Temple, King Kong

Yesterday, on the 30th, we went to the temple with Jenny's mom. Jenny's dad had to work so he couldn't come. After the temple, we went to the temple storew and bought temple clothes and garments for me. (They were all out of Jenny's size so we'll probably just buy hers when we get back.) We took one of the guaguas (a van) to get home and it took forever! There wasn't any air conditioning and we were going so slow that you could even feel a breeze from the open windows! After lunch (locrio de salami con bollitos de yuca), we were going to go to Mega Centro (the biggest mall in the carribean) and we ran into Justin Collins! (Justin is an old friend of mine). After taking a few pictures with Justin and his comp, we went to Mega Centro. We were going to see King Kong at 5pm, but the movies didn't even open until 6 so we went to GameWorks (an arcade at Mega Centro) and played some games until the movie started. The movie was in spanish and pretty good but it would have been better if they had cut out all the cheesy dialog and cheesy scenes. (The dancing scene, ice skating, etc.)

Tonight we're going to tia Bere's house for dinner and we're eating that pig!

Update

Yesterday I hung out with Julie and her boyfriend Kenny while Jenny and her mom were at the salon geting there hair done. We walked over to a member's house to get some clothes fixed and I visited one of my old investigators. (Her name is Ada and currently has a baptism date set for February 26th. The reason that she's had to wait for so long is that she needs to be married first but to get married, you need a birth certificate, which she doesn't have. Jenny's dad has been working on getting her a new one and it should all be done by next month.)

After Jenny and her mom came home, we took a nap and later had dinner. At 7pm that night, we went to an activity at the bishop's house where we ate spaghetti and danced merengue and bachata.

Oh, and one of the 128MB RAM sticks died yesterday and the computer wouldn't boot up until I took it out.

Later today I'll upload more photos of yesterday and hopefully some photos from today. Today we're going to Santiago to visit more family!

One last thing, I'm going to post a link to the folders where ALL our photos are stored. Only those people with user/password will be able to access them! (Family, if you want an account to access our photos, email me with a username/password and I'll get you access.) So keep your eyes open for that link! It'll be on the left sidebar of this blog.

Tuesday, December 27th

On Tuesday, Jenny, me, Julie, and Julie's boyfriend Kenny went to the beach at Boca Chica. We rented a table under some umbrellas and had fresh fried fish from the sea. (They totally ripped us off... I told Jenny we should buy from another vendor but she insisted! We ended up paying close to $60 for our day at the beach.)After eating, we spent most of the day in the water. The Carribean Sea is warm and the beach that we were at, Boca Chica, has clean white sand, no waves, and the water is only chest deep for 100 meters!

Monday, December 26

On Monday, December 26th, Jenny and I went and visited a couple of my friends from the mission. First we went to Margarita's house and saw her and her daughters Keisy and Rafelina. Rafelina's friend, Ana, also showed up and is in the photo.

After visiting Margarita, we went to Las Americas to visit Manuela and Yudelka. I took a picture with Manuela but Yudi wasn't there. We promised Manuela that we'd be back before we left to visit her.

After talking with Manuela, we went to Mega Centro, (the biggest mall in the Carribean), and bought some souveniers as well as some board shorts for me. (On Tuesday we went to the beach.) The prices here are a lot higher than they used to be but we still found some good deals.

La Finca de los Castillos

Here are some pictures from Jenny's dad's farm. He has about 50 tareas of land. (I'm not sure how many acres that is but it's a lot.) He told me that 18 tareas of that land was for Jenny and I!

We're having this guy for dinner on the 31st!

More Christmas pictures

Christmas

Christmas with Jenny's family was awesome! We had some really great food and I met all the family. Here's some of the food we had:



We have to leave now but I'll post more pictures later.

Pictures from the airports

We made it!

After a long flight from Albuquerque, NM to Atlanta, GA and after spending the night in the airport, we finally made it to Santo Domingo last night! We gave Jenny's family there Christmas presents and then stayed up until around 11:30 talking. This morning we woke up and while Jenny was getting her hair done down the street, I went with Jenny's parents to buy some food for the big noche buena dinner tonight. Pictures to follow.

Santo Domingo

Today we leave for Santo Domingo! Our plane leaves Albuquerque today at 3:55 and we arive in Atlanta later tonight. Tomorrow morning at 11:15, our plane leaves Atlanta and we arrive in Santo Domingo at 3:45pm. Pictures to follow...

Dell laptop

Well, everything WAS working great with the laptop until I updated Quicktime to 7.0.3. After rebooting, the laptop won't get past the loading screen! Anyway, I reformatted the hard drive and just loaded XP back on there. I guess I'll just wait until the REAL OS X for x86 comes out!

On another note, our web server is back online: jmhobbs.homeip.net

You have to have an account to access files!

Mac OS X 10.4.1 on a Dell Latitude D400

Last night I successfully installed Mac OS X x86 on my Dell Latitude D400 laptop computer! I had to tweak one of the kext files to get the graphics working right but now everything works great! Only problem is I don't know how to wake it up from sleep mode. If anyone has any pointers, let me know!

Under Fire cab update

It's been a while since my last post so here's an update:

On saterday, my dad came over and helped me take the old broken monitor out of the cab. I found a new 27" tv for free with a resistor problem. I unsoldered the old resistor and replaced it with a new one and now the tv works great! To flip the picture and miror it, I cut the green and yellow wires and crossed them. Now the tv will work correctly with the mirror in the cab. All I have left to do is mount the tv in the frame and put it into the cab. After that I have to build a new control panel, repaint the side art, create a custom marquee and cp overlay and I'll be done!

