{"id":2258,"date":"2026-07-12T16:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chewbode.com\/?p=2258"},"modified":"2026-07-12T16:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:14:10","slug":"back-home-and-gettin-busy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chewbode.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/12\/back-home-and-gettin-busy\/","title":{"rendered":"Back Home and Gettin’ Busy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Nueva York<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Cari and I spent the 4th<\/sup> of July weekend in New York at her sister\u2019s house. My mother-in-law has been staying with us since early March (she came down for Dominic and Elvira\u2019s wedding), and it was finally time for her Florida vacation to come to an end. She won\u2019t fly, doesn\u2019t drive, and is getting up there in years, so a solo train ride isn\u2019t happening either. So, driving is the only real option. Here\u2019s a run-down of the trip:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday, July 1:<\/strong> Dominic and Elvira picked me up around 5:00pm and dropped me off at the rental car company, which has a branch in the Brandon mall. I got a black Mazda CX50, which is a crossover SUV. For a road trip with three people and a bunch of luggage, it\u2019s decent. After driving it back to the house, we all packed and prepared to set out early the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday, July 2:<\/strong> We left at 6:00am, stopped and got some coffee and a light breakfast at Dunkin\u2019 Donuts, and were on our way. The trip was planned so we’d stop and take a break every 4 hours or so. Our first stop was near Jacksonville, FL, the next was Walterboro, SC, and the third was in Benson, NC. The final stop of the day was around 10:00pm at a Tru by Hilton in Ashland, VA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday, July 3:<\/strong> After the free breakfast at the hotel, we were on the road again by 8:00am. The second leg of the trip was much shorter. The only stop on the road was in Belcamp, MD, then we arrived at my sister-in-law\u2019s house in Ossining, NY around 4:00pm. We ordered pizza for the family and spent the evening relaxing and watching the World Cup on TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday, July 4:<\/strong> Cari woke up early, but I was in bed until 9:00am, exhausted from the trip. I also didn\u2019t sleep well as the bed was much harder than the one at home, and I tossed and turned a lot. My back also got quite stiff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We watched the 2026 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest<\/a>, which has been a staple at my house for years, but the NY family hadn’t really ever experienced it. They were grossed out. Afterward, my sister-in-law’s husband, Miguel, and I went out to the back patio and started prepping the grill. He got some replacement upper-shelves and new gas burner covers, all of which took some time to swap out. By the way, did I mention that this was in the middle of a heat wave? When we drove through DC the prior day, it was 107\u00b0 F outside. NY wasn’t that high, but it was still quite hot. I ended up hitting my tolerance level and went inside, leaving Miguel to cook as the family moved a large party speaker to the back yard and cranked it up to (in my opinion) unreasonable levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My nephew has a small (100cc?) dirt bike he was riding around the yard during the cookout. At one point, he parked it and came inside too, suffering from wearing a helmet in the heat. Miguel decided to move the bike by starting it and giving it a little gas so he could walk it up the hill to the garage. When he did this, the glove he was wearing caught on the throttle and the bike took off, dragging him a dozen or so feet across the cement and giving him a decent road rash. He was largely fine after the girls tended to his scrapes and he went back to grilling. I didn’t know any of this until after the food was done and Cari came in the house with a plate for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large storm rolled in and everyone took cover inside from the rain and wind gusts. The inclement weather lasted a few hours, but eventually let up around 9:00pm. We watch the Macy’s fireworks on TV and witnessed the neighbors large sky rockets. Around 10:00pm, we went outside and lit off some stuff of our own with the kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday, July 5:<\/strong> After sleeping in, we all got up and loafed around the house a bit. The entire family (sans Miguel, who was nursing the scrapes) caught a late-afternoon showing of Toy Story 5 at the movie theater, stopped at a local Wal-Mart to get some things, and grabbed dinner at a nearby McDonald’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday, July 6:<\/strong> Miguel decided to head to the doctor to make sure his injuries were not worse than they appeared (they were not), and so I picked him up from the train station in the late morning. We got back to the house and I helped my nephew set up a fresh copy of Windows 11 on a computer he got from a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday, July 7:<\/strong> Cari and I returned the rental car and got on a 7:00am flight back to Tampa, and we we back to the house by noon. The rest of the afternoon was filled with unpacking, laundry, and grocery shopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studio Infrastructure<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since getting the new firewall, things on my server rack have been a mess and it’s time to rework it. I ordered some parts and will be documenting the entire build soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been re-organizing the drawers in my desk by printing out Gridfinity plates and bins, which has resulted in higher density storage and easier to find items. I still have a few more drawers to do, so I decided to start on one today. More info to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video Games<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While prepping the upstairs game room for a new TV and new HDMI switch box, I decided to boot up several game consoles and make sure they were updated. However, I found that my PS3 couldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi and the controller would only work while connected via a USB cable. After some research, I found that there’s a chance that the Bluetooth\/Wi-Fi module is bad. Another up-coming project will be to troubleshoot the console and repair it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also while working on the game room, I noticed some of the game cases were broken, so I bought some replacements on Amazon. They arrived today, and when I opened the pack of PS3 cases, I realized the box was full of new, never opened copies of Disney’s Sing It: Party Hits. I rechecked the Amazon listing, and sure enough they say in the small print that the sale was for new games and that the buyer could throw away the discs and inserts and use the cases for other games. Huh. Not sure if I’ll resell the games and make a few bucks, or do as the listing said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miscellany<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Annals:<\/p>\n\n\n\n