I stumbled across this nerd quiz, and decided to take it. I had no idea that I was such a nerd. I was expecting something in the 50-70% range, but nothing like this …

My great aunt Molly died a couple of weeks ago, and ever since I found out I’ve had a strong desire to go home. I would have gone down when it happened only there wasn’t a service (at her request). The thing that is most holding me back is that it is hard to work from there, and I don’t want to use vacation time for the trip (I know, how selfish of me). I guess the real issue is that Ali and I already have a vacation planned for the end of January to go to Sunday River in Maine, and I didn’t think it would go over too well if I tried to take another week near an already planned vacation.

I am looking forward to the Sunday River trip; the skiing has been pretty weak … Read More »

Apparently quite a few of you have been upset by my recent lapse in posting pictures. As such, I’ve been catching a lot of demonstrable flack (see this comment). With the constant berating my wife has received when talking to various family members I decided it was time to act. To that end, I have created an entirely new album called “Holidays” and within I have posted a plethora of pictures designed to calm and sooth those who have most been asking for them.

View Holidays photo-album.

I see now that I’ve been pretty lax about posting this month. For some reason I just haven’t had much to say. For that matter, I still don’t.

Well not much anyway — I wanted to just take a moment to point out an artist I’ve recently discovered and have been thoroughly enjoying.

Sarah Harmer

She has two CDs and I really like both of them.

Sarah Harmer @ BN

“People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes,” he said. “The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it’s like missing water. Every day, you notice the person’s absence more.”

               — Back When We Were Grownups

I get to go to Denver next week, wahoo! I am going to be doing some product testing in a Cisco lab. I only wish I had enough time to stay a couple of extra days and get some skiing in, oh well.

We’ve had the heating guys here this past week working on installing a new heating system. The bad news is we had to go with base-board hot water (a.k.a hydronic heating system), which is costing 50% more than we had budgeted for. The good news is that it is a much superior system for this climate (as opposed to the forced hot air system). Also, there are a couple of benefits to it — 1. We will get zones for the first and second floor, and two the water heater is part of the system, and this baby can put out 175 gallons/hr @ 140 degrees.

There are some downsides too, it is more expensive, and it covers the base board on many walls. We are also going to be left with inactive registers in the floor … Read More »

I have been experiecing a lot of firsts lately.

snow blower
mandolin
coveralls (Carhart)
snow boots
cord of wood
hydronic heating system
re-wiring first floor electrical and adding outlets