Aug 30, 2003

A few thoughts about the move so far:

1. I plugged the TV into the coax cable in the corner of the room on a whim. We have been visited by the Cable Fairy. Life is good.
2. The cats have been released into the General Population; it's a bit like the yard at Attica right now, but there have been no stabbings, uprisings, or riots yet.
3. We have (really, Jen has) emptied about twenty boxes so far, and there seems to be no difference in the amount of stuff laying around here.
4. BGE hasn't come back to finish the panel yet. Seems there's no difference between small contractors and large ones.
5. We collectively have enough Tupperware to build a raft and float ourselves to the South Pacific.

— link

Aug 29, 2003

Last night, we took the step we have been fearing/looking forward to for so long: Both platoons of cats were moved into their new digs. My cats had been wandering around my suddenly empty and echo-ey house for the past three days by themselves; I packed them into pet carriers and loaded them into the truck (the tortoise is still at the shop). Firing up the now muffler-less Scout, both of their pupils got HUGE and their gentle meowing became yowls which roughly translated into

"what-the-F***-are-you-doing-this-thing-is-louder-than-GOD-where-the-hell-are-you-taking-us!?!"

I didn't think anything was louder than the truck until I heard Teller's screams of fear going through the Harbor tunnel. Jen called while I was on the road; instead of answering, I held the phone up to the carrier and let him howl into the handset like an escaped mental patient.

Jen's cats had a shorter ride, but are handling the new situation in roughly the same way. Both groups are prowling around their respective prison camps wondering when they can catch the bus back home; both Penn and Pique are pretty chill about the whole thing, while Geneva, Sage, and Teller are planning to break the pet carrier, fashion shivs, and stage a prison riot. Luckily they all have light, fans, and windows to sit in and get used to their new surroundings.

I sat out on the back porch and talked with my mom last night, and the air was cool and quiet. It's so much more peaceful there than in the city. I wasn't worried about the tools in the Scout getting stolen, or the plants on the side of the driveway walking off, or any of the other hundreds of small nagging city fears I'm used to. I finally feel peaceful there, even though the list of stuff to accomplish is about thirty feet long, the laundry and boxes are piling up, and the lawn is getting shaggier.

Now, on that last note, one of my daily reads, What do I know, had a post a few months back about manual mowers and how much the writer enjoyed his old-school mowing. From that site I found a link in the comments to another site, cleanairmowing.com, which features lots of environmentally-friendly products for working in the outdoors. (We have a greenhouse and the sellers left us two rainbarrels, and this coming spring I intend to install them back under the downspouts to collect water for gardening.)

Why the hubbub? Well, we don't have a mower, and I've got to make arrangements for one sometime real soon. I'm considering this manual mower because I could use the exercise, it's inexpensive, it's environmentally friendly (I was considering an electric mower as well) and I could use the exercise. To be decided...

For all my tri-state peeps out there: Todd sent me this link this morning. Wave your ADIDAS in the air if you know Carvel. | link

Aug 28, 2003

NPR has an audio commentary by Jean Shepherd, the author and narrator of A Christmas Story, on his experience at the March on Washington forty years ago.

Yesterday Jen spent the entire day at the house unpacking boxes, washing dishes (yes, we have no dishwasher, one of the things besides CAC that I'll miss about 620) and making the kitchen liveable. Luckily, the kitchen has a relatively fresh coat of white paint, so it's sunny and bright in there. The fridge is a smaller apartment-type version, but it holds a remarkable amount of stuff, and it's pretty new. Plus, it has an icemaker—something we didn't have in either of our previous houses. It looks great in there so far.

Meanwhile, BG&E was at the house all day ripping out two fuse panels (one for the house and one for the doctor's office) and consolidating them into one brand-new 220 panel, which makes me feel about a million times better. We had a wonderful fellow named Ben knee-deep in old wiring and 60's-era Stab-Lok fuses (a competitor to the modern fuse system, long since defunct, and notoriously tempermental) until 8:30 last night. They're coming back tonight to finish consolidating the meters and mark the panel (and they'll need some serious help with that, let me tell you.)

