I have been meaning to post this for a while now but am only now getting around to it. I don't normally do new years resolutions, but this year I am. Last october I noticed that every time I went to the restroom at work (or in public) I would take at least two paper towels to dry my hands after washing them. I tried to see if I could cut down to one. It worked, though my hands would still be slightly damp, but that seems like a fair trade off. Since then I only use one paper towel to dry my hands. I figure this means I am saving a minimum 520 paper towels a year. It's easy if you're ever looking for a new years resolution. Labels: life
It was an unsuspecting afternoon. I had just got back to lunch with some coworkers. Sara IMed me and told me her stomach hurt, kind of like a stitch in her side. I gave her a sadface. A while later, she told me it really hurt. I asked if I should take her home but just then I got a call from her boss saying I should come get her. Sara was in so much pain she had to stand (*not* lay down) at an awkward angle to get some relief. We went on a painful ride to urgent care. There we waited 15 minutes or so to see a lady who had us wait 15 minutes or so to see a "doctor". The "doctor" came in and asked a few questions, then made Sara lay down (the most painful of positions for her) while he pressed directly on her torso and abdomen right where her pain was. "Does that hurt?" he asked her. I punched him. Of course it hurt. "Well, we don't have an ultrasound machine here to see what's happening so you'll have to go to the E.R." Awesome. On the way to the E.R., Sara was in so much obvious pain, I was honestly worried she was going to pass out in the back seat. We got to the E.R. at Rose Medical Center and despite what the news reports say, they were not over-crowded and the wait was only seconds-long. They took her back and within 20 minutes she had her first and second doses of morphine. That didn't help. She was still sitting on the edge of the gurnee with unbearable pain. Dilaudid helped somewhat. They did the ultrasound and found no gallstones or kidney stones or anything. They did a chest x-ray and found no problems with her lungs. Then the doctor told us they were going to do a cat scan which "is an expensive test" (his words). The cat scan came back with everything looking normal except a little swelling in the appendix. After consulting a surgeon, they decided she should have surgery in 30 minutes. Happy Wednesday! Sara hasn't ever had surgery before and neither of us have ever had any serious procedure like this so it was kinda scary. She did incredibly well and her parents were there with me to see her off to the operating table. She actually looked very cute in her little surgery hat and I took a picture that I'm not sure she knows about. About 2 minutes after she went in, my parents got to the hospital. After an hour or so, the very tired-looking surgeon came out and talked with us for a uncommonly long time which was very nice. He was able to do the procedure laparoscopically so she only has 3 less-than-an-inch scars on her belly. I stayed with her through the next evening when she was able to go home. She is doing relatively well now but still has a lot of pain and a stupid headache. Thanks for all the well wishings so far, I know she appreciates it.
The other day Sara was working from home. I stayed a little late at work and when I got home Sara had taken the dog for a walk. After a while she was walking back to the house and the neighbor invited her in for a chat. I saw her out the window so I walked over there. I was also invited in. I wanted to go close my door because there were about 5 landscapers hanging around on our front lawn near the street. They must have been working on a neighbors house. I didn't feel like leaving our house wide open (you can't see our house from the neighbors very well and there have been burglaries in our neighborhood over the last couple years). However, I didn't want to be rude and just walk over and lock the door in front of them. I decided to go back to the house, through the front door, and lock it. I then went out the back, closed it but picked up an extension cord. I took it with me around the side of the house and around front- visibly holding it as I walked by the landscapers so they would know my neighbor needed borrow it- and over to the neighbors. Of course when I got there I had to explain to my neighbor why I was holding an extension cord for no reason. Labels: life
