Krellish Musings

12:00am: New Bed
I finally got off my ass and bought a new bed for my new house today. I ended up going with a queen, because I couldn't QUITE fit a king in my bedroom. Well, I COULD, but I'd have to give up my nightstand, and even then it would be tight. So a queen will have to do. Got a King Koil pillow-top, which supposedly should help my shoulder problems with sleeping on my side. Yay, to be able to sleep on my side again! Now I just need to get sheets to be ready when it comes on Friday. I'm very excited to have a new bed, finally. The old hand-me-down double from my parents that I think is considerably older than me is getting, well, old. Yay!

Oh yeah, and beds are expensive. Yay for 12 months same as cash financing. Go Jordan's!

12:09pm: Lewis Black
The Dyn Crew (that would be Jeremy, his Liz, Tom, my Liz, and myself) went out to see Lewis Black at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom last night. It was a great show. Lewis Black is hilariously funny. The opener wasn't bad either. It was great when the severe t-storms got really bad, and it was hailing heavily, and Lewis was just totally freaking out over it. Even though I was getting dripped on by an AC duct, and we had to split up somewhat because we only had General Admission tickets and couldn't get 5 seats together, we had a good time. Lewis Black just needs to go to some non-crappy venues, like the Verizon Wireless Arena, instead of podunk Hampton Beach! :)

11:59am: In Soviet Russia, plan formulates you!

11:00pm: Credit Reporting Agencies
This Dilbert strip says it all about credit reporting agencies. Go Scott Adams! :)

5:34pm: Yard Work
Have I mentioned recently that yard work sucks? Man, how do people find the hours in the day to do it all? Or even more so, how do they stand putting in those hours in blazing humid heat? Yeesh. I'm getting closer and closer to hiring a gardener.

5:07pm: Motorola v710
So I had a Motorola v710 (just released today by Verizon Wireless) for 3.5 hours this afternoon, and let me just say, yuck.

In theory the v710 should have been a great phone. Bluetooth wireless connectivity, flip phone, v-series (yay keeping accessories), cameraphone (bleh, but some people like it, so sure), color screens. Great, super, awesome. Not.

In practice this phone is, well, crap. It should be like the big brother to my Motorola v600 (which, were it not GSM-only, I would use all the time). But it's not. It's way bigger than the v600 (and thus the v60), the key layout is terrible (they switched send and end from the way every other Motorola phone is oriented!), it has an antenna that needs to be raised (who the heck has an antenna that you have to raise anymore), and, well, the user interface is just way too clunky.

It's like they took all the really cool stuff from the v600 (which is an AWESOME GSM phone, I highly recommend if if you're on a GSM network) and fucked it up, added a couple of random other crappy things, put in a CDMA chipset, made the case bigger, made the batteries a different size, and called it the v710.

The official Tim recommendation: Run In Fear. If you absolutely must, give it a try - Verizon Wireless does let you return it within 15 days (or 3.5 hours), and in my experiences they're pretty good about not giving you a hard time over it.

4:56pm: My ass hurts
That is all.

6:44pm: Lawn Care
lizesc very thoughtfully went out and got me an appropriately-sized gas can and oil for my string trimmer so I could finally get it together. She also got lawnmower oil, because I needed some of that. So today I went over and grabbed that from them, filled up the trimmer with high-octane gas (I was filling up my car too and didn't feel like doing two transactions), got the mower running again, and did a solid afternoon of yard work. First I mowed the front yard, then Jeremy and Liz arrived as I was starting the back yard. Liz took over the back, and Jeremy and I put the trimmer together.

Lesson learned (the painful way): they aren't kidding when they say you should wear pants when using the string trimmer. Ouch. My legs are pock-marked and sore. But you can actually see the curb in front of my house now, and it looks really nice. I didn't get EVERYTHING done, but most of the front is done, and that's the most important part. When they finished up on the back mowing, Jeremy and Liz also trimmed down my front hedges. They look much better now, too. Thanks a lot for your help, guys. Now we just need to finish off the trimming in the front, and then attack the back. Liz already started that by pulling out the cess pond, I mean mosquito breeding ground, I mean decorative pool. At some point I think I want to just rip out all the bushes/flowers in the back and make it all grass. It's easier to deal with that way. And then, of course, the back fence is going to need re-done at some point. I think I may have a professional do it, as much "fun" as we had doing Jeremy's :)

Now my Liz is on her way over for dinner and hanging out. So I'm outta here. Later!