As for the phone, the good doctor had four lines coming in to the house; we know that one was the house line, one was the fax, and the other two were business. There's a mixture of four-prong Bell Systems era boxes, some new RJ-11 jacks, and other mystery equipment scattered around the house, as well as a couple of narrow steel telecom boxes for splitting off the lines in front and back. We had no dialtone in the house until I found the two most modern interface boxes and tried the fax line—naturally, the phone company activated the line used least in the house. So there's phone service... in the basement. Verizon wants $90 for installation of the first jack and $50 for each additional; I'm going to visit the Home Depot and spend that $50 on some new jacks, 100' of wire, and an analog phone, and try to get a dialtone in the kitchen tonight. DSL is due to be installed next week, so I have to make some arrangements to get a wire and plug to the dining room, where we're temporarily setting up the office.

As for me, I'm feeling better about this thing than I was yesterday; there are still moments of outright panic (last night, on my way to the bathroom, the first conscious thought I had was, What the hell have I done?) but I find that when I think of each individual problem separately and not as a whole thundering herd of pain bearing down on us, it feels better. The house hasn't fallen down yet, it's in relatively good shape, and it was made well. It will wait for us to get to each issue, one at a time.

And I have to think of all the good things that have happened so far, all the omens pointing to a happy future, and all the bits of luck we've had so far—they are many, and appreciated. Great friends, lucky breaks, good neighbors, fantastic help, and small miracles. | link

Aug 27, 2003

tim, shelly, jen, jen, todd, matt, todd, heather, sara, 8.25.03

To our moving peeps: Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you.

I've spent a total of two nights at the new house. It's cool and quiet and peaceful (or maybe that's exhaustion talking) and doesn't make lots of squeaking noise like 620 did. Our stuff is piled in the doctor's offices waiting to be sorted through, moved around and unpacked; Jen's at home right now washing our dishes and sorting through the kitchen gear. Our list of stuff to do is growing by the minute, but for the next week or so, I'm going to quietly enjoy the relief of having the worst part of the move over with.

It didn't take a 20' truck to move all our stuff—it took two of them. it's back at the rental place, and it was fun to drive, but I'm glad that's over with. Jen's couch and furniture made it to the dump via her neighbor Henry, which was fantastic good luck. We have plants in two locations waiting to come home, and the balance of Jen's plants still to move.

This morning Jen woke me with a gentle hand on my arm and we laid in bed talking until I started forming coherent sentences. We drove to the coffee shop down the street, where the guy behind the counter welcomed us back. Returning to the house, we sat out on the back porch and ate breakfast, watching the squirrels chase the birds, feeling the breeze across our faces, and enjoying the morning.

I'm scared out of my mind, but I'm finding peace in small places. | link

Aug 24, 2003

I'm sitting in the basement of my old house (the one I don't own anymore) and writing this on my sleeping bag. The upstairs bedrooms are empty. The living room is dark and quiet. The kitchen is a mess of empty boxes, garbage bags, phone cords, and paperwork—the stack of operating instructions for all the appliances in here—and stuff waiting to go in boxes. The basement is empty except for my tools, bikes, and the IKEA TV stand we forgot to throw on the truck today.

The move itself was a great success. We got the truck out front by 8:30 and within 15 minutes about ten friends showed up to help; With their combined effort we had the truck packed by 11:30 and parked at Jen's by 1. To everybody who showed up to help, THANK YOU. You're the best.

Not having anything else to do this afternoon, Jen and I wandered around Columbia and got some dinner. We're both in limbo, waiting for the signing on the new house tomorrow, and it's nerve-wracking and frustrating all at the same time. I'm personally cycling through the emotions of terror, sadness, fear, elation, and worry in fifteen-minute increments. Currently, I'm excited to finally get into this new house. Check back with me tomorrow, however; I may be back to terror.

A couple of good things to look forward to, though; The pile of brush and wood blocking the left side of the driveway is gone (thank you). There's a coffee shop right down the road in town, next to an Italian restaurant, and across from the old 812 Club (now called something like the Ship's Inn or some such nautical theme) with a decent crabcake and outside seating. There's a beautiful huge baseball diamond behind the school across the street, perfect for a frisbee dog. There's the Catonsville Library across and down the street, which should have good historical information on our house and neighborhoood. And there's the magnolia tree growing slowly in the front yard of the house—a good omen. | link

Aug 23, 2003

I'm surrounded by boxes. It's pretty crazy in here right now. I've been packing for two weeks, and I'm still not done.

Proof that there is still hope for sanity in the real world: Al Franken won the steel cage match with Bill O'Reilly. I love the judge's quote at the end of the article:

"It is ironic that a media company, which should be protecting the First Amendment, is seeking to undermine it," Chin said.

