Dan Price

Massanutten 2009

2009-12-14T23:55:10Z

Jamie and I have gone to Massanutten, VA in Nov for the past 4 years or so, but this was the first time with my new Panasonic Lumix GH1 camera. I assembled a bunch of photos and videos from the camera into this movie with a trial version of Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD.

The video shots are inspired by the style of the Sunrise Earch series on Discovery HD, in case anyone wonders why they're so boring. Incidentally, those static shots bring out the limitations of video compression, particularly where it sacrifices details in the foliage that's in shadow to give more detail to the high-contrast, rippling water.

In other news, car wouldn't start this morning. Turns out the battery was just dead, but we suck at jump-starting. Still, that wasn't the only problem (the aux power shuts off after 20 mins specifically so a dome light can't drain the battery, so something that's not aux drained it, most likely the electrical 4WD control that got stuck trying to change from auto-4WD to 2WD). So I got it towed to Patrick, a dealer within 1 mile of my house, and I'll let them have a stab at it instead of lugging it all the way out to the original dealer in Canandaigua like I've been doing for 10 years. I'm all for customer loyalty, but I have to draw a line, and that line is somewhere between here and Ontario County.

Gravity

2009-10-20T16:58:12Z

To those who claim "there is no gravity in space"...

If that's the case, why don't we just move the Earth out into space so it's no longer subjected to the effects of gravity? It would make launching spacecraft so much easier.

Then again, the oceans might just float away, along with all the air, and ultimately the entire planet would diffuse into a dust cloud similar to the one from which it condensed so long ago under the force of... what, your mom?

100001

2009-08-30T18:35:00Z

100k was right about here...

View Larger Map

WTFLJ?

2009-08-29T01:14:19Z

LJ no longer supports going back more than 50 friends entries? What suckage... I guess I'll have to start reading more frequently. :-/

In other news, expected delivery of my GH1 on Monday! Woohoo! Now the question is... what do I do with the extra one? Since I pre-ordered at two stores, I was going to cancel the one that didn't ship first, but they both shipped the same day. D'oh!

Home Sweet Home

2009-08-24T23:16:46Z

We finally got back home late last night, a day and a half later than we originally planned. We both took today off work to recover.

Back in Idaho, this is a view from the back deck of the house where my family stayed in Sun Valley:

On our last full day there, I found out from Terry (the mechanic in Rawlins, WY) that my car needs a new transmission. I gave him our credit card info and told him to order the part from GM if they can get it there the next day, but otherwise to call me back.

Then Jamie and I went along with some of my family to ride the chair lift to the top of nearby Bald Mountain. This is a view from the parking lot at the bottom:

From 2009 Idaho Trip

When we found out the lift ticket was $15/person, we decided to forgo spending so much on pleasure in light of our huge car repair expenses, and just wait at the bottom for everyone else to get back. Well my dad offered to pay for our tickets, and I'm glad he did, because it turned out to be far more valuable than I expected, and we would have been waiting at the bottom for 2 hours! Here are some views from the ride up, which took 25 minutes and included a layover half way up the mountain:

And some views from the top:

And the ride back down:

While at the top, I tried to call Terry to find out what's going on with ordering my transmission (there was a cell tower right there). He didn't answer, but I left a message. We were worried all day, not knowing what we'll need to plan for. For example, if we're going to need a rental car to get home, we'll need to get one from a national chain in Rock Springs, an hour before we get to Rawlins, because we needed to return our current rental to Rawlins but there is no national chain there.

Well when we got back to the house and still hadn't heard back from Terry, I tried calling him again, and he actually answered and said the part would be there the next day by 10am, and although installing a transmission is a 6-8 hour job and he has a 45-min appointment that afternoon, he said he would try to get it done by 5pm and work late if he had to so we don't have to stay the weekend and wait for it to be finished Monday (he doesn't work weekends). Whew! That means we can just drive the rental back to Rawlins the next day and our car will be ready the morning after (since we wouldn't get into town until after 5pm). Our original plan was to drive past Rawlins that day and spend the night in Ogalalla, NE, so we'd have some driving to catch up on, but we thought we could work it out with taking turns driving/sleeping or something.

