Moral-Flexibility.Net

I know, been really boring around here for quite some time. I’m not ordering zombie movies by the truckload, my range trips are infrequent and my gun projects are non-existent. As near as I can tell these were the three main draws for this blog (zombie motivational posters counting as a fringe benefit of the other activity.)

What’s strange to me is that I still spend a few hours every evening surfing the internet, it’s just that my surfing has become focused on personal finance, credit and mortgages rather than firearms, reanimated corpses and camoflage patterns.

Somehow it seems to me that I’ve traded down here. Truthfully I think I’ve exhausted the personal finance research, and we’re making all the right moves that responsible adults in our age and income groups could make to maintain a minimal debt and to reduce the amortization on our mortgage (13 years! Woot!), so maybe it’s time to dedicate some of the same effort and commitment to those lovable wandering corpses that provided me with so many hours of amusement.

Let’s see if I mean it, or if I’m just whistling dixie.

(for the record I have continued to acquire zombie movies, I just haven’t been updating the list).

We are (with some debate) on the third incarnation of our home surveillance system. The first was an entirely amateur affair, utilizing extremely inexpensive (actually “cheap”) cameras, vulnerable wiring and a recorder capable of only eight hours recording each night (basically turned on as we went to bed). The cost was about $240 for the entire system and we certainly got what we paid for (don’t get me wrong, you can spend $999 and still get a system no better than the one we had, but you’d be hard pressed to get a less effective system).

The Cameras:

We started with low res CMOS (complementary metal oxide substrate) cameras, which generally have poor image resolution and Lux ratings (meaning that the pictures appear more grainy and the camera is unable to see in low-light or nightime conditions without external light sources).

While an improvement over NO cameras this system was extremely limited, and without the assistance of the front porch light and perimeter (motion detection) lighting the cameras were effectively blind once the sun went down.

Continue Reading »

Yesterday saw my daughter leave for her first day of school.

It’s just JK, but it feels like she’s grown up so much already.