Any household stuff get done last night? No, of course not. Ended up going grocery shopping since I needed onions for the Italian sausages, and I need to remind myself not to go grocery shopping after work. Just way too busy. And my ice cream kind of melted waiting in line. But I did manage to get a blueberry pie. Again, don't go to Jewel when I'm hungry. Just ended up buying a lot of meat. Didn't get iChat to work with Tracy, I think she was having some issues with her internet connection, and we're both behind firewalls, but still, got to figure out a way to get it done. Dancing tonight, dinner at Custom House, getting some appliances tomorrow, probably heading out to the Naperville Rib Fest at some point this weekend. Got to work on Monday, so I'll be writing then too.

Just realized the header on these items is too close to the body of the text. Also, I should increase the line height to make it more readable. Updated the rest of my machines last night to 10.4.7. No problems. Brought Tracy her tMac last night. Always good to get someone else on a Mac. Also good to actually get rid of more computers from my data center. Drops me down to 6-7 working machines. Just a little ridiculous. But definitely finally feel like I'm making headway on getting things organized. Better anyway. Might go for a run tonight, might do some laundry, want to cook some Italian sausages in the fridge, and I found out I had Magic Shell in the cupboard somewhere, so I'm thinking of getting some ice cream somewhere. Contemplating stopping by beach on my way home tonight, just to say hello, so we'll see if that happens. Oh, got to try Skype out for work related communications, which is pretty cool. Here's hoping tonight I get to try iChat with Tracy. Tomorrow gonna try the Chicago SummerDance Festival on the south side of Grant Park. It's Mambo/Cha cha cha/Merengue/Bachata night. That starts at 6pm.

Probably not really, not meteorologically, which is a real word by the way. But enjoyable. I really like the Sturm und Drang, the fury of mother nature. It's fun to see the rain come down in sheets, approach from the horizon, the wall of water as it crosses the land. Missed one when walking over to the train station to get lunch yesterday, and got caught in one walking to work from the parking lot. The first time I didn't have an umbrella or a rain coat, but this morning I had my huge umbrella. Which was nice. Funny seeing all the people going to work huddled under their small travel umbrellas. Didn't do too much last night, more work getting Nitrogen ready for Tracy, bringing it over tonight, have to figure out the easiest way to get her playlists over from Aluminum.

Went running with Tracy last night. Well, sort of. Did a little home exercise as well, push ups, sit ups, pull ups. Leftovers for dinner, and watched a couple episodes of Hell's Kitchen. I don't get that show. It's like a car accident, can't help but watch. It's not a good thing to watch. I don't like any of the people, not sure why any of those people would want to go through it, or even why some of them even made it on the show. I thought egg washes were always with yolks, just like the main guy on the show says, but looking it up, you can use egg whites if you're looking for a lighter color and crispiness. So that's something I learned, not necessarily because of the show. Not sure if I'll be watching that again.

Happy Birthday to my mother!!! (almost forgot).

House bound for the weekend, mostly because Tracy was working, and I enjoyed being inside. Lots of TV and movies over the weekend, and winners were Wicker Park and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I really liked Wicker Park, even though it got panned by the critics. Of course, it's a remake of some French flick, but I'd never seen the original, so I thought the remake was pretty good. It would have been much funnier if Freddie Prinze, Jr. had been in it, especially since Matthew Lillard was in it already. And Pirates was pretty good too. Good ride. Reminds me of The Mummy, that sort of fun summer action adventure. Figure I can see the sequel now. Computer stuff, I've finally figured out how to email pictures to my gallery, and as soon as I figure out how to pull those pics into the sidebar, I'll get rid of my Flickr dependency. Also, started cleaning and organizing more computer stuff, setting up Nitrogen to give to Tracy, probably doing a rebuild of Aluminum and try and set up portable home directories for it. Also, probably turning the data center into a wedding planning center, think one wall covered in cork board, or one of those huge white boards that's magnetic, so we can start brainstorming for ideas. And yes, it's already started, the wedding planning. This is gonna take up a lot of time, and it'll give me lots to write about. Should be great.

Didn't end up going to Carnivale, instead went to Brazzaz as originally thought. Food was good, but Tracy ended up getting sick, probably from the oysters. I had one, but only one, as it was good, but I'm guessing not the best thing to layer in between red meat. So that was good. Got to ride in the Argao family minivan, which was cool. Powered side doors rock. I did notice what looked like a battery charging interface in the side door, which I thought was pretty odd. Fairly early night, which was good, and I got to bed at a decent hour for once in a pretty long time. Felt good waking up for work too. Oh, fast forwarded through Master of Champions last night. Odd odd show. I just wanted to see the actual performance, but as a competition doesn't seem to make much sense. And the stuff they did last night, not that entertaining.

