Well what a weekend and it's only Saturday evening. I know tomorrow won't be quite as much fun as I get to cut grass at my house and my moms, depending upon the weather that is. Not my favorite thing to do but one that just has to be done.

This weekend marked the final 2 baseball games for my oldest boy. The weather for today wasn't looking good but it held out and they were able to finish their game before the storms hit. As for the final 2 games they split them, lost the one Friday night not by much and won todays game.

The game last night his team was short on players, his team has 12 players but only 8 of them showed up. They lost by 4 runs but for being as short handed as they were they played good. My boy also hit his first home run, he was very happy. The coach gave him the game ball for how well he played last night. I'm actually going to a display case for it and get a small plaque made that says "Game Ball, first Home Run" or something along those re-guards.

So the season is done for once again, their dance recital is also done for the summer and they are both out of school. The girl made the honor roll for the first time which she was very happy with. She's been close before but made it this time.

Good weekend, good memories!

Well my replacement Blu-ray laser arrived yesterday while I was at work. When I got home and after getting things done I began to assemble my tools to begin the tear down. Took me awhile to find my security tips for my tools so I could get the security screw to begin.

After I found that, I set out my tools, setup my laptop so I could follow my tear down video's. So as I began all of my information stressed to make sure that there wasn't a disk in the drive before beginning as it will complicate things later.

The beginning of the tear down was not too bad, lots of screws though. So I get the system taken apart and I get the drive in my hands, and while looking at it I realize that there is a PS1 disk in the drive. So I begin to think should i put it back together enough so I can eject the disk or just proceed.

Well I decided to just proceed and I took apart the drive and the disk pops out and all the items spring back from the tension. I knew that wasn't good but I decided to do the replacement which was very easy and put it back together. But the drive didn't work as I knew it wouldn't. So I tore it back down and started to work on the drive to get all the internals right so it would work. This part took me the better part of 2 hours to fix. If I had of only ejected the disk the total repair time would only have taken me 45 minutes tops.

The process really isn't bad or at least to me it wasn't. It could be partially because I'm use to working on things such as this too.

Getting the security screw out, not a problem just need the right tool. The top then slides off. Next there are 7 screws that need removed. There are 6 long one and 1 short one. Then it comes to separating the two halves. Fairly easy just need to remember the two push clips in the back and the tops tilts forward. Then you can get to the Blu-ray drive. Pull the power cable off the side and flip the drive up. Disconnect the ribbon cable under it and set the PS3 unit aside and now you just have the Blu-ray drive. Now with just the Blu-ray drive remove 3 more ribbon cables from the underside, one on the right and a small square cable with 2 wires on it. Then remove 2 silver screws and 5 small black screws from the board attached to the system and set it aside. Now separate the two halves on the unit and you are almost into the inter drive now. Now remove 5 small black screws, this is the part where if you have a disk in the drive stop and put the unit back together enough to get it out, otherwise you will hurt yourself and have a very frustrating time it fixing it. Now separate the two halves and you are now into the inter workings of the drive and have direct access to the Blu-ray laser. So remove 2 small screws on the one rail and pry off the holds. Now lift out the rail and the laser. Now remove two small units from the old laser and put them on the new one and re-install the laser and rail back into the system. Place the holders back in and screw them into place. Now place the two halves together and put the 5 screws back in. Now place the two outer halves together and put the 2 silver screws in and the board on the bottom and the 5 screws holding it. Now reattach all the ribbon cables and the small square cable. Now put the ribbon cable on the bottom of the unit and the power cable on the side. You can now plug the unit in and test the cd function to see if it will accept a disk. This is where I ran into problems for hours. I'm not going into all I had to do to fix it but it was a mess and a lot of work. If it does, you're good to go. Now put the two halves of the unit back together and replace all the screws and then slide the top on and put the security screw in and it's all now.

Lots to do but it was cheaper and quicker then sending it to Sony and playing them $150 or more to fix it. Now it's just how long will this fix, fix the unit before the laser fails again. Hopefully not for a couple of years at least.

Well the weather this weekend here in SWPA has just been nasty to say the least. It's been one bad storm after another, so much so we had tornado warnings yesterday which is very strange for this area due to all the hill sides and such. There were reports of a tornado from the Doppler radar but to my knowledge it did not touch down or anything. It's finally started to clean off some this afternoon but I think we still have a storm warning until 9 tonight.

