My TI-99 machines.

This is just a show and tell post.

This is my two TI-99/4As - my 2nd and my 3rd side by side.


TI #3 On my primary Dell monitor using TI's S-Video/Standard Audio to RCA to HDMI


TI #3


TI #2 beside my file/audio file server


My video switching system between my computers.






Testing math functionality against other retro computers like Atari, Apple, Commodore, and IBM


My favorite game controller for the TI-99 is Sega's Genesis




TI #2 displaying a randomizer application on my TV


TI #2 displaying a different randomizer on my TV


TI #2 displaying on my TV.


My TI #2

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm enjoying my time off this week being with the family. The last few days I have been reading several books, including Terry Brooks, Terry Pratchet, Marvel Defenders, and reading various Koine Greek manuscripts. Not much on the front of coding or working on computers - but have been eating a lot of cookies as my daughter has spent several days cooking them.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Years!

New office/computer lab done!

My new office/computer lab is done!

This is my 7 to 1 KVM setup that I spent only $83 on. It manages all but two of my computers and soon my C64. Video connections left to right - ThinkPad, HP, TI-99/4A, Atari, Mac OSX

Then I have my HP media server and my RCA android dev computer.  

New desk, cabinets, and book shelves. 

I'm going to stop....

 tracking fitness on this blog.   I have done a bit over the years but I have started tracking this now on my personal website.  I think it will keep me more accountable. 

http://mrgibson.com/woMaster.html

Probably going to continue to keep the focus more on cards and games.

workout logs Mar 6th & 7th 2022

Sunday 3/6/2022

Walked dog
Right Arm 20 curls with 10lbs
Left Arm 20 Curls with 10lbs
Right Arm 10 front lifts with 10lbs (+3r)
Left Arm 5 front lifts with 10lbs (-2r joint issue)
right Arm 20 under lifts with 10lbs (+5r)
Left Arm 20 under lifts with 10lbs (+5r)

=============

Monday 3/7/2022

Walked dog
treadmill 16min at 3mph
Right Arm 21 curls with 10lbs (+1r)
Left Arm 21 Curls with 10lbs (+1r)
right Arm 21 under lifts with 10lbs (+1r)
Left Arm 21 under lifts with 10lbs (+1r)

Day 3 : getting Fit

Walked the German Sheppard

Right Arm 20 curls with 10lbs

Left Arm 20 Curls with 10lbs

Right Arm 7 front lifts with 10lbs

Left Arm 7 front lifts with 10lbs

right Arm 15 under lifts with 10lbs

Left Arm 15 under lifts with 10lbs

two days of workouts

I am literally the heaviest I have ever weighed. Nearly 245 pounds. (I just weighed tonight at 10:20 - I weigh exactly 245) I'm pretty sure that is beyond the line that is considered obese. So I promised my wife and my doctor to do something about it. Two days of workouts and I have decided that I need to log this somewhere to keep my progress honest and public.

This will consist of cardio and weights.  I'm not trying to become buff.  I just trying to get somewhere near healthy.

I will need to do some research also on how to properly log the workouts.  Lets see how far I can go with this.

What am I working on?

First, I have a lot of new code for GibPascal.  None of it I feel is ready for release.  Why, some of the completed code, I'm not sure I like the standard.  I'm not sure Turbo Pascal did some of this correctly.  Additionally, for some of the math functions, I'm debating best practices.  February is the first month in a while that I did not push out a release of GibPascal.

What else am I doing?  I am also currently working on two large databases that I would be mounting on MrGibson.com.  These database cover a couple of my interests, just not wanting to release yet until more is completed.

I have not received an of the items I ordered for my Santa Cruz, so I have nothing to report there.

Baseball cards are still on hold.  I have not purchased, organized, or cataloged any for a while now.  I do have some money burning a whole in my pocket at the moment though. (classic Topps and Fleer) lol

Nothing new on dice since the last two sets I purchased summer of 2021.  Went looking Saturday, but nothing I couldn't live without.  It is good to see prices of dice come back into check though.  Maybe baseball cards will also.  I'm also been thinking some on building a new dice box, but still not sure what direction I would take with that.  I would like something super usable like the last and as unique as the last.

Cooking with chicken

Chopped up a few pounds of chicken ad half a onion.

Boiled a bag of egg noddles

frying the onions and chicken.

chopped up garlic flavored mushrooms

Half a container of sour cream, two cans of condensed cream of mushroom, and a good dose of olive oil.

