Recently in Misc Category

Some lessons are expensive. I believe hint: he didn't like it.

For me, the key takeaway of the evening is that WHISKEY ROCKS. I thought scotch was yummy, but I was wrong. Booker's Noe on ice.... I m n luv.

(I need a food category. Hm.)

And/Or good brakes. But probably more good luck than anything else..... "Running a red light" usually means someone trying to sneak through a little bit after their light turns red. This morning some dude barreling down Shepherd didn't even see the light, as far as I can tell. I was the third or fourth car in line, and the guy in front of me had just turned left. I'm halfway across the intersection and all of a sudden I'm slamming on my brakes because a pickup truck is zooming across right in front of me! I thought, wtf, I fell asleep in the intersection or didn't notice the light change or what? but I looked up at my light and sure enough it was still green as green can be. I was inches from having a severely t-boned Miata. That's one way to wake up, but I can't say that I actually recommend it.

This daisy fainted face-first. Some days it's just like that....

for a morning of laundry and vacuuming and mopping.

Peaches & cava. I sure do love peach season, and I have to admit that Texas makes very tasty peaches. (Coming from Georgia, it was natural to be skeptical....)

1. What We Did on Saturday, 2. Cypress Trees on the Riverwalk, 3. The MO, 4. Emily Morgan Hotel

We spent the weekend in San Antonio, the result of a spur-of-the-moment decision to go see G2 play a high school baseball game. Having never seen a high school game before (well, maybe one time I went to one of Liz's softball games? but that was a long time ago, and I really didn't know anything about baseball at that time) it was a lot of fun. The weather was gorgeous and the food was delicious and we stopped to shoot sporting clays on the way home, so yes, it was a delightful weekend :-)

[Mosaic from Big Huge Labs]

We saw this on MTV-U last night (curses on U-Verse for canning IMF, but MTV-U at least partially makes up for it) and I think the MO has watched it about, oh, a zillion times since then.

Oh happy days, I have a new Peter F. Hamilton book.

Early to bed and late to sleep, that's the way it's gonna be for about 500 more pages....

The MO and I saw this on the way home yesterday. No other information was provided. We have to assume it's going to be a restaurant. A pig restaurant. Of feasting proportions. Yummmmmmm.....

Update: Feast is now open, and it is fabulous.

God knows when I'll get all this crap straightened out.

Just go to Vox.....

So I'm taking the leap into MT4. Small steps first--supposedly I've set up Refeed to pull in my public Vox posts. We'll see how that goes....

I still haven't decided exactly what to do with this site, now that I have Vox. I hate to let this moulder (more than it already has), especially since I found out that I have such good taste in blog-naming. Maybe I'll try to come up with a new name for here, although I think my BTW is actually a few months older than his :-)

Okay, so I've totally switched over to Vox for GP blogging. I bring the feed in here, so you can keep this bookmark and still get all the latest. This address is now a conglomeration of content from Pretty Shiny, TMI and my genealogy pages. Since Vox is limited in terms of customization (which is a relief, in some ways) this page will also be my widget playground. Bring on the widgets!!!

The permalink at the bottom of each post here will take you to the appropriate full entry, wherever it lives. If you've been wanting to comment (or blog!) on Vox and you need an invite, drop me an email and I'll send you one next time I get more. I am absolutely in lurv with Vox....

Having now spread myself all across the internet, I'm playing with making this page an aggregation of all those posts. I'm not super-happy with it, so it may not stay that way.... But for now I'm over it, so you're stuck with the current incarnation :-)

I'm having lots of fun over at vox. I got my cellphone hooked up, so I can send a picture straight to vox, and I'm happy to note that the RSS feeds and direct links honor the privacy settings. (Not surprised, but happy :-)

I've also updated to MovableType 3.3 on my "real" sites and so far everything seems hunky-dory. It's not an overwhelming update, but there are some nice touches. The default entry interface is nicer, the widget thingy shows promise, and best of all, nothing b0rked during the upgrade.

