Category Archives: Family

For Sale: Storage Robot (Drobo)

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Over the summer I purchased a Drobo “storage robot” from Data Robotics for my home server/media center. It is a four-bay USB storage device that accepts any number and combination of SATA drives to build a larger virtual volume which can be used on either OS X or Windows. I intended to write about my experiences (receiving it the day before they upgraded the product, a bad first unit, some early driver bugs, etc.) but never got around to it.

In spite of some of my earliest experiences I am quite a fan of the device and have not regretted the purchase (only the timing). It is a flexible and well-performing method for keeping my pile of data safe with plenty of elbow room.

Why am I selling it you ask? The truth is, I’m not a typical user. The system it is attached to serves numerous roles. It is the server for our peay.us domain (web, mail, DNS, etc.) and also the home media server (iTunes, iPhoto, file server, and El Gato EyeTV DVR). The end result of all of this disk I/O is that when EyeTV is recording a show from the USB TV tuner and writing to the USB storage while other disk activity is going on (home directory syncing or Time Machine backup), it will often skip frames. That makes for a very annoying viewing experience. If the disk is idle and just recording there isn’t a problem and recent firmware updates for the device have helped considerably, but the fact remains I’m expecting server storage performance from a device that was not really designed or intended for such use.

As a result, I decided to purchase a gen 2 Drobo which adds a FireWire interface. Having a dedicated bus for storage will alleviate the problems I’ve been experiencing. Of course, if I had just waited a week before purchasing the original unit, I wouldn’t have had to do this.

To keep our budget in check, I am selling the original one to recoup some of the cost of upgrading it. That means you get to benefit from my bad timing. If you are interested in purchasing it (you’ll have to supply one or more of your own drives), make me an offer. I’d prefer to keep it among my “friends” and family to avoid hassling with eBay or craigslist but am motivated and will sell it one way or another.

Debt is Baaaaad

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Becky and I have been really getting into the concept of living within your means and getting debt free. We are currently doing the Financial Peace University program with others from our church and have been listening to Dave Ramsey for a few years now.

I ran across this YouTube video from the movie “I.O.U.S.A.” which goes into detail how our country and, more specifically, our government, has been engaged in the “spend now-save never” mentality. It does a good job avoiding party finger pointing as the problem really is a universal one and more complex than party politics.

Below is a 30 minute abridged version of the fuller movie. Watch it.

What a cool honor (and fun, too!)

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LittleBigPlanet Logo

I just got email that I was accepted for the LittleBigPlanet beta. Not surprisingly, my kids are quite ecstatic. Having the opportunity to test play one of the most anticipated games prior to release is worth crowing about. I’ll be honest that this is largely due to the fact I work for the publisher, but not everyone is going to get in so it is an honor, nonetheless.

Not only is it an honor, but it really is a responsibility. Working for Sony is one of the best career opportunities I’ve ever had, but LittleBigPlanet is, honestly, one of the biggest titles ever for the Playstation 3 and it is in my best interest to make sure it meets every elevated expectation possible upon release.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to talk about the experience, but I’m sure it won’t be hard to find information and, of course, you’ll be able to find out for yourself when it is released on October 21st.

Is 11 too early for rebellion?

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My daughter Kaelyn recently started middle school as a 6th grader. It was a bit of adjustment switching from one class with one teacher to five teachers in six classes but she hit the ground running. It is a different school than she was supposed to attend so, as a result, all of her friends from last year are not in the same school. That was a bit tough for her. Fortunately, she has made friends and even had a sleep-over with a few of them this past weekend.

A parent always worries about their children’s friends and the influence they have on them. You trust that you’ve raised them well and that all the many lessons and examples sunk in. Unfortunately, sometimes no matter how much you teach your kids, they will make decisions that you disagree with.

Due to the influence of her newest friends Kaelyn has decided to use her hard-earned money to buy a Nintendo DS Lite.

What should I do? Can I love her still? Can I tolerate such deliberate rebellion in our household? I’ll do my best.

P.S. If for some reason you are confused, it will probably help to know where I work.

What a wet, wild, and fun week

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I was fortunate to take a week off last week and was able to enjoy a vacation “around home” with the family.

Tuesday – Toobin’

Just about an hour South-East of our home is the La Jolla Indian reservation. $15 dollars for the car for the day and $10 each for an inner tube (if you didn’t bring your own) and we had a fun time going down the San Luis Rey River.

We’ll have to go back for a whole day sometime. The water could have been a bit deeper (don’t forget to “butt up”) but it depends on how much they choose to let go from Lake Havasu.

Wednesday – The Wave

Kaelyn went to The Wave Waterpark in Vista during her last week of 5th grade and practically insisted that we all go. Unfortunately, I got sunburned but spending about 6 hours in the sun is hard to protect against.

A lazy river, competition size pool, and four water slides gave plenty of options.

