Sunday, August 31, 2008

Thorny Bush Out!

Breaking news...the bush is out!

More details later today.

Cutter Mattox

The shrub is still up, and I'm just getting in from trying to cut the rest of it down. I called my father to see if he had any sagely yard advice about the situation, and he recommended we go with this thing called a railroad pick/cutter mattox/grub axe. I was relieved not having to buy a chainsaw, because as I much as I wanted to hear that mofo purr, I don't think I'm exactly qualifed yet to use such a device. Anyway, this large striking tool is helping us get some headway, and I think I will be able to remove this bush by 6.

Pictures later

Friday, August 29, 2008

Make a decision, so I don't have to

Help me decide the fate of my beard.

VOTE

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

More organic waste

I was washing our green leaf lettuce, and I found a surprise. What kind of surprise you may ask? I found a dead worm. This was pretty nasty.

Other news...
Still squeezing eye ointment into Wyatt's right eye -- we have 8 more days of treatment. Saw Bill Clinton on the DNC -- he's still an awesome speaker. After Bill, a woman from Virginia was going to speak, but the network felt this was a good time to cut to a commercial.

That's it -- a lean post.

Please vote for this week's poll -- your results will determine my next facial hair decision.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Removing the Thorny Bush: A Story Told in Pictures (8/24)


We wake up early in the morning, drive to frickin' Home Depot and buy some tools to remove the thorny bush.



A view of our front yard. Thorny bush noted by arrow.



Rosanne helps clear the land.



The rubbish and organic waste we've created. We cleaned up the front corner of our lawn that was overgrown.



A girl with her tools.



Tools. Not being used.
(I enjoyed tilling the land with the device on the right.)



Leftover beer from the 30 pack we bought from the move. Still drinking.



This part of the lawn is full of rocks, which Rosanne is picking up.



We go to great lengths to dig up this shrub. We use a saw, a big shovel, and even trowels.



The moat we dug. Lovely.



Rosanne is glad we're done for the day. We didn't get the friggin' shrub out though. I called Home Depot to see how much it cost to rent a chainsaw. Yes, I said a chainsaw. It costs 60 dollars for 24-hours. We're going to wait on this.



We discover Sasha hard at work finding a new cat bed.



...to be continued.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Restaurant Review: Cathay Kitchen (Dedham)

Restaurant Review: Cathay Kitchen
Downtown Dedham.

So I picked out our new local Chinese place. We ordered chicken with mixed vegetables, udon noodles with vegetables, vegetarian spring rolls, an egg roll, and some pork fried rice. In brief, the food was pretty decent for take-out, not really exceptional, but good enough to go there again. Really, how often does one have stunning Chinese food?

Rundown of the items:

  • Chicken with Mixed Vegetables -- had your classic brown sauce, good mix of vegetables. Grade: 82
  • Udon Noodles with Vegetables -- we weren't expecting what we got. I was expecting udon noodles with a light, clear sauce with steamed vegetables. In reality, the udon was served and fried lo mein style with minimal vegetables. If you're looking for healthy like we were, be warned. Grade: 75
  • Spring Rolls -- a tad greasier than I had liked. Grade: 79
  • Egg Rolls -- good flavor, not greasy, egg roll mixture wasn't a total mystery. Grade: 84
  • Pork Fried Rice -- pretty typical, but not bad. Grade: 84
It must be noted, I ordered a combo meal, and the amount of fried rice I got was insane. Also, the food presentation (not that I was expecting much or any) wasn't all that great, and frankly, was mediocre enough it would make some people falsely judge the food. On a more positive note, the staff was very friendly, and the establishment itself was very clean.


Chicken with Mixed Vegetables



Udon Noodles with Vegetables (Note browness and lack of discernable vegetables)



Rosanne's feelings about her meal (the udon noodles)


Overall conclusion: If you're looking for decent Chinese food in this area, you will be fairly pleased with Cathay Kitchen. Again, I wasn't blown away by my experience, but keeping in mind my expectations for Chinese food are typically low, I will return once again when I have the hankering for some kind of chicken or vegetable in the chef's special brown sauce.

Grade: 82

Friday, August 22, 2008

Taking Wyatt to the Vet

Wyatt went to the vet today. I've told a few of you about this, but our fuzzy cat, Wyatt, has experienced some eye crust, gook, cheese -- you pick your word, but it's unpleasant. Rather than drive to CT, Rosanne and I figured there might be a qualified professional in our state, maybe even in our town. One thing lead to another, and we took little Wyatt to our local vet in Dedham.