Every time I go to post on this site I never do because it's not really fun anymore. Hopefully it will be fun again at some point. I'll catch you up anyway. Sara and I went to New York a couple weeks ago and it was pretty cool. It was the first time I had been but the third time from Sara. We got to hang out with our friends Heather and Jon while we were there a bit which was great, even though they're super busy planning their wedding which is in Denver in about another week. I loved it. We went a bunch of places: Mid-town, downtown, West Village, Harlem, Brooklyn we were there for a long time, six days I think. Also, we bought a Nissan Cube which we love. We are now, without meaning to, a Nissan family. I think the Cubes a really good car for the price. And it looks good too. Nick is moving back to the U.S. in a week which is great. Not to Denver, but to Houston which is pretty close. I'm just excited to be roughly in the same time zone as him, although I have got good about knowing what time it is in Dubai and greeting him accordingly (Good *morning* Nick! or Good *evening* Nick!, it can get tricky). I'm also excited because now he will be able to watch and discuss TV shows and see flickr pictures and such. Sara and I are going to have to visit him soon. Labels: life
It seems we lost one of our Netflix movies. We can't remember seeing it in a month. We usually have one or two movies rotating through on a regular cycle but the third can take a while to watch (like Hotel Rwanda, Helvetica, or maybe some other various documentaries) so it's not uncommon to not watch our third movie within a month. We might have accidentally thrown it out in the recycling bin along with our junk mail. The problem is I don't want to accept that it's lost and pay the $20 or whatever it is, mainly because it's not a good movie. If I ever find it I won't want to be stuck with it. If it was a descent movie I'd have no problem because I would know that if I found it I might watch it a few times. Maybe even make a proper-looking DVD case for it. It's Tropic Thunder. There, I said it. Who knows how long I can hold out without "buying" the movie. I'm not happy about this. Update: After biting the bullet, I paid for the DVD on Netflix but then got this wonderful message: "If you find the lost DVD within one year, please return it to us for a refund." That's awesome, exactly what I would have hoped for but never expected. How cool!
I think that hanging Christmas lights are the next big step after home ownership. I mean, it's a pretty big deal. When you're starting fresh there's a lot to consider. Strand length, bulb type, light color, attachment systems. I have heard that everyone should start moving to the LED lights but the only ones I've seen in stores are sparse and quite expensive. All the others seem to be primarily the little tiny lights which don't seem like they would hang up very nicely. I've been trying to look up online how people do lights these days but I'm not finding any useful information. I'll probably just end up putting it off another year. Merry Christmas everyone!
For my birthday, my parents got me some Spam Singles™ as a joke. When I was in High School I had a Spam shirt that I wore frequently. I decided to actually try the Spam because for some reason I don't want to go my whole life without trying Spam. It was extremely terrible. The smell alone when sliding the oozing "fully cooked meat product" out of the packaging almost made me reverse my decision to actually attempt to consume any of it, but I had to press on. I decided it would be best to pan fry the product so it would at least be warm and have some texture. It needed no cooking oil, for the provided mucusy membrane the Spam Single™ was packaged in was enough to keep it from sticking to the pan. Once cooked I was going to put it on some bread and have a Spamwich, but I thought I needed to try it first. I took a bite off the corner. It was soft and malleable in my mouth. Like a warm paste, the meat formed on my tongue and teeth. I wasn't chewing, I was molding. The taste was salty but also sweet. I had to remind myself this was meat. I almost spit it out but no one gets this far only to quit. I had to swallow. It took a considerable ammount of effort to convince myself that the prominent "USDA Approved" logo on the package wasn't forgery and that I could successfully consume this product. I swallowed. I instantly needed something to override the taste that was in my mouth so in went a handfull of pine nuts and a shwig of cranberry juice. Sadly (or not) I tossed out the rest of the Spam. Why'd you have to buy me two mom? The best part of the whole thing was the marketing on the front of the package that states "Get Ready to go to Crazy Tasty Town℠!"
