Friday, August 31
Pictures from my Massena class reunion. I don't remember everybody, but Maureen Daye, John Newtown, Roseanne Delaporte, Bob Deruchia and Tim Burley are there.
Thursday, August 30
Hey, it's the Pittsburgh Puzzle-of-the-Day!
It's raining and raining here, but not as hard as during Tropical Storm Allison. The good part is we've only had to water a couple of times this summer, plus it's much cooler than last summer - low 80's compared to 100's! Woo-hoo!
Tuesday, August 28
Today was just overwhelming and frustrating, including just now when I tried to post some pictures to this site (which is not even working correctly) and had some technical issues which I would rather not troubleshoot today when everything is so overwhelming and frustrating.
But Ed has finally updated his website, if anyone cares. In my own defense, though, I do rinse my sink, it's just that our sinks drain way too slowly. Another thing to do.
Monday, August 27
I attended two vendor presentations today, one by Raindance, maker of an on-line collaboration solution (looked very good compared to Microsoft's NetMeeting), and the other by Microsoft, no description necessary. Microsoft did send out for pizza for us. I also went to the dentist to get impressions for tooth whitening, which I am getting so that I can get my front tooth fixed. While all that doesn't sound like much, what with running around trying to find a projector for Raindance and driving in actual Rain, I didn't even get to turn my computer on until 3 PM. So the day flew by quickly, at least.
Sunday, August 26
One of my co-workers actually drove to Louisiana yesterday to buy us all Powerball tickets. I don't think we won. We did have fun Friday planning how we'd spend the money, though.
We're watching This Old House this morning, and it happens to be the first episode of the Santa Barbara bungalow project, which I'd never seen. It's a Craftsman bungalow, just like we'd like to have.
Friday, August 24
I've forgotten to keep up with movie reviews. We rented two films with Bob and Linda. Chocolat was excellent (helpful that I knew nothing about it beforehand, but I think most of this audience would enjoy it a lot). The Mexican was better than I expected. It was funny, until the theme and plot got in the way. But a good rental.
Thursday, August 23
Ed and I just returned from a run. As we walked down our street, we noticed four of our neighbors staring up at the sky. It turns out they were watching for the space station which was due to pass over. We got to see it. It's fast! I knew it was flying at 17,500 m.p.h., but it's hard to picture that. It crossed the sky much more quickly than a plane flying at cruising altitude. Here are the sighting schedules for Pittsburgh and Santa Barbara. It's hard to imagine that the people on board have just begun a six month stay in that thing. One of the neighbors works at the space center in accounts payable, so she stays up on all the spacey news.
Wednesday, August 22
My root canal went okay, I guess...for a root canal. I do like the nitrous oxide. It makes it less boring. I was able to go to work after, but it's aching a bit now.
Also, our kitten, who had come with the perfectly acceptable name Zorro, is now named Dewey. I think his middle name is still Zorro. And his last name is Doody, because Dewey Doody is just amusing. I'm not sure how we settled on Dewey, but it's more catchy than Zorro.
Monday, August 20
I'm posting these photos for Erica.
I have an abcessed tooth. It's one I got a crown on last fall, but it just got around to going bad. I'm having a root canal on Wednesday. In the meantime, it's antiobiotics and pain killers. Ugh.
Sunday, August 19
Well, this computer stuff is much harder with a cat!!!
Anyway, Ed decided to take a trip up to San Antonio with Erica before she left, so I took Friday off so I could go along. We took Erica's friend Ashley from Y camp with us. We didn't get going until about 6 Thursday evening. I had never traveled this far straight west from Houston before. Before too long, we were into Big Sky Country, meaning everything was flat as could be with not many signs of habitation -- all horizon. Before too long a thunderstorm cropped up due west, and we were able to watch the lightning for about an hour from afar. Eventually we got into the heart of the storm, which was really intense. All of the lightning strikes were retina burners; we'd see four to ten strikes at once, often with explosions on the ground, then we'd find it hard to see for a few minutes. We were a bit worried about flooding after Allison, but didn't know the terrain well enough to know whether to stop. But by the time we got to San Antonio (after a couple of fishtails) all was well.
