Tom's Diary

Today’s Chores

• Cat duty.  DONE.
• Dispensing Mom’s meds. DONE.
• Launder a new winter coat I received for Christmas, a blanket, and a table cloth for Mom.  DONE.
• Shower.  DONE.
• Send out four pending memorial checks for the   WPSBC Alumni Association.
• Order three new hard drives for the DJ business.  DONE.
• Go   shopping   with Debbie.   DONE.

Log 

10:15 AM: I’m up.

11:10 AM:  [Emmy]  is watching KDKA TV’s locally-hosted show, Pittsburgh Today Live  on the DVR.  We currently have 65 recordings saved there to see.  So she’s going to have to get busy watching because the DVR is 95 percent full now, and we wouldn’t want to miss any episodes of   The Young and the Restless, due to the hard drive filling up.

02:00 PM: Worked the   DJ Gig: 2009-12-31   project.  While syncing the music hard drives, I discovered a   Hard Disk Drive Failure in one of the music library HDDs.  Not a show-stopper by any means.  But I now must order some new drives, to replenish my supply of spare drives, which  is now depleted. 

03:00 PM: No mail received today.

04:00 PM: In light of the   Hard Drive Failure   experienced today, I’ve decided to initiate the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project.

06:45 PM: Got back a little while ago from a    shopping trip   with Debbie.  Mom’s second party this week is well under way and has basically the same dishes as were served last night; taco dip, chips, crackers, shrimp, pop.  Someone brought a pumpernickel loaf with spinach dip as well, that tasted very good. 

07:00 PM: [Emmy] is listening to tonight’s Penguins hockey game against the New Jersey Devils. 

09:30 PM: Mom’s party is over now.  All has a great time, so I heard them commenting as they left. 

10:30 PM: Worked the   Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30   issue.  Since Seagate is closed for the New Years  holiday, I’ll have to wait until sometime next week to talk to them about the two failed drives I discovered today.

12:05 AM: Posted the list of added or revised posts to the   Tom’s Diary   blog.  Click   here   to see the list. 

12:25 AM: Well, I’m out of here for seven plus hours of sleep.  Catch you tomorrow, and do take care.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Diary Revisions: 2009-12-30
• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• Mom’s Status: 2009-12-30
• Shopping Trip: 2009-12-30

Today, I either added or modified the following posts in  the   Tom’s Diary    blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, appearance,  and search-ability

Tom Hesley

10:30 PM: Debbie and I went shopping earlier, while Mom’s party was going on.  First we stopped at a nearby pharmacy, where we picked up the following items: 

• Mom’s insulin syringes

Total cost: $25.36

Then, we drove on to Martin’s, where we purchased the following items:

•  Diet caffeine-free Pepsi (8 liters)
• Arm & Hammer cat litter (1 28-pound box)
• Dansai water, 24-pack case (3 cases)
• Giant apple cider (1 gallon)
• Minute Maid orange juice (1/2 gallon)
• Land O Lakes butter (3 pounds)
• Large eggs (2 and 1/2 dozen)

Total cost: $53.80

Grand total: $79.16

Tom Hesley 

Related Posts

• Mom’s Status: 2009-12-30
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30

My current music library external disk drives are over 90% full now.  This, and the fact that one of them just failed has convinced me that it’s time to upgrade.  So, I’ve been hardware shopping today, online.

After perusing Amazon and eBay, it looks like the 1.5 TB external drives are currently the best buy.  Go above this in storage size, and the cost per GB rises significantly.  Go below this, and I’ll have to upgrade again too soon, as I have over 93000 old time radio shows (~1 TB) to add to the library as well. 

I’ve therefore selected the Seagate Desk FreeAgent 1.5 TB, USB 2.0  external drives.  These drives have a thin profile, which means that they’ll fit easily into my laptop cases that I take on DJ gigs.  Thus, I have ordered three of these now, and will get the others in February, 2010, once I’ve played with them a little and really gotten comfortable with them as good replacements for my current hardware. 

I’ll track this upgrade until I have at least six of the bigger drives, fully populated with my media library.  Follow the progress of this effort in the attached comments. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30 
• Internet Shopping: 2010-01-06
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30
• Today’s Business: 2010-05-13

01:55 PM: While syncing the music drives, per the   DJ Gig: 2009-12-31   effort, one of my external USB hard drives would not completely power up when connected to the computer through my Adaptec USB 2.o hub.  However, my other drives, through the same port, powered up just fine.  The bad one would spin up, but the data / busy light repeatedly blinks on and off, in a slow, rhythmic pattern.  Thus, this drive never becomes visible in Windows Explorer, and in fact, does not even appear on the Computer Management console (Windows XP).

Inside the external drive enclosure box, I have a Seagate ST3250620A hard drive, which I purchased brand new in early 2007.  I believe this drive has a five year warranty.  But not used to seeing Seagate drives fail so quickly, I tried different power supplies and cables, and I swapped out the USB-to-IDE bridge board in the enclosure.  Unfortunately, none of these remedies solved the problem.  So it does appear that after only three years, the hard drive itself has gone bad.

This leaves me with just five properly-functioning and up-to-date music drives.  But I get nervous when this number falls below six.  So I’ll order more external drives presently, per the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project, as well as a replacement drive (under warranty) from Seagate for this enclosure.

A corollary issue is that while investigating the problem with the 250 GB external drive described above, I also discovered that one of my 200 GB drives (also a Seagate, model #ST3200822A) won’t fully power up.  So I’ll investigate warranty service for both these units.

I’ll track this issue until I have six working and current music drives once again.  See the attached comments for updates on my progress with this.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30

Pending Appointments And Issues

1. Friday, 2010-01-15 @ 1:30 PM: Appointment with her PCP.
2. Thursday, 2010-02-04 @ 11:30 AM: Appointment with orthopedist for a quarterly checkup on the progress of healing of her charcot foot.
3. She’ll need more insulin syringes soon.  Order ASAP.  DONE. 

Log 

10:35 AM: Blood sugar: 222.  Covered with 16 units of log insulin.

10:40 AM: Dispensed her morning meds, including the higher dose of N insulin.  See   yesterday’s discussion of that    for more details.

10:55 AM: Syringes have been ordered.  We’ll pick them up during today’s   shopping trip.

02:00 PM: Blood sugar: 179.  Covered with 12 units of log insulin.

06:45 PM: We purchased a new supply of insulin syringes for Mom during tonight’s   shopping trip.

07:00 PM: Dispensed Mom’s evening meds.

10:50 PM: Dispensed Mom’s night time meds, including 30 units of N insulin.

10:55 PM: Blood sugar: 252.  Covered with 20 units of log insulin.

Tom Hesley 

Related Posts

• Mom’s Status: 2009-12-29
• Shopping Trip: 2009-12-30
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30