For dinner, dad cooked up hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, and afterwords we had a big 4-generational family photo with my mom's parents all the way down to my nieces and nephews. Later we played the family card game (Hollywood Rummy), which I won (because I kept score, although I didn't ask to). Then a bunch of us stayed up late to view an Iridium flare at 11:26pm local time. It was suppose to be one magnitude brighter than the one the night before, but it actually turned out to be dimmer, perhaps because it was lower in the sky and had more atmosphere and haze in the way. Well anyway, it was still fun to view it with everyone and point at the night sky with my green laser pointer. :)

The next day we got all packed up, had breakfast at the house, said bye to everyone and hit the road. While we were stopped somewhere along the way, my phone suddenly said it had a voicemail message... apparently a call while I had no reception. It was Terry, telling us the part didn't come in. [expletive deleted] I called him back to ask what's going on and if he knows whether it will be there the next day or what. It sounded like he did his share of fighting my fight for me already, raising hell with the shipping people, who assured him it would be there the next day by 10am. Yeah, they said that the day before, so how is this any different, but what more can we do?

We passed back through the section of I-84 where the helicopter landed on Monday. Here's video from that:

We got back to Rawlins and went to check back in to the Mictrotel we stayed at Sunday night. Turns out I made the reservation online for the wrong week. Apparently Expedia doesn't highlight the current day by default, it highlights some random day in the future. WTF? I just assumed the current day was highlighted, knew I needed a room for the upcoming Thursday night, so I clicked forward and reserved a room for 8/27. Well I needed 8/20. Fortunately I got that resolved at check-in, and they were able to give us a room that night instead, but they didn't have any 1-queen rooms left, only 2-queen. We were happy to have a room at all, obviously, but we were kind of looking forward to the cozy little 1-queen room that we loved the first time, as a way to cheer us up from all the car troubles.

Next day, we slept in as late as check-out time would allow, and called Terry after 10am to confirm the part had come in. Well it hadn't. Tell hell with expletives, at this point we just cried in each other's arms on the bed, not knowing what to do. If we had to stay the weekend, that would mean 3 more nights in a hotel, missing at least 3 more days of work, and our cats would probably die, because we just left them enough food and water for 7 days, and nobody has a key to our house to rescue them. On top of that, we need a way home, so we started looking through the phone book for car dealerships. (They're all on pretty much the same main road through town.)

After we got checked out and got lunch at a Taco Bell / KFC, we got a call from Terry around noon: the transmission finally came in. Great news, but now our plan to shop for a new car is out the door. Knowing it was a 6-8 hour job to install the transmission, and it came in at noon instead of 10am, we were even more stressed that now we'd need to stay in town for the weekend. To save our cats, we thought of the idea to overnight a key to Jamie's sister, so we got our key copied at a hardware store and then headed to the post office. After filling out one wrong envelope and needing to pay for it, the employee informed us that "overnight" wouldn't get there 'til Monday for $20, with an option of Sunday for $30. We ended up just not sending it, and opting to wait for more news about the car, since if it miraculously got fixed that day, we could be home by Sunday night ourselves anyway.

We drove our rental to a manual car wash so I could pressure-wash the bugs off the bumper and windshield before turning it back in. Fortunately the cracked windshield didn't break under the pressure. Then we drove to a cheap hotel in walking distance from Terry's shop and parked in an empty lot nextdoor with the car angled to cast the most shadow on us while we wait for news about the car. I called my boss around 3pm (5pm his time) to let him know I might not make it back to work on Monday. He was understanding and offered to help in any way he can. He also told me to look for jackalopes while we're stuck there. Jamie wasn't able to get a hold of anyone where she works.

After a while of baking in the car, it was approaching the time that Terry said he had an appointment, so I called to find out how my job was coming along. To my amazement, he said he actually has the new transmission in already, but still needs to look everything over, check fluids, etc. There's definitely a coolant leak somewhere, probably the water pump, but it seems to only leak when it's cold.

Well what a relief, we might actually be on the road soon! We decided to walk around in the drug store nextdoor to escape the sun. Then we took the rental car to a gas station to fill up the tank before returning it, and drove by Terry's shop around the time we expected him to be done with his other appointment. There was a tow truck unloading a pickup in the lot at the time, so we decided to park facing away from the sun again, but in a lot near with a view of Terry's shop. After about 15 mins, the tow truck pulled away, so we drove back and popped in to check with Terry. Everything was all set! He was just finishing up our paperwork. He had taken it out for a test drive and everything seemed good. He just advised me to keep an eye on the transmission fluid, since he didn't get a chance to check it for leaks, which he would normally do after driving 40 miles. He gave us the warranty papers for our new GM transmission and handed back my keys. I could've cried. I offered to buy him a case of beer, but he passed. We thanked him immensely and drove separate cars over to the car rental place to return the rental.

