Made it back to my house at about 9:30 or so. Had a good weekend overall; more to come about it tomorrow, for now I am tired and going to get ready for bed. For those that are curious, I would’ve picked Philly and Pittsburgh to make it the Super Bowl. Can’t believe the frakkin Cardinals! And speaking of frakking, shut the frak up about BSG until I have a chance to watch it (tomorrow morning).
Last day of GW’s administration tomorrow!!!!!!!
It’s about 10:30 and I’m still working on my first cup of coffee. It’s a vacation-y weekend, that’s for sure.
Michelle and I made it in to St. Paul yesterday at about 5:45. We met up with Joe and April at a sushi place called Saji-Ya for dinner. It was good, and as usual, deceptively filling; sushi never looks that big on your plate, but it goes a long way.
We missed the first period of the hockey game, but had (relatively) good parking, and it was fun to watch the rest. The second was slow, but in the third, the Wild dumped in 3 more goals after Edmonton kind of fell apart. Hockey is cool. I had to ask a few rules-related questions, but it’s basically a simple game– put the puck in the net more than the other guys. So, fun for the whole family!
We got back to Dave and Andrea’s place at about quarter to 11. They’ve got a nice house on the south side of the city of Minneapolis. Their dog, Boo, is fun, too. It’s pretty cool to have peeps to stay with around here…
When I got out of the house this morning, my car BARELY started. I let it run for 20 minutes and the defroster was still blowing cold. I drove around a little and found the nearby Caribou Coffee joint, and that pretty much brings us up to speed (except for the part where, as I was turning in here, I discovered the hard way that they don’t seem to salt the roads in Minneapolis, and I almost crashed my car into a light pole).
Later on today, we’re meeting up with Joe and April for a little Mall of America fun, and we have yet to locate a good karaoke place (but it’s a big city, we’ll find one). Stay warm if you are living in the upper half of the US… it is FROSTY out there!
Kept rolling dubbing some tapes over to DVD this evening. After I got back to WI from my time in Montana, I didn’t use the video camera nearly as much, and you could tell by the drastic gaps in datestamps on the tape. Still some interesting viewing.
Now that I’ve moved on to dubbing me and Lorchie’s 2000 spring break trip, I don’t have a to keep such a keen eye on the tape (it doesn’t need someone to carefully mark those title and/or chapter breaks).
It’s definitely important, when you’re engaged in a project like this, to have a clear idea of your goals and how to most efficiently reach them– the whole point here is to preserve video that exists in VHS format only for the future. I don’t need to dub over anything that can be had on DVD already. So, the Packers’ Super Bowl XXXI retrospective? Do NOT need to dub it. The Ice Bowl? No dub required. You don’t want to or need to copy over any movies that you might have on tape, because it’s going to serve you a lot better to (at the least) rent a copy of the movie and copy the DVD.
That makes me think of this: a handful of the VHS tapes I’ve still be hoarding are:
Do I need to keep those? I have all the movies on DVD now. Why am I keeping these tapes?
I also had two white russians.
I was pretty excited today because I got the DVD recorder that Mom and Dad bought me for my birthday in the mail. After work and dinner, I spent some time hooking it up and comparing the video and audio quality to my trusty old Pioneer. I came to the conclusion that I would have to leave both of them hooked up; the Pioneer has optical out for the audio, and there is a notable difference between that and the coaxial audio out on the new Magnavox.
Once I had settled that issue and moved my server to a different shelf (freeing up some space in the sad, sad, little “entertainment center” that my sad, sad, little living room has), I ran the boxes for both players down to the basement and retrieved my VCR, ready to begin the process of dubbing over the VHS tapes that I have so longed to get rid of.
Plugged in the VCR, and I almost immediately noticed the subtle aroma of an electrical fire. I sniffed each component close up. Naturally, it was the VCR. Even though it smelled like that, I thought, “what the hell, I’ll try putting a tape in here.” That didn’t work, either. Seems like the deck itself is jammed and (without a LOT of experience or know-how to go on) the burning smell is probably the motor that operates it literally burning itself out. Eh, what the heck? The VCR was purchased in haste in the year 2001, when I needed it for something random that involved a computer. Frankly, I don’t recall what.
Wait! Ohh! It was to record video ONTO the computer via the TV card! That sorta worked a little bit at the time. Point is, the VCR didn’t even cost 40 bucks as I recall, so it’s to be expected that it doinked itself after so (relatively) few hours of playback.
I guess I’ll have to borrow someone else’s VCR to finish up this project, but I can go ahead and begin with the tapes I made on vacations and in Montana a few years back…
I considered whether I even deserved to continue prediciting these games after such a horrendous Wild Card round. But, the elimination of Minnesota cheered me up considerably, so on with the DIVISIONAL ROUND!