I think in the past year and a half I may have taken one sick day off from work. This isn't because my body is impervious to bacteria or viruses nor is it something I'm proud of. No, it's because my body hates me and decides to wait until a weekend or holiday or vacation to get me sick. Tuesday night I started to get a cold. At first I thought it might be allergies from a puzzle Sara and I pulled out and decided to do. Who does puzzles anymore? No one. But guess what? We did. Turns out it wasn't allergies, it was a cold. Despite me feeling like crap I ended up having a really good time with family over the weekend and was feeling good enough to play hockey last night. And now, like every other time, Sara is starting to get sick just as I get back to normal, despite out best efforts to prevent it. "We still have over a bottle's worth." "Ovar Ubottlesworth? Isn't that somebody's name?" Labels: life
Tomorrow night, Sara and I are heading off to San Francisco to visit Julie and Mary. San Francisco is probably the most frequented place I have ever gone (with the exception of all those childhood summer road trips to St. Louis), but I am always excited to go. I feel like I have only been to a handful of the unbelievable restaurants out there and that place has more neighborhoods than I think I'll ever see. If you have any suggestion on what to do, let 'er rip because we don't have a gameplan or anything while we're out there. Fun Fact: when I went to visit Julie the first time, we were walking around the steep hills of the city and I was thinking about Denver. In that thought, I asked Julie, "So when it snows here do the kids just go nuts with sleding?" I know, I'm a big idiot. At least I know I'm an idiot. "You're the one who was getting fancy with the spices!" Labels: life, san francisco, travel
Over the past year or two I have been doing less and less online. I post to this blog less, I put up less and less photos on Flickr, and it has been a long time since I've messed around with making a website, or created anything in photoshop. These are all things that I used to do on a regular or at least somewhat regular basis. The thing is, I feel like I spend just as much time on my computer, but that time is now spent consuming. I read Google Reader *constantly*, probably more than I should. I sit there and for an hour I will read articles from other websites. Actually most of the time I end up reading just the headline. I tell Sara about some scientific study someone did and she asks any question about it and I don't have the answer because I just read the headline. I want to try to spend less time consuming things and more time creating them. I could say that because I have a house and a dog and a wife that I don't have time anymore, but the truth is that I do. I just need to be better at it and find ways to motivate myself. I wonder if other people feel like they are in the same boat. I once heard someone say "create something every day," and I think that's a pretty noble goal to have. Even if you just attempt to live by that, I think you will have a better life. Labels: life
On the way home from the dentist today I stopped to buy some gas. By the way, at the dentist, they told me I was supposed to have had a filling since the last time I was there, but by the end of the appointment they told me that the filling wasn't necessary anymore. That must be the best outcome to a dentist visit ever. Anyhow, I went to fill up on gas and the credit card thing on pump 4 wasn't working. I put my card in and it did nothing, so I moved to pump 2. Me being a nice guy, I thought I should let them know. The following is my conversation with the man in the gas station. I don't know his name but I will refer to him as Gus. Me: "Hi. Just to let you know, your credit card acceptor is broken on pump 4."Then I left. Unbelievable. I hope Gus' business keeps going as well as it is because I'm sure those 10 customers who probably had similar conversations will be sure to return. Amazing customer service.
I feel acomplished. Over the weekend I got a lot done. We cleaned the house, I installed 2 light fixtures, ran some errands (including getting my skates sharpened), mowed the lawn, trimmed, and edged for the first time (I bought an electric edger at a pawn shop 2 weeks ago for $15). Edging is really hard the first time. You have to basically dig out the trench of dirt and clear out all the overgrown stuff that's been there for who knows how long. I know I didn't set any records or anything but it's sure nice to get stuff done sometimes. The light fixtures I put in, we actually bought about 8 months ago (maybe more). We bought three of them and I installed the first one when we had bought it. Because our house is so old, we don't have standard electric boxes under the lights. Its all old and blackened with gigantic crazy wires. So the first one took about an hour to put in because I couldn't get it perfectly flush with the cieling. Eventually I gave up but even now it looks fine. This is why I have been dreading installing the other two so I have put it off for so long. It probably took me 20 minutes to do the remaining two this weekend. Why do I put off stuff for so long when it's no big deal? I don't know. A lot of people probablyprocrastonate like this too so I guess that makes it okay for me to do too. Yesterday I also had surgery to remove a cyst on my ankle that had been getting big. Everything went as good as can be. They had to give me general anesthetics which had me worried but all and all I am glad they did it that way because it was actually kind of relaxing. I can't believe I have a inch and a half, quarter inch deep cut in my leg being heald together with stitches and tape and I have felt zero pain. Modern medicine is incredible. I will be going back to work tomorrow which will be fine, I'll just hate having to explain to people why my leg is elevated (although I haven't been doing a great job of keeping it up at home). Go percocet! Labels: life
Ever since we got Dash, Sara's parents have just loved him so much that they have been considering getting a dog of their own more and more. Well a couple of weeks ago, Sara found a Silky Terrier on the Dumb Friends League website and sent it on to her mom. Well doing that got her mom set on finding a dog they could adopt. The Dumb Friends League dog, Spike didn't work out for them (don't worry, he got adopted the next day), but a couple days later, Terri found a dog that she couldn't resist even though he was at a pretty run down shelter. He was a stray that seemed pretty healthy and Terri took him home right when she saw him. The Kennel said he passed their vet exam with "flying colors". Terri took him to get groomed but they said without proof of a rabies shot, they couldn't take him. She took him to the vet the next day. The vet told her that he had some pretty bad teeth (this often is the case with terriers), and that was causing a lot of larger health issues, like upper respitory problems and maybe some other issues. They also called later in the week to tell her he had tested positive for canine influenza. This was after their dog (Ozzi) had hung out with Dash for two days in a row. Wikipedia says that there is an 80% chance that if a dog comes into contact with canine influenza they will get it too. Well, it's been seven days now and Dash is as lively as usual and Ozzi seems to be slowly getting better. We're glad Dash didn't get sick and are relieved Ozzi is getting better but I just can't believe what kind of a shady kennel would say a dog "passed with flying colors" and the next day another vet would find so much wrong with the dog.