The diagnosis was good.

I got Wyatt packed up in his pet mobile rather quickly-- it doesn't take much to get him in his carrier -- and we were on our way. During our drive, I got treated to his meow, which was more crow-like than usual. Once at the vet, we checked in, filled out some forms, and began waiting. The nice woman who processed our form remarked he was singing to us, and joked that he was a member of the Backstreet Boys (AJ McCatt?). I then wondered to myself if that was even a pop culturally relevant remark anymore.

Down to the serious business.

The tech came in, weighed him (8 pounds, which is good) asked me what was wrong, and then we waited for the vet. As usual, Wyatt was very calm and a very good patient. The vet came in and did a few things to him. First, she checked and cleaned his ears (lot of wax). She then checked his eyes. Wyatt, I guess, has conjuctivitis that was brought on by the stress of the move (see my other post on the secret costs 0f moving). She performed a procedure on him that involved her squirting this lime-green fluid into eyes that allowed her to check for any ulcers or damage to his cornea. She turned off the light, used some laser/light device to examine his eyes, and fortunately, determined he was clear of any eye damage. Good news, indeed. After she did this, she told me he would need an eye ointment to further clear things up, and showed me how to apply it. He'll be on it for 10 -14 days.


Wyatt after his great ordeal


All in all.

All in all, it was a very good trip, and we both had a good experience at the vet. Not to plug Dedham Veterinary Associates, but I'd definitely bring our cats there again -- they were all very nice and professional.

Tech stuff - Usability

Today I got to sit in on a phone call from a usuability expert. The guy sounded stoned. This individual took a long time to make his points, frequented with many "cool's."

Some takeaways for you:

  • Avoid the use of red for links and non-error content, as individuals associate it with negative feedback (error, bad, wrong). Not really new in the literature, but still something to think about in your daily life - design is all around you.
  • If you're going to have a lot of content on a page, don't make it hierachical, and do a raw dump of evenly-weighted information (think nasty html tables). Editorially control your content, and shape your voice by emphasizing certain elements (and not all) by using white space, planned typography, and a well-thought pallette.
  • Color means a lot. Plan your pallette thinking about your brand and/or the message you're sending to your audience.

Food
I'm tired of Chinese food. However, despite having eaten too much bad Chinese food, I will again be partaking in it. Tonight, I will be taking up the challenge of finding our new local Chinese restaurant.

I'll let you know how things go.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Prime Rib Video Clip

To get richer media, I'm embedding this clip of Prime Rib in NYC. I believe we played to two people at this show. I never really like playing in New York -- the bookers always crammed 8 bands per night. Once, Mike and I bumped into the handsome guy from the show Northern Exposure with his hot European girlfriend in NYC. We told him we were playing that night, but I believe they went else where.



New father, Mike, digitized this clip. Again congratulations to Mike and Emily!

PS: You can find more clips like these on YouTube.

Pictures from the Move

I am uploading pictures from the move. I'll be posting more when I can.

Please enjoy...


Sasha helping us move box spring in Newton.




Doug enjoying a peaceful moment with duct tape.



Day of the move we (actually Rosanne) get to drive this gorgeous truck. Notice my stick legs and lack of beard.




Now in Dedham, and after the storm, Frankie finds snails in our front yard.



Rosanne is tired and not as fond of our new neighbors, the snails.



Boy Chris and Girl Chris share fond recollections of their move a few weeks prior.




Super heroes all, the moving team takes a pose.



The young homeowners.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Lurkers needed...

If you're a lurker, please leave a comment.

Thanks!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Thought Leader

What is it to be a thought leader? The term seems to be coming up more often. Has information proliferated so much that we need various leaders of this sort to comment on particular domains of information? Is the information demanding some kind thought authority to organize it? Further, has information gotten so cheap that we're beginning to see it become some commodity (I'm quietly wretching at this sentence)? Lumping all information into one bucket is a bit shortsighted, but that being said, each of these thought buckets/domains has gotten so vertically developed they're all potentially suffering from the same symptom: s hyper-expansion of information without any means of ensuring some level of quality. (Hence, the need - and demand by the community - for these thought leaders.)

Other thoughts...
Dealing with change and culture at my job while trying to get a handle on our systems at an enterprise level. Writing about work and technical matters with a great deal of business jargon.

