I'm Baaack!

Stagnate! I think not! Material is just harder to come by this month. I'm not getting much (any) help from WonderMom, either.

Where to begin? Oh! I know! New toys! Technophobe Alert! This next part is geeky!

As mentioned earlier, our ESR was 'earmarked' for a new digital TV so we could watch our many recorded Movies and TV shows on a better display. The delay in making the purchase was deciding how I would get the recordings, which reside on the MacMini's disc farm in the basement up to the TV in the living room. I didn't really want to move all of that computer hardware into the entertainment center. There was also the question of fitting a new wide-screen TV into the corner entertainment center that was designed to hold a 27" max normal screen TV.


Solution one: Purchase an Apple TV unit from the Apple refurb store. This unit has a 160GB internal hard drive for storing videos, a high speed (802.11n - you were warned!) WiFi card built, and takes up minimal space in the cabinet (7-1/2 inches square by 1-1/2 inches high). It is controlled by a small Apple remote control. Files are transerred from the MacMini over WiFi, so cables was needed.

Solution two: Find a TV whose widt would fit inside the cabinet from inside the doors to the corner of the wall behind the cabinet. Then build a platform on heavy duty 18" drawer glides that would allow the TV to be turned and pushed back into the cabinet. Clever, n'çest pas? The TV turned out to be an LG 32 inch purchased from a local merchant (not a big box or Wal-Mart) so some of the ESR money would stay in the country. I paid a little more for it, but hey, it was Dubbya's dime! Turns out the Olevia I talked about in Homeward Bound earlier is made by an American company, but is manufactured in Asia! Photos follow!




The TV is turned to face the right here, but can be turned to face full forward or to the left. This model LG has a built in swivel base and an exceptionally wide angle of view. The Apple TV is the white horizontal stripe in the middle of the upper right hand glass door.







Close up of the rolling platform. The outer drawer glides let the platform roll out in front of the cabinet. The inner glides let it roll back out of the back of the cabinet.










Here is the set pused all the way back into the corner of the wall so the doors will close. This was taken before I cleaned up all the dangling wires.








Next toy! This is my first blog written on my new (to me) from the Apple refurb store MacBook Pro 15" laptop. The new operating system, Leopard (10.5.2) is taking some getting used to.
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OK! Well, the iris really haven't bloomed much yet, but I better put som photos in here to stop your head from spinning from all the techy stuff.




Here's a shot of my black (really deep purple) iris.

All of the little pinkish buds you see here will become blossoms soon, like the ones on the left.











This is one of my new blue iris that I planted last fall.









That's it for now. More when something happens!