Absoblogginlutely! - IRL

Saturday was sad as we had to say goodbye to the Velez’s who were going back to Oregon.  We caught up with them for breakfast in Panera.  Kristen gave Josiah a toy cellphone - almost identical to Tracey’s, which was a big hit. Hopefully the  noises it makes doesn’t drive them batty on the long drive.  We took several photos (start on flickr) which came out well. I was hoping my gorillapod would work, but the camera is too heavy for the lightweight gorillapod (it was the cheap $10 one - free at buy.com with the google checkout discount) so I had to use the pod’s legs to prop the lens up and hope that it was pointed in roughly the right direction.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Kristen had a brainwave a while back to go see Jonathan Coulton in concert in Cincinatti - I took Thursday afternoon off from work and we drove the long boring drive to Cincinatti.  The cool thing was that Kristen had volunteered our services to work on the merchandise table before and after the show so we got free entry and a chance to meet with the bands (although they were both spent time with the fans after the show).

Paul and Storm were absolutely hilarious - most of their songs are funny and some are just weird, some are just “huh?”. They also joined in with Jonathan’s songs too in the latter part of the concert - again some of his songs are rather strange (giant squids?) and some are just funny, but well worth going to the concerts if you can.

As we were sitting at the back of the theatre, none of my inside pictures came out very well although the video did remarkably well (although it would have been better with a tripod!).

Video of songs from each of them on youtube (18+) and a couple of photos on Flickr.

The best thing was that I also had Friday off so we went to see Ironman at the cinema which was really good - well worth seeing if you haven’t. We stayed right until the end of the credits for the “extra” and I was pretty disappointed - I was expecting some sort of blooper reel. We also saw the trailer for the Dark Knight film - looks really good too, and seeing as though my work’s nickname is Batman, I just have to go see it.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Apparently in Canton OH you can get a $250 fine for not cutting your grass and in really bad cases you could end up in jail for a month - which begs the question - whats going to happen to the grass whilst you are in jail? Doesn’t a jail sentence defeat the object?

In related news, we’ve almost fixed our ride on mower. About a month ago the tire came off the front wheel on the mower. I tried getting straps to wrap around the tire whilst inflating - that didn’t work. I called up Lowes and they told me to contact the store as their average tractor repair is $250!  I went into the store and they advised me to buy a new wheel - I did, but the only one they had was for pre 2005 models and the axle was the wrong size. So back to Lowes again to try and get the correct wheel. They couldn’t work out how to order the part so this afternoon Kristen went to Mr Tire. The first person she spoke to said they couldn’t help but someone else overheard and said he could fix it. About 10-15 minutes later he came back with the tire on the rim and didn’t charge us either - so Mr Tire is highly recommended! I now just need to get a replacement cotter pin and put the wheel back on - then wait for it to stop raining.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Work had a social on Saturday which mainly consisted of races around the office block on GoQuads - small gocarts. We all had a great time as can be seen in the videos on youtube and the photos on flickr of the qoquad races. In this clip Cesar didn’t stop in time….

And for a special treat for my work colleagues (and their roommates), watch Matt and Linda

• Leave a comment... (0)

I took my final (of 7) Microsoft exam this afternoon. It’s a lot different and a lot harder than the other tests due to the amount of information that you need to digest and analyze (and in some cases assume).  The good news is that I have now obtained the next level in Microsoft accreditations - I am now a Microsoft Certified System Engineer, a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator, Small Business Specialist and a Certified Professional!  This month has been very busy trying to study most nights for these tests - this was my third exam this month and so for the next week or so I’m not going to be doing any overtimefor work  - I’m looking forward to being able to relax, watch some films and play rockband. Hopefully I’ll also be able to post some more stuff to the blogs - including some photos of the laminate flooring that I installed last weekend.

• Leave a comment... (1)

Sure enough, on Saturday I was working on 3 client projects trying to finish up various activities. The only difference in this picture was that I was working just before 8am. The full cartoon for this day can be found www.comics.com//comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20080503…

• Leave a comment... (0)

Today we’re celebrating the 3rd year anniversary of moving to the USA. The past three years have flown by and so many things have changed since we’ve been here. I’m not sure that celebrating is the correct word to use, but we’re marking the occasion.  We plan to go to a really nice chinese restaurant tonight and have roast duck for dinner - yum!

The funny thing is that often people ask me if I miss the UK (it’s normally the next question after “Are you from Australia?”) and most of the things that I miss are food. We still haven’t found a recipe for cornish pasties and I think we worked out what went wrong with the Yorkshire Puddings last week - the wrong kind of flour apparently.  I keep in touch with family via skype and email so hear from Mum and Dad most weekends.

This week we’re going to sign to get our basement waterproofed. I got fed up with mopping out the basement every time it rained so we’re having some guys come in and put some proper drainage in - hopefully this will allow us to use the basement for an office or home theatre or something other than storage - it’s an expensive process and likely to be pretty messy - I know that the cats are not going to enjoy the noise!

Speaking of cats you have got to watch this engineers guide to cats - very funny.

In other news, there hasn’t really been much change in Kristen’s eyes - she still has some trouble seeing but it doesn’t stop her knitting!

• Leave a comment... (2)

Interesting news that a politician is actually doing something useful for once and is trying to get a bill that basically provides more protection from police harassment to photographers taking pictures on the street. There have been several cases where people have been stopped for taking pictures in public - the silliest one being a photographer in Blackpool of all places.  I wholeheartedly agree, especially after being stopped by the cops in Columbus and the excuse of "suspicious activity after 9/11" is a great coverup.  One of the points that I hadn’t previously thought about is that it is perfectly acceptable to have CCTV filming you EVERYWHERE you go, but it is not ok to take your own pictures????? Now we just need something similar in the US but well done Austin Mitchell.

• Leave a comment... (1)

So after a very long week at work I needed to relax and we’d been thinking of getting an Xbox or PS3 and playing RockBand. We tried RockBand out in Best Buy earlier this week and it seemed like fun so last night I pooled my birthday money and savings and we got this set. We had a blast playing RockBand last night - Kristen is quite the drummer. The funny thing is that one person getting their stuff wrong will affect the other people in the game - if the guitar is out then the music cuts and you can miss the tune and hence the beat. If the drummer is off, then it’s hard to strum on time as the drum beat will put you off.  Even though neither of us read the manual on what we were meant to do we still had fun. I’ve now read the manual AND adjusted the tv so we get the full screen so we’ll be playing tonight for sure. Incidentally I went for the PS3 as it comes with the wifi adapter as part of the console as opposed to an add-on for the Xbox and it also has Ratchet and Clank so Kristen will be happy.

• Leave a comment... (0)