Google Offers Free Phone Service

Google is now offering free phone service with every Gmail account. Call anywhere in the USA for free, right thru your computer. Been playing with it and its pretty neat. I also signed up for Google Voice which gives me a local number that will ring my cell phone, home phone and Vonage phone.

The voice to text feature of the voice mail system is pretty cool too. And you can even call me from this blog. Just click below and enter a phone number and I will call you!

Try it!

Hijack Virus

Got a call from my sister and her Vista PC was Hijacked. Basically whenever she visited a website or tried to run a program it would pop-up a messages telling her that her computer was infected and she needed to visit a website to fix it.

Whenever she tried to run any programs it would pop-up the message. Whenever she tried to visit it website, it would go no where. Basically her laptop was useless.

So I managed to fix it by following these steps:

- Reboot the computer into safe mode - by pressing F8 upon start-up

- Run MSCONFIG and disable the nefarious program. It was called fxxxxx.exe

- Restart the computer in normal mode Safe mode

- Delete the program .EXE from the hard-drive

- Edit the host file and remove the extra line of code redirecting her browser to nowhere land.

Best Session of the Year

Its been a rough Poker year for me. Lots of bad beats and suck outs early in the year. I kept to my game and feel like Im finally back now. I have 3 winning months in a row, but still a little down for the year. I dont know where the year really went, but hopefully the second half of the year will be back to more normal games.

I felt I couldnt lose early on. My first hand in the big blind I had 83 and flopped a boat with a flop of 338. No real action, but its nice to get lucky sometime. I started noticing people playing any 3. Doty called a big raise with 3♣4♣ and rivered 2 pair to crack pocket kings!

I started playing on the second table and took down four people's entire stack. My first victim was a loose Asian guy. I have A♣Q♣ and spike an Ace on the flop. He calls me down to the river and never shows. I figured he had Ace rag. Then my very next hand I have pocket 10♥10♠. The same guy pushes over the top of my raise and shows A♦5♦. I take all his chips!

I felt another guy with A♠K♠. Everyone limps around and I have A♠K♠ in the small blind. The flop comes Q♠8♦3♠. One guy bets $10 and another re-raises to $25. I smooth call with my nut flush draw. The turn is a 10♥ and he bets another $31. I call again. The river is a J♦ making my nut straight. I push him all in for his remaining $40. He shows top set of Q♦Q♣s! I dodged a bullet there! Sometimes its better to be lucky then good.

A few minutes later I have pocket A♥A♣ under the gun. Doty calls and another guy pushes all-in. I call and Doty calls. The guy shows A♦K♠ and Doty never shows. I spike my set on the flop! and take both their stacks!

I move to the main table and get pocket K♣K♦, A♦A♥ and Q♣Q♠. They all hold up each time. It's nice when the odds work out in your favor. Its just a matter to time before it catches up with me. I am up over $400 in about 5 hours. That is $80/hr and better then average. I decide to leave a little after midnight.

Poker Stats

My Lexus In The Shop

I took my Lexus LS400 into the shop on Friday. I had the check engine light turn on and a number of other minor issues I wanted to them to take a look at. My windshield mister motor was dead, my center brake light had a couple of bulbs out and my AC would blow warm during stops. My air conditioning issues was due to a relay that failed.

Going to a Lexus service station is an experience in awesome customer service. All of the service area has flat screen TVs, leather furniture, free drinks and even Apple computers. They even will give you a free car to drive until your car is fixed. For all this, you do pay for it.

They charged me about $100 for all the parts and $350 for labor. They didn't have the parts in stock so I had to come back 4 days later. Fortunately, they gave me a 2010 HS 250h hybrid loner car use while my car was in the shop.

This car was sweet and one of the most technologically advanced cars I have ever driven! Not only is it a hybrid getting 35MPG, it has a rear view backup camera and voice activated navigation system. To start the car you push a button. The car actually unlocks automatically when you get close to the car.

Check out the video below of me backing out of my garage and the back-up camera. My previous company actually makes backup cameras, so it was nice to see one in action.

Home Buyer Credit Check

I am not really the type to accept or qualify for most government welfare programs, but sometimes the government is giving away money. With the recent recession, the government created a number of incentive programs to jump start economic growth. The Cash for Clunkers deal, extension of unemployment benefits and a first time home buyer credit were just a few of these stimulus programs. If you happen to fall within the guidelines, then you just need to complete some paperwork and the money will be yours.

I have never in my life received an unemployment check from the government. Even when I was laid off, I had over 3 months severance and found a job before it ended. So while I paid into the unemployment system for over 10 years, I never used it. As I understand it now, you can get an unemployment check for up to 99 weeks now. Where is the incentive to find work with that kind of handout?

In the Fall of 2009, the Federal government extended the original home buyer credit and expanded it to long term home buyers. The original plan gave $8000 to any first time home buyer. It expired last year and Congress decided to extend to April 2010 and expanded it to include anyone that had lived in there home for 5 years and give them $6500. Wow, what a nice bonus! I now just qualified, owning my last home for 5 years.

I put my home search into high gear during the Winter of 2010. Within a couple of months I found allot of good deals with foreclosures and bank owned properties. I finally decided on a brand new construction at the end of February and closed on the house on March 10th.

I had already filed my 2009 taxes electronically. So on March 31st, I paper filed an amended Tax Return for the home buyer credit. For the home buyer credit, you had to file by paper with 5-years home owner documentation, since their were reports of many people scamming the system. On May 18th, 2010 I got my check!