ClintandTina.com

I got this motorcycle in exchange for installing a home theater system in my friend Jim’s house. It’s a 2002 Suzuki Volusia Intruder with 6300 miles on it and tons of neat extras…

I go to my motorcycle training course on the 2nd and will hopefully be riding it, licensed and insured, by the 4th! It’s mostly for getting me back and forth to church. What’s really cool is that my friend Mike has a 2003 model that looks almost identical to this and my neighbor has a 2001 that’s set up more like a sportster model. So when we all ride together we’ve got essentially the same bikes from 2001-2003!

In my reading today I was in Amos, Chapter 4. As I was reading through it I really saw the repeated, overt longing of God for His people to return to Him. To ‘get their attention’ He did the following:

• Introduced famine
• Withheld rain
• Had it rain in one city and not another
• Blasted His people with blight (withering of plants) and mildew
• Allowed locusts to devour their food, gardens
• Sent a plague similar to one from the pre-Egyptian exodus time
• Allowed war against His people
• He allowed them to be overthrown (note that He is credited with allowing this, not the invading countries) yet He still plucked them out of the total devastation

After each of these items, God writes “Yet you have not returned to Me, says the LORD.” Read the rest of this entry »

So high gas prices are here to stay. That’s fine… I mean, it’s not fine, but it seems to be a fact of life now and America is in the midst of figuring out what exactly to do about it. Of the solutions I’ve seen:

• Ignore it
  Eh, not such a great idea. I think that for the most part leaving everything up to market forces (as-is) will result in the US paying more and more until our entire economic industry collapses into untold inflation.
• Act Like Drilling for Our Own Oil is Too Long Term a Solution to be Viable
  This one kinda bugs me. There are MANY people I’ve heard, seen and read about who seem to think that since it will take 10 or more years (many of the ignorant ones who apparently think the regulatory status quo is untouchable say 25 years) to develop and ship out new sources of oil, then we should simply avoid that option altogether. As if the rest of the world isn’t going to continue drilling or searching for new sources of oil. Yes, let’s completely ignore the single source of energy that drives the vast majority of locomotive power in this country. Essentially this is the “let’s really hose our children and grandchildren through avoidance” option. It’s also related to the next item. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I explain my week, let me preface by saying that, in perspective, I realize nothing that happened was truly bad - in fact it was kind of funny and I have a pretty good sense of humor about things… Nevertheless, Murphy had a lot of fun at my expense and the chain reaction of glitches I experienced was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. This week everything electronic in my house broke, failed, or needed to be replaced or reconfigured.

Some of this was the simple result of upgrading the AV receiver in my theater room – that necessarily involves the removal and replacement of just about every cable I had connected to the old unit. It also provides opportunities for improvement and re-configuring of my system. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, not really… I just pulled a muscle really really badly… Did it last Thursday and it still hurts, though at least now I can lift my arm over my head (with some pain). Thanks to all of you who encouraged me with stories of torn rotator cuffs and permanent arm damage… It looks like I’ll be OK. For the full story, visit AV Rant where I went into a bit more detail…

Today is Valentine’s Day and I didn’t flop so bad this year. Tina got some nice roses, a card, and about a pound of chocolate turtles. Caleb got some nerf stuff. Caeden even got a cute book that we read “at” him (not a reader, this one). We all received cute cards from Caleb, who takes it upon himself to spell out words on his own – phonetically of course. It’s cute:

Caleb is frum uth = “Caleb is from Earth.” We’re not so sure about that, but it’s still cute. Read the rest of this entry »

My brother-in-law got a new job fairly recently and is set up in a nice downtown office. The company makes very nice document management software that can scan large volumes of papers , pull the text off of it, and database it. Talk about reducing file cabinet storage space! The company name, Ademero (pronounced “adam-arrow”), brings to mind a kind of hybrid superhero. This is the first time I can remember him working so close to home and it’s nice to have him close enough that I can swing by on occasion and say hello or we can go to lunch.

Yes, it’s true. Pumpkins last approximately 48 hours in Florida before they become a quivering mass of gelatinous ant-bait. “Harry” the cantankerous Jewish pumpkin (named him after my grandfather, God rest his – wait, he’s not dead) sank into an abysmal state this evening after enduring two rains and the hot, humid, baking Florida sun. We put him out on Thursday evening and, well… he barely lasted two days before he looked very similar to what you see here.

(click for a generously sized picture – not for the squeamish)

R.I.P., Harry… it’s like we hardly knew ya.

Some of you know I’ve been working on wrapping up some videos for like… oh, forever… now. The Audioholics website wasn’t ready to handle them until this week, but they are finally posted. They include a video on installing surround sound speakers and another that is about 40 mins long of the best products we found at CEDIA in Denver (it’s cut like a  TV show and stars our AVRant duo who are both more talented and funnier than I in front of the camera.

• Surround Speakers Install video (starring Clint and his friend Tom)
• Best of CEDIA video (produced by me)

No, I’m not leaving to go skiing or anything fun like that (can you do that in September?) I’m going off to spend 20-hour days covering new home theater products and eat beef and sushi at nice restaurants… The annual CEDIA convention is held in Denver (thank goodness, it used to be in the armpit that is downtown Indianapolis… for those of you from Indianapolis I don’t have to apologize cause you know what I mean).  Are there ANY good restaurants in Indy? There are tons in Denver and it’s like the highlight of the trip…

Anyway, we’re doing videos this year. I’ll post them here as they are completed… Should be a  lot of fun and we are bringing a crew of 7, including the team from AVRant.com.  We’ll likely do an impromptu podcast Wednesday evening and possibly Thursday and Friday as well.

It’s going to be hectic, but it’s usually a lot of fun as well. Jam 5-7 people into a hotel room with wireless Internet and you’re bound to have loads of fun.

I’ll try to check in from Denver once I get situated…