Stan Olson's Blog http://www.stanolson.com I'm a fan of the Chicago Bears, Bulls, Cubs, and Fighting Illini. Did I mention I like the weather and cool gadgets too? :) Sun, 02 Mar 2008 13:47:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Lunar Eclipse photos http://www.stanolson.com/2008/02/20/lunar-eclipse-photos/ http://www.stanolson.com/2008/02/20/lunar-eclipse-photos/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:00:35 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=45 So I braved the cold weather to stand outside and attempt to shoot the lunar eclipse. I don’t think my camera likes the cold weather as the almost fully charged battery was showing it was almost dead. Anywho, I setup the nice cold metal tripod in the back yard and shot the moon. Even using a tripod and shutter cable trigger, the shots still came out a little blurry. I picked out a couple though to post to the site, kinda cool regardless. I didn’t watch the whole eclipse as it was just too freaking cold to stand out there all night. Here is the link to all of the pictures I took:

http://www.stansweather.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=70

Spaceweather.com has a really cool gallery of people from all over the world who have submitted their pictures of the eclipse:

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_20feb08.htm

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2008/02/20/lunar-eclipse-photos/feed/ February snow storm http://www.stanolson.com/2008/02/03/february-snow-storm/ http://www.stanolson.com/2008/02/03/february-snow-storm/#comments Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:59:49 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=44 February began with a nice little snow storm in Illinois. We got about 7.5″ here in Champaign and totals went up to a foot around Springfield. I managed to go out and take some pictures on Saturday at Lake of the Woods in Mahomet, IL. Nothing spectacular, but it’s something to talk about anyway. :)

http://www.stansweather.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=69

The NWS @ Lincoln has a nice list of snow totals with a pretty map:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=ilx&storyid=12634&source=0

Of course the forecast is calling for showers and thunderstorms on Monday and Tuesday, so quite a change of events.

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2008/02/03/february-snow-storm/feed/ Illini pull off the upset of #5 Wisconsin!! http://www.stanolson.com/2007/10/06/illini-pull-off-the-upset-of-5-wisconsin/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/10/06/illini-pull-off-the-upset-of-5-wisconsin/#comments Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:59:32 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=43 It’s amazing to think how bad the Illini have been the past few years. This is the first season that I’ve actually watched entire games and enjoyed them. The Illini looked pretty good today especially with the running game. Hopefully next week we will be ranked in the top 25, though I’d just rather see us in a BCS bowl game. I know, it’s way too early to talk about that stuff but Illinois is for real this year. Congrats!!!

Full story from FightingIllini.com

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2007/10/06/illini-pull-off-the-upset-of-5-wisconsin/feed/ Cubs season ends with sweep in NLDS http://www.stanolson.com/2007/10/06/cubs-season-ends-with-sweep-in-nlds/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/10/06/cubs-season-ends-with-sweep-in-nlds/#comments Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:51:04 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=42 Well I’m not sure what is worse: being 30 games under .500 last year or spending 300 million in the off-season and then get swept in the first round of the playoffs. A very frustrating end to a crazy season, that’s all I know. Time to start chanting those famous words yet again… “Maybe Next Year” Ugh… If the Cubs make the playoffs next year, they better cancel all celebrations until they manage to win a playoff series. I doubt the Brewers and Cardinals will suck as bad as they did this year, so the Cubs will need to improve their offensive consistency if they plan on having any chances at the post-season next year. Jeesh, I’m talking about next year already.

