Cheap Thoughts: Express buttons

Why do some microwave ovens have “express” buttons to automatically preset the oven’s cook time? Don’t they already cook fast enough?

Are there really people who say, “oh, if I could just cook this popcorn three seconds faster, all will be well?”

Downtown help is definitely available

I walked up to the office just as two police cars were driving up to the corner of Fayetteville Street and Hargett Street. From what I gather, a man on a scooter ran into a pedestrian walking along Fayetteville Street, knocking him down but not seriously injuring him.

While I was glad the man was okay, I was amused at the amount of response his injury garnered. There were two police cars, a firetruck, an ambulance, and a half-dozen cops on bikes that showed up. One of the first cops on the scene began dispersing the bike cops by giving them the classic “there’s nothing to see here” line, after which some appeared somewhat embarrassed.

Snakes in the Grass

I bought The Essex Green’s Cannibal Sea CD from Durham’s Merge Records. It is awesome.

Snakes in the Grass
The Essex Green

Two feet caught in the shadows, caught in the shadow show
(please tell me what is going on)
Oh, I can’t, it’s nothing I’ve known

Signing shapes in the moonlight, keeping the laughter low
(please tell me what is going on)

Oh, I can’t, it’s convoluted
A change of mind today for certain
I know the book, I think I wrote it
The author’s dead, it’s Fiction 101
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Roof fixed

Kelly called the original roof contractor yesterday about the leak. He and two guys showed up this morning and made quick work of the roof. I think they spent 10 minutes here, total. Probably just adding some caulk under the shingles. He originally was going to charge us, saying the home was out of warranty, but then did the work for free.

Good to have that off the list. I’m still not sure why the previous owners didn’t get that done.

Biking from work

You know what’s cool? In the time it normally takes me to walk the five blocks to my free parking place, today I biked all the way home. It was mostly downhill from downtown, too, which made it a much more pleasant ride.

Tomorrow promises to be a sunny day so I think I’ll try it again.

Zoysia: the perfect lawn?

The new home’s lawn will need updating soon. Its a mix of patchy fescue and crabgrass. Since I want to go green in a big way with our new home, just reseeding the fescue won’t do. I think the way to go is to plant zoysia grass.

Zoysia Farm Nursery sells zoysia plugs that should cover half my lot for less than $600. Zoysia will never need replacing, reseeding or any of the other headaches that come with fescue. It uses up to 80% less water than fescue and requires 1/3 of the mowing. It will grow thick enough to eventually choke out the weeds and existing fescue).

The only drawback I can see is that it goes dormant in the winter. With a yellow house, though, it might match better in the wintertime!

Monitoring alarm panels with Asterisk

My new home has a built-in alarm system but no landline. Thus, any event will alert us, our Dobermans, and the neighbors but it won’t alert a monitoring service.

Since I don’t want to put in a landline nor subscribe to a monitoring service, and since I’m an Asterisk and Linux geek, I thought I’d see what the Internets had that might let me monitor my home with Linux and Asterisk.
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Wet revelation

In 1999, Kelly and I got married and moved in right between two hurricanes: Dennis and Floyd. We spent our first night in our Garner home right as Floyd was passing over. I’ll never forget us hunkering down in our sleeping bags on the floor of the den as the wind and rain howled. We wondered what kind of luck we had moving in the middle of a tropical storm, but it showed us some things early in our home-owning experience that were better to know immediately.

Like how the roof of our Garner home leaked.
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