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Laralee and I are heading out to see Arrival in a couple of hours. I love that our new cinema has reserved seating, so you can order online weeks ahead and know that you’ll have a great seat for the show. Since this is the latest cool mind-bending sci-fi movie to see, I wondered if there would be a crowd. I checked online for this afternoon’s matinee:

Apparently we’ll be the only people in the theater! I guess we don’t need to worry too much about reserving a seat…

I was shopping for some dedicated server hosting and found a company that offers several different packages:

I’ve heard of bronze and silver and platinum. “Diamond” is a new one, but not a bad choice. Of course “Enterprise” is just a marketing buzzword for “unnecessarily complex and expensive”. The one that has me scratching my head is “Rodium”. I’m not sure what that means, although I can’t help but wonder if it’s some kind of inside joke at the hosting company.

“Hey Charlie, we need a sixth plan to make our little grid look balanced. What should we call it?”

“Hah, how about Rodium? It sounds cool and no one will know what it means!”

Perhaps they’re referring to the chemical element Rhodium? It’s a mystery…

There was a time almost five years ago when we bought a huge block of chocolate and made Christmas candies. We didn’t use the entire block, so it’s been sitting in our basement storeroom since then. The other day I wondered if chocolate ever really goes bad.

I pulled out what was left of the bar– still a few pounds– and melted it. Then I dipped a bunch of caramels in it and left them out to cool. The result?

They might not be pretty, but they were delicious. Conclusion: five-year-old chocolate is still good.

A few days ago I was coming home from seminary just as the sun was peeking above the eastern horizon. Yeah, that’s way too early to be coming home, but at the same time it’s pretty cool to see sunrises.

On the other end of the day, one of the bummers about the end of Daylight Savings Time is that I’m often at the office until after dark now. The other day I managed to leave a little early, and caught a beautiful sunset over the mountains. I snapped a quick picture as I was waiting at a stoplight:

A few days ago in traffic I was behind a van with a license plate that read “CUBSWIN”.

Either the driver has been holding out hope for a long time– and was finally rewarded– or was very quick to put in a vanity plate request after the World Series…

For some reason, I love this.

Today I am embarrassed for my country.

The cleaning crew at my office– which consists of two teenage girls– has been leaving little inspirational quotes on sticky notes.

and of course

Interesting…

La and I were at Lowe’s today and I noticed a “smart” refrigerator. One of the doors had a huge touchscreen display on it.

I drew a smiley face in the “Family Hub” area, and thought that was definitely worth the $3,000 price tag. There was an option to take a photo of the food inside and label everything with expiration dates… a feature that is probably cool for about two days and then becomes tiresome. Best of all, apparently you can listen to music (via Pandora) on your fridge. Because hey, who wouldn’t want that?

Next to the fridge was a smart oven that advertised wireless networking. I guess that solves the age-old mystery about “did I leave the oven on?” after you leave home.

I’m a big fan of technology, but I’m just not sure a musical fridge and a wifi oven are high on my list.

Happiness is playing ultimate barefoot in November, because it’s almost 70 degrees.