Happiness is well-behaved software.

Quote of the day, courtesy of Gordon Ramsay in tonight's Hell's Kitchen. Gotta love that man....

Won't You Be My Neighbor


Originally uploaded by TXMagpie.

OMG, it really is middle school all over again, isn't it?

I got a vox invite, so I created Pretty Shiny. I'm kind of on new tool overload lately, what with vox and flock and preloadr.... So far I like flock, although the not-keeping-your-category thing is a huge pain in the butt. Vox seems quite well-done. I'm curious to see if any of the easy-ness of vox made it into the MT3.3 release. Preloadr is a cool idea, but I haven't used it much yet. I hope they give me some vox invites soon so I can have some friends ;-)

In my never-ending quest to create the perfect suite of websites (ha ha ha!) I've added the latest three entries from TMI and DDC over there on the right. So now I'll be constantly reminded how often I don't update everywhere :-)

I've been doing a lot of genealogy work lately, and trying to decide just how to integrate the blog(s) with my TNG database. Still ruminating and messing about with that....

Oh, and I've been alerted to the fact that my redirect attempts were not overly successful, so I've left a message at the "old" By The Way page to hopefully give folks a hint to come over here. If you got lost in the shuffle, I do apologize! I swear, every time I tackle a web project, I wonder how it is that I manage to keep my day job. Sigh. I mean, after what I've been through at work, you'd think I'd be able to handle a simple little web page, but noooooo. Nothing like unfamiliarity to humble the thinks-she's-a-hotshot computer geek....

This is really dumb.

The website claims "Minisocks are unexpected." Well, yeah, that's about the nicest thing you could say. "They will give you a chic parisian touch and will enhance your favorite pair of shoes." I think my favorite pair of shoes would run off screaming if a "minisock" got anywhere near them. Not to mention the reaction The Mad One would have. Running off screaming is probably the mildest possible scenario there.

What an incredibly bad idea.

I'd have live-blogged the parts of the Miss Texas beauty pageant that I watched this evening whilst flipping channels. I had a couple of glasses of wine, so my catty remarks were quite amusing to me ;-) But really, I have only two questions about the whole thing.

1. Who makes up the geographical divisions? Why does River Oaks (a neighborhood--not even an entire suburb--in Houston) get their own contestant while the entire Hill Country (including who knows how many entire counties, if not as much moolah) also gets one contestant?
2. Why did so many of them choose the aqua bathing suit over the brown one? The brown one was much more flattering. Maybe they thought the aqua one made them look more tan.
3. Okay, three questions. Why do these chickees, presumably young women, already look like they've been botoxed within an inch of their lives?

In other boob-tube news (ha, a pun ;-) I've decided that Footballer's Wive$ is pretty much fun to watch. Go tivo!

Oh, I just thought of

4. Who taught Miss Laredo to walk? She galumphs. Even I walk better in heels than she does, and that is not a compliment, as I suspect that I look like I'm in mortal fear of breaking my neck. Which I am in anything over 1/2 inch.

Oh. And Jason Varitek, Brad Wilkerson, Juan Encarnacion and Jason Kubel? Collectively, you all SUCK for taking tonight off ALL AT THE SAME TIME, thereby blowing my chance to upset the #1 team in Texas League V. Thanks a lot.

As far as I know, I've successfully shuffled around most of my on-line life.

Theoretically, I've moved By the Way and Dot Next to txmagpie.com, so with any luck, if you're reading this, the URL is txmagpie.com instead of bytheway.themagpieinstinct.com....

I've also relocated all my genealogy stuff to ddcurtin.com.

And, ideally, mod_rewrite is automagically redirecting all my hordes of readers to the new locations :-)

I'm in the midst of rearranging my on-line life. This blog will be moving as soon as I figure out how to get the #$&% redirects working.... Will post details here before it happens :-)

The doves have decided they really like the palm outside my bathroom window

and the cats have decided they really like the doves.

