I'm taking a cue from Gizmodo and a suggesting from Russell and introducing a GadgetBag segment. That's on the more. Weekend was pretty laid back. Friday night movie at home, TV, living on the couch, Saturday doing some ironing on the couch watching TV and movies, and headed out with plans for the drive in but failed and stayed in town, BBQ at the Russells', sweets at Sweet Mandy B's, then I, Robot at Webster Place. I liked the movie, summer blockbuster, and it takes place in futuristic Chicago. Sunday more TV and movies and ironing. I think I've managed to get rsyncx up and running, which is a good thing. I am running out of Hard Drive space, if that's believable. Too much music. Gadget Bag
So what's in my gadget bag?

• Apple Powerbook 12" 1.0 Ghz. I maxed out the RAM and HD, with an Airport Extreme card. Otherwise, nothing too fancy about it. Used a little bit on the El, in the diner at breakfast, or at Leah's house. Set up as a web development, java development environment. Named Aluminum, which is unoriginal but fits into the element naming scheme I use. Also an AC adapter. And a firewire cable (short one).
• iPod 5GB, one of the originals. I did get it replaced a year into the warranty for a bad firewire port, but no problems since then.
• Sony Ericsson t68i (with T-Mobile). Had it for almost 2 years, looking to upgrade eventually, maybe the p910, but the t68i is still working. Love the bluetooth. I've got a data plan, so if need be, I can go online with the powerbook.
• LED Head lamp. This is new, got it for Poultry Days this year, but comes in handy.
• Swiss Army knife. It's the cyber tool or something, it's translucent red, and comes with hex and torx drivers. Also comes in handy.

And that's pretty much it. I don't do much computing on the road, nor have I gotten anything more recent than my powerbook (Oct 2003).

Summer league was alright. Ankle doesn't feel good, but I'm able to move around at least without a brace. Not well, but able. Really cool to read about Rohre Titcomb on RSD and how she's awesome on the US Junior Women's team. Oh, the Titcombs. I hope someone puts together the all sibling team for some tourney, and I could watch the Titcombs (all 4 current players), the Blanchet-Ruths, the Forth twins, oh, and don't forget about the Sheils, and many many more that I'm sure I haven't seen yet. That'd be a really fun team to watch. Going to the Bacotes' tonight, sushi and some CSO tomorrow, not much else I can think of. I'd like to sit through some episodes of Sliders, if I get a chance.

Tried to help Jeff and Becca finish off their leftover beef last night, and whiled the night away with some Taboo. I'm much better at guessing then I am at giving clues. Did some late night babysitting of a work related process. I don't like the packaging for Sliders Season 1 and 2, it's a little disappointing. Weather's a little crazy, big storm running through, much cooler now. Skipping yet another summer league game tonight, friend in town for sushi and music.

I really need to catch up on my sleep. Good thing the weekend's coming up. No beach for me, too tired. Maybe start the Sliders watching tonight. palmOne might be releasing an SD WiFi card, which would make my dad's T3 much more usable, maybe. Also looked up some info on maybe trying ePocrates again, maybe using Mark/Space's Missing Sync, maybe trying it with Virtual PC? I've got to upgrade my storage space, get some new HD's, try and do an actual back-up every now and then. Space is cheap.

So my dad has an ePocrates account, and it wasn't installing and syncing on the Cube at home with his Tungsten T3, so I brought it back into the city to see if I could get it to work. That was months ago. I finally did some work with it last night, and guess what? Work just fine. So that means I've got to go out to Woodstock and install it out there. Which is too bad, cause I spent a lot of time last night looking and installing different cool things, like Mapapolis, getting AvantGo to work, using NewsMac to get and sync RSS feeds. I guess my dad will be able to use all these cool things. Sliders is a good show, too bad it's not widescreen. I just wonder why, no matter what Earth they slide to, their personas are always important in some way. Wouldn't that be nice to know?

So I'm actually using my brother's bike, an old Trek 7000 from way back in the day. Works well enough for me. Friday night from my house to Leah's, Saturday morning from Leah's to mine and back again, then down to Michigan Ave, then up to my house. Sunday down to North Ave. beach and back to my house. It's nice. The lakefront path is especially nice. But another pretty chill weekend, plenty of TV and Sliders. Finished up Executive Orders, and Harry Potter 5 is out in paperback tomorrow, and besides picking that up I'll look for Pattern Recognition, Bear and the Dragon, maybe Teeth of the Tiger, all in paperback. After getting my dad's T3 back up and running, he asked for it back, so now I've just got to get out to Woodstock to get the actual update software installed. Last week of ultimate, summer league on Monday and Wednesday and the tourney on Saturday. Leah leaves for New York on Thursday for a couple weeks. We made it down to the beach for a swim and some sand time on Sunday, so check off another of "summer things to do in chicago".

