analog_kidd

I grew up in South Florida and the Miami Dolphins have been my team that I hate to love over the years. I always hope for a repeat of 1972, but they never even get close to delivering. Now that we are Tennesseeans, I'm all for the Titans, but I still have that soft spot in my heart for Miami.   My wonderful wife, for my birthday, bought me a pair of tickets to go see the Titans and Miami play in Nashville.Every year since I turned 35, I've been saying as a joke "well, I'm too old to play pro football now, but I can be President." So for my 50th she got me tickets. I've never really been to Nashville, aside from just passing through, so we thought we would make a weekend of it. We are going to head over there early Saturday, and spend the day/evening seeing the sights.   I'm looking for recommendations on the "must see" places. I'm not so much into Country Music, but I do love the Blues. Are there any Blues restaurants or clubs that are great? Also, what are the best tourist places to visit? We'll likely Uber our way into town from where we are staying, so we'll mostly just be walking around the down-town area.   I'm really excited about the whole weekend, and want to maximize the fun. Thanks

Once again, Tennessee snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Not going for 2 points after that last touchdown, was just bad coaching.

I was watching an episode of Stossel on "Borders" and they had a section about state borders. The guest said that in the early 40's there was a movement to separate off the norther half into another state, and it was just about to be approved, when the Japanese attacked. WW-II started and the nation lost interest.

We opened up a 2nd checking account at our bank just to use with a debit card. Whenever we want to buy something online, we'll transfer the money into the 2nd account and then use that to pay. If the card gets hacked, they'll only get what few dollars remain in the account.   I also got one of those Google Wallet cards. From the app on my phone I can easily transfer money from my main account into the Google account and I can pay using either use my phone or the debit card they sent me. I got it because we have done the Dave Ramsey method of only using cash to pay for daily items. Paying for gas is such a pain when using cash. You have to go in, wait in line behind the guy getting lotto tickets (who can't make up his mind which of the 586 different scratch off's he wants), pay more than you think you need so you can get a complete fill up, pump the gas, then go back in to get your change, but first you have to wait in line again. With the Google card, I just transfer my week's worth of "allowance" into the card and use that at the pump to pay. My phone keeps up with the balance almost immediately, so I know how much money I have on hand at any time.   Again, with the google card, I usually don't have more than $100 loaded in it at any time, but usually way less. If it gets hacked, that's all they get.   With the Google card, there is only one card issued per Google account, so only I can use it. With the 2nd bank account, I have multiple (me and my wife) debit cards from the same account. The problem we have hit with the 2nd account is not coordinating with each other when buying stuff, and the account gets nearly overdrawn.   And using an ATM is just a bad idea in general. Plan ahead, and get money out at the bank ahead of time. My wife has a routine of going to the bank every other Friday to get out the money we will use for the next two weeks for groceries, dining out, gas, pocket cash, etc. If the money is gone before the two weeks is up, we just do without. It's a self discipline that we have imposed upon ourselves. Funny how you only do without once or twice before you start to plan a little better.

One report I heard said that the crane got hit by lightning. So, a mosque full of Muslims gets hit by lightning on the anniversary of 9/11. Sounds like someone is trying to get a message through.   The thing I thought was interesting, when 9/11 happened, there was celebrations and dancing in the street by Muslims and their leaders. This tragedy happens and we send condolences. 

The friends we went tot he Chattanooga Escape with, told us yesterday they went to the Knoxville one recently. They said it was fun, but not quite the production of the Chattanooga one. Maybe over time it will get better. Still they said they would go to the Knoxville one again when they update to new scenarios.

We went this past Spring and did the other one they had. Forget the name of it, but it was the Mad Scientist plot. It was a lot of fun, we had most of it figured out, but did not finish. Part of our problem was we had 8 people total in the room and it was chaos. Someone would figure out a clue but not share it with everyone.   I heard that there was one coming, or already in Knoxville.

Well, we haven't officially cut DirecTV, but we use a free program called Kodi to supplement it, and I'm pretty close to being able to pull the trigger. The main thing holding me back is watching Fox News and Monday Night Football live.   Kodi is an amazing piece of software. It runs on Windows, Linux, Mac and Android. I have a Windows PC connected to my TV running it. IT will find and play any kind of audio / video media that is on your PC, or network. We rip all of our movies to MP4 or MKV format, and Kodi can play them.   The beauty of Kodi is that it supports third party plug-ins. There are plug-ins for many of the channels I find on DirecTV. The plug-in connects to the content provided by the channels on their web sites and plays it over the internet. There are also lots of silly plug-ins created by people to broadcast their own crazy content. Some of it is actually pretty good. There are even a few legit plug-ins that play some older movies and TV shows. Search hard enough and you'll probably find a plug-in to watch just about anything you want.   There is even a version of Kodi written for the Raspberry Pi computer. I bought a brand new RPi with everything I needed (power supply, case memory card, wi-fi etc.) for $50 on Amazon, and installed the O/S found on the OpenElec Website. It runs amazingly well. I put one in the bedroom and we use it to watch movies stored on the PC in the living room, and shows that it can stream from the Internet.