It was sooooo nice to have my car back. We drove back to the drug store we had walked around in earlier, and picked up some coolant, a funnel, and a car power adapter so I can plug in my cell phone charger. (My phone died once on the drive to Idaho, so we wanted to be safe.) Before long, we were back on the road, heading home in our own car. My back was very thankful.

We drove to North Platte, NE Friday night and found a Comfort Inn. Saturday we hit the road early and pushed through to Portage, IN (just past Chicago). Sunday we got up early again and drove all the way home. The cats apparently thought we just stepped out the door for a week.

Well now it's back to the grind. Got grocery shopping to do, and it's back to work tomorrow. I want to find a Rochester postcard to send to Terry to say thank you.

Welcome to Idaho

2009-08-20T03:06:05Z

Driving into Idaho in our rental car was rough thanks to the incredibly uncomfortable seat murdering my back. I had Jamie drive for a little while so I could lie back and rest my eyes a bit. (Up until that point, I had done all the driving on the trip.) Much of the drive is along a perfectly flat and straight road through a desert landscape between two mountains. Puts you right to sleep.

Anyway, we were finally approaching Sun Valley, well after dark, and decided to stop at a rest stop. While I waited in the car, the only light in the parking lot turned off (it was apparently motion-sensing because it turned on as we drove in) and when I looked up at the night sky, I saw the Milky Way. I think that's the first time I ever saw it in person.

We arrived at the house in Sun Valley where my family was staying well after 11pm. We were given the option of staying in a room with two twin beds and a shared bathroom, or a room at the fancy inn about a 5 min walk away. We chose the inn. We needed pampering at the end of that day.

So finally, yesterday we were able to relax here a little bit. We came over to the house for some breakfast and met with all sorts of people from my mom's side of the family that I haven't seen in years (or in some cases ever). We went out for lunch in the nearby town of Ketchum and found a place called Wrapcity, where I got a decent turkey club wrap. We also went for a walk around the Sun Valley resort and my brother pointed out all the places I don't remember from being here as a child. The only place I slightly remember is the outdoor ice rink where every time I skated around to where my parents were, I went toward the railing and caught myself on it. Apparently I loved doing that. I'm not sure if I remember that directly from experience or only from home movies I've seen of it.

In the evening, there was a free symphony orchestra performance in the nearby outdoor pavilion with lawn seating. Apparently the orchestra is formed by inviting the first-chair players from orchestras all over the country, including two from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. They played Ode to Joy (the whole thing, I think), and it was most impressive. I was also impressed with the pavilion's acoustics and sound engineering. For the grass seating, they had a complex array of speakers up on poles facing both forward and back, so that no matter where you're sitting, it sounds like you're in the center of an auditorium. But it's not totally fake-sounding, because you can still hear the direct sound from the stage as well. Very well-done.

Welcome to Utah

2009-08-20T02:30:15Z

We were driving our rental car through Utah, heading toward Idaho, when we approached a work zone on a road that was winding its way next to a river between mountains. The tanker truck in front of us slowed down more and more and then finally came to a stop when a patrol vehicle put its flashing lights on and stopped, blocking the road. After a few minutes, the trucker behind us got out and walked forward to talk to the trucker in front of us. Meanwhile, another patrol vehicle had stopped traffic in the other direction as well, leaving a clearing in the road. As the trucker walked back, I rolled down my window to ask what was going on, but before I could ask, he pointed up at the sky behind us. I stuck my head out and looked up to see a life flight helicopter approaching the scene. Keep in mind, this is a road winding between steep rock-faced cliffs. This helicopter just swooped around in front of us and landed on the road in front of the stopped patrol vehicle!

As the helicopter landed, the trucker told me what was going on. In the river next to the road, someone had been canoeing, rolled over and hit their head on the rocks, was unconscious, and receiving CPR. Suddenly our car problems didn't seem quite so bad! We sat in our car hoping everything turns out ok for that person, and appreciating life. We grew more concerned with every minute the helicopter remained on the road. It ended up staying there for about 20 minutes. I don't know if they put anyone inside because I couldn't see that door from my position. I thought it would be insensitive to shoot photos of video of someone in their life-threatening situation, but since I couldn't see anybody, I wanted to have a record of this helicopter on the roadway since it was clearly going to be a memorable part of our trip. I shot video of it taking off and flying over my head, but tha'ts on my mini-DV camera and I don't have a cable to download that to our laptop, so I won't be able to share that until I get home.

Welcome to Wyoming, Staying Awhile?

