On Wednesday I picked up the parts I had ordered from the Audi stealership, and worked that night to install them and get my seat back together. The new lumbar support went in easily. The back was a bit more difficult. Then last night I did the actual seat swap. Plugged everything in and started testing.

Forward - check.
Backward - check.
Up front - check.
Down front - check.
Up rear - check.
Down rear - check.
Lean forward - check.
Lean back - check.

So there is 4 of the motors in the seat... all good so far! Now for the important thing.

Lumbar up - check.
Lumbar down - check.
Lumbar out - check.
Lumbar in - check.

Whew! Already I'm better than before. Just two more things to check. But to check these I'll have to start the car. Nervously I inserted my key, and started it. The airbag light did not come on! Woo Hoo! I was very nervous about that. Final thing to check was the heated seats, and they're working great as well.

So now I have a new used seat. It looks like it doesn't quite match, but I haven't gone over it with leather cleaner yet. I can definitely say that it is so much more comfortable for me! My back is happy! :D

Last month I bought a used drivers seat for my car. I bought it looking for a couple things.

Good leather - This was a must, as mine is falling apart.
Good lumbar support - This I wouldn't know until I got the seat and plugged it in. I wanted a working one when I'm done with the swap.
Good seat memory module - Again, have to plug it in to test it. I've lived without this for 5 years, it's not a biggie.

So I got the seat and immediately started inspecting it. Upon doing so I found the wiring harness was all hacked up on the bottom! (The seat memory module had also been removed, but no biggie) This worried me as that harness does go to an airbag in the seat. It's one thing if the other features don't work, but ya don't want to mess with that. So I contacted the seller and they actually sent out a new seat pan with a complete harness that hadn't been hacked up. All the motors were still attached, along with a memory module this time! Woot!

So tonight I set about the process of swapping wiring harnesses. Took me forever to figure out how to get the back of the seat off, but I finally did. The lumbar support here is broken as well. It's a used seat, and the breaks are pretty common. So tomorrow I'll head over to Audi to order one... there goes another $150 for a piece of metal the size of a coat hanger that is broken. But it will be nice to have my seats in good condition again!

Seriously... every freaking time.

So today I get an e-mail... U2 just announced the last date that will be added to their North American Tour, which will also be the first of the same tour. June 3rd at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Tickets go on sale this weekend... and I don't have the cash on hand to get them!

Every freaking time...

(But yes I will have them.)

Edit: BTW, they go on sale Monday @ 10am.

But fortunately it's my upper back that is sore. I spent the night installing a fuse block on my motorcycle. Just finished testing it, and all is good. The reason I installed a fuse block is that I can better control what is installed. The fuse block is wired to the battery with a relay in line. What this does is provide power to 6 of the terminals on the fuse block only if the motorcycle is switched on. (There's also 2 always on circuits.) As I wire up new things to the bike (like a 139 dB Stebel Nautilus air horn soon, eventually a GPS, cell phone charger perhaps), I have a clean place to wire them to. So the big reason I wired it up was for my new electric riding jacket and gloves. Tomorrow I'll be testing them out when I go for a ride!

So I've kinda been on a bit of a cooking kick. There is so much great food and I kinda want to make it all. I've come to realize though that when cooking for one, it's cheaper to just get the frozen dinner.

The other night I grilled up some veggies. First I sliced them into about 1" thick strips, coated them in olive oil, then seasoned them with salt and pepper. Threw them on the grill for about 4 minutes each side, then pulled them off. Things I noticed... I used too much evoo (Yes, I've been getting cooking ideas from Rachael Ray). I wonder if you can put evoo in a sprayer... Anyway it needed to be lighter. I could have also done a bit more salt. I cooked up eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, & a red pepper. Next time I'll skip the eggplant. I do have some more zucchini to grill up, and will probably try a quartered tomato or two, and some asparagus.

Tonight I tried a recipe that I got from Chelsey:
Fettuccine Alfredo (serves 2-3) - Olive Garden
1/2 Cup Butter
2 Cups Heavy Cream
1/8 tsp Garlic Powder
1/8 tsp Pepper
1 12oz Pasta
1/4 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

Melt butter in med saucepan over medium heat. Add cream, garlic powder, & pepper. Simmer for 12 minutes or until thick. While simmering, boil pasta. When sauce is at desired consistency add Parmesan Cheese.

