Monday on the way home from work, since there was a Cubs night game, I walked from Belmont. So I stopped in at Kafka Wine Co and picked up a 2003 Fat Bastard Shiraz. Last night, headed over to dinner at the future Cases, I stopped at Just Grapes, between work and my parking lot, and picked up a Pinot Noir and a Pinot Gris, details when I find the receipt. Having 2 nice, fairly accessible wine places close to work and live? And me getting older? Seems like a bad combination. And I'm gonna try and keep track of wines, just so I know. It was nice playing with cats last night at Ryan and Lisa's, Honey and Hobbes. Made the drive to Oak Park straight over on Washington. Definitely not a drive I'm used to making, that's for sure. Really gonna do laundry tonight. Might be headed over to the Duke tomorrow with Russell, headed out to Woodstock for some tech support on Saturday. No plans yet for Friday, but something with Tracy. Sunday getting a DVR, so I'll definitely be playing with that.

No laundry last night, no matter how much I needed to do it. Instead, I watched I, Robot, since I've been trying to catch that for a while. And after Sunday, I won't have to try and catch it, since that's when I'll be getting my DVR. I really wonder how much it's going to change my TV watching habits, my wandering round channels, hoping to stumble upon something new or interesting or good. Oh well. Trying to keep up with the little things, the other chores that need to get done. Finally brought down the winter comforter to be dry cleaned, along with my suits, which have been needing a cleaning, but since I don't wear them very often, it's got to build up. Can't believe September's right around the corner. Crazy. Headed over to Lisa and Ryan's tonight for dinner. Try and do laundry tomorrow night.

All over the place. Seriously. Wedding was fun, as in lots-o-fun. Snuck in a visit to Nevin's for some curry fries before the reception. Pretty lazy Sunday morning, nice nap time, and then we headed out, picked me up a new shirt and time from Marshall Fields, then walked out to Navy Pier to check it out and have some dinner. Missed Entourage, which finally gave me enough impetus to order up an RCN HD DVR, finally. Did I fail to mention that Nicole got Lasik? or maybe it was Lasek? I didn't even know there was a difference. Anyway, probably, well, required to do some laundry tonight. Long time coming.

Working. Working. And working. Been busy. Sushi was good on Thursday with Leah. Dinner with the parents last night was good as well at Joy's Noodles. And breakfast with them this morning, too. Did some cleaning up as a family after iChatting with Al and Nicole. It's pretty cool. Finally got around to installing Ubuntu, so now I have a nice desktop Linux box. What for? I haven't the faintest idea. Definitely need to get a Windows box for home though. RDC just doesn't cut it, and Hydrogen is just too small and too much of a hassle to get setup with an external monitor. I'm finally looking into getting working air conditioners at home. And I actually opened up the blinds to let a little daylight in. Really different when that happens. Got a coworker's wedding to go to in a little bit. Some sort of moving watching tomorrow. And then back to work. Crazy.

Can't believe I missed a day. Or a couple. Crazy. Work that is. So last night Tracy and I wanted to see Fantastic Four, but it has like 1 showing in the afternoons during the weekdays at River East, so instead, we saw The 40 Year Old Virgin. Genius. Sheer genius. Good times. Then dinner at Dick's Last Resort. Not so good. Alright. But fairly skimpy menu. So I guess I didn't miss a day, since I updated so late on Tuesday. Weird. Anyway, having an exit interview dinner with Leah at Sai tonight. Is it bad to call it that? Not sure, but it's more like a good bye dinner. Got a decent amount of sleep last night, could definitely still use a bit more. Other random stuff, started using public key authentication, which is alright.

I think updates will be coming later, probably more at night, so don't expect them during the day at all. Bowling was alright, only got really going after the 3rd game, but got too tired to play anymore. Dinner at The Patio, yum, ribs and chicken. Currently chowing down on a nice bagged Caesar salad with anchovies and chicken. Gonna finish up with some Krispy Kreme and Mini Chips Ahoy. And watching Aliens vs. Predator. Going to finally see Fantastic Four tomorrow night. Oh, brought out the iPod yesterday during the drive, pretty much to listen to some Ray Charles. Good stuff.