Lost in summer league on Monday. Managed to get home, order up some Chen's, and do some laundry in spite of the loss. Watched Disney's The Parent Trap, my guilty pleasure movie, with Leah because of some Camp Walden scenes. Got my new hard drives, put them in firewire cases for Carbon Copy Cloning and then replacing the existing drives in my machine later this week. Summer league and team BBQ tonight, and thanks to the Russells' for the Cubs game last night. It got a little exciting in the 9th, with 2 men on, 2 outs, and down by 2. Oh well. Organized some more photos with Leah. Started Order of the Phoenix.

Summer league win last night, seemed fairly unusual for some reason or the other. A quick stop at Colin and Jason's Team BBQ and then off to Chinatown for dinner with Kevin, Sally, Bryan, and Leah. Taro root freezes with tapioca balls are much better at Joy Yee's. Leah's having some issues flying out to New York today, a nice huge storm system standing in the way. One canceled flight after a 2 hour delay, and a current 2 hour delay on her new flight. Tomorrow is Harold and Kumar at White Castle at 7:30 at City North. Maybe Golden Nugget for an early dinner. Saturday out in Naperville for Summer League tourney, maybe some suburb fun as well. Sunday computer upgrade with Marc, maybe some cards with friends. And then another week will start. I've also got a craving for some chicken soup, which my daily visit to Whole Foods was unable to satisfy. I found my blue trendy track type jacket which I thought I'd lost, which ended up, wonder of wonders, in my closet. And I found my sunglasses, which were MIA since the failed drive-in outing of July, in the trunk of Puck. Still have to find Leah's blue backpack.

Friday the 13th. Ha. Had no idea until I read it on some other website. Funny. Did some cleaning last night, thinking about reorganizing the data center. Eventually I'll reorganize everything, around the time the new windows go in. Maybe I'll stop having a data center altogether. Hey, stranger things have happened, like not playing ultimate. Might try and get out for some minigolf and go-karts after summer league tomorrow. Won't have to drive anymore, won't have anything to do on Mondays or Wednesdays anymore, I can put my cleats away. Looks like a nice fall.

Summer League's over, Captains of Olde won our first game, lost our second, won the third and then called it a season. Fun. Got to play with El again. Pretty quiet weekend overall, Friday night dinner with some married folks (Bacotes and Russells) and Sally at Silver Cloud, my first time, pretty good. I had the Chicken in a Bowl, which was good, but still didn't satisfy my craving for chicken soup, which I think has passed. No movie, a trip to the dog park, and a quiet evening at home. Saturday was showing up late for the tourney after getting Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast, then getting Wendy's (so good) on the way out, or back in. Some cleaning, reorganizing, trying to figure out what to do with the data center, some serious kitchen cleaning. Now I've got more counter space, and I don't know what to do with it all. Sunday friends for poker after grocery shopping. I'm gonna try and make some zucchini bread. And I got my brother's old Wallstreet out and installed Mac OS X 10.2 on it, hoping to either turn it into a big giant digital picture frame or something else. Slow though. And figure out what to do with the old iMac as well.

Finally working on the digital picture frames from old laptops. My old Sony 707 looks like a winner, but my old 505 looks like a loser, unless I figure out which screws ground out on the case. But otherwise, really interesting stuff. There's not much to laptops, a whole lot of empty space in there. Heading to the Russells' tonight to give a 7 month late wedding present. Maybe catch a cheap $5 movie after. Might have to do some more wedding present shopping tomorrow, pick up some stuff at Leah's, try and find some nice picture frames. Headed out to Woodstock on Friday, dinner with the 'rents at Bistro Wasabi. Currently watching Only You.

Dinner was good last night. Got caught in the rain for a bit, nothing too bad. Dropped by to drop off Tony's present, a script version of Fast and the Furious. Hope to see a friends' stage production of that someday. Didn't end up seeing a movie, maybe some other time. Still have to figure out software for the picture frame. I've heard something about zgv, which I'll try out, but it'd be really nice to have some sort of transitions like Mac OS X has between photos, like cross dissolves and pan and zoom too. Got to do some more troubleshooting of macs, and this whole 411 aspect of my life is still pretty crazy, not bad though, so keep calling if you need some info.