Friday we went to Schlitterbahn, a water park in New Braunfels. The original park, built in the '70s, has water chutes using the water from neighboring Comal River (really a beautiful creek chock full of fish and turtles), while the new section is standard chlorinated water. The old section is set in a ravine with the slides meandering amongst ancient live oaks. It reminded me of Idlewilde. We didn't take a camera, though, so no pictures.
Friday night we went to dinner at Boudro's along the Riverwalk in San Antonio. I really liked the Riverwalk -- out-of-town guests will be driven to San Antonio! Erica and Ashley enjoyed their dinner.
The next day we went to the Mexican Market for breakfast, where Ed ordered up some mariachis just to embarass Erica.
We had a great time, and I would like to spend more time in both New Braunfels and San Antonio.
Saturday, August 18
Lack of updates due to a quick trip up to San Antonio. We left Thursday night and got back this afternoon. Erica just left for California. I'll elaborate on the trip later or tomorrow.
Tuesday, August 14
Friday night at dinner with Bob and Linda, they mentioned that their daughter Miranda had taken in a pregnant mother cat in April and still had one of the kittens. Miranda is pregnant and has two dogs already, so was looking for a new owner for the cat. We mentioned that we were considering a cat. We were invited to dinner at Bob and Linda's house the next night, and somehow Miranda and her husband were there with the cat, food, litter and a cage. So long story short, we now have a very silly looking cat who likes golf.
Sunday, August 12
We went down to NASA yesterday. Erica had never been (and she's a native Houstonian!), and Ed hadn't been since they built Space Center Houston. Unfortunately, we happened on the one deep flaw of this place. We stood in line for about 45 minutes for the tram to drive over to Mission Control and the astronaut training center. Just as we were about to board, it started to pour and they canceled the trams. Ed was really mad, since they announced that we could try back in an hour - but would have to wait in line again. And as it happened, when we went back into the building, we were 5 minutes late for most of the movies, etc. We recovered, though, saw Mission Control and the training center, got the mission status update, and saw the "To Be an Astronaut" IMAX film and one other. We had a little fun with gravity, too. They both liked it in the end.
We lucked out (for my second time in a row) and got there within a day of a shuttle launch, which makes things more interesting. Docking begins shortly.
Friday, August 10
I attended a presentation today by InfoVine, a local company with a website building tool. We are looking for a content management system for all the non-developers to update sites for their departments (marketing, HR etc.). My area is more web applications than static web sites, so it won't be helpful for creating what we develop. But we have been wanting to include more content describing the sales process; this would be a way to do that.
After work today I went with my friend Ted to see the new house he's buying. Ted's mother came as well. I was glad to meet her -- she's always calling Ted with questions about the remote controls for her VCR and TV, and the resulting conversations are funny. She is from China, so language gets in the way, I think. She was very nice, and is already planning which closets will be used by Ted's wife, who is yet to be met even by Ted. She also pointed out that the room he is calling an "office" could just as well be a "nursery" for his kids, who have yet to be born by the as yet unmet wife.
We are waiting for Bob and Linda to stop by so we can all go out to dinner.
Wednesday, August 8
ugh, ugh, ugh.
But otherwise.....I chopped down our basil forest tonight to make pesto, just three days after I chopped down Mom's basil forest to make pesto. Basil loves these hot humid summers. Although this summer here pales in comparison to the northeast.
Today we hired someone to cut our grass and do the trimming. I guess we're taking advantage of the cheap labor pool in Houston. Although in the off-season I actually enjoy mowing and trimming, in August it's two hours of discomfort better spent weeding and staking.
Linda, are you or Kevin checking any e-mail addresses? If so, what (e-mail me).
