Insignifica

Weekend Outings, D&D 4E, Diet, Fair, Wordscraper, Hello Friends

Hello Friends!

Picture of the day!

The Grand Canyon, with incoming storms.

Scrabulous is dead - long live Scrabulous! "Wordscraper" is now available - it uses user-defined rules and board design, meaning you can do your own thing, or copy Scrabble exactly. Well played!

We went to the OC Fair last night, looked at products, ride and exhibits, ate some fried veggies, got our few hours in. Lots of people, but not unmanageably so. It was also very cool, which is an unusual fair experience. I quite enjoyed myself.

Even with my fried food experiences, I'm still feeling good about my diet. Did some working out this morning, my calorie intake is down, and I'm careful to stay balanced in my diet. This could actually work.

D&D is back, baby! Our new 4th Edition campaign is starting up this weekend. I'm playing an Eladrin Wizard. Anyone else geekin' out to the D&D?

Lots to do today. Considering social outings this weekend. Thoughts?

Lunch or Dinner, Smoothies, Angels, Facebook, Dining with Friends, Pictures and Time, Hump

Happy Hump Day!

Picture of the day!

Ryan from my 2003 birthday party. The 2003 Birthday Set is the oldest I have at Flickr (though there are individual pics in other places that are older), and it's also the wackiest - for whatever reason, it seemed to be "mug for the camera" day. Sometimes High School and College seem very recent, but for whatever reason, 2003 seems like forever ago.

Speaking of such things, I've really been craving going out to eat with a large group of friends. It's one of those things that's easy to do, but impossible to set up lately. I'm also still looking to do lunch with everyone. Inquire within.

Facebook has a new look. I'll probably be in the minority here, but I like it - it's a little cleaner and better laid out. Facebook's generally modular approach means also that they could keep both without worrying about display issues. I hope they do.

Watching the Angels beat on just about everyone, and now with them acquiring Mark Teixeira, is making me realize they're likely the best Angels team that's every been fielded. That's exciting.

I never like my own homemade smoothies as much as I like the ones at smoothie places. It's probably the crushed ice.

I usually don't make two comments about the same thing in one entry, but let's go out to lunch or dinner. Hit me up!

Quake Update!

Quake Update!

I'm fine, The Girlfriend is fine, my mom is fine - we're assuming everyone else is too. Shaky, though - I really, really dislike earthquakes. I'll be a busy bee for the rest of the day, though.

Funny aside: I went to move my car, and Jack (local radio station) was playing "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys, then the Jack Voice came on in an almost-DJ role (everything is canned at Jack). It was very weird that the Jack Voice is actually at the studio.

Hopefully that's it - it was fewer than 20 miles from here, hence the intensity. Buildings shouldn't bounce like that.

Thanks, Slump, Linux, Haircut, Scrabulous, Tuesday

Happy Tuesday to you and yours!

Picture of the day!

Katie drinking from her water skin.

It looks like, for the time being, Scrabulous is dead. It's been removed from Facebook pending any legal challenges, and while I love the interface and ease of use, Hasbro's case is probably legally right. I really don't care where I play Scrabble, but I'd like it to be as easy, clean and useful as Scrabulous. It doesn't help that the "official" EA Scrabble App doesn't seem to be working...

I finally got a haircut - I'd been meaning to get one for almost a month. I was looking quite shaggy, and realized that while I think I could successfully do a lot of endurance prop bets, growing my hair out would not be one of them. Interesting that the three of us guys (Marek, Chris and me) who all had long hair in the past now all keep it very short.

I'm seriously considering moving to Linux full time on my home machine (I installed and use it on my laptop - the downstairs computer - now). I really like Ubuntu, I like the idea of not having to worry about the vast majority of viruses, and it makes duel-booting very simple. It'd also give me the excuse to clean up my files on that machine - it's the equivalent of an office with papers piled everywhere.

I'm having another LAV writer's slump. I love it, but I'm not in love with it, which isn't helping.

Thanks for reading, friends!

What's Up, Cleaning, Black Cat, Yosemite Fire, "Cheap" Gas, Monday

Oh hai, it's Monday!

Picture of the day!

A noble animal.

There's word that a couple gas stations near me are offering sub-$4.00 gasoline right now. Just as I've always thought, we're all taking this as great news, even though gas was still more than a dollar less than this just a year ago. I find myself doing the same thing.

Looks like we picked the right week to go to Yosemite - there's now a huge fire burning near the South entrance, and it cut off off power to the entire valley.

