I haven’t updated much here lately, due to the fact that there hasn’t been much time. Last weekend Finn and I made the Christmas pilgrimage to upstate New York, leaving Mama behind to try and catch up on a backlog of work and proposals. The girl and I had a great time, but we were both exhausted upon our return. I think it’s taken up until today for me to get caught up on sleep. The girls were able to deconstruct the christmas tree and haul the carcass out to the curb the other day, so this may mark the first time the county will have hauled it away as opposed to me throwing it next to the garage and dragging it to the dump in March. This weekend is earmarked for grocery shopping, cleaning, catching up on house maintenance, and two playoff games on Sunday.
I read up on some reviews of the new Mac Pro the other day, and an alternative solution to our storage problem presented itself: a Drobo is basically a 5-bay networked carriage for hard drives, which comes in at a much lower price point than a used Mac Pro on Craigslist. I’m ready to ditch the G5 in our basement, which has been balky and only offers two drive bays; Drobo offers Plex and FireFly compatibility so we can share our media to the AppleTV and to my shiny new Christmas present, a Roku3. Sometime in the spring, I’m going to pull the trigger and consolidate everything.
Life with the iPad has been tricky but workable; I’ve left my laptop home for the last week and a half, and there doesn’t seem to be too much I can’t accomplish on the iPad. Reading books is much nicer than the first gen Kindle. Netflix and Amazon Instant Video are slick; the fact that Spotify is now streaming to mobile devices for free is awesome. I’ve got a great VNC client for remoting to client machines, and Mint’s app is a bit oblique but usable. My big beef is with Yahoo for not offering a full-size Flickr app for the iPad, which feels like I’m still looking at tintypes by candlelight. WTF, Yahoo?
The biggest issue I have now is what my new photo workflow should be. I’m not taking a ton of pictures, but I’d like to take and post more as the weather warms up. With my laptop at home, there’s no easy way to edit and post DSLR pictures until I get home unless I do it on a work machine, which I’m trying to avoid.
I’ve had The Bones of What You Believe by CVRCHES and Days Are Gone by Haim on infinite repeat the last three weeks; obviously my tastes are changing again, in the absence of any good new rock or ambient albums.
I paused to reflect, last night as I leaned into the car to scoop out my sleeping daughter, that this was another part of her childhood that I’m not ready to ever give up. I carefully unbuckle her seatbelt, and through some involuntary muscle memory, she raises both arms slightly so I can pick her up. As I nestle her head into the hollow of my shoulder, she goes limp, and I carry her inside the house, usually right up the stairs, and lay her gently in bed.
What better way to start the day than to be woken by breakfast in bed? Finn and Mama surprised me with a tray of warm food to kick off a day outside amongst the leaves and sun and wind. Even though we raked the front yard last weekend, the incessant wind has covered it back over, and the backyard was beginning to collect great mountains of maple, oak, and sycamore leaves. I got to work building Finn a great twig-free pile and she jumped in it while I kept moving.
We made a brief trip to the store to collect more bags, and stopped at the dump to drop off some old electronics. While we were there I spied a Polk subwoofer sitting in the recycle bin. Now, I work for a good company and I get paid a great salary, but when I see something I can repair (and that I’ve been mulling the purchase of for years), I’m grabbing it. So in the back of the Scout it went. Then we stopped for a photo op on the way home.
Then I treated her to lunch down the street, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. She talked me into a double-chocolate cupcake for dessert, because I’m a sucker.
Then we got back to work. By this time the sun was behind a low layer of gray clouds, so I brought out the firepit and loaded it with some dry elm. With a pile of recently collected twigs, I had a blazing fire going in minutes.
After filling about 20 bags, it was getting colder and Finn was bored, so Mama and I enjoyed the fire for a few minutes before loading up some forks with hot dogs so that Finn and I could roast them for dinner. Then we hit the den for movie night: Monsters University was funny and scary and just what we all needed.
And, guess what: The subwoofer works!
Pique the cat, after a long dry spell, has been two for two vs. our household mice this week. On Monday he dropped a very dazed adult mouse on the floor in front of Jen as she lay in bed; I was able to trap it under a glass and release it (well, honestly I flung it) on the lawn of the church across the street. Tuesday evening he did the exact same thing at the same time of the evening, and I trapped and flung this one further away from the house. I don’t think they were the same mouse, but I’m hoping the extra distance and Frederick road dissuaded the two of them from coming back.
After suffering through spotty wireless connectivity at the house (and the attendant expensive cellular data bills), I used some money from my first paycheck to purchase a new Airport Express, which should be here today. At that point I’ll shut the wireless built in to our FIOS router off for good and hopefully we can save some money.
Last weekend I got the IPA kegged with Finn’s help and got it set up for gas; unfortunately I lost the better part of a Co2 bottle and about 4 pints to a faulty dip tube in the Dubbel keg, so I had to drag Finn to the homebrew store for some gasketry and supplies. I still seem to be having issues with the one-way valve I installed on the gas line, and I need a new shank for my second tap line, so I’ll have to go back out this weekend for another trip. But the IPA tastes very good!
Last night I started cutting sheets of MDF board down for new speaker cabs, based on new calculations and the hardware I’ve got. I have to replace the original the tweeters I bought in 1992, one of which has died mysteriously, so I found a new inexpensive set that should be easy replacements. I’m cutting the wood down on a table saw and making everything with 45˚ joins, which will help make these cabs much more aesthetically appealing than the last ones. I’m also going to be buying premade ports and tuning them specifically to the cabinets, as opposed to roughing in ports made from wood, rubber feet, and new binding posts for the wiring.
Here’s the video I mentioned last week; Finn is featured practicing her excellent manners (right at the 2:00 mark), and the Scout even makes a brief appearance in the background!