A catch-all, catch-up post
There are 1,132 posts filed in Checking In (this is page 38 of 114).
…and what a fine morning it is.
Was a busy weekend with Travis’s last basketball game of the season, followed by a party. Then we played some basketball at home, took the kids to playdates, and watched about 8/10ths of an inch of rain fall yesterday.
I’m beat but happy, and glad to see this wonderful sunshine pouring through the windows today.
I had a up-and-down day yesterday. I was feeling bummed about politics and ran into snafus during my work day that dragged me down. All that changed, though, after 5 PM when I took our kids to Hallie’s soccer practice.
After dropping Hallie off at the practice field, Travis and I went over to the basketball court, where I worked with him on shooting. While we were there, a half-dozen boys Travis’s age wandered up and asked if they could join in. These were immigrant kids, poor and mostly Hispanic, and they looked like they could really use a break. After checking with Travis to see how he felt about it, I agreed to let them join in. I then taught them the game of Pig and we all spent the next hour playing it.
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Interesting. I put in a North Carolina One Call request to mark utilities so that I could bury a satellite dish cable in my yard. On the same day the marking contractor came out, coincidently so did a Time Warner Cable truck. There was no technical need for TWC to be here: the marking contractor marks TWC lines along with everything else.
It looks to me like TWC smelled competition from the One Call report and wanted to see what provider might be moving into the neighborhood. I wonder what TWC would do if the whole neighborhood put in marking requests?
I had an amusing interaction yesterday with the guy in the shop of Agri Supply in Garner. Agri Supply is an amazing warehouse-style store, stacked from floor to ceiling with mechanical parts of all types. The guys from Mythbusters would have a field day in this store. I knew it was the place to go when I realized my hand truck tire needed replacing.
After quickly finding the proper replacement tire, I asked the man at the counter if there was any way I could get the store to install it. “Is there any trick to it?” I asked.
Another customer leaned over. “Oh, yeah!” he answered. “It’s a lot more trouble than it seems. You’d be much better off getting the store to install it.”
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Get out of jail free ... err, for $20
Somehow, the hosted server I use for my mailing lists has gotten flagged by Barracuda Networks as being a source of spam. This means I can no longer send email to my neighbors with att.net (or Bellsouth.net), aol.com, or Time Warner email addresses.
The idea that I would spam is of course absurd (as these two RBL checkers can confirm) but because I’ve been working with spam and “realtime black hole” lists for years I understand that false positives can sometimes occur.
What galls me about Barracuda’s approach is their proposed solution: fork over $20 per year per domain and we’ll never accuse you again. It smacks of extortion.
To Barracuda’s credit, they did promptly remove my IP from their “poor reputation” list and this change will presumably percolate to the big-name ISPs which use Barracuda products. Still, it’s an eye-opening example of what can happen to the Internet when resources are concentrated in the hands of a few companies.
I had a fun birthday weekend. Friday night, my parents came over for dinner, after which Kelly and I went out to see Blue at Burning Coal Theater. We then hung out at Slims for a bit before heading back home.
Saturday we went to Meymandi Concert Hall to hear The Mozart Experience. It was an excellent production, with mimes and great music. The kids had a great time and it was fun seeing all the people we knew from Conn. Also, the kids (and, ok, me too) enjoyed playing the instruments before the show at the “instrument zoo.” I think I want a trumpet now!
Saturday night I went out to have a beer with my friends Scott and Holly Reston and Reid Serozi, again at Slims. Scott and Holly had to head to a show, so Reid and I headed over to 18 Seaboard to continue our conversation.
This morning we hopped in the car once again and headed over to the North Carolina Museum of Art for the Norman Rockwell exhibit. It was jam-packed but it was great to see this prolific artist’s work up close.
After lunch I went to work on a pile of fill dirt left in our driveway by a friend. I’m building up the garden area in the backyard and the dirt was much-needed. I should sleep soundly tonight!
I am now the answer to everything.
Meeting the Canyon
One of the biggest highlights of 2010 was all the fun I had with my family. There were many events which made it special and I wouldn’t trade my family time for anything.
The biggest highlight was our March vacation to Sedona, Arizona. We joined Kelly’s family for a week of sightseeing and hiking around this beautiful desert community. We did a ton of hiking around the local mountains. We also took a trip to see Montezuma’s Castle and took a train to the Grand Canyon. Later we took a trip up to Flagstaff to see the Lowell Observatory. When we weren’t running around, we were relaxing at our rental house, including making use of the hot tub. It was a wonderful visit to a place far more beautiful than I had expected.
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Painting crew
This fall brought us more room in our home, as we turned some of our unfinished attic space into a new room. This came in very handy when I began working from home and now we have a room for guests.
When we moved into our home we saw that some of our attic was mostly framed for a room, so we got a few quotes from local contractors to see what it would take to finish it. When the quotes came in higher than we expected we put our remodel off. Then when I got a job working mostly from home it became clear that a separate office would be important.
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Happy new year to all of you. Here’s hoping that 2011 is a wonderful year.
