7:40 AM Tuesday, January 21, 2014
No post in December. More than midway through January. You can probably already tell that posting more is not one of my New Year's resolutions. So, what's new? Jackson's doing well. Lucy's being a pretty good big sister. My parents have started watching Jackson, and bringing Lucy to school in the morning. They've been coming over instead of us dropping him off at their place. They even got a city sticker with residential permit for street parking. It's been great. It also means I'm at work for a full day. Which is a really long time. I just plowed through the entire series of Chuck, which was pretty enjoyable all the way through. Something about that show, about the way it ended, is just sticking to me. Not sure which show to binge watch next. Or maybe time to start reading again. Or maybe time to get back on the bike. Stopped riding back in October, and pants are starting to get a bit tight. And really going to try and learn Italian via Duolingo. And really going to try some iOS/OSX development. Will all that free time now that I have 2 kids. Also, we started seriously looking for a new home. In the city.
11:10 PM Monday, March 24, 2014
Been busy. 2 kids. Work. And some new things coming up, hoping everything comes through, and I'll be able to share in ac couple of weeks. Getting closer to riding my bike to work again. Exciting. Finally started getting the itch again after not riding since last October. Been taking the Red Line to and from work. Shaves like 15 minutes off my commute time, instead of the Brown Line. Our new colo facility is over on Dearborn, so I hit it up to swap out tapes on the way in and the way home. Only thing I could see being an issue? There's a Fannie May in the building, and I pass a Garrett's Popcorn on the way to the Jackson stop. Just realized I should probably steal on of those Jackson Red Line Stops for Jackson. We've started sleep training, which is a little hard when he doesn't have a room. But he seems to be doing alright in our closet. Hoping he takes to sleeping like Lucy does. Big thanks to my parents who have been helping out a bunch, watching Jackson, taking or picking up Lucy from school. Makes me work a lot more, or allows me to work a lot more, which is good and bad. Good for work, bad for family time. Watched Divergent last friday. Finally got to see Tracy on the big screen. And she's up there, however briefly and out of focus, but definitely can tell that's her. So that's cool. Also good to see Jespy and have a chance to eat out and do some drinking. Should be good on that for another year or so.
2:20 AM Saturday, April 5, 2014
First week back commuting by bike since last October. Using the Willis Tower Bike Valet, and so far, totally worth it. Drop off the bike in the morning at the valet rack. Text down 10 minutes before I want to leave and the bike's there waiting for me at the rack. And I get a tune-up and cleanings for paying annually. Totally worth it when I rode in on Thursday when it was raining and my bike was inside all day instead of out in the elements. Riding on 700/25 now. I think I was on 700/28 last fall, and too long between rides to compare. We'll see how long it lasts. And, since it's been so long, been pretty sore and tired, but good sore and tired all week. Rough commute in a couple spots because of the road conditions (potholes) but overall not too bad. Changes the little routine I had for hitting up the data center to/from the red line though. Just means I go back to the previous full round trip every time now.
1:20 AM Friday, April 18, 2014
Webserver died a couple nights ago. Or actually, could have been even sooner. Or might not have actually died. I need to plug it into a monitor to see. It was the Mac mini (Mid 2007) running Debian. So reformatted and reinstalled Mavericks on Mac mini (Mid 2010) instead, and here we are. Good timing, because I had just set up BitTorrent Sync to sync all the files for backup as well as a true mysql backup job, so I had data from 4/16/2014. Hoping the hardware just died, and it's not getting hacked into constantly. Will have to wait and see how this one does. Pretty easy to get it all set up. I think anyway. Seemed to have a little issue getting PHP and MySQL up and running, and mcrypt for PHP installed as well. I put brew on it, but thinking I don't actually need it, and could have probably figured out a way around it. But it worked. Found out the web server was down because I wanted to actually do some work on it, mainly making the admin page for Daily Dose responsive by using Bootstrap, like the theme for the Memex is using. Maybe this weekend. And then maybe trying to use Bootstrap for Daily Dose itself as well, instead of the hack for mobile devices that I have now. But mostly back up and running. So that's good.
