I’ve been sick all week. It finally got bad enough that I went to the doctor today and… I’ve got bronchitis. Hooray! I’ve got steroids and an industrial-strength decongestant to try to get the gunk out of my chest. I’ve been exhausted and in pain all week. I’m still exhausted and still in pain (it’s amazing how painful coughing gets after a while). The one bright spot? I got to drive my car to the doctor’s office, and it was great.\
The only other bright spot was that Jen finally has her own laptop, and she’s running linux! It’s a swanky used IBM ThinkPad T40 from Ombligo. It’s now running Ubuntu and she’s happily surfing, e-mailing and playing with background images. The install was painfully easy. The only weird part was getting the wi-fi working, and getting it to stay working after a reboot. But, even after fixing that, the total install, install updates, install missing software (RSS reader, Thunderbird, blog client) and fixing the wi-fi took about an hour (off and on between coughing fits and naps).\
Gotta look for the little bright spots.
Category: family
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Highlights in an Otherwise Disappointing Day
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Happy Labor Day
I was going to drive my new car around today with a general excuse of “errands”, but I’ve come down with the flu, which is awesome. I’m achey (compounded by furniture moving pain leftover from Saturday), feverish, congested and have a wonderful headache.\
Hopefully, it’ll clear up by tomorrow so I can take the new guy to lunch and work on the very cool prototype I’m trying to get done this week.\
Oh, and so I can drive my car. -
My Big Fat Swedish Day
Not only did Jen and I go to Ikea today and fill up the van with build-it-yourself boxed Swedish furniture, but after we got back and unloaded the van, I went and bought a very swanky 2002 Volvo S80. I sent a picture to Flickr, but it hasn’t shown up yet… (so I just uploaded it.).\
Yes, I know that the S80 wasn’t on the list. I went to Don Beyer intending to get a lovely little blue S60. But, as soon as I got there, it came back into the lot with a very happy person who ended up buying it. So, as I was considering my options, I wandered through the lot, and what did I spy? A lovely grey luxury car priced well below blue book that fell right into my budget. So, I found my favorite sales person (her name is Namaste, and she’s very nice… if you go to Don Beyer Volvo in Sterling, ask for her) and asked if I could take it out. She handed me a key and a plate and off I went. Since no one’s around AOL on Saturdays, I took it and whipped around campus a couple times. Wow. It’s an incredible drive, and a lot nimbler than you’d expect a large sedan to be. It takes corners like a champ and has power to spare. I’m glad I got the bigger car. It’s roomier, faster, and handles better than the S60… and gets the same decent mileage.\
I’m sore from taking out the middle seat in the van and lugging boxes of furniture from store to car to home, but I’m happy. I can stop looking for a new car for at least another 8 years. Yay!\
The only problem? Jen says I’m a yuppie now that we own a Volvo. I tried to tell her that we were already yuppies because we own a minivan, but I don’t think she believes me. -
Ties that bind us
Probability that Brian and I are having a bad day on the same day: 100%. I am sure of this, because either my headache and subsequent desire to keep my eyes closed is causing Brian to shriek and run around or his shrieking and running around has caused my headache.
