Self Service

My hands have been killing me all day and I couldn't figure out why. Jenna just pointed out that I spent 45 minutes yesterday with and without the proper tool trying to remove her factory installed oil filter on her CX-9. Some robot, no, some super advanced terminator robot at Mazda must have screwed this thing on because the tool designed specifically for making removal of the oil filter easy still needed me to use all my strength to the point of shaking uncontrollably just to get it to budge. Next oil change should go smoother but I'm definitely gonna need a friend and some beers to help out just in case.

Chrome to Phone

Here are the steps to setup Chrome to Phone

1) Setup the app on your phone
- From your phone click here
- Pull your alerts page down and click on the completed download
- Click Install
- Once installed, click Open
- Click Next in the Chrome to Phone app
- It should have your Gmail account defaulted, click Next
- Select whether you want to automatically or manually launch links
- Click Next and then click Finish

2) Setup the extension on your browser
- If you are running Chrome click here
- At the bottom you'll get a warning. Click Continue
- Click Install
- If you are running Firefox click here
- Click Install Now and then Restart Firefox button
- Open any web page and click the new Phone Icon in the top right
- Click the Login link that pops up and log in to your same Gmail account.

3) Open any web page, Google Map, or Youtube video and click the phone icon and it will be sent to your phone's browser, Map, or Youtube app respectively

Great Scott!

The excitement of this weekend started Saturday evening when Jenna and I headed out on I-75 to go to Ft. Lauderdale to see Daniel Tosh. The drive down there took forever, riding the entire west coast until we crossed the deserted and exit-less Alligator Alley. The upside to the swamplands is there are never any cops on it so when a Tahoe passes you doing 100mph you have no reserves following the train of cars right behind him.

We get to Ft. Lauderdale right around 8pm when the sun is setting. In an almost perfect setting with the sun going down, I spot the turnpike/interstate high-rise intersection that David and Max point out at the end of Flight of the Navigator. This was just a smidgen of childhood things to come this weekend.

We got great seats right in the middle for Tosh. The Improv was nicely setup so that each section was just a step higher than the one in front of it. Tosh's opener was really funny and got the crowd warmed up pretty quickly. Tosh came out and did about an hour and a half of racy "nobody's safe" jokes. Almost all of his material was new. The only recycled parts came from his "Completely Serious" DVD so most of the crowd hadn't heard it anyways. We were quite disappointed that he didn't come out for pictures or autographs afterward, especially since he did it in Tampa with almost twice the crowd size. We were told it was because his girlfriend was in town. I'm not sure how I was supposed to take that excuse.

We get back on the interstate around midnight. It's completely pitch black with nothing more than my headlights and an occasional car passing in the opposite direction lighting up the roads for nearly an hour through the swamps. It was so monotonous just watching the white lines whiz by at a cruise controlled 80mph. No Tahoe this time so I had to play it safe. I get to Naples on the other side and had never been so happy to see amber street lights. The remaining two and a half hours of white stripes were less monotonous, but Pandora decided to play nothing but slow music with lyrics about sleep (not joking) no matter what station I put it on. We arrive home at about 4am and I am mentally and physically exhausted.

Alarm starts ringing. It's 10am. It's time to go see Christopher Lloyd!! We get ready and head over to Westshore's Double Tree hotel where I see Trekies hauling luggage to cars and taxis as they exit. The Star Trek Convention was pretty much over for everyone else but was just starting for us. As soon as we walk in the door, there's my favorite childhood vehicle sitting in the lobby with lights glowing and gauges flashing. The Back to the Future DeLorean. I snapped a picture from every angle I could and then headed into the event. The convention definitely wasn't as large as I had imagined it would be. It was roughly 4 or 5 ballrooms full of people and tables with tons of merchandise for sale. Most of it was Star Trek stuff naturally, but as I poked around I found quite a few BTTF items. I bought the things that really caught my eye and passed on quite a few others.

We went back to the DeLorean and after I donated $20 to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research through the owners of this fine time machine, I got to sit down inside. I had my picture taken in the driver's seat and got to turn on the time circuits and enter my birth date in the "Where you were" part of the dash. They even let me take some pictures with the hoverboard they had in their car.

So 4:30 finally hits and I'm sitting in the lobby with the DeLorean while Jenna goes outside and smokes a quick cigarette. In usual fashion, the celebrity we're waiting to see is outside while Jenna is smoking. She calls me and tells me to come outside. I go out there and sure enough Christopher Lloyd has just arrived and is out in the parking lot. I took a quick picture but didn't want to press on and end up annoying him. We go back inside and start lining up with the crowd to get his autograph. The line seemed to fly by as we were scrambling to get everything in order for when we got to the table. We got him to autograph a 25th Anniversary BTTF poster I bought at the convention and the case to the BTTF trilogy that we brought with us. While he was signing he was very polite and all smiles. We were a bit star struck but I managed to remember to ask him if the Facebook profile that I showed him from my phone was in fact him and not just somebody posing as him. He confirmed that it was indeed him. The guy working there next to him said to him "He's asking if that's your Facebook profile," in kind of a disbelief tone. Lloyd looked over at him and confidently said "I know." We sat around the auditorium a bit to let the ink dry on the paper and kinda bask in the awesomeness that is Doc/Fester/Judge Doom/etc. We headed home giddy and satisfied that adults can still feel like kids.