Electronic Repairs

One of the Xbox controllers broke.  The back lip that holds the battery pack broke off and the controller would no longer hold a battery.  The cool thing about having things break is you get to buy a new one, and there have been several special addition controllers released since the Xbox has come out.  I started my search online; deciding to check and see how hard it is to replace the back cover.  The Internet is a great resource and within about 30 seconds I learned that I could probably fix it myself and still have a controller that was as cool or cooler than any special addition.

After searching I decided to go with a setup from Amazon.

there were other kits and mods available but I really don't want a rapid fire mod or anything like that so I kept it simple



the beginning

YouTube is a great source for how to videos if you ever have a question about whether you can fix something or not. The scariest part of the repair was soldering 3 wires to the controller circuit board but as you can see below I managed.

 



All Apart



All done

The lights are pretty bright and will reduce the battery life by about 20% but they can be turned on and off.  I could have got something without lights and the soldering.  It would have been an easier repair but if you have to fix something you might as well make it cool.

Operant Conditioning

So I had to do a group project for one of my classes.  I generally hate group projects fortunately this one turned out fine and I had a good group that all did their share.  We opened our presentation with this clip.  I’ve heard of Big Bang Theory but I had never see it.  After finding this clip I watched a few episodes.  I cant believe that it took a school project for me to find this show it is hilarious. 

You never know where the value comes where school is concerned

How time flys except when its time to finish

So my sister pointed out that its been almost a year since Ive updated my blog and I decided it was time to do something about it.  I am in my last semester in school and will be done by the end of the year.  When I was younger I ran on the track team.  One of the events I would run my first year was the 400 meter.  When you sprint for a full lap of the track its pretty tough especially when your 5'6 and you are running against people who's legs are as tall as you are.  The last semester in school feels like the last 100 meters of the 400.  You've been going at full sprint and you body has had enough but you know you need to finish.  All nighters followed by liquid sleep (diet pepsi) only take you so far when you are 40ish

I am taking some interesting classes this semester so far one of my favorites is Entrepreneurship.  The teacher is a bit sure of himself and isn't afraid to show it but he is interesting and is challenging many of my pre-conceptions about being in business for myself.  The great thing is the papers he assigns are to be no more than one page.  It is refreshing to be writing concisely again instead of creating a paper full of academic Fluff and BS.

After school maybe I will turn my eyes back to this blog, I am not sure yet what I want it to be but I have some ideas. 

Jaded

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
An Energy-Independent Future
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

I've been fleet management for 17 years now. During that entire time I have heard the call for alternate fuels, been forced to spend tax dollars on half baked experiments with alternate fuel vehicles, received mandates, heard promises. At this point in time my outlook is not very optimistic. (where are the flying cars I was promised as a kid) I think I may have stumbled into some wisdom that is escaping many. There is a question Why can we not solve this problem and the simple answer is that we really don't want to.



The internal combustion engine is 100 years old (give or take a few years) we have refined it, retooled it and made it better but at its core its still ancient technology by our standards. In every other field in industry we do not rely on technology as old as the internal combustion engine. If this clip doesn't prove anything else it proves that it really does not matter who is in power until we want the problem really solved it wont be.

cleaning the stream

Roughly 10 years ago I was having a conversation with my boss. We were discussing how we were leaving the information age and entering in the blur age. Information came at us so fast and so often that it was all a blur. Since then social networks, twitter, rss feeds, blogs, and many other things have come into play. All of these things spit information at us faster than anything did 10 years ago. I got sucked into it all and while trying to get as many face book friends and twitter followers as I could I created my own information overload. So its time to clean my data stream and slow the flow.

Hyphothises vs reality

I am studding Macro Economics right now and I really enjoy the class. Many people don't realize that Economics is considered a social science and not part of the business college or the math department. The unfortunate thing is that many economists act like economics is a physical science with math and absolute laws and answers instead of theories and models that predict general behavior.

Its funny to see the kids in class argue with the instructor why he is wrong and then prove him right with their arguments. We just recently were covering consumption and the instructor stated that people make their consumption decision based on their current income and their expected future income. Many of the students could not wrap their heads around that one. One went so far as to argue that he was uncertain about his future job prospects so he was not consuming more based on his future income. Of course he just proved the point, because his future was uncertain he was making a different consumption decision.

The fun part about discussing theories and models is the outliers and discovering why they do not follow the norm, for me that is where the rubber meets the road.

Coach

Since with school and work I did not have enough to do(sarcasm) I also volunteered to be an assistant coach for Kyle's football team. This really was not in the plan for this year, and I was kind of looking forward to be a father on the sidelines for this season. (I have not done that with my boys yet Ive always been a coach) There were 50 kids in Kyle's age group which translates into 2 teams, the league had only had coaches for one. So what is a father to do when his kids team only has one coach that can be present at the game. (at least I don't have to be the head coach)


I really love coaching football helping kids learn a grow is very rewarding and there are few things that change a boy like a football season will. With school I have to miss more practices than I would like which is hard on me.

I've always heard that if you want something done ask a busy person maybe I should try to be less busy.