Thursday – Mission Bay

One of our vendors at work treated us to an afternoon at Mission Bay a few weeks ago and I had the opportunity to ride a waverunner for the first time. Going 50 mph on the water is quite thrilling.

I decided to share the experience with the kids. Didn’t go nearly as fast but still had a fun time. We took a little spill trying to turn around which dumped all three of us in the water, but it was more fun than anything else.

Friday – Cabrillo Tide Pools

We drove down to San Diego (picking up Becky‘s mom on the way) and went to the Cabrillo National Monument.

Walking around the tide pools, we saw plenty of other folks and various forms of waterlife.

I miss being around the ocean. I grew up in Encinitas and spent much of my summers being a beach bum.

Saturday – Company Picnic

My work does a summer picnic every year. This one was in Poway (so was last year’s but we missed it) and unfortunately, was lightly attended and as a result was kinda booring.

The company events are getting more awkward as the company grows. More and more people I don’t recognize.

It was a good week. Can’t wait to do it again sometime. Granted, I’m hoping that maybe next time it’ll be sans kids.

Must… resist… urge…

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I am on vacation this week and I honestly have to resist the urge to check in on things at work. Granted, for the past weekend I was in the mountains near Yosemite so my Blackberry was of no use, but so far this is one of the longest periods I haven’t checked email at work. If you look at the screen of my Blackberry below you’ll see that I have 2,420 unread messages:

My blackberry screen

My blackberry screen

That is since Thursday night (I’ve been on vacation since Friday). I should note that most of the mail is automated and can be scanned through in just a few minutes, but the temptation to check on it is significant.

I do keep checking to see if I’ve been paged, but I will see if I can continue to resist. I’m just hanging at or around home this week so if something important comes up, I know I’ll be contacted. When I get back next Monday I’ll have quite a bit of mail to get through, but if I can make it, I’ll be better for it.

A good time in life

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Things are really good right now:

  • The people at work are some of the sharpest I’ve ever had the honor to work with.
  • I still have more things to do than time to do it but that is improving daily.
  • My family is healthy (mostly) and we just love spending time together.
  • Becky and I are going to be able to spend some good time together this weekend.
  • I finally got my PS3 back at work and was able to get a new TV for it as well.
  • I really enjoyed my two most recent reads by John Eldridge: Wild at Heart and Walking with God.
  • My progression towards manager is slow but still progresses. In fact I’m being included in a trip next week to visit Insomniac (the studio that produced Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, as well as Resistance: Fall of Man.

I have no question that I am blessed. The real question is what the Lord has in store next and if I’m paying attention enough to not ignore it.

What were we thinking?

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Since I was quick to criticize Netflix for their plans to eliminate user profiles, it is only appropriate that I acknowledge and congratulate them on their recent decision to undo their plans.

Netflix is keeping profiles

I got a bit of a laugh when I saw the email as the tone when you read between the lines is quite funny. Something like “yeah, it was a dumb idea. The guy who o.k’d it is now working at 7-Eleven.” Either way, it was smart of them to listen to their customers.

What’s a little fire when you’re already hot?

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Becky and I are without kids this weekend and, of course, we decided to take the opportunity and go to CostCo. While purusing the normal selection of bulk items and picking up some of our standard selection of staples, Becky saw a very unexpected surprise.

We are fans of Daphnie’s Greek Cafe which is a Greek restaurant chain headquartered in San Diego (not far from my office, btw). One of the more enjoyable items they have is Fire Feta which is a really good feta cheese spread with all sorts of spicy additions. We get it every time we go there as it is quite tasty.

So, while checking out the deli section at the back of the warehouse, Becky found a 28oz container of Daphnie’s Fire Feta for $8.49. We promptly picked it up and swung by Henry’s to get some pita chips and we are good to beat the heat.

What a lousy move, Netflix

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We’ve been using Netflix for about two years now and come to really like the service. One of the better features is the ability to have different profiles each with their own queues of movies you’d like to watch. Our membership allows us to have three DVDs borrowed at a time. We set up a queue for Becky and me (for two DVDs) and one for the kids (with one DVD).

How all this works in practice is that when we return a movie from our queue, the next one in line get sent to us. Likewise, when we return a movie from the kids’ queue, it takes the top of theirs. All-in-all it is very convenient and keeps things quite organized.

Unfortunately, Netflix has announced that they will be doing away with profiles at the beginning of September. Any profile other than our main will get merged in to the main and then removed. We’ll have to make sure that one of our kids’ selections is at the top when we return theirs. What if the top one isn’t available (which happens sometimes)? I guess they lose out.

I personally don’t see why they need to do it. Perhaps they figure they’re moving through too many exchanges per subscriber each month. As many are considering (as am I) to drop their membership from 3 to 2, there’ll be some impact on their revenues. It’s already been a hit to their public image.