It’s been a busy past couple of weeks.  We’ve been camping twice (South Whidbey and Kalaloch), Kris and I went to a M’s game, and we had the 4th of July in the middle.  It’s been a lot of fun, but it was nice to have a quiet weekend at home this past weekend.  I posted some pictures to the gallery here.  Unfortunately, I got sand into our primary digital camera during some frisbee games on the beach at Kalaloch, so most of these pix are from my phone.  Not too bad, but hopefully getting the sand out of the camera won’t take too long (or cost too much…

Categories: Family, Play
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FMGT turned me onto this guy, and after listening to his music and reading his biography, I realized that this is a guy that was so close to making it big, but life just didn’t have that in its plan for him. So good, and so sad. (in addition, now I know who wrote “Jet Airliner” popularized by Steve Miller…)

Paul Pena

Paul Pena (January 26, 1950 - October 1, 2005) was a multi-genre singer, pianist, and guitarist, who performed Mississippi Delta blues, jazz, flamenco, folk, rock and roll and Tuvan throat-singing. more…

[via FoxyTunes / Paul Pena]

Categories: Music, Uncategorized
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Great trip sturgeon fishing with the boys on the Columbia.  We boated quite a few, but only 3 that were keepers.  I had the fishing derby locked up for a couple of hours, but John caught a big’un later in the afternoon.  Reasonably well-behaved the night before - had a burger at Mary’s Worker Bar and a couple of beers - 5:30am comes mighty early these days…

Here we are with our fishies:

Here’s Kevin taking a nap (he did NOT behave himself the night before!)

Categories: Uncategorized
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Jess, thank you.  You had a great Take It Bake It party, and you forced me to figure out something to cook for 50 people (that could also be frozen and reheated).  I chose a springtime Asparagus/Leek cream soup, and ended up taking that home with me along with 5 other fantastic dishes.  My freezer is happy, and soon my tummy will be too (again).

I’ve been reading a lot of food blogs (well, not a ton, but more than I used to), and here are some of my faves (ymmv, yada yada yada):

• hogwash — well, it was Jess who reminded me that there is more to blogs than just geeky stuff and celebrity gossip (which was the majority of my feeds).  Also, she’s a great writer — solid writing, great sense of humor, and yummy recipes.
• Accidental Hedonist — I think this was one of my early blogs that I subscribed to.  I like the writing with a scientific spin, and she always keeps me posted on trans-fat and HFCS and stuff like that.
• Megnut — Meg has been around for a while (8 years now), and was one of the early founders of Blogger.  She’s also married to Jason Kottke, who is tops in my feed list too.
• Voracious — local Seattle food blog from the Seattle Weekly.
• Ruhlman — I like him, but I read specifically in case Tony B posts.

Ok, so what am I missing?

Categories: Food
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I’ve been scared reading about the copyright/internet radio legislation that is in the works, and so I’ve been listening to a lot of music off the web while it’s still legal.  Here’s what I’m currently listening to:

• Radio Paradise has been a long-time favorite, and I’ve donated on a number of occasions to them.
• Pandora is another great place to hear new music, especially if you make a couple of stations from artists that you like, and then use those to create a combo-station.  Nice!
• Critical Metrics is new, and shows you the most popular tunes across a number of music review sites.
• Hype Machine is not new, and shows you a ton of tunes across a variety of mp3 blogs.  I like the Flash player.

Of course, I still use MusicIP Mixer to create playlists of the music I already have locally, and sometimes will use Orb to stream music from my home server.

What are you using?

Categories: Music
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So, I took the plunge and installed the new ROM for my Cingular 8525 (a ROM is like an OS upgrade for your computer). Although the ROM install went smoothly (thank you HTC), due to the inherent nature of the upgrade, all of my apps got deleted and needed to be reinstalled. In a way, this is a good thing, since it made me go through the list of what I used to have installed, and choose only the ones that I really use to reinstall. So, here’s my new/current list of apps for my PPC (kind of in order of how I would recommend to install):

