Happy birthday to me, part I. Yes, I will now be able to work from the terrace, watch DVDs on airplanes, make client presentations and, if all goes well, update my website from my pool, which is really what this purchase is all about. (Part II being wireless broadband access.) One more step toward my much-sought-after geekdom.
Archive for April, 2004
iBook
Wednesday, April 28th, 2004
33 is good
Tuesday, April 27th, 2004I spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday celebrating my 33rd birthday (it’s all about 3s) and was quite nicely reminded that my life is awesome. (Flooding incident aside.) Stace flew in for the weekend, so Saturday we ran Crazylegs with Miles (who is the tallest person we know and we still beat him) and then basically spent the next 15 hours meeting up with various friends and family in various places, most of which conveniently served beer. Sunday was biking followed by ice cream and gifts with the parents and Monday involved lots of great cards, gifts, phone calls and my favorite Mexican food with Stiers. No complaints. Huge thanks to everyone that made it so happy. =]
PTSD
Wednesday, April 21st, 2004The flooding problem seems to be under control but now I have some kind of flooding-related post traumatic stress disorder. I grew to love a good downpour in high school and college (largely because I was a lifeguard and that meant an afternoon off) but now rain just makes me nervous. I have dreams that rain is forecasted solely for my house. Or that I can’t empty the drainage bin fast enough and my house slowly floods a la last Friday. To add to my trauma the city tested the fire hydrant in my front yard at midnight on Monday and let it run, shooting water everywhere for 20 minutes. I figured it was god’s last shot at trying to kill me on the 19th, but eventually they came back and turned it off. Might be high time to move back to Arizona.
The day after
Tuesday, April 20th, 2004Still alive.
stupid stupid stupid
Sunday, April 18th, 2004It’s undeniable – when my home is in need, I somehow manage to surround myself with the most incompetent people possible. There was the hardwood flooring people who delivered 400 square feet of the wrong product which had to be returned, the American TV delivery guy who dropped my coffee table from the delivery truck, the carpet saleswoman with multiple personalities, the insurance guy who started crying on the phone, the lawn boys who mowed down my trellis and now I have the roofer man turned drainage aficionado. Not only did he fail to miss a dime-sized hole in my rain gutter which dumped roughly 75 gallons of water per hour directly down an exterior wall the last time it rained, but when I informed my condo association of this he staple-gunned a 20′ bright blue tarp to the side of my house on an 80° day which killed my plants and prevented me from accessing the rain gutter, still with hole.
Death day
Thursday, April 15th, 2004If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that there’s significant evidence that says I’m going to die on April 19th. Not THIS April 19th, god willing, but some distant April 19th many years from now. So this morning I got an email from Pat in SanFran and, due to a Safari glitch, the only thing that showed up was this banner. That’s sign #4.
Nielsen speaks
Monday, April 12th, 2004Not am I not the only one who doesn’t eat sea food, I’m not the only one who hates cell phones. Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, April 12, 2004: Why Mobile Phones are Annoying
Sylvia Earle
Tuesday, April 6th, 2004Last night I went to hear Sylvia Earle speak, as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series at the UW. This woman is amazing. She’s generally credited with being the female pioneer of oceanographic studies, but she’s also one of National Geographic’s Explorers in Residence, former Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has spent more than 6,000 hours underwater and remains one of the most knowledgeable and influential advocates for research and protection of our oceans. In case you’re one of those people who think the ocean is big enough to absorb whatever we throw at it (or in it) here’s a couple disturbing facts: 1) 90% of all big fish in the ocean are gone and almost 30% of the world’s reefs are dead. Here’s the sum-up of why we should care and if you want to know more you can download this 68-page pdf (nicely designed) of NOAA’s Ocean Report. And just for the record, Sylvia doesn’t eat any seafood either. As I’ve been saying for the last 30 years (holy cow am I old), it’s just wrong.
Variety is good
Saturday, April 3rd, 2004Yesterday was an interesting day… I had breakfast in Mexico, lunch in New Jersey, dinner in Chicago and went to bed in Madison, courtesy of Priceline. Which, aside from being a long day, worked out pretty well – Stace and I flew to Newark together and I got to enjoy a great Italian meal with John and Jenny McCaffrey in Chicago.
More on Cun ‘04 coming shortly.
April 2004 update
Thursday, April 1st, 2004So, in honor of April Fools day, I’ll say all the following events happened recently and you can decide whether or not I’m joking.
- The second level of my house flooded, while the basement remained completely dry.
- I got hit on by a 15-year old, moments after watching a 13-year old drink a shot of tequila at Senor Frogs.
- JeffO, who lives in Boulder, CO, and I had dinner together four times over the course of two weeks.
- I ran 10 miles on vacation.
- JenO is in Thailand.
- I turned on my TV in Mexico and watched an hour of news which was being filmed live in Madison.
- I purposefully consumed 229,400 mg of Methylsulphonylmethane (MSM) in March. It doesn’t taste good.
- I lied about my name and flew first class on Continental.
- JackO defied gravity by running up a canyon wall in Utah’s Grand Cathedral.
- I only had 3 shamrock shakes all month, despite my best efforts to drink them daily.
- I had Georgia Tech and UConn going to the finals in Big Mike’s pool.
Ok, so they’re all true except for that last one. Bugger.