Sunday, August 24, 2008
21
We watched the movie 21 on Friday. The movie was good but the book was a LOT better, that's always the case though. What really surprised me was that they could even say the movie was based on the book Bringing Down the House. About the only thing from the book that was in the movie is that some kids from MIT played blackjack and had a system for counting cards, everything else was different. The entire back story of the main character, a new love interest, etc. Most of the other movies that I've seen which were based on a book I read, were still true to the book. Sure they cut out much of the detail to fit it into a 90-120 minute movie, but at least the story is the same. It makes me wonder how many movies I've seen where I haven't read the book that are totally different than the original authors version. Or even worse "based" on a true story where only one piece is the same and the rest is all made up. This is especially scary considering many of us think anything in a book, movie or on TV is true, when in reality we all need to be a bit more critical of our information sources.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
New Dishwasher
Lauren has been after me to get a new dishwasher for awhile now. The old one was working but was definitely on it's last leg. So Appliance World had one of these big warehouse sales this weekend. We stopped over there late morning and it was a giant open room full of appliances and you had to wander around and pick the one that you wanted. It was pretty chaotic.
We spent a bit of time looking around and finally decided on one that we wanted, we had it tagged with our name, got the paperwork and headed over to check out. The line was 60-75 minutes long to pay and check out. We had some other errands to run and we wanted to grab lunch so we decided we would come back later.
After eating and accomplishing some other things we headed back to pick up the dishwasher. The line had died down and it was probably only 15 minutes or so to get checked out. Next we got loaded up and headed home to install this thing.
It fought us every step of the way. It was tough getting the old one out. Finally after that was done we got the new one in and almost everything connected only to realize that the copper elbow was the wrong size for our piping. So after taking the dishwasher back out and replacing the copper elbow with the one from the old dishwasher we were back in business. Finally everything was hooked up and we were ready to fire it up.
A few minutes into the initial run we realize that there is a leak. After spending a good amount of time checking all the connections finally we look at the unit itself. It looks like the leak is coming from the bottom of the dishwasher but it's hard to tell. So out the new dishwasher comes again. Once we have it out and tipped on it's back we can see that there is in fact a tiny slit in the bottom of the sump housing. Now what?
After much debate and calls to the store and GE all with no answer Lauren finally heads back over to the warehouse sale to see what they have to say. To their credit they were happy to exchange the unit. We got lucky that they had another one of the same model given how the sale worked but they were very good.
So we get back home and get dishwasher number two installed, start it running and everything looks great. No leaks but we better run the rinse cycle one more time to be sure. We had just started to celebrate victory when Lauren opened the door and realizes that the dishwasher is not draining. Now what?
Next we bail out all the water with cups and check the drain hose to make sure there are no kinks, seems like there might be one so we try again. No go; still not draining. There is no way we got two of these that are bad did we? Again checking all the connections, making sure there is no kink in the hose. Finally by some stroke of luck I notice there is a loose wire. Also there is an open blade where this wire would go that looks like it's on the solenoid that opens the sump valve. That must have been it with the wire reconnected everything runs great. The dishwasher empties and we are finally done. All in all this was probably something like 12 hours of elapsed time, so the moral of the story is: you're better off paying service people to do this work!
We spent a bit of time looking around and finally decided on one that we wanted, we had it tagged with our name, got the paperwork and headed over to check out. The line was 60-75 minutes long to pay and check out. We had some other errands to run and we wanted to grab lunch so we decided we would come back later.
After eating and accomplishing some other things we headed back to pick up the dishwasher. The line had died down and it was probably only 15 minutes or so to get checked out. Next we got loaded up and headed home to install this thing.
It fought us every step of the way. It was tough getting the old one out. Finally after that was done we got the new one in and almost everything connected only to realize that the copper elbow was the wrong size for our piping. So after taking the dishwasher back out and replacing the copper elbow with the one from the old dishwasher we were back in business. Finally everything was hooked up and we were ready to fire it up.
A few minutes into the initial run we realize that there is a leak. After spending a good amount of time checking all the connections finally we look at the unit itself. It looks like the leak is coming from the bottom of the dishwasher but it's hard to tell. So out the new dishwasher comes again. Once we have it out and tipped on it's back we can see that there is in fact a tiny slit in the bottom of the sump housing. Now what?
After much debate and calls to the store and GE all with no answer Lauren finally heads back over to the warehouse sale to see what they have to say. To their credit they were happy to exchange the unit. We got lucky that they had another one of the same model given how the sale worked but they were very good.
So we get back home and get dishwasher number two installed, start it running and everything looks great. No leaks but we better run the rinse cycle one more time to be sure. We had just started to celebrate victory when Lauren opened the door and realizes that the dishwasher is not draining. Now what?
Next we bail out all the water with cups and check the drain hose to make sure there are no kinks, seems like there might be one so we try again. No go; still not draining. There is no way we got two of these that are bad did we? Again checking all the connections, making sure there is no kink in the hose. Finally by some stroke of luck I notice there is a loose wire. Also there is an open blade where this wire would go that looks like it's on the solenoid that opens the sump valve. That must have been it with the wire reconnected everything runs great. The dishwasher empties and we are finally done. All in all this was probably something like 12 hours of elapsed time, so the moral of the story is: you're better off paying service people to do this work!
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Sigma Chi Balfour Leadership Training Workshop 2008
I had the opportunity again this year to take a long weekend and serve as a financial management faculty member for BLTW. It really is amazing the experiences and resources that are available to our undergraduate members. I can only hope that our undergraduates realize what a tremendous opportunity they have and recruit using some of these opportunities as selling points.
This was the best workshop that I've had since I was there as an undergraduate. The group of young men who were in my discussion group were all very passionate and committed to improving the financial state of their chapters. We spent a good amount of time talking about how to lead the chapter to create a culture of accountability as well as spent time discussing the nuts and bolts of their office including the pros and cons of the tools that are available to them.
If this group of young men represents the quality of individuals whom we are admiting to our order I have a lot of confidence in a bright future for our organization. My Sigma Chi batteries are officially recharged!!!
This was the best workshop that I've had since I was there as an undergraduate. The group of young men who were in my discussion group were all very passionate and committed to improving the financial state of their chapters. We spent a good amount of time talking about how to lead the chapter to create a culture of accountability as well as spent time discussing the nuts and bolts of their office including the pros and cons of the tools that are available to them.
If this group of young men represents the quality of individuals whom we are admiting to our order I have a lot of confidence in a bright future for our organization. My Sigma Chi batteries are officially recharged!!!
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