  

how it looks when done. 

My two year reading project - Terry Brooks

My 2022-2024 Tery Brooks Reading project. He is still my favorite author.

I'm going to re-read this books in story chronological order:

[x] Imaginary Friends - Jan 2022
[x] Running with the Demon - Jan 2022
[ ] A Knight of the Word
[ ] Angel Fire East
[ ] Armageddon's Children
[ ] The Elves of Cintra
[ ] The Gypsy Morph
[ ] Bearers of the Black Staff
[ ] The Measure of the Magic
[ ] First King of Shannara
[ ] Allanon's Quest
[ ] The Sword of Shannara
[ ] The Black Irix
[ ] The Elfstones of Shannara
[ ] The Weapons Master's Choice
[ ] The Wishsong of Shannara
[ ] Indomitable
[ ] Dark Wraith of Shannara
[ ] The Scions of Shannara
[ ] The Druid of Shannara
[ ] The Elf Queen of Shannara
[ ] The Talismans of Shannara
[ ] Ilse Witch
[ ] Antrax
[ ] Morgawr
[ ] Jarka Ruus
[ ] Tanequil
[ ] Straken
[ ] Wards of Faerie
[ ] Bloodfire Quest
[ ] Witch Wraith
[ ] The High Druid's Blade
[ ] The Darkling Child
[ ] The Sorcerer's Daughter
[ ] The Black Elfstone
[ ] The Skaar Invasion
[ ] The Stiehl Assassin
[ ] The Last Druid

My New Vehicle - the Santa Cruz!

I have started 2022 with a new vehicle. Traded in the red Mustang and I am now driving a 2022 Santa Cruz. It was the vehicle I didn't know I wanted. This a compact truck, or UTE, or SAV, or cross over SUV with a bed OR what every you wish to call it. I was shopping out another Subaru and instead purchased a Korean, Alabama made car. I purchased the SC right before New Year’s.

This vehicle is a quad cab with 4'3” hard composite molded bed with a rubber mat over the floor. There is an additional trunk underneath the bed floor that can double as a cooler with drain plug.

For the transmission, this SC has an 8-speed "SHIFTRONIC" automatic with their HTRAC AWD. For "rubber", the SC comes with 18" wheels - 245/60 R18 105H.

The front has LED running lamps built into the grill. As a theme, the entire vehicle is covered in triangles and even the body lines have triangles. The center dash infotainment unit has Apple play (wireless, Bluetooth, camera, etc.) with everything that you would expect in a modern vehicle. Drive modes include normal, sport, smart, and snow with a AWD lock and downhill accent control.

DIMENSIONS: Wheelbase: 118.3 in || Length: 195.7 in || Width: 75.0 in

The SC has good ground clearance with 8.6 inches of ground clearance and a decent 23.2-degree departure angle. This should do fairly well for off paved-road driving.

The color is what is being called "stone blue". I have thought about naming the vehicle "Bl-UTE-iful". I admit, that might be a little corny. The steering feels great and is Rack-Pinion. Handles very smoothly. The turning diameter is 40 ft. The wheels are jeepish looking 18" x 71.5" with aluminum wheels.

The front grill has a lot of use of chrome with hidden LED lights. Hidden during the day anyway. At night with lights directly towards the grill they are more visible while the car is off.

Another view with the lights on at night.

Apple car play selected with Apple's GPS/Map on. Android is an available option with the system, but we are an Apple family. Also have HD radio and MP3 player.

The mode select, AWD lock, camera select, auto hold, and down hill assist are located in the center by the gear shifter.

The interior is very SUV like and has chrome lines that "flows" through out.

In sport mode, the outer left and right sides of the guages turns reds.

Using the HTRAC AWD on snow and ice felt fairly sure footed.

Here you can see the triangles on the wheel well's trim and on the 245/60 R18 tire. As I stated earlier, these triangles cover much of the Santa Cruz.

Time to start the plan

Card Room:

Now that the old baseball card and memorabilia is empty, it is time to start to plan for the new one. I have a lot of new wall material than what I had displayed. Some purchased from my wife.

Sets:
I have purchased a few more Topps 1965 cards and am now ready to put those cards into albums. I'm not going to focus a bit more on Topps 1967 and see if I can't get that set into the same staus. I have a card dealer that is living near me at my new house. What the luck! LOL

My hobby status [with updates].