Had a rare night post last night. That was before I decided to go ahead and update the Gallery and the Memex last night. Took way longer than I hoped for. But now I'm running current versions, 2.1.1 of Gallery and 1.6.7 of MediaWiki. Oh, and updated gtd-php to 0.6 as well. I'm guessing that's going to get a lot more usage with some heavy duty planning in my future. Oh, also realized that I should just ftp things in binary, and that ascii isn't that good. Never really had to deal with images, so I usually forgot about those things. Anyway, dinner with the future in-law family tonight at Carnivale. Afterwards, just really really need to catch up on sleep. Really.

Websites. Trending. And a couple things. The last subject line was supposed to be about more friends getting blogs. Russell would be the latest with The Unpaid Bar Tab. But I love that people are writing more. It's more of that information junkie in me getting my fix. And this time it's less about technology and more about the people I know, knew, or might know in the future. There's a possibility of a gossip-like site that will finally satisfy my desire for a Chicago Ultimate gossip site. So that's nice. More info for me. Makes me wonder if we'll finally get a forum, like the old Union Crew website had. But the other thing about websites, either I'm finally finding out about, or just that the trend leaders have allowed the mainstream to catch up, but it seems like a lot of, not really bleeding edge, but leading design for the web, seems to be coming out of Chicago. It's the simplicity and form over function, places like 37signals or Coudal. Also it's some professional bloggers on the Weblogs, Inc., or just more posts by bloggers. It's cool. But also kind of strange. Maybe it's just that I'm finally paying attention to location when it comes to website reading. Anyway, Darwin's was good tonight, but the ribs were a little too spicy. Still good, but spicy. Got to see Jason Tanguay for the first time in a long time.

Still like the Duke, even though they slightly changed their menu. The fish & chips is still great, as I decided to go back to the standard after getting stuck on the meatloaf for the last couple of visits. Restocked the beer fridge a little bit more, got a couple bottles of sake too, I forget which ones. Hopefully I can remember to write those down. Watched Knockaround Guys, which was pretty good. Not sure if it'll stand up to repeat viewings, but still, pretty good. After Russell left tried to do some computer work, but still have to figure out how to use Subversion. I think there's another upgrade to Gallery that I should implement, but there's no easy way I've found yet to determine which version I'm actually running. I was hoping to get it integrated with the Memex but that extension to MediaWiki doesn't work with the newest versions. Ugh. Headed out to Darwin's tonight for ribs. Oh, forgot to mention that I grabbed an early lunch with Tracy at Caffe Baci yesterday as well.

Out with the pharmacists last night, on a supposed going away dinner for Lisa and Ryan which we conveniently tacked on a celebration for getting engaged. We went to Think Cafe up on Western and something, and it was pretty good. We ended up at The Beer Bistro in the West Loop before heading home. Good times. Hard to believe that was a Monday.

So I popped the question on Sunday. We were going to Taste of Randolph Street anyway, so I had us go down to Millennium Park before hand, because I wanted to check it out, and we hadn't been there since the winter and ice skating. So we get there, I'm pretty nervous, and I need to walk around to calm the nerves a little, build up the courage. So we check out the plant sanctuary, the nice grassy field at the pavilion, and I'm a little disappointed we couldn't find any photography displays, cause that would have killed a little more time. So we eventually make our way to the Cloud Gate, or The Bean, which is all polished up and seamless. That's my goal, the set piece. Tracy's on the phone with Lisa, and I'm walking us around, trying to find a nice quiet corner, and find one on the northwest part of the plaza. I speak a few words to Lisa, letting her know that I haven't done it yet, and am about to, which is good that Lisa didn't ask Tracy yet. So the phone goes away, and I start talking, that I love that you can see everything in the bean, it's great, and that's what I can see with her, that I can see everything, and that brings me to why I brought her there, because I love her, and then I reach into the pocket, bring out the box, dropping to one knee, opening the box, and asking her to marry me. She starts crying, I get up and start holding her, and she says, yes, of course she will, and a little more crying. So I hope that's a good enough proposal story, although most people aren't asking how it happened, they ask more about the ring. It's a little too loose on the finger, so she's getting it sized, hopefully tomorrow. So with that out of the way, quick weekend recap: Friday night went to Vessel Ideation, got the drink on, tried to get some pointers on how to propose, Saturday did 5 loads of laundry after dropping off old computer stuff at a hazardous recycling center. Showed up to Tall Leo's wedding reception late. Sunday didn't make it to tennis, sat around and watched Madagascar before heading to the park, proposing, and then Taste of Randolph Street mainly to see Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Just headed out to Tracy's last night to hang out. We were thinking of playing some tennis, but too tired to head out. Just some couch time instead. I spent some time working on Hydrogen, the only real Windows machine I've got to get Outlook connecting to the work Exchange server. This will come in handy, since I've been VPNing in to check email, since I didn't like the WebMail interface. But, that still isn't working right, so I'll have to try again later. Headed out tonight to Vessel Ideation for an open house/happy hour which I actually wasn't invited to but I'm crashing anyway. And then I really need to do some laundry. Seriously need to do some laundry. Tomorrow I need to remember to drop off the computer stuff at some hazardous recycling center, either on the south side or in Highland Park, not sure where exactly. Probably on the south side. After that got Tall Leo's wedding reception, but Tracy and I might head out to her uncle's place for a family party before hand. Sunday might head out to Taste of Randolph Street. Somewhere in there I'd like to roll out a new version of the Memex.

