So native HDMI makes a huge difference on keeping a signal recognized through extenders and splitters and stuff. Swapped out the old Mac mini (Mid 2007) for the Mac mini (Mid 2010) for the conference room at work after I setup my new Mac mini (Mid 2011) at home via a straight SuperDuper! clone. Works so much better, it's not even funny. But I did get to put Lion and setup synergy on the old Mac mini for my desk. Testing machine. Might mean I can retire the Macbook, or just use it for real testing. But means I'm up to 7 monitors at my desk. That's crazy. Thinking I might need to start doubling up, instead of putting them in one line. Also upped the house Mac mini back up to 8GB RAM. Surprised how much of a difference it makes. Another winner from Other World Computing. Lucy might be back to champion sleeping. Pushed her bedtime back, well, ended up to be an hour or so, and she only had a little bit of crying, and went right to bed. Surprised it was that simple. Starting to get to the point that I have to stop thinking of her as a baby. It's hard though, since she'll always be my baby. Did I mention I made her a cardboard house from a box? It's pretty sweet. I'm wanting to put in LED lighting, some shelving, a table. Makes me want to buy more things so we can get more boxes. I finally upgraded to a speaker bar, a Boston Acoustics TVee Model 25, for the bedroom. Much better now. Can actually watch stuff in bed. So much spending, but my bonus came in, so, burning a hole in my pocket. My iPad is kind of falling apart, but I need it to stick around until a Retina Display iPad comes out. I figure that's my next purchase.

Shifted Lucy's bedtime by an hour later. No more 45 minutes of crying in crib before sleeping, no more night wakings with crying, no more crying upon waking up in the morning, and actually sleeping in. Amazing. Crazy work day yesterday, as we had a server switch on an entry database server, but I had to leave early to pick up Lucy, and then she has a later bedtime, while I still had to fix things because of the switch, and then I find out at 6pm I need to get some machines set up for temp workers who came in today, so with Lucy's later bedtime I didn't get back into the office until 9pm, and then didn't leave until 1:30am. Crazy town. Although I gave up my stable of machines to the temp users so I'm working off my laptop today, and it gave me a chance to do some desktop cleaning. Nicer having some open space, instead of 7 monitors on my desk. Using the Mac mini (Mid 2007). Slow, but usable. So actually on my work desk I have the mini, the blackbook, and my MacBook Air (11-inch Late 2010). All mine. It's my Mac farm upstate where old computers can frolic in the fields. Looking forward to getting some more sweet tamales at Green City Market. The one I had last week was amazing, and Tracy thought so as well. Also looking forward to catching up on some sleep. Hoping to stay away from work computer stuff this weekend. I felt bad last night, because Lucy would get upset when I sat down at the computer at home, and she'd try and push me out of it so we could play. I hope I'm not already being that dad who works too much.

So all that sleep drama with Lucy, and I almost ruined it by checking on her at 5:30am on Saturday when she cried. Didn't pick her up, but just went back to sleep on the chair, which is really comfortable, and I'm looking forward to when we can pull it out of the nursery and back into the living room. But she ended up crying, just a little bit, before the next couple of naps and bedtimes. But then last night, she's back on schedule. Fingers crossed. Green City Market on Saturday, didn't have any sweet tamales, which made me sad. Still no chicken pesto fiadonis at Zullo's, hopefully next week. Didn't really want anything. Didn't even hang out at the Nature Museum, opted to have Lucy run around for a bit outside, treeing squirrels and whatnot. Picked up Lito's Empenada's for lunch, which were fabulous. Went downtown shopping after her nap, she got to play around in a little Lamborghini and Mercedes Benz for kids at Neiman Marcus (we were there for the piriouettes). Brought her to Indian Garden, where I think she od'd on mango lassi. Didn't really like the tandoori chicken, liked the pakora, not so much the matter paneer. She got a little crazy at the end though. After church on Sunday went to Cost Plus World Market for Tracy's free coffee, and picked up some odds and ends, like Wasabi flavored chips, which are strangely addicting. Lucy likes 'em too. Got mac and cheeses from Noodles & Company. That was also some good stuff. Headed over to Mike and Amy and Caden's for chili and the Super Bowl. Been plowing through Greek, and on the last season or volume, or whatever they call it.

Tracy got a taste of 2 kids today. She got to babysit Caden for the afternoon. Ends up the 2 kids kind of take care of themselves, playing with or near each other. Apparently Lucy was quite helpful too, picking up Caden's bottle when he dropped it, his pants when Tracy had to change him. They got to play in the cardboard house together. And Lucy got to have McDonald's french fries thanks to Uncle Mike. Been trying to get to bed early, still feel like I'm playing catchup on sleep. Debating on whether to jailbreak my iPhone 4S and iPad again just for f.lux. That's the only thing, but I still want to be able to do updates. But tempting now that they fixed the iBooks issue. Got some more parts for my bikes from Velo Orange. Just standardizing on pedals and toe clips, and city bars. Figure it's time I just went all in to the city bike genre. Cause who am I kidding, they aren't bikes built for speed, at all. Also figure I needed to get them back up and running since there's only four months till Bike the Drive.

Still feel like I'm playing catchup on sleep. But when I do get to bed early, I'm up at like 5am. Took care of Lucy this past weekend, and at some point Tracy's going for a girls weekend, so I'll have Lucy all to myself for an entire long weekend. After church on Sunday, Lucy and I went to Water Tower Place specifically so I could get some Shiseido products for me, and picked up some Wow Bao for lunch. Played a bit in the LEGO Store, and I realized that would be the only other retail job I'd want to work besides the Apple Store. Just seems too fun. Also, we need to get Lucy some official DUPLO, and away from the Mega Bloks. Way more expensive, but worth it I think. Quality is just so much better. I did get stopped a couple times by people remarking on how cute Lucy is. Doesn't help when leaving Lucy waves good-bye and blows them kisses. I made her a couple cardboard slides, so she can have some fun getting off the couch. Goes with her cardboard house, which was the first thing she ran into when she got home yesterday. I knew I should have kept all the boxes from the holidays around. I could have made a mansion. I think it might be time for making blanket and pillow forts. Tracy's been on a reading kick lately. Like big time. Makes me happy that she likes a series I found, well, stumbled upon from one of the many rss feeds I read. Like, it's her new favorite series. She wants to talk to me about it, but I haven't read them yet. It's the Mistborn Trilogy.

Happy Birthday to my Brother and a happy anniversary to my parents! So what's new? Tracy brought Lucy to Family Grounds, a coffee shop/kids playroom over in North Center/West LakeView, and it looks awesome. Except Lucy probably picked up a cold or something from there, which is really just causing a lot of mucus. But Lucy had it, then Tracy got it, and I thought I was in the clear, but eventually I got it too. Annoying. I'm all Mac at work, just remote desktopping into Windows machines as needed, although I'm doing BootCamp on the MacBook Air. Just no SQL Server tools for the Mac. Almost would be enough. Hmmm, maybe my first Mac app? Since they're already bringing Notes.app to Mountain Lion. Hmmm. Started working on my bikes last weekend, but only had a small window during Lucy's Sunday nap to work on it. Took the Xtracycle apart, almost completely, switched out the handle bars, need to redo derailleur and brake cables. Needs a good cleaning too. My toothbrush is pretty old, so that'll get repurposed. Then have to switch out the handlebars/brake levers on the Sprint, new pedals and toe clips, and then maybe I'll start riding into work again. Would be nice to get some regular exercise again.