My weekend reflections

This Saturday evening I am reflecting on some activities in the last few days. I just got back from watching the movie, Green Lantern at the Blue Ridge theater in Raleigh. This movie had an interesting theme of good versus evil. Good was depicted as will power in the form of creative, green lantern energy, in contrast to evil which was fear. The green energy defeated the yellow fear of paralax. On Friday night, a friend and I saw another movie; Transformers 3 at the IMAX theater in Raleigh. Some of the scenes were really cool and I thought I was flying through the air at points. However, the 3D glasses were uncomfortable to wear for over 2 hours. This was a great movie to watch in IMAX 3D because of the battle scenes and incredible special effects.

Most of today this area has been dealing with hurricane Irene that made landfall near the outer banks and is now near Washington, DC. At times it was very windy, but not much heavy rain were I live in west Cary. The networks were covering this story most of the day, and I watched some of the reporters trying to stand up in the hurricane winds along the beach as the waves were crashing around the pier. I noticed a report from the Avalon pier at Kill Devil Hills, NC, one that I visited while on a job assignment there a few years ago. There probably is lots of tree and power line damage in downeast, NC, so keep them in your prayers. This morning I put in hour or so working on my HP Photosmart printer that had a bad capacitor, causing it to lose connection sometimes and wake from sleep at odd times. The repair involved de-soldering the bad capacitor, ordering a new one and soldering it to the circuit board. So far the printer is working like when I first got it. I think I am going to need a new soldering iron after this job the tip is almost melted away. I walked around a computer store this afternoon looking at their components and thinking of my next computer build. On the Intel side, their new boards use the Z68 chipset which supports sandybridge chips like the i7-2600K. With AMD, their was a micro-ATX FM1 chipset board selling for around $120, which is used with the new A6-3650 processors that use the Fusion integrated graphics. Later on I went to my local Target store and chatted with the cell phone rep. about some of the new smartphones on the market. This afternoon my friend and I played a few levels in my new steam game, Portal2 and then some races in my new racing game, Fuel. So far this aged core 2 duo vista desktop can still render graphics ok and at playable frame rates. The last computer that I purchased was a laptop with Windows 7, and I also have an Apple powermac, loaded with a game DVD. In tech news, HP decided to sell there PC manufacturing business and the Apple CEO retired. While riding my mt. bike this week I listened to the twich podcast on my sansa clip mp3 player. Also, I enjoyed the superb sound quality of my new skullcandy earbuds while walking and a micro mobi speaker while working at my desk. In other news, I won a little toy blue hot wheels car (Dodge Charger) playing a group poker at a church event. This car sits besides my printer and is a reminder of good times of fellowship with friends over a nice steak dinner. Here are a few pictures that I would like to share from last month:

Pool tables at the Brickhouse in Raleigh. They had free pool this night after a soccer game.

 

 

 

Garner Fireworks on July 3, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Watching a Carolina Railhawks soccer game in July. 

Hiking up to the summit of Beech Mtn. on vacation in July.

Fred's store on Beech Mountain.

Orange walls inside a cool restaurant in Cary.

Watching a band play at a tavern in Banner Elk during my mtn. vacation in July.

My May Journey

Well, looking back at the month of May, it was a fun and enjoyable ride. I hit the road to travel shorter distances than I did in April, with that Hilton Head beach trip. However, several day trips did result in some great photos that I am going to share on this post. Under each photo is a brief description of the location, time, and other details.

My best May 2011 photos:

Wild birds eating off of this bell shaped seed feeder that I installed on my patio. It
took the birds several weeks to even start pecking at it, but more birds arrived after
each day. I saw two cardinals, lots of chickadees, and some thrushes eat seed. One
day the bell fell down off the hanger and then it was gone a few hours later when
I came home from church.

This is a PowerBook G4 Mac laptop that I repaired. It would not boot into OS X Tiger,
so I removed the hard drive, formatted it with a linux boot drive, then re-installed the OS.
After several software updates and a battery calibration it is like new. The only problem
is that there is not much software that I can purchase and install since this Mac doesn't have newer
Intel processor. I did find a game CD at Office Max that does still install. I have played
some games of checkers and a maze game, both on the Hoyle Puzzle CD.

This is a my awesome disk golf drive on hole #7 at Centinenial Campus DGC in Raleigh.
It is very challenging to reach the basket on this short 9 hole course, like an S pattern
through the trees, that I hit just right.

Another disc golf photo, this is number 11 at Kentwood DGC. I posted this one because it maybe a sign pointing to
this year, 2011. There is a bridge that cross over a creek, with a very overgrown, weeds and rough area
to the left of the fairway. Is this a sign of the rapture that will take Christians out of this world, leaving behind
the terrible tribulation(on the left). I have scored a 2 on this hole before, but it takes a very "straight" shot.

May was National Bike Month, and I took several photos while out riding my around on
my Mongoose mountain bike. This is Lochmere Lake in Cary at the end of a small pier at a boat ramp area.

This is part of the Hog Run trail system at Harris Lake. I think it is on the Advanced Loop
section, one of my favorite trails to ride, and always cool even when it is above 90 degrees.

A photo of my time going to play darts at Sharky's tavern in Raleigh. Others were playing
pool on those tables. Watched some of the playoff b-ball and hockey game on the wide screens. I think
I won all the dart games that I played.

Attending a singles event at Hope Community Church in Raleigh. The group is called Journey.
Sometimes they have other events that I try to attend if not working or busy.

Photos from April Beach Trip

A few weeks ago, in April I traveled down to Hilton Head Island for a few days of spring vacation. The trip down there was anything but normal. See, only a day or so before I left there was a massive tornado outbreak in the eastern NC area. My place was around 20 miles from the first twister that hit around the southern downtown Raleigh area. The Fayetteville, NC area near I-95 that I drove on was also hit with a tornado. Here are two photos that I took from the interstate of the damage:

After I got to S.C., I stopped at the South of the Border park and here are a few photos of that place:

After arriving at HHI, I walked on the beach, rode a rental bike around the shipyard area, and enjoyed playing some outdoor sports and watching some movies in the evening. Below are photos of some of the cool scenery and images from around HHI:

Lots of Jellyfish wash onshore

Bird dives for fish in the Atlantic

Lots of bike riders on the beach during low tides

Riding a beach cruzer bike

Playing the Legendary putt-putt 

I played this course near Hardeeville with lots of water hazards

These birds were common around the inland small lakes and ponds

Setup this new HP laptop

Van Der Meer Tennis center, played round robin