One of the first things we wanted to do when we moved into this house was replace the security door. It has problems. It look terrible, probably about 30 yeard old Wrought Iron, the screens are broken, the handle doesn't close shut and we don't even have a key for it. Not very secure. A couple months ago we heard about a rash of burglaries in our neighborhood so we decided we should go ahead and get a new door, one that has a key and closes. We had even been hiding our laptops around the house during the day, like under couch cushions and in drawers just in case. Nine weeks ago I bought a door from Home Depot, but after taking the old heavy one off and putting the new one up I realized it was too short and we would need to order a custom sized door. An extra 4 inches of height equaled out to an extra $300 but as we soon founf out that was our only option so we bought it. The delivery that was supposed to take "a few weeks" actually took four and they didn't call me when it came in, I had to call them. Fantastic. I had asked my father in law to help me install it, and when we got to Home Depot and got the door, we saw that it had been dropped and the bottom corner was completly crumpled in. We had to order a new door and there was no way they could expodite the manufacturer or shipping and they gave us no discounts of any kind. They even let the new girl enter in the order in which she had to start over three times because of hitting the wrong key. Fantastic. Four more weeks. Saturday I called to see if the door was in, and sure enough, it came in Thursday night (no call to me). I asked if it was policy not to call customers when their orders came in. It is not. Luckily the new employee wasn't new anymore, she has 4 weeks experience under her belt now and was able to get me my new door. With a huge gash in the box. Luckily whatever happened to the box didn't make it all the way through to the door. My dad came over yesterday and helped me install the new door, no problems, new knobs, locks, door closer, and a new door knob for the garage to match keys. I feel a lot better now, though the burglaries have died down in the time spent waiting, but at least I'm not hiding my laptop in cushions anymore. And it looks fantastic. Thanks Home Depot. -=MovieQuoteOfTheDay=-"I'm Bill Murray, you're everybody else. "
If you read this site, wish that it was updated more, and wonder why I don't post much anymore, you are not alone. I wonder those same things too. I think that at least once a day for the past two weeks straight I have thought about this site, wanted to write a post, but just have nothing to write about. I feel like I haven't been creative for a long time now. I haven't drawn, painted, photoshopped, coded for fun, anything like that since probably last year. And it's June. I feel like I used to do that kind of stuff all the time. I have been able to relax quite a bit now that the wedding is over, and all the thank-you notes are all sent out and everything, but maybe I have been relaxing too much. I've thought about redesigning this site, but with no good content, it seems like a waste. I tried to revive some old greasemonkey scripts I wrote but the changes made to greasemonkey since I stopped following it's development make it difficult to work with. I'm glad Nick has got internet access in his condo now, it will be good to be able to chat with him in the morning and evening. Sara, Nick, and I have started trying to figure out the weekly Filmwise Invisible quizzes over email and we actually got all of them this week. That's all for now, I'll get back to working on how to make this site interesting again. "How can a train be lost? It's on rails." Labels: life
Friday night I drove down to my friend Todd's apartment in Parker to see Tyler who was in town from Durango for a friend's wedding. It was actually south of Parker, roughly the last turn before you get to New Mexico. Todd, Tyler, Jeff, Jason and Dean were all there when I arrived and so was an old dorm-mate from CU, Aleks. Aleks is a Russian kid I met my sophomore year at CU. He was 21 at the time and could therefore buy alcohol, a vital role in the college dorms. He was a Junior that year. I ended up living on campus my sophomore year because I didn't have that many close friends after my freshman year and not being a huge fan of Boulder at the time, I didn't want to live by myself. I hadn't seen Aleks since probably a year or two after I left CU, so that was pretty cool to get to hang out. Late into the night, after some thimble sized jello shots and metal puzzle games, Aleks and his cousin went to the store and bought some Tostinos pizzas. The problem was Jeff and Todd's oven doesn't work. The broiler did though. And so did the microwave, the toaster, and the bar-b-que. The first pizza, they decided to cook in the turned-on-it's-side toaster. It was pretty burnt, I didn't have any. The second pizza from the broiler was burnt with some gooey dough, I didn't have any of that either. The third pizza, however, that was cooked on the grill, thrown in the broiler, and finished up in the microwave. I had some of that and despite the burnt cardboard and charcoal taste of the rock hard undercoat of the crust, it was pretty good. It was a pretty fun night hanging out with everyone, telling old jokes, listening to Tyler put down other's career decisions in order to defend his married life, waiting an hour for Jeff to mysteriously come out of his bedroom, watching Jason finally separate two pieces of a metal puzzle, and finally seeing Todd's place. I just hope this isn't the last time I see Tyler for three years. Labels: life