Tuesday, August 7
Today I attended a technical briefing at Microsoft's Houston offices on .NET, Windows XP, Office XP, SQL Server 2000, and the various new e-Commerce servers. They served us a big breakfast and a big lunch, and I actually learned something. As I have an MSDN subscription (this includes all significant Microsoft products including operating systems), I have copies, beta and otherwise, of all this software, but now am more motivated to install it. Particularly Office XP. Normally I hate all the Office upgrades, but in this release they actually seem interested in making less annoying software. All of my pet peeves are addressed, particularly in Word. AutoCorrect and Bullets and Numbering especially. I'll give you my full report after sufficient testing.
Monday, August 6
Well, vacations over, back to work. We fit in so much in the last week. Friday we went to the Carnegie Science Center. Nico asked me if he had ever been there before, and when I told him yes and described it, he remembered. He got so excited and wound up! They got to visit all their favorite exhibits, plus we toured the USS Requin, a submarine based in Pearl Harbor at the end of World War II. It was a great tour of a fascinating ship filled with archaic complex equipment. Nico was interested in it, although I think much of the war information was over his head. Aidan was a little too young to pay attention to a long lecture. In the navigation tower he just sat and gave me kisses. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, smooching with a handsome boy in a submarine!
We also saw the IMAX movie "Island of the Sharks" about Cocos Island off the coast of Costa Rica. I like the marine IMAX movies the best, and this one was very good. The title is misleading, though. While it did cover sharks, the bulk of the movie was about other marine life as well as the effects of El Nino on the coral reefs. QuickTime video clips taken during filming here.
The short film shown before the feature was "Pittsburgh's Big Picture". I wish I could find clips of this one - it was fantastic unnarrated film showing the best of the city. I'd like to see it again.
Wednesday, August 1
A quick recap of the last few days....
Ed, Erica and I went to North Muskegon, Michigan to attend the wedding of good old Sam Manhart. We were joined there by Mom and Dad, Kevin and Linda, and Nico and Aidan. The wedding was beautiful, although we didn't get to see enough of the Manharts, of course. It was in Joe and Lila's yard, as was a brunch Sunday morning. I'll try to get pictures up tomorrow. It's a little difficult to upload them; I don't have the software to do so loaded on my laptop. Linda does, but hers is a Mac so doesn't easily fit on the Batterman network. We'll work it out, though.
I am in Pennsylvania now, along with the Steele's. Yesterday we went to the Boyce Park wave pool, always good for a fun (and cheap) afternoon. This year Nico can handle himself in the deep end even with waves, and at least Aidan doesn't drown.
Today we went to Idlewild and got our money's worth. We conquered Story Book Forest, Old Idlewilde, SoakZone, Raccoon Lagoon and Jumpin' Jungle. We are now exhausted, sunburned, hungry, cranky and filthy. But in a good way.
The attraction of Idlewild is that Aidan and Nico can (and have been able to since they were two) go on almost all of the rides, and yet they aren't "Kiddieland" rides. They can ride the roller coaster, the Scrambler, the Spider, etc. And yet they do have a better than usual Kiddieland as well. At about six years old, they can ride the super-throwup rides like the Roundup (Nico's new favorite). They have a decent waterpark as well, SoakZone. I really enjoyed two of the slides, but my favorite moment was standing with Nico under Dr. Hydro's tipping bucket - this stands about fifty feet in the air, and holds several hundred gallons of water. As the bucket fills, it dumps out onto the people standing below, completely soaking them. Nico and I got doused, then decided to wait for round two. It seemed to take forever. When it finally tipped, I looked over at him, and he looked like something was wrong. I asked him if he was okay, and he said "It made me go to the bathroom!". I guess that when it finally gushed on us, it took him by surprise!
The closer, Jumpin' Jungle, was an adventure area with giant rope nets to climb, tarzan swings, experiments with air and balls, slides, etc, all through the beautiful mountain forests of Ligonier. A good time was had by all.
