Weekend

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Friday
  • Got Sean to hang out for a while
  • Ate too much Imo’s
  • Went to bed late
Saturday
Sunday
Leftover Free-time spent
  • Browsed RSS feeds, web
  • Caught up on Tivo’s recordings
  • Stared at ceiling while brain defragged
  • Continued fixing tagging on music collection
  • Improved headshot frequency in Counter-Strike
  • Not work

Happy 2005

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It’s valid to say “I can’t believe it’s already 2005,” but actually the beginning of 2004 seems like a long time ago.

I’ll hold off on resolutions and speculation for this year, but I hope I take more advantage of this space. We’ll see how that works out.

Anyway, to the 5 of you (I know who you are), Happy New Year!

New Furniture

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This morning I’m working at home with the laptop, sitting on the couch with the computer and cats keeping me warm. We don’t give the cats enough friendly attention. They’re overly affectionate when they get the chance, and it’s not helping my typing. I welcome the warmth though, while it’s sunny outside, it’s cold enough for pre-winter to penetrate the poorly insulating back door with a windless draft. I’d be at the office right now, but I’m waiting at home to receive the delivery of a replacement table.

Last week Kelly and I found a nice set of chairs, a table and server at Weekends Only. Straying from our first preference of a light colored wood, we welcomed mahogany stained furniture into our home. This makes us sound like furniture racists. The actual color description on the box is cappuccino. That’s not helping. Anyway…

Everything was delivered Saturday morning. The server was perfect and a few chairs were already assembled, with the remaining few still in boxes. The table unfortunately had been dropped at some point and the damage was only realized once it was assembled. Our option was to either return it ourselves, or call WEO replace it with a delivery on Monday (today). We obviously opted for the delivery. Later that day while assembling the last chair, I found some manufacturing defects, and had to call WEO again. The warehouse isn’t far, I was OK with just replacing the bad with good, and the customer service rep said that’d be fine. Turns out it wasn’t in stock. Found out after I got there. I’m certain my frustration was visible. They’ll call when they can replace it. Credit for the chair was refunded in the meantime.

Despite the setbacks, I’m happy with the quality of the furniture, and I like the style. Once we have everything together, you’re all invited to dinner.

New table is home. Looks good. I should probably check the stored leaf before I say that. Damn, I bet I jinxed it.

Breakfast

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I woke up, was hungry. Was able to pass over the cookies Kelly made with her mom yesterday, looking for something nutritious.

Have you ever tried Kashi Organic Promise Cranberry Sunshine cereal? No? Let me help you. Have you ever had Corn Pops? Think cartoon commercials with a frog I think. (Is that right? Does that actually make any sense?) Corn Pops were these corn puffs sweetened with sugar and honey or something. A little weird, but they tasted… good. I think. This Kashi cereal this puffed clusters that I assume are similarly made, but since it’s fancy organic, they skip the sweet. So it’s Styrofoam. I figured the Cranberry part would help the flavor and texture, so I hunted my bowl for something resembling fruit. Didn’t find it. Just more Styrofoam peanuts. Certainly if it tastes like crap it’s good for me, right? Well, the nutritional details don’t offset the taste. I must be too accustomed to fortified cereals like Cheerios or better yet, Cinnamon Toast Crunch – even when it’s loaded with sugar, it can still be good for me!

So after even the garbage disposal had a hard time swallowing the organic food, I abandoned “healthy” and just wanted something that tasted good to cleanse my mouth. Cookies and leftover sloppy joe it is. And a Pepsi.

Good Morning!

Thanksgiving 2004

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Thanksgiving used to start in the car before holiday rush hour on Wednesday. Mom would get out of school about the same time my sisters and I would, and once home we’d claim territory in the minivan, settle in, and drive downtown to pick up Dad from work. He’d take the wheel and officially begin the annual trip from St. Louis to Chicago to visit the rest of the family. After the usual adventures of trapping family members in a car for several hours, we’d arrive in the suburbs of Chicago and spend the night with Mom’s brother and family. Thursday was spent with most of Mom’s side of the family, with an enormous Thanksgiving dinner hosted at Grandma and Grandpa’s with all families contributing more than enough food; everything of course homemade and outstanding. Friday we’d get up early and drive to Milwaukee to visit Dad’s side, have another huge midday meal while visiting, and make sure we’d also visit Kopp’s Frozen Custard at least once before returning to Chicago that night. Sometimes Saturday was spent visiting more, but either Saturday or Sunday we’d pack back up and return to St. Louis.

Families change over time, and traditions evolve. Now out of school, parent’s home, and married, Kelly and I alternate between our parent’s Thanksgiving dinner plans. Kelly’s parent’s host a delicious Thanksgiving in St. Louis, and mine still make the Chicago trip every year. While the location may change for us, Thanksgiving remains a time to set aside the trivial details distracting us from life, and spend some quality time reconnecting with loved ones.