POST-SEASON RECORD: 1-3
On my way to Sheboygan for the evening…
Nothing like counting those chickens before the eggs are even laid (to say nothing about hatching). When I got home yesterday, I was thinking I would whip some photos from the holiday season up on the site, to augment the one I borrowed from Christy. But I really didn’t have any shots worth posting (out of the 12 that I actually took).
I mentioned to Michelle that part of the problem is I’m really bored with my camera. I don’t even particularly feel like taking it places or turning it on when I do remember to bring it along. Bocko needs a new camera to reinvigorate that photographic energy.
To that end, one of things I’ve decided to spend a portion of the forthcoming tax refund on is the digital SLR I’ve been on the verge of purchasing for about 3 years now. I’m sure Wordy will be pleased to no longer have my annual “which-camera-should-I-intend-to-but-not-actually-buy” emails. This is the outfit I’m figuring on purchasing (whether through the linked vendor, or another). I’m going to spend a little bit more and get a telephoto lens included, because having that versatility was one of the prime motivations I felt to get a DSLR in the first place. Next year when I go to the ballpark, I want to take some nice shots of guys in the field…
Speaking of which, 20 Brewers tickets is one of the other things I’ve already spent that tax money on.
…
I guess now that I’m 30 I should try to get a better handle on this whole “saving money for more important stuff” thing. I SWEAR I will do that right after I buy a new TV…
An oven operating at 50% capacity (half the heating elements shot) is going to take a looong time to heat up (just FYI).
Work is getting really busy again this time of year, as all the kids who need money for the spring are showing up around the office. Even some of the ones that still need money for the fall (who are mostly screwed) are stopping by. In any case, it’s a lot of phone calls, a lot of file reviews, and a lot of “go get yourself a loan.” Hence, not a lot of “time to kill” during the day. Which is probably a good thing.
I did take some time out at lunch today, and after reading Wil Wheaton’s blog, I made the uncanny discovery that I can’t believe evaded me somehow until now– I found my way to loadingreadyrun.com. This is the sort of entertainment that makes me feel like I’ll never miss television at all. I’ve only watched a couple episodes of this web-show, but I can say this confidently, as a regular consumer of TV: that’s a lot of crap on the networks that’s written a lot worse. What a backhanded compliment. Seriously, though, if you are geek, or you know geeks, take a look.
Oops, time to check up on dinner. Anyway, have yourself a pleasant Wednesday evening…
Michelle and I took a ride up to Nordic Mountain today so I could try out my new skis, and we could work on our plan to ski as much as we can [afford to] this season. It went great. The new equipment that Michelle got me for Christmas and my birthday is going to serve me well for a good long time. Jen and Joe were also right about my boots; they were exactly the right size, they’ll just take time to break in. After a few runs, I had forgotten the agonizing lengths I had to go to just to get them on…
Meanwhile, in the NFL, I went a lousy 1-3 in my Wild Card Weekend picks. At least the one that I got right was a Vikings loss. Funny epilogue to that comment– we ate dinner at Fratello’s in Oshkosh after our ski day. We had missed the end of the football game (they had it on in the bar at the hill, but we left part way through the 4th quarter), and I asked our waiter if the Vikings lost. He told me they did and I gave him an enthusiastic, Borat-style, double-thumbs-up. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m from Minnesota.” Haha. Don’t worry about it; we tipped him well…
But now I’m tired and I’m going to bed. I did fall once today too (trying to stop too fast at the end of a run) and I think I sprained my right thumb. That’s my spacebar thumb, so this typing kind of hurts. Sleep tight!
Thought I should try to get 2009 off to a solid blogging start– so here I am, a short 15 hours after we stopped drinking in the new year…
Had a very nice birthday and new year’s party. Jen and Joe were nice enough to let me use the house for the bulk of the gathering, and I feel like everybody had a good time. I might have actually been one of the first ones to hit the sack when I crashed on the couch at about 4:45 AM. When we woke up late in the morning, Lorch was en route with coffee in hand, and we were able to have a visit with him, too.
If we missed you (some folks who weren’t able to make it or had their progress on the way in stunted), here’s hoping we can get together soon.
Hope your holidays were joyous and memorable, and I wish you the best as you begin the year.
So this will do it for the regular season. I haven’t decided yet whether or not I will continue predicting for the playoffs. Regardless, let me offer some reflections on this NFL year:
I am truly hoping for a return from Josh for the 2009 season, if for no other reason than his superior football-related wit. Meanwhile, I have to be honest and say I had a pretty good record (a .660 percentage is fine no matter how you slice it), even though a number of these teams made it easy week to week with their ineptitude.
Going into the final weekend, a few of our weekly teams have something significant to play for, and some only have pride. Some don’t even have that anymore. No matter what, it’ll all be over in about 60 hours, so here are your predictions for this final Week 17.
SEASON RECORD: overall, 70-36; weeklies, 59-26; bonus picks, 11-10
BONUS PICKS!!!
A Happy New Year to you all!