Month: July 2009

Death And Life

On Sunday morning, July 5th, Laura’s father Larry passed away at his cabin in the woods of East Texas. We knew it was coming, but not how soon. We had booked a trip to leave on 7/12, but on the advice of her brother we moved it to 7/4 for Laura, and I was to come later. However, our plans were to change on the news that morning.

I flew out the morning on July 6th.

Since then, it’s been kind of hectic. Laura has been amazing in her stamina in the face of loss and I’ve been trying to keep up and be supportive. I’ve been helping by organizing and scanning pictures for archival purposes and in hopes of a future slideshow or movie in Larry’s memory.

Media Center: Phase 2

I’m now beginning the second phase of the new media center effort. We’ve ordered two things: a cable card tuner and a new video card. We need the new video card to be able to view HDCP content, such as HD video from the tuners, and a future BluRay drive if we go that route. It also has an HDMI jack which will give us more vibrant color than the VGA jack we’re currently using.

Secondly, we’ll be making a trial run with a single digital tuner so that I can get the system running and make sure it works before ordering the second one.

If all goes according to plan, by next month I’ll have the second tuner and we’ll ditch the cable service provided DVR box and save even more money [we saved over $12 by getting rid of the upstairs cable receiver, and should save maybe $30 or so by getting rid of the HD DVR box set top box].

I’ll let you know how it pans out.