FiOS

Installed. It took two guys three hours to set the boxes on the wall, drill couple holes through my house, and left with a 15 mb/s connection.

The indoor power source (battery backup and power adapter).

The outdoor ONT (optical Network Terminal) box.

The connection

GPS

After the Thanksgiving trip, I think a GPS would be very useful to have in the car. But which one to get???

White Thanksgiving

First snow this year. tyang called it "white Thanksgiving".

TYANG (II)

(photo from Johnnie Walker website)

Alright, here is what really happened.

Around 6:45 PM Tuesday I got a call from tyang and he was at the Metro station already. I drove around the short term lot (It has a sweet name called "Kiss and Ride" :)) but couldn't spot him (later found out he was waiting in the long term lot). Anyway, finally saw him walking towards me, like a No.1 hero in a Hollywood production, if you know what I mean.

Twenty minutes and a few songs later, we got to my place and sat down and ate. Again to my surprise, tyang claimed stuffed only after poured down one Spaten Optimator and de-shelled three crabs.

So the theater moved from the dinner table to TV screen. How wrong was I to think him as a modest monkey care-taker. I was slaugthered in Halo2 and the bodies were laying around all over the place. I suspect he must have been practicing that with his monkeys during the long boring nights in between his hope-to-be-major-breakthrough experiments. Then we played one level in co-op mode, which was relaxing and we had a chance to enjoy some Johnnie Walker on the Rock.

I showed him my new bike but was afraid that he would wreck it so I bluntly refused his attempt to test-ride :). The mad-scientist in him soon called him back so instead of crashing in my place, he could attend the next days big-deal conference. Midnight saw him got on the train...

I didn't even have a chance to show him my cigar. Next time.

"Deer Smashes Into Germantown Grocery Store"

From MSNBC news

"Montgomery County police responded to a shopping center in Germantown Thursday morning after a deer broke the window of a grocery store."...

More here.

Too many deers around here, we need to re-introduce some wolves.

TYANG

Dinner with tyang on Tuesday, played Halo2 head-to-head, lost.

Hit A Deer!

Time: 1745 hour, after sunset
Speed: me - 45 mph, deer - unknown
Damage: me - see picture below, deer - unknown

Caution: Buried Wires

A few days ago I finally picked up the phone and ordered FiOS. Two things happened yesterday: (1). someone got into our fence and laid down a FO cable; (2). my Comcast cable TV and internet died. Although suspecting the above two might be somehow related, I called Comcast to arrange someone coming to look at it. 5 pm today a truck pulled in my driveway and came the cable guy. After brief connection checking he asked, "When did the problem first start?",
"Yesterday when I got home", I said.
"Did someone dig in the backyard?"
"Very likely, Verizon just put in some fiber optic cables."
"That must be it! They broke the cable." and he added, "I have seen this happened a few times".
He decided to pull a new line from the utility box. For some reason the box was stuck tight but our brave cable guy kicked it open anyway. Wires were exposed. With me holding my flashlight, he went through those Medusa's hairs, but failed to find any labeled as mine. He went ahead disconnected a non-labeled one (I expressed some ?? but he said that was just an extra hot connection), and luckily no angry man came out yelling at us for interrupting his entertainment. The cable guy put the newly cable on. Voila, I'm online again! Now, since the new cable has to be buried, I wonder if Comcast will manage to cut Verizon's fiber optic cable as well...

Anyway, I'll soon be enjoying my 15Mb/2Mb FiOS, I hope.