The Palm Pre has come out for Sprint and the initial results are really good. Everyone seems to have the same gripes (battery life is not the best, the keyboard could be a little bigger) and the new webOS is an innovative step in the right direction of cell phone design. I don’t know that I want one because it’s first gen hardware and that usually takes at least one more revision before it’s vetted for normal life. My parents and relatives think I’m always changing cell phones, but I would like to point out I’ve had the same phone for coming up on two years now. I’m thinking of ditching my BlackBerry simply because I no longer need the capabilities of the BB on my phone but I don’t see another Sprint phone that I really want. Come on Android!
My brother and sister-in-law were in town for the weekend because there was a wedding here they were attending and it was great to see them and my niece again. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen them and it was a lot of fun having them here. We didn’t get to hang out too incredibly much because of all the various events they had to attend, but we still got to do a couple things together and I’m glad they were able to stay at my place for the weekend.
Sorry for the delays and here is a warning in advance. I may be late posting for the next few weeks but I promise I’ll get things put on this page eventually. After all, I’m a weekly blog which requires weekly updates by very definition.
This week has been a lot of fun. There is something going around at work, but that hasn’t put a damper on any of the good times we’ve had! Let me recap some really important things.
We went tubing again on the river. I got tube rash on the inside of my arms (from paddling the tube to get past some of the huge groups) but I did NOT get sunburned. That was great because last time we went out, I got fried. I only used SPF 10 and my friends made fun of me because they thought that wasn’t near enough. They all slathered on SPF 50 that was about the consistency of Elmer’s Glue and rubbed in about as well. They looked ridiculous, I looked cool.
I finally figured out my DVR. Because I had to switch from TiVo to a box from my cable provider, I had to learn a whole new way to record and watch shows on TV. It’s been a little trying to get the season passes set up how I want them to record and keep the shows as long as I need them to be there. Because I travel a lot, I need to make sure I have all the shows I wanted to watch while I was gone waiting for me when I get home.
Finally, I have some family members coming into town this week. That should be pretty great to have them around because the last time I had seen them was around Christmas time.
I had a new clutch unit put in my car which means shifting gears is about a thousand times smoother than it used to be. It’s funny because I got used to shifting the way my car used to shift and now it’s like driving a whole new car. I haven’t stalled or even come close, but it isn’t anything like it used to be. It’s kind of nice!
There came a point this past week where there were only two people in our flight. That was pretty funny because we didn’t really know what to do. I had plenty of work to keep myself going, but it felt weird not to have anyone come and chat with us or entertain us with stories about the crazy things they did the other day. I found I am no more productive with no one there, I just have a chance to work on a single project for a little longer length of time than usual.
It became evident I need an ironing board this past week when I almost melted my pants to the top of my dresser. I’ve been using the floor and the top of my dresser since I moved in here which has been working well. It turns out that if you starch some pants on both sides and then try to iron them on a wood dresser, you’ll get the pants stuck to the top of the dresser and you’ll have to rip it off and spend about ten minutes scraping wood bits off the pant legs. It’s not much fun. Since then I’ve been using the floor and I’ll stick to that until I get to WalMart and buy a new ironing board. That will just have to wait until I have time!
It turns out my Jeep needs some sort of repair to the transmission because it sounds like a stuck pig when I press the clutch. As soon as it started making that noise, I took it home and parked it. It’s now sitting in my parking space looking quite sad without someone behind the wheel. Hopefully the repair only takes a few days.
We recently found a burrito place called Free Birds where they sell something called a Monster Burrito. It is made with three tortilla shells and it costs $12 and up. We’ve decided we will be getting those and seeing how far we can make it through them next weekend. That and we’re going to try to drink a bottle of syrup each as they do in the movie Super Troopers. There really is nothing to be gained from these food challenges except the experience and the bragging rights for being able to finish those things first.
We saw Up! today in 3D. It was a really good movie (though I’ve not been known to dislike a Pixar film) and the short film that comes at the start of the movie was great. Before each Pixar film, there is a little short film that doesn’t usually have a lot of words, it’s all about a funny character or two doing something outrageous. This one is no different and it offers a lot of laughs! I’d recommend the movie to anyone because it’s a good time and the 3D is really well done. Mom, go see the normal version.
nrfirth | 
31 May 2009 13:00 | 
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The title of this post is a little misleading because we’re not going tubing until tomorrow, but we’re still all excited about it today; I decided I wanted to include it on this post and there isn’t a lot you can do to stop me.
We helped my friend move into her new apartment on Friday and Saturday and a little more this afternoon. It turns out it’s not easy to move down the street from where you currently live because it’s too far to walk but it’s too close to want to hire someone to move your things. She had Two Men and a Truck move the furniture, but it turns out there is a lot of things in an apartment that aren’t furniture. And when it comes time to move that stuff, you have to get it all put in boxes or bags and in the trunks of your friends cars and trucks.