Someone left a pencil, well used, with a felt black cat (and the words "Black Cat") on it at my desk this morning. A gift? Left behind by someone else using my desk? No man can say.

I did a bunch of cleaning in a nice little 3 hour block of time I had free Saturday - cleaned my side of the room and closet, moved out far too much accumulated cardboard, vacuumed, did some work on Katie's room, and got myself set up so I could move a bookshelf down stairs the next day. In other news, I have another bookshelf in my living room, so the world may once again see that I've read books. Good stuff.

What's up?

Weird Saturday, Gas Prices, Gmail Features, Friday

Hello friends, and happy Friday!

Picture of the day!

Jesus at our campground, day one of the Yosemite trip.

Gmail has a nice new little feature where they tell you if your account is open in another location (mine's open at home and work during the day, for example). Nice if you think someone's all up in ur internetz or something. I've also been using Google's Reader more, too. For someone who's used RSS for 7 years, I'm surprised it's taken me so long to actually set up a page of feeds.

Gas must be cheap in my neighborhood or something - the station near my house was down to $4.09 this morning (I was happy paying $4.15 yesterday). Stations just a few blocks away are still around $4.35. I'm not complaining.

Got a weird Saturday ahead - The Girlfriend and baby are going to a baby shower during the day, so instead of being on daddy duty, I'm free. But then The Girlfriend is going out for the evening, so I'm on duty at night. I'm thinking in my free time I'm gonna do house stuff, but all offers will be considered. What's up?

What's Going On, Cell Plans, Birthdays, Comic Con, Thursday

Happy Thursday!

Picture of the day!

Rocks and folks at Lower Yosemite Falls. Kinda weird perspective here.

I'm kinda sad that I'm not going to Comic Con again this year - I've only been the one time (and I was working), so I haven't ever gotten to enjoy the exhibits and panels. For whatever reason I'm always busy/just off another vacation this time of year. Maybe we'll plan for 2009. Speaking of Comic Con, Tori's always got the best pictures.

While my birthday's past, my 30th year isn't over. There's still time to celebrate, especially with friends also turning 30 (Chris, Gary and Marek, among others, still have yet to cross the threshold). Thoughts?

I'm VERY strongly considering going from a standard minutes plan on my cell to a pay-per-call deal, mostly because I think I'm getting shafted, and I honestly use my phone less than 10 minutes a day. The Girlfriend uses it and loves it (and it's already saved me $20 or so a month). Anyone else doing that out there?

Anyway, that's that for today. What's going on?

Casino, Assless Roomba, LAV, Crown, Hump

Happy Hump Day!

Picture of the day!

Basil.

I've had my dental appointment, and I'm happy to say I'm the proud owner of a new crown that appears to fit very well.

LAV: "In God We Trust" goes up in Huntington Beach.

I got home from the dentist to find Roomba had lost his debris storage bin (his "ass", as I like to say), he had unplugged his base unit and moved it all the way behind the couch, and was sitting, out of power and assless, in the kitchen. Oh, that crazy Roomba...

As is often the case when I'll be passing within a few dozen miles of a casino, I got the itch to gamble on my road trip next month. Other than the Chumash Casino near Buellton, are there any other Indian Casinos near the 5 or 101 between Socal and the Bay Area?

That's All, More Sleep, New Crown, LAV, Grind, Tuesday

Tuesday!

Picture of the day!

Katie and her bottle artwork. We all watched as she made this, and the layout looks roughly like a mathematical curve or foreign letter. There are more pictures here and here.

Back to the grind, and I'm pretty much caught up at work. I'm not off again on a weekday until 08/08/08, when I travel to Santa Cruz.

Liberal Atheist Vegetarian: Dog Fancy Punked by PETA.

If all goes well, I'll have my new crown tomorrow - last time, the dentist didn't like the fit, so we had to do the impression again, which involves numbing, packing your gums with string, and a bit more uncomfortableness). Here's to hoping for a good fit...

I need more sleep. I'm too old for my college-style 6 hours a night.

That's all I've got for ya. What's happening?

What's New, Exercise, Game Night, Yosemite Recap

Good day, friends!

Picture of the day!

Tuolumne Meadows - click for bigger goodness. The whole Yosemite set is up now as well.

Yosemite was great, and a very good vacation. My last two posts have updates if you didn't read them. Some highlights from the last day there:

- Bear! I saw an adult black bear when I was returning to my cabin from brushing my teeth. Big mutha'. They chased it off, but we heard warning shots fired in the middle of the night, so it likely came back looking for more.

