Let's review this in 2016

http://www.thedaily.com/article/2012/11/08/110912-news-obama-promises/

P90X Day 1 & Out of the Mouths of babes

Chest and Shoulders and Ab Ripper X. Filled out my worksheet but man, my numbers are pretty pathetic. Well, I gave is close to 100% anyway. My pull up station is junk and I'm going to build a solid wood one in the back yard. Will update this with pics.

This new chapter in my life is courtesy of my ex company being acquired. I have a few weeks of freedom which I've never really had in my adult life.

There are a ton of things for me to do and I'm still in the process of organizing them around a central theme or direction. Lots of busy work without a goal will make the time disappear and at the end I'll be in a bind looking for a job.

My daughter said something quite interesting to me last night. I broke the news that I was without a job for the first time in my life. Her reply was "That's good because it didn't seem like your job was very much fun." Her words didn't resonate until I was in the shower a bit later when her observation suddently struck me like a bolt out of the blue.

She's absolutely right, it wasn't fun and that, perhaps, was one of the problems. I'm middle aged now and still very healthy but one can never take that for granted. So I guess that begs the question of just what would I consider a fun job?

• Bicycle Cop
• Race car test driver, mechanic
• NASCAR official
• River guide at the USNWC
• Bike shop mechanic
• Velodrome racer
• triathlete (too old to be pro)
• personal trainer
• Politician? (Ugh)
• Real Estate Investor?
• Contractor?
• bulldozer owner/operator?
• Tax preparer?
• professional organizer?

I can probably easily narrow down that list and perhaps that is really my first mission. For now, however, I have to finish this double gate I started yesterday. 

First class cads

I'm waiting respectfully just beyond the first class chute at a gate. I'm in first class thanks to an upgrade so wanted to be close to the front to make sure I get a good overhead spot. About six people went around me to stand actually inside the chute. When the incoming passengers disembarked, these people crowded their exit path. I

Where have our manners gone?

Audi A6 2.7T Gauge Cluster Computer Display Repair

The instrument cluster, gauge cluster, on my 2000 Audi A6 2.7T has been steadily losing pixels over time. If the car sat out in the hot sun, the entire LCD pretty much vanished and was unreadable.

The picture below shows what mine looked like (on a good cool day) vs the photo on the right of a perfect display:

After searching a little on ebay, I found out that you can purchase just the new LCD screen for about $60. I thought, surely if they're selling them on ebay, they must be pretty easy to change so I bought one (see next photo.) This was one of those mistakes for which you wish you had the benefit of hindsight.

Long story short, I found out that I can't solder a ribbon cable to a PC board and was left with a completely bright red center LCD display:

A little searching on the internet brought up www.modulemaster.com. This company specializes in repairing failed ABS modules and, to my delight, Audi gauge clusters. In fact, the picture at the top of this post is from their site.

First, drop the steering wheel all the way down and out.

I popped out my cluster by removing the u-shaped trim panel just above the steering wheel. It is held on by two spring clips on either side. Pull it straight out as bending it upwards may break the plastic tab that holds the spring clips.

Next you'll see two phillips screw heads above the steering wheel along the bottom edge of the cluster. Use a pretty large (#3) screwdriver as these are usually stuck. Use a magnet to make sure you don't drop them inside the dash.

Next you'll need to pull the cluster straight back by gently gripping the bottom edge and the two reset "sticks."Again, take your time and wiggle it until it slides forward.

Now, angle the cluster until you can get access to the 3 electrical connectors on the back (Blue, Gray, and Green.) Each of them has a little purple locking handle that you'll need to pry up with a small screwdriver. Gently pull them up and the connector will come right out.

Then, lean the cluster back and you should be able to work it out. Your dashboard will now look like this:

Now the easy part. Fill out the repair request on Module Master, ship it to them, wait a few days for them to receive it, fix it, and call you back with the total. They'll ship it back to you promptly (I got mine in two days.) It came in a big box with tons of packing, wrapped like a papoose, good enough to survive a 10,000 ft drop:

Reverse the steps above to install it (take care to open the purple handle on the connectors completely so that they will seat properly, the purple handle should close easily) and you should be rewarded with the following now perfect display. (My check engine light is another matter, the secondary air injection system pump is bad again) :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/romney-gets-trump-nod-and-gets-off-stage--fast/2012/02/02/gIQAlGe8kQ_blog.html

When I heard the rumors this morning that Donald Trump was about to endorse Newt Gingrich, I was somewhat relieved for Mitt Romney. First, I should say I was a little surprised, that anyone would care who Trump, originally known as a businessman but these days more for being a celebrity, would endorse. But my relief was centered around the fact that lately crazy shallow minded hypocrites like Herman Cain are enthusiastically endorsing Newt. I thought it would bode well for Romney to have the hard core conservatives line up behind Newt...thereby keeping Romney attractive to the moderates.

Vanity Fair "The Dark Side of Mitt Romney"

I found this hatchet job on Mitt Romney to be illuminating, not from the standpoint of Romney's faults. But from the predictable attempt at positioning his steadfast character, analytical approach, and overall business success as negatives.

So let me get this straight, the man analyzes under-performing, sick, and dying companies then makes a calculated decision about how to invest, which paid off for his investment about 2/3 of the time and made millions for his investors, and this is somehow evil or dark? He pores over tons of data to identify redundancies and inefficiencies, yet this is not the kind of person we need in Washington? Its laughable.

Dell TouchPad suddenly stopped working

I went out of town the other day, which means something is going to go wrong in my house that I'll have to fix when I get back.

This time it was the touchpad on my wife's Dell Inspiron N5030 stopped working suddenly. The backstory is that she and my daughter were trying to find some funny kid videos on the internet when it suddenly stopped.

I hooked up a mouse and it worked just fine, but sure enough, the touchpad was completely dead. I suspected a hardware failure until I googled "Dell touchpad not working." In no time, I found the problem listed along with the solution on this link:

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?docid=424135

Luckily, it was just the touchpad enable/disable key which is located just to the right of the F12 key. It allows you to toggle the touchpad on/off. A very useful key for those who inadvertently hit the touchpad when typing text.