If you ever decide to visit Scotland, namely Edinburgh Scotland, I have one piece of rock-solid advice for your trip: do not go to the "Scotch Whisky Experience." The Scotch Whisky Experience is a tourist attraction, right outside Edinburgh Castle on the Royal Mile. Let me give you the highlights. You go in, pay like £9 ($18 USD) per person and then wait in a room for the tour to start. After a while, a nice Scottish lady comes in and gives you a shot of Scotch, in our case it was the exquisite and rare Dewars (yes, this was Jon Favreau's drink in Swingers). Then you watch a video produced in 1994 of an American "tourist" (you know he's a tourist because he keeps taking pictures of crap with a gigantic camera with oversized strap) who takes a sip of scotch to be transported back in time to see how whisky is made. That goes on for a while. The second part is the tour guide pointing out parts of a diorama with a wand. The third part is another hokie video of a "ghost bartender" who floats out of a bottle of whisky projected onto a piece of glass to give the ghost effect. But the finale... the finale is a theme park style ride where you sit in a whisky-barrel-mobile cart that goes on a track at 0.25mph through "the history of whisky." It was like It's a Small World but with whisky. The whole thing was like it was made for a 7 year old, but you had to be 18 to drink any whisky, it was just awful and lasted forever. So there's my Edinburgh advice: don't go to the Scotch Whisky Experience.
Just a quick post to say that I am getting married today to the most amazing woman in the world and I am incredibly excited. I'd better get ready for the wedding tho. And not forget the rings. Can't forget the rings. Labels: life
As the "holiday" weekend comes to a close I am feeling very accomplished. I got a lot done and thought I'd list what I did. Sara and I cleaned the house. It's not very out of the ordinary, but it makes my list bigger. We cleaned it so we could have Jared Sarah, and Quin over for dinner, which, yes, was lovely. We met the photographer at red rocks to go over some good photo-taking areas and ideas with him. One shot we decided on will feature me posing bare-chested with an axe. After going to two other pastry shops and being completely disappointed with their willingness to make our cake the way we want it, we came across Child's Pastries who had the best price, taste, and design ability and we ordered our cake. Every time I decide to wash my car, I find out that it's going to snow within the next couple of days so I don't end up washing it. This has lead to me not washing my car for about six months. By this point, you could scrape the magnesium chloride off with a spatula. Well, I bit the bullet and got my car washed, waxed, vacuumed and was actually amazed by how good it looks. Friday night we decided we should do our taxes so we can get any possible refund before our honeymoon and right now they are done, sealed in an envelope waiting to be sent out. Combined we will receive a very descent refund which will help us with our soon-to-be-incurred wedding-and-honeymoon debt. Even though we finished watching Love Liza about three and a half weeks ago, it has been sitting sealed next to the TV since then. This weekend I realized we haven't actually returned it and will be sending back the movie tomorrow morning. I now realize that I *am* Netflix's business model. Finally, for no good reason, we started going through all the boxes in our storage room tonight. By the end of the night, we had cut our storage volume in half. Thankfully, there is a bunch of stuff going to goodwill, but sadly, there are tons of VHS movies going to the dump including but not limited to One Crazy Summer (thanks michael), fightclub, office space, a few star wars trilogies, a few indiana jones trilogies, and many more. Sad to see them go. Labels: life
Tonight we finally got a home phone number. We have been in this house for over a year and have never needed one, but sometimes our cell phone coverage (my cell phone coverage) is spotty within the house and drops all the time and rarely works at all in the basement. So I suppose we did need a land line. The problem is we couldn't justify $30+ a month for something that we wouldn't use too much. After talking to a coworker, we decided to get a home phone through Skype. It works just like a regular VoIP phone does, but there are all kinds of other cool benefits to having it tied to a regular Skype user account. So for the first time in 7 years, I have a home phone number and because it only works out to about $6 a month, I am pretty pleased.