We had Friday off because Monday is Memorial Day and they wanted to give us a four day weekend. That means we’ve tried to do something every day so we’re not just sitting around our apartments twiddling our thumbs. We’ve had two cookouts and a night out on the town. It’s been great!
I have my MediaSmart server set up now and backing up the computers on my home network. This is finally a backup solution that I don’t have to worry about because if my computers are on the network and turned on, they will automatically back themselves up without any input from me. For those people out there who do not back up their data, you better start. It just takes one failed hard drive or one dead computer to learn a very hard and very valuable lesson!
nrfirth | 24 May 2009 13:00 | Comments Off
It turns out unpacking the few boxes I have is a lot harder than I thought. I haven’t been able to get motivated to do it because for over four months, I only had the essentials. Now that I have more than that, I don’t know what to do with it all. I’ll get around to it eventually, it just seems a lot easier to procrastinate than to have to think about where everything could go or where I could store things.
I DO enjoy having cable Internet back. This means I don’t have to travel up to the pool to get things done online, I can do them right from my apartment. I find that I still go up to the pool a couple nights a week simply because it’s so nice up there!
I had my optometry appointments this past week and I should be getting my glasses in the mail within another week or so. I think I’m going to start wearing them more often at work because at the end of the day, the recycled office air and the fact that we work with computers for much of the day means my eyes are kind of tired at the end of the day. That and I think I look sophisticated with glasses on. Correction: MORE sophisticated.
We had a great time last night playing putt-putt and going out with a crew of people from work. I found out I’m not very good at mini golf, but I did manage to get the only hole-in-one in our group. We laughed a lot as we came to the realization that none of us were particularly good (read: we were awful). I kind of felt sorry for the people behind us because a group of five takes a while to get through each hole, but I suppose that’s just part of the game!
nrfirth | 17 May 2009 13:00 | Comments Off
On Friday my squadron went to see Star Trek. I have never seen a single episode of Star Trek on TV nor have I watched a single Star Trek movie, so I was coming into this movie blind. It was phenomenal! The casting was really well done and there were a lot of funny parts. You don’t have to know anything about the franchise to follow the movie (which is good because … well … I know nothing about the franchise). This is right up there with Transformers for me and I’ll probably get it on DVD when it comes out. That says a lot coming from me because I only own six DVDs. I’ve got to really like a movie to buy it. Mom, don’t go see this movie. You don’t like anything space-related in moves. Maybe Disney’s earth is more your style?
On Friday night a group of us gathered at a friend’s house for RockBand 2 and food. I bought us some frozen pizzas and then we proceeded to shred some tunes. I’m still not good at the drums, but I have no desire to get better, so it works out really well for me. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty awful at guitar too. It turns out I can play the bass or sing and I don’t have to know the song to do either. I would like to think that it’s because of my musical prowess that I don’t have to know a song to perform, but it’s probably just because the game gives you the basic melody by way of a colored line.
I went to one of my friend’s commissioning ceremony today. It was a really good time. The building it was in was called Main Building. I thought that the guy was kidding when he told me what building it was in, but it turns out that is really the name of the building. What are your bets that it was a scientist or an engineer that named that building? There is no other person who could have come up with such a dumb name.
nrfirth | 10 May 2009 13:00 | Comments Off
We went to Sea World today (which meant a really early church service) and had a really great time! It was pretty awesome because the weather wasn’t really that nice which means all the parents were not willing to bring their kids in if they weren’t sure how the sun was going to react. We walked on to all the roller coasters and rode some of them twice; we were in the splash zone for every show; we were able to walk around without any bumping into us or getting in our way; it was pretty much the best amusement park day ever.
This past week was long but really productive. We’ve got a lot of concurrent projects going on at work right now which means it’s hard to keep track of who is assigned to what project and what exactly it is they are doing for that assignment. It basically creates an atmosphere of “which project are you doing right now?” in the office which makes getting anything done that much more interesting.
On Friday we had a Guitar Hero: World Tour night with the LTs. We all found that it’s really hard not to fail out on the mic if no one in the room knows the song that’s playing. We managed to fake our way through most of the songs that no one had a clue about, but there were a couple we just had to skip because there was nothing we could do to make it through the song without someone failing out.
On Saturday, we met up again to go to see Wolverine. If you ignored the fact that they completely threw out the original comic series and just kind of made up what they wanted to film, it was a great movie. They did a really good job and told a really cool story, it just wasn’t the original series’ story. We did pick up our free comic books right after the movie because it was Free Comic Book Day. Hey, anything that combats illiteracy across the nation is alright with me. If it also happens to come with a free cartoon for me, that’s just a perk!
nrfirth | 3 May 2009 13:00 | Comments Off