Proof that what goes around, comes around. Don't let that door to Hell hit you in the ass, Father. | link

Aug 22, 2003

Last night I was lucky to meet one of the sellers of our new house, and she was really sweet. Jen and I have a ton of questions to ask her about the history of the house, and she was delighted to hear that—it seemed to make her very happy. We were also able to meet the next-door neighbor, who is an attorney and retired judge of Catonsville (gulp) but who seems extremely amiable and friendly. (He took me aside, pointed about halfway up the driveway of the new house, and said, completely deadpan, "this is where my property line ends..." before smiling and slapping me on the back. It took me a few minutes to breathe again, but after he said, "just kidding!" I was able to relax. I have some kind of genetic fear of lawyers.)

Luckily, after mixing and laying about 240 lbs. of concrete on the sidewalks of the house I don't own, the insurance company agreed to cover the place. Whew. Also, the sellers are kind enough to leave us with a beautiful oak desk, a church pew, a handmade rug, and the exam table from the doctor's office—after I explained that we have a friend who knows a tattoo artist who's interested in it.

Meanwhile, we close on my house tonight, and I officially become a tenant for the next three days.

It's looking like this may be one of the last times I see broadband connectivity for the next three or four days, so if you need to get in touch with me, use my cellphone number. If you don't have that, you'll have to wait until Wednesday or so. Wish us luck! | link

Aug 21, 2003

This morning, among the seventeen things I needed to get done before I left the house, I noticed that the muffler on the Scout was hanging mighty low. I dropped down to inspect it, and found to my amusement that the other muffler has rusted through, so both straightpipes have failed in the exact same spot, a week apart from each other. So now the Scout is officially the Loudest Thing In Six Counties. I can't move into the new house fast enough, people.

Meanwhile, I got a call from my mechanic the other day to let me know that they're getting to the Tortoise hopefully today; that should be a funny phone call. I'm half expecting that he's going to tell me to simply take it out behind the barn and shoot it. | link

Aug 20, 2003

This evening I dropped Todd back at his house, and he and Heather fixed me a plate for dinner; their neighbors Mike and Meg stopped over with their daughter Catie as well. We sat out on the porch and chatted, and while Catie was busy playing I chanced to snap a few pictures of her. Thanks for dinner, guys!

catie, 8.20.03

Renie sucessfully kicked me into upgrading the truck. Thanks in advance for the sleep I'll enjoy tonight, sis.

Today I'm making a bunch of calls to the various utilities I have to disconnect service and begin new service at the new house; this should be a wonderful symphony of phone menu systems and hold music.

I'm going to finally cut the cord and donate two computers to AmVets—the first two computers I ever bought, as a matter of fact. The first is Norman, a Mac IIcx I bought in the summer of 1995 for the astounding price of $400. Norman was a great old brick for a number of years, and helped me get online and into the computer age; I upgraded him several times until I just couldn't use him anymore. The second is G-Force, a 7100/80 I bought new (the only machine I ever bought new) from MacWarehouse in 1998 on clearance. G-Force got me through the beginnings of web design, Director classes, and the first freelance gigs I got, as well as being the test machine for MKLinux, when I saw the writing on the wall and began to upgrade my skills. Goodbye friends, and good luck out there.

How about we schedule a meeting, and forget to tell people about it? Great. Sounds like a great idea. Yeeeeaaaahhh. | link

Aug 19, 2003

Well, there has been a total of one comment about the glasses so far. Which means one of several things:

1. They look totally ridiculous and everybody has decided to ignore the subject to spare my fragile ego.
2. Nobody gives a crap about how goofy I look, so it doesn't matter anyway.
3. Aliens are scrambling the brainwaves of everybody I come in contact with, like in that Rowdy Roddy Piper movie They Live, so that they can't see how stupid I actually look.
4. All of you are only inches away from punching me in my self-absorbed face.

Thankfully, no one has slapped the books out of my hands, stuffed me in a locker, given me a wedgie, or called me a nerd, so my irrational flashbacks to junior high school are only that—flashbacks.

I am kind of freaking out about the truck I've rented for this move, thinking that there's no way the piles and piles of shit stacked in my living room are going to fit in a 15-foot box. I have to make the command decision tomorrow on whether or not to upgrade. Meanwhile, I can't sleep and everything on TV is a rerun. Thank God for preseason football, or I'd be drinking myself into a stupor every night.

