Category Archives: News

Things, Goings On, and Stuff I write

More Than $10.00 in Half ‘n’ Half

Last night I went out with Abigail for a long set of errands. I had to go to two stores to collect all of the vanilla beans I needed [because one only had two beans, I needed 4]. I went to the Kaes’ house to collect 2 espresso shots from Craig, King Super’s to collect some gas for my grill and then to Safeway by my house to collect a disgusting amount of dairy. This weekend for Abby’s party I’ve got to have some ice cream. And, because I shot off my mouth about home made ice cream earlier in the year, home made ice cream will be the only acceptable dairy dessert. Plus, Sunday night (the night after Abby’s party) we’re having an ‘Ice Cream Social’ at church. I ended up spending a really, really disgusting amount of money on ice cream ingredients and some on non-dairy ice cream for or friends who are intollerant of various dairy ingredients.

In short this party is going to cost us a lot of money in ice cream – but if the flavors below turn out good, it’ll be worth it:
Soy Based: [Craig’s Espresso Mocha] Soylent Brown is Not People
Dairy Based: Randy’s Andy’s Mint Chip Ice Cream.
Dairy Based: Rilli Vanilli – Real Vanilla Ice Cream. So good it’ll make your lip want to synch for some more.

I Must [Not] Be Original

I read some time ago that the desire to be all original all the time is a sign of imaturity. I’m sure that if I had the quote it would be handy, but I haven’t got it. Therefore, you’ll have to know that that quote is not original to me, but it does pop into my mind with some regularity. I appreciate art that I see that represents a style for the first time (usually, with some exceptions), I appreciate music that I’ve heard for the first time that sounds new or different. Heck, sometimes I hear something new, don’t like it, but then it grows on me (read: Mukula). My buddy Tony Nuzzi kept saying he liked it and I kept saying, “No.” After a while I listened to it again and realized that it was much like some Beck music I was listening to. Doh!

There’s a lot to be said for originality in software as well. However, doing something a new and different way just to make it new and different and unlike its predecessors is either arogant or ignorant. People are used to certain things and not delivering on what they’re used to is more than likely going to reduce usability and confuse them. Originality in what your software does, however, is fantastically cool. Everytime a new web app gets talked about but no one says what its going to do, I get a little excited, hoping that it will be something new and revolutionary. However, I have not thought of anything original in the world of software design and programming with a few exceptions, and those may or may not be original, but they were not seen by me before my design and use of them.

In short, I want to re-affirm the idea that always being original, all the time is going to slow you down, keep you distracted and may actually prevent you from making the breakthrough that would be original had you been in the right place and right time to achieve that originality. Or, like Microsoft, you could just copy the Apple Interface and call it good. Because it is.

Rain Was Not in the Plans

Abby’s party was supposed to be an outside party this upcoming Saturday. However, rain is in the plans and so we’re now set to have an indoor party with (possibly) more than 35 people at our house. Good thing we’ve got good amounts of space in the living room, family room and kitchen/eating area! Forecasts change, though, so things could be just fine 🙂

Bruised From the Inside Out

Evy is going to be the next Mia Hamm. Or at least she’s going to be a highly unlikely candidate for the Womens’ National Basketball Association. She has kicked Jessica so many times in the belly that Jessica is starting to get a bruise on it. I think that’s funny, Jessica thinks it hurts. Either way Evy is showing great intensity!

Extreme Kitchen Make Over

Hi, I’ve removed my shirt to look more like Ty Pennington while I write this post. On second thought, that’s pretty gross, don’t imagine that… I’ll put it back on if you promise to keep reading. Below are pictures of our kitchen repainting (which is still in progress – but I had to post something now let my fingers forget how to type).

[To help reduce the load time of my site I’m going to put a link below for you to follow to see the rest of this post, as well as the images that will make up most of this post. If you’re viewing ONLY this blog entry there link will not be there.]
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Painting

This weekend will consist of me painting the kitchen with Jessica. My parents have graciously offered to watch Abby while we go all out and paint the town red. Or at least the kitchen. Jessica has picked out some bold colors and patterns, but I think it’ll look quite good. If we can paint the kitchen this weekend we can paint the baby’s room next and then I’ll be able to get the garage finished and we can have a house of phun. That is to say a house that is mostly complete.

I say mostly complete because I do want to go up some day. Heaven, yes, but a second story up would also be nice so that I could have a master bed and bath that are worth going into. And if we go up, then I’ll probably knock the wall down between “the girls’ rooms” and make that one larger room and that will allow the other room that is now the ‘master’ room to be another bedroom. In short the room count will stay the same, but the size of the rooms on average will go up.

Oh, and right now, before we can paint the kitchen red… we’re painting it gray. When we’re done graying I’ll post a picture.

Bike. Ride. Ing

This morning I woke up at 5:30. I immediately hopped out of bed like a spry young man wanting to go physically exert himself so as to maintain his fit physique. Actually, Jessica said, “Did you hear that?” when the alarm went off. I did. I also wanted to immediately go back to sleep. However, I decided that if ever I was going to whip this last 25 pounds I’ve wanted to take off ever since I moved to Denver I was going to have to actually get out of bed and work out.

So I went riding and it was fantastic! The sun hadn’t really come up yet and so it was light but not overly bright, and the coolness of the night was still hanging around (the Denver region is rather diurnal). What a wonderful exercise bicycling is. I got to see lots of flowers, some ducks, cars, sidewalk and the Cherry Creek Reservoir [which doesn’t look as nasty from down here as it does from space, apparently]. Good times.

End of Summer

The end of summer is rapidly approaching… I could tell because today at lunch while running an errand the two young boys who live across the street were just sitting with their dog watching tree trimmers/groomers cutting the neighbors trees into better shape. Yup, they were officially bored enough to watch adults work at cutting trees.

I don’t think I ever got that bored, but I’m sure I complained about not being entertained at all times. Fortunately they’ll be back to school in a few weeks.

Fertilizer

No, this is not going to be another blog entry with euphemisms for fecal matter. I apologize for the sometimes adolescent humor on this site – but it makes me laugh sometimes. Anyway, I fertilized the lawn Tuesday night and the proceded to water the lawn a lot to help get things turned back around. We had reached a point where our lawn was getting more brown than green and I wanted to facilitate the greener lawn look for my daughter’s upcoming birthday party (her birthday is on August 22nd).

The Lord, being full of humor and grace, has caused it to rain starting last night and this morning. This is perfect since I just fertilized. Now I’ll probably have to deal with rapid growth and more lawn mowing, but I’ll take it!

Warning: We Don’t Want Your Super Viagra

I have been getting hammered by a spam server this morning trying to pitch ‘superviagra.’ So I’ve blacklisted that word. Therefore if you attempt to write a comment on this blog using that word it will just delete the comment. Of course non of my readers would need to write that in the comments, but I just wanted to warn you.

You have been warned – and if you’re cold, put on a jacket, and then you’ll be warmed (most likely. This is not medical advice.)

In fact, this blog does not carry medical advice, dispense medical advice, dispense viagra, super viagra or ultra-super-duper-amazing viagra. I recommend you go see a doctor for any medical advice. That is all.