- When vacationing, try to schedule your return to not coincide with Friday afternoon LA traffic. It took almost as much time to get from Burbank to Santa Ana as it did to get from Yosemite to Burbank.

- People ignore all signs regarding feeding wildlife and climbing on the rocks.

While the trip was awesome, I dunno if I'll go back to Yosemite anytime soon - I love nature (and the geology there is amazing), but I've seen it, I don't have the need a lot of people do to see it again. I'm thinking next year's family vacation will be to San Diego. Yosemite isn't going anywhere.

Game night was great on Saturday, though a lot of people couldn't make it at the last minute. Still, good times with good friends.

Didn't exercise this morning, but the scale says I'm down about 4lbs, even after a week of vacation and vacation eating.

What's new with you? I've been out of the loop. Fill me in!

Yosemite update - Evening of the 17th

Hi there folks! It's just after 8pm on Thursday, and I'm actually typing this while online here at the Yosemite Lodge. The nice hotel lady gave me free access, so here I am in the lobby.

We just finished dinner at the Mountain Room Restaurant, a great place at the lodge that had fancy-style food but welcomes kids and folks in everyday Yosemite-walking clothes. Lots of vegan options, too (especially for a nice restaurant). If you're up here, I highly recommend it.

Today's our "no driving day", and that's a nice change. We took the bus to Yosemite Falls - beautiful. Katie was kinda cranky (and wanted to be carried), so once we finally got her back to the cabin I volunteered to stay there and give her a nap. Unfortunately, she never did nap, but she was great at dinner, so that's something. Also hopefully she'll be in bed by the time I get back, and get on a more normal sleep schedule.

Yosemite falls is beautiful, and staying here in the valley's nice because there's an amazing amount of geologic wonder in literally every direction. Weather's also been nice - warm, but clear.

Watching files move back and forth, I think I'll wait until I get home to upload my pictures to flickr - this connection would have me sitting here another half hour, at least, to get them all up.

We head home tomorrow, and hopefully Katie doesn't mind another car ride. We're hoping to get in before traffic time in LA, but we'll see if that works out. Updates and pictures as they're available - if you're just now reading this, note that I published yesterday's entry right below this one (though I just posted a couple minutes ago) and in the post before that one, my twitter updates are displayed (which I can do from my phone and the road). Seeya back in the SoCal!

Yosemite update - Evening of the 16th

Greetings from Camp Curry!

Not sure when I'll get around to posting this, but I'm typing just before 11PM on Wednesday. This is our second night in Yosemite - the first night was spent up at Crane Flat, in the northwestern part of the park. Tonight we're in Curry Village in Yosemite Valley, staying in one of the cabins. There's no internet access, and the bathrooms and showers are still outside in another building, but we've got beds, a desk, space for our stuff without worrying about bear lockers, and best of all, electricity.

During the night, both of our phones had died, and Crane Flat didn't have any electricity at all - not in the common building or in posts shared between camp sites. Not that the phones were too important there - they didn't work - but it was weird going through the day without knowing the time. Here we've actually got moderate cell coverage IN our cabin - I'm very surprised. I've been able to check email, post to twitter, and call my mom. Good stuff.

Yosemite's been beautiful, especially since unlike most of my National Park visits, the weather's actually seeming to cooperate. We spent a lot of the day in Tuolumne Meadows (about 20 miles north of the valley, but 65 or so miles driving), and it was fantastic - every vista looks like a postcard. We then made the drive back to camp, finished packing, and headed here, getting in just before 7 in the evening. We're literally up against a sheer rock face - it's daunting. This whole place is huge.

I'm feeling good after a shower and an hour or so of a sleeping baby (she didn't go to bed while camping until midnight, and I might have fallen asleep a few minutes before her). No TV here, so I'll get to read myself to sleep and hopefully get 8 or more hours, just in time for another day seeing the sites. More updates and pictures to come!

Vacation ahoy!

Hi everyone!

We're on vacation (well, we're leaving tomorrow, but we're off work, anyway), so updates are going to be few and far between, especially since we'll be in Yosemite. I'll do my best to upload photos if possible, and I'll be updating my twitter site (and in the box, below), assuming my phone works up there (I've heard it should). Have a fantastic week, friends!

Last Day of Work, Ubuntu and FOSS, No New Tech, Walked, 7-11.

Happy 7-11, friends!

Picture of the day!

A classic from the Katie collection, taken 2 years ago today. She's almost 4 times larger now.

