over the hump?

rumour has it that the subzero temps are on the way out. yes, another weather post, the last in a long while, i promise. mid to upper twenties this weekend will feel soooo good.

go go go joseph

the wife and i went to see "joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat" at the chanhassen dinner theatre friday night, as part of her birthday present. to be honest, i wasn't sure what to expect. it had been many years since i'd been to the theatre and although i'm aware of the story of jospeh i had no idea what the musical version would be like. we had seats in the very first row, which as it turns out is not an ideal perspective to see the entire stage as you are virtually eye-level with the stage floor, and we were close enough to almost be involved in the show. i was sprayed with spit more than once and you could feel the whooshing of the flowing costumes as they spun around. you could even hear them talking off-mic a few times. in short, it was a great time and much more funny than i would have guessed. you WILL be entertained. word of warning: the tunes will stay with you, probably longer than you really want. it was fun though and i would definitely recommend it for someone on the fence.

digital countdown...

as everyone knows on february 17th 2009, all television stations will cease broadcasting on their current analog channels and will convert to a digital signal only. this means that if you are like me, you probably have a couple of analog (over-the-air) sets around the house you still may want to use for awhile (does not apply to analog sets that are connected to cable, satellite, etc.) if so, the national telecommunications and information administration has provided a limited number of coupons worth $40 each that can be used towards the purchase of up to two digital-to-analog converter boxes (see a lot more info here). the boxes normally range between $50-$70. click here to go to the page where you can apply for the coupons. i applied yesterday, it was painless and only took a few minutes.
this has been a public service announcement from thirdthoughts...

less than zero...

yes, the "weather post" is usually a bad idea but i have to admit, i'm getting a little bored with "0" and below. how sad is it when you are looking forward to 23 degrees? honestly though, 23 will seem like light jacket weather. a little moisture in the air would be nice too, so i don't get a blue bolt of lightning every time i touch a light switch.

sports?

attention: wcco news....chess is NOT a sport

plugging away...

it's 5 degrees at 3:00 pm. we always go through a very cold snap in january and it looks like it's here. i created this javascript to remind myself that pitchers and catchers will be reporting to spring training in a few weeks.

not-so-hot rod...

i watched a dreadful andy samberg movie on saturday night called "hot rod". when the 30 seconds below is by far the best part of a 90 minute movie you know you're watching something pretty weak.

back to "normal"

owen was stricken with some sort of nasty virus on wednesday night (as were several other non-household family members), which coincided with our 15th anniversary. we were all up a good part of the night dealing with that but he appears to have rebounded nicely. he's back to eating and wearing his spiderman costume around the house and acting out short skits for all of us. that's a good sign. so far, (knock, knock) the rest of us appear to have dodged this particular bout of fun. here's a link to the birthday pics from last week. hope the rest of the family is doing better too!

anniversary 15...

today marks 15 wonderful years of marriage for allie and i. it really doesn’t seem that long ago as I can recall many vivid details of the entire day. so many things have happened since then but i wouldn’t change a thing as we really do enjoy a great life together and have been blessed with 3 amazing kids.
we once had grandiose plans of returning to jamaica for our 10th anniversary. of course owen was exactly 1 week old so that was virtually impossible. it also provided the perfect cover for the fact that there was no way in hell we could have afforded it. we settled on dinner at bakers square with a couple of toddlers and a bundled up newborn in a car seat carrier. tonight the girls have dance at metro dance studio as they do every wednesday night. for anniversary #15, we plan on either sharing a pizza at “nick & willy’s” or a possible subway at the strip mall. for anniversary 20, i’m already thinking of upping the ante and maybe getting take-out from “wongs kitchen” or applebees “curb-side-to-go”. i’m sure that we will have the opportunity this weekend to maybe get dinner and\or a movie and that’s suits us just fine. we may even do a short weekend trip somewhere this spring. i can’t complain as i’m very, very lucky.
i took this opportunity to do some research. it seems as though tradition holds that anniversary # 15 has a theme of crystal and a contemporary or modern theme of watches. now i won’t be showering my spouse with delicate and ornate fine crystal trinkets or a rolex oyster perpetual but i did find a “grow your own crystals” set on amazon uk. plus, we did get some roses which as it happens, is the flower associated with your 15 year anniversary. there are no gemstones associated with anniversary 15 (whew – off the hook there). these facts should not be confused with anniversary 14 where the traditional gift is ivory, the contemporary or modern gift has a theme of gold jewelry and the flowers associated are dahlia with a gemstone of jewelry and moss agate and anniversary 16 which has no traditional them but has a modern or contemporary theme of silver holloware, no flowers and a gemstone theme of peridot and aquamarine.
happy 15th anniversary allie!