My sons baseball game on Thursday did not go well. They lost and lost badly. The game was called in the top of the 5th, in his devision they normally only play 6 innings but at the end of the 4th it was 18-3. This team they played was just loaded with hitters and they could hit. My boy got a couple of good hits and he had fun so that's all that matters.

Friday night was opening night for their dance recital. They both did really well and had a lot of fun. The girl for this being her first year of tap did really well. I did get video of it but haven't ripped it off on my camcorder yet but have watched it. The recital was shorter this year then the past ones but was still good.

Saturday like I said brought a lot of bad weather so the baseball game was cancelled and will be held this coming weekend.

Sunday today was the final day for the recital. Again both did really well and had a lot of fun. So they are done with dance until this fall when the whole thing will start again.

Still haven't gotten my laser for my PS3 yet, was hoping it would have come this weekend so I could get it replaced but alas I won't get to do that until some time this week when it shows up. Downloaded Matt Hazard from PSN so I could play something and while it's not a great game in my opinion it's something. :lol:

Well, where to start as it's been forever since I've put one of these up and last weekend was just horrible for many reasons. Last Saturday the 29th of May marked by 36th Birthday. I really dislike celebrating my Birthday for so many reasons and in all honesty I don't celebrate it. My wife, mom and mother-in-law on the other hand always want to get me something so fine, I let them just so I don't have to hear it.

So on the 28th, last Friday we needed some things from the store so we went and it was fairly late when we got back. It must have been close to 11PM after we had everything put away and cleaned up. My wife was in the middle of making a cake for one of her cousins, my wife is an excellent baker and getting really good at decorating them now. I wish I had a picture of it to post but don't. Will see if I can get one from her to put up, also for my oldest boys Birthday which is at the beginning of May she made him an R2-D2 cake and it looked amazing. It wasn't a cake that was laying down this was R2-D2 standing up and I was very impressed.

Anyways as I was helping her get things organized as she had a long night ahead of her and by this time it had rolled past midnight so technically it was my Birthday. So I decided to play some Assassin's Creed 2 and finish off the few trophies I had to earn my platinum on it. I was able to earn one of them and while working on another the audio cut out on my PS3, didn't really notice it at first but when I did I thought that was odd but kept playing anyways. In about 10 minutes my PS3 froze. I had to turn it off in the back which I never like to do but did it anyways. When it came back up no AC2 was showing up. I found this very strange so i tried another game and still nothing. So I proceeded to shut it back down without a disk in and bring it back up. Well this time it read the disk but froze trying to load the game. After messing around with this for about 2 hrs or so I got the 80010514 error which I proceeded to look up and sure enough everything I read confirmed my thoughts, my Blu-ray laser had died. Not a great way to start a day I already dislike. So i finally went to bed very irritated.

Was woke up the next morning by my wife who had not went to bed as she never finished the cake until 7AM but it looked amazing but she was worn out. We needed to deliver it that morning which we did and i decided to just go and get the flowers we needed to put on the cemeteries which we always clean up and place flowers on for the 30th of May. So got them and put them out and got back home fairly early about and I decided to cut my grass as it needed it. So while I was cutting grass one of my kids decided it would be a start idea to throw a rock against one of the kitchen windows and proceeded to break one of the pains of glass. Just want I wanted to deal with. Well they both blamed one another and since I wasn't getting anywhere I went and started cutting the grass again. I finally finished it about 9:30 PM and it was quite dark and the grass was getting very slippery. But it was done and I went inside got a shower and took my mom home which was about 10 PM.

So not being able to play after getting back I just went to bed. Got up on Sunday and didn't have a lot to do so I helped the wife get the house cleaned up and I decided about 5 in the afternoon to go an cut my moms yard. I got that finished about 8:30 PM and got cleaned up and took the boys home and got them to bed but still no PS3, sucks.

