I had a great lunch date with my favorite 2 people today. Amanda and Alastair came to visit me at around 1pm, we trekked over to O'Charley's (VERY kid-friendly), and had a good time of it.
Afterward, we came back here to my work and took Alastair to visit his old day-care. The teachers went positively bananas over him. Teachers were pouring out of rooms to come and hold him; they told us how much they miss him; they loved on him; and he just ate it all up. Almost all of them recognized him long before he was anywhere near them, and Amanda got to see that I wasn't exaggerating at all when I'd told her how much they loved having him there.
We made one more quick stop by my desk, he got a few more "ooh's" and "aah's", and they went on their way, but my day was improved dramatically.
I love my wife and child. They rock.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Paint and Gas Fumes; What a Weekend!
Last weekend (7/29 & 30), Amanda and I decided we'd put off house projects for entirely too long. We whipped out the old color samples and decided to paint the god-awful paneling in the den. By Thursday, we still didn't have paint. Awesome.
Friday we got our paint, moved all the furniture out of the room (or into the center, for the huge stuff), and got ready for some paintin'. I also took the opportunity of some slightly lower temps to change my wheels & tires for the autocross, as well as fixing the stupid problems I inadvertently caused with my rollbar.
Saturday, Amanda's mom came and picked up the boy, and we got busy painting. We figured out very quickly that the seams in the panels were too deep to roll, so we spent almost half the day painting them with brushes. Needless to say, it put us behind schedule. By the time we'd picked up the boy and were ready to go to bed, we'd only rolled one coat of top-coat. Blah.
Sunday, I got up bright and early and went out to the autocross, where I learned that I'd evidently forgotten to torque one of my wheels. After my 2nd run (my fastest), a couple of guys came running after me telling me that I was about to lose a wheel. The lugs weren't even finger-tight.
I got that taken care of, finished my runs, enjoyed lunch with Amanda (who'd come out for the flea market happening in the same place), watched some racing with her dad, and went out for my work assignment. I think it was 95 degrees during my work assignment, and I was standing in the middle of the asphalt parking lot with no sunscreen on my face, neck, or legs. It was miserable. One guy lost a wheel (the axle snapped off at the drum brake) and another guy drifted through the whole course, but other than that it was just an hour standing in the sun on tarmac. FUN.
I went home, got my paintbrush, and went back to painting. We finished the rolling and topcoat on the walls that night, and yesterday I left work early to start on the trim. By midnight last night, there were 2 coats of paint on the trim, and although some of it will need a 3rd coat, I think we're going to load the furniture back into place today.
The room looks awesome. The paneling actually looks really good with paint on it: it's not just deep, shit-brown fake wood with grooves, but a nice, even taupe with the grooves acting as accentuation. Our art is really going to meld nicely with the palette.
Of course, we have to hurry getting everything hooked back up if we're going to catch the finale of Last Comic Standing.
I'm beat. No more painting for me for a while. Except for the kitchen ceiling. Crap.
Friday we got our paint, moved all the furniture out of the room (or into the center, for the huge stuff), and got ready for some paintin'. I also took the opportunity of some slightly lower temps to change my wheels & tires for the autocross, as well as fixing the stupid problems I inadvertently caused with my rollbar.
Saturday, Amanda's mom came and picked up the boy, and we got busy painting. We figured out very quickly that the seams in the panels were too deep to roll, so we spent almost half the day painting them with brushes. Needless to say, it put us behind schedule. By the time we'd picked up the boy and were ready to go to bed, we'd only rolled one coat of top-coat. Blah.
Sunday, I got up bright and early and went out to the autocross, where I learned that I'd evidently forgotten to torque one of my wheels. After my 2nd run (my fastest), a couple of guys came running after me telling me that I was about to lose a wheel. The lugs weren't even finger-tight.
I got that taken care of, finished my runs, enjoyed lunch with Amanda (who'd come out for the flea market happening in the same place), watched some racing with her dad, and went out for my work assignment. I think it was 95 degrees during my work assignment, and I was standing in the middle of the asphalt parking lot with no sunscreen on my face, neck, or legs. It was miserable. One guy lost a wheel (the axle snapped off at the drum brake) and another guy drifted through the whole course, but other than that it was just an hour standing in the sun on tarmac. FUN.
I went home, got my paintbrush, and went back to painting. We finished the rolling and topcoat on the walls that night, and yesterday I left work early to start on the trim. By midnight last night, there were 2 coats of paint on the trim, and although some of it will need a 3rd coat, I think we're going to load the furniture back into place today.
The room looks awesome. The paneling actually looks really good with paint on it: it's not just deep, shit-brown fake wood with grooves, but a nice, even taupe with the grooves acting as accentuation. Our art is really going to meld nicely with the palette.
Of course, we have to hurry getting everything hooked back up if we're going to catch the finale of Last Comic Standing.
I'm beat. No more painting for me for a while. Except for the kitchen ceiling. Crap.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Panty-waist Europeans
What the hell is going on in Europe these days? Everybody is suing Apple for compatibility issues over a freakin' MP3 player. Here's the gist:
Sweden, Denmark, France, and Norway are all suing Apple because songs downloaded from iTunes will only play on the iPod. The files are encoded in a lossless codec that is not readable by any other player or application.
This is like Sony's failed attempt to enter the market with their own proprietary format, except that Apple allows you to burn any song you download to CD. So, you can buy from iTunes, listen to the song on your computer, and burn a CD to listen to anywhere you go, but you can't listen to the song on your Creative Zen player.
But what makes this illegal? I mean, come on: Apple's been producing an operating system for the last 22 years that ONLY WORKS ON APPLE COMPUTERS!
And it's not like the iPod is the only player on the market. Nor, for that matter, is iTunes.
Sweden, Denmark, France, and Norway are all suing Apple because songs downloaded from iTunes will only play on the iPod. The files are encoded in a lossless codec that is not readable by any other player or application.
This is like Sony's failed attempt to enter the market with their own proprietary format, except that Apple allows you to burn any song you download to CD. So, you can buy from iTunes, listen to the song on your computer, and burn a CD to listen to anywhere you go, but you can't listen to the song on your Creative Zen player.
But what makes this illegal? I mean, come on: Apple's been producing an operating system for the last 22 years that ONLY WORKS ON APPLE COMPUTERS!
And it's not like the iPod is the only player on the market. Nor, for that matter, is iTunes.
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