i want my hdtv...

as acting IT manager of the price household, i have to be aware and informed of how technology impacts our everyday lives. to that end, i recently made the decision to upgrade one of our homes antiquated analog television sets to a brand new lcd hdtv (see pic above). it's a 26" wide-screen and while some may be quick to point out that i should have gone larger, consider the following. i'm in a one income household (that would be my income), the family room that it is in is fairly small, and it's replacing a 20 yr old 21" analog zenith with a broken power putton. quite honestly, i'm impressed and amazed at the picture quality and i think the size is a perfect match for where it is located. the xbox 360 images look unbelievable compared to what i was using before. so, although i had to contend with some substantial push-back from other members of the organization, and make some temporary adjustments to the budget, i am quite pleased with the end result. for the a\v less challenged, here are the specs:

Product Features

Integrated ATSC / QAM Tuner

HDMI w/HDCP Inputs

VGA PC Inputs

SPDIF; Sony / Philips Digital Interface Output

3D Comb Filter

3D Motion Adaptive De-Interlacing

Dynamic Contrast

Product Specifications

Inputs : HDMI w/HDCP Inputs - VGA PC Inputs - Multi analog inputs CVBS x 2/S-Video x 2/Component x 2

Brightness : 500 Cd/m2

Stereo Sound : 2 x 5 watts RMS

Contrast Ratio : 800:1

Resolution : 1366 x 768

Viewing Angle : H/V 160/160 deg

Panel Response Time : 8 ms

name change needed...

warning: rant follows. i have hated bestbuy for several years now and have always avoided the store whenever there were other alternatives, which there nearly always are. friday night i found myself assisting a buddy of mine with a new home pc\wireless network\set-up-peripheral project and we found ourselves in need of a standard 6 ft. usb cable for his new printer. now, had i known the cable was needed in advance i could have provided one at no cost, as a value added service but in this particular instance we needed one asap. as he lives in close proximity to a bestbuy we headed over there to get the required cable. we found ourselves in the cable aisle and found nothing but high-end gold plated usb cables ranging in cost from $33 - $40. what?!? are you kidding me? we need a very basic cable that should never cost more than 10 bucks and here we were presented with 0 options save for the no doubt higher quality but way too expensive gold plated variety. i know that best buy is a retail store and they are in a business to SELL things but honest to god. how can they in good-conscience look you in the eye and say, "nope, this is what you need". no, it is NOT what we need. not at all what we need. that is why i think best buy needs to change their name. to me, best buy implies that they offer the best (less costly) buy (purchase) for a given product. this is clearly not the case. in fact, it is 100% opposite. they offer you the worst (most expensive) buy in almost every case. at any rate, their unspoken motto seems to be "you can probably go to walgreens or look online and get what you need for a fraction of the price but you are already here in the store, and well...we have them so just buy it from us". they take advantage of the fact that average consumers have no clue about what things should cost and prey on their lack of knowledge to screw them. this is simply bad business. don't even get me started on the geek squad, or why printer manufacturers don't include usb cables and ship their printers with ink cartridges only half full (except for hp). if interested, you can read plenty of testimonials from disgruntled customers here.
rant concluded.

just did it...

along with my many other noteworthy accomplishments in '07, i managed to log 303.08 miles on my elliptical (roughly from my house to milwaukee) and burn 24,997 calories, which is equivalent to 7.15 lbs. conveniently, I failed to track the number of calories consumed over that same calendar year.

happy 5th birthday owen!

happy birthday to my little transformer\spiderman\batman\superman\powerranger.

christmas wrap 07...

ok, the first post of '08. spent most of the day chillin' at home which was actually a very welcome change of pace. back to work tomorrow (boo). it's turned bitter cold for the next couple of days and then a jan. thaw is scheduled for the weekend. owen's birthday tomorrow rounds out a feverishly paced series of events. here's the christmas pics. more soon...