I like reading other people's blogs because they offer opinions and commentary on things I've thought about, but often how they're written is better than I could have done. This one has a helpful—and important—reminder for men, from a woman's perspective.

Adrienne, will you marry me?

This evening I stopped over to the new house to take a peek at the massive, crumbling mansion that's been growing steadily more decrepit in my imagination. Remarkably, it looks a heck of a lot better than I was thinking it did. I think getting out and walking the grounds was good for my mental health. Jen and I also wandered through the neighborhood until it got dark; we had the good luck to meet our neighbor, who is a nice older fellow, and scope out some of the other houses around our block. The night was cool, the crickets were out, the moon was high, and it was the perfect evening for ice cream. We walked down to the local stand and treated ourselves to two chocolate cones.

I'm going to enjoy this new neighborhood. | link

Aug 18, 2003

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance. I paid something like $375 for a pair of glasses about a year and a half ago; they were round frames, somewhat smaller than their predecessors, with thin lenses and UV/antiglare coatings. Expensive, yes, and pretty durable—I'm somewhat of a Sumo wrestler when it comes to glasses—but not without their flaws. About six months ago, scratches started to appear in the antiglare coating, spreading across each lens until they looked like I was peering through handfuls of cat hair. This weekend, coupon in hand, Jen and I ventured to the Lenscrafters to find a new pair.

What I've walked out with will shock all those who know me; I have gone totally Euro-trash. Jen calls it the "hipster-doofus" look; you might choose to call it the "fey hairdresser" look. (I hope not.) Thus ends my streak of wearing metal framed eyeglasses (ever since the fifth grade, when genetics cruelly kicked me in the ass) and the end of a twelve-year stint with the round pseudo-Lennon look. At some point in the next week I'll take a picture of myself to show you. Maybe.

Funniest. Review. Ever.

In a remarkable display of stuffing an entire corporation's head into the sand, Palm has now renamed itself PalmOne and split the OS and hardware divisions into two companies. Memo to the CEO: Make me a small cellphone that syncs via Bluetooth to my laptop and doesn't weigh 4 pounds or cost $600, and maybe I'll buy another one of your products. Until then, enjoy watching your valuation tank. | link

Aug 17, 2003

In the three and a half years I've known Jen, I thought I knew a lot about her. This evening I found out that when she was eight, her mother bought her a copy of KISS' Double Platinum—this is the same mother who sent her to Catholic school from fifth grade through High School. Go figure...

Basically every piece of furniture I own is broken down into its component parts and stacked in the living room; the boxes are marked and labeled, and the fragile stuff is (hopefully) organized so that it won't get busted. Suddenly, the idea of moving has become a reality instead of an abstraction. | link

Aug 15, 2003

bar, frederick road, 8.13.03

| link

Aug 14, 2003

Neglect. I've had my Scout for about five years, and in that time it's gone from a strong-running, reasonably clean rig to a strong-running, rusty and dirty rig. In the time I've had it in the city, I've done curbside work on it twice, eventually giving up due to severe anxiety. The normal leisurely wrench-turning process became a mad dash to and from the house to grab [tool I didn't bring outside] while being paranoid that some jerk would come walking down the street, casually pick up my socket set, and walk off with them all. Plus, I'm sure my neighbors weren't so pleased with me working on my truck outside their houses; I've had enough "Abandoned" stickers left by the city to let me know just how some of them feel. So I'm looking forward to getting in the new house and being able to tear the engine down, pull off the fenders, hell, re-tub the whole body before it falls off around me. In the privacy of my own driveway.

I'm typing this in the basement of my house, on the futon, where it's dry and cool. The top floor of my house is an uncomfortable 85 degrees or so. This is the first week of really hot weather that we've had in the city this year, and it's nice to be able to come downstairs and enjoy the temperature. I've also been reading about the outages up north, and I'm thinking that being in New York City right now would be a hateful experience.

I wish that NPR encoded their feeds in a format other than RealPlayer. I love being able to listen to Morning Edition at 2-3PM in the afternoon while I work, but I refuse to install that shit software on this Mac. | link

Aug 13, 2003

Last night our friend Dave dropped by with a full-size Ford pickup, and within about twenty minutes we filled it with boxes, crates, and other square gear for transport to storage. After a nail-biting trip across town (stupid dumb Harbor Tunnel) we unloaded and took him to dinner at Kelsey's Irish Pub. This morning, besides the empty space where the mountian of boxes used to be, this place doesn't look anything different.