Do you want to cancel your phone book delivery? Stop the yellow pages from being delivered? So did I but I couldn't for the life of me find out how. Our phone books go from the front porch to the recycling bin in the back, never even stopping in the house. With the Google, GOOG-411, and all the other non-out-of-date ways to look up phone numbers I have no need for a big phone book that wastes tons of paper. My sister-in-law, Kat came through for me. She found the phone number for Yellow Book that you can call and request to have phone book delivery stopped for your house. The number is 1-888-492-8721. I had to be transfered to the distribution department but I talked to a nice lady who removed my address from their delivery system. She also informed me there was no way to stop delivery online, you have to call. Hopefully this information is helpful to you and if you don't use your phone books, save a few trees, stop the delivery for them. Update: Commenter Alex says... My name is Philip Cantwell and I founded the organization www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org. Everyone else that has posted here can contact me at our site at anytime and we will get back to you. We are NOT affiliated with the Yellow Page Publishers. We are a 3rd party organization that contacts the publishers on behalf of people that sign up at www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org to stop the delivery of books. Some of the publishers accept the request and some do not. We have had thousands of signs up and continue to get hundreds per day.I signed up. We'll see in 6-9months if it worked. Labels: forthegoogles, life
I am thrilled to say that late Thanksgiving night, my brother and sister in law had their third, beautiful daughter, Lexie Grace Husson. So Kat (my sister-in-law) was supposed to be induced on the 3rd of December, but by the time we got to my parents house on Thanksgiving, Kat was there and she was already having contractions. By 9pm or so, the contractions were escalating and so they left for the hospital. By 10:18pm the baby was born. Now that all sounds really nice and quick until you realize they didn't have enough time to give Kat the epidural. That is just about the most awful thing I can think of. I suppose they didn't want to waste it either, so they ended up giving it to my brother. It seemed to calm him down. Sara and I got the good news a short while after and visited them the next day. Sara was banking on a blond-haired baby since they have a brunette and a red-head, but it turns out that Lexie Grace has dark black hair, and a fair amount of it. I am thrilled to have another awesome niece, this one is the youngest like me, and look forward to watching her grow up. It was pretty neat to actually be there when Kat knew it was coming and know what was going on. You can see some pictures of Lexie on my flickr account and some more on my brother's.
Actually, Dash is forced to be more brave than I, because tomorrow morning, we are taking him to the vet to be neutered. While it may be just what Bob Barker always dreamed of, rest his soul, it is something that makes me feel so bad and so sorry for our little buddy. My friend Jared had a great idea that I am hoping to benefit from. He was hoping right before they took their dog to get neutered that the dog would do something bad, like pee on the carpet or chew up something so they could tell it what a bad dog it was and take it directly to the Vet. He would never do anything bad again. Here's hoping. Dash has also been in puppy training the past 4 weeks and is doing alright, but is a little more distracted than some of the bigger dogs there, which is every dog. The rest of the class are labs or retrievers. I think it will take a lot of work and hopefully we can be patient, but I think we can help him be a great dog. I also went to a wedding last week in Sonoma, California. My cousin got married there and it was a really nice wedding. We were able to fly out to San Francisco and see my sister, and see the rest of my extended family, who are all really fun to be around. My cousin got engaged after we did and already had her wedding. Makes me scared to think of how much work we still have to do and how quickly it will come.