• HTweakC — install this first, run it, and choose Security->Allow unsigned apps before you install the rest of your apps. It will save you many minutes of responding to install prompts, since most/all of the apps you will install are unsigned…
• Magic Button - although the new ROM has added functionality to change the behavior of the “X” button (it used to just minimize, now you can set it to close apps), Magic Button is still a must-have for me because it shows all of the open apps you have running, overlaying the title bar with mini app-icons. It also adds a Home icon so you can always jump back to the Today screen.
• Batti — still the best battery meter around, given it’s size and usefulness. The new ROM supposedly increases battery time, so we shall see…
• SK Tools — this is one of the 2 apps that I have actually purchased for my device (with so much good stuff as freeware, pay programs have to be excellent). It gives you a ton of options for optimizing, cleaning, and performance testing your device. If you’re a geek like I am, this is definately worth a look. You can get a 15 day trial to test it for yourself.
• Spb Diary — this is the other app that I have purchased. It’s my current Today screen, and shows me my Mail, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, etc. Download it and get a full feature trial to see if you like it too. (NOTE: I also tested Spb Backup and Spb Phone Suite, but chose not to purchase those [SK Tools will do backups, and I didn't use the functionality in the Phone Suite app], although I recommend Spb Software House as a great place to look for apps for your PPC phone.
• WiFiFoFum — it’s a WiFi hotspot scanner for your PPC. I never got MiniStumbler going, but this works a treat.
• vxUtil — a swiss-army-knife networking utility. ping, nslookup, tracert, ipconfig, etc.
• Total Commander — a File Manager replacement that also handles zip/rar files.
• TCPMP — a replacement video player for your PPC. I like this better than WMP, but ymmv. Both seem to work with Orb.
• MortPlayer — a replacement music player for the PPC. Lot’s of skins available, and a lot easier to use than WMP. I also like how it locks the screen when you’re playing music, so you can use your PPC like an MP3 player.
• Google Maps — Hey, it’s Google Maps on your mobile. Lifesaver.
• Windows Live Search — Maps are good, local info is better than Google maps.
• StopTime and Ephemeris — a stop watch and a sun/moon thinger. Trust me, it’s good stuff.
• Kevtris — Tetris for your PPC. Fun stuff!

Whew! I think that’s it. Of course, please let me know if you have any must-have apps too. I’m always looking for new toys…

Categories: Geek
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R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts

[via FoxyTunes / R.E.M.]

I heard this song on KMTT this morning, prefaced by Marty saying”the MTV video for this song is one of the most depressing videos of all time”. With that kind of hyperbole, I just had to watch for myself. So, off to YouTube via FoxyPlanet, and I have to say I don’t agree with that comment. Sure, life is depressing at times, but the song and lyrics are kinda anti-depressing. To me at least - ymmv.

Normally I wouldn’t blog something like this, but I’m trying out the “Blog This” capability from FoxyPlanet…

Categories: Music
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We’re back from Utah. What a great trip — conditions were great (springtime, but we got 6+ inches of new snow while we were there), the kids all made huge progress in lessons, and it was a lot of fun hanging with the Harnesses. Here are Kris and Anna at lunch on the mountain at Snowbird:

Our travel back to Seattle yesterday took a bit longer than expected (about 10 hours longer), due to a snafu involving Delta and the Salt Lake City airport. Long story, but suffice it to say that if the airline tells you that your flight has been delayed, it’s worthwhile to stay in touch with the gate in case they bring a new plane in and end up leaving on time, while you are waiting around in an airport restaurant killing time… We finally made it back to Seattle late last night — vacation is wonderful, but nothing beats sleeping in your own bed.

Today we took the kids to the Mariners game at Safeco where we saw the M’s win — a great end to a wonderful week. It reminds me of what life is all about — family, friends, and fun. Sounds overly simple? Maybe so - but it works.

All the pictures from our trip are in the gallery here.

Categories: Family, Uncategorized
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Hi there.  Been a while since we talked.  Rest assured, I’m not ignoring you, it’s just that life has gotten pretty busy.  I’ll catch you all up later, but how about just the current events.  Right now, we’re at Snowbird in Utah, getting some last snow days in.

Paul has been kind enough to house sit and watch Tilly and Lucas, and we escaped with the Harnesses to The Cliff.  The snow has been pretty good (typical spring skiing conditions - hard in the morning, nice by midday, slushy in the afternoon), but we got a couple of inches last night with more forecasted for tomorrow.  The kids have been having a blast - Alex is the “mad bomber”, and Leah had a GREAT day at her first ski lesson at Alta yesterday (after much trepidation).  We’ve been spending the rest of our time in the pool (yes, outside), the hot tub, and the game room.  Fun stuff.  Pix are in our gallery here.

Categories: Family, Play, Uncategorized
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Happy Holidays to you and yours.  We’ve had a wonderful time with the family, and so far have:

• ate
• drank
• gone Christmas caroling (yes, outside with candles to the neighbors)
• played countless games of cards
• cooked a big pot of posole
• unwrapped many presents
• saw Santa
• played with the dogs
• ate and drank some more

A wonderful time so far - next we head out to WV for some time at the cabin, and are planning on climbing Ice Mountain, making a big fire in the fireplace, contemplating our resolutions for 2007, and having a big dinner.  Good times…

Categories: Family
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