11:34 PM Saturday, May 17, 2014
Found out officially that Lucy is allergic to peanuts. Or at least peanut butter. That was a fun night in the hospital. Always assumed, but now it's official, and we get to carry around epi-pens. Got a house, well, what's officially a 3 unit building we'll be deconverting to a single family home. Long process, so not sure when we'll actually get to move in. Finally got some help in the office with a real systems administrator hire. Hopefully will mean we can get more stuff done, and not just keeping our head above water. Not really keeping track of activities/events, so don't have anything to look back on to know what else has been going on. So going to try and start this up again. We'll see, as usual. Jackson's starting solid food, well, more like non bottle food, since it really isn't that solid. Seams to like it. Was hoping to switch to something cheaper than Picturelife for photo management/archive/sharing, but currently that's the best available still. And since I paid annually through November, might as well keep using it. Of course, I might switch again if Apple comes out with a real Photo Stream that works for families.
6:23 AM Tuesday, May 20, 2014
I put new tires, Marathon Plus, on the Pacer Sunday night. Had to replace the tires that I had on there for all of 2 months because I had to dig a chunk of glass out of the front one last week I think? And all because I took Franklin to Orleans instead of Canal to Milwaukee to Halsted. Anyway, my favorite tires, because they're bulletproof. Except they make the bike feel like a tank. Much slower it seems. But totally worth it to not have to worry about flats anymore. Hopefully. Also put the Tubus Cargo rear rack on so I could use the Ortlieb Classic Rollers to bring the new suit back from work. Better that than taking the L and carrying it home. So maybe that also had something to do with the slowness. Felt slow. Lots of Half Days this month, today because both kids have doctor's appointments. Next week for Lucy's dance recital. Wondering if I should use the Apple dividends to buy Lucy an iPad. She's started playing with mine again.
1:12 AM Saturday, May 31, 2014
This time last week we (Tracy, Lucy and I) were rolling through downtown Minneapolis getting to our hotel room. Jackson stayed with the in-laws while we went north for Booter's wedding. Good time. Al, Nicole, and Luke were all in town as well, so the whole family went up. Good times. Didn't actually do any dancing. Did get to go swimming at the pool one day. That was nice. Also, the Westin in downtown Minneapolis is cool because the lobby/bar/restaurant is in a former bank. Driving wasn't too bad. Lucy's a great road tripper. Listened to a lot of This American Life while I drove. Except for that stretch around Eau Claire. No AT&T Data Coverage there. Hard to believe it's almost June. Hung out in Woodstock on Sunday night, picked up Jackson on Monday. More family hangouts on Tuesday, to see Lucy's Ballet Recital (no idea we were supposed to bring flowers), then went to the Shedd Aquarium, followed by dinner at Flo & Santos. And then a very short week at work.
8:43 PM Tuesday, September 16, 2014
So, June, July, August and half of September roll on by without an update. Whoops. Let's see if I can remember what's gone on the last quarter or so. Have I mentioned we bought a house? Back in April. It's a 3 flat we're deconverting to a single family home. Working with Carlo as our architect. Had tenants, they left in June, ended up taking 2 months to get permits, but work finally started at the end of July. Currently getting an extension put on the back. Current estimate is January/February for completion. Should be interesting. Speaking of home repair, finally got someone else to get the front juliet balcony leaking to the 3rd floor fixed, which is good because 3rd floor bought a place of their own and sold the condo. All pretty much within the time we've had our new house. Doing some work on our current place, in hopes of it being ready to sell eventually. Basically it means moving stuff on the deck around while Tracy stains it. Got to use a powerwasher though. That was cool. Plowed through Season 3 of Continuum when it became available on Netflix. Currently powering through Firefly now. Drobo had a couple drive failures, taking around a week to fix itself last time, and still ongoing now. Seagate's suck. Started buying a bunch of TV/Movies off iTunes Store because of it, since there was a chance I'd lost my library on the Drobo. Flew out for Bryan's 40th birthday as a surprise with Mina, Kevin and Akira. That was fun and a trip down memory lane. Started the process for a 10 year reunion at Great Wolf Lodge in February with the gang, kids included. Should be fun. Might be my next post. Also, Idaho was nice. I wouldn't mind going back. Might be hard to talk Tracy into it though. Got a soda maker, so that's been a new fun thing to play with. Best thing so far? Honeydew soda. Malbec, not so good. And the Earl Grey wasn't strong enough. Oh, also started making our own ice cream. But after a handful of batches, moved on from that. Still biking to work, got a tune up so the Pacer's running like a dream, just in time for the North Shore Century this weekend. Had to take a trip to Canada back in June for work, and taking another one next week.