Pretty full weekend. The Dukes of Hazzard viewing on Friday, not so good. Dinner at Chicago Firehouse, pretty good. Walking home when you really have to go to the bathroom, not so good. Lunch at the New China Buffet, pretty good. Grant Park Music Festival with Joe Mantegna, pretty good. Navy Pier fireworks, pretty good. Pastrami reubens from Samuel's Deli, really good. Entourage, really good. Tracy, really good. Going bowling tonight. Should be fun.

Tracy and I went to Marche last night for dinner, thinking of partaking in the Dine Out benefit, but Marche isn't doing it until next week, and we realized that it's a prix-fixe menu, which would be alright, but I like a little more choice when I'm not going to a top tier restaurant. Anyway, I felt like I was in Sex and the City, just way too hip for me. Food was alright, but I'd rather go to Brasserie Jo. Gonna go watch The Dukes of Hazzard tonight, got some plans with Tracy this weekend, and might see the parents. Otherwise, not too much going on. Oh, and for some reason my RCN subscription changed from Showtime to Cinemax. I'll have to call to get that squared away, and then also see if I can get a HD DVR.

So if I update late the previous day, I don't have anything to write the next day, unless I wait until a similar time in order to capture anything and everything that occurred in the roughly 24 hours since the last update. Anyway, I thought oatmeal was supposed to be filling, after a bowl this morning I had to get an egg sandwich 3 hours later. What's up with that? Maybe it's the fact I actually exercised this morning, I tried out a stationary bike. Not much of a workout though, but my ankle didn't feel too bad, but then my left knee felt a little weird. Man, it'd be nice if I wasn't such a weakling, I'd just suck it up and go running, but I shouldn't have to do that. Stupid body.

So I wanted to write today's entry after I found out if I had to go in for jury duty tomorrow. And I don't, but after I found out I went out and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Tracy. What a weird movie. Well, what a weird character. But still, pretty good. Odd being the only person laughing in a theater. Definitely want to get some candy tomorrow. I'm actually typing up this entry on Hydrogen via Cygwin, which is pretty cool. But it's hard to keep config files and personal scripts the same over different computers. I need to figure out rsync better, along with getting Argon up and running with maybe portable home directories, which would help on the Macs anyway. On another note, one of my best friends from high school, James Kennedy got shipped off to Iraq today for a year. Suddenly it got a whole lot more real for me. Best of luck to him and his unit, and they're in my prayers.

So I read del.icio.us popular feed, and I've noticed recently that there's a large number of css and web development related links. It might have always been that way, I'm not sure, and this might be something I'm just now noticing, but that sort of skews how popular a shared bookmark list can be, right? Anyway, working lots, but got plans with Tracy for tomorrow and Thursday. Still need to call my brother, but it's always hard with the 2 hour time difference, at least for me. I don't want to call too early. I've also got some cleaning to do. Seriously. I'm also chomping at the bit. For what? I'm not so sure. But definitely chomping.

Did a lot of home administrative stuff over the weekend. Also watched a lot of TV and movies. Finished up Dark Angel, and it really is too bad they didn't finish that off, would have been nice to get a wrap up not in novel form. Also watched Sky High (good) and Kung Fu Hustle with Bryan on Saturday, Spider-Man 2 and bits of other things on Sunday. I finally swapped out Xenon with the WRT54G, which noticeably sped up my web browsing experience. Next step is to finally setup Argon to take over mail hosting services. Which would then mean I could retire Xenon. I do realize that I should get a PC at home that can run XP Pro, so checking in on work stuff could be a whole lot easier. Now it's a matter of trying to pick one out. I mean, I could just go for cheapest, but then, that goes against my nature, and I'm looking at small form factors, but those can get a little expensive if you go current or future proof tech, so I'm still not sure which way I'm gonna go on it. I did get to try out Ubuntu on an old PC that I got from work, which is pretty cool. Starting up a PC from a Live CD is really cool. Might go watch Dukes of Hazzard tonight.

