Nine O'Clock and All's Well

What a week it's been.

Actually, what a week and a few days it's been.

Last Sunday at this time I was driving back from Lincoln, having gone down for my friend Rachel's wedding, and listening to some tunes and podcasts while tooling across the midwest on Highway 169. It was a great drive, and the perfect way to top off a good weekend. I got to town late Friday, spent Saturday working on my car in my dad's garage, going to Amigo's with friends and family, and then seeing lots of people at the wedding and reception. My brother Phil had the highlight of the evening, with a flawless recitation of White and Nerdy on the dance floor. Actually, Phil even let me be a guest on his weekly video game podcast, Inside the Console, and we discussed our Christmas Wish Lists and lots of other video game goodness. Good friends, good times...great weekend.

Last week I was at work for almost 80 hours, which kind of explains the lack of any new blog posts recently, but things are settling down this week and coming back to more of an equilibrium, which is always nice. In fact, this afternoon my wife and I went to church for an afternoon of board games, which was pretty fun. We started off by playing The Allowance Game with a little girl, her mom, and a few other ladies. Each player starts with $3.50 and the goal is to be the first person to reach $20, which is a lot harder than it seems. I challenged our pastor to several rounds of three-dimensional tic-tac-toe, most of which were won by him, and we finished off the afternoon with a game of Yahtzee. There were even door prizes, and my wife walked away with a box of Chex-Mix Snack Bars, and I got a box of chocolate Turtles.

Time to check the ol' Facebook account and head for bed.

Standing in line (for the show tonight?)

I got to my polling place at about 6:50 this morning, thinking ten minutes would be plenty early. I planned to avoid long lines, get in, vote, and get out as quick as possible. A simple smash and grab job, if you will. Turns out, as these things have a habit of doing, it wasn't exactly that simple. When I got there, the parking lot was jammed, and by the time I found my place in the line there were at least 60 other dutiful citizens ahead of me, all eager to avoid themselves.

Thankfully, though, I planned ahead, and as I took my place behind the very tall, very bearded, man in front of me, I whipped out my Nintendo DS and started playing some Mario Kart while awaiting the opening of the gates of destiny. Or, the front doors of the apartment lobby where we were all voting. I'm not kidding, there are few better ways to pass the time than with a Nintendo DS. If only my fellow Americans had thought of the same thing, we could have done some sweet line-waiting Picto Chat. :)

Speaking of games, last Friday I found the ultimate mind puzzle/time waster in my bag as I left for work: a Rubik's Cube. I have wanted one for a long time, but never actually gone out and purchased one. My wife, though, knowing my fondness for the nine-sided insanity-inducer, got one for me and slipped it in my little "stuff to take to work" bag. I haven't solved the thing, and will probably need help from the internet or some friends, but it sure is cool to play around with the little puzzler. I can get one face, and almost two additional rows, but beyond that all heck breaks loose, the second law of thermodynamics kicks in, and I'm right back to the multicolored mess with which I began. It sure is cool, though.

Once more, for the win?

It was nearly a year ago that my wife and I purchased an external 320-gig hard drive because we were just plain running out of spizzace. In the meantime our storage needs have, as expected, grown though mostly due to some summer Video projects. Well, a few months ago we sold my old eMac when we bought the snazzy new iMac, and just this week used the cash to pick up a gigantor one terabyte hard drive, bringing our total external storage to just a shade over 1.5 terabytes. Hyoooge.

The purpose of said new drive? Backing up everything. I've got it split into two partitions: one for my iMac to back up using Time Machine, and one for my wife's iBook to back up manually (she's still got OSX Tiger installed). Since I've only got a 320-gig disk in the iMac, and she's only got an 80-gig disk in her iBook, the new drive should tide us over for a while.



Clockwise, starting from top:
250 gig Western Digital drive in a shifty BYTECC case
320 gig Seagate drive in a Maxtor case with a gratuitous white button on the front
Dual-layer Pioneer CD/DVD burner
New 1 TB Seagate drive in a Maxtor case that looks like it's a dorsal fin for our desk

Also pictured:
Red Swingline stapler
Imperial Scout Trooper on a rolling model of a speeder bike from the Battle of Yavin

Not pictured:
Snowflake

Treading Lightly

Two weeks ago I, um, kind of biffed one of the tires on our car. I didn't exactly see part of the curb as I was pulling in, and, well, you can probably see where this is going. Anyway, I hit the curb, got out to check things, and found a nice little bulge in the sidewall of the front passenger tire. No big deal, really, but not something I wanted to drive on during my half-hour commute (I once drove for weeks on a tire on which the tread was hanging on by a couple pieces of hair-thin rubber). Thankfully, we had a warranty on it, so $9 later our little black Corolla, "William," was nicely outfitted with a brand-new rubber sole.

