THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS ARE THE 2010 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!!

Photo: Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle

It's been a long time since I posted here on my blog. A lot has happened indeed and a lot to celebrate for!

I am so excited and happy for the San Francisco Giants! Today they made history! Their first World Championship Baseball win for the franchise for the 50 years they've been in San Francisco! Their victory even brought a tear to my eye!

Fear the Beard, Torture, The Freak, Kung Fu Panda, Buster Posey, the Misfits, the names go on. The Giants were listed as the underdogs of this series. They are a team of hard working players who had the perseverance to obtain what they wanted; A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP! Who said you need a multi-million dollar player roster to win a World Championship? The Texas Rangers did a great job in putting up a good fight, but in all honestly, the Giants really deserved the Title! They are such a humble team. Especially Edgar Renteria, who received the World Series MVP. He struggled a bit during the season, but who would have known that he led the Giants to a Championship win with his three run HOME RUN?!

Go Giants!

By the way, I'm writing on this blog now as a married man. Yes, I got hitched on 10/10/10!

Even More Dell Stuff

OK...call me a Dell whore. Since we have a wedding planned in October, I decided on researching color laser printers so we could print various color printouts for necessary wedding items (invitations, name cards, etc.) Wanted something inexpensive, fast, reliable, and good print quality. I did a few google searches and surprisingly, Dell printers got decent reviews aside from being expensive to replace toner. All printers will cost you an arm and leg for toner. Printer companies should give printers away for free and charge you for toner/ink for the lifespan of owning the printer.

I started my quest searching online for the best color laser printer deals. Luckily, I was browsing through craigslist, and spotted "BRAND NEW DELL 3130cn COLOR LASER PRINTER FOR SALE - $200." I know these printers sell for around $325 and up! So it sounded like a great deal. The seller explained in the ad that it was won as raffle prize and they didn't need the printer. I emailed the seller and offered $150 cash. The seller emailed me the next morning accepting my offer and I arranged to pick it up. Done deal! I couldn't believe how much of a bargain this was after inspecting this printer fresh out of the box!

Considering the size of this printer, I had a feeling it was going to be a challenge transporting it in my Chevy Cobalt. Unfortunately, due to poor timing, I let my cousin borrow my Pontiac Vibe so he could practice driving a stick shift car. Transporting a printer of this size would have been easy in the Vibe. In the Cobalt; totally different story. The box barely fit in the passenger side seat (with seat tilted back) and I had to lean my body weight into the door to close it. When I got inside, the box was right up against my gear shifter.

This printer is a beast! It weights at least 65 pounds! It's a printing workhorse!

Just look at how tall this printer is versus my SIGG 32oz water bottle. It takes up a good amount of space on my desk, but that's ok. I love how it plugs into our network router for instant network printing capabilities!

Overall. Sweet deal on a sweet printer. This printer is probably an overkill in terms of the amount of use it will get as a home printer. But overkill is ok in my books! Thanks Claudia!

Another post about Hail in Castro Valley

Ok. This seems to be an ongoing theme on my blog about the crazy weather we've been experiencing. Yes, it's spring time! April showers bring May flowers. Now April hail showers bring us wet icy roads!

We live on a rather steep hill. The icy hail has visited us. Icy thick hail = out of control cars coming down the hill! Cars trying to go up the hill have problems too!

I'll let all the pictures do the talking.

Crazy weather!

First posting for the month of March! Seven more months until our big wedding day. Ok, back to the main subject.

The Bay Area has been having off and on rain since the beginning of this year. Sometimes HAIL too! You basically have to constantly check the weather everyday (or hour by hour) and also carry an umbrella since the weather has been so unpredictable. There are days when it'll be sunny outside, then a minute later POURING rain, and then sunshine again.

Hail on 2010 March 8 @ 16:30 from Justin Mar on Vimeo.

Just to give you an example, I took some video footage of the hail as it pattered down on our patio. I caught a few seconds of the downpour of hail, and then in a quick moment it stopped in an instantly!

Today, the weather is sunny outside! It's crazy!

