Category: Life

Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).

I’m sitting here waiting for the program I’m testing to finish processing some data that I threw at it. I take a moment to stop over at the Terrapin‘s website to try finding out more info on some of their comopolitan drinks. You see they’ve changed their menu in the store several times and while they still make all the old drinks; you have to know what they are as they aren’t listed anywhere in the store1. So I’m browsing the site and I find myself thinking; gee, I read blogs regularly that are better looking than this site. I wonder how the site is built. You can image my horror when I looked at the source and discovered that it was made in Micro$haft Frontpuke. *shudder*

Okay, I’ll admit that more current versions of Frontpuke write code that isn’t as bad as what older copies of it spit out, but the Terrapin’s site appears to have been written in an older version. So not only are tables being used when they’re not really needed; the code is full of crap that doesn’t need to be in there. And if that’s not bad enough; the website hasn’t been updated in some time as it’s my understanding from the mother of the owners that their 2nd location has closed but the website still shows it as being open for business. Now given how easy WP is to work with; I’m thinking that I might try building a custom site for the Terrapin using it2. Come to think of it; I might want to try redoing that template for AWelkin using WP as well. Hmm… It’s a thought anyway.

1 Yes, I agree that’s a bad idea but what can one do about it?
2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I still need to build a custom theme for my own site; but like the title of this post says, I’m bored at work and that’s where I get some of my better/dumber ideas for things like this.

Normally given the choice, I will sleep blissfully through all of Saturday morning, arising from the depths of my slumber only when the morning has past. Unfortunately, I’d gotten stuck at work Friday night till nearly 7 and so I couldn’t get the rent paid the night before. Since rent must be paid within 3 days or you get hit with a late fee and since I’ve had problems before with dropping the rent off in the night deposit box around a holiday weekend; I really needed to get the rent paid while the bank was open. So my alarm was set and awaken in the wee hours of Saturday morning I did. Ariesna decided to go along with me; so went off to the bank and successfully paid the rent and then hit up the post office.

While I was waiting in line there, an old/odd friend of ours was there as well. Elf was farther up in line than I and was trying to be friendly, but I’m not at my best during the morning particularly not during the morning before I’ve gotten some caffeine in my blood. So, I apologize Elf; I wasn’t trying to be rude/mean, I just don’t do mornings. Finally it was my turn and I got my package mailed off1. The post office was kind of nice because my favorite worker waited on me. He’s an older guy who’s always nice and has a smile for everyone. Plus, he seems to take some real pride in his work and his appearance; as I’ve never seen him show up looking sloppy (like most of his co-workers do).
(more…)

This update was partially delayed due to some problems with our domain name. And depending on what the old bank balance looks like after paying my bills; I’ll be seeing about moving musings to it’s new host/domain name/style (maybe).

Most days of the week, I end up staying up far later into the night than is good for me; so I sleep late on the weekends to help catch up on my sleep. This last weekend, I actually managed to drag my sleepy but out of bed and make it to the bank so I could store some stuff in my safety deposit box. Whew!

After I got back from the bank; Ariesna and I headed over to the Coralville Public Library Booksale. We picked up a few interesting looking books, including one that I later started hoping wasn’t somebody else’s purchase.

See, CPL has a freebie section and a purchase section. We always go into the purchase section first and buy whatever strikes our fancy before going through the freebies. We’d done that and while looking through the freebies; I noticed a small book, titled Understanding the Scots, in a box near the door into the purchase section. Being part Scottish, I picked it up and started flipping through it. While I did this I turned around to see what Ariesna might be up to and then turned back to see if any other books in that box were of interest. Alas, the box was gone. Now, I don’t know if those were supposed to belong to somebody else (e.g. they’d finished in the purchase section and just set the box down) or if they were legitimate freebies and somebody grabbed the box with all the rest of the books. *sigh* I doubt I’ll ever find out.

After the booksale, we headed to downtown Iowa City for their 2004 Art Fesitval. We did a lot of walking around looking at all the cool stuff and I bought Ariesna a silver bracelet with a daisy in the pendent on the bracelet. She loved it and was going to just walk away from it, but I couldn’t have that so I bought it. While I’m not sure that it was a sound financial move; the smile on her face was well worth it.