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Up Early With Photo Booth
Fun With Photo Booth\
Sitting on an install call this morning, I couldn’t help playing with Photo Booth. -
Keeping Track of the Big Idea
I was playing around with my Dreamhost control panel recently and noticed that there was a new one-click install for activeCollab. Being the curious sort that I am, I figured, “I’ve got unlimited domains, and practically unlimited disk space, what’s one more?” and installed it. It’s great. It’s still pre-1.0, but there are enough features, and it’s so well designed, that it’s very usable. I’ve started using it to keep track of the side project so when I’m bored and need something to tinker with, I can tinker towards something instead of just watching TV.\
Today, I added all the stuff Jen wants to do to the house (not surprisingly, that list is a lot bigger). I now get what all the GTD‘ers are talking about. It makes me feel a whole lot better seeing everything in sections, with proposed due dates and milestones. It now doesn’t seem impossible. There’s a lot to do, but with my handy-dandy copy of Home Improvement for Dummies, I think I can do a lot of it myself.\
So, if you have Dreamhost, give it a shot the one-click way. If you don’t, go download it and give it a shot (umm, you should be fairly comfortable installing things on your webserver and setting up databases… if not, go get a Dreamhost account – can you tell I like Dreamhost?).\
If you don’t have an account and want one, if you enter the promo code lawver_dreamhost when you sign up, you’ll get a 10% discount on any of the level one or two accounts. Why? Because I love Dreamhost and I think you will too.\
Yes, I know this post feels kind of spammy, but both things are really cool, and they both make me happy. -
The boys
Random stories:\
I got tired and dizzy playing ring-around-the-rosie with Brian, so I transitioned us into a new game: I would dance in one spot while he ran around me. This morphed into us just dancing. At one point, I got really into the music and started getting crazy. I ran my fingers through my shoulder length hair and pulled upword, so my hair was standing on end with my fingers tugging to the beat. A moment later I looked down and saw B pulling on his short hair too, trying to dance the way I was.\
Brian turned down a chocolate chip granola bar for an apple & cinnamon rice cake at snack time. The boy is whack. Maybe he pulled too hard on his hair.\
Max started and finished his first fictional chapter book today, all 235 pages. Hurray! This makes me deliriously happy. -
Hi!
I got into a minor car accident on the way home from the store yesterday. Everyone is fine, though I was a little sore after a few hours and had trouble sleeping since I couldn’t lay on my side. (Brian didn’t suffer any effects at all and Max and Kevin weren’t with me. Really, Mom and Dad, we are fine.) It was a relatively minor accident, but I did end up with one bruise- on the top of my foot opposite-from-the-impact-side. Weird, huh?\
Honestly, the worst part was waiting the hour and a half it took for the police to show up so the cop could file his report and I could take my bored, hungry, tired, and cranky 2 year old and my melting popsicles home. After a few minutes, I popped open that box of popsicles and let Brian chow down. The accident was totally my fault. I stopped at the stop sign, looked both ways, didn’t see anyone coming, and then went. But apparently there was someone driving where I wanted to be, cuz he smacked right into me. I even got a ticket, which I am not going to contest.\
Oh but really, the worst part is the damage done to my van. I love my van. It’s mangled near the driver’s side door and front wheel and and groans and complains about being opened and closed. All four panels on the driver’s side need to be fixed. We seem to have taken care of the paperwork and insurance without too much hassle. The insurance adjuster freaked me out by “thanking me for my honesty” and I “helped him do his job more easily.” I was all, WTF does that mean? Kevin tried to explain that he is probably used to people being extra verbose and circumspect. Whatever. I just hope we can still afford to send our kids to college after our rates go up.\
The other driver works for a car dealership and was driving a customer’s car. Oopsie. I hope things are ok for him at work. He was nice. Very, “These things happen” and “This is a dangerous intersection, they need a light here.” He reminded me a little of my dad. About three weeks ago, he (the other driver) was rear-ended and his personal car was totaled. Bad luck for him. I sent him a cookie basket at work. Poor guy.\
Mmmm, now I want cookies. Who has one for me? -
Not Another Teen Show
Kevin edited the actual Veronica Mars promo into my post below to make it even easier and more tempting for you to watch. Isn’t he fabulous? What a nice husband.\
And now that you’ve all seen the promo, and I know you all have, you can believe me when I say: THIS ISN’T A MELODRAMATIC TEENY-BOPPER SHOW like Dawson’s Creek or 90210. I seriously think that having the lead character in high school (now she’s in college), made pimping this show that much harder. The masses have written it off without even seeing it. But you can become one of the enlightened! Say no to mass-ly writing-off this show. Watch it for yourself this Fall on Tuesdays on the new network, The CW.\
P.S. Hee, I got Tim interested through the promo. And his wife watches the show, so she should have been the one to talk him into watching it. Go internet! -
Howdy
This morning while I went out, the dishes didn’t get washed.\
Then later, when I came home and collapsed on the couch exhausted, the dishes still didn’t get washed.\
And now, while I am goofing off by typing this, THE DISHES STILL AREN’T WASHED.