I think they don't quite understand why they can't get the birds, though.... Poor kitties!

I finally got off my butt and figured out how to get polls going on the EMCA site, thanks to a delightfully straightforward tutorial at Eat Drink Sleep MovableType (love that blue glass in the background ;-)

It took a bit of scrunching to get the extra weblog tied into the main site, but it does work. Maybe after vacation I'll see about getting the sidebars copied down to the poll blog. And of course, now that I've gussied up all my personal sites, I'd sure like to put a new stylesheet on the EMCA site as well.... Again, after vacation.

I keep telling Melvin I'm going to bring home a kitten in my handbag. She just yawns. She must know it's an idle threat, darn it.

Lisa, a very nice tech support person at SixApart, helped me fix the comments. Woohoo! I suspect this fixes the logging-into-typekey-doesn't-work-the-first-time issue as well, although I haven't bothered to check....

Whichever Visio programmer decided that the basis for determining a shape's vertical location should default to the CENTER of the shape instead of the TOP of the shape needs to be shot.

Tomorrow we have Pursuit of Happiness in several dimensions!

First up, the Museum of Printing History's yard sale, where I hope to acquire an old type cabinet to install in my side of the "studio" (home office) to store paper. Since my bookmaking class went so well, I think I'll be buying more paper :-)

Next, a stop by the MO's (real) office to hang some newly acquired industrial landscape oil paintings.

Then, American Shooting Centers for some long-delayed-by-poor-weather-and-other-lame-excuses rifle and pistol firing, including Mr. Completely's Killiards Postal Match. I'll be shooting Flora and Ivan for the competition, and Chester just for fun while the MO sights in a new rifle.

I suspect all that will be followed by something yummy to eat and some adult beverages, which should add up to a near-perfect day. What more could you want from a weekend, anyhow? And now to bed, for the yard sale starts at 8:00 and I don't want to miss my chance at a cabinet!!

I've added scripts to track stuff via performancing, which is probably overkill but looked like fun, so if you track your cookies and you get a new request from this site, that's what's going on. Mint is cool, and it was expensive enough that I'm not going to get rid of it, but I'm curious to see what other options are available.

The Oakland Nature Preserve (a worthy project that Mom & Dad are involved with) will be the beneficiary of a very different kind of wine-tasting next weekend. (Scroll down and click on the different varietals--pretty cool.) I have to admit that I was skeptical, primarily because jelly bellys and wine do not mix well in my tummy, but after reading the website, I kind of see where they're coming from. I think it's very interesting that all the "over-oaked" wines include vanilla and buttered toast jelly beans. EXACTLY why I don't like oaky "furry" wines. Hmm.... (Check out un-oaked un-manipulated Semillon for an example of yummy goodness.)

Dear Internet,

Last night, I received three compliments from non-friend women (ie, unsolicited, unexpected, unbiased) on my outfit.

Me. Compliments. On my clothing. If the world has spun off its axis, it's my fault. I suspect I owe it all to the heels. You can't tell from this picture, but those are three-inch heels. I was crippled until at least noon today, but it was so worth it.

Let's hear it for the lovely clerks at White House/Black Market in the Village. You rock!

I am still in shock. And the MO is going to explode if I talk about it any more. So that's where you come in, dear Internet. Always there, ready to receive the minutiae of all our little lives. Unable to protest or turn away.... (Although it's taking an abnormally long time to load the photo to flickr. Hmmm.....)

Anyhow, thanks for listening,
Darcy

I could have procrastinated three more days (well, two and a half), but I actually took the initiative and went shopping for something to wear to the Saturday evening wedding that we're attending this weekend. Somehow my cute little turquoise Betsey Johnson didn't seem like it was going to cut it.... So, in a mild panic and with dread in my heart, I headed to the Village to see what I could find.

I have this knack for turning invisible in nice shops, and true to form, the ladies at JoAnn's never even got as much as a "Hi, how are you" out of their mouths in the two full tours around the floor that I took. Nothing looked appealing anyhow, so I went next door to White House/Black Market (on the advice of cousin Kirsten--thank you!) and not only were they friendly, it turns out they have great stuff and reasonable prices.

