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December 29, 2007
Bigger Car == Spend More Money
We've been looking, mostly online, for a pub table for the dining nook in the new house. We made a trip to Costco today, in the new car of course, and found a 36x36x42" rosewood table that both of us liked, with four pre-assembled stools, for a reasonable price.
And (drum-roll please) it all fit in the car.
Woo-hoo.
Posted by dberger at 10:27 PM | Comments (1)
December 28, 2007
Another Coffee Gadget
One of the things that arrived on Christmas morning was an "Aeropress" - a coffee maker that looks like a cross between laboratory equipment and a marital aid.
We tried it out using some of the coffee that also arrived - and it does make a surprisingly smooth cup of Americano. It was so smooth, in fact, that Dawnise drank it straight - no cream or sugar - a first in the time I've known her.
I haven't tried it as straight espresso yet, but I doubt it'll completely replace my other coffee makers, as I find it's brew to be a bit too smooth - and somewhat lacking in... something. Complexity? Or maybe I just like bitter coffee.
Oh, and I may be doing something wrong, but the resulting espresso is lacking in Crema.
But still, it's easy to use, quick to clean up, and produces a very drinkable cup.
Posted by dberger at 1:19 PM | Comments (0)
Mozy - Close, But No Cigar
After a shallow eval, and recommendation from a friend, I signed Dawnise up for MozyHome. Turns out that he's using the Mac client, which is happily backing up files on his network attached storage, but that the windows home client won't backup mounted drives or UNC paths.
So that sorta conflicts with my plan to move important data off Dawnise's (single-drive) machine onto the (in theory more reliable) NAS.
It's my fault for not noticing it - I didn't confirm that bit of functionality during the eval, and I didn't read their support page (the last question/answer is"does MozyHome support mapped or remote drives"). I assumed that if the "beta quality" mac client could do it, the windows client could, too.
My bad.
I'm trying to decide if I cancel the service, or if I leave data local to her machine.
Posted by dberger at 8:43 AM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2007
It Never Snows In Seattle
Only it snowed on Christmas, and is snowing again today, and snowed a couple weeks before Christmas.
Posted by dberger at 8:22 AM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2007
Used to "Luxury"
We've put a couple hundred miles on the new car (Dawnise has named it "Oz" for reasons best described as "freely associative"
I like it - it rides nicely, though obviously not as "tight" a ride as the 330, and the interior fit and finish is nice enough. There are a handful of features I'm missing already - all of them are likely available on higher trim packages for more than we wanted to spend and coupled with a bunch of things we either didn't want, or didn't care about.
Continue reading "Used to "Luxury""
Posted by dberger at 8:42 PM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2007
Small Victories
With a bit of help from Dawnise last night and this morning, I got the garage rearranged and the new car parked inside.
Only two of the three doors have openers on them, so getting the motorcycles in and out will be a bit of a manual process 'till I buy and install a new opener, but given the weather recently, I may just take the car to work for a while and give the bikes a rest.
Posted by dberger at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2007
Timing is everything
The other day I mentioned having a cold that refuses to land or leave.
Well, I think it's landing.
On our anniversary, of course.
Crap.
Posted by dberger at 1:15 PM | Comments (0)
Happy Anniversary
For the last eleven years, I've had the incredible fortune to be married to my best friend.
At work the other day a colleague and I were chatting, when some antic or another of Dawnise's came up. Having met Dawnise a couple times, he concluded "You're wife's really a character. Wouldn't it suck to be married to someone boring?"
I responded - "I imagine it does, I feel sorry for Dawnise..."
Thank you for eleven years of mostly good days, and for nearly never being boring.
Happy Anniversary, Beautiful.
Posted by dberger at 7:22 AM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2007
Another Blue Car?
Just got back from the Subaru dealer - we're a two car household again, only this time, instead of having two of the same car in different colors, we have two different cars in the same color.
Continue reading "Another Blue Car?"
Posted by dberger at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2007
Getting "Soft"
It was raining on my way in this morning, and Dawnise has plans to head back to the island this afternoon/evening for a quilt guild meeting, so I couldn't effectively bum a ride with her.
I've had a lingering cold for a few weeks that refuses to either "land" or "leave" - and I could totally be done riding in the cold and wet for a while.
I've been occasionally trying different routes from work that don't involve the carpool entrance to the 405 (not an option if I'm solo in a car). So far I haven't found a winner, but there are plenty of possibilities, so it's just a matter of trying enough of them...
Posted by dberger at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2007
Par-tay!
Well, the seventh, or maybe eighth, or possibly even ninth (I can't remember) annual holiday party and cookie exchange went off pretty well, at least from the hosts perspectives, hopefully people had fun and weren't just bored to tears.
Continue reading "Par-tay!"
Posted by dberger at 8:21 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2007
Kitchens Are Espensive, Mang
Read it with an accent. Really, it sorta worked.
Continue reading "Kitchens Are Espensive, Mang"
Posted by dberger at 2:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 9, 2007
Three Sales-Critters In One Day
Saturday was pretty busy - we spent the morning looking at appliances and cars, which meant I got to deal with more sales-critters in one day than I normally like to interact with in weeks.
Continue reading "Three Sales-Critters In One Day"
Posted by dberger at 10:09 PM | Comments (1)
December 4, 2007
Bandwidth
Living on the island we had awesome bandwidth once we got Comcast to string a line to us. Many of the homes in the area were too far from the street to get cable, so we a pretty private uplink.
Not so in the 'burbs. I've done speed tests two nights in a row, and I'm lucky to get 1.5Mbps down.
Grumble, grumble.
Posted by dberger at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)
December 3, 2007
Learning to mouse all over again...
We had an ergonomic consultant come into the office last week - she looked at my workstation, talked to me about my work habits, and watched me work for a few minutes, and made a few suggestions.
One of those suggestions was to ditch the Logitech Trackman Marble I've used at home for years and replace it with something I can use left handed, to give the small muscles in my right hand a break - or failing that with another VerticalMouse like the one I use at work.
Since the VerticalMouse is a bit on the expensive side ($70), I decided to try learning to mouse left handed.
It reminds me of the time I tried switching to a Dvorak keyboard layout and felt like a total idiot for a day 'till I decided to switch back.
I'll probably stick with this a bit longer, since I'd sorta like to be able to retain use of my right wrist...
Posted by dberger at 10:17 PM | Comments (1)
Progress
Over the weekend, Vince gave me a hand hanging our flatscreen over the fireplace in the living room. It went up ok, though despite being anal with the stud finder and starting with a small pilot hole, I managed to only knick a stud when drilling one of the four holes, so there was a small fire-drill when we hung the TV the first time and one corner started to pull away from the wall.
Continue reading "Progress"
Posted by dberger at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
Payoff
It's raining this morning. Like really raining. Like the National Weather Service has issued a Flood Warning, a Flood Watch, a Special Weather Statement (regarding Landslide potential), and a Wind Advisory for Western Washington.
And I didn't get more than two drops on me on the way to work.
'cause I worked from home 'till for the first part of the morning and Dawnise gave me a lift to work.
Color me happy. (And dry.)
Posted by dberger at 9:47 AM | Comments (0)
December 1, 2007
Buying Another Car
Despite the assertions of everyone we talked to before moving to Seattle that it "never snows" - it's snowed each year for the past three.
Tonight we had TSO tickets at Key Arena with Vince & Donna. They stayed at our place last night, and we carpooled to the show together in their rental car, then had a very nice dinner at Ray's before heading back to the east-side. Their plan was to drop us off and head for the ferry.
Continue reading "Buying Another Car"
Posted by dberger at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)