I rarely shave on vacation. I had a small headstart and decided to let it go for a week when I got back. 2 1/2 weeks. Not the longest, but definitely the grayest. I had to clean up for Kate's wedding. Olivia was upset and wanted it back.
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RIP Microsoft Entourage
I made the "switch" to Apple back in March of 2003 and never looked back ... until this week. I've been running some form of Windows on my Macbook (Pro) since Parallels came out, mostly for testing in IE. I had mentioned to someone that my Entourage had been pretty stable (i.e., no crashes in 6 months), but I only jinxed myself and had a corrupt db a couple weeks ago.
This past weekend, I did a fresh install of Windows 7 and Office in a new VMWare virtual machine with the thought of switching over to Windows Office completely, including trashing Entourage for Outlook. My Exchange account in Outlook finally synched up a couple hours ago and now I'm reading this!
If Office 2011 for Mac is hobbled at all, I'm not switching back. MSFT, your timing stinks.
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TV Project
You may recall that Lucas and I enjoyed field trips together to Best Buy. After several subsequent trips, the TV I had been eying became progressively cheaper until one day, it was too good to pass up. Often hailed as the "best tv ever," this was my chance to own a piece of history, as Pioneer announced earlier this year that it was exiting the plasma tv business.
My patience was tested like Caine on Kung Fu (RIP David Carradine):
- First, I had to wait a couple weeks for it to be delivered.
- Then, once in the house, I started a mind-numbing 150-hour break-in procedure, which was documented and discussed on hundreds of pages of threads dedicated to this TV. Technically, I ran it for about 167 hours over a 10-day period.
- Finally, I had to wait for time to mount it, which inconveniently coincided with the rest of the family sleeping.
After tapping into power and cable in the attic, I put all the components into the closet directly behind the tv. Overall, everything went well, but I did learn a few lessons that I'm happy to pass along.
- Never indiscriminantly yank on cords through a wall when you need excess slack.
- Anyone who's held a PS3 knows it's built like a tank. I've confirmed it can survive a six-foot fall. See above.
- A PS3 runs too hot for an unventilated closet. I let the stack run for a few hours together on a hot day and when I opened the closet door, I found the fans on every component turning at full speed. I'll have to find a more pedestrian blu-ray player.
Ultimately, my patience was rewarded. The picture is stunning. I have yet to convince Grace why it should be professionally calibrated, but even with the recommended settings, it is really impressive. Also impressive is the amount of heat generated by the damn thing, which is awesome in June when you have no A/C. At least I can look forward to being toasty this winter.
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Farewell, M Coupe
Today is a day for which I have been planning, but not for which I had fully prepared. I sold the M Coupe. I bought it sight-unseen on eBay about 4 1/2 years ago. We've had some good times over the years, but ever since Olivia was born, she has seldom been driven (the car, not Olivia). As a rare car with a cult following, I had to be patient for the right person to come along to take care of it. Rob, the new owner, fit the description perfectly, and i'm confident he'll get even more out of it than I did (as I never did get it out on a track as I had intended).
Jalopnik had this to say about it when it found a spot in their Fantasy Garage:
"More so than just a Fantasy Garage entrant, the original BMW M Coupe may very well be the Official Car of Jalopnik."
Given the current economic conditions, I would not call this a seller's market. Despite that, the car depreciated just under 10% during the time I owned it (there were times when I could have sold it for a tidy profit). The S&P is down over 25% over the same period. I'm pretty confident that the car could have been collectable and perhaps would have been more highly sought after if it weren't for the insane amounts of horsepower cars are shipping with these days. In its day, 315 HP was a lot (and still is) when strapped to a small car with two seats. Now, it seems you need 500+ HP, as if they were trying to bend space and time. Ironically, the average HP of the remaining cars goes up slightly, which kind of makes my point (except my daily driver is 15 years old, so its 322 HP was warp drive for its time).
Ultimately, this car was one I always wanted to own and drive. The itch has been scratched and I can check it off the list. Who knows, one day I may buy one again, though it will unlikely be as clean and minty as the one I let go. Maybe Steel Gray next time? Nah, Silver over Black always.
The upside of this transition is that it is a buyer's market for a number of other cars on the list. I'll make sure the next one has at least 4 seats, but 2 of them need only fit toddlers. Stay tuned...
3 Photos: View as Gallery | View as Slideshow
graceandjason.com is now OnSugar
By jason · December 19, 2008 · 0 Comments · 193 Views
I started this site about 4 years ago as our wedding website. It was originally a single .php page that returned various wedding information. Eventually, I started to post my digital photos so I made pages for those, too. Over time, I ended up with a pretty robust online gallery that was periodically exported from my iPhoto, which I use to organize all of my photos and albums. At some point, I integrated WordPress as my blogging engine instead of updating the single .php file each time I wanted to post something.
At Sugar, we recently launched our own blogging platform (OnSugar.com) and it had enough cool features that I was willing to make the switch. I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into, as there was no button to press to bring everything over. So, with sheer brute force, I exported, massaged, and uploaded:
- 15,000 photos
- 450 albums
- 10+ videos (so far)
- 122 blog posts
It's pretty much all done. The regular visitors know that I haven't really blogged since Olivia was born 2 years ago and my only post since then announced baby Lucas' arrival. However, I have been keeping up with the photos, which are now chronicled below.
With mobile blogging and many other cool features, I hope to be posting more often, so stay tuned...
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