Oh and I took some photos of the Art Festival with my new camera but I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. Once I have; I’ll see about posting them here.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with Ariesna’s sister (Dee) and her husband (Ken) to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter 3). To sum it up, I think the overall production values were higher in this film than any of the others but the story was very badly hacked up and if you’ve not read the book; I can’t image how you’d be able to follow what was going on. Still, if you’re a fan of the series; it’s worth seeing on a matinee.

I stayed up way too damn late last night so I could finish watching the end of PlanetES1, so this morning I stopped by the Terrapin and got something to drink. My usual drink is their “Grand Canyon”, which is 2 shots of espresso, a shot of chocolate, a shot of mango and steamed milk. Today, I decided to try something different and while it was good; for the sake of my stomach lining, I’m not planning on ever ordering it again. I got an Honest Terrapin Sunrise. That’s 3 shots of piping-hot espresso layered on top of a glass of ice-cold orange juice.

Naturally, I had to get this to go and to do that; they stick it in a plastic cup (since the majority of the drink is the OJ) with a lid and a straw. Personally, I think they should have used the paper cups with the sipping lid that most of the coffee drinks come in because I think the idea of the Sunrise is to slam down the espresso & chase it with the OJ. And that idea is defeated by putting a straw in the drink that bypasses the espresso and makes you drink the OJ first. As soon as I was safely back in the office, I removed the lid and started to drink the Sunrise as “God intended it to be drunk”. *grin*

It’s an unusual sensation because the OJ cools the espresso and raises the acidity of the drink considerably. Also, the espresso and OJ do start to mix into one another as you drink it. This forms a layer of slightly-warm , bitter OJ on your tongue. It’s not as unpleasant as that might sound but the Sunrise is definitely an acquired taste, which I could not recommend to everyone (unlike say the Grand Canyon which just rocks my world).

It sounds bizarre but the caffeine of the espresso combined with the vitamin C & natural sugars in the OJ really helps to wake you up. Of course, it’s been a couple of hours since I drank it and it’s beginning to wear off now, which is bad. On the other hand, I’m just about ready to head out to lunch; so I should be able to pick something else up to help me get through the rest of my head, which is good.

1A very good series that starts off weak (too much comedy/slapstickishness) but ends much stronger with several very good heartstring tuggin’ episodes. For the most part, each episode stands by itself but uses information in previous episodes to build the story. Unfortunately, the last 6 episodes or so seem to be more tightly integrated and I’m missing 22 & 23; which puts a massive gap into the story for me. This is one that I will strongly consider purchasing once it’s available in the US (my current copies are all fansubs).

As mentioned in a post earlier today, I got a new toy this weekend. I probably shouldn’t have, but Ariesna kind of ambushed me into doing it and I’ve researched my choice of toy enough to know that I’m going to like it.

What is the new toy you ask? I finally got myself a new camera. My old one was a Pentax K1000 SE (all manual, 35mm). My new one is a Canon PowerShot S500 Digital ELPH. It’s a 5 megapixel camera but it’s teeny-tiny (roughly the size of a deck of playing cards) and the best part is that even my bear paws fit on the thing without smashing half the buttons. There’s a nice wide, clear spot on the back to put my right thumb, the lens is shifted enough to the left (as seen from the back of the camera) so that I’ve got room to put my fingers across the front of the camera giving me a fairly, solid grip. The left side is a bit more crowded, but there’s enough room on the top & bottom of the camera that I can steady it when needed. The zoom on this camera is nothing to write home about (3x optical, 12x digital) but that’s the price you pay for compactness. I’ve only played with it a little bit so far, but I can say that I’m really digging it. Though my co-workers are a bit annoyed seeing the flash go off. That’s ok; I won’t be taking any more pictures around the office (for now) and will delete the test shots that I made. Though I do plan on carrying this camera with me everywhere, since it’s so small and since there’s been so many times that I’ve wished I was carrying a camera.

Oh and in a related note, though the camera’s specs say it only works with Windows & Macintosh computers; I was able to browse/download the photos on the camera using Digikam under SuSE Linux 9.0 Pro under KDE 3.2.2. Score!

Right, back to work for me. Again. *sigh*