The Browns have a better record than the Pats?

September is winding down so it’s time for October playoff baseball, week 3 of NFL football, and the impending start of the hockey season.

But can you believe it? Thanks to their game 1 tie with the Steelers and their incredible first win in 635 days over the New York Jets this past Thursday night the Cleveland Browns currently have a better record than the Patriots and the Steelers!! I’ll enjoy this while it lasts (“we’re #1-1-1!”).

AFC East and North standings

AFC East and North standings

The Bucs are undefeated as well and take on Pittsburgh tonight on Monday Night Football. Let’s hope for some more Fitzmagic!

Meanwhile, over in baseball-land my Indians clinched the AL Central (for the third time in a row) two weeks ago. The Tampa Bay Rays, who have the same record as the Tribe, however, are going to miss out on a wild card spot thanks to their position in the tougher AL East (the Red Sox are on fire this year).

AL playoff standings

AL playoff standings

Still, not a bad showing this season for Tampa Bay.

Go October sports teams! 😀

No more plywood!

A year ago we were bracing for the approach of Hurricane Irma. We had installed impact windows in 2008 and replaced the overhead garage door in 2015 but had never gotten around to replacing the entry doors. So last year at this time we were boarding up those doors with plywood:

But today, the impact-rated doors we ordered from Home Depot back in late April were finally installed:

So now this week, if Hurricane Florence turns and threatens the Tampa Bay area, I won’t have board anything up!

Labor Day Weekend 2018 at Disney: Day 3

It wouldn’t be Labor Day weekend in Florida without rain and we got plenty of it today.

Normally we would start Monday out at the hotel pool but this year we decided to go to one of the parks instead. Of course, this was mainly because Monday afternoon was the only time we were able to snag FastPasses for the new Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster in Toy Story Land over at Hollywood Studios. After checking out of the Port Orleans Riverside, we drove over to Hollywood Studios. The parking lot is currently a mess due to the Skyliner terminal construction so getting into the lot and then actually walking to the front gate took longer than expected, but we were still inside by 10:00am. Our first FastPass of the morning (after grabbing some drinks at Starbucks) was Aerosmith’s Rock’n’Roller Coaster.

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Labor Day Weekend 2018 at Disney: Day 2

We’re taking it easy this weekend, so no getting up early to do any Extra Magic Hours. After waking up around 9:30am, we walked over to the French Quarter to pick up fresh beignets for breakfast.

At 11:30am we were getting off the bus at Animal Kingdom when my daughter announced she had forgotten her MagicBand back at the hotel! Rather than having to bus back, we went to guest services at the front of the park to inquire if we could get her a replacement. The cast member (Ryan) informed us that our Passholder card was also actually a valid park ticket! We’re so used to the MagicBands we had completely forgotten the “old school” plastic credit card-like ticket (which luckily we had with us). It did turn out that my daughter’s name was incorrect on the ticket (we had never used it so never noticed) so Ryan corrected that and also gave us each two “generic” FastPasses good for any attraction in the park (except Avatar: Flight of Passage, of course). Nice!

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Labor Day Weekend 2018 at Disney: Day 1

Labor Day weekend 2018 … time again for our annual family mini-vacation to Walt Disney World (probably our last one as a family since my daughter will be heading off to college next year).

Like last year, we couldn’t drive over to Orlando until this morning because of Friday night high school football yesterday. I also had to stop in the office on Saturday morning to address some overnight issues, so we started heading over a little later than usual. Plus, on our way, Waze alerted us to a big accident on I-4 and re-routed us via the back roads of Polk, Lake, and Orange counties to avoid the heavy traffic. But we made it to our hotel (the Port Orleans Riverside) by 11:30am, parked, and took the Disney bus over to the Magic Kingdom.

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Kwikset SmartCode 916 Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt

We’re finishing up hurricane-proofing this summer by finally replacing all the exterior entries with impact-rated doors. We had our impact windows installed back in 2008, and replaced the overhead garage door in 2015, but last year’s close call with Hurricane Irma reminded us we still needed to replace the doors. Since we’re getting new doors, we also need to get new door hardware!

There’s a wide variety of electronic and automation-enabled deadbolts and locks on the market now-a-days: I decided to expand my Z-Wave/ADT Pulse automation network by installing the Kwikset 916 Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt.

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Ubiquiti Unifi Switch 8 POE-150W

Unifi Switch 8About two weeks ago I started experiencing some strange network issues: Nagios kept reporting devices dropping off the network and reconnecting, the TiVo Minis would lose their connection to the Bolt, etc. I eventually traced it to one of my TRENDnet TPE-TG44g switches (specifically the one in the closet that most of the home network traffic travels through on its way to the router) constantly rebooting. It was out of warranty so I had to buy a new switch to replace it. Since I already two Unifi wireless access points on the network (and I run the Unifi Controller software to manage them), I decided to spend a little extra and get the Ubiquiti Unifi Switch 8 POE-150W.

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Golden State dynasty sweeps the Cavs out of the Finals

For the fourth year in a row, my Cleveland Cavaliers were the Eastern Conference Champions!

2018 Eastern Conference Champs

For the fourth year in a row, they faced the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

And for the second year in a row, they lost. 🙁

That photo (from the end of Game 1 when JR Smith dribbled out the clock in a tie game which the Warriors went on to win in overtime, setting the tone for the rest of the series) pretty much sums up the 2018 Finals for the Cavalier as they were swept in four games, ugh. But it was an improbable Finals run for the Cavs (with the pre-season trade of Kyrie Irving to Boston and the massive trades at the deadline in February) and yet they still managed to make it to the Finals. Unfortunately, the Golden State dynasty seems unstoppable right now.

So now the big question is: where will Lebron (who is now a free agent) be playing next year? Will he stay in Cleveland? Or will he leave again? If he does leave, at least Cleveland finally got one.