Beginning to wonder about the origins of my house, I found this site this morning: Sears Modern Homes. I don't think the new house is a Sears model, but I do see a few familiar designs in there. Also: the site that took me to this one, chock full of great links: Retrolounge.

Slashdot ran an article about identity theft last evening, and there was a tidbit of interesting information amidst the fames and paranoia: This link on fake SSNs.

In other news, the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration got blasted by that new virus thing yesterday, which forced them to shut their computers down for the day. Remarkably, service times actually increased. | link

Aug 12, 2003

Damn. This will make you think twice about any professional photography you see these days.

Self-Serve. My new grocer is an older store in a neighborhood that's seen explosive growth in the last twenty years. As a result they've taken some major steps to attempt to keep up—some of which are questionable. They narrowed the aisles some time back, so that pushing a cart anytime between the hours of 7AM to 8PM is like being in the backfield of a NASCAR race. If someone takes a minute to review a product in an aisle, the store closes down like a clogged artery. Despite this, and the walking proximity of the Wal-Mart, they stubbornly keep the junk aisle open (that huge area directly in front of the entrance where they stack useful items like beach chairs, Halloween candy, and cooler chests) instead of razing it and opening up the layout.

My new complaint—and this applies to other stores as well—is the idea that self-serve aisles will save money. Notice I didn't say "speed up customer service", but save money. Store Management, in its infinite wisdom, decided that putting customers in front of a series of touchscreens, card-swipers, reciept printers, and speakers instead of a catatonic checkout employee would be cost-beneficial. Nevermind that most people still can't program the clock on their VCR, let alone navigate the crap UI on the kiosk. I have no figures to back up my claims, but I would estimate that it takes at least twice as much time to check out as it did before—this in a store I want to spend as little time in as possible. Where do we stand while we're waiting for Grandpa to figure out where the barcode is on the box of Mini-Wheats? Oh, right. In the middle of the tiny aisle. Where other folks have no way to get around us.

Here's a memo to you, folks: At some point, continuing to push the work in the lap of the consumer (think: ATMs vs. tellers, phone menu systems vs. operators) is going to piss us off to the point where we don't use your company any more.

Our friend Rob sent me a link to this website yesterday: www.mediainspiration.com. I haven't had time to really dive into it, but it looks pretty good so far. Thanks, Rob. | link

Aug 11, 2003

Ow. We got a dozen crabs last night, covered the coffee table in paper and tore into them; with a sixpack of Coronas and some fresh corn, life was very, very good. I'm paying for it this morning, though—between a slight hangover and a steady diet of C02 fumes from the Scout's broken exhaust, I feel like a doormat.

I did get the front door cleaned up and primed for painting yesterday; There's some caulking and carpentry to be done but it should go smoothly. I'm also going to be a nice guy and build a simple storm window for the front... maybe.

Nate is out of the hospital and convalescing fine; donations can be sent to your favorite charity.

God damn it. I just want to be moved already. | link

Aug 9, 2003

This is a very nice compendium of bottlecap artwork by a collector; there are a ton of images here with some beautiful designs. I have a 4'x6' steel/enamel sign for "Cheer Up" soda, and whose bottlecap is represented here. | link

Aug 8, 2003

We are off tomorrow for the day to Jen's parents' place to do the Family Birthday; please send her your good wishes. She and I are going to order a bushel of crabs Sunday, throw some paper on the coffee table (or, maybe, in the backyard), crack some beers, and enjoy summer in the city. Hopefully I can catch the ice cream man out front too.

SUCCESS. The Scout woke with a throaty roar—on the first start. Problem solved. The old battery was new to the truck when I bought it (it was stamped 10/97) so $60 later I have a new Exide 6-year battery in there and the starting problem is gone. So now I just have to get the exhaust fixed before the Man pulls me over for a noise complaint.