But the really exciting part was my own personal What Not to Wear moment, when I stepped out of the dressing room in a pair of dress pants, only to have the two clerks who were helping me both descend and tell me the pants were waaaay too big ("you're swimming in them!") and so I went back in and tried the next size down and glory hallelujah, I'm back in the single digits. Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, all those workouts, 7 point lunches and diet cokes have been worth it. I'm a size 8 again. I mean, it's one thing to think that your jeans are getting looser, but having your butt (or lack thereof) validated in the marketplace, as it were, turns out to be quite an ego boost.

So of course I bought a killer pair of shoes to go with my new outfit :-)

This is not a great picture (it was a drive-by shooting ;-) but this has been bugging me for a while. They put up about a dozen signs heralding the newly discovered bat colony under the Waugh Street overpass (Hey look! Houston is just as cool as Austin! We got bats too!) but the BAT COLONY part is in scare quotes. Why? Is there only one bat, so he's not really a colony? Or maybe he's not a bat at all, but a pigeon. Or maybe it's a bunch of baseball bats--an art installation? I dunno, but I don't like it.

when you find yourself doing dishes in the bathtub. (Impossible to wash a 6-gallon pot in the sink.)

The MO is a kick-ass cook.

you want to record a show on TBS or whatever-station-that-is that starts shows at 5 minutes after the hour. DAMMIT. I've lost the last scene of four Sex and the City episodes. (Yeah, I know this is no great loss, but still. I can only watch it when the MO isn't at home, and it kind of sucks to lose the ending. And it does have moments. If you're a girl.)

In that same issue of Create (I'm browsing my magazines whilst separating downloaded "digiscrap" alpha images--I hate it when they include the whole alphabet in a single .png file, but hey, when it's a free download, who am I to complain...) and on the same page, for that matter (I'm doing rather more separating than reading, which is good, because my TODO folder is pretty full) is the following:

The U.S. Postal Service unveiled research about how Generation X and Y interact with mail. The findings conclude that young consumers are more likely to read and respond to printed material such as flyers, circulars, catalogs and newsletters that reach them through the mailbox--70 percent of Generation X and 82 percent of Generation Y sort through their mail immediately.

Now, I'll admit, there is a sort of fascination with snail mail--witness the resurgence of interest in mail art (RAKs, postcrossing, etc.)--but that doesn't mean I'm actually reading my junk mail. Everyone I know is fully familiar with the concept of spam, and we understand that it can be in physical or digital form. My email junk folder has an analog equivalent in my office trash can. The only difference in my approach is that I actually open the physical credit card offers in order to shred the page containing my name and address (and often snicker at how out-of-date and/or incorrect the name is--multiple marriages and an unusual first name will mess your average database). Unsolicited email? Open it? Not on your life.

And who thinks that "sorting through" one's mail is equivalent to reading it? Now, I've sure met some dumb kids, but while they might lack basic math and communications skills, they are not necessarily incredulous consumers. After all, these young'uns have been exposed to well-publicized scams for their entire lives. If anything, our kids (and their kids) should be getting more cynical rather than more gullible.

The final force at work here that makes me doubt the significance of this finding is the proliferation of the life-hacking getting-things-done mentality. WE ALL have too much to do. WE ALL have to establish routines and cut corners wherever we can. So yeah, I sort my mail as soon as I get it. And 99% of it goes straight to the round file. (And if the Post Office would act as my spam filter, would I pay for that? YOU BET YOUR SWEET @$$ I WOULD!! Is anybody listening??)

On p23 of the Spring 2006 issue of Create is a blurb about the Pantone Color Cue 2 (which is actually kind of cool, although completely useless to me, both of which points are entirely tangential to my point) that contains the text "...an 8-ounce unit that is smaller than a mouse (computer mouse)." Well, that just puts it right off my list. If this piece of technology is any bigger than a real-live mouse, I'm just not interested. (Does it squeak? That might help....)

but their quarter kicks ass."