Other other thoughts...
Played my guitar. I'm enjoying my Boss CS-2 compressor. It doesn't kill the high-end of my guitar, yet still has some organic squish. I'm really digging it at this point. While I like my Barber Tone Press quiet a bit, I always get the feeling my high-end is suffering just a tad.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Cool Jazz

Things I'm excited about (sort of)
* The local cable access channel plays jazz. (I don't even like jazz that much, but I like local cable access.)
* JQuery Conference in Boston. I haven't coded at all the past 12 months, but I've begun coding a bit recently. It's been out of practical necessity and also for fun. This should be a good time.
* Alfresco training in Virginia. If things go well, I'll be heading to ol' Virginia for training on Alfresco, one of the hottest content management systems out right now. I haven't been on a training trip in a while, so again, I'm stoked.
* Taking Wyatt to the vet. Rosanne hopefully found Wyatt a good local vet. We can figure out why his eyes have been so gunked up lately.

Last thought.
It seems like everyone's blogging again. Why? Is there some material reward? Chris (see from previous blog) mentioned he knew somebody who blogged because they wanted to be a thought leader. A thought leader?! Yes, I knew what he was talking about, and I quietly felt some shame. Did I want to be a thought leader? I started blogging again because it seems like blogging has more credibility than when it first started out as some kind of rebranded live journal. I hated live journal for its self-involvement and its "dear diary" vibe. Is blogging okay now?

I think we're at the point blogging seems to be a legitimate channel of information (though rough). There's been a wave of blogger personalities for a while now -- do i want to be one?

Anyway, thought leaders anyone?

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Deadheads*

Do we really know what we're going to do when we wake up? Are we going to do something great? Waste another day? Am I going to win the lotto? Am I going to wipe up more cat puke? Or am I going to garden? Well, today, was the day where fate chose gardening. Mrs. Sheridan (Rosanne's mom) brought up her gardening tools, and we set out to clean out a portion of our front yard. While the previous owners of our house did a nice job with the plantings, there were/are some sections that are a bit overgrown. While I was initially skeptical of Rosanne's need to level the land, I began to see her vision, and I got into her deforestation plan. With some strong shovels and steady hands, we were able to deweed and remove some unsightly shrubs.

Tomorrow, we head off to see Chris to celebrate his birthday. We're going to meet in Oquinquit, Maine, and enjoy the beach.

Proudest purchase: Buying SPF 75 suntan lotion -- I never knew it came in such a high number.

* In addition to referring to hippies, deadheads are the parts of plant or flower where the leaves or flowers begin to die or dry up. Removing deadheads improve th health of your plants. I remove some deadheads today.

Mood: Some sense of accompishment, yet annoyed (I have a summer cold.)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Some factual errors

One of my readers has astutely noticed I lied to all of you. The pictures below are not from my move, but rather, the move of Chris and Chris. The sweaty looks and the obvious hardwork fooled me into thinking it was our move. Sorry for any confusion!

The Olympics.

I'm actually watching them this year. Kind of. I've been watching gymnastics and swimming right before I go to bed (don't have much choice, that's all NBC broadcasts). Overall, it's been engaging; however, I'm pissed I can't watch them in HD. I tried unplugging the coaxial cable when I reorganized our TV table, and I ended up breaking our HD cablebox. The cable was on so tight, I broke the actual jack on the box. Bad.

Other Comcast discomforts.
Comcast has been a pain in my ass. I don't normally bash them, as they seem to be obvious game for everybody, but they have really sucked the past week. First, they included two phone numbers in my work order which caused my installation to take an additional two hours. Second, the technician arrived 30 minutes after my slot ended (not really his fault if he's reading), effectively killing last Saturday. Third, once installed, I had to call Comcast to refresh my signal. Honest, I could go on...okay, I will -- one more. I then had to cancel the second phone number, and then have to explain more than I liked I didn't request the second number to cancel the additional charge. Comcast just has a really inefficient and balkanized structure that is incredibly evident when you actually need to get stuff done. The technician too had to talk to five people, be put on hold, and go through the seven circles of hell to finish my installation.

Next post will contain real photos from the move.

Happy Olympics.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The hidden cost of moving (with pictures)

Doug and Mike share a guy moment on moving day

Trust me when I tell you that your stress levels will quietly creep up on you or your loved ones during a move. Living in chaos will eventually drive you batty. With that being said, please enjoy some pictures from the move!

More pictures...


Rosanne enjoying the joie de vivre of moving.



Also, to my loyal readership, congratulations to my buddy, Mike and lovely Emily on their new baby, Alastair!