that 2nd night.

Got a backstage tour of the Ryman from one of my wife's friends.  That was a pretty neat tour and learning about all the historic value the place has.

It was a good trip and had some fun.  Definitely a town worth going too as we still have more to do that we haven't done yet.

Interesting Parts of My Weekend

My weekend started a little early as I left work early Friday to go to the doctor.  Sure enough, I got pink eye in my left eye.  I got it in both my eyes last year.  Sucks getting it again.  So he prescribes me some medicine and I go to pick it up.  $100 bottle of eye drops.  I don't think so.  Had the pharmacists call the doctor back to get it changed as the last time I might have paid $10 for what I needed to fix the pink eye.  So I come back once it's ready and when I get home, it's an ointment and not eye drops.  So that makes it more annoying to do as it coats my eye as well.  So this part is no fun but at least the price dropped to $8 for it.  Only thing is it didn't say how long to put this very small tube of ointment on for.  So I called the doctors nurse and she said until it runs out.  That's going to be a good 2 weeks.  Hopefully it works as I'm not sure if it is or isn't right now.

Saturday morning and the first thing I needed to do was put down some weed and feed for the lawn while the dew still had the ground wet.  So knocked that out then I went to working on my car.

I borrowed some ramps to get my car up so I could change out the oxygen sensor on my car.  Bought the part around a week or so ago.  Got it a good price.  When I went into Advance Auto Parts, they didn't have it at that location and only one location in town did have it.  I had a coupon from a book I got from them in the mail.  The guy said if I bought it there, he would take 10% off for having to drive to the other location to get it plus take the coupon off.  Sounded good to me so bought it.  While the reciept was printing out, it printed out a rebate as well for $10.  So a $70 part I'm going to get for like $35.  I was happy about that.

Now to backup a little, I tried with a friend of mine that I got the ramps from to get the oxygen sensor off on Thursday.  We were on a time cruch and I couldn't get it off but the plug wasn't actually connected.  It just fell out when I touched it.  Which made us wonder if that's why it was showing up bad for the check engine light.  So he let me borrow his ramps and I went by Advance Auto Parts for them to check it.  It still showed the oxygen sensor was bad.

So back to trying to fix it myself, I got it up and no matter what I did, I couldn't get that bolt to turn.  I had even sprayed that oil lubricant to loosen up rusted bolts all over it.  Called my dad and if it's that stuck, I would need to heat that sensor with a blow torch to get it to expand so I could get it off.  However, having it up on a lift would make using it easier and just using the ramps wouldn't be a great idea as I didn't really have the room to be using it.  I called a shop I went to recently the last time I had an issue and the guy said if he could change it out in under 30 mins, he'd only charge me $20.  Said I'm on my way.

So I get there, he lifts it in the air and then he grabs a socket with a groove down the side for the wire section to go in for where the oxygen sensor wire is stilling out.  One good hard push and he got the sensor to turn and off it came.  Having the right tool for the job makes the world of a difference.  So $20 and my oxygen sensor is on.

When I was at Advance Auto Parts, that read out showed I was having misfires in the engine as well.  So I bought new spark plugs to replace the old ones.  That I knocked out myself fairly quickly.  Luckily I had a spark plug socket or it would have been a lot harder.

After all was said and done, I unplugged the battery for 10 mins to clear out the computer and then plugged it back up.  My check engine light is off.  My 1997 Saturn is driving smoother now like back when I first bought it and it still has air conditioning in it too.  It didn't lose it over the summer like last time.  I guess I should also mention that I replaced the E.G.R sensor in the car about 1-2 months ago as well.

After getting my car fixed, my 5 year old wanted to take her training wheels off again.  So I took them off and she finally got it.  She rode that bike on and off for most of the day, or rather, the rest of the weekend.  She got it down for turning while riding without stopping to turn around, got her to start pushing back for her brakes, got her to pedal up the drive way for the little hill climb and trying to get her to understand the importance of the rules of the road.  I had to make her get off and go inside since she didn't listen to me one time to make her understand that she has to be aware of her surrounds when riding a bike on the road.  I definitely need to keep a watchful eye on her until she understands when to get out of the way and how to pay attention to what's going on around her.