So Monday was Memorial Day, had a Memorial Service to attend in the morning. It was nice, the weather was good and was very enjoyable. After it was over which was about noon, we really didn't have anything to do until later when we had to pickup our recital tickets. I needed to change the brakes on my Durango which is always a pain but I got much better brakes pads this time (ceramics) so shouldn't have to change them anytime soon. Took me about an hour an a half due to the front calipers having dual pistons on them which I always forget. So got them changed and went to pickup the tickets which we left about a half hard early, couldn't pick them up until 6PM. While we got there just about 5:30 there was already a long line, not happy. We finally got our tickets ($144) which only took almost 2 hours.

So we went to get something to eat and came home. The end to the perfect weekend. Now we get to begin the long week. On Tuesday the girl had her dress rehearsal, on Wednesday she had her second class dress rehearsal and the oldest boy has his two. Then on Thursday we have a baseball game. On Friday is the opening night which starts at 7PM. Then on Saturday we have another baseball games and then to finish it off Sunday to the final performance which starts at 5PM. The dance recital will take somewhere between 3-5 hrs.

Then at work this week is our final week of preparation before our upcoming audit at work so should have some things to do there. Hoping not too much this week, possibly next week though as that is when they will be in.

Overall though looking forward to the kids dance recital as I know it will be enjoyable, they always are. My PS3 I am going to attempt the fix, I ordered a new Blu-ray laser this week and should have it before the weeks out so I'm hoping to attempt the repair over the weekend at some point. I've watched to vids showing how to switch it out and I'm sure I can do it if I just take my time. My only concern is it happening again as a lot of people tend to think this current rash of phat PS3's breaking has to do with the last firmware update since it is suppose to have increased the speed of the spindle to match the Slim's spindle speed. A lot think this is causing the Blu-ray diode to burn out from this increased speed. In theory that makes sense but unless Sony comes out with an official statement about this then it's all just speculation.

I'll let everyone know how the Blu-ray laser swap goes. I'll try not to make it so far between my blogs anymore. :)

Well what a weekend this past one was. It was what we call our PM weekend at work. This is the time where we get to do all of our backend work on the systems. We start isolation on Friday night and it goes until Sunday night.

Well I got a call from the ones doing the isolation on Friday nigth and they needed some things. So I was able to tell them where the items were and I hoped that things went well for them.

Well as I was getting into my work on Saturday morning, in walks my one co-worker who wasn't scheduled to work and I knew things the night before didn't go well. I can't go into what happened or what we did to fix things but needless to say it was a very long day helping to fix his server issues as well as all of my items. It turned out to be a 15hour work day for me. And then had to be in first thing this morning. Makes for a very long weekend.

I really enjoy working where I do now. It is a very good place with a lot of very good people. I think I have really been an asset lately with all of the work I've been able to do and help out. It's only taken me 6 months to really start to fit in there but I guess you get that when switching jobs and all.

Oh well, I knew it had been awhile since I did a blog but I'll try to make it more often.

Well I got tagged and now it's my turn to think of 5 things you might not know about me.

1. I collect comic books. I have some where around 5-6 thousand.

2. I also collect watches. I only have about 20 at the moment but buying watches can be more expensive then gaming. So far my most expensive watch cost more then my PS3.

3. I love classic Sci-Fi movies. One of my favorites is Forbidden Planet, in B&W not the new color edition they show all the time now.

4. I enjoy reading. I read a lot of books. The last book I read was Steve And Me. It's told by Terri Irwin and is about her life with Steve Irwin: The Crocodile Hunter. Really good book.

5. I think The Da Vinci Code is a very intriguing theory. That's not to say I believe it but I think it's interesting. And as far as I know anything is possible being this took place so many hundreds of years ago.

Well now it's time for me to tag 5 more people: IMDLEGEND , MasterRiouu , Superironic , wdave92 , and greenpyro33. Sorry if I tagged anyone who has already been tagged but I don't think I did.

Well it's been awhile since my last blog and I thought it would be a good idea (with some help from union members) to blog about The Console Debate Union, of which I am the leader. No I'm not the one that started the union, I actually became a member a few months after it started. The previous leaders all have been great ones but have had to pass on the leadership role do to things in their life and just not enough time.

Well for those who don't know what the CDU is it's a union at promotes discussion about all games and all consoles in a non-System Wars type of environement. In fact we will not tolerate system wars types of comments and such just because they are not constructive types of comments and just start fights.