Break it down. More thoughts on Strays, the new JA album. Why is it that Dave Navarro, an otherwise outstanding guitarist, has to include some kind of break in the middle of an otherwise excellent song? Back in the day, JA used to be able to pull this off expertly (see: Three Days) but in 2003, it's getting irritating. The tune Riches, which is a rip-roaring good time in the beginning, gets watered down in the last minute and a half or so with a buzzkill down-tempo coda. Another one of my favorite Navarro-written tunes, Transcending, off the RHCP disc One Hot Minute, began with a captivating Flea bass riff, building into a woven tapestry of guitar, drums, and vocal. At its peak, the song fell apart into a down-tempo sludgefest with an annoying chorus. Why? I ask you. Why?

Memo to this simple son of a bitch: Don't come back, punk. I'll buy a gun and shoot you for being a dumbass.
(thx to Todd for pointing this page out.) | link

Aug 7, 2003

chewbacca zip-tied to the steering wheel, 7.4.03

This evening I decided to get in the Scout and see if she'd crank over just for the hell of it. With the first turn of the key, she gave me a few low cranks and then got slower. Initially, I thought the problem had to do with the dreaded "Gold Box" syndrome (a feature of later IH gas engines, involving an electronic ignition module and frustration) where the starter didn't get any juice, period. Now I think my accidental draining of the battery back on Friday night put the final nail in its coffin, and it's been undercharged since then, contributing to my starting problems. I'm going to see if I can pick up a new battery tomorrow and make her happy again.

My buddy Matt in San Francisco sent me an email this morning with a link attached:

Isn't it amazing that I actually can be a part of this craziness!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93985,00.html

I asked him to vote for Gary Coleman.

Tomorrow our friend Nate goes in tho the shop for a suspension job; he has about thirty blowed-up discs and vertebrae, and they have to put him up on the lift and sort the mess out. Good luck, and get well soon, amigo. | link

Aug 6, 2003

Welcome to the new new economy. I think it may be time for some of our elected legislators to roll up their sleeves and get some of the kinks of the intellectual property and copyright laws sorted out before our economy goes down the toilet.

The new Jane's Addiction album is a mixed bag. There are some songs that really rock, and there are some that merely move. I don't know what exactly I was hoping for, considering the fact that the band was so strung out recording Ritual they don't remember it, but this album is pretty good. I suppose it will be one of those albums I have to listen to a few times to get into (see: Songs for the Deaf, Turn On The Bright Lights, Vespertine) but overall it's not too bad.

Slashdot had an entry on the art of Machinima, where you take the in-game engine of your favorite first-person shooter and "film" a script or some other story. Apparently there's now a contest for the best of this year's clips; that link took me to the Red vs. Blue site, where a couple of guys have taken the familiar Capture the Flag scenario and asked the question: If the bots in the game were real people, what would they talk about? This is a distinctly Kevin Smith/Quentin Tarantino approach to the subject, and howlingly funny for anybody who's been in the military, played a lot of FPS style games, or just likes offbeat game humor. Worth a look, guys.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any funnier. The Scout's ignition module burned out at work today, so the juice won't get from the battery to the starter motor. It doesn't click, grind, or catch. Not a thing. I caught a ride with Nate into town to pick up Jen (remember, the Scout is the one running vehicle we have) and then to Jen's house to where the Tortoise is parked. We say good-bye to Nate (he doesn't need to get involved in this insanity, and it would be our luck for his car to break down too) and hop in the Tortoise to try to make it down to the mechanic's. About a quarter of the way there, she gives up the ghost—there's a hole in the return line from the radiator about the size of a dime that I didn't see when I looked over the engine. We get a tow from a nice young guy and drop it off with my mechanic, who so far has saved us roughly $500 by proving that the Saturn's alternator wasn't dead, just the battery. So that car isn't heading back to the dealership anytime soon. | link

Aug 5, 2003

Grumble grumble. We spent three hundred-something-odd dollars on Jen's Saturn this weekend, fixing a problem with the ignition lock, (ridiculous, really, on a car with 60,000 miles) replacing the two rear tires (we needed to do that last year) and figuring out why the sunroof was leaking (a pox on the Saturn engineers, who did not design the drain tubes to clear themselves. This led to inches of water inside the car and an unpleasant smell.) She called me this afternoon from work to tell me the car wouldn't turn over. I drove down, got lost, picked her up, got the jumper cables from the Scout, drove back to the Saturn and got it running. This makes twice in a week's time the Taurus has served as chase-vehicle (I left the lights on in the Scout at the movies the other night- duh) which is sort of humorous, considering that the other two vehicles actually have working turn signals, decent tires, don't stall at idle, or steer like barges on the Mississippi. When you have to depend on the Taurus to get you out of a jam, it's time to make friends with Larry the salesguy down at CarMax.

