Just an Update (with pictures)
Yes, I’ve been a slacker lately, but I have a good excuse. I have been working on finishing my MBA. I graduate December 14th! Wooo! You can expect more frequent and more truculent posts once I’m past that milestone.
To give you an idea, I’m taking 2 classes right now, one is a “blow off” course, the other is the MBA capstone course - the one that ties together everything you’ve learned throughout your BA and MBA. To say it’s a demanding course would be like saying that suicide bombers are “a little bit nuts.”
My project in the capstone, called “Competitive Strategies” is to do a consulting project with a local business. It’s exciting, because it’s truly hands-on and real world. The flip side is, there is a real business owner depending on my team of 5 wonderful people. I can’t disclose the name of the business, but here’s what our semester has been like the past 14 weeks:
Weekly or bi-weekly meetings with the client, one on Sunday evening, one midweek. Daily phone and email interaction with the client. Multiple trips to ALL Kansas City locations (we’re working with 6 locations). Team meetings amounting to several hours 2-5 times per week. Independent research and writing amounting to 15-20 hours per week.
And that’s just one course. I also have a real job, a home I’m trying to take care of, 4 pets, a fiance’, a second course, and of course football season. Oh yeah, there are also the trips to Philadelphia, my web business (on the back burner) and my photography business (http://barrettgraphics.net) which has really been heating up the past couple of months. Sadly, football season has taken a hit because I frankly just don’t have time to watch.
Anyhow, I’m not trying to make excuses… I’m just updating you as to the reality of my schedule right now.
Alright, now on with the update. As you know, over the summer we poured a lot of money into our house - painting, new heat pump, and of course buying new flooring. Well, we finally started installing the flooring last weekend.
It has turned out pretty well, but we still have lots to do. We are putting down the same maple Pergo in the dining room and stairs, then we’re doing a slate grey ceramic tile in the kitchen, bathrooms, and stairway landings. Everyone kept telling me how easy Pergo is… I don’t know if they meant something different than what I think of when I think of “easy” but Pergo was not easy. It was “simple” as in, I am smart enough to put it in myself, however it was “difficult” in the sense that I had to bash boards with a mallet for 15 hours.
Then in the middle of the night Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) our lovely heat went out. I knew what the problem was - the thermostat had been programmed wrong. We have a heat pump and a gas furnace. The heat pump runs until it goes below 30 degrees, then the gas heat kicks in. However, due to incorrect installation, at 30 degrees the heat pump went off, but the gas did not kick in, and there was no way to override and tell the heat pump to keep running. So it got quite cold on Thursday:
Yes, it was 51 degrees in the house when I took that picture. No, that was not the coldest it got. It dipped into the 40s on Thursday night. We made a fire and slept in the living room. It was so cold, my dogs shared the chair:
You know it’s cold when they do that. Usually they growl at each other and fight over who gets to sleep there. That’s the only piece of furniture in the entire house we allow them to get on.
But Friday, the HVAC guy came back out and reprogrammed the thermostat, which I felt better about not being able to do when it took him nearly 3 hours. The house warmed right up, and it was all good.
Friday we also went on our annual Black Friday shopping trip with my family. We bought some very snazzy tv trays from Bombay company, and then it was time for me to go back home and start working on school. Ick.
Jenna and I bought a very pretty Christmas tree and set it up:
As you can see, we have stockings for Chasey, Abby, and Livie already ready to go.
And finally, we have gone on what Scott Adams (author of Dilbert) refers to as an “orgy of acquisition.” Jenna and I opted to pool our resources and buy one gift that’s from both of us to both of us. After all, we spend a lot of time together in front of it:
It’s a lovely Samsung 50″ HDTV Plasma. I don’t think the Asian chick actually comes with it, but you never know. Those people at Samsung are pretty nice.
I also decided I can’t do professional photography and web design on a laptop anymore, even if it is a souped up 17″ model. So, I ordered a high-end Dell workstation with a 22″ LCD monitor:
I will pay for it with a single photography gig, so it’s not as huge of a purchase as you might think. Still, it’s the fastest computer I will have ever owned. 2.4Ghz 8mb 1066 FSB, 320 GB RAID 0, 4 GB 800mhz memory, Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, Adobe Creative Suite… and the list goes on. It’s flippin’ sweet!
Sunday I was scheduled to play bass at my church, so at 7:30 AM, I loaded up my gear and headed there. I set up my rig, plugged it in, flipped the power switch, and BOOM! My amp head burned up for no apparent reason. It was a Genz-Benz 500H - plenty of power and had been flawless for nearly 7 years. However, it’s old enough it’s not worth fixing, so I ordered new head rig to drive my Ampeg 8×10 cab.
It’s a Peavey Pro 500. I’ll have the same amount of power I had before, but this one has a parametric EQ, which is WAY nicer than the old GB had. I’m racking it up with a DBX compressor/limiter:
Now I just need to convince our band leader that he needs to schedule a song with some slap bass.
I know what you audiophiles are thinking… “What a dummy. I can’t believe he bought a Peavey head to drive an Ampeg cab… GAY!” To that I say, Ampeg heads are massively overpriced for the features you get (a comparable unit from Ampeg runs about $1,800 bucks and doesn’t have a parametric EQ), AND, Peavey - despite making really crappy instruments, have really got amplifiers figured out. If you don’t believe me, go down to your local store and try one out.
And don’t think “hey, Pete’s got a lot of nice stuff, I should go rob his house.” On Friday, ADT came and upgraded my home security system with a digital cellular transmitter so even if you cut my phone lines, you can’t defeat my security. And if you break in when I’m home, remember I practice at the gun range every week.
That’s all for today!
Pete
Monday, November 26th, 2007