Walked (and ran some of) 1.6 miles this morning. It's really muggy, though, so that made it less pleasant.

I have no iPhone. Not that I wouldn't enjoy one, but there aren't that many out there used, and in general I'm saving my money for things like debt and bills. They sure are shiny, though.

Speaking of technology, I'm still liking Ubuntu. Little things take a while to get used to, but in general it's awesome. While open source software has been around a long time, it's still amazing to me that whole operating systems and complex pieces of software are both free to own and free to be edited/changed/resold. I don't pirate any software anymore - I just use the free versions available. It's kinda nice.

This is my last work day before a week-long vacation. That doesn't suck. I likely won't have blog posts all week, but we'll see what happens (there's internet access at the lodge, says the rumor mill). Either way, have a great one!

Good Day, Good Reads, Working Out, Teeth, Vacation, Birthday

Happy Thursday, and Happy Birthday Shannon!

Picture of the day!

Katie isn't big on staying on the trail.

Boy, this week is going quickly, especially for a work week before vacation. I'm not complaining, mind you, just remarking. It'll be nice having Monday off to get things finished (with the baby at daycare) before the trip, too.

My teeth are feeling pretty good - the temp crown is a little high, but not too bad now that I've had some time to get used to it.

No time for a walk this morning, though I did some pushups. I think I'm gonna have to start working out at night after the family goes to bed - it's tough because that's the only time I have to myself all day, but otherwise there's just no time. That said, 30 minutes a night would do me a lot of good, and I can do it in front of the TV.

I've joined GoodReads, a site for sharing book libraries and reviews. Not sure if I like it yet, but I do enjoy the social networking in general. It is making me realize that I don't read enough. See the above point regarding exercise for a reason why, though.

That's all I've got. Good day!

Hello, Twitter, Ubuntu, OC Atheists Meeting, Crown, Hump

Hello and happy hump day!

Picture of the day!

A classic from Halloween 2006.

So, I was supposed to go in and get my crown for the work I had done last month. Alas, my dentist didn't like the way it fit, so they cleaned it all up, took new impressions, and put a new temp on. The procedure wasn't horrible (certainly not as bad as the root canal), but there's a lot of poking and numbing to be done, so I wasn't exactly pleased by the outcome. Alas, that's the breaks. Hopefully in two weeks we'll be all done.

Atheist? Curious what a bunch of atheists talk about over dinner? Join the Orange County Atheists Tonight, Wednesday, July 9 at 7:30PM at the International House of Pancakes at 18542 MacArthur Blvd in Irvine, near John Wayne Airport. Please RSVP here, and hope to see you there!

Ubuntu is working pretty well, though I'm having some power management issues. Of course, this laptop has always had power management issues (mostly related to not waking up after going to sleep). Right now it's turning off the screen after a few minutes of inactivity, but I can't get it back on. Time to check some forums...

I had to de-friend someone on twitter this week because this person had upwards of 75 posts a day, and my stupid web interface would just have this person's stuff. I know they're working on the basics right now, but it'd be nice to have a "temporarily unfollow" or "do not display updates from" a person.

Come say hello! Hello!

What's Happening, Ubuntu, Poker, Walked, Tuesday

Happy Tuesday!

Picture of the day!

Katie in Sequoia, age 6mo.

Walked 1.4 miles today. Feeling good.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I'm kicking serious poker ass lately - I've been in the money in my last four tournaments (two single table, two 45 person), winning more than $100 total. There's a lot of luck involved, of course, but I'm playing well too.

I installed Ubuntu 8 yesterday on my laptop. The process started with an easy (but large) download, burning to a CD, and putting that CD into my laptop. Ubuntu lets you "test" the install, using the same CD as a "live" (bootable) disk. It was able to find all of my hardware (including my wireless card) with no help from me, so I decided to install. It automatically set up a new partition with my existing XP installation, allowing me to duel boot. Everything's working, just like that. For those of you who've installed (or tried to install) Linux before, that's just amazing. I've always contended that if someone like me can't easily install it, there's no way an average user would. Ubuntu is ready.

Not much else to talk about. What's happening where you're at?

What's Up, Handsfree Dealy, Great Weekend, Candy Work, Birthday, Monday

Happy Monday!

Picture of the day!

A very strange picture of Ken and The Girlfriend from Mardi Gras 2005. Her hair is absurdly short in this image.

Forgive me, but I missed one of my most regular reader and commenter's birthdays last week - happy birthday to John!