Trouble was, it turned out that the other three tires were nearing the end of their round little lives. So today I took him in to get new kicks on the rest of his little 14-inch rims. Even though the bill was higher than I was expecting, it's nice to know we're all set for a few years of tooling around town in our little car.

I also started watching Band of Brothers again. I tried watching this series many years ago, but only made it through the first disc or two--not because it was boring or poorly-realized, but I think I stopped out of sheer apathy. And in the meantime I have, off and on, been meaning to give it another go. So this morning I started up again, and so far it's pretty good. I appreciate how much time it's taking to get things rolling, in fact. It bodes well for the rest of the tale, knowing that the filmmakers will have the freedom to really explore the relationships between the characters, and how they change throughout the course of Easy Company's time in World War II Europe. I know plenty of guys who say it's the definitive World War II chronicle, so here's hoping it can hold its own next to Saving Private Ryan.

Rearviewmirror

(Sometimes you just gotta put on some Pearl Jam...)

So Arizona was pretty cool, and by that, I mean warm. Not super warm, like over 100 degrees, but nice and, oh, post-summer ish. The last time I was in that part of the country was when my friends and I drove to Vegas in one night for a wedding (no, not that kind of wedding. the bride and groom both lived in Vegas, silly) and I had forgotten just how devoid of greenery the whole region is. I mean, there's plenty of cacti and everything, but getting off the plane back here in the Twin Cities just made me realize how (can I say this without sounding too hippie?) lush everything is up here. We had a good time down south, though, and I got to see my friend Matt whom I haven't hung out with in years. We were in a band way back in college, and it was great to hang out with him for a while on Sunday night.

Mega props, by the way, to Mary, the mother of my wife's friend, who let us stay at her place for the weekend. There was all kinds of food to be had, and she made a delicious breffist on Sunday morning too. Way better than a hotel, for sure. :)

Time to go flip the laundry. It's gotta be done by now for sure.

A to Z

We're off to Arizona in a few hours to see some friends and attend a wedding (the former of which would not be taking place without the latter). I have been to Nevada twice, but never Arizona, and I'm pretty excited about the...uh, well, the catci, I suppose. To be honest, I'm not really sure what they have out in the great southwest, but Phoenix (where we will be staying) is a pretty gigantic city, so there's gotta be something.

At the very least, it will be nice and warm. Westward...ho!

Sunday, rainy Sunday

Sleep until 8:30...check

Wake up to sound of dripping rain...check

Temperature...45 degrees.

Look in the pantry for some hot chocolate...check.

"It's gonna be a good day." :)

And you know what? It was. Despite all semblances to the contrary when I got up this morning, things turned out just fine after all. Our church had a 60th Birthday celebration (i.e. a catered lunch) after the morning service, and my wife and I helped out with drinks--making sure the tables were well-supplied with water and coffee. We took home lots of leftovers, which means I'll be eating in style at work this week. And later on, things warmed up and we were able to go on a nice walk around our neighborhood, which we try to do as often as possible even if it's cold out.

I guess this is how non-native Minnesotans* adjust to the fall. :)

This weekend my cousin Beth was down for a visit, and last night we made some excellent tacos for dinner and then headed off to the mother of all home stores, IKEA, so she could get some stuff for her new apartment. My wife and I ended up spending about $11 on a couple home-furnishing things like a scented candle, some tupperware, and a CD holder for the ol' car stereo. We drove across the new I-35W bridge, which in and of itself was none too remarkable, but it was pretty cool that downtown Minneapolis is now much more accessible than it used to be. I saw the ruined bridge many times, and not only is it a little weird to think that it actually happened...it's not a little weird to think that it's all fixed. And driveable.

So, yeah. All in all, a good weekend. Time to read some more of The Two Towers, download a couple podcasts, and head for bed.

*I was born here, and lived in central MN until I was almost six, but for all intents and purposes, I'm basically a Nebraskan. :)