I'm still looking for the resistors and diodes I need to repair my Fire! pinball. Once I find them, I'll probably get some help with the pcb soldering. I don't want to ruin the circuit board!

On an unrelated note, Jenny and I are leaving for the Dominican Republic on thursday!

$10.63

The potato sold today for $10.63! There were also more than 500 hits on the counter! (more than 500 people saw my auction). Incredible. To all those who looked at my auction, thanks for looking!

New Popeye cab!

Jenny got me a new Popeye cab for Christmas! The cab is in decent shape and just needs a little work here and there and it will be great! The game works nicely and the things that need fixing are just cosmetic. Here are some pics:

Strange potato on ebay

Check out this auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5640107505

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're having Japanese food this year for thanksgiving. No turkey for us! Anyway, my wife Jenny bought me a Popeye machine for Christmas, Reyes, y cumpleaños! It should be here on Monday. I've always wanted a Nintendo cab for the arcade! Pictures will follow.

Church

Today in church, we learned more about family history and the importance of keeping a journal. I don't have a hard copy "journal" but I do have all of my emails saved and I suppose that could be considered a journal. Also, this blog is kinda like a journal so I guess that counts.

Oh, for more info on family history/geneology, check out Family Search.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

We just got back from Harry Potter 4 and we were quite impressed! The movie was awesome! And, like it's predecessors, leave's you wanting more! My only complaints are the price of the movie tickets and the two girls in front of us had such big heads we had to sit up straight for the entire movie.

Dominican Spongebob Squarepants

Here's a picture that my sister-in-law sent me: Dominican Spongebob Squarepants

Fire! pinball pics

Got the camera today! Pinball pics

The camera arrived today! I took photos of the pinball like I promised. Watch for the pics a little later!

Clean up of Jacque's townhouse

Yesterday Jenny and I helped my aunt Jacque and her husband Terry clean out Jacque's old townhouse. Jenny got a lot of clothes and things and she's super excited because all the clothes fit and they're all like brand new. Jacque and Terry also gave us there old 36" TV so that's way cool. (Our old TV is 13"). Anyway, I'm still looking for that 25" TV to go in my arcade cab, if anyone can help us out, that would be awesome. Thanks.

Oh, our camera is supposed to be here tomorrow so pictures of everything will definetely follow. Keep watching!

Looking for a free 25" TV

I'm looking for a free 25" TV that someone would like to donate to me for my Arcade cab project. I had a 27" but when we were putting it in, it slipped and the neck board broke. Anyway, if anyone knows of a 25" TV I could get for free or close to free, please let me know! Oh, and if the TV has an S-video input, all the better!

Olympus update

I got an email from Olympus yesterday and they shipped our camera! We should be getting it back on Monday. I hope it's fixed for good! I mean, you pay 200 and some dollars for a camera, you expect it to work! That's not how it was in our case: it worked fine and then one day just deccided not to work. Oh well.

Fire! update

I did some work on the Fire! today. Replaced a few bulbs, and traced a few leads. One of the playfield bulb pcb traces is broken and I don't know where. I think I found out why the displays aren't working: The 100+ and 100- aren't putting out anything. When I turn on the machine, it blows one of the fuses too. That means one or both of the high voltage diodes needs to be replaced, and I think I know which one... Anyway, once my camera gets back from Olympus, I'll update with pictures.

Olympus: part 2

Good news! I recieved a call today from Olympus and they told me all repair costs have been dropped and they are repairing the camera for free! That's a relief for me. After dropping a couple hundred dollars on that camera I didn't want to be spending another $127 getting it fixed. Hopefully they'll send it back soon!! (Jenny and I are going to Dominican Republic for Christmas!!)

1987 Williams Fire! pinball

Forgot to mention that I also recently purchased a Williams Fire! pinball machine from 1987. I'll post pictures once my camera comes back from Olympus! (see previous post) Pinball rocks!

Rant at Olympus

I bought an Olympus Digital Stylus 500 about a month ago for my wife. The camera takes great pictures and we love it. But one day, the lens cap didn't want to open. It opened a little then it would get stuck. I pushed it open manually and the camera worked fine, but then the lens cap wouldn't close when I turned the camera off! On top of that, the zoom didn't want to work! Needless to say, I sent it to Olympus for repair. (It's under warranty!) Well, I get a letter back from them on Friday of last week. They claim the damage is MY fault because they found a little dent on one corner! The dent was there when we bought the camera! (Refurbished). Anyway, I called Olympus today and they put in an evaluation dispute and are going to check my camera again. They wanted to charge me $127 to get it fixed! I'll tell you one thing, I'm NOT paying $127 to get a camera that's only a few weeks old fixed...

I should find out by Wednesday whether they fix it for me or not. What really bugs me is how it's TOTALLY Olympus's fault and they don't care.

Okay, end of rant.

Under Fire

So a couple of months ago I aquired an "Under Fire" arcade machine by Taito from a real nice guy I met. The machine had no control panel, no game PCB, and the monitor was missing a chassis. I decided to replace the monitor altogether and build a new CP. So far, I haven't started on the CP and a friend of mine helped me install a new monitor, but it slipped and broke. Anyway, it was a free monitor so no harm done. Now I just need to find another one. I'll post pictures when I get home. Right now I'm off to class! I have a physics test and I don't think I'm going to do too well. Oh well...

UPDATE: Here are a couple of pictures. Remember, this is a work in progress!!

First post

First post! More to come... Tons of studying to do right now...