So... It was yummy! Very close, but not quite the same as the Olive Garden's. I added more pepper, and a bit more Parmesan. It was still missing a little something, but it was really very very close. I cooked it up with some Penne Regate and added two grilled chicken breasts that I sliced in to thin strips. Next time I may add some zucchini, or some mushrooms. Red Peppers would also be yummy, especially if ya grilled them first!

This recipe also seemed to make a lot more sauce than I thought. Using that Penne Regate I could have easily cooked up all 16 oz that make up the bag and had a decent coating of sauce on all of it. Of course if you add more to it, like mushrooms or peas, the sauce won't coat as much pasta. Also it will coat different pasta in different ways. The way I made it would have easily fed a family of four.

Now I know what your thinking... Eating fattening Alfredo with pasta, there's no way I'm going to lose weight. But ya see the trick is I'm hoping everyone else will try the recipe and cook it more than I will! Bwahahahahaha!

Edit: I found out the following day that this does not reheat easily. In the microwave it completely separated. Next time I make it I'll try reheating on the stove. Otherwise I'll have to half the recipe, as there is no way I could have eaten all of it.

With hitting the 700 milestone I figured I needed to get the DVD collection working again. Found the problem, and fixed it... again. I had done the fix before, and don't know how it broke. I'll have to watch that!

Oh, and 701 comes tomorrow. Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3 on Blu-ray. :D

Sunday night I started noticing the beginnings of a sore throat. Monday it was worse, and by Monday night my head was pounding! It was hard to sleep, especially with my sleep apnea mask on, due to the immense sinus pressure! I called in sick on Tuesday, and went back to sleep, not getting up until 1 pm.

So since I had woken up I moved to the couch. Still under tons of blankets, with medicine and tissues by my side. I ended up going through an entire box of tissues. By around 7 pm I was starting to feel like I was getting over it, so back to work today. Still going through those tissues!

Yesterday for Thanksgiving I slept in.

Ok, I finally got up around 11, just to move out to the couch to watch some cartoons. Not 5 minutes after I settled on the couch my mom came down to tell me they were leaving for the family dinner. I asked what time... 1. I had plenty of time. So I started watching. Then took a shower, and headed out about 12:40. I arrived in Orem about 1:20, and like I predicted they weren't ready.

This year was kinda unusual. Normally it's small helpings of cold food. Cold turkey, cold lumpy potatoes, nasty stuffing, and even being in the top 1/2 of the line they run out of green beans. This year the turkey was hot, the potatoes were warm, and best of all there was plenty! I filled up one plate, I was at the back of the line, and I got plenty of what I wanted! I went back for seconds to get my beans and tried one of the most wonderful things ever... potato salad... with bacon. That's right! Have you ever heard of such a heavenly dish. Potato salad with bacon. I'm so getting that recipe!

After dinner I headed home where I just hung out all day. Nothing too exciting. Now it's Friday, and I'm getting set up for our LAN party. This should be a blast!

Edit: My sister in law noticed how much I loved the bacon in the potato salad, she sent me a link to Bacon Chocolate Ice Cream. I so want to try it!

I've modified the My DVD's section to use some new software on my server. There are pros and cons to this. I can better control the style of it, and keep my header as part of the page without resorting to frames. You can filter through the collections sorting on a huge variety of criteria, such as media type (Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD). Cons... it's much slower! My upstream speed isn't super fast, so it takes a bit to upload the images. I noticed it's the worst with the main page as it has thumbnails of all my recent purchases. On individual pages it isn't too bad. I've even been able to modify it a bit so you can buy the item you are looking at from Amazon. Unfortunately it returns search results based on the UPC currently, so I'm going to need to work a bit more on that one. It's also a small text link, so I'm going to try to make that easier to see as well. If only I knew someone who wanted to do some php programming for me...

j/k

Edit: removed link as it's broken...

