Year: 2011

So Laralee has this crazy vibrant orange shirt with Electric Apricot across the front.

I have no idea what that is, but it seems like a great name for a band.

It’s been twelve years since I worked at Raytheon, but during my five-year tenure there I had the opportunity to contribute to some cool projects and work with some great people. Every few years I meet these guys at Mama Alvino’s, an old pizza hangout we used to frequent. So today I made the pilgrimage down to Aurora and enjoyed lunch with Bill, Ken, Paul, and Dan.

What an awesome team. I miss you guys… although I don’t miss working for The Man!

Hah, another pizza week, starting last Saturday…

Saturday : homemade pizza
Sunday : leftover homemade pizza
Monday : Anthony’s Pizza (south Longmont)
Tuesday : Old Chicago (south Longmont)
Wednesday : Pasquini’s (south Denver)
Thursday : leftover Old Chicago (at the office)
Friday : Mama Alvino’s (north Aurora)
Saturday : homemade pizza
Sunday : leftover homemade pizza?

I sure hope to see a federal study one of these days that proves conclusively a diet of pepperoni pizza and orange juice extends your lifespan by ten years…

Alex and I got back a little while ago from a campout with his Boy Scout troop. Good times. We were up in the foothills above Boulder– beautiful area. The area was deserted, which made it nice and peaceful. Well, I guess with ten boys there it wasn’t exactly peaceful, but still. The weather was a little nippy, dropping down into the 20’s overnight, but everyone had a good sleeping bag so we were all right.

Now it’s 60ish and sunny, so I went out and washed my car. I hadn’t washed it since sometime in December, so it definitely needed it. It’s all nice and shiny again, so overall life is good.

I made some mac and cheese for dinner tonight. As I was scooping the noodles into the pan, I noticed the date on the side of the can.

One can only hope that pasta doesn’t go bad after eight years.

Benjamin Franklin’s daily planner:

The two things I find interesting about this:

1) He really believed in “early to bed, early to rise”. Sheesh, five in the morning?

2) I like his morning and evening questions. Maybe if more people reflected on their days like this, our world would be a little better.

An article by Charlie Brooker sums up my feelings about Apple products exactly:

That’s how I feel about my trusty old iPod Shuffle… and my shiny new Apple TV. I’m a hacker; I’ve run Linux for a decade and a half. I’m the guy who wants to get under the hood, who wants to customize everything just so, who is always looking for the back door. And with Apple the hood doesn’t open and there isn’t a back door. Unless some enterprising hacker figures out how to fool the hardware, and comes up with a jailbreak to make people like me happy. Until, that is, Apple patches the thing that made the jailbreak possible and locks the door once more.

Sigh.

Today was sunny and almost 70 degrees, so I was able (finally!) to play ultimate in bare feet. It’s been many months since the ground was soft enough– and warm enough– to do that. Nice.

Today’s grammar police bring you this gem from an email sent by a woman at an agency I’m working with:

That’s “me”, not “myself”. I think it’s a result of kids being taught from their youth that they should always say things like “him and I” when it’s properly “him and me”. People are afraid to use the word “me”, so it’s like they grope for a word that’s similar and end up with “I” or “myself” or whatever.

By the way, I realize that my first sentence should properly end with “… at an agency with which I’m working”. Never end a sentence with a preposition.

With some help from Josh and his Mac, I finally hacked my Apple TV and now I’ve got a sweet little media center. We’re watching previews online… Laralee is making all of us laugh by picking movies like “Hello Dolly” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”. The movies back in the 60’s had previews that make you want to poke your eyes out. I don’t know why people went to see movies back then, after seeing the trailers.

But anyway, despite Apple’s stupid iTunes lockdown, now that I have XBMC installed on the Apple TV it’s actually useful. Shout out to the guys out there who come up with the jailbreaks to do this.