Happy New Year and all that jazz. Wish I hadn't gone on hiatus with the blogging between August 1999 and July 2001, then I would have had a nice decade of blogging. As it is, I don't remember what I was doing when the decade started. Anyway, went in to work late after having breakfast with Baniella at Nookies Tree. But still got some stuff done. Picked up Potbelly for dinner on the way home. Watched Death Race to pass the time until Tracy got off work, then drove out to the in-laws for the new year. Watched slideshow of Mike's wedding, and saw some photos from Gabe's favorite photographer and I can't wait to get a real camera. Also possibly figured out which hardware/software solution to use for baby monitoring. Excited about the. Probably get it soon and use it to spy on Tracy, just for testing.

Yes, living in the future, the year 2010. I have no idea what my dreams were of this year, back when 2010 was the future, instead of the present. Still no flying cars, personal jet packs, or servant robots (I don't have a roomba). So the new year so far involved lots of sleeping, hanging out at the in-laws, shopping, and reading. I'm currently on Breaking Dawn, after plowing through the first 3 books in the Twilight Series, starting on December 23, 2009. Read 23 books this year, when I started counting in February. Only book I doubled up on was Soon I Will Be Invincible, probably because it was new to my stable. I wonder what the coming year will bring, and if my reading will increase or decrease with the baby. Or if I count Goodnight Moon for myself. Finally fried up the plantain that was brown enough, and Tracy jerked up some chicken and coconut rice for dinner last night. I made a tiny single Oreo cheesecake yesterday as well, which was ok, but I should have found a recipe, instead of just putting Oreos into a regular cheesecake. But, pretty easy to make and bake. All caught up on Dollhouse, and I'm glad it appears to be setting up for a nice wrap up. More like a nice 26 episode miniseries, than just an open ended tv series. Finally watched Tropic Thunder. Good, but not amazing.

My MacBook continues to limp along. I thought the USB ports were going on me, as the Monoprice USB Wireless Lan 802.11N kept disappearing and reappearing like it was getting unplugged and replugged. But a full days rest shut down seems to have fixed that. But still, fingers crossed for a MacBook Pro 13" updated to the Core i5 chip at the end of the month. Also I removed the Apple TV and the Wii from inside the AV cube and put them on top instead. I probably shouldn't have crammed that all inside, it was a little too hot, and I thought the center channel on the AV Receiver was going. Finally ordered up some cooling fans as well for it, so that should help. If anything it'll help the replacements if the current items break down. The DVR is the hottest thing in there, but since it's a rental, I'm not that worried about it. Tracy made some soup last night, and it filled me up without really filling me up. Mostly volume. Did some exercises last night too, just planks and push-ups, but I don't remember the last time I did push-ups, so that's something. Wondering if anything interesting is coming out of CES this year. It starts officially on Thursday. Just noticed that my birthday falls on Ash Wednesday this year. And figured out over the weekend that our daughter will probably be a Taurus.

I guess. Certainly didn't look like 12 inches of snow will be dropping on the city in the next 36 hours. Hard to take a winter storm warning as an advisory when it spans a day and a half. But duly noted. Good thing there's no driving for anyone involved in the household. Just realized that Tracy can't have snow days from work like she used to when the snow was really bad. No shoveling needed when walking down the hall. I did my part to clean out the fridge last night, eating any leftovers I could find. Also watched Push, again, since Tracy was working last night and I'm in the middle of the Avengers Assemble part of Breaking Dawn. Picked up a couple more movies from Redbox. Disappointed I can't get 9 yet. Lots of anticipation for some reason. Maybe it's just the New Year jitters. CES officially starts tomorrow. Supposed Apple event some time at the end of the month. Just waiting for update products and things to get stocked to spend lots of money, all under the guise of the baby. Also, flights to Vegas are expensive.

So since my MacBook continued to have issues with my admittedly cheap Monoprice USB Wireless Lan 802.11N, I decided to try and put my Airport Extreme card back into the laptop. And guess what? It works find again. Go figure. Again, I just need it to last until Apple releases the mobile Core i5's. Any day now since Intel just officially announced them at CES. Looking forward to what Plastic Logic does for a consumer version of the Que. I'm fascinated by the touchscreen behind the actual screen technique. Would love to see what a paperbook sized version would cost and look like. Speaking of books, I finished up Breaking Dawn last night, and in a effort to balance it out, started The Book of Basketball by the Sports Guy. Reading it on my iPhone is pretty annoying because of all the footnotes. Well, annoying because the eReader software and book format probably doesn't handle footnotes the way they could be handled, like as pop-ups.