I want to post, but I don't have anything to say and I only have 4 minutes left on my battery, so here is your 4 minutes worth of posting. I didn't want to post anything about the iPhone, but I will (because, like I say, I don't have anything to write about). The hype is ridiculous, but that's all it is, hype. Remember the PS3? Yeah, and the Wii had nearly no hype at all before it came out. Take that for what you will. I would love to have one but don't think I will get one. I am constantly justifying *not* buying one. I think that's a bad sign. Even tho I claim I don't want one I can't shut up about it or stop asking other people if they are going to get one. Alright, battery's dead, plugging in. That was short. I am trying to get back into the habit of writing on this blog and I think that means that you will get some posts on here that are pretty uninteresting like this, but hopefully things will get better and pretty soon you won't be able to live without knowing what I did on a Tuesday night because even my mundane posts will be unbearably hilarious and remarkably poignant.
Thursday while at work I heard from a neighbor that the power was off in my neighborhood at about 1pm and that our fence in the back yard was not in great shape. After work we came home to a house still without power and saw that our back fence was now standing at about a 20 degree from where is should be. Luckily, a couple months earlier I had mended the other side of the fence since it was in bad shape because had I not done that, we wouldn't have a fence. After getting back from the titanic exhibit at the museum (I'd give it a B-) at 9:30pm, our neighbors power had returned, but ours and the rest of the houses north of us were still dark. It made for a kind of fun night with candles and drinking some sort-of-still-cold-from-the-refrigerator ciders. We went for a walk at 10:15 or so and saw a news crew filming in the street. We thought they might know when power would be restored. When we got close we saw they were filming a house who's tree in the front yard got uprooted by the microburst wind storm and fell over on the house. It was pretty amazing. We found out their estimate was midnight for the power to come back. A half a block away from our house, we also found this. It was pretty amazing.   p.s. power went on again at 3:10am and everything in our house turned on. It was kind of funny because we were expecting it.
I can't sleep. The funny thing is that I was incredibly tired all day, more so than I have been in a really long time. All I wanted to do was sleep. Now that I am trying to, I can't. At least that means for you, the loyal /mark reader, you get a life update. I left my job at the start-up. It was incredibly fun/challenging/crazy while I was working there, and if I had to do it again, I probably would, but another opportunity came up that I thought I would like better. That opportunity was being offered a job at a company in Denver that is pretty cool. I don't know their blogging policy, so I will just say that I now work for a popular mapping website based in Denver who's name rhymes with flapquest. I am a front-end HTML/CSS/javascript/Java programmer there working with a really great team. I have been working there about a month now and it is awesome. The amount of respect and support they give their employees is incredible. Working in downtown Denver is actually one of the best parts of the job (there are many best parts, mind you). Sara and I carpool in the morning and I have a plethora of friends to meet up with for lunch at one of the hundreds of places to eat on the 16th street mall. This is a welcome change from having to drive 10 minutes+ to get anywhere in the tech center. I love being downtown and working so close to home. If you are ever down there, call me and I can probably meet up for lunch. So the Husson kids + significant others (that is such a stupid term) are planning what I'm sure will be an awesome trip to Vegas in July. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to being in Vegas with other people (if you remember, the only other time I have been I was alone on a business trip). And the fact that it is all with family will make it that much cooler. We have never really done anything like this. We will probably stay at New York New York and see Cirque Du Soleil's "Love". Other than that, we will just party together. It will be awesome. Finally, I wanted to say that because I enjoy chocolate milk, I decided to try some Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk (made with Reese's Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice Cream Topping, not it's intended usage, I know) and it is delicious. Though it does not dissolve in milk as well as I had hoped.