Full story from Cubs.com

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2007/10/06/cubs-season-ends-with-sweep-in-nlds/feed/ Soriano and Lee represent the Cubs well in the All-Star game http://www.stanolson.com/2007/07/11/soriano-and-lee-represent-the-cubs-well-in-the-all-star-game/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/07/11/soriano-and-lee-represent-the-cubs-well-in-the-all-star-game/#comments Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:34:30 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=41 Down 5-2 in the bottom of the 9th, I figured the game was pretty much over for the NL. Then I realized that Tony LaRussa had left Derrick Lee and Alfonso Soriano in the game. With one man on, Soriano ripped a homerun to right field to cut the deficit to one. The next batter walked and that gave Derrick Lee a chance to win it. With a 3-2 count, Lee was able to check his swing just enough for ball 4. The NL had one guy left on the bench and it was Tony LaRussa’s own Albert Pujols. I figured this would be the spot to bring him in, but he decided not to do it. The guy popped out and that was the game. Major props to Soriano and Lee for representing the Cubs in a positive way and showing all of baseball that they can play. If only Ramirez would have made the team, he could have hit the dramatic game winning walk off home run. :-) What a way to segway into the 2nd half of the season! GO CUBS!!!

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2007/07/11/soriano-and-lee-represent-the-cubs-well-in-the-all-star-game/feed/ Cubs take the series on Sunday http://www.stanolson.com/2007/07/01/cubs-take-the-series-on-sunday/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/07/01/cubs-take-the-series-on-sunday/#comments Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:55:57 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=40 After getting beat down on Saturday, the Cubs managed to win the series on Sunday with a 5-1 victory over the Brewers. We finally got a good outing by our starting pitcher (Marquis) who went 7 innings only giving up 1 run and 4 hits. Cubs are now back to .500 with a 40-40 record. The Cubs travel to Washington DC to play the Nationals on Monday and will spend July 4th in the capital city. Go Cubs!

Game summary from Cubs.com

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2007/07/01/cubs-take-the-series-on-sunday/feed/ Dell Inspiron laptop disassembly http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/30/dell-inspiron-laptop-disassembly/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/30/dell-inspiron-laptop-disassembly/#comments Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:40:24 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=39 A friend of mine recently brought me their laptop to revive from the dead. It needed a new hard drive, more memory, Windows XP reinstall, and a new CPU fan. The first 3 items I took care of as soon as the parts arrived and had everything running great. I ordered the CPU fan off eBay which took quite some time to receive. (thanks USPS!) I had never replaced a CPU fan on a laptop before, so I consulted Dell’s service manual for further instructions. The removal of the CPU fan was pretty simple as it required just removing 2 screws and unplugging the power connector. However, to get to it you pretty much had to remove everything else in the laptop:

-Remove Battery
-Remove Memory
-Remove Hard Drive
-Remove Wireless card
-Remove Keyboard
-Remove Display
-Remove Palm Rest
-Remove Microprocessor Thermal-Cooling assembly

The first 4 items were simple to remove as all were located on the bottom of the system. I won’t go into great length on each step of the process, but it was very time consuming as I didn’t want to break anything. Once I got everything removed, I installed the new fan and carefully reassembled the laptop. I booted it up into Windows and ran my system fan utility which lets me control the speed of the fan. When I cranked it up to max speed, it made a horrendous noise. This wasn’t good as now I’d have to repeat the process and remove everything again. (doh!) Once I got to the fan, I removed it and compared it with the old fan. Everything looked the same except the new fan had a slightly higher top that the other. I’m guessing this was making contact with the bottom side of the keyboard or side of the case to make the horrendous noise. I decided to clean and oil the old fan to see if it would work again. I got a little lazy which almost ended up screwing up the whole system. I plugged the old fan back in and powered the system on without putting everything back together first. I wanted to see if the thing would spin up at all. It seemed to work fine, but the system decided to lock up on me while booting up. I figured at this point I’d go ahead and put everything back together and see if that fixed the problem.

I booted it up and got a bunch of errors on the screen. (good job Stan, good job…) It was spewing out numerous memory errors which lead me to believe I’d zapped one or both of my memory chips. To make matters worse, the screen was flickering and had static all over it. (oh holy crap!) Seeing this made me think I’d tightened a screw too tight and nicked the cable going to the display. I thought for sure I’d fried the system, but I didn’t panic and started troubleshooting. I took the system apart yet again and reseated the display connector and made sure I wasn’t squashing the cable. I also reseated both memory cards to see if that was the problem.