Finally got my bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup. I felt like a kid again, having soup and peanut butter sandwiches. Watched Out Cold. zgv is a no go in terms of image viewer, and I couldn't find a frame I liked at Linens n' Things, so I'll try and find something at a craft store, probably Michaels, when I head out to Woodstock this weekend. I also definitely killed my 505, but it had a bad hard drive before that, so I'm not heartbroken. Princess Bride in the park tonight, some more Airport troubleshooting. Oh, I finally baked some zucchini bread last night. Good, but not great. I'd like to try some other recipes as well.

The movies in the park, a much better idea, I think, than the Grant Park movie, occurs all over the city throughout the summer at various parks. It looks like a nice system, rear projection, and smaller parks make it much easier to see. And last night being at Churchill Field Park in Wicker Park/Bucktown, well, it was good. Helps that it's in everyone else's backyard. Princess Bride is a great movie, even better with friends. I like the outdoor atmosphere, I feel like it's conducive to comments, involvement, stuff like clapping during the good scenes, audible reactions from the audience. Anyway, makes me wonder if there's more next year that are in my neck of the woods. Played some beer schtick afterwards, but without the beer for me, I had to drive home. No sushi tonight, getting my favorite chinese food, Hong Kong Chicken from Plum Garden when I get to Woodstock. Got some computer stuff to do out there as well.

The trip home to Woodstock ended up being quite eventful. Direcway sucks for large updates, so I brought back the Cube to get it back up to speed. I'm also gonna do a full format and reinstall to get the ePocrates install to work, which of course didn't when I tried. Damn the Cube's awesome. Such a nice little machine. Maybe after Tiger comes out I'll get my parents something new, and never upgrade the OS to another point release. I've got to think of it more as an appliance, rather than an actual computer. But Saturday went to a funeral with my mom, a graduation party, and a birthday party. All we needed was a wedding to complete the cycle, I thought. Ran into an old high school French substitute teacher at the graduation party, talk about a blast from the past and a relatively odd occurrence for me. Stayed up way to late trying to get my digital picture photo frame working, which I thought I did, but then the screen keeps shutting off, but it looks good when it's on. And because I was up so late, I managed to see all the events I've been wanting to see on the Olympics: Badminton, Table Tennis, and Team Handball; all on at 4-5am on Sunday morning. I finished up the 5th Harry Potter, and I've started Pattern Recognition. Cleaned up a bit, did some ironing, watched Fast and the Furious and way to much other stuff on TV, and lounged at home. Had lunch with El today, good to sit and talk with her for a while, and got to pick stuff up from Leah's, do some laundry. I leave on Wednesday.

Took a nice long walk back up to my place from Leah's yesterday after picking up some odds and ends. Did my laundry, had a craving for a sundae, reformated and reinstalled OS X on the Cube, got the CD drive working again on the Sony picture frame (either doing a reformat and factory restore or installing linux). Gotta pack, iron, clean, and hopefully do some more computer stuff tonight.

So I'm leaving tonight, flying out of Midway on ATA (go figure), and gone till Monday. Got lots done last night, err, this morning. Other news, Big Wig's closing, which I found via a couple new Chicago blogs, Chicagoist and GapersBlock. I watched a bit of Olympics last night in High Def, which was pretty cool, except for the slow motion replays, which don't translate well, especially with the diving (I think digital moving pictures have extra special trouble with water). I polished my shoes for the first time last night, err, this morning, so that was kind of exciting. Good as new. Well, almost.

So NY and NYC are pretty cool. I don't think I spent enough time there to get a true feel of the place. Saw my first broadway show, the Producers, good, hung out with the Gesoffs, including Dusty, and met the Skioffniks. Auburn, NY, at least on the lake, is beautiful, as was Elisa and Brett's wedding. Pictures will go up soon. Too tired to really do any of it justice in writing. I am feeling a little under the weather, a nice summer cold or something. I might be joining a gym today, and might start swimming for exercise. Get to go get some sushi some night on Leah's Dad after helping him set up a network at home. Hero and Weber Grill on Friday. New iMac was announced. Watched my first episode of Entourage, which I really liked. More details about the weekend later on.