The other day while Sara was on vacation with her mom, I had a particularly bad day with Dash. I woke up and was about to take him outside for his morning pee when he decided to blankly stare at me and just start peeing right there to get a good head start. Fine, this happens from time to time, he's a puppy. After gently scolding him, I led him out to the back door to show him where he should go. He decided to go again, but this time he started going half way through the doorway. Great. I fed him, and got ready for work, eventually got down on the floor to play with the little guy. We were doing some belly rubs and head scratches when he somehow made his way between my legs, and ...bit me in a place no dog should ever bite any man. Luckily this was not a real bite but rather a play bite. Unfortunately a play bite in that region hurts about as much as a punch to the face from a rusty propeller. I decided I was not happy with him at that point. At lunch I came home and let him outside, careful this time to actually carry him outside, as to avoid peeing on the doorway. Naturally, he peed on the outside doormat. After work, I thought a walk might help him get out his energy so we started down the block. Not yet one house away he starts nosing in something in the neighbor's lawn and pulls out of the grass with his teeth this dead-grass-sticking pile of poop with thousands of ants all over it. Well Dash is only 15 months old and not fully vaccinated, I don't know what to do, so I run him back in the house, put him in the sink and start spraying his mouth with the kitchen sink nozzle. He doesn't like this but it's the best I can do. We recollect with ourselves and actually take the walk. Afterward, we go out back for a potty break and I decide to water the flowers. After a few, I look over to see Dash lift his head, snout-deep up from a pot as mud drips down his chin. Not a problem, right? This is mud, "god made dirt" and all that, no harm. Wrong. This is Miracle Grow dirt. God didn't make it, some Austrian bio-scientician did. It is full of white "miracle" specks. The package recommends not handling the dirt with your bare hands. I rush dash back to the kitchen sink, again with the sprayer in the mouth. Later that night I drive to the airport to pick up my sister who has never met the dog. I get there and she opens the door, "Hi Dash!!!", leans in to pet him and he starts peeing on me. On my leg. A good amount. Julie says, "give him here!" so I do, thinking she will set him outside on the asphalt of the passenger pick-up lane. She instead sets him on the passenger seat where he continues to pee, but much less this time. I get out of the car and it looks like I just full on wet myself. Later in the night, the dog stayed up until 2, I had to get up at 5. It was not a great day with the dog.
Dear Google Calendar Team, I love Google Calendar. I love it. I signed up the first day it was released and it has literally changed my life. I used to be late to appointments, forget birthdays and I even missed one of my own hockey games, just because I didn't remember to go to it. But ever since Google Calendar, I have yet to miss a hockey game, a birthday, a bill payment, or anything else I put in my calendar, mainly thanks to the SMS notification Google Calendar offers. Just before any event in my schedule, my phone goes off to remind me of what I forgot. Yesterday, I had to turn these life changing notifications off. You see, My fiancée and I were asleep, happily sleeping through the night when my phone started buzzing at 5am. It was an event I had added a couple months ago, a playoff hockey game who's time had yet to be determined. Well it scared my fiancée and her heart started racing. She wasn't able to get to sleep for the rest of the night (even though I was able to sleep again just fine, surely angering her all the more). That morning, after finding out why she was too jolted to get back to sleep, I did something that I never wanted to do. I disabled SMS notifications in Google Calendar. This is a plea to you, Google. Please allow quiet times for notifications in Google Calendar, user defined times when Google Calendar should not send you messages. Please help me continue to both be on time and have a happy fiancée. You have no idea how much I would appreciate it. Sincerely, Mark Husson Editors Note: I really did send this to The Google Calendar team. For an example of how to do this well, see twitter's sleep settings. "Because love is harder than crime."
What is wrong with people? This morning I stopped into Target and the lady in front of me was buying Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The only reason for doing this obviously was because she saw them win the Grammy for best rock album of the year (note that the nominees in this category were a joke). No one likes that album. It's just sad to see people be so influenced by being told what they should like instead of figuring it out for themselves. Oh, disheveled stay-at-home-mom trying to find your Target card, I would tell you to stop, but you just wouldn't listen, would you?
I usually refrain from posts where I admit how dissappointed I am in civilization, but I figure I'll let this one get through. Saturday night my dad got a pair of tickets for the Avs - Red Wings game and it was an awesome game. The first time we beat them since 2004. But the thing that bothered me was the singing of the national anthem. The singer wasn't the problem, it was the crowd. They do this thing where they cheer and whistle whenever they can in the middle of the song, and then yell out in a drunken-like bellow "WAS STILL THERE". My guess is they think they are being patriotic. But actually they just sound like bunch of douchebags. The most patriotic thing you could do is probably keep silent and show some respect. Hope there's someone out there who agrees. I had to get that one of my chest. "Hug hug, kiss kiss, hug hug, big kiss, little hug, kiss kiss, little kiss."
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