That is so hard to believe. In some ways it seems like it was just last year that a friend of mine at work gave him to me. Thanks Richard! I guess that means a run to the store to get some special treat for him. I generally don't buy him dog toys because he loses interest in them very quickly (even the ones you hide food & treats inside them ). Now Buddy can play with dog toys for hours (after Paco loses interest in them).

Yesterday I went to see Immortals. Violent as all get out, but an entertaining movie.   This one is a go for getting it on Blu-ray in 3D.

Last weekend I drained, vac'd and refilled the pond.  Over the past couple of days I've seen a real improvement in water clarity.  I don't think it's been this clear since I filled it up.  It's looking really good.  With fall and the leaves turning, it means I'm constantly netting leaves to get them out of the pond before they sink.  The koi are officially on spring/fall koi food since the water is staying below 60 deg. F.  I'm cutting back on feeding too.  That part is difficult as I've been feeding them 2 or 3 times a day out of habit.

The plants in the greenhouse are still not looking great.  I saw a major change in how the roots looked in August and September when I was keeping the relative humidity way too high.  I need to keep it a bit warmer and less humid in there in an effort to keep the plants happier & healthier.

I mentioned getting hit by a car on my bike about a month ago.  I had to get a new rear wheel and the bike shop said they couldn't get a replacement wheel that matched the old one (Bontrager Select) that was on my Trek 7700 FX Hybrid.   I did some looking around online and found them, but they were running around $200+ for a rear wheel.   I was on eBay and found the exact wheel I needed.  I hesitated and missed the auction, but it got relisted at a lower price.  UPS should get it here on Monday (tomorrow).   I'm hoping it will be an easy addition of a SRAM PG-980 9 speed cassette (11-32) to the Bontrager Select wheel.  Here's a photo of a Trek 7700 FX (2003) like I have.   No one wants a nice bike like this where the front wheel and back wheel don't match.  Notice the spoke pattern on the wheels.  It's unique and pretty darn cool.

I also plan on replacing the old tires.  LOL, they are so old I'm embarrassed to tell how old the tires are!  At any rate the new tires are Continental Gatorskins.  I may or may not put in some slime tires.  I'm thinking why not go ahead and try for just a little more protection from flats.  Even in good weather I am not fast at fixing a flat, but  when it's cold and wet I get even slower.  So I like the idea of a little anti-flat tire insurance.

I finally got the replacement  3 TB hard drive for my NAS.  I added the drive and expanded the RAID so it is now 13+ TB (one drive can fail without data loss).   Expanding the RAID onto the 6th drive took about 24 hours.   I've seen no change in speed since adding the 6^th drive.   To be honest I wasn't expecting any change in performance.

Oct. 30, 2011 - I added this photo this AM.  This is how it ended up yesterday afternoon when I decided to let the fish stay in the pond before I start the big clean up and sorting of large koi from unwanted babies.  Hopefully I've got some takers who may want them.

So that's the basic, now let's pimp this thing to the max.

The first thing I did was pop an old 1 TB drive in (if it was needed) so I could update the firmware to support 3 TB drives.   Next I put in my 3 TB drives.  I have five 3 TB Seagate ST33000651AS drives (should have been 6, but one drive has problems) and have it set up as RAID 5 for now (so almost 12 TB available on the NAS).   

NOTE: The sixth drive was not seen as a ST33000651AS 3TB drive. It was seen as a ST_M13FQBL 380+ GB drive.  Some earlier 2 TB drives from Seagate reported the same drive ID and drive size.   The fix was a firmware update.  Unfortunately, Seagate doesn't have one available on line yet for this drive.  The good news is TigerDirect will exchange it for a new one, but due to some mediocre customer service, the replacement will not be shipped until they receive the defective one.  So I wait another week or more for the sixth 3 TB drive.

The next thing I did was add 2 GB of RAM. If you get RAM from QNAP, it runs something like $159. I got mine from Buy.com as they had the cheapest on the day I ordered (around $14 per SODIMM). The RAM I got was Kingston KVR1333D3S8S9/2g (2GB PC3 - 10500 CL9 204 - Pin SODIMM. Qnap says the max RAM is 3 GB, but I took a chance and ordered 2 of the 2 GB SODIMMs. Without the additional RAM, it shows up as having the correct amount of RAM (1 GB as shipped). I added the first SODIMM to the secondary memory slot and turned on the NAS. For 20 minutes it flashed that the system was booting. My first thought was that the RAM was not compatible. I took the SODIMM out and on a hunch reinstalled it (being very careful about chip placement). I fired it up and it worked.   The new amount of RAM was 3 GB. So now I know the RAM works so I decided to change out the original 1 GB SODIMM for the second 2 GB SODIMM. Several online forum posts had said 3 GB was the max, yet others swore that 4 GB worked. I figured what the hell...give it a shot since it was only $14.  So I put the second 2 GB SODIMM in and fired it up. SUCCESS!!! I checked the system and it's showing that I have 4 GB of RAM now.  I am a happy camper.

It is seen on my network by both Windows and Linux PCs.  So As for features, this baby is loaded.  I can move files around without any problem.  Also included are various server options such as FTP server, web server, printer server, personal cloud, web file manager, USB web cam support, online file manager, built in antivirus software, media server for both iPod/iPad and Android devices, etc.   To be honest, there are a lot of features that I won't use right now, but I might in the future.   The personal cloud is pretty neat as well.  I may hook up my color laser to it just to see how it fares as a printer server.  If I don't like it, I just put it back like it was.  I also will be exploring the different plug ins that can be downloaded for this unit.  There's even a plug in to turn the thing into an e-commerce server (definitely NOT on my list of things to do).

It has nothing to do with the NAS, but Buddy is feeling so much better that he's already back to eating his regular food.  He got caught stealing food from Paco's bowl this AM.  There have been no adverse "events" on the carpet so I'll give him more of the oatmeal and soft boiled eggs and after that he can have a little regular food.

The bad news is that Buddy is sick. He has diarrhea and is really feeling bad. I got him to drink a little water, but he doesn't want to eat anything. I'm hoping it will resolve itself quickly.

Here is the bud today (NOTE: it was very windy when I took the photo; the flower is not deformed).

It's been my experience that the flowers open about 3 days and then fade. The good news is that another bud is growing and it looks like it's doing pretty good. Hopefully it will not abort.

My cardinal flowers have been slow to bloom, but they finally started blooming a week or so ago.  Here's a quick pick of the flower spike (sorry about the color...it should be a very intense, deep red).

About a month ago I got my first Windows 7 slate (think of an iPad on steroids that runs Windows 7 and Windows 8 when it's released). It is an Asus EP121. It has been extremely difficult to get these and everyone had been sold out off and on. I finally got mine and I have to say I love it! The thing I like best is being able to use the stylus to write and draw in OneNote. LOL, the best part was opening it up and upgrading it to the (current) max. It now has 4 GB ram, 128 GB solid state hard drive (SSHD) and an upgraded WiFi card from Intel. It comes with a Bluetooth keyboard from Microsoft and I added a wireless mouse. So on the go, I use my fingers and stylus. When I'm home I use the keyboard and mouse. I hope to have a beta of Windows 8 to put on this in the near future. Here's a link to the Asus website:   http://usa.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Slate_EP121/

Samsung is also releasing a comparable version at the end of this month or the first of next month. It will be interesting to see how it performs, but I'm sticking with my Asus slate.

Today is a great day....it's actually cool and I'm not complaining about the heat.  This is nice fall weather....I'm going to enjoy it while I can because I know it's going to warm up in  a few days.  I'm just hoping it will stay below 90 deg.