SuperJason’s Personal Blog

Tonight I painted my office in the basement. I used the color “Water Chestnut” by Glidden. Photo’s can be found at the end of this gallery. Remember that your monitor may not show the color perfectly. Also, the photo’s were taken while the paint was still drying.

Tomorrow night I need to finish up a few things in the room, and move in!

Here is an interesting link that gives you “real-time” information about stuff on our planet. It tells you the current population, deaths, etc.

Also, I added a Firefox logo on the left side because someone from Mozilla.org actually left a comment and asked me to! It was very personal, and that person also responded when I sent them emails. Would you ever expect someone from Microsoft to do that? Be sure to check the link out if you are not already running Firefox.

I FINALLY fixed the tail lights on my car. Everyone has been telling me to fix them. It ended up being a lot of work, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the Sylvania book for looking up the correct bulbs, is wrong! It had the wrong bulbs for almost every part of the car. I had to take out all the bulbs that were in there, and match them by number. The next problem is that the contact for one of the bulbs was pitted. I wrapped a small piece of aluminum foil around it, and fixed that. I hooked it up, and it still didn’t work! When I wiggled around the connector, they would start to work. It ended up that the main connector was corroded like every thing else. After I fixed that, it was all good to go. I also had a light burnt out in the middle brake light, so I fixed that while I was at it. Now everyone can stop telling me to get it fixed!

I built a data rack in the basement. The porpose is to organize all of the cables and devices into one area. I uploaded a photo here. I also put the last coat of joint compound on the walls. The latest photos can be found toward the end of the gallery here.

My parents were nice enough to come out today and create a huge flowerbed in the back corner of our yard. There are a few photos in the album of the outside of our house. Here is a good photo of the whole thing. It’s important to point out that they are planted for the spring. They probably won’t do much this year.

As if that wasn’t enough, they took us out to eat at Margarita’s on the west side of town. It was all pretty good, including their chimichunga. I still prefer Chi Chi’s, but that may just be what I’m used to.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

I felt a lot better today. Right away Melissa put me to work. She made me mow the lawn. I also worked on the joint compound in my office. I’ll post some photos when that is all done. After that, I have to put on primer/sealer, and then paint! I’m probably going to go with a little bit darker beige color. I don’t want the walls to be bright. I’m going to have bright lights, so I don’t want it to feel “glaring”.

Tomorrow afternoon my parents are coming out to put in some flower gardens in the back yard. I’ll post some photos afterward.

The day goes so slow when you are sick. All I did today was watch movies. Even this post is boring.

Today, Melissa and I went to the Milwaukee County Zoo. It was a perfect day for the trip, the weather was sunny and 70 degrees. I took lots of great photos, and uploaded them all here. We got their around 10:30, and had to wait in a line of cars for about 30 minutes.

We found out that the animals aren’t really active until about 12:00, so we only saw them sleeping for a while. We made it to pretty much every part of the zoo. We were also able to see the Seal/Sea Lion show. It was really great, although no where near as good as Seaworld.

We also rode the train around the park. It was nice getting a quick view of everything. There are some photos included in the gallery.

For reference, here is the trip data for the trip down:
Trip Distance: 120 miles
Moving Time: 2:05
Stopped: 25:56 (Stopped for gas and also had to wait in line to get into the park)

Melissa called me at work yesterday and told me that the dishwasher wasn’t working. I told her that I would look at it when I got home. When I got home, I began disassembling it, so that I could troubleshoot the problem. The unit didn’t seem to do anything, so I thought it was the door switch. I called my dad, and he said he had door switch problems on his old Kenmore. So I tested the switches for the door, and they worked perfectly. I then checked the water solenoid. Everything seemed perfect. After that, I decided to double check that the unit had power. I found out that it wasn’t getting any power, but the garbage disposal, which is on the same circuit, had power. I started tracing the wires, and found that they ended up at a set of switches by the sink. I started removing the switch cover, and asked Melissa what the right switch was for. That’s when the answer became clear. She said she wondered what it was the night before, so she switched it off.

How to troubleshoot a dishwasher (for future reference):

1. Make sure the switch is turned on
2. Check the power to the dishwasher
3. Check the door switches
4. Check the water solenoid

The funning thing is, Melissa’s parents have a switch for their dishwasher. I was over there one time, and tried to turn on the dishwasher and it didn’t work. Her mom came over and flipped the switch. I thought it was really stupid that it was on a switch, but it must be code or something.

I called my dad and told him the story, he said I should have checked the power first.

Melissa and I decided to go to the Milwaukee Zoo instead of going up to door county. We are going to save some money, and still have a ton of fun. Of course I’ll post the photos afterward.