I used to use Speakeasy.net for my Internet speed testing. I have recently discovered Speedtest.net and it has some pretty cool features, including a history of your testing. Below is my most recent result. See if your connection is as fast.
Blog
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Dry Creek Bed Phase 1
Spring Break means another huge landscaping project. This year, we put in a 200 foot long dry creek bed. We are at the lowest point on the road, and we’ve had a problem with water draining through places we don’t want it to. We’ve finally decided to show nature who’s boss and route the water where we want it to go. This involved raising a low area, and more importantly, digging a trench. Luckily I was able to borrow a Bobcat skid-steer loader early in the project to get the basic shape of the trench started. This was incredibly helpful to getting the project going, and since I had never driven one before, it was also a rather fun learning experience.I was also able to borrow a neighbor’s excellent Kubota tractor, which included a front loader and a box blade. This allowed me to complete the trench and was also instrumental in hauling and spreading the “river rock” gravel base and Brazos cobble stone top layer.
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Tried my new Golf Clubs
I got some new golf clubs for Christmas: A set of TaylorMade V Steel fairway woods, 3, 5, and 7. “7-wood”, you ask? Yep. I’ve finally admitted that I’m old, so I’m happy to have this “old man” club. I haven’t hit a good shot with my 3 or 4 iron in years, and now I won’t even have to try. On Spring Break, I finally got a chance to try the new clubs out. I’d been waiting since December, so I was very anxious. I teed off with the 3-wood and it seemed to go nearly as far as my driver normally did, and it was definitely easier to control. I hit the 7 wood at every opportunity, and was very pleased. It goes 170-180 with little effort. I hit it on a couple of par 3’s where it was really too much club, but I just couldn’t get enough of it. This has turned out to be an excellent Christmas gift. -
New Denon AVR-887
Our new A/V receiver: The Denon AVR-887. It has HDMI switching for future use, but more importantly for now, it has high-def component switching and lots of digital audio inputs. This allowed me to get rid of 2 manual switches that my setup previously required. -
Corinne Bailey Rae
I’ve found another excellent musical artist via SNL: Corinne Bailey Rae. I loved her two performances on SNL and was very pleased to receive the CD as a Christmas gift. I’ve listened to the full album several times, with no hints of getting tired of any of it.
I’m not sure exactly how to describe her style, but there are definitely elements of Soul, Jazz, Blues, and R&B. My first thought was “kinda sounds like Nora Jones”, then I thought maybe Alicia Keys, and even India Arie or Sade. I’ll definitely be putting a mix together with all these other ladies, but right now, Corinne Bailey Rae is by far my favorite.
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Happy New Year!
We had a medium sized gathering of friends and neighbors over for New Year’s Eve. Lots of people were introduced to “Speed Stacking”, we shared a champagne toast, launched a few fireworks, and generally just had fun. A couple of the craziest neighbors stayed over playing bar trivia and Golden Tee golf until almost 5 am.“Harder dan dat!”
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Merry Christmas!
We’ve got Christmas photos from several different locations. We spent Christmas Eve at Michelle’s parents’ house. We had Christmas morning and Christmas dinner at our house. We went to the Kowal’s home to exchange gifts before finally heading up to Oklahoma. We stayed at my sister Jamie’s house, and so did my Mom.
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Strikers End-of-Season Pizza Party
The Strikers soccer team celebrated their season with a pizza dinner at Double Dave’s. Afterwards, they were presented their trophies. They also played games and pumped quarters into a gumball-type machine to collect plastic rings. (If only older females were satisfied by such cheap jewelry!) -
Oklahoma High School Football
I have been promising my nephew Cameron that I’ll come and watch him play football for the last 4 years now. He is a senior now, and last Friday was his last regular season game, so I had to go up to Oologah, OK to see it. As it was the last game the seniors were likely to play on their home field, it was “Senior Night”. This was a pre-game festivity where each senior and his parents were introduced and brought out onto the field. We got to the stadium right on time to see Cameron introduced and snap a couple of photos. On to the game itself: It was windy and cold, but my mom and sisters were smart enough to bring extra blankets, both to sit on and to cover up with. Cameron’s Oologah Mustangs got out to an early lead and never looked back. They ended up beating the Jay Bulldogs 41-0, and getting into the playoffs. The seniors were planning to camp out on the field, but chickened out due to the cold and wind. This meant that Cameron was able to come over to my sister’s house and get trounced by me at Burnout Takedown on the Xbox.
The next evening, we went out to Incredible Pizza in Tulsa and enjoyed some miniature golf and arcade games. Cameron and I were so intent on which of us would win in mini-golf, that we didn’t realize that we were actually being beaten by both my sister Chris (the big winner)and my Dad. Oh yeah: Cameron and I tied.