Got a nice long night of sleep last night, looking forward to another one tonight. Ended up working late, and then headed over to Duke of Perth with Tracy. Plans for the weekend? Probably a movie tomorrow, but otherwise, sleeping, maybe some home computer administrative stuff. That's about it. No big plans.

Went and saw Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright at Ravinia. Sold out show and all the crap that goes along with that. But still, a good time. And I really like Ravinia. I'd like to go back, at least one more time this season. Anyway, not going on a whole lot of sleep right now. I did manage to fix the Memex function include issue. Would have been nice if someone told me about it. Also, did some more consolidation for web site code. Added some things to make it easier to turn certain parts on and off, like the Flickr photostream, say, when Flickr's being slow. Which actually might pave the way for user accounts and customization. We'll see about that though. It'll be nice to actually sleep tonight.

Sweet. Daily Dose, Memex, and the Gallery are all finally sharing stylesheets and functions and that menu on the left. Headers and footers are still kind of specific to the applications, and I'll put that off to the future. Which means that they all should look the same, same size fonts, colors, and so on. Which is good. Nothing like a little uniformity. So I'm headed to Ravinia with Tracy tonight, to see Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright, which should be fun, but I wanted to pick up a picnic basket type thing with spots for wine bottles. And since I had Puck up in Evanston getting checked out, A-OK by the way, I just jetted over to Old Orchard after picking it up. And since I was there, I dropped in to see if Bryan was working. And he was. So got to chat with him for a bit, after of course, walking around looking for the out of season picnic storage devices which I ended up finally finding a backpack version at Brookstone. And then I did laundry when I got home.

Definitely took the long way to work this morning. I had to bring my car in for service, so I went up to Evanston, then took the Purple Line back down to work. And I'll have to do the reverse to pick it up. Crazy. It actually wasn't that bad though. Watched Weeds and Entourage last night. Very funny. Entourage might be getting a little too sappy, however, Emmanuelle Chriqui joined the cast, which is great. Also snuck in a viewing of Dark Angel too. Still got a whole lot of things on my plate, things I've put off, things I need to take care of. Eventually.

Finally cleaned up a bit at home. Threw out some boxes, fake trees, stuff like that. I think it's time to finally really clean house, and stop hoarding stuff that might come in handy sometime in the future. Woodstock was good, definitely good to see my mom, who's doing pretty well. Managed to get a haircut, use my parents fast internet connection, and added the same day different year navigation here as well, which is pretty cool. Means I get to play that game where I can say what I was doing a year ago today, or 2 years, or 3 even. I also came up with something to show date related musings for entries, but right now that's only for myself, I may make it available to the public eventually. Ended up over at Tracy's for the rest of the weekend, which was nice. Watched March of the Penguins. Had some prime rib at Fox's Restaurant & Pub. Helped her out with a BBQ at her place on Sunday with the Russells and Lisa & Ryan. Really need to do laundry again. Oh, and bringing my car in for an oil change tomorrow, which reminds me that I finally attached my replacement license plate to my front bumper. I ended up using anchor screws, which seems to work pretty well.