Didn't one of the theater shooters go outside to get his guns? How easy is it to park around back, enter the building carrying nothing, then exit the door inside the theater and prop it open while you go get the guns and bring them back? 

I agree that the certs are becoming less of a thing for employers. I'm a Windows Server guy, and probably half of my team have any kind of cert at all. My company is sending us to advanced VMware training and going to foot the bill for the certs, so I'll certainly go for those tests, but they hired me this year, and my MCSE is in NT4, with maybe one or two MCP's from the last decade. So, they didn't really care about my certifications. What they were interested in was what I knew.   I think I recall you do a helpline of some sort, right? You might want to send a resume here http://www.sciworld.com/careers/ They are the company that runs IT at the plant in Oak Ridge. I know they just had a couple of HelpDesk folks move on, they have a Desktop position open and I think they may have a server position or two open up recently. There have also been a few jobs posted at the lab recently as well. If you have not already, open an account at the ORNL careers site and check the listings regularly. Either of these will be the best options salary wise with remaining in your area.   If you haven't already, get a linked-In account and sign up for new job alerts. You'll start seeing jobs show up that don't appear in the paper.   The usual progression that I have seen is Helpdesk to Desktop specialist to either Server support or some specialty application, like SharePoint or Web design. If you have been in HelpDesk, you easily qualify for a Desktop type position. That would give you the opportunity to move around, meet folks and make a name for yourself. Find the people in the area you eventually want to be in, and start making contacts. Be the go-to guy and you'll get noticed among your co-workers and management.   The big areas I see right now that I would be focusing my career on if I were looking to move up are Virtualization (VMware or Hyper-V), anything made by Citrix, Cyber Security, or Networking (Cisco). On a desktop side, you should know Win10 and Win7/8 inside out, as well as Office. Practice installing and customizing these. Maybe even get certified in a few of them, if for no other reason than to get the training. The certs are a bonus.   The thing you gotta do is be constantly moving toward your goal. Every Monday ask yourself, what did I do last week to get me closer? Every week, do something... Put in an application, go on an interview, read a book, set up a new PC, learn a new feature of Windows. Picking on you a little, I recall you being irritated with your job several months ago, and now I hear you say you are going to wait until Winter to get really motivated. There is no time like the present, start now!   Good luck

Sean Penn is the one I can't get past separating artist from politics. His antics have left me to the point that I can't even stand to look at him.  He may make the best movie ever, but I couldn't stomach spending two hours looking at his face.

Ana Popovic has become one of my new favorites. She plays a mean guitar and has that raspy, bluesy voice.    https://youtu.be/GHIEpKopqWk?list=RDj5CLzJcfDss    

When I turned 16, my dad bought me a '72 Pinto for a few hundred bucks. He figured it would keep me out of trouble by keeping me in the garage working on it all the time. Ha, the car ran great and never gave me any trouble until the end. It leaked a bit of oil, but I kept a few quarts in the trunk, and would top off the oil when I filled up the gas tank.   The car had an AM radio, with some kind of add-on FM converter that played over one of the AM channels (so no stereo) and used the dash speakers. It also had an 8-Track player completely separate from the radio, and played through the rear speakers.   The car ran great for several years, until one day the transmission completely locked up one day on the way to work. I went skidding across the road until I pressed the clutch in, and coasted to the side of the road. Tried getting it out of gear, and the shifter fell right out of the tranny. I tossed the shifter in the back seat and hitch-hiked into work. I think I sold it to a friend who used it for part for his Pinto.   I had a lot of great times as a teenager in that car. Again, more proof that God watches out for fools, as I should probably be dead several times over for some of the antics we did back then. I also think the Pinto got a bad rap for blowing up. It happened a few times, and Ford did a recall and fixed the problem.

One of the admins  at work has a sign on their door. It's circular with arrows pointing to each phrase around the circle:               Replace User -->  Try Again  -->   I also use the (say the letters) "Eye Dee Ten Tee" code all the time for some users ===> id10t

  Just be aware the free upgrade expires July 2016. After that, you'll have to pay for it. From what I understand, if you do the update now, the install will phone back to the Microsoft mothership and update a database with info about your PC. After that the upgrade is locked in and you will be able to format and reinstall after July 2016 if you want. You just have to take that first step of upgrading.