9:46pm: Electoral Votes
electoral-vote.com has fascinating analysis of state-by-state polls and where the electoral college votes will be going based on those polls. Very cool graphs and other stuff. I'm not sure how good their estimations and data are, though they do provide citations for their poll data. Neat.

10:01pm: Good Day
Liz and I went off to Maine today for a good old-fashioned day trip. The original plan had been to do Battleship Cove, but that was tanked because of the rainy/thunderstormy forecast. So instead of south we went north. First stop was in Kittery at the Kittery Historical & Naval Museum. You can't beat the price at $3 each, but don't plan to spend more than 30 minutes there, and that's if you read all the exhibits. After that we went north a bit to get some food at a random seafood place in Kittery. Good food was had. Hunger satiated, we travelled up to Portland to visit the Wadsworth-Longfellow House (childhood home of famous poet Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow, that is). Bummed around Portland a bit waiting for the tour, it's a nice town. The tour was just kind of meh - the guide wasn't great, and she paused way too much when no one had questions. Overall it was too rainy to do much outside, really. Finally we drove up north a bit further to visit the DeLorme map store / world's largest rotating globe. At 1:1,000,000 scale, and rotating once every 18 minutes, it's insanely massive. Drove back down here, and hung out the rest of the evening watching the Sox game, which it appears the A's have now tied :(

Now it's wicked thundering, lightning, and raining here. And I'm off to bed. I'd love to find out if the Sox are going to win, but I got woken up by a major server frying itself at 6 this morning, so I'm dead tired.

12:42am: 4th
Jeremy, Liz, and I went out to Chris' parents' place for a picnic this afternoon... that was cool. They have a really nice place out there, tons of land, neat walking paths, ponds, all very nicely done. Hung out with Chris and the others there for a few hours, then decided to head back here because we really didn't want to wait around for the local fireworks to start. Jeremy and Liz went home to crash (those two have the strangest sleeping patterns!), and I came back to just hang out here.

Decided to call my Liz around 8:30, she had been making the rounds on the Irish ship currently docked down at the Navy Yards. They were planning to watch the fireworks in Boston from the docks there, and I decided that since I wasn't doing any fireworks with Jeremy and Liz I might as well go down and hang out with my Liz. So I drove down, met up with her, and we hung out on the Irish ship. The Irish sailors let us come up onto their top deck to get a better view of the show. Honestly, it wasn't all that impressive, at least from our very non-optimal vantage point way out in the harbor. It was a lot of stuff, and some pretty neat stuff (my favorite was probably the smiley face fireworks), but it just wasn't so much to be mind-blowing or anything. Maybe it's better if you're actually nearby. It was a good time, though, I was glad to hang out with Liz and some of her other Ranger friends who were around, and I got to be on a foreign navy's ship for a while. :)

Now, I'm off to bed, because our boss is a real jerk and we don't get the 5th off even though the 4th is on a Sunday. :)

1:04pm: Movies!
Went out with Liz and her family to a couple of movies yesterday for her mom's birthday. First we saw Around The World in 80 Days which was alright. Nothing spectacular, but Liz' mom liked it, so I guess that's what matters. Then we went out to see Spider-Man 2 which was, by all accounts, quite good. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it excellent, or say it was better than the first, like some critics have, but it was certainly worth seeing. There was a bit too much love story / character development / Peter Parker being a total moron for me. I don't mind some of that, but it really seemed to drag at times because there was so much. Overall a pretty good movie, though, and well worth seeing.

11:23pm: Gone In 60 Seconds
I don't think I can ever get tired of Gone In 60 Seconds. It is just such a freaking awesome movie. I think this was the first time I've watched it since getting my big-ass TV and stereo, and damn, that's some fine-ass movie. Mmm... I want to go out and boost some cars now. Or at least drive far too fast. Damnit! :)

5:37pm: Yet Another Lazy Weekend
It's nice to be able to have a lazy weekend. Watching the Sox, catching up on TiVo, and playing Dragon Warrior II. Capped off by hanging out with Liz last night, it's all good. Now I just have to figure out what to do tonight. Preferably something that involves avoiding the massive pile of laundry currently covering my bed. Ack! :)

11:51am: Life
Life is good...

10:43pm: BIND 9.3
BIND 9.3 rocks my world. That is all.

10:18pm: Go Sox!
I didn't catch most of the games of the Sox most recent road trip due to my own road trip down in PA (it's awfully hard to get west coast Sox games in PA, no NESN! :)), but from the scores, it seemed like they were really off balance. Today's game, however, rocked. Some awesome defensive action, and a great 7th inning with a grand slam from Nomar (his first homer this season, and 5th career grand slam). Go Sox!

