Car icons from the 80s anyone?

Are/were you a
1) Knight Rider (original) fan? or
2) Dukes Of Hazzard fan? or
3) Back To The Future fan?

If you answered yes to any of these three, you might want to check out this page that I started working on.

I guess I was tagged since I read Liz's and Catherine's blogs

1. Grab the book nearest you, turn to page 18, line 4?
So how expensive does it get? For a baseline meaurement, we timed the execution of a million iterations of the function addOne():
int addOne(int x) // Version 0
{
    return x+1;
}
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What can you touch?
Desk Phone, stapler, tape dispenser, paper clip dispenser, monitor, speakers, picture of Audrey and me at Sea World, tub of vitamins, themometer, coffee mug, earphones, keyboard, mouse, cell phone, flow chart of a state machine, PCMCIA<->IDE adapter, business cards, SATA cable, notepad (my desk is a mess)
3. What's the last thing you watched on TV?
Part of 50 First Dates
(WHERE DID 4 and 5 go???)
6. Except for the computer what can you hear?
More computers, co-workers talking with a Chinese accent, more computers
7. When did you last step outside and what were you doing?
I went out to lunch with my wife and co-worker, we had Ramen.
8. Before you started this survey what were you doing?
I was checking out some code where we print out versions strings, reading Liz's and Catherine's blogs.
9. What are you wearing?
Blue jeans, black shoes, white socks, white t-shirt, and a beige short sleeved button up shirt, typical engineer's attire.
10. Did you dream last night?
All I remember in my dream was bike riding around my work with my wife. There was a beach around here, or at least a place with lots of sand and it was difficult to ride the bikes in it.
11. When did you last laugh?
I probably at least chuckled at lunch, but I definitely laughed while I was watching that part of 50 First Dates last night when they showed 10 Second Tom.
12. What's on the walls in the room you're in?
I'm not in a room, I'm in a cube. On the walls there is my 1st RAID controller that I was issued at 3ware, vacation schedule, phone directory, EMACS reference, a few unicode characters, and one of those Silicon Valley map/calendars with a bunch of tech companies drawn on it.
13. Seen anything weird?
Can't think of anything offhand.
14. What do you think of this quiz?
How did I get involved in this???
15. Last film or video seen?
Crank with Jason Statham and Amy Smart. 1.5 hours of pure action, just AWESOME!
16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight what's the first thing you'd do?
Pay off the house, get a bigger house, but a new car for both my wife and me, buy a nice "weekend" car, pay off my parents house, pay off my sisters school, pay off my in-laws house, put about 5 million in the bank and live off the interest.
17. Tell me something I don't know about yourself?
I sing in the car all the time.
18. If you could change one thing about the world regardless of politics what would it be?
Cure every disease out there.
19. Do you like to dance?
Not really.
20. What comment would you like to make to George Bush?
Be a better president?
21. Your first child is a girl what do you name her?
April
22. Your first child is a boy what do you name him?
Brendan
23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Yes, but only if I could come back to California anytime I wanted to.
24. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
Welcome, we've been expecting you!
25. Five people you want to do this quiz?
The cop out answer, anyone who reads this!

New amp is in!

Finally, I found some time this weekend to install the 2nd amp in my car. It took me a few hours because I had to rearrange a bunch of wires and run a new remote turn on to the trunk to power the 2nd amp, not to mention the preout signals to the trunk too. So how does it sound? GREAT! Not the cleanest I've heard, but for $70, well worth it. I'm very happy with the system now! In fact, it seems that because I'm not using the headunits internal amp anymore, the preout voltages have increased. I don't know if this is a "feature" of the headunit or because I had a loose preamp connection before, but I'm not complaining. The highs are many times more crisp now and the midranges aren't as muffled. I think the Infinity Reference speakers like the extra power boost they're getting. Now the bass doesn't sound as overpowering either. And best part, I have so much control over the gains of the cabin speakers, 1st thing I did was level match all the preouts to my liking!

My only gripe about all this is that I mounted the 2nd amp on the subwoofer box. The amp wouldn't fit inside the cabin anywhere. Now, if I want to remove the subwoofer temporarily, I have to unmount the 2nd amp from the box so I can at least still have music without the subwoofer in there. A bit of a pain, but hopefully, I won't have to remove the subwoofer box often.

Only thing left now is to clean up some loose wire ends and fix the loose speaker connection in the front driver door speaker. Also, I have to tie down the sub box better since there is some extra weight on it now from the new amp.

Overall, I'm one happy car audio camper!

I broke down and bought another amplifier for the car

The lack of clean sound coming from the AVN6600's bulit in amplifier started getting to me and I started looking around for cheap used amplifiers, just for kicks. Then one day, Vijay told me (paraphrased), "When you have kids, you won't have time or money for this kind of stuff anymore, take advantage of it now. Plus, you have pretty much everything else in the car in terms of car audio, might as well add this one final little piece." Ok, that convinced me. I ended up getting an older 4 channel Alpine MRP-F200. It's one of Alpine's weaker amps, but it does have a little more kick than the even weaker MRH-F254 I used to have in the Civic. I dunno if $70 was worth it, but I don't think it was a terrible deal. It should do the trick! It's coming in the mail right now, hopefully I'll REALLY have the car audio squared away by next weekend. Can't wait to take apart my backseat again to mount the amplifier! (that was somewhat sarcastic)

As a side note, I think there is a loose connection in my driver side speaker. I'm gonna have to remove the door panel and get in to see what's going on. I'll probably have to re-wire it a bit and find a better mounting spot for the crossover inside. I believe I just taped it to the door panel with tape! Bad me, I should do a better job this time around.

As another side note, I put up some pictures of the AVN6600 on the pictures page of our website. They're not the greatest pictures, but they'll do.

I read a news story today that was pretty encouraging

"Gifts and cries of 'cheapskate' greet the story of a homeless Detroit roofer who returned $20,738 in lost bonds and got a $100 tip for his honesty"

If only the world were this perfect. But then again, if it were, there wouldn't be homeless people!

Other searches about this story brought up comments like "$100 was so cheap, he should have gotten $1000" (and in the end he got much more). Others on the opposite spectrum said, "The feeling of being righteous and knowing you did the right things should be a reward in itself, he shouldn't have gotten any money."

Here is my take, I don't see the rewards he's received as values of money, I see them as means to get him back up on his feet, and the people providing the means trust that he will. That is the beauty of it. Both sides, the homeless guy and the people who donated money, have both shown something that isn't seen that often, and that is complete trust: trust in God and trust in each other. Did the homeless guy get what he deserved? I'd say yes, not because he deserved money, but he desered some help to get him started in life again. And if he really is the honest man he says he is, things should work out well for him, thanks to all the people who donated the rewards.