I've been away from my PC for a few days, and you may have solved your problem already, but for a free solution, I've had great success with Offline NT Password Editor   http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/ Just download either the CD version or the USB version, boot from whichever you decided, and follow the prompts. You'll want to reset the password for the account "Administrator". Once the password has been changed, removed the disk and boot normally into Windows. At the logon screen use Administrator for the account, and whatever password you changed it to. If the logon screen indicates you are logging onto a domain, use ".\Administrator" for the username (don't include the quotes).   If you have a friend that has access to an enterprise subscription to Microsoft Licensing, ask them to get DART (MS Diagnotic And Recovery Tool). It has a very nice and easy to use password recovery tool, along with several other cool utilities. And it is from Microsoft. It boots up to a windows-like desktop and will seem familiar.   If all you are looking for is to be able to get the files copied to a USB drive before wiping the laptop, you could try any of the Linux Boot disks, such as Ubuntu,  that can be installed to a CD and booted from. You'll get a desktop that is running from the CD, but will have access to the files on your hard drive.    Good luck.   ​

Oh, great. My wife and I share the Amazon account, and she is in there frequently. She is going to see this listed in the "recently viewed" section. I have a feeling she'll be treating me real nice for the next few days, but when the delivery truck doesn't show up after a week, she's gonna start being suspicious.

If you already have the program installed in the win8, try this little trick before you wipe the PC. Right-click the shortcut, or go find the .EXE file that starts the program and right-click it, then select properties, and then select the compatibility tab. There are several options in there to fool the O/S run the program as if it were on an earlier version of Windows. Doesn't always work, but at least worth trying.

I've had people at work trying to describe a person go like this:   "You know that guy, he's about 6' tall, has short hair. Drives that Honda. Sat over there at the Christmas party." Then in a very hushed tone like they were telling a secret: "He's Black"   Being he is one of three black guys we work with, that is where they should have started. It's almost like we have to ignore the one main differentiating feature of color because we don't want to appear racist. It is what it is. Doesn't bother me to be described at that old white guy, why should it be a problem the other way?

I'm a whitewater kayaker, and loving all this rain. It has brought up some creeks that usually only run in the middle of winter, It's really wierd paddling these creeks in short sleeves.   Made it to the Piney river in Spring City yesterday. It was absolutely perfect. We got a late start, and I thought we were going to be paddling out in the dark, but we made it to the end by 8:15 or so.   It rained all morning, and then cleared up while we were on the river. In fact we even had blue skies for a while. It came down hard again on the way home.   The wife was not happy that I got home after 11:00   :hiding:

Very sad passing for me. Yes is one of my all time favorite groups. I had front row and center seats at the 90125 concert a few decades ago, Just amazing. News said he had leukemia.

I'll be happy to put away the Confederate flag as soon as we as a country stop referring to black folks as African Americans. They're just Americans, dang-it. If they really want to eliminate that part of our history, then stop reminding everyone where they came from. Besides, most black folks I know don't relate one little bit to Africa or it's culture and heritage.

We had a coyote in downtown Oak Ridge, right in my neighborhood. I called the City animal control, and they refused to come get it, saying they only dealt with domesticated animal collection. They recommended I call a trapper, or trap it myself. I asked if I could put it down if I trapped it, and they said "Not with a gun!". I asked about an arrow, and they said they really weren't allowed either, but they reluctantly gave that answer, so I took it to mean do it out of sight and nobody will be the wiser.   I called TWRA and they said they will not come trap it or dispatch it either. They suggested I trap it and then club it to death  :stunned: . They also told me it was illegal in TN to transport any live wild animal, so don't even think about trapping and releasing it out in the woods.

I heard a report on the news today where someone went to a major grocery store chain and wanted a cake made with a Confederate flag, and the store refused. Then they came back later and asked if they could get a cake made with the ISIS flag. They were told "Sure, no problem"

I'm sure this has created an even bigger health problem for some kids. Kids will always go overboard with stuff like this, so what could have been a moderate amount of salt or sugar  added in for taste during cooking, now the kids will bring in salt / sugar and over-do it.   Just like the nanny state of New York banning 32 oz sodas. People just bought 2 ~ 24oz sodas. They caused people to eat / drink more unhealthy.   How about instead of forcing it down their necks, schools start actually TEACHING kids how to live healthy and help them make good choices.