After work I went over to Famous Footwear as I needed new shoes. Bad. Found a couple that I liked so I grabbed them. Next it was off to Red Lobster for Endless Shrimp with Eric. I did much better than last time I went. Back in September I only got one serving of Teriyaki, Scampi, and Cajun. This time I nailed it. Two Scampi, two Cajun, one Teriyaki, and most of a Coconut. And I wasn't nearly as full as the previous time, and I slept well. Win!

After dinner we went back to my place to watch Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. I couldn't wait, so I watched it the night before. But this second time I got a better understanding of the core of The Plan. With about 30 minutes left in the movie Matt came over. I couldn't in good conscious let him watch, and get spoiled as to who the final five are, so we ran back to my room and started Twilight Zone: The Movie. As there are several small stories within the movie, it's pretty easy to stop anytime.

After The Plan finished we grabbed Matt to move to the big screen. He wasn't intent on watching just The Twilight Zone, so we looked over the movies, and he selected Pan's Labyrinth. Such a fantastic movie. So while this was on Eric started working on his driver in Need for Speed: Shift. I watched a bit of both, focusing on the movie. The movie finished just before midnight, and after talking about it for a couple minutes, they both headed home.

Went back to physical therapy today. Gotta admit I feel a little cheated. I didn't get any heat packs, no electrodes on my back, no ultrasound to heat the deep tissue. I did get new stretches to do, so I'll be doing them now. Next follow-up is on Tuesday. I'm betting it will be more of the same.

These are all replacements for HD DVD's that I already have. In most cases they are exactly alike. Some have upgrades, and some the HD DVD is still the better disc. It's still kinda cool to get so many BD's all at once.

Tired, but I'm home. Back to work normal life tomorrow!

Relaxing day today. Tried to sleep in as much as possible, but woke up about 10:30. We relaxed a bit, then went to get some lunch at In-N-Out. I had a four by four, animal style. So gooey, and very yummy. We then stopped by Target so Matt could get a game he wanted, then went back to the condo. Had another relaxing day in the pool, then cooked dinner. T-Bones and baked potatoes. They were very good! We followed that up with playing a bit of Matts new game, and some ice cream for dessert. Then just watching some TV/movies. After the long day yesterday it was very relaxing. Tomorrow we drive home.

Today was the day. U2! We got up around 9 AM and left St. George at about 10:30. Down to Vegas!

We got to Vegas and headed down past the strip, first hitting the outlets. Next we decided it was time to eat so we went over to Planet Hollywood to hit their buffet. We totally filled up! Next we did some quick shopping along the Miracle Mile.

After hitting the Miracle Mile we drive past the Paris so Jeremy could get a picture of his foot in front of it. Next was Fry's! Woo hoo! I so loved it. I got some pins to go into Molex connectors! After a while there we headed to the show.

We got to the stadium at about 5 PM. There was a huge line that wasn't moving at all, so we chilled in the van for a while until the line started moving. We got in, and decided to chill more towards the back, rather than be up as close as possible. We noticed a bit of a crowd gathering around the VIP area. Looking back Matt saw Paris Hilton was there. Soon the Black Eyed Peas started. They were ok. I did put in the ear plugs as it was just far to much bass, and no substance. Next was U2. The did a great job, and the stage was fantastic. Bono announced the Bill Clinton was there, probably up in one of the boxes. Here's the setlist:

1) Breathe
2) Get On Your Boots
3) Magnificent
4) Mysterious Ways
5) Beautiful Day/In God's Country(snippet)/Fix You?(Snippet)
6) I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For/Stand By Me(Snippet)/Viva Las Vegas(Snippet)
7) Stuck in A Moment
8) No Line on the Horizon
9) Elevation
10) In A Little While
11) Unknown Caller
12) Until the End of the World
13) The Unforgettable Fire
14) City of Blinding Lights
15) Vertigo/All These Things That I've Done(Snippet)
16) Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)(Snippet)/Crazy Tonight/Two Tribes (Snippet)
17) Sunday Bloody Sunday
18) MLK
19) Walk On/You'll Never Walk Alone (Snippet)

20) One/Amazing Grace (Snippet)
21) Where the Streets Have No Name

22) Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
23) With Or Without You
24) Moment of Surrender

Show was awesome. My back sucked. Just before Sunday Bloody Sunday I went to the back of the field and sat down against the wall. I stayed there through One, then my leg was going numb so I headed back to the other guys. After the show ended we cruised out to the van. We've been sitting here in the parking lot for an hour without moving. Traffic control here sucks! UNLV is so lame!