Meanwhile, the exhaust pipe from the headers to the muffler on the driver's side of the Scout split the other day, right in front of the muffler, so now with one of two mufflers inoperative, you can hear the Scout coming in other zip codes. I have to drive into the local Mineke down the street and see if there's any way they can re-attach the pipe without having to custom fabricate a whole new exhaust. Fun!

Update 3:45 PM. Saturn claims it's going to cost somewhere around the GDP of Romania to fix the alternator and replace the battery in Jen's car. I think not. One call to our friendly auto guy and we have an appointment with a wrench planned for tomorrow night. Grrr. Stupid dumb cars.

Remember, when you're having a bad day, sushi and Sapporo make everything much better. Or pizza and Corona.

OK, having seen it twice in three minutes (yeah, that's local TV, thanks so much) I have to be the one to ask this question: How could two of the most image-conscious, brand-aware companies I know of allow such a sucktastic song to go along with their marketing campaign? (And don't write me to tell me you like it. It sucks. Period.)

Update update 10:18 PM. Not another word about cars. Not again. | link

Aug 4, 2003

nash rambler, 6.28.03

Ahead of myself. I boxed up a ton of stuff last night; my entire living room, front bedroom, office and dining room are packed, stacked, and ready to go. There are no pictures on my walls, there's nothing on the shelves, or blankets on the front bed. It's beginning to hit me finally.

Here's the list for the rest of the week:

1. Break down both tables and prepare for transport.
2. Move all boxes and containers from basement to dining room.
3. Move all boxes and containers from front bedroom.
4. Break down front bed, dispose of (anybody need a 20-year-old Queen mattress for cheap? Free Hollywood frame!)
5. Break down futon in basement and move upstairs
6. Buy some more Rubbermaid bins for bedding, clothes, computer gear.

The objective here is to not pack anything I need in the next two months, and to get stuff moved in where we can get to it if we need to. Luckily, there's a whole empty area in the front of the house where we can store everything while we clean, paint, sand, and restore.

Thanks go to Todd and Heather for lending us their wedding archives; they did a ton of legwork for their wedding and gave us the information they collected in a binder. We started really considering what we're going to attack first, and made a preliminary guest list. One realization: When we start adding extended families, we wind up with a LOT of people. | link

Aug 3, 2003

Mike Lee writes a pretty good roundup of the reasons he's going to sign up for TypePad's new service. I too have been longing for some updates and enhancements to my log, which currently is powered by nothing other than BBedit and Samba. I'd like to add some basic functionality to the site, like a search feature, an automatic calendar, RSS feed, etc; in the long-term, I'd love to be able to simply edit from a browser and not be dependent on my Powerbook here to update. Plus, the new templates feature will essentially kick me into learning standards compliance and moving away from nested tables.

Additionally, Jen and I are slowly getting our wedding plans together, and instead of having all our stuff in two places, I'd love to be able to have multiple weblogs- one for the wedding stuff, and one for the house stuff. It would also be great to have guests (e.g. Jen, my sister) drop by and add stuff to my log, or just simply add comments. Jeez, the photo album feature alone would sell me on the service.

I guess the most daunting task is going to be how to get three years of archives into the new format. | link

Aug 1, 2003

Humor. Seen on the way in to work this morning: A Baltimore cop, waving to a woman on the street from their cruiser. As I got closer, I realized he and his partner were wearing Groucho nose and glasses. Unfortunately I was driving, and I didn't have time to bring my camera to bear.

Hopefully tonight, Jen and I are gonna go see Pirates of the Carribbean. I'm looking forward to it. Yarrrr!

I may have already linked to this, and I'm too lazy to go searching for it, but I think this will be a Christmas present for Bill this year. The Slim Devices Slimp3 is a networkable MP3 decoder for your stereo—you connect your computer to the SLIMP via Ethernet, and your SLIMP to your stereo through RCA jacks. The SLIMP takes care of the rest. A fine solution to getting all the CD's I've burned back to the stereo, which has more power and sound than my computer's speakers.

Then again, there's the 30GB iPod with an FM tranceiver to broadcast all those songs-and playlists-to any FM stereo within 30 feet or so. Yeah, I think maybe that's a better solution. But that SLIMP device is slick. | link

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