Most of the members primary have a system over owning them all but we do have members who own all the systems and we also have some (me included) who have been gaming since the Atari 2600 days. And yes that puts me up in years over most of you (bdate 1974). We have members who are active military and post regulary. One such member has his father take over his role when he's deployed so we have an update on him while he's deployed. That's great hearing that he's ok while deployed because I thnk the core of the officers and a few non-officers treat the other members like a family.

The union has it's own emblem system for those of you who want to collect every emblem you can. Plus we are always on ethe look out for creating new emblems to add to the list. So if you have ideas for some, join in and let us know what they are. We have debates about all kinds of topics. Right now we are working on the next debate, looking like it might be something along the lines of how will the loss of HD to BR effect the 360 if at all. But over the past months we've had some very good debates for members to take part in, probably the best one we've had was is online essential to gaming (or something like that). It was a very good debate that a lot of people took part in.

Some of the union officers are begining to take on roles. Right now we have one who's created a hardware thread for any and all hardware questions plus best prices. Two officers are going to work in colaboration to develop an upcoming games thread, where they will give week by week updates on upcoming games. Should be really good and I'm looking forward to it. We have our own internal mod that will be done by one of our active military (maybe our only one at the moment) who will just make sure that everyone is following the GS rules so we don't have people getting moded or the union itself moded. Again just a way to make the union a good place for talking about something we all love, gaming.

Recently the union has been in a rather harsh slowdown but I think this is GS wide and not just the CDU. I don't know if people are just tired of GS, the whole union thing or what it is. The CDU has a lot of members but it seems like many of them don't post anymore or some that do only do it on the rare occassion. Now there are the ones who post almost everyday but it isn't the norm like it was say 6-8 months ago. In those days you would get into the union and find hundreds of new post, not now. Now you are lucky to find 50+ post over a 3 day period. Before it was difficult to keep up on all the different threads, now it's easy. Even when new ones are started about new games, rumors, or everyone favorite Jack Thompson, that the threads just die.

I really don't want to union to die like others have. There are too many good people I've meet and will continue to talk to over MSN or what have you if something does unforunate happen to the CDU. But I'd rather be able to talk about gaming with them in the CDU and then meet up on either Xbox Live, the Platstation network or what have you and game.

Well I think that's probably enough of a book I've written there. Most of the CDU members know about my post and how some of them seem to just go on forever. So they'll be use to this. For those of you who's not please take the time to read everything and if the CDU sounds like a union you want to be part of them sign up and once you do keep posting, it's a good place to drop in and talk about gaming as a whole plus all the members are really good people (not suggesting ones in other unions aren't) and all of this is in a non-sytem wars type of environement. So you can say what you want and not get blasted for it, as long as you aren't out right bashing another system or such :) Take care and thanks for reading.

Well in my last blog I talked about me starting my new job. Well I started on the 7th, so I don't have a lot of time put in there yet but so far it's been really good and I think will be a good move career wise for me in the end. Right now I haven't gotten to do a lot, I've been doing a lot of what they call CBT's (computer based training). These CBT's aren't the type of training one would expect, these are about safety, material handling and items such as that. Now you might ask why with me being a computer person why I'd have to know all these things. Well my new job is on a government facility that deals with the energy department so there's always a chance of being in a building where hazardous materials are being handled.

I don't know how much I'm allowed to talk about the things that go on there but I know we are required to wear our seurity badges whenever we are on site and we are not allowed to wear them when off site. I'm excited about the position and all that I have the potential to learn there. I did hate to leave the school where I'd been for 5 years and some of the people there but I just felt that my level of experience was about to the top of what it could be there. I've talked to some of the people there since leaving and they say it's quite different. Lots of things aren't getting done, no one really knows how to do everything. Sounds like a regular mess, my old boss said he would be willing to accept me back if I wanted to come back. Why would I go back and lose the big raise I got and all the potential experiences I could have a head of me and to boost I feel it could do to my career.

Besides that it's been pretty quiet there at the moment. The worst so far was a 3 and half hour commute the one morning it snowed like 2 inches of snow and a layer of ice in about 15 mintues. It just crippled the area and I believe there were 40+ accidents in a very short time frame. I think I read it was something like one accident every 3 mintues. It was an ugly day getting into work but besides that day the commute is about a half hour which gives me time to listen to my satellite radio and unwind some. So I'm enjoying it.