2009-08-20T00:14:00Z

By the way, Nebraska is a really wide state, so we were driving in that for quite a while, finally crossed into Wyoming in the evening, and kept driving until about 11pm when we checked in to the Microtel in Rawlins, which is awesome in every way except that the front desk employees were nowhere to be found, and we were in a hurry to check in. I ended up dialing 0 from the front desk phone to find out who would answer it, and someone showed up after 4 rings, but it wasn't someone who could check us in - she had to go get someone else. Were they off sleeping somewhere or what? Otherwise, the hotel was great - seemed to be brand new. I thought it was weird they had no comment cards, but I would have given them 5 stars all around except for the front desk issue.

Early next morning, we got up and headed over to the TA truck stop to fill up on gas and drinks before getting back on the road. As I pulled toward the parking spots in front of the store, I realized I should probably get gas while Jamie goes in to get drinks, so I threw it into reverse, and that's when this trip took an entirely different tone. My 2000 GMC Jimmy with almost 100,000 miles made a very unhappy clunk sound, followed by a whirring from somewhere in the drive train. I didn't even give it any gas, I just tried shifting back into forward, which seemed to work, except it was still making the whirring sound. So I pulled into the nearest parking lot as Jamie and I exchanged worried looks, and we went inside to ask for directions to the nearest mechanic.

The cashier we talked to happened to be the wife of a mechanic (small town, anyone?) and she gave us directions to his shop. Then we found out that reverse gear doesn't actually engage, as we tried to pull out of the parking spot. Well damn, that's definitely a transmission problem. But what the hell? I just got the expensive transmission service before going on this trip to try and PREVENT any such problems. Did they mess something up?

So I put it in neutral and both of us had to push as hard as we could to get it out of the spot. Then I put it in forward gear and it made it out of the lot ok, so we drove slowly and carefully over to the mechanic. When we were almost there, I noticed that the engine temperature gauge was approaching the red line... higher than I had ever seen it. NOT good. We managed to park it in the mechanic's lot before it got any hotter.

The mechanic looked at it while his kids Edward and Abby tried to chat with the unfortunate out-of-towners like they're some friends from school. He found the coolant incredibly low, and added like a gallon and a half. I guess that was the cause of the overheating, but why was it so low? They should have topped off my fluids when I got my oil change and transmission service 2 days before. It was also incredibly dirty, which seems to be a recurrence of a problem I had a few years ago, but was supposedly fixed.

Anyway, the mechanic didn't actually work on transmissions, so he called around town and found the only shop that does. We paid $10 for the coolant and headed over to the other shop, knowing that the mechanic there wouldn't even be able to LOOK at our vehicle for a day or two, but what other option do we have? We made friends with the two dogs and a cat in the shop before the mechanic/owner Terry came out. The cat was incredibly cute when it cuddled with one of the dogs, kneading its paws into it, etc. Anyway, Terry seemed to have way more important problems than ours to deal with, so we were waiting around a lot. Finally he walked out with me to the car and checked it out, shifting into several gears while giving it gas with the brake on just to see which gears work, I guess. Then he pulled out the transmission fluid dip stick and smelled it, which told the bad story. I hadn't smelled what transmission fluid normally smells like, but this definitely smelled like burnt metal to me.

Terry's educated guess at this point was we would need to replace the entire transmission, but he wouldn't know for sure until he took things apart and gave it a proper inspection, which he couldn't do until the following day or two. We were going to need to leave the car with him and find a rental to continue our trip. (After all this driving, with only 2 full days planned for visiting with family in Idaho, we couldn't give that up. Besides, to stay in Rawlins until the car is fixed we'd need to pay to stay in a hotel, whereas our accommodations in Idaho were already set.) Well guess what, none of the big chain car rental places can deliver a rental to Rawlins. The nearest is in Rock Springs, over an hour away. The only place to rent a car in Rawlins is from one small car dealership, and their rates are higher than the chain places, but as we were learning to say a lot now, "what option do we have?" Thank goodness for credit cards.

We called the rental place and asked if they could pick us up at the mechanic's shop, but were told by the guy who answered the phone that the guy he would normally send out for us isn't back from somewhere else yet, but he'd send him over when he showed up. Well at least now we knew we could get a rental and we just needed to wait for a ride, so we got things settled with Terry so he could work on the Jimmy while we're in Idaho and, depending what he finds out, hopefully have it fixed for when we pass through Rawlins on the way home in 3 days. I left him my cell phone number so he could keep me updated.