The MO said some clever stuff, too, but honestly? I don't remember....

Happy Anniversary, sweetie :-)

We had beautiful weather for Valentine's Day:

How come projects expand to fill all available time? I have many projects ongoing at the moment. They are expanding. I am not good at setting "good enough" mid-points. I want everything perfect from the get-go. So sometimes I feel like I'm not getting anything done at all.... [I'm actually quite good at this at work--it just doesn't carry through to my personal projects.]

Melvin had an encounter with a porch kitty through the living room window last night. I thought she was going to explode right out of her skin and/or break the window. She was so agitated that she tackled Lorax, who had just wandered in to see what the fuss was.

I think these illustrations would make some really awesome scrapbook pages. (Latest favorite blog--lots of good browsing there.)

See? Miscellany. But now I feel like I've accomplished something ;-)

Ugh. Top Gear is a great Brit car show, but the episode they're showing now, they're drowning a car. With the dude in it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Turning off the tv and going to bed NOW. Happy thoughts! Bunnies and kitties!! Holy shit.

What the heck kind of search is "super bowl xl lorax" ? I mean, I guess I understood why my site came up, but talk about some unrelated subjects....

I haven't checked my referrer logs for a while and there is all kinds of interesting stuff in there. I am loving "judas unchained front cover what are the ships" -- the MO opines that the big ship is the Second Chance. I think maybe a lifeboat (I'm being deliberately vague because the MO is still reading J.U.)

Some kindred spirit searched for "magpies birds and jewels" and ended up on the TMI main page. Very appropriate :-) Also some hits for TMI on "pineapple quartz". HELLO, PEOPLE, IT'S GLASS! It's very pretty glass, and I happily buy it, but it *is* glass....

I also continue to get hits for RMS, which makes me very happy. Hopefully people read my reviews and then promptly take their cars to these fine mechanics. And just this weekend we noticed that they seem to be open on Saturdays now! That is hugely convenient.

The intarweb is soooo cool.

Update:

Hee hee, the MO got a hit for "how long is halftime". Ha! The answer is: if you're in the band, not long enough. Otherwise, too long. Not applicable to the NFL, of course, unless you're Mick Jagger, who maybe had to drag out that last song juuuuust a biiiiit to fill his twelve minutes....

The MO's hits are always guns (#1), food (#2) or football (#3). Overwhelmingly guns, though.

Talking to a customer this morning, he told me about an IT meeting he had been in where several of the attendees were unfamiliar with the technical details of the project he is implementing. (My product is a tool that he is using on his project.) He and the others that I have contact with kept saying things like, "Okay, we'll have Darcy do that," and finally one of the other folks asks, "What is this DARCY system that is doing all this stuff?" leading to comments about HAL and whatnot... So I'm not just a programmer any more, I'm a whole system!!

[Hm. I noticed I don't have a Work category. Mostly I guess my work isn't bloggable....]

So you want to cancel your xbox live account. You can't do it online, of course. Turns out you have to call on the phone (800 4MY-XBOX, by the way). Okay, at least it's an 800 number. So I call this number, on speakerphone at work, expecting lots of hold time, and after following all the menus I get several moments of silence and then... some guy rapping. Badly. And rudely. Huh? "Hello? Is this Microsoft?" No response. Just more singing. I can hear the chatter of the call center in the background, so I figure I'm in some guys queue but something is screwed up and he doesn't know I'm there. Sure enough, someone else teases him about his singing and he goes off about how he should have been on American Idol. After sharing the fun with the rest of the office, I hang up and try again. And get the same thing!! So apparently they have something really messed up in their phone menus right now....