This year, I found myself on Wednesday unable to get away from work early enough to beat the holiday traffic driving between St. Louis and Chicago. Ideally, Kelly and I hoped to leave by 3pm, but I was still tied to my desk at 3:30, and still had not packed. My parents left closer to noon with one of my sisters and her boyfriend, and my other sister was driving separately with her boyfriend about an hour behind them.

I had already talked with Mom about their progress through a winter storm that had popped in to drop rain, sleet and snow across their path, and found out how traffic was crawling. The conditions were particularly bad between Springfield and Lincoln, IL, with cars sliding off the road and running into each other. Plows had apparently so far been absent. The typical 5-6 hour drive was looking like it was going to take them closer to 9-10 hours. After chatting with Kelly and checking in on the parents with another phone call, we decided to skip the traditional Wednesday Chicago scramble and just leave early the next morning.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful we didn’t try to make the drive on Wednesday. A worthy story should show up on my sister Kelly’s site soon detailing their exciting 13 hour trip.

Our trip was wonderfully uneventful; the biggest hitch was briefly forgetting where the wiper de-icer button was, and having trouble finding an appetizing fast food restaurant open on Thanksgiving for a morning snack. While driving we saw plenty of cars and associated carnage on the sides of the road and in ditches from the previous evening’s weather, but the road surface was mostly dry for us and traffic was light. We were plenty alert in the morning and satisfactory land speed delivered us to join the family before noon.

Mom’s brother’s family hosted Thanksgiving this year, and we snacked on rye bread with dill dip and jalapeno cheese squares while baby kittens and football entertained.

Grandma and Grandpa arrived and food was soon served. Everything was of course wonderful and overfilling. A break between dinner and desert definitely required; naps were enjoyed (and more football I’m told). Back at the table, we sang Happy Birthday to Henry, and sat down for round 2. I think I had four different slices of pie on my plate at one time, I can’t recall. I do remember being stuffed.

More naps were had, some card games (Hand and Foot), but that evening the kids took off to see The Incredibles (again for some). I tried on my sisters new glasses to discover that they made the showtimes more clear. I was the last one to not need glasses; now I’ll have to visit an eye guy when the new year starts. After the movie, Kelly and I introduced Firefly to those interested, and watched the excellent pilot and 2nd episode (I really miss this show) before collapsing into the sofa bed we were watching from.

Woke up late Friday morning (which felt like a Sunday) for the drive to Milwaukee, but was able to change into decent before it was time to leave. We decided that we’d join my sisters in planning to return to St. Louis that night, breaking tradition some more by leaving earlier, but doing so feels like it extends the vacation. So we packed the cars intending not to return to our gracious hosts until another trip, and then left to go further north for more family visiting.

Dad’s parents look much better than I’ve seen them in a while, and I was happy to visit a little after not being up to see them for some time. We stayed at Grandma and Grandpas while waiting for Dad’s sister to show up, then we went out for lunch, taking over part of the restaurant with 14 people. Lunch was topped off with two scoops of Kopp’s Turtle Cheesecake Frozen Custard. Goodbye hugs were shared and back into the cars the six “kids” climbed for the return trip to St. Louis.

The drive was again quick and uneventful, going faster than expected. The iPod was wonderful for music since the radio is not, and I was able to get some serious music rating time in. After dropping off my sister and her boyfriend so they could go visit his family some, Kelly and I returned home to remind our cats they don’t live alone, and to get some time with the Internet. I finished this post in bed, which I only was away from for one night. This was the most efficient Thanksgiving trip I can remember.

Work, Sleep, Work, Sleep

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The majority of today was difficult to push through.

I partly blame last night, I was up late changing some code for work. From home. An emergency for a client apparently means an emergency for me. Regardless, I finished the requested changes despite an earlier misunderstanding and was able to put it out of my mind before I went to bed. We have a white noise machine that plays for an hour after turned on to aid in falling asleep; I don’t remember being awake for long.

I woke up and still heard the generated sound. Still feeling exhausted, I was happy to realize that hearing the white noise meant I still had a night’s worth of sleep waiting. Except it was actually morning and time to get out of bed; I had accidently set it to play constantly instead of the usual hour timer. Sleeping in later was not an option. Now exhausted and furious, I decided to exercise some on our neglected elliptical to alleviate the rage I didn’t want to release anywhere else.

I need to exercise more anyway. Exhausting myself physically is good for a mental reset. I miss cycling, I should pick up some cold weather gear.