10:59pm: Vacation
Yes kids, that's right, Tim took a vacation! My Liz and I went out to PA for the wedding of one of her college friends.

( Details after the cut ... )

It was really nice taking a real long weekend off. Got to spend a lot of time with Liz, and didn't check my e-mail once. Everyone managed to get along just fine without me, the business didn't collapse, and it's all good. Yay! Now it's just back to the grind tomorrow, and getting used to Liz being back in Boston for a couple of days.

9:23am: Garfield
Went out to see the Garfield movie with Tom last night. Pretty funny movie. Not the best movie ever or anything, but certainly worth seeing. I'm not so sure I liked the casting of Nermal, and Garfield seemed almost TOO fat. But overall it was pretty good. And Bill Murray did a great job voicing Garfield. It was a good time, and it was good getting out of the house and just hanging out with Tom for a bit.

11:51pm: Fence Work
Jeremy finally got the real panels for his fence the other day... so this weekend is fence weekend. Now, I really hate doing my own yard work (weeding, trimming, that stuff... I don't mind mowing so much) so, get this logic. To avoid doing my own yard work, I volunteer to help Jeremy finish building his fence. Which is, in fact, more physical labor, harder work, and probably dirtier work too. But I get to play with power tools, and don't have to pull on nasty sharp plants, I guess. :)

Put up a good number of panels today, got pretty decent at it. Maybe I should go into construction once we sell Dyn and make boatloads of cash. Maybe I could apply to be on Monster House, too. That'd be pretty sweet. Hopefully we'll finish up tomorrow, though we're going into Boston to do some more server troubleshooting and then out on a double date (both with Lizzes!) to see the latest Harry Potter in IMAX. It's only an IMAX upconvert, rather than having been filmed in 70mm to start with, but hopefully it'll be good anyway.

And with that, I'm off to bed. Awfully early for a Saturday night, but hey.

12:09pm: Big Honkin' UPS
We upgraded our UPS (that's Uninterruptible Power Supply, or big honkin' battery backup system, for the un-initiated :)) at the office yesterday. Put in a new four-post rack next to our existing relay rack and added a nice APC SmartUPS 3000XLRM with 2 extra batteries. Should give us a nice solid 4 hours runtime for everything at the office, instead of just a couple of hours for only the most important stuff that we got from our old SU2200XLNET (which currently has a dead battery, which is what spurred the new acquisition). The new rack also let us rack up pretty much all of the crap that was previously just sitting on a shelving unit, freeing up tons of space and making our little office tech room much cooler than before. Of course, none of the stuff at the office is really all that mission-critical, but it's just much cooler now than it used to be. I feel so much more tech-company-ish now :)

11:02pm: AC Done!
My air conditioning is now officially installed. My house is a bit of a mess, but it will be cool! And as a bonus, they were out of the 13 SEER condensors, so I got a 14 SEER one for the same price. Yay!

10:40pm: What the?
So this article sounds pretty nasty... I mean, it seems a bit alarmist, and the source doesn't look the best, but if it's even remotely true... re-instituting the draft? In nominal peacetime? Fucked up. I mean, I'm still very much draftable. This year I'd be in the third round, next year in the fourth. Weak.

10:50pm: Tim->Status(MemorialDay);
Bareword "MemorialDay" not allowed while "strict subs" in use

Tim->Status('MemorialDay');

* Dragon Warrior II: Played
* Some work (but not too much!): Done
* Air Conditioning: Installation starts tomorrow! (Forecast: 53F and rain)
* Tim.Mood >>>>>> Tim.Mood.Previous == 1
* Grillin' Wit' J & L: Excellent
* Tomorrow: Not here soon enough!

Tim->Status('MemorialDayWeekend');

* Jeremy Fence-Building: Assisted
* More House Un-Packing: Accomplished (but nowhere near done yet)
* Much video-game playing: Of course
* Little Work: As little as possible
* Ideas: Exhausted. Time for bed. :)

11:58pm: Old Nintendo Games
Ahh, old Nintendo games make for such a great distraction. If you just need to take your mind off something, there's nothing like playing Dragon Warror I and II on a 60" TV split-screened with a DVD or random TV shows. Maybe throw the police scanner on the side if your attention isn't sufficiently split already. Also very useful for avoiding any real work, like finishing unpacking or working in the yard! :)