The moment of truth was now here as I powered up the system. The BIOS beeped at me telling me that the memory size had changed. (oh no) Luckily, it was a good thing as it was seeing both memory sticks this time. (whew!) I booted up into Windows and the display was normal again. (double whew!)  I tested the fan with my program and it powered up to full speed with no problem and no loud noise. Not wanting to push my luck anymore, I called it a success and packed it away in the case.

It was a good learning experience for me as I’d never gone that deep into a laptop before. Thanks to Dell for providing a service manual on their website, I couldn’t have done it without them. (well I probably could have but would have broken something for sure) :-) I took a few pictures during the disassembly and have posted them here.

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/30/dell-inspiron-laptop-disassembly/feed/ Another dramatic comeback by the Cubs in the 9th! http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/29/another-dramatic-comeback-by-the-cubs-in-the-9th/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/29/another-dramatic-comeback-by-the-cubs-in-the-9th/#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:58:43 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=38 I’ll admit it, after Hill gave up 5 runs in the 1st inning I figured we were doomed. The Cubs fought back though and had it 5-3 in the bottom of the 9th. Lee hit a sacrifice fly to score Soriano and made it a 5-4 game. With 1 on base and 2 outs in the 9th, Ramirez hit a dramatic 2 run shot to give the Cubs the 6-5 victory! 7 wins in a row now, finally back to .500. This is a pretty amazing run and hopefully we can continue throughout the weekend. GO CUBS!! :)

Game summary from Cubs.com

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/29/another-dramatic-comeback-by-the-cubs-in-the-9th/feed/ Brooms are getting scarce in Chicago! http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/27/brooms-are-getting-scarce-in-chicago/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/27/brooms-are-getting-scarce-in-chicago/#comments Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:57:37 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=37 Well the Cubs won their 6th game in a row today and completed their 2nd sweep in a row. Zambrano wasn’t too dominant but it was definitely enough to subdue the Rockies from mounting a serious charge. Hopefully this momentum continues as the Brewers come in to town this weekend for the most anticipated series of the year so far. This is where we will see which team has the stuff to get it done. The Cubs really need to win 2 out of 3 to have any chance at catching the red hot Brewers. It’s getting exciting though as the Cubs are just 1 game under .500 now.

Game summary from Cubs.com

]]> http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/27/brooms-are-getting-scarce-in-chicago/feed/ Cubs battle back late in crazy game http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/26/cubs-battle-back-late-in-crazy-game/ http://www.stanolson.com/2007/06/26/cubs-battle-back-late-in-crazy-game/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2007 10:49:29 +0000 Stan Olson http://www.stanolson.com/?p=36 This is what happens when you stop watching the game. I shut it off in the 8th as the Cubs had a 4 run lead at that point. I went to bed and flipped on XM to listen to Pat/Ron call the remainder of the game. We scored another run in the 8th to make it a 5 run game and I figured we had this one in the bag. When Colorado hit the home run to take the lead in the top of the 9th I was in disbelief. I shared Santo’s feeling of devastation, I was totally shocked. Granted this is the Cubs and they’ve blown leads in the 9th this year (Mets series) but I just didn’t expect it.

Of course what happened next really shocked me. Cubs load the bases in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs. With Soriano at the plate, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Part of me thought he’d strike out while another thought brought a ground out to mind. As soon as he hit the ball, Hughes and Santo went crazy and I knew we’d won. The 9th inning had the feeling of that Bears/Cardinals monday night game. Emotions were all over the place, what a game. This might be one of those games that gets the team rolling on a long streak. Yeah the Brewers won but the Cubs can’t worry about that. We just have to keep winning and then meet up with the Brewers this weekend to really see what we’re made of. 3 games under .500 now with 4 wins in a row, keep it going Cubbies! What a game!

Game summary from Cubs.com

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