Joe and Jamie's Blog

Yet again, another crappy weekend. My uncle died early this week, leaving this weekend full of trips to Brooklyn and out to Long Island for the burial. It’s sad to see him go, especially at a young age of 59. What’s even worse is that his daughter (my cousin) had her first baby just 2 days before he died. He was so sedated with medication that he never even got to see her. Such a shame and it really hits you hard when you think about it.

He was buried in Calverton National Cemetery in Long Island which is a Military cemetery. My uncle Jamie served in the Air Force when he was young, 1968-74. He officially died on April 23rd, 2008. Ironically, it was just 3 days after my grandmother’s 1 year anniversary of her death (she died 4/20/2007), so of course my entire family was already distraught. I will say that the funeral was very nice. He was given a military funeral (not the whole 21 gun salute deal, but still a funeral conducted by the military). It is amazing the detail and precision they put into everything they do. When they folded the flag that laid on his casket there wasn’t a single crease it in. The guy had proper snappy arm movements and a certain specific way he had to hold and present the flag for approval to the higher ranking person there. It was just amazing to see it in action, plus the respect and dignity for someone who served 30+ years ago and didn’t die in active duty.

Rest in piece Uncle Jamie, we will miss you.

Enough of the sad stuff, time to go eat some pasta, write a report that was due today (oopsi) and upgrade this blog to Wordpress 2.5.1 Gee, I wonder what hour of the morning I will be up to tonight….

Today I replaced the keyboard on my sister’s Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. She broke off one of the keys somehow, luckily I had it under warranty to get a free replacement keyboard shipped to me. The process is very simple and takes hardly any technical knowledge to do it.

These steps will work on ANY Dell notebook computer.

There is one variation for new models, but that will be made clear in it’s step.

Step 1 (the obvious step) – Obtain a new keyboard

Step 2 – Lay the screen flat so that you can remove the first part.

Step 3 – Insert a flat head screwdriver into a small slot on the right of the top casing piece. Don’t worry about damaging it, it is meant for a small flat head screwdriver to be inserted there without hurting the casing.

Step 4 – After popping the right side off with the screwdriver, just stick your finger under there and gently pull up, eventually popping off the middle and left side. Don’t worry, it may seem like you are going to break it but it will come off, just don’t use King Kong force.

Once it is completely off, remove the two screws holding down the existing keyboard. They are located on the top left and right of the keyboard, both black screws.

Step 5 – With the screws removed, place your hand on the top part of the keyboard and lift it up slightly. Then pull the keyboard towards the screen (away from you) until the bottom part comes out of the slots on the bottom. CAUTION: If you pull too hard and go 1/2 way across the room with it you could damage the connector on the motherboard.

Step 6 – Disconnect the keyboard from the motherboard.

***NOTE*** This is where some variation in models occurs. The older models, like the one in the picture, will have a tab for you to pull directly UP (not towards you) to remove the cable from the motherboard.

Newer models will have the cable snapped under a clip. To remove that, stick your finger between the clip and the cable where it connects and pull up to loosen the clip, then slide the wire out.

Step 7 – Grab the new keyboard. Replace the cable in the same but opposite way you removed the old one. If you have the cable like the one pictured, just simply push the connector into the one on the motherboard. If you have a newer model, slide the cable into the connector and push the clip back down to lock it in place.

Step 8 – Slide the bottom of the new keyboard into the slots while still holding the top part up a little bit. Replace the two screws you removed from the old keyboard.

Step 9 – Snap the top casing piece back into place. Start from the left hand side. You will see how you slide the left end into place then snap it down going from left to right until it’s all the way down.

Step 10 – VOILA! You’re done! Just make sure to turn it on and test that the keyboard works (notice the first and last steps are the easy ones!).

If you get stuck on any part you can contact me or post it here and I will respond.

Hope this was helpful!

This weekend was pretty boring, nothing eventful happened. I changed the oxygen sensor in my car that went on me, changed the oil in Jamie’s car, picked up my 50″ plasma TV that I had repaired, cooked dinner, went to a soccer game, went shopping for a dress with Jamie (highlight of the weekend) and slept in late on Sunday.

Not much else to post about, I didn’t get a chance to paint more this weekend with all the running around I did. Tried to spend most of the time out of the house since it was so nice out.

EHWSL got the new jersey’s in with the FX Technologies sponsorship on them :)

And here is the shot of the mean chicken I whipped up Saturday. Mmmm. It was tasty. Crappy picture but thats garlic cloves, rosemary and some squash chopped up all over the chicken along with a bunch of other seasoning. I really like to cook. Jamie had salmon. I don’t like fish so I didn’t take a picture of it.