Meanwhile, our rental car ride still hadn't shown up, and Terry took off for lunch. Jamie spotted a gas station a few blocks away through a field and decided to walk there to get something to drink. A little while after she got back, our ride finally showed up. It wasn't the guy who was supposed to pick us up though, just someone else who happened to walk in and be available. Whatever, we were thankful to be making progress at all.

The rental car place set us up with a 2007 Ford Taurus with a tape deck and a cracked windshield. We moved our luggage and stuff into it, signed our lives away, and were finally on our way to Idaho again, 4 hours later than we had planned. Fortunately, in our travel plans we left only 8 hours of driving on the 3rd day (whereas the first two days had 12 hours each). So we just arrived in Sun Valley, Idaho around 11pm like the previous two stops, but not before some excitement in Utah...

Welcome to Nebraska

2009-08-19T20:55:51Z

When it comes to tailgating, I'm the one who gets tense when Jamie is driving too close to the car in front of her. Which makes it all the more ironic that as I drove the first few minutes into Nebraska, I got pulled over for following the car in front of me too closely. I actually think the officer was looking for someone else, or at least was looking for a reason to pull over a car with out-of-state plates, thinking maybe he'd catch some fugitives or something? Anyway, he let me go with a warning, but not before asking me to meet him behind my car to "go over my paperwork", which made me feel a little nervous and vulnerable. Turned out to be a friendly conversation about my trip to Idaho, which itself was probably a cover for screening me for anything suspicious or incriminating.

As for what actually happened on the road, it was a 5-lane section of I-80 just as it enters Nebraska, I was in the 2nd lane from the left, as were a car in front of me and an 18-wheeler in front of it. The left lane was totally empty. In the left shoulder, a patrol car was parked, observing traffic. Apparently when everyone in my lane saw that, they all gradually slowed down. The effect of that is we all got bunched up closer to each other, and while that happened, normally I would prefer to switch lanes and maintain my momentum rather than hitting the breaks and starting a chain-reaction slow spot. However, since the cop was there, I hesitated to do anything that might be seen as aggressive driving, so I just stayed behind the car and truck, too close for my comfort, which is what the cop saw and used that to pull me over.

Anyway, now I'm in Idaho, but there's a LOT more to write... more later...

Is this heaven? No, It's Iowa.

2009-08-16T13:32:42Z

Just about to start the second leg of our drive out to Sun Valley, ID. Haven't really seen Iowa yet, since we drove in after dark.

There was some huge event back in Illinois that had traffic backed up in both directions at one exit... after getting through that, we got off to find food. Wendy's looked like a good option, if only we could get to it... We could see the sign sticking way up in the air, but apparently the most likely turn to find their parking lot was the wrong one, and we had to drive around a block to come at it from the other side. Then we find out that they sell their new Boneless Buffalo Chicken Wings, but they have no blue cheese dressing...? They practically looked at us funny like it was an absurd request. We settled for ranch dressing. I guess people around here just eat buffalo sauce with nothing to cool it down.

Crazy lightning tonight...

2009-08-10T03:47:01Z

Frequent enough for me to set up and snap this...

The sky wasn't really purple - that's just a combination of the dim red sky from city lights for 7 seconds combined with the relatively bluer light from the lightning.

It all seems to be cloud-to-cloud. It's been going on for hours now, like there are super-high columns of clouds passing over us with lightning all throughout, but only a little of it is near the bottom and visible from the ground.

07/08/09

2009-07-08T12:30:32Z

Today is the reason 6 is afraid of 7. :)

Happy Fourth!

2009-07-05T23:47:54Z

Mine was spent with Jamie's family at her parents' place in Treasure Lake. They have a decent fireworks display over the lake, and I got a prime spot on the shore (not that they were hard to come by) to set up my tripod for some sweet pics. Don't worry, I looked up most of the time and just pressed the shutter when the sky looked awesome. :)

From Treasure Lake Fireworks July 4 2009

The day before, her dad took us out on the lake on his boat. Jamie's aunt Beth was there too, and she had a death grip on my wrist for much of the ride. I guess she doesn't like sitting in the rear backwards-facing seats while the boat is tilted up 40° and looking down at the motor shredding the water. :) Turns out we had the better seats though, as Jamie and her sister were in the bow seats and got the amusement park white water rapids ride treatment as we hit someone else's wake in an unfortunate way. Then to add insult to injury, as we returned to the dock, apparently we were headed straight into a steady wind, and even at low speed it was blowing spray in some way that wrapped around and over the bow, showering the entire length of the boat. None of us were dressed to get wet.