Last night Tracy and I went to a Wine & Cheese: Uncensored pairing class at The Chopping Block at Merchandise Mart. First time at there at the Mart location. Very nice place. Class was pretty cool, tasted 6 wines and 1 beer with cheeses. Got some notes. I was really impressed because I'm not a cheese guy. At all. But I liked them all. Especially the Gouda. Go figure. Then we walked over and had dinner at Wollensky's Grill, which was great. Headed over tonight to maybe play some tennis out in Lemont. More issues make me think about switching hosting providers, as I think I crash the server around noon when doing my Memex updates. But they haven't complained to me yet, so maybe it isn't me at all. And downtime usually lasts like 5 minutes or less, it's hardly noticable, but still.

Last night went out with Tracy to Mid Iron to swing the clubs. Got better at the 7-iron. Switching to the 5 wood felt completely different, and everything I thought I was doing right with the iron now felt completely wrong. Anyway, getting a few decent hits here and there. I was impressed. All that time watching my dad and brother practice swings in the living room must have paid off. Makes me excited to take some lessons, and someday go golfing with them. Who knew, me, eventually, liking golf. Granted, I haven't been out on a course yet, so who knows about that, but I do like swinging the club and watching the ball go flying. After hitting a bucket, we went to dinner at Davidson's cause I had a craving for onion rings. With that satisfied, we moved on to ice cream from Baskin-Robbins and finished up with a shopping run at Target. No righty golf gloves there. But then Jay let me know that a glove just allows you to grasp the club tighter, which is actually a bad thing, so I'll pass and wait until my blisters go away.

Trying to get Subversion up and running for my website code. That's what's keeping me from updating the MediaWiki code. Again, sooner than later. Late night at work kept me from laundry, so it was dinner and couch time with the laptop. More issues with email, again with the SpamCop and Gmail issues. Annoying. Makes me wonder if I should look into switching hosting providers, or at least one that doesn't use SpamCop, since a lot of people I know, and I myself, use gmail. Ugh, maybe I should take the next step towards colocation. Hmmm. Again. Anyway, new tv show I'll be watching? Windfall, cause it's about winning the lottery, something I'd love to do.

Watched and did a lot this weekend. Friday finally watched The Great Raid, which was really good. Throughout the weekend I worked on upgrading MediaWiki to 1.6.7, mainly figuring out where and what my customizations are. Almost there. Saturday, watched The Seige before heading out to Lisa and Ryan's Midwest Wedding BBQ. Sunday, made myself breakfast after church and settled in to watch Unleashed before heading out to Ribfest. Was supposed to see James who was in town, but that didn't happen, which is too bad. Hopefully later this year when he's back for good. Also watched Entourage season 3 premiere. Such a good show but so short. And I just read it's 20 episodes this season, which is good. Currently reading Inside Delta Force borrowed from Russell, which is the basis of The Unit. I'll probably end up reading Rainbow Six to get my special forces fix. Hoping to get some laundry done tonight.

Went out to Tracy's last night, saw X-Men: The Last Stand, again, since she hadn't seen it. Still okay the second time around. Noticed the reverse aging (younging?) of the Professor and Magneto at the beginning this time around. Didn't notice it the first time around, but looking for it, well, it's a little disconcerting, kind of odd. You can definitely tell something is different about those two. But that was about it. I'm really intrigued by the stuff Google's doing recently. I just logged in to Google Spreadsheets, and that was after installing Google Browser Sync on the Firefoxes I use, and it makes me wonder if we're closer to a GoogleOS: the web based operating system. Most of my information that I want to have is making it's way online. It's becoming harder to be any sort of productive if I'm not online. The part about spreadsheets that tweaked this is the interface (a menubar? with file:save and file:open as options? Seems like an OS to me). And now Akira is intriguing me with the S3 stuff from Amazon, which I signed up for. Might use it as another backup medium. Just need a reliable way to get it out if everything else goes away. Going to see my friend James at some point this weekend, got Lisa and Ryan's Midwest Wedding BBQ on Saturday, and that's about it. Oh, and had lunch with Bryan at Jerry's Sandwiches yesterday when he came to pick up my tent for use at Poultry Days. Ha, Poultry Days.

