Blinky Lights and Shiny Objects

At the risk of inviting the Internet to my house, is anyone interested in visiting on Memorial Day weekend? I'm told there will be at least two grilling instances, one involving a whole chicken. Local and not-so-local friends are welcome - just let me know. Later in the summer (dates TBD) B and I are going to take a trip to Cedar Point. We love roller coasters, and this is supposed to be the best park for those. The plan is to drive out on a Sunday, visit the park on a Monday and Tuesday, and drive back on a Wednesday. Does that sound like fun to anyone else? We could coordinate a convergence on the park, and stay in the same hotel. After-park parties could also be planned. (aka stop at an adult-beverage store on the way back to the hotel) Today I got the approval to go to PTC/USER world conference. It runs from 6/7/09 to 6/10/09 in Orlando, FL. I've signed up for a nearly full agenda of seminars, training, and workshops. All of the sessions I'm taking are about ...

This rabbit was hanging out in our backyard for a long while tonight. I took pictures - they should be enough cute to get you through the rest of the week.

100th post, if you like round numbers in the base ten system that is kind of cool. I'm not going to write about anything special or monumental, just some disjointed thoughts and news items. The herbs in pots in the kitchen are growing well. Much better than expected. At some point I will actually start using them to cook, but I didn't want to cut anything off so soon after transplanting. The iPod touch (or iPhoney as I call it if I screw up and start referring to it as an iPhone) is both a monumental waste of time and a useful tool. I got an FM transmitter for the car so I'm actually listening to an hour of good music every day. The Genius playlist feature is now my friend. I messed up a recent yarn purchase by not realizing that "one skein" listed on the pattern meant "one skein PER SOCK." Oops. Just today I extricated myself from a major commitment at work that I wasn't really able to spend any time on, and wasn't excited about anymore. ...

There's a lot of data transfer happening on my desk at the moment. The iBook G4 is getting its hard drive content copied to an external drive via Firewire. My new iPod touch is getting all of my iTunes content loaded onto it from the Toshiba laptop via USB. For the Apple laptop content, I'm just making a backup of EVERYTHING after already moving all the important stuff onto the Toshiba. B will then get the Apple (Power PC architecture, grr) to do whatever he wants with it. I've been told it might be partitioned and Ubuntu added once he clears the hard drive (all 60 GB of it) of un-needed files. The painful part of copying the files is that Finder doesn't just keep going if it finds a file with a really long name or other problems. So, I try copying large chunks and when it stops I pick smaller chunks and eventually get all the data moved over. So this project is in baby-sit mode. For the iPod, I started the sync 20 minutes ago and it is only about 1/4 done. The ...

My 30th birthday was a few weeks ago. It was so nice to have school friends, work friends, and my parents all together in our house for the party. The Mazda3 reached 50,000 miles on Thursday. It is still in great shape and I feel very connected to it while driving. Like, it is a mobile feeling of "home" rather than just a way to get around. In about a week, B and I have our 7th wedding anniversary. This is a good thing - another marker as we move forwards in our lives. Love you, hon!

My morning drive into work can take anywhere from 20 to 30+ minutes on a normal day. I stay on local roads, so the time variation has to do with the traffic lights and any slow people I get stuck behind. Recently I've noticed a phenomenon and accompanying attitude that I'm calling the Yellow Light Commute. Green lights all the way = smooth trip = 20ish minutes from door to door. Red lights at particular intersections = stop and go = eh whatever. But when I get yellow lights as I approach intersections, it forces me to decide. Assuming some jackhat isn't riding my tail and making it dangerous to stop I could go through or wait for next time. (Yellow lights here are nice and long.) On those days when it's yellow after yellow after yellow I find myself getting annoyed no matter what I choose. Hold speed and go through and I ask myself why I'm rushing to get to work. Stop at every light and I ask myself why I'm wasting time and gas. A green or a red light ...

The forecast for tonight includes 4 to 8 inches of snow. March: in like a lion, out like a Laser Alien Mutant Bovid.