I finally tried a different menu tree and got to a person who was very nice and canceled my account right away, especially after I told her about the phone mixup. And just in case you're ever in this boat, if you're trying to cancel a TRIAL account, you can actually do that from your xbox console, as long as the automatic renewal date hasn't hit. I didn't know this because my xbox is not actually hooked up to the internet (yeah, I know, so why the xbox live account, long boring story) but once you've paid, you're stuck and you can only cancel by phone.

It did liven up the morning, though!

The MO is reading Pandora's Star--he wanted to wait 'til he had Judas Unchained in hand before starting--and he's nearly done and just said, "I understand why you were pissed when you finished this book," meaning that things are really getting going and there are obviously not enough pages left for any sort of satisfactory conclusion. "You had to wait, what, two years??" Yeah. I felt the pain. That's part of why all nine-hundred-some-odd pages of Judas Unchained went down in a week....

Ok, yeah, so I've only just now figured out that TypeKey sign-in is kinda broken. Apparently I need to upgrade my templates. Well, that"s fine, except I've modified the $h1t out of my templates and it"s not just a simple "StyleCatcher" maneuver to upgrade. Maybe next week. (Ha.) For now, it looks like if you "log in" twice it can figure out who you are. For all my bajillions of commenters ;-) sorry for the inconvenience.

Well, the BabyCar finally got a front license tag, thanks to an overly attentive cop on Memorial. Dammit.

It just looks silly, I think. Like buck-teeth. I know that"s not an acceptable excuse for The Law, but aesthetics should count for something, don't you think?

Update

Hmmm. Maybe I need this...

My eyes are really going square. I'm bouncing between projects at work and between websites at home. On the downside, I often can't remember what I'm supposed to be doing at any given moment. On the upside, I'm learning a lot and I'm getting better at enjoying small successes. (That's called "trying really hard to see the glass half-full.")

Last weekend I went to see The Thin Man with the MO's parentals at the MFAH's theatre. It was fabulous!! I've decided I want to be Myrna Loy when I grow up. (Yeah, I know it ain't gonna happen, but a girl can dream....) I'm very happy to know that there are five, count 'em five, sequels. (Oh, and of course there is a box set! And check this, on the Amazon page for The Complete Thin Man Collection the "people who bought this also bought" shows the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Collection Vol 1 that the MO's parentals gave me for Xmas, so how perfect is all that? I watched Shall We Dance last week and loved it....) (Although that dress that they show on the picture on IMDB was really hideous....)

I've been reading some short stories, too. I'm not ready to jump into another novel after my Peter F. Hamilton excursion and I'm too distracted to deal with a history book right now, so short stories are perfect. Last night I read "The Lover of Horses" by Tess Gallagher. I found the central concept of the story quite alluring, in a strictly "wow, what would that be like?" kind of way, and I was entirely engrossed in the unfolding analysis of the familial character flaw (depending on your point of view).

I guess we look for familiar scenarios, and sometimes the mind makes quite a leap in connecting the dots. Near the end of the story, the protagonist is sitting outside under a cedar tree, smoking a cigarette, contemplating silence, and I immediately envisioned my grandpap sitting on his stool under his little arbor behind the house, feeding squirrels or watching redbirds or whatever-it-was he did when he sat there. I was always told not to bother him when he went there, so I never did. (In fact, I'm just guessing about the stool. I'm sure he must have sat on something and I don't recall a chair.) But later, seeing him on the back porch patiently regarding hummingbirds and the squirrels on the corn-cob wheel, I figure he just sat there and smoked and thought.

I think school zones bring out the worst in morning drivers. I go through one on the mornings I don't go to the gym, and it seems more often than not somebody gets bent out of shape about something. For heaven's sake, it's only about five blocks long. Just chill out for a couple of minutes....

Anyhow, the entrance to the school is very close to an intersection, and they have a big sign out reminding drivers not to block the driveway. Most people ignore it, of course, leading to some interesting gridlock-type maneuvering as cars stack up behind the parent who wants to cross traffic and get into that parking lot.

