Duncan Cam!

Living alone can have its advantages, but it definitely has its cons as well.  One of those cons is not having an extra set of eyes to help watch my biggest asset: my house.  I don't have an advanced security installed in my home and I am obviously not home all the time.  Fortunately, I live in a culdesac at the very end of my street, so burglars are less tempted to go that deep into the neighborhood to break into a house.  Nonetheless, home security is very important and whatever affordable measures can be taken to improve security should be considered!

A couple weekends ago, I was at my sister's house and she told me about a surveillance camera her family uses to monitor their home while they're away.  I looked into getting one for myself and eventually I purchased a HooToo Surveillance Camera off Amazon.com for $70 (my sister's brand is Foscam).  The camera is a great investment!  It has built in wireless which allows me to put it anywhere in the house as long as the Wi-Fi is accessible.  I can then monitor my home from my computer at work or from my phone!  Most of the time, it just serves as a Duncan Cam. :)

Having the camera installed helps give me peace of mind that my home is safe including Duncan. Obviously I can't be staring at it 24-7, but I do keep it open on my second monitor while I'm at work and will check it from my phone when I'm out of town.  Also, during long vacations, I can enable the motion detection sensor to e-mail me if any large movements are detected in the camera's line of sight!  Definitely worth the very affordable price!

I'll say the only drawback is that I see a fluffy Duncan sleeping on the sofa and I just want to squeeze him.  Makes me miss my cat even more when I'm not home... :O

Playoffs!?

My Tuesday pool team (a.k.a. the "Cereal Killers") has been tearing it up in league and tournament play much of last year.  Winter session just ended before the holidays, but this time we didn't finish in 1st place for a change.  As a result, we played in playoffs to determine the second team that would be sent to the Big Money Tournament.

The first round of playoffs was played against "Team Chaos".  I ran a lineup of 4-4-4-5-6 (those are the skill levels of the 5 players for my team).  The first round ended up going to the very last match in winner-take-all fashion.  I saved myself for the end and had to play against a skill level of 5 (I'm a 4 if you've forgotten, which is about average).  I played very well that night...or maybe my opponent didn't play as well as he's expected to.  Whatever the reason, the match was won and we made it to the second and final round of playoffs.

The finals were held these past two weeks of January (as makeup to avoid playing during the holidays).  Entering last night, it was a 4-4 tie in points with the other team "Pog Mo Thoin" holidng the tiebreaker since they won 2 of the first 3 matches.  I put myself up 4th knowing it would draw out their 5 and leave the 3 for the final match, and it was imperative that I win at least 1 game so that I didn't get shutout and give them a 3-0 point victory.  The game was really sloppy and both sides played a bit poorly with the last 3 games of the match all being determined by the 8-ball going in early or scratching on the 8.  Nonetheless, I pulled out a 2-0 win by winning 3 games to his 2!  That left us 6-4 going into the last match.  All was left was for Jake, a skill level 4, to win 2 games before his opponent won 2...  Out of nowhere, Jake shot the best pool anyone's ever seen him play.  He ran out all of the balls in one turn on the first game and handled the next game pretty easily.  So the Cereal Killers won the matchup and will be returning for their 3rd consecutive Big Money appearance! Woohoo!!!  Oh and I guess I get another plaque to add to the wall...

In other news...

Bowling is still going and 10 weeks remain on the schedule.  I'm currently sitting at a 191 average after last week's massive 659 series.  191 is where I started the season and my personal goal is to go up in average.  195+ would be awesome, but I'll be happy with anything 192+.  On that note, I signed up to bowl in the USBC Open Championships this June in Reno.  I'll be going with 7 other IBM League bowlers and it should be a really fun and challenging experience!

AHGL StarCraft 2 Season 4 is beginning soon as well.  While I have been on a break from StarCraft (because I've been working my monk in Diablo III up to paragon level 100 --just 2 levels away as we speak), I will start practicing again soon as the season is set to begin on February 9th.  I haven't decided if this will be my last year as captain for IBM's AHGL team, but all I know is I want to make a strong run at the title in 2014!

Finally, I've been coordinating the IBM Basketball League to start in the middle of February.  The old commissioner, Dale, finally retired from IBM last December, which leaves me as sole commissioner of the league.  However, this is what we prepared for and I'm ready to get things going again for the IBMers!

Hope everyone is enjoying the 2014 year so far!  Continue to Make It Happen, whatever It Happens to be worth Making!