Well 2007 is over, man it doesn't seem like yet another year should be over. It seems like yesterday I was setting in the office on New Years Eve in 1999 seeing if the central systems would melt down from the date change. :P Well as you can probably figure out, they didn't :lol:

It also doesn't seem like this year my family will mark the 5th year since my dad's passing. A lot of good things have happened in these past 5 years, things and events I wish he could have been here physically to take part in. Times when I know I could have talked to him about things going on to get his opinon and all. But in the end he would just tell me that it's my decsion to make and all but even still just having him to talk to is something I dearly miss. And I know my mom still has a real hard time with him not being here anymore. My wife is good though as we include my mom is pretty much everything we do. I know it gets frustrating for my wife with my mom going everyplace with us it seems.

Well I do have some big news I've been teasing with for awhile now. As most know I was the Technology Coordinator for a school district in the area where I live. Well as of Decemeber 31st of 07 I am no longer employeed there. I have taken a position as the network admin with a company that does government contact work. It's a small company that is awarded governement contacts and I'll be managing the network servers. I think it's going to be a good career move for me in the end. It's a big pay increase so I'll be able to provide better for my family as well as have more money for gaming and some of my other hobbies :)

I do miss some of my old co-workers though as I really hated to leave some of them. It was a very difficult last day to say the least. I hadn't told many people as I didn't want a lot of people to know and there was one individual who I didn't want to know at all. See this individual was my driving force when I started looking for a new job. This individual had been giving me a very difficult time and was making my life miserable. What's even worse is this individual is about as non-technical as they get and they thought they could tell me how technology was suppose to work.

I am already feeling much better not being there but do miss some people like I said. Well Monday will be my first day on the job and I'll try to post something that night letting everyone know how it went. I know I won't do much that first day except for paper work and all but I'm still excited and nervous at the same time :)

Well here it is Christmas Eve of 2007 with the New Year right around the corner. It's hard to think that another year is almost over. I must say that 2007 was about an average year. It wasn't a year where I had a lot of bad things happening like in the past few years or one where there were a lot of good things.

As for a gaming year overal I tend to rate this one about average to slightly above average. There were some very good games come out this year but to me and my personal gaming taste too many with a focus on multiplayer type of games. I'm more for a good story and not so much the multiplayer sort of gaming. Next year looks to be one for more story driven type of games with one that I am really looking forward too Ninja Gaiden 2. The first one on the original Xbox is one of my all time favorite games as the action is none stop and the graphics for the generation were some of the best. I could go on but I'm sure all my online friends here would atest to my love of the game.

Well I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday Season whatever it is that you celebrate. I'm not one thats big on Christmas as much as I hate to say it. See when I was a kid growing up I always got too much for Christmas, being and only child and all. Then when school would start back up I'd hear others saying all they got and ones saying there didn't get anything so I always felt bad in a way. See when my parents were growing up they didn't have much so they always wanted to make sure I had a good Christmas and I did. It just always bothered me by the amount of "things" (presents) on Christmas. Christmas was one of my fathers favorite times of year. He always enjoyed the decorations and we would just take drives looking at the way people would decorate. This is a difficult time of year for me since his passing in 03. This next year it'll make 5 years since he passed. I know Christmas of 02 my mom has told me she left up the decoration on thier house for a lot longer then she normally would have as my dad just enjoyed looking at them so much, little did we know that would our last one with him. So now when my mom looks back she's glad she left them up for my dad to enjoy.

My kids will have a good Christmas or at least I'm sure they will. My wife likes to get the kids a good bit but I try to limit her in what all they get as I don't want them to have a jadded opinion of Chrismtas when they grow up like I do anymore. My wife and eveyone else always ask what I want and I always say nothing. My wife knows I'm serious when I say it. I tend to get her a good bit and I hope she enjoys the things I got her as I try to put some thought into what I get her.

I do have some big news in my life but I'm not quite ready to share it just yet. :) So I'll have to keep everyone in suspense just a little bit longer. It's something that in the end that I hope turns out for the best but it's one of those things that only time will tell.

Well I hope all my friends here have a very Merry Christmas or a Happy Holiday season. Whatever it is you celebrate just have a wonderful time with your family and friends. Be safe, have fun and I look forward to talking to everyone again real soon.