Nerhood Weblog

Our 2005 Honda Odyssey EX arrived about 7 hours ago. We love it!!!!!
Here are the basics of the deal:
Base price for vehicle + documentation fee: $25,640 ($113 over invoice)
Out-the-door price including destination charge, tags, tax, fees: $27,698
Extras included free: Mud flaps, wheel locks, trunk tray, delivery to our house (1.5 hours away)
Other factors: End of [...]

Yes you read that right, they have decided to total our van (after 2 whole months). Now we have to go through the process of buying a new one. Their initial offer was very low, so we complained and they have raised it somewhat (it’s still not great). While we’ll get a new vehicle out [...]

I’ve been looking at getting some type of Digital Video Recorder (DVR) for some time, and I’m really confused now as to what I should get. My needs are pretty typical:

A good quality unit
Lifetime service (from a company that will be around for a long time)
Copy some shows to DVD (ideally using my iMac)
Connect to [...]

Shadow of the Giant, the fourth and potentially final book in the Bean Quartet, will be published in March of this year. If you would like to get a jump on reading it, Orson Scott Card has posted the first three chapters on his website.
While this will probably be the last of the Bean specific [...]

Fern talked with body shop doing the work on our van. They started to take it apart, while doing so they identified additional things that will need to be fixed so they were in the process of trying to contact the adjuster and/or the insurance company to get the additional work cleared. We still have [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about SpamKarma being a great plugin for fighting spam. Well it is so good that even deleted the comment from my Mother. I think that it has also deleted some other legit comments too. I know that I can set some of the setting in to make it [...]

I’ve been kind of mopey over the past couple of days. I’m not really sure why, but couldn’t seem to get out my funk. Mom if you’re reading this don’t worry. Last night I think I figured out a new antidepressant therapy, it called a big bag of corn chips and tub of mango [...]

Alan Dean Foster’s latest novel, Sliding Scales: A Pip & Flinx Adventure was a major disappointment. In the story, Flinx is encouraged by his ship’s AI to take a vacation on the out of the way planet Jast. Just like Flinx, this book certainly takes a vacation. It does almost nothing to advance Flinx’s [...]

Today marks the first anniversary of this blog. When I started this project I had no idea where it might lead. I had never before kept any kind of diary for more than the required couple of weeks in school. This digital diary has been a wonderful experience. The type, quantity, style, and content has [...]