Year: 2012

One of my clients is a yogurt company (!) and I’m included on the comments their consumers write on their web site. This one caught my eye:

Now that’s a fan!

The kids at the Denver Aquarium a couple of weeks ago…

As part of the Great Re-Carpeting of our house, I had to empty most of my basement office. It was amazing to see all of the stuff I’ve accumulated over the past decade… there are so many computers it’s embarrassing.

After a bit of thought I decided it was time to get rid of the hardware that I’ll never use again. It included a couple of old desktops and an ancient Power Macintosh…

… as well as three of the original servers from BitRelay, my hosting company. The term “server” is being used loosely– in truth these were cheap iMachines desktop systems that were on sale at Best Buy when I started the company.

Perhaps most interesting of all was the stack of eleven old desktop systems that my friend Mike scavenged from a business many years ago. The company was tossing them out, and they were brand new in the box. He and I each snagged about two dozen of them, and over the years I’ve used them for a few hobby projects or to let the kids rip apart and learn how a computer works. I gave several to the local Boy Scout troop for their computer merit badge. But in the end, I really can’t think of what to do with eleven computers sporting 150Mhz processors, 4MB of RAM, and ancient ISA slots.

Practicality won out over nostalgia. So long, computers of yesteryear!

A fun night at Red Robin…

Today was Day One of the Great Carpet Installation. We’re replacing the carpeting throughout the house, since the builder-grade stuff is pretty worn after ten years.

It’s a bit of a challenge because we basically have to move everything out of the rooms the installers are working in, stuffing it into other rooms. Then, after the carpet is finished, we’ll move everything back and add the stuff from the unfinished rooms. On Thursday they’ll come back and finish the job.

Our bedroom shows just how worn the carpet was. Notice the big rectangle against the far wall where the bed has sat for all these years. The carpet under there was quite a bit lighter and of course a bit softer.

This evening we moved back into our bedroom, with the new carpet underfoot.

The difference is dramatic. This new stuff is really nice… as I shuffle around in bare feet, I can’t believe we put up with that old carpeting for so long.

I’m excited to see how it all turns out. We’ll wrap it up Thursday evening, just in time for mom and dad to visit on Friday…

This evening Laralee was driving home after dropping off Alex at martial arts, and she called me. “You’ve got to look at the sunset– it’s amazing!”

I went outside to take a look.

It probably was amazing, but Alyson’s house sort of ruined the effect…

This made me laugh out loud…

After my trip last week, my car was coated with bugs. I decided to offer the kids ten bucks to wash it, including scrubbing all of the little beasties off the front grille. Kyra volunteered, so she’s out there with her friends Alex and Hannah, dancing to some hip-hop music on the boom box (I’m sure the rest of the neighborhood appreciates it as well).

Ten bucks well spent.

Back in college, Mel and I would often spend late nights working on puzzles in her apartment. She seemed to have an unending supply of big, complicated ones: 1,500 pieces or so. They would usually take several weeks to put together, and while we worked on them it was a great opportunity to just talk and enjoy each other’s company.

Shortly after college, she gave me a gift of two huge puzzles: one for Star Wars and another for The Empire Strikes Back. I thought they were really cool, but somehow I never found the time to get them out and work on them. Life seemed busy at work, then I got married, had kids, and… well, the years passed.

A few months ago Laralee pulled out some old puzzles from the closet and worked on them for ten minutes here, twenty minutes there during her days. The kids would often help, and I’d saunter over and pop in a few pieces as well. It was fun. But these were rather simple puzzles: 750 pieces, all the same shape, yada yada.

She noticed the two unopened puzzles from Mel gathering dust on the topmost shelf of the closet and pulled out the Star Wars one. Looking at the pieces, both of us were shocked. There were a lot of them (1,500) and they were absolutely crazy shapes. Like snowflakes, I don’t think any two were the same. Big, small, warped, with lots of black, orange, and purple. Undaunted, she started working on it.

About a month later, she and I finished it.

Although she did the bulk of the work, I take credit for Darth Vader, Han Solo, and Obi-Wan. The rest was done through her diligence and patience.

So there you have it: roughly seventeen years after Mel gave me this puzzle, I finally did it. Thanks for many evenings of entertainment, Mel!

The other day, Thom and I decided we should act like the younger generation. That means sitting across the table from one another, texting back and forth.

Yeah. Very hip.