MacBook is still chugging along. Snowpocalypse wasn't as bad as I was hoping for. I think Tracy's starting the nesting stage of pregnancy, which means I've got some work to do on cleanup, getting rid of some boxes, doing some file organization. Exciting. Got a package yesterday, the Gilmore Girls complete set, more for Tracy than for me, G.I. Joe: Resolute which they don't sell at the iTunes Store so I had to get a physical copy, Wii Fit Plus and a Thermaltake BlackX, which is a SATA USB HD dock. Just means I can use those 2 1TB HD I replaced in the Drobo for actual offsite storage of important things, mainly iTunes Store purchases and photos, important for when the baby comes around. Headed out to Woodstock tomorrow night. Paid last bit of estimated taxes for 2009. I'll never understand that. Especially the part of getting fined for being late on your estimated taxes. Ugh.

So we headed out to Woodstock to see my parents on Saturday, meeting them after the 5pm mass. And who do I see? Mrs. McCoy, my old 8th grade teacher. Very nice to see her. She looked well. Told her some updates. Then, we went to dinner at Woodstock Public House. On the way to the seats, I see someone that looks familiar. I glance over again and I swear it's a table of some old high school classmates. Seriously. So some more, hopefully inconspicuous, glances, I'm certain it's my classmates, Dana Fortin, Megan Byrnes, Leigh Hadick, and Christy Luciano. So I wander over and say hello. Crazy. It's been probably since high school graduation, over 14 years ago, the last time I saw them. Seriously. Small world. Which of course made me think all about high school, all over again. So besides that little foray into the past, did some shopping. Took advantage of the trade in program and upgraded the Sony Portable Reader System PRS-500 to a Pink Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300. Also got to check out the 3D TV showcase in person. Interesting. Sunday went to Benedict's La Strata, then returns and shopping on the way back in to the city. Got me some fleece pants which are nice and warm. Also, I think Tracy has started nesting so we cleaned out the living room of boxes and paperwork finally. Time to start putting together the nursery.

Dropped by the old home yesterday to pick up mail and run the water. I also picked up a couple lamps that I've been meaning to move over. But I stumbled on an old journal with some entries from SBR '04 I think, which made me think of all my other journals, which I think I just went ahead and tossed. Seriously. I didn't even make an effort to digitize them or anything, just threw my past out. Bad for these days when I feel like reminiscing, but I think good overall for general well being. Leftover ribs for dinner. Watched some of Desperate Housewives, How I Met Your Mother, Better Off Ted, Scrubs and the first episode of Undeclared (thanks Gabe!). So many young and promising stars in that pilot episode, including Smallville and Pam Beesly and Daisy. Very cool.

Another doctor's appointment this morning. This was Tracy's blood sugar test day. So I only had a half day, taking the morning off to go with her. We did find the Au Bon Pain at Northwestern Hospital (it's on the second floor). Tracy did get the ok to fly at the end of February, so Vegas here we come. Otherwise, everything was straightforward and normal. Headed out tonight to The Publican to celebrate Akira's birthday. I'm planning on walking over, and also need to drop by a Jewel to return some Redbox movies (Moon (movie) and World's Greatest Dad). Nice to see the sun today. And the weather's warming up, which was also nice.

The Publican is just awesome. Good food. Fresh, wonderfully cooked, so tasty. My mouth waters just writing about it again. The mussels were sublime, the suckling pig wonderful, the country ribs really tasty. Love that place. I think we need to make it either a monthly, or at the least a bi-monthly eating place, maybe try out brunch even. I do have a birthday coming up. Hmmm. I'm not getting a little worried that the GF1 is getting discontinued, but it was only released last September, but noone really has the 20mm kit in stock. Still just waiting for Amazon to get it, really. Also still waiting for Apple to announce new toys. I'm just anxious to help the economy along, that's all. January and February do seem to drag on, at least it's not absolutely freezing, but we do have February ahead of us still. Tracy's working tonight, so got to figure out what to do for dinner.

One of those words that's just fun to say out loud, like an expression of surprise, or like bazinga! Not so good when used with Tracy, because she likes kolaches, which are good, so I had to go out and get some today after all the kolaches shouting. I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but I've started getting and drinking Caramel Macchiatos and I tried my first Cinnamon Dolce Latte from Starbucks today, and I'm liking them. I've definitely handed in my man card for a while. Maybe the super sweet coffee drinks and reading and watching the Twilight series is just preparation for dealing with my future daughter. Maybe I'll even get some baking in this weekend, I want to try a mini cake using those mini springform pans of mine. Also, I don't think I've mentioned that the McRib is back in Chicagoland area McDonald's. Yum. Had one for lunch today. Got a lunch date with Russell tomorrow, headed over to Silver Cloud. Been a while since I've been there. Oh, and a haircut tomorrow too. Besides that, some movie watching, since Tracy's working.