My wife finally finished Brave, The Disney movie Brave, so I could finally run through it on hard to knock out all the achievements she didn't get.  So I ran through it all and I got stuck, unable to beat 1 of the 4 bosses to finish it on Brave difficulity.  I was so frustrated.  The next day I finally figured it out and beat it only to not get the achievement.  I had to start a new game and beat it all the way through that way.  It's a lot harder without all the upgrades that I had from before.  I was smart though and made a new game save on the cloud instead of the xbox 360 hard drive.  So all the upgrades on the easy setting could be saved and not lost if my kids want to play with it on easy difficulity.  So last night after watching The Voice, I beat the game for a 3rd time and got the last achievement to finish the game. 

Saw on trueachievements.com this morning that beating Brave gave me my 140th completed game.  So that's cool.

I took Monday off to try to knock out this pink eye more but it's not making much of a difference.  So hopefully it'll mostly be cleared out before next week.

What My Weekend Involved

Well this weekend was a result of what started last week. Last week my wife noticed water coming out from under the wall in the hallway. Come to find out it came from our bathroom where it came out from under the toilet. So I got this bladder to try to blow out the clogged pipe outside the house I found.  Tried for 2 days and it wouldn't go down. I was leaving for a business trip the next week so I needed to get this fix ASAP. So one friend suggested the water department and I called them on Friday. I meet the guy at my house and there is nothing in the pipe. It cleared itself out. He could tell it was backed up though. So he got a truck over and pushed a ton of water into the pipe. Nothing came back and it all went through, so looks like the problem is solved. So the weekend goes fine outside of the toilet in the 2nd bathroom gurgling some.

So Monday I leave and my wife tells me she had to plunge the toilet to get the water to go down and through the week it keeps gurgling filling up and going down.

So I get home Thursday and go check the pipe to see if its backed up. Sure enough it is. I call the water department again and the same guy comes out. He sees it is backed up and gets two different trucks to come out. One to flush it out and the 2nd one that brought a camera to put down the pipe. They pushed the pipe all the way down almost into the sewage part where it's not in the pipe anymore. It's still not going down in the water so they pull it out and finally get it cleared out to put the camera down in it. So they put the camera in and through three bends and a belly in the pipe only seeing one spot where the heavy rain is draining some water into the pipe bit it's not clogged up. They start pulling it out and when they almost pull it out of the hole they see roots in the line. The clog is right there almost where it starts. So guess what, it's over 12 foot from the curb, I have to fix it.

That's an expensive plumber bill so I make phone calls and try to figure some things out. One of my friends says he can help me fix it if I dig the hole.  He used to be a plumber so he knows what to do. Needless to say I was digging a big hole in my front yard Friday afternoon.

So I dig down and I find this.

I've got more than just a root problem. The pipe isn't even in the hole. It's half way down. It's amazing this wasn't a problem when the house was built 8 years ago. So I call my friend and I've got to dig it out so we can put in a new piece to fix the problem. So I dug it out until I couldn't see at night anymore.

The next day once I got back from running some errands, I finished clearing it out so we can work on it.

So my friend comes over, we go buy the parts needed and he gets it fixed so the slight angle is fixed and the flow is good.  Didn't have any leaks coming out either.

It's to dark to work on it so after church on Sunday I went to filling in the hole and I put rock salt around the new section where the pipe is connected to kill any roots from trying to grow into it. I didn't realize how many rocks I dug up until I went to fill up the hole. At least I got it all filled back in and will see if me digging the grass up with dirt under it will help it grow back faster.

So now it's all done and I spent around $100 to fix the problem. Bought a shovel, small spade, gloves, pipe, connectors for pipe, glue, cement glue and gave my friend some money for helping me out. Especially since he brought the saw to cut the pipe up where me buying a hand saw would have taken a lot longer. I was very grateful for his help.

So good luck to anyone out there who does this themselves. It's a good weekend project and I've been sore since Friday.