Adventures in Mouse catching

**DISCLAIMER** if you are offended by sight of rodents or the killing of these cute little creatures; then do not continue on reading. Yes, a rodent was harmed in this process! These are pests that created damage to my house and jeopardized our attempts at sanitation. The rodent was killed instantly in the best humane manner (by electrical shock). Again, if you are offended or a PETA activist, do not read this. I apologize in advance and I am giving advance warning.

We have been blessed with the company of mice at our residence. They are a pain and there are reason's why we call them "pests."

It all started when Sherry noticed that there were tiny holes in our bag of raw rice that we kept in the bottom cabinet next to our sink. As I looked deeper with a flashlight inside the cabinet, I noticed little droppings all over the place. Our sink drainage pipe runs into the wall and through the same cabinet. It appears that the mouse was able to squeeze through a small opening in the sheet rock of the wall because the people who constructed our place did not do a good job at sealing the area where the pipe goes into the wall. The mouse took advantage of this and opened the hole bigger so it can eat into our food storage cabinet.

I empty the cabinet out and vacuum up all the mouse droppings. Drove down to our local Home Depot and purchased some glue traps. Placed the glue traps by the hole opening where the mouse is coming through and along the walls of the cabinet. Then I baited the glue traps with peanut butter. Closed the cabinet doors and waited overnight.

The next morning, the mouse ate the peanut butter and flipped the traps upside down! I couldn't believe it! The mouse is smart! This worried me a bit because if the mouse was strong enough to flip the glue trap upside down, then it must not be a little one! Plus the pest pooped all over the place again!

I was indeed frustrated at this point and I remember that my Dad was dealing with a similar mouse issue at their house. My dad had the best mouse trap ever!

The Victor Electronic Mouse Trap!

This trap works by using shock technology to quickly kill rodents in seconds. It runs off four "C" batteries and makes a tenacious buzzing sound when you turn this trap on. I'm scared to death of accidentially touching this thing when it's live because I'm afraid it'll give me a nice little jolt.

So I followed the instructions of baiting it with peanut butter.

Left the house and this was the end result!!!

I don't give a RAT'S ASS!

I would like to call this a success! This rodent was a little guy. About the same length as a dollar bill!

MacDell Mini (the poor man's MacBook)

Alas! I now present to you my Hackintoshed Dell Mini 10v running on Apple's Snow Leopard Mac OS! Yes, I will remove the Windows 7 sticker that you see at the lower right hand corner. So long to the Windows 7 operating system that use to exisit on this computer.

This was a rather easy task to accomplish. Not really complicated. Simple enough for someone who has some computer knowledge and can follow directions. It took about two hours to install. I wanted to give special thanks to mechdrew's guide on how to accomplish the installation process.

As a disclaimer, I want to inform you that you will most likely void your Dell warranty and somewhat piss off Apple at the same time if you decided to take on this project. It's not illegal, but it is alterating the overall use of the peripheral.

It took me awhile to adjust to Apple's user interface since I've been a PC Windows user for many years. The principals are virtually the same, but just in a different layout. It's safe to say that Mac OS layout is a bit easier to learn, especially if you're new to using a computer.

Again, this was just a novelty idea. A very inexpensive way of having a simple, portable, and easy to use netbook to carry to the cafe.

I'm CONFUSED....Smart Phone Use May Correlate to Political Party

I was listening to KCBS radio the other day and they reported that Democrats use the iPhone and Republicans have a Blackberry. Coincidence?

Here's a link to their report: KCBS - Smart Phone Use May Correlate to Political Party Yes, this is good statistical information when using this type of data to promote directly to your campaign audience. Although, I don't find this correlation to be very accurate.

President Obama is a Democrat and he is known to be a huge Blackberry fan. Does this mean he is a closet Republican since he loves his Blackberry?

What are they going to say next? Democrats are more likely to drive a Toyota Prius and Republicans are more likely to drive a Ford F-150 pickup with a gun rack?

What you own or use is not a strong determining factor of your political party ties. There are some close or similar trends or coincidences, but not a strong argument to determine a correlation.

I guess you can call me bi-partisan since I have both the iPhone and a Blackberry.:)