So watched pretty much the entire series of Undeclared over the weekend. That's an amazing show. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Funny and at times a little uncomfortable. The casting director for that show was batting a thousand. Lots of good and funny future faces on that show. Very cool to see. So thanks Gabe. Also finally watched City of Ember. Not bad. I do wonder what the book was like, if there was more to figuring out the puzzle, which I thought there was going to be. I thought it was gonna be a National Treasure but kind of for kids. Not really that at all, and actually, fairly bleak, dystopian future, apocalyptic as well. So yeah, pretty dark when you think about it. Saturday had a nice mandate with Russell. A cheesy sloppy joe and a bloody mary at Silver Cloud was awesome. Good stuff there. Also finally had some frozen apple turnovers, which I found at the grocery store last week. Went to Twist for dinner on Sunday to satisfy Tracy's craving. Did some chores on Sunday too. Got a haircut on Saturday. Started looking into other webhosting solutions.

Well, went ahead and put an order in for a GF1 through Amazon. I saw it was in stock on the Panasonic Website, then saw it come in to Adorama, then 1 day later, no longer in stock at either of those. I assume there's a shipment headed to Amazon and hopefully I'm not too far down the list. I'm really looking forward to having a real camera for once in my life. Should be interesting. Odd to see the sun again. Makes everything much better. Restored my iPhone last night. Seems like the battery's been draining extra fast lately, so I wanted to try the restore, since it supposedly helps. I've already taken off all the media, so it wasn't too lengthy of a process. But after restoring, it's super snappy. Teh Snappy even. But still seems like the battery is draining. Maybe I should start deleting apps I'm not using. Made a mini cake last night. The small springforms work great. Just need to frost them. Kind of feels like one of those easy-bake ovens in terms of size. I wish I had thought of it sooner. Next up I want to make a mini black forest cake.

Just barely. Maybe. My week on call for the data load at work. A little annoying. Otherwise, just watching TV and eating. You know, the usual. I am looking into setting up storytlr on a home machine, and seeing if I can get it working. Kind of a test run on setting up a new webhost. It's not super easy to configure a web host. Put that in the pro column for just going with a webhosting service, instead of rolling my own. Otherwise, setup the second NETGEAR WGR614L Open Source Router finally as a client-bridge. I'm planning on using that for the baby monitoring setup, which the camera is on the way. After that, then getting the software both Mac and iPhone. Yay! Something new to play with. Also frosted that cake I made a couple days ago. Tried a cream cheese frosting, and it's a little too cream cheesy, and not quite frosty enough. Got to go home early and work there, since Tracy forgot her keys when she was running errands today, so just had to meet her after her haircut. Since I was working at home, moved the little breakfast table up against the couch, so I can watch TV without sitting sideways. It's actually a pretty cool spot, if we moved the book cases, or switched out for somehting shorter. Otherwise it's like a hole in the decorating.

I completely understand the poor eating habits associated with stress and/or responsibility. Because of the whole data load supervision for work thing, my lunch schedule has flip flopped. I had recently, last month or so, started having lunch around 11am, whereas before it was like 2pm. But then this week I've been back to the 2pm lunches. Not good. I was starting to like the 11am lunches, with a small snack maybe in the afternoon. Also, I had McDonald's for lunch yesterday, just because it was fast and easy. Because I had to get back to work. It's much nicer when things go smoothly. Battery life on my iPhone actually seems worse now. Just cleaned off a bunch of apps. We'll see if it gets any better. And actually it did, almost immediately. Maybe cutting in half the number of apps that could receive notifications helps, even if most of them were set to not receive any notifications.

Finally got storytlr setup on a test machine. It's pretty sweet. I've actually been trying to use Tumblr to do exactly that, capture all my activity online in a single location, like a lifestream, and FriendFeed does it too, but not nearly as pretty as Tumblr, but Tumblr had a limit of 5 data feeds, while my rolling my own is unlimited. Of course, I had to figure out how to compile php for Mac OS X to get odd things working like pdo_mysql and tidy and mcrypt and I still need to get jpeg and some other stuff working. Of course, I now need to keep track of updates and make sure it's up to date now. Ugh. Maybe I won't start up self hosting. Weekend, except not really, because I'm still watching this data load for work. When it's working fine and completing in time, it's easy peasy, otherwise, annoying. Got to get a plunger that fits the drain on our toilets, since the one we got doesn't. No suction. So we're down to one toilet for now. Played Wii Fit Plus for the first time last night. It's pretty sweet with the groupings. Nice quick and easy exercise routines, prepackaged. Tracy had a request for kolaches again, so wandered over and picked some up from delightful pastries in the Chicago French Market. Ended up getting some tarts too. Supposed to have dinner with Rysa and Jespy this weekend. Otherwise, I need to be around a computer in the afternoon/evenings. Also going to look at baby furniture tomorrow.