Well, figured out what the problem was with the Memex and the css update: random clear:both in the MediaWiki code. Well, probably not random, but there to make sure categories and the footer end up below any image work. Makes sense. Not for this implementation, but overall. So I at least brought categories back up near the body text. Doesn't look perfect, and I like the footer at the bottom, so that's how it's going to be for now. Also, if anyone else is having issues with the site after the change to css positioning, try refreshing or clearing out your cache. Otherwise, tried to get through some more stuff on the DVR, like Bewitched and the series finale of Everwood. Right now it's just full of movies and episodes of Good Eats. But I've switched my Good Eats recording to the EyeTV 500 so I can get them all.

Tracy and I tried to play some tennis yesterday at Waveland Park. Can't remember the last time I played tennis or even picked up a racket, probably back on college. So I'm not that good. And we were on a center court, so we didn't want to swing away and have to go chasing after balls. Did learn that court changes happen on the hour, so that's good to know for future reference. After that we went to Coast for dinner, since Tracy had gotten a copy of DiningOut for Chicago and she went looking for someplace that had scallops. And I am not one to turn down sushi. And it was my first time at Coast. Not bad, a little expensive, but nothing special. They did have wasabi shumai though, which was good. Trendy too. Never realized how close it was to Bryan, Tony, and Carlo's old place.

Welcome to oh, a couple years ago. I've finally updated Daily Dose to use css. Oh, it doesn't completely validate. Oh well. I'll work on that later. Also rolled out the new gallery, also available from the link in the menu. Only the wedding pictures up now, I'll import the rest later. Memex was updated as well, which is nice. Of course, I'm already thinking of the next upgrade, which would be to Smarty Templating, which is what Gallery uses. Oddities include the Memex footer finally aligning at the bottom for some reason, and the shop in css has poor menu sized links. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with it. I should eventually get it to validate, that'd be the smart thing to do. Next up in integrating login and administration with Gallery, Daily Dose, and MediaWiki. That should be interesting. Yesterday went out to Tracy's, ate some homemade fat sausage and watched TV, aside from the website update.

Getting closer to releasing Daily Dose with css. Finally got the gallery up and running with version 2.1.1 with css, but that's still not available to the public. Soon enough. I was able to test it out via my cell phone and it's much quicker to view. Makes me happy. Otherwise, a fairly busy weekend. Friday finally did some laundry. Saturday headed out to Woodstock and had dinner with the parents at Tip Top Bistro. Sunday went over to Tracy's, picked up some used clubs, tried them out at the driving range, then grilled up some burgers for dinner and watched Waiting... to cap off the night. Oh, I forgot to mention that I tried out my dad's new lawnmower, a Kubota ZG20. Wow. Otherwise, not much else. Oh, and I've decided to hold off on the MacBook, until the heat issues die down and hard drive sizes come up, which will probably be August since Toshiba announced 200GB 2.5" SATA drives today. So until then, I'm still on Aluminum.

Well, not really. But it is June already. Halfway annual tasks to do include archiving mail on Xenon. About time for that, even though I hardly use it for anything, well, except to serve up listservs. But I did some research yesterday, and I'm actually making some progress towards implementing my own email2gallery setup via procmail and some other tools. Which means I'll take Flickr out of the loop and then all my pictures can be in one location. Oh, and I still haven't put Lisa and Ryan's Wedding gallery back up, just updated the Gallery to the newest version, so maybe some css work later to get that up and running. Relatively random, came across the Gryphon. Very very cool. Probably useful for special forces type stuff, but it actually reminds me the Screaming Fist from Neuromancer. Oh, and an email notice: SpamCop apparently has been blacklisting some gmail servers, and this has been going back a while. Not sure why it's taken so long to affect me, but those of you who have been trying to send me stuff via gmail, it's delayed by at least 2 days.

Fairly random, but while continuing to read up on the MacBook as my next computer I come across all sorts of talk about how hot it is, how hot it gets, and so on. So I found a temp meter that works on Aluminum to get a sense of how hot my current laptop gets. But that's besides the point. The point is that a lot of these readings are in Celcius. So I've decided to try and get better at reading temps in Celcius. That just means I've got 2 weather widgets for Dashboard, one in Fahrenheit and the other in Celcius. Hard for me to pick it up. Anyway, went to Hooters last night with some of Tracy's Pharmacy School classmates. Also watched another episode of Can't Get a Date. Pretty simple night.