My musings about life, happiness, technology, and what ever else comes along.
Aargh! The AC went down again on Saturday. It is the same issue as before, no LCD display on the thermostat but no breakers are tripped. Fix My AC will be back this afternoon some time after 4:30 PM. Since I do not get home from work until after 6:30 PM in most cases, my wife or my adult son will have to let them in.
Dang nab it! 
This review is based on my wife’s viewing of the movie.
A policeman dies valiantly protecting his wife from a pickpocket in 19th century Scotland. His dog refuses to leave his side, even in death. The dog journeys to his masters grave daily but his adventures are threatened by a new stray dog law.
My wife was not impressed with this movie. I scanned it briefly and found it to be a fine family movie but I can not pass judgment on it since I did not watch the whole movie. It looks to be a fine movie for the younger set. My wife gave this a 2 out of 5. On other review sites, people have given it 3 or 4 out of 5.
Wife’s rating 2 out of 5
Rated PG for mild peril
Length 104 minutes
Released 2005
Director John Henderson (Wikipedia)
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435597/
Buy from Amazon.com: The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby
MirrorMask is visually stunning, surreal, and dark but has a happy ending.
A young woman, Helena, is unhappy with her circus owning parents and the circus in general. An insult to her mother appears to send her mother into a coma. Helena draws into the dark world of her drawings and ends up switching places with a dark princess.
The movie continues with her struggle to understand the world, get back to reality, and survival after betrayal.
Quite an enjoyable movie. The special effects done by The Jim Henson Company are superb.
My Rating [3 out of 5]
Rated PG
Released 2005
Released to DVD 2006
Director Dave McKean (Wikipedia)
Lead Character played by Stephanie Leonidas (Wikipedia)
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366780/
Buy from Amazon.com: Mirrormask
The repair is complete and I am totally satisfied with Fix My AC. They were professional and did one heck of a job.
It is absolutely amazing the cost of home repairs. The forced air system in my home that heats and cools in those odd days we need either stopped working. On a rather warm day a few weeks ago it ceased functioning. No display on the thermostat, no tripped breakers, nothing.
After several weeks of work tracking down the lawyer of the former owner of the company that installed the system for us, it looked like we were simply “out”. My wife called Amana, the manufacturer, and they gave us a list of companies that do warranty repair for them.
Yesterday, a repairman from Fix My AC came. I knew we had to pay labor and the parts should be covered. That turned out to be $175US for a failed power transformer, labor only. Since the amount of air flowing to the downstairs vents in my two story townhome is really insufficient, they inspected the ducting and found that a portion of it was damaged. This will be $400US more. Oh goody!
By the way, I am very pleased yesterday with the professional attitude and demeanor of William from Fix My AC! I look forward to having them perform the repairs.
Apparently one of the three groups of repairmen over the last couple of years that we had working in the attic, where the forced air unit is located, must have sat on the ducting or stepped on it. This is maddening as whom ever did it should have owned up to the deed. We don’t know when it occurred and can not finger any of the companies involved.
Later today the repairman comes back to fix everything. Before we can use it we need to replace the incoming air filter. With a lot of construction in the area, it is clogged and filthy.
For those of you that may be upset with me over using AC with the scare of global warming, we use fans as needed until it is unbearable and then use the AC. Our system is filled with a “green” gas of some kind that is supposedly gentle to the ozone layer and not heat trapping. We try to use as little electricity as possible but without going extreme.
I am not a proponent of man induced global warming. Human kind is helping it along I am sure but there are too many variables involved to point to one major source only. Having said this, it is important that as we think of the future we reduce and then eliminate the pollution we pour into the environment. This includes gases that are not natural to the environment or at least we must use gases that will be inert or decompose quickly with few ill affects.
Maxtor MaXLine® Pro 500 — 500 GB SATA Hard Drive
MTTF (Mean Time To Failure) in near line (low duty cycle) workloads of 1,000,000 Hours!
These are the enterprise versions with an SATA 3.0Gb interface. macsales.com has a great price. See their site for details. They have other capacities also.
Maxtor was acquired by Seagate. The MaXLine line of drives have been discontinued as far as I can tell. These should come with full warranty and support from Seagate.
Buy at: MacSales
NOTE: I am not affiliated nor associated with macsales.com (aka Other World Computing) — just a satisfied previous customer.
[Update 1] MTTF is very similar to MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). Here is a good article.
Doh! This just may be worth seeing in the theater instead of waiting for it to appear on Netflix.
The Way Home is a wonderful Korean movie about a spoiled child from the city, which due to circumstances with his mother, must move to the country to live with his old fashioned grandmother.
The movie moves you in its simplicity. Seven-year-old Sang-woo grows and becomes quite the little man. His grandmother’s patience and humility as well as her beliefs in family worth guide the little boy. Over all, a highly enjoyable movie even with the English subtitles. I highly recommend it.
Released 2002
Director Jeon-hyang Lee
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312841/
Buy from Amazon.com: The Way Home