Got my baby monitoring system setup, at least temporarily. I can totally spy on Tracy now as she's working at home. It's really really cool. Like seriously, really really cool. And I've only got a single camera setup. Kind of want to invest in more cameras, but then again, it's a very temporary type of system, wireless networking, no hard lines, kind of awkward cable and power and stuff. For the next house. Did some shopping, well, window shopping this weekend. Trying to get ideas for which glider chair, sizes of dressers, decorating schemes and styles, crib styles, and so on and so forth. While at Babies 'R Us up in Niles first ran into Rick Hamada, a co-worker, and then Debbie Jung, an old friend from NU, who I probably haven't seen since graduation, but she is a Facebook friend. So that was cool, and very small worldish. And in the past month, even less, ran into high school friends, now college friends, and now I wonder who I'll run into that I haven't seen for 10 years. Went to dinner with Rysa and Jespy Saturday night at New Reboso, which was fabulous. Oh My God. And now we really have to start moving on the baby prep stuff. 3 months or so left.

Yes, I watched Life Unexpected. And yes, I liked it. I also watched Human Target. Which was fun, but didn't make it on my list. Life Unexpected did. If not the DVR, which it might if Tracy approves, otherwise someday off the iTunes Store. Made hamburgers in the cast iron pan for dinner last night. They were awesome. Just like you'd get from the corner grill. Very tasty. Also first time using a cast iron pan. So weird not washing it after using it. Stopped by the old home yesterday. Maybe I should just forward my mail from the old place instead of walking over to pick it up. Hmmm. Eventually. Started using port forwarding non-standard ports on the Airport Extreme to xenon. I think it helps against the h4ck0rz!1! and script kiddies and stuff.

Do i want one? Hmmm. Thoughts on the Come see our latest creation (January 27, 2010) Apple Event and the iPad device itself. In the half assed method of trying to follow the event via websites or ustream.tv TWiT streams, I didn't see what's so great about it. Watching the iPad video off Apple's website? I'm impressed and now immediately want one. Well, not necessarily immediately. I know what I should do, and that's wait for v2 in a year, but I don't know if I will do that. Maybe I can get an iPad and an iMac instead of a MacBook Pro? And as usually, lots of complaints around the intarwebs, mostly centering on the software side, mostly no multitasking. To that I say eh. Wait and see. Don't really have think about it for at least 2 months and possibly more, by which time I imagine I'll be pretty busy with other things. Finished off The Book of Basketball yesterday and started The Lost Symbol. It's nice to get back to a page turner.

So yeah, I think I want an iPad. Reading all the reactions and analysis gets a little annoying after a while, and I don't want to whine, complain, sound like a fanboy, sound deluded, or under the effect of RDF. My only thought is that it's neither an iPhone or a MacBook. Watched a lot of TV last night, all sitcoms, Tracy made hors d'ouvres for dinner, crab and spinach stuff. I pretty much just ate what I could get my hands on. Weather's freezing, just in time for February. My new camera supposedly should be shipping soon. Would at least give me some new toy to play with. Spying on Tracy with the security camera got old pretty quick, but it is pretty sweet. Working at home seems pretty boring.

Good news is that my new camera shipped out today. Yay! Something new and shiny to play with for a while. Something to make me stop thinking about the iPad. Which is making rethink my whole computer upgrading plans. It's a little annoying. I'm really jonesing for an iPad, and thinking I don't need a MacBook at all, and I've started looking at iMacs, except Tracy says we don't have the space for it. I wish the 21.5" had a vesa adapter, then I'd wall mount it by the breakfast bar. That'd be a perfect place for one, or an iPad. But if the iMac fit and was on a swivel arm, would come in handy for recipes, or playing/picking music, and work on photos. But that's if it fit, and swiveled out of the way. I'll have to try some mockups to see if that works. Headed out to the 'burbs again tomorrow, looking to hit up a Hobby Lobby, Joanne Fabric Store, and a Land of Nod outlet. Tracy's trying to figure out how to organize furniture for the nursery. Sunday she's working, so I'm just trying to figure out which movie to watch, Gamer or Surrogates, or something else entirely. Watched the series finale of Dollhouse, which ended well, I hope. Also finished off The Lost Symbol, which I enjoyed, more so for the ideas presented, than the story itself. Next up is Dealers of Lightning, rather appropriate given the introduction of the iPad this week.