Edit: We finally got moving, and made our way back to St. George. With losing the hour coming back, we got back to the condo at 4 AM. I went right to sleep.

Today was a hang out day in St. George. I woke up about 9 AM. We all got ready then went over to Village Inn for breakfast/lunch. Had a good skillet breakfast, that was a little on the small side. Probably a good thing though. After eating we got back on the freeway and headed up to Hurricane. Stopped at Walmart there to grab some extra balls, then headed golfing! I had asked the Dr. the day before specifically if I could golf. No. I can twist now, but I need to do it slowly. Golf is definitely not a slow twisting motion. They guys at the club house were pretty cool, I asked them if I could just pay part of a green fee and putt best ball. They said don't worry about it, and just charged me the cart fee (which I was expecting). I took over Matt's SLR and just took tons of pictures, not only of them, but tons of wildlife. Lots of cottontails, squirrels, and even a roadrunner.

We finished up the golf at about 4:30, so we headed back to the condo. Decided it was the perfect time for a swim. So we went and hung in the pool and hot tub for over an hour. The pool was so nice! Heated to the perfect temperature! After swimming we went to Brick Oven for dinner. We all split a pizza, then hit the pasta bar. Since we were right there we looked at a couple of the outlets. I picked up a new shirt at the Polo outlet.

Next we visited the grocery store. We decided to cook up some steaks on Saturday night and just relax here. So got the groceries we'll need for the weekend, and returned to the condo. Matt and I watched the first 2 episodes of The Venture Bros. season 1. We all pretty much started falling asleep, so figured it was time for bed. Tomorrow, Vegas and U2!!!

After seeing the Doc I pretty much hung out at home today (yesterday). I took the entire day off in preparation for a trip to St. George/Las Vegas to see U2. I chilled out, then packed up. About 4:45 I left to start picking up the guys. First was to Matt Maceys place. Got him loaded up, then to his brother Jeremy's, followed lastly by picking up Tony. We left Pleasant Grove about 6:30 PM. Stopped at Wendy's in Payson really quick and ate it on the road. Our journey was pretty much completely in darkness! We probably could have made it to St. George, but to be safe as were unfamiliar with the Astro van's gas consumption we pulled off in Cedar. We got to the condo we are staying in at about 10:30. We popped in a movie just to unwind after the drive. It just finished so now time for bed.

This morning I went in for my next followup on my back. They think after doing physical therapy again the last pain I have, more of a burning sensation in random places from my waist down to my feet, will go away. So I start PT again on Monday. In the mean time I did ask, and now I can bend slowly, and twist slowly. Nothing quickly though. So we'll see if the PT does help get rid of the "burning" sensation. I'm definitely in an overall improved state. The pain down my leg was much worse. This I can deal with.

Last weekend I spend either laying down, walking around the house/yard, or sitting. And constantly switching between all three. The end result? Very little pain! It really helped my back. So I spent the time watching all of Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica (As I'm still waiting to start guys night redux).

I did some SharePoint training for work on Monday & Tuesday, which was kinda nice as it was just south of Eric's work, so I joined him both days at Caruso's for lunch. Then last night I played the role of Supervisor. I stood, walked, and sat, while Jason terminated then ends of all the cables we had run in Eric's parents basement. Huge thanks to him for doing that! Not much left to do, gotta fish a wire to the upstairs kitchen, tap in the phone line, and run a new cable to the antenna. But that should be it.

Today I've been hurting a bit, so it's another night of taking it really easy. (Unless some guys show up to start this guys night...)

Wow it was a long weekend. Both mornings I work up very stiff, but Sunday was horrible. I was barely able to move when I woke up. It made both days very restful. (In other words I layed around all day to let my back rest as much as possible.) I'm thinking on Saturday night/Sunday Morning I twisted or something in my sleep, which is why I could barely move. This morning was quite a bit better, more like the normal stiffness. 5 more weeks until my next follow up and physical therapy (and U2).