I expected a full day of work, and was fortunately more productive than I anticipated once I started. I’m essentially hacking some ugly old code to enable some new requirements, but since I revisited the codebase recently, I was able to deploy updates sooner than I expected. I’m glad I could, since my other task that was supposed to occupy the second half of the day lasted well into the evening. I think due to my rude awakening, the entire day I felt unable to focus and would get frustrated at the smallest things. I needed a nap. The Mountain Dew I downed during a dinner break kept me going long enough to get most of what I needed done, and actually by the time I left I was feeling pretty accomplished.

It’s at that point I’m most comfortable shelving thoughts of work, and clearing my mind for home; something I’m not typically strong at. It’s a shame I didn’t get to that point earlier.

Maybe it was just the caffeine.

So I’m home now. It’s 10:30. I should sleep, but right now I’m too awake. Guess I can spend some time catching up on what happened today.

iPod Quest

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I don’t want to pay a lot for an iPod, which means I don’t have one. We have one, but I do not have my own. I want one. It’s useful for cycling, working, or just drowning out external noise with tunes.

My efforts for a Free iPod failed, and until recently I was content to try another marketing scheme to see if I could obtain one that way.

But I’m tired of waiting. Hans didn’t help – the other day he informed me by SMS that Best Buy had a 20GB for a measly $160, with the catch that it was an open box without all the parts. Who Cares! I declared to no one in particular, ignoring completely the concept of that question. I was playing City of Heroes with Kelly and Trevis at the time, but that was quickly abandoned for a fast trip to the store.

The iPod was visibly used, but appeared to be in working condition. It came with no cables, but with one exception we had the necessary parts. I opted to purchase the needed cable and a service plan to cover defects for two years, and was on my way home to test it out quickly.

Plugging it in at home, I discovered additional flaws. The obvious issue was what must have been caused by someone sitting hard on it, the front half the case was overlapped on the left side by the back half, exposing the seam and likely applying unneeded pressure to the internals. If everything still worked fine, I could ignore that, except the hold switch that would allow me to lock the buttons inconsistently worked. Having an iPod I cannot unlock is no good.

The next opportunity I had to return it was at lunch today, well within the 30 day return window. I was planning on exchanging my broken iPod for one of the less used 20GB open box items, still cheaper than brand new. When I got to the case, I found a 40GB for even less. It even came with the power brick! (not really excited).

Anyway, wanting more for less, I took the 40GB to the service counter for the exhange. There, I learned about how Best Buy doesn’t really have a trained staff to address the returned items, and most of them just end up back on the shelves. Apple wont really accept the returns from Best Buy, so if a “technician” believes a device is truely broken, they’ll be good to stomp on it for good measure to ensure it’s not returned to the shelves. I think my 20GB was stomped, and still returned to the shelf.

If I was wise, I would’ve taken this hint and immediately run back to the case to swap my used/returned/stomped? 40GB for a shiny brand new 20GB. I didn’t. I made my purchase, and went back to work.

Tonight, I plug in my brand “new to me” iPod, and find that the hard drive is not working, and disk writes fail. Back into the box it goes.

Kelly has been encouraging me to just get a new one, and get it over with. I’m finally inclined to agree.

OK, brand new iPod has been purchased.

Cons:

  • I purchased it at full price as an exchange at Best Buy, which meant waiting half an hour in the wireless device section of the store where the iPods were locked while the two employees who supposedly staff the area were just gone. Waiting is dumb.
  • Reassuring the service rep that despite their “geek” saying the one I was returning was working fine, simply powering it on was not sufficient to test the disk write failure I complained of.
  • Knowing that if I just started at the Apple store, I would’ve wasted far less time.

Pros:

  • It’s new. No one has abused it.
  • It’s so slim and light. Small enough for dropping in a jeans pocket or taking along cycling.
  • The USB2 transfer carries data and power.
  • It just works, the way all things should.

Election 2004

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We gathered for an entertaining election results party with many TVs airing different stations and even more laptops pulling statistics, but the night wasn’t for us. When I wake up, I expect solid confirmation that we’ll unfortunately be looking at four more years of George W. Bush.

At this point Iowa and Ohio are essentially being held out as too close to call, and CNN is stalling and speculating to keep viewers entertained, but it essentially comes down to Kerry losing to Bush.

I had hoped to see the election bring us a replacement, though I didn’t see it fixing anything exactly. One of my concerns is that the country is so evenly divided, and each side so certain of their positions, they easily dismiss the other, and rational discourse does not take place. If it takes another term of Bush to wake people up, then we can at least regroup and begin the repair. If in four years I instead find his popular approval even higher, then at least it will be more clear to me that I’m not surrounded by like-minded people (I know, I already live in a red state) and my country doesn’t care to keep me.

I didn’t think this country would remain so out of touch with reality and re-elect this president. I’m going to bed disappointed with the results, disappointed with the people of this nation, and afraid for what the future holds.

President Bush declares victory in 2004 presidental election telling supporters “America has spoken.”

It’s the second part of that newsflash that really upsets me.