Mostly Harmless

Things to do at the Kansas City International airport: not much.

Since 1972 the airport as been closed due to weather for a total of about 3 hours. Until today, that is, when it was closed for about 6 hours. It appears that some planes are moving now and my scheduled departure time was less than an hour late — last time I checked. Many flights were cancelled, everything else seems to be delayed. The poor bastards going to Detroit have to wait another 5 hours at least — that flight was scheduled to leave 2 hours before mine, I think.

The weather is clear back to Minneapolis so I’ll avoid that sort of delay. (famous last words?)

The official airport code is MCI, but it is referred to as KCI all over the place, like on the trash cans, posters everywhere, the name of the WiFi network and the big sign outside. The thing is that airport code KCI is the downtown airport. I wonder if they label stuff with MCI just to keep the confusion level up.

I’m in Kansas City (Mo.) for the Kelly-n-Reba Best Friends Forever tour. (not the actual name of the tour, but it could be). It was a kick-ass show despite the numerous walk-through metal detectors (thus nixing the good recording gear). I had a meet and greet pass to see Kelly before the show… for about 15 seconds because of all the talkers before our group, but I got another autograph and picture and wasn’t tackled by security so I’m not on the stalker watch-list yet, so that’s a good thing.

Time to snag some overpriced water for the flight.

I’m at the airport not paying $7.95 for internet access, huzzah!

That $8 will go a long way towards paying fo the whole trip to Boston… Oh wait, it wont.

So I’m going to Boston for a concert on my birthday because some coworkers chipped in for tickets. Which is a nice thought were it not for the fact that a ticket to Boston is about $550, and that doesn’t count lodging once I get there. This sort of “gift” can easily cost $700-$800; or 50,000 frequent flyer miles + $150 for the cheapest hotel in the tri-state area (I assume).

This will give me a chance to use my iPhone for an inflight movie or two, so that’s exciting. I’m going to a hotel with no internet access as well, so this may be my only link to civilization for the next couple of days.

Looks like we’re boarding…

Oh, the thing that’s like irony but is, in reality, only bad luck.

The ailing drives in my TiVo have lasted longer than the drive in the replacement ReplayTV.

And yet, thanks to The Internets and the local Micro Center, I once again have a functioning ReplayTV as of several minutes ago. (I should probably screw the case back on and get it out of the path of foot traffic before it is trod upon with extreme prejudice.)

The Replay drive died (or became so full that it refuses to boot, which is an actual problem from what I hear) on Thursday night. It was in a perpetual “booting an OS is too hard” cycle. I found some disk images on the ‘net and tried using an old 60-gig drive as a replacement. For some reason or another that didn’t work so I picked up a 200-gig drive ($89) from Micro Center yesterday along with a spiffy multi-lingual USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA adapter cable ($29). Because swapping drives in and out of portable cases gets tedious after a while, for one thing.

The USB to IDE/SATA cable is nice because it can be connected without removing the drive from the Replay. I used that little feature to re-image the 60 GB drive a couple of times before moving on to the new 200 GB drive, which worked like a champ on the first try.

Had I known the new drive and disk image thing was actually going to work I might have spent the extra $50 to get the 320-gig drive instead (which was the original drive size). I wasn’t really keen on spending the cash for a 400 or 500-gig drive either, since it isn’t the primary DVR at this point anyway. And apparently there are ways to make a dual-drive system if I’m so inclined at some point in the future. (Replayfaqs.com)

One thing that amuses me, somewhat, is that I configured my ReplayTV in about 15 minutes starting from a blank drive. It spent a few minutes pulling down the TV listings and it was ready to go. This is in contrast to the Comcast DVR (Motorola DCT-6412) which was accidentally unplugged (twice!) while I was moving the Replay. If you unplug the Comcast DVR it will (1) take a few minutes to determine that DVR functionality is enabled, and (2) spend all night downloading the TV listings.

If the Comcast DVR can’t reach home base, e.g. if the cable signal is out entirely, it will not enable the DVR and you can’t even watch any previously recorded shows. At least with the TiVo and Replay you still can watch old shows.

And, speaking of P.O.S. DVRs, it’s not like the Comcast box won’t occasionally forget to record something… so now I’ve missed the first 5 minutes of “Drive.” Dunno what the hell was up with that, it’s the Replay that I’ve got to reload the DST fix on and that’s working just freakin’ fine thankyouverymuch.

Anywho, I don’t know how bad the old Replay drive is. I can use the extractor application to list all(?) of the recorded programs on it so I think I can pull those off… sadly I don’t have the free space on my other drives. 1.3 terabytes doesn’t last as long as it used to.

According to the new list:

CompUSA Stores in Minnesota
Sorry, we do not have stores in this state.

I’m having a hard time recalling the last thing I bought at CompUSA. I certainly didn’t by my TV there, even though I tried. And, of course, my TV isn’t a computer anyway— even though the manual indicates that it runs linux somewhere deep inside.

I did buy a printer there a long time ago. I guess that wasn’t enough cash flow to keep them going.

The best part about the local CompUSA is that it’s about 2 1/2 miles away and slightly easier to get to than the Best Buy or Apple Store, both of which are a whole extra mile away.

The last time I was there 1/3 of the back wall had become an HDTV showcase, like they were trying to become a Best Buy or something. Best Buy generally has an order of magnitude more traffic, however.

I keep expecting Circuit City to close. I bought a car stereo there a few years ago merely because they had the particular model I was looking for and I knew I wouldn’t have to wait to get it installed (no crowd). I go there occasionally to look at stuff I might buy online later; and there’s always plenty of parking. It’s been a very long time since I had any desire to buy anything there.

Maybe BB will take over the CompUSA store so I don’t have to drive as far. That’d be nice.

I’m jetting out to L.A. next week for a few days to have a couple of happy-fun post-project meetings and visit the people responsible for sending approximately 40,000 calories worth of candy here.

It goes something like this: “Thanks for staying late… do you like chocolate?” to which I reply “Peanut M&Ms are nice.” And then a couple of days later I get, literally, 9,680 calories worth of M&Ms delivered.

Thanks for all the candy and stuff… especially that last 5 lbs of M&Ms — because now that I’m not hanging around work until 2-3am I really need the extra junk food to keep me going… oh, wait, I don’t.

But I digress.

When I flew back the last time it was the first day of “liquids are bad” at the airport. Apparently the current rule is up to 3 ounces of liquid/gels (per container) in a clear, 1-quart zip-top bag (see TSA Passenger Guidance).

This is, of course, totally pointless. i.e.: Schneier on Security

Anyway, it’ll be fun… but not as fun as California traffic. (Have I blogged that yet? Seems like I was going to call it “Why does California (traffic) suck so much.”)