I want my Panasonic DMC-GH1

2009-06-26T01:33:42Z

Captured with my 8-year-old 3.3MP Sony Cybershot DSC-S75. I guess I should be glad it still works.

I have a DMC-GH1 pre-ordered. No clue when it will come, though. Various reviews and forum posts dated from March-May said it's expected to ship in early June. One on-line seller says it's expected in July. Most just say "soon." I pre-ordered mine from vanns.com yesterday, which for some reason listed it with a $100 discount, so I jumped on it. Good thing I did, because today that discount is gone. (Yeah, ok, maybe I just took their bait. If so, I wonder what they'll do once they reel me in...)

Panasonic.com apparently had some in stock a few days ago, but now their site says the item is back-ordered. I guess I lost that chance. No discount there, though.

Overheard at the workplace

2009-06-23T13:26:28Z

*bang* *bang* *bang*
Aww, not now...
*bang* *bang*
Aw man, keyboard died...
*bang* *bang* *bang*
Yup, it's dead. Oh man.
*bang* *bang* *bang* *bang*
Oh what timing... Maybe this time...
*bang* *bang* *bang*
Nope! Heh, it's gone. Wow.
*bang* *bang* *bang*
I can't believe it.
*bang* *bang* *bang* *bang*
Great. Just wonderful.
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
You've gotta be kidding me!
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
Son of a bitch!
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
(Cube-Neighbor): Why don't you try rebooting?
I was just hoping to finish this sentence.
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
Nah, it's just not...
*bang* *bang* bang* *bang*
I dunno, I'll just have to lose it all. Dammit.
*reboots*
This is probably I why it wouldn't take my password this morning, if the keyboard's dying...
*tap* *tap* *tap* *bang* *BANG*
Yup, that's it, 'invalid password'
*bang* *bang* *bang*
Yup, A's not working and L's not working...
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
Ah, there it goes, it only works if I hit it really hard. Let's see... F... R... A-oops... A-dammit... A...
*rest of password mumbled out loud*
Finally... This is ridiculous. I need a new keyboard.

*walks away, returns a few minutes later*

Alright, let's hope this one works.
*working around behind PC*
I think that's the right one. I hope it is, I dunno.
*tap* *tap* *bang* *bang* *BANG*
NOPE! Wow. And now the mouse is gone.
*bang* *bang* *swisha-swisha-swisha* *click* *CLICK*
Wonderful.
*bang* *BANG* *swisha* *CLICK*
Just great. No keyboard AND no mouse. What a way to start the day.

Apophysis 3D Hack Animation Test

2009-06-13T18:24:39Z

Gazebo

2009-06-13T04:42:00Z

thwack @ 2009-06-11T00:22:00

2009-06-11T04:24:27Z

100000

thwack @ 2009-06-10T08:37:00

2009-06-10T12:40:08Z

11111

O HAI!

2009-05-14T02:34:38Z

Also, want.

Thinking good thoughts...

2009-04-29T13:13:09Z

...for sajego and her cochlear implant surgery today. I hope everything goes well.

Dear Facebook,

2009-03-14T01:59:13Z

You're retarded. Exhibit A:

Prev 3 4 5 Next

How many links are you providing for us to navigate up to 500 search results at 10 items per page?

This is a trick question. You see, some people who will already see how retarded this is on the surface know that since 4 is the current page, 3 and Prev are actually the same link, as are 5 and Next, so that's really only 2 unique links for navigation.

But those people would be wrong, because they didn't consider the absurd possibility that 4 would in fact be a link... TO THE PAGE YOU'RE ALREADY ON!

3 links, bitches.

Somebody get a copy of Usability for Dummies up in here.

Times are changing...

2009-02-18T02:04:23Z

I just have to say how awesome it is that I get e-mail from the President of the United States.

OMG

2009-01-03T05:19:44Z

WANT!!!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T06:00:55Z

And with it, some happy news to share. :)

Jamie was kind enough to remove this from her finger long enough for me to take some pictures. She's been wearing it for almost 2 weeks now, actually, so it didn't just happen tonight, but in true slacker fashion, I'm just now getting around to updating my LiveJournal. :)

We've felt engaged ever since buying the house together, really, so we're just making it official now. No big fancy proposal on one knee or anything... We picked out a ring together, and went back together a week later (plus an extra day of waiting thanks to some snow) to pick it up.

No date set for a wedding yet, either, but we're pretty sure we just want a JP ceremony at town hall. Neither of us likes being the center of attention, so a big fancy wedding just doesn't make sense.