Archive of <January> <2015> [reverse chronological]

11:38 PM Sunday, January 4, 2015
First off, my uncle Tony, my mom's brother, passed away today in the Philippines. My mom was on the way there when it happened. He's in a better place now.

Ok, let's try this again. Last update was September, 3 1/2 months ago. So new house still under renovation/rehab/construction. House next door finished up and is for sale at $2.5 million. So we'll have rich neighbors. Speaking of new house, had to go and shovel the sidewalk out front for the first time today. Easy, since it's only a little section of sidewalk, but a pain up until we start living there, since I have to drive over (didn't feel like biking). And estimate is now finishing up in March or so. Hopefully. Work's work. Busy. Always. Interesting, always. Wife and kids are good. Jackson was sick for a month or so, went through 3-4 issues, cold, flu, stomach bug, but he's finally back up to speed. No snots even. Lucy's good, she also had a flu or something for a week or 2, but she got antibiotics to kick it. Christmas and New Year's was good. Thanksgiving too. All pretty low key, nothing big. Lucy like's to stay over at the grandparents condo during the school week. Helpful, but hopefully it's not because she doesn't want to come home, but that she likes staying at grandma's better. Been biking to work. Swapped out to Power Grips instead of toe clips so I can wear boots. And the Bar Mitts as usually have been great. The Revolights work well too, but installation was a bit of an issue, at least on the front wheel, because I had to trim those little fins off the brakes in order to prevent it from rubbing. Pretty annoying. In December I actually had to take off the Bar Mitts a couple of times because it was too warm. But with windchill's estimated down to -20 tomorrow, I'm going to pass on the biking, at least until I get some goggles, so I can not have any exposed skin. As of now that's the only part that gets cold on my rides. With Mom in the Philippines, I get to go back to taking a more active part in Lucy's school commute. Going to try and start writing here more. I've started journaling again, with Day One. I'm back to logging locations, this time via Path instead of Foursquare/Swarm. Going to try and go paperless at home, for reals this time. Got a Doxie One scanner and will use Hazel to process, as suggested via Tools and Toys. So maybe that'll prevent the mail buildup on the counter. Tried out using a work laptop, but ended up giving that back because I didn't know how to carry a full size laptop on my bike (I don't want to wear a backpack). Found out the newest DisplayLink drivers support up to 14 monitors, so I'm up to 10 at work. Got a Dell Chromebook 11 to check out Chrome OS and a Dell Venue 8 to check out Android. Neither are very usable for work stuff right now. Finally finished up How I Met Your Mother. I had been spoiled by a tweet or website so I knew what was coming, but Tracy had no idea and she got blindsided. I decided to start over from the beginning and see how long I make it. Plowed through Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., first season on Netflix and the second bought on iTunes, so I'm all caught up there. I watched the relevent movies at the appropriate times, so that was cool to see the interplay between TV and Film. Love the coherence. Finally finished the Magician's Series, reading the first two and finishing with The Magician's Land. Pretty good. Neatly tied up loose ends. Liked that. Also thoroughly enjoyed The Martian and hopefully the movie version will come out ok. Back to using the Zagg Cover Keyboard for iPad mini. Works better now that I use the Zagg Autofit 8 for the Dell Venue Pro 8 and they have the same key layout, so I'm getting used to the eccentricities.
10:19 PM Monday, January 5, 2015
Took the El to work and back. Ordering goggles now so I can bike in this weather. Had to leave early to pick up Lucy. Been a while since I"ve done that. And I get to bring her to school tomorrow. I needed to work from home anyway, since I've got to be at the house so the water dept can come in and check the new service and program the meter. Then I need to head in to work because I've got to move my stuff, since they're doing construction and I'm getting shuffled around. We also got a 90" TV installed at work, replacing a 4x55" video wall because the consumer grade equipment had too much of a bezel around individual TVs. New construction is bigger offices with actual doors for the president and CFO. Probably going to work from a laptop for the 3 weeks it's under construction. Should be interesting. Not looking forward to having to shovel some more snow tomorrow. Won't actually do it until I head over for the water dept guys. Saw that Sony's TV announcement at CES included all smart TV's running on Google Android. Smart for Google and Sony. Google extends their reach, Sony doesn't have to worry about the OS. Will there be an Apple TV? Things I have to start checking on for eventually outfitting the new house. Nice to see some HomeKit stuff getting announced. Not sure if that stuff will be ready by the time we move in.
Archive of <January> <2015> [reverse chronological]