It's no secret that I like to cook. I consider myself pretty good at it. But there's a joke among cooks that they won't even try baking, because that's the hard stuff. I actually like baking too, and it is much more involved and exact than most cooking. Lately I've been trying my hand at candy/sugar work, which is even more complex and difficult - so much so I almost wrote it off. But I tried making homemade caramel sauce again this weekend, and it turned out awesome - smooth and creamy, no sugar grit, and a deep color. The sugar cooking process on the way to caramel also yielded some amazing clear candy.

We had a great weekend - busy on the 4th, but relaxing Saturday and Sunday. Next week should be nice too - I'm off Monday-Friday to go up to Yosemite with family and friends. A guy could get used to this much time off.

I finally got my bluetooth handsfree dealy. It's cheap but works. I'm especially happy that it has a USB charger, just like my phone.

What's up with y'all?

Plans, Fireworks, Exercise, LAV Review, Friday Holiday, Thursday

Good morning! Happy Thursday!

Picture of the day!

Katie, last July 4th.

Last day of the work week, due to the rare Friday Holiday. Got a lot to finish up today, but hopefully tomorrow will be relaxation, and not much else.

New restaurant review up at the LAV Blog.

I forgot to post that I walked my standard 1.4 miles yesterday, and today, instead of walking, I moved a bunch of collected junk from our countertop removal to the trash (having to break it down first). I forgot how nice it is to get a little workout AND get stuff done around the house at the same time.

I was talking with the guys about this yesterday - I love blowing stuff up, and I love shiny things. But fireworks, especially the "Safe and Sane" variety, are becoming less and less appealing to me. They're expensive, smelly, wasteful, and don't provide much bang for the buck. I love the idea of fireworks, but lately, I let the pros do their thing. That said, maybe next year I'll rig up some awesomeness.

What do you have planned for the weekend? We're partying tomorrow, but hopefully relaxing the rest of the time. July's busy - gotta do nothing while you can.

Wednesday, Weight Loss Contest, Costco's Shit, Twitter Art, 4-Day Week

It's Wednesday!

Picture of the day!

Myself and Jamie at game night.

I keep forgetting this is a 4-day week (I don't get many holidays), so I'm still surprised and happy when I realize that Friday is a food, drink and non-work day.

Twitter's failure inspires art: Lifting Up A Dreamer.

I'm getting kinda tired of Costco's shit. I get off work at 7pm every day. I then go home and do dinner, so by the time we're ready to go out, it's around 8pm. Costco closes at 8:30pm. They start rolling down the door around 8:15pm - I can understand that, they're giving us a warning that closing is coming. But when you go in, they don't say "we're about to close" or "we're closing in 15 minutes - make sure you can finish up by then" - they just smile and look at your card. But the last few times we've gone, as soon as the clock hits 8:30pm, they literally start herding people out of the store - this week they wouldn't even let me get my own 36-pack of soda, the dude said "what do you need, I'll get it for you" when I started down the back aisle, not letting me pass. On several occasions I've been told, rather rudely, "sir, we're closed". My thoughts:

- Don't let me into your huge warehouse store at 8:20pm then get mad at me when I'm not done at 8:30pm.

- I realize you want to get to closing, but being rude to me and not letting me finish my shopping, just so you can herd me to the front where I then wait in a 10 minute line, is absurd.

I think it's time for a strongly-worded letter.

So, yeah, I'm now doing a weight loss contest. I'm at 214lbs, and my new goal is 10%, or getting down to 192lbs. All this by November. Difficult, yes, but I think I've got it to lose, and as soon as I start trying in earnest, it won't be that difficult. I hope not, I've got cash money riding on it.

I think there was more, but it can wait. Happy Wednesday!

What's Happening, UseBB, Warm, Headsets, July

Happy Tuesday, and Happy July!

Picture of the day!

Adam has a beer in the pool.

It's July 1, and Costco and both Targets I visited in the last 24 hours were out of moderately priced Bluetooth headsets. I probably should have thought ahead on this one...

Warm out there again - it is July, after all - but we had to run the air for a few hours last night. Hopefully we'll be able to keep that to a minimum.

Years ago, I set up a PHP-based bulletin board for my Atheist Web site - it was huge, clunky, annoying, hard to customize, and kinda ugly. This has stopped me from installing any new boards for any purpose, until this week, when we needed one for our D&D campaign. I found another similar board called UseBB, and man, is it awesome. Small, simple, clean, easy to install, and so far easy to customize. What a difference a few years makes.

That's all I got. What's happening?