Yesterday I had to go hiking as part of my Wellness and Fitness class. Not a bad way to spend your class time. It was a beautiful evening and it wasn’t too hot since we started at 6:30pm. I brought Jamie along to keep me company. I want to kick myself for forgetting the camera, but at least I Google mapped the area to show you. I think I may go back again, there was a spot for a picnic at the end of the 2-mile trail with a place for a fire and everything. Also the river is right there so maybe some fishing and skipping rocks.

The trail is between the Norrie Point Environmental Site and Mills Mansion. We took the path that literally follows the river’s edge, which was cool because the water was calm and the setting sun glistened upon the water (AWW so pretty). I enjoy going out for walks, and the trail wasn’t a boring asphalt path through the woods, we took the one that went through the roots and over fallen trees straight through the woods. Most of the class just zipped through it like we were being timed, but Jamie and I stayed back from the crowd and enjoyed the hike. People brought their dogs with them, it was pretty funny seeing these little dogs jump over tree roots and going under fallen limbs.

The blue line is the trail we took. There is an easier paved one through the woods, but where is the fun in that.

This weekend was incredibly eventful at the house. I actually woke up earlier than I do for work both days and did a lot around the house. We cleaned out one side of the attic and painted it with the new colors. We were able to use all the colors on certain areas that we planned out so we got to see what each one looks like. They are pretty nice, I think they will do well being light colors in a small area. The fresh paint just makes everything look so much nicer and cleaner. I mounted the pole for the coat rack and finally patched the whole in the drywall, still need to plaster it though. I primed the new railing we made on the left and boy did that new wood soak up the paint. We went with an interior flat enamel paint that is very low-lustre so it will help reduce glare and shine to hide some of the imperfections in the ceilings. The walls are antique white (light tan/beige color), the trim is going to be that blue color (forget the name) and the railing is brown (also forget the name). I know in the photo the brown looks like the walls but its a nice light brown, kinda looks like the color of hot chocolate or a melted milk chocolate bar. Let us know what you think about the colors.

Saturday was the start of the EHWSL spring season. The teams played a round-robin just to get everyone used to playing together again. Amazingly Jamie’s Orange Team won both games. Things are changing this season, a lot of players have not returned due to work/money conflicts of being pregnant. Teams are a bit more even on the skill level, should make for a very interesting season, as long as everyone shows up. It was a beautiful day out when it was supposed to rain. My face was sun burnt at 9am and it was about 70 degrees, if not more. Below are pictures I took to keep me occupied on the sideline.

Here are some of the surroundings. I love taking landscape photos. It was such a beautiful day out. The EHWSL plays on Tymor Park over in the Union Vale, just outside of Lagrange. It is a very well kept park with 3 baseball fields and a soccer field.

I know I promised some pictures of the game at the Net, but they all came out crappy because the camera kept on focusing on the actual net rather then what was beyond it. Also there was crappy lighting for photos and apparently this camera isn’t very good for fast action. I will take more from inside the actual playing area next week at the last game of the season. They girls did good, another tie. This puts them tied for 3rd. A big step up from last.

Over the past two days I have been tweaking the look of the blog. I have modified the template to show 4 posts on the main page, rather than the default 1 post and small boxes to display the older posts. I also removed the older post boxes, to me they were just ugly. I also encapsulated the posts in borders, I think it looks better than just post after post with nothing but a title header to separate them. I found a cool plugin to place related posts in each posts, hopefully driving some more page views and reading.

These are the obvious things that anyone that has been checking the site regularly (the whole 2 of you) would notice. The little things were playing around with the placement of advertisements to make sure they all looked the same on each page and weren’t put into boxes. I also moved around the widgets on the sidebar to allow me to show more recent comments and recent posts, especially since I removed the older post boxes from the blog.

Hope everyone likes it!

This week has been a little hectic with multiple tests and reports due, as well as new projects getting wrapped up at work. I haven’t had much time to spend on my websites or even posting here, so I figured I would sent out this little blurb.

Tonight there is another indoor soccer game at the Net. If I can remember for once I will bring my camera and take pictures. Jamie’s team is actually doing very well this season, so far their record is 1-2-1 and they aren’t in last!! They lost to some tough teams, but even then the scores were very close.

Saturday kicks off the outdoor East Hudson league. To me these are a lot more fun and exciting, probably due to the longer game time and normal size playing field, compared to the fast pace, small indoor turf. It will be good to see some faces that I haven’t seen since last fall. They are opening the league with a round-robin tournament, so all teams will be there. Once again, I hope to have my camera.

I’ll update everyone this weekend with some photos and news.