Daily Dose has some new features. Entry titles are now clickable links, which makes it easy if anyone actually wants to direct link to a specific day. Month and year in an entry's date is now a link to the respective archives. Archive navigation is now available, so browse by year, month, or same month in different years. Next up is navigation daily, between day to day, or same day in different years. Maybe I'll even get around to adding accounts and commenting. Either that or a forum. Damn, remember the Union Crew website? That had a forum. Anyway, I'm really liking Hydrogen now. The touchscreen is great. It's gotten to the point when I'm on Aluminum I was touching the screen to select something, not realizing it didn't have a touch screen. Got an all day battery for it, so I can use it all the time now. Only bad thing is, I use Windows XP at work, and now on a computer that I can have with me at all times, and I don't really sit down at Oxygen all that much, so my Mac OS X use is dropping dramatically. Not really happy about that, but Apple doesn't make a 2 lbs. mini notebook, so what can you do?

Just chilled with Tracy last night. Had some Jewel Rotisserie Chicken, always good. Watched some Sex and the City. Really tired. Like really tired. Apparently exercise just tuckers me out. Might try and hit beach tonight, might end up going to the Duke, might stay at work late, who knows. Probably headed out to Woodstock tomorrow night, try out my parents new fixed wireless broadband connection, see if iChat works with iSight with my brother. Just trying to stay a little bit healthy, or at least, healthier. It's hard though. Oh, and it's really popular, or getting there, or maybe it isn't, and was just a flash in the pan, but try out MegaManEffect if you have a mac. It's wicked cool but useless.

Finally got around to doing some tweaks to the site. For myself, added edit links to posts if I'm logged in as the administrator. Will make it easy to update old posts to use the Memex. For Akira, I added an option to view archives reverse chronologically, for whatever reason he wanted them. And I added the Flickr photostream to the Memex. Fairly productive. Also managed to go swimming last night. Right around the tail end of my swim, the pool suddenly got very busy, like 7 people? or even 9 at one point, although a couple were just waiting for an open lane. This was in a 4 lane pool. Crazy. But my shoulder hurts and my ankle hurts too, as I whine a little bit more, but I maybe have to try out the stationary bike to see if I don't ache after that. Would be nice. Headed out to see Tracy tonight. Mom comes back from the Philippines today.

Figured out why I couldn't ssh home from work: work domain name wasn't resolving. So I'm back in business. Which is good. I've also started playing with Cygwin on my little guy, Hydrogen, seems to work pretty well. It was either that or try and figure out a way to dual boot into Linux, which I didn't feel like trying. So now I've got to remember how to sync up data across multiple platforms again. Ugh. Had some leftovers last night, watched some Dark Angel, upgraded my Debian install on Xenon to 3.1 sarge, uninstalled a bunch of stuff as well. So now that some of my computer systems are getting up to speed, lets see how I do with the rest of my physical systems. I did manage to do an ab workout this morning. We'll see if I can keep that up, just like my swimming.

Yeah, that's right, stealing titles from Counting Crows albums. Whatever. Vegas was fun, if a little short and a little long at the same time. Some quick highlights: brunch at the Bellagio buffet, lots of random pictures, gondola ride at the Venetian, cheap ass Bellinis served in plastic cups from an icee vending machine, seeing Flippy at the Harrah's Carnivale Court (he was a competitor at the Legends of Bartending as seen on the Discovery Channel or Travel or Learning, one of those), wine list on a tablet pc at Auerole, "O" from a center spot, watching Tracy get to spin the wheel playing slots and winning at the Flamingo, drinking a too large margarita while losing at slots at the Monte Carlo, being woken up by a couple having a very loud fight in a room nearby, lunch at the Nine Fine Irishmen with a great cheese and fruit plate, and an hour delayed takeoff and only 15 minute delayed landing return flight. And very very hot. No good being in the sun. Oh, and it got way too busy on Saturday, like crazy busy, not fun to be around busy. So Sunday Tracy and I went to the Wicker Park Farmers Market, ended up going through the Wicker Park Street Festival, got myself a corndog, went to see The Island with the Russells, made some pork chops with some apples and shallots from the farmers market, actually used a microwave to cook potatoes (my first time!), watched some Entourage. Not a bad long weekend. Now, got to save some money back up, after spending a little too freely over the summer. And it's also August. Wow. Already.