Jekyll2025-09-17T20:55:39-05:00https://www.todkarpinski.com/feed.xmltodkarpinski.comTod Karpinski1954 Lionel Set2020-12-12T17:00:00-06:002020-12-12T17:00:00-06:00https://www.todkarpinski.com/lionelThis is the Lionel set my Dad had growing up. It was purchased by my Grandfather in 1954. We used it around our tree and was in storage for the past 10 years. My daughter and I put it together around the tree I captured all of the details below.

Engine - 736-20

This is a Variation 1 736 Engine.

Tender - 2671W X

Red Hopper Car - 6456

Red Hopper

Automatic Lumber Car - 3461X

Variation B

Tank Car - 6465

Silver Sonoco Train Car

Caboose - 6457

Caboose

Other Things

Tender 2466WX

Tender 2426W

Crane - 6460

Variation C Crane

Barrel Loader - 362

Variation C Barrel Loader

Billboard Blinker - 410

410 Billboard Blinker

Station Platform - 157

Variation A Station Platform

Plasticville

Firehouse

Plasticville Firehouse

Post Office

Plasticville Postoffice

Switch Tower

Plasticville Switchtower

]]>Tod KarpinskiiPhone 6s+ case, a year later2017-01-02T17:48:00-06:002017-01-02T17:48:00-06:00https://www.todkarpinski.com/iphone-caseAmazing what a year will make. This navy iPhone case has been through thick and thin, and protected my iPhone from countless drops. It took a beating, but it was time for a replacement.

]]>Tod KarpinskiArris (Voyager) DVR and HDMI-CEC fix2017-01-01T00:00:00-06:002017-01-01T00:00:00-06:00https://www.todkarpinski.com/smarthome/arris-hdmi-cecHappy New Year; The hack I did to the HDMI cable for my DVR stopped working this morning, so we couldn’t change the volume (Error from Sony TV: The TV Volume is Fixed).

When we upgraded to the BrightHouse (Spectrum) Voyager Whole Home DVR (now discontinued) our Sony TV stopped changing the volume of our surround sound system and the Apple TV wouldn’t switch inputs.

Did a little Google searching 1 and discovered this is a known problem with the Arris DCX3600-M. The only solution is to destroy pin 13 in the HDMI cable which is what carries HDMI-CEC. A tiny screw driver did the trick to move the contact out of the way. Cheaper than buying a HDMI-CEC disabler switch

Hope this helps.

  1. Time Warner Forums ↩

]]>Tod KarpinskiA Month with Google Home2016-12-31T12:51:52-06:002016-12-31T12:51:52-06:00https://www.todkarpinski.com/smarthome/living-with-google-homeCasa Karpinski picked up a Google Home during the Black Friday sale from Best Buy (god their shipping is horrible compared to Amazon Prime). It found its way into our Kitchen. I picked Home over Alexa (even though our house was practically a black hole of shipping boxes for Amazon Prime), based on its promise, and the reviews from Wirecutter. We have multiple Google Cast devices, with a Chromecast on the TV Living Room, and a Chromecast Audio, so this made the promise of multi-room audio intriguing; sadly the TV can’t be part of a group.

Things we use a lot

  • Hey Google, play “X” (on Spotify)
  • Hey Google, set a timer for five minutes
  • Hey Google, [next song],[I like this song],[I don’t like this song]

Things I thought we would use more

  • Hey Google, turn on/off the lights (our smart switches are in the basement)

Things I did not expect

  • The dog is afraid of the Google Home voice, because it is similar to the Nest Protect voice. The test alarm caused the dog to cower in fear. Note to self, turn off auto-test.

Things which need work

  • Playing Netflix is involved “Hey Google, watch Luke Cage on Living Room”, should be able to set a default TV
  • Switches aren’t quite right; It considers my Smart Home dimmers ‘switches’ instead of lights so I can’t say “Turn off the basement lights”
  • “Hey Google turn on the Heat” doesn’t kick the heat on, it only sets the Nest to Heat mode.
  • Spotify sometimes takes two commands to play something. Not sure if its Google or Spotify, but its annoying.

Overall, we’re keeping the Home, especially as a speaker in the Kitchen which turns on faster and responds to voice commands. We’re training the Dog to be OK with Google with treats and she seems to be much better already.

]]>Tod KarpinskiMigrating Arq to Google Coldline from Nearline2016-12-30T20:07:00-06:002016-12-30T20:07:00-06:00https://www.todkarpinski.com/google-cloud/migrating-arq-storage-to-coldlineI’ve been a long time user of Arq Backup; since they introduced their Amazon Glacier storage. I later migrated to Google Nearline once available due to the lower latency, and now I want to use coldline for the 30% cost savings. Google doesn’t necessarily make it easy, but after some scouring of the internet, I’ve come up with a relatively straightfoward gist to migrate from nearline to coldline. Some assembly required.

I originally was using the gsutil rewrite command1 but this really wasn’t effective at the scale I needed so I went with the lifecycle setting, which takes ~24 hours to take effect.

You will also need to change your default storage object for all new objects.

UPDATE 1/7/2017 using age doesn’t appear to cause the lifecycle to kick in, so createdBefore is the way to go.

To diagnose you can use logging + bigquery to make sure the conversion is taking place. you can follow the instructions from google and use the sql query + shell script below.

  1. Stack Overflow reference to changing storage class of existing data ↩

]]>Tod KarpinskiFirst Post2016-12-30T19:58:52-06:002016-12-30T19:58:52-06:00https://www.todkarpinski.com/first-postAfter many years of serving nothing, messing with tumblr, etc. I’ve decided to start my website back up, for some basic posts, things i find interesting, etc. Other impetus is the birth of my daughter, so I have some time on my hands when I’m not cleaning, feeding or changing diapers (haha).

]]>Tod Karpinski