 I am still putting binders together of 1989 Fleer and 1993 Upper Deck and it is going slow.  Making lots of boxes of extra cards that I can sell or trade.  I'm trying to put any significant sets in binders now.  I'm also purchasing and bidding on 1965 Topps cards again.  Just purchased a Topps 1965 Roger Maris, Roberto Clemente, and a Mickey Mantle.  I have bids on Topps 1965 Willie Mays and Eddie Mathews.  Likely hood I get either is very remote. 

So what stinks here is I'm watching prices rise again as the hobbie has become much more popular in 2020.  That whole supply / need thing.  I'm OK with only a few people enjoying this hobby. LOL

Update Sep 1, 2020. Lost the bid on the Willie Mays and Eddie Mathews, but found another Willie Mays.

Update again Sep 1, 2020 My 1993 Upper Deck binders are done.  2 full binders. One binder 100% full and the other 97% full.  

Topps 89 cont / card room video

I am still working on Topps 1989 cards and putting them in binders. I try to do some cards everyday. Sooner or later, it will become less daunting as more and more cards become organized. With three boxes to go through, I have a while to get there.



I also wanted to take a moment to announce that I created a new video to highlight my baseball card room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP__G7hM-rc

I also feel my website ( http://mrgibson.com ) might be a little misleading with people thinking I have most of my Cubs cards cataloged and that could be further from the truth. I really want to get back to cataloging all my Cubs baseball cards with currently 1,753 cataloged as of writing this. Further more, I'm really curious what my new current count of Ryne Sandberg cards are.

Complete redesign of my web site

MrGibson.com has been completely redesigned over the weekend. I wanted to look more modern while improving usability and layout. New icons to give an idea to areas functions. Lighter colors that are hopefully easier on the eyes. More compressed view when possible. I also removed broken functionality when found. There are some similarities to previous designs and layouts.

Update my card room photo

with staying at home being focused on, I have updated and rearranged my room. I do have more plans, but here are photos I took last night.

http://mrgibson.com/MikeGibsonBaseballCardDispayRoom.php?general=1

This will allow me to enjoy what I have collected with easy access to all.

What else would I like to do?
- Cubs light fixture
- Cubs Rug
- Hang Cubs bats
- Some type of border trim

Baseball card database update and other stuff.

Topic: Personal
I promised Maddison and Paige I would watch My Hero Academia. It is important for them that I see this show with them, so I'm going to give it a try.

Topic: Baseball Cards
I have moved all my code to point to my internal photo database. I have hundreds of photos up and I'm surprised on how little space it is taking up. Even though I have a fraction of the material up on my site, I will probably start to remove more photos from Flikr now.

Topic: Linux
There has been a very productive stream of development on the FVWM 3 front. I would not be surprised if there is not a Beta put out by the end of February.

Topic: Mustang
If there is one thing I would want to change about my Mustang, it would be the shifting. It is by far not the worst stick I have ever driven (1969 Chevy Camaro was), but it is far from the best. Seriously, that Camaro stick and clutch REALLY sucked. I found a fairly inexpensive short throw for my car at only $90-$110. But once I watched the video on how to replace and install, well, I guess my shifter is good enough. :P

Bunch of stuff.

On a personal level, I'm starting a new diet. Like in the past with health related stuff, I may log on my blog. I'm at 242 (as of tonight) and shooting for at least to go down to 210 - if not 200.

On a baseball card collecting level, I just acquired a 1965 Topps Ron Santo #110 in really great shape. I have all the cards I have been wanting for Topps 65, so I'm happy. That is the 15 primary cards for the Cubs 1965 team set. On the Cubs 1969 team set I picked up Ernie Banks. I possibly will have additional 12 1969 cards soon making the set mostly complete.

For displaying my collection, I added a ton of code to show all the major brands that I collect. I also added additional date logic.

I picked up MLB 09 The Show of my PlayStation 2 this weekend. Pretty fun, although I lost all three games I played so far. :)

First Time....

For the first time I will be selling a large amount of surplus sports cards at a hobbies/craft show in Bloomington IL on December 7th at the Lafeete Club. I will be selling unopened packs of baseball cards, baseball card singles, football card singles, NASCAR singles, Hockey singles, and more. I'm still working on coming up with the giveaway prize.

Cubs room update -3

As little time as I have to put towards the Cubs card room, this project looks to be slow going.  So just another small update.

Below is a photo of snaps and blue ribbon to bind the top-loaders of the teams sets that I purchased.


Here is a photo of the new shelving to display team sets and various Cubs art.