So, in the interests of maintaining my own sunny morning disposition (!) I am very careful about not blocking the school entrance. One car can fit between the crosswalk and the driveway, then you have to leave a big gap. So if I'm the second car, I leave a big gap. Yesterday, the guy behind me had a conniption over this, honking and gesticulating. (Mind you, this is only an issue when the light is red. You're not going anywhere anyhow, so who cares about an extra car-length between you and the RED traffic light?)

In the midst of Conniption-Boy's tirade, Mr. Dropping-of-the-Kid-at-School Man comes the other way, is probably astounded that he is actually able to turn into the school grounds, and he flashes me the most enormous smile and gives me one of those pointing-at-you-turns-into-a-thumbs-up moves. That made it all worthwhile.

We took a quick weekend road trip to San Antonio to help the MO's brother move a VERY HEAVY fish tank. Whew. Instead of just turning around and coming back home, we decided to spend the day there, so we went to the Blue Star Brewing Company for a lovely beverage and late lunch, poked around some art galleries and shops, and treated ourselves to a night at The Menger and a nice dinner. On the way back to the hotel last night, we reprised our wedding picture in front of the Alamo.

The weather has been beautiful lately--cool in the evening, clear and almost warm to warm in the day. Abundant sunshine. Big blue skies with no clouds--I think that is normal some places, but not anywhere I've ever lived. Clouds are the norm. Vast empty bluuuuuuuuuue skies are kind of a novelty. I took lots of pictures looking up, but of course you can't really capture it. (Or at least my Elph and I can't.)

We did succumb to art lust and buy a couple of treasures at San Angel. I would not say that folk art (esp. "outsider art") is normally my style (I think the MO has a much broader range of appreciation for it than I do) but when I saw one of Shane Campbell's crow trees, it practically leapt into my arms. Luckily the MO liked it too and it came home with us. I haven't read it all yet--we were joking about transcribing it. The MO also picked out something special that is definitely more to his taste. I'm not even going to try to describe it. Hopefully he'll write about it himself.

Dinner at Biga was interesting. We sat next to a table that had a great waiter. Our waiter was... competent. Mostly. Bringing the appetizer before the bottle of wine didn't go over too well, but that was really the only gaffe. He just didn't come across as very interested in the whole process. But we eavesdropped on the other guy and learned a lot about the menu that way. The appetizers were astounding. The MO ordered the game packets and I had the smoked salmon nachos. Yum yum yum times infinity. I also tried the grapefruit salad, which was wonderful. The entrees were kind of a letdown. They were good--very good, actually--but the appetizers were a hard act to follow. We did have a delightful bit of chocolate truffle ice cream for dessert, though.

After dinner we walked over the Davenport for a Costa Rican (for me) and a gin & tonic (for he). Watched the Patriots stomp the poor Jaguars, although we missed the last quarter because they turned the station to the Spurs game. Come on, basketball?? Basketball does not trump football, even if it is the local team, during the NFL playoffs. (Well, ever, if you ask me, but especially not during playoffs.) So we ignored the basketball and talked amongst ourselves. We're good at that.

We had brunch at The Menger this morning. Wow. They had everything. Then a little touristing and the drive home. We saw lots of hunters returning from their outings--coolers and buggies in pickups and on trailers, and several antler sightings, so at least some of them had good luck. I wish I had been quick enough with the camera to get a shot of the one with the whole muzzle poking up out of the back corner of the pickup bed. It was a tad surreal. Kind of like a dog hanging its tongue out in the wind, only bigger. With antlers. And dead. Okay, so maybe not really so much like that after all....

Anyhow, it was a great weekend, despite that last mental image ;-)

I'm beginning to suspect that Peter F. Hamilton may be my all-time favorite author. Yesterday I finished Judas Unchained, the sequel to Pandora's Star, and I'm still all involved with the stories and the characters. I think about his books for ages after I'm done reading them.... Of course, they're epics in page count as well as scope, but this one was especially satisfying because I got through all 900-some-odd pages in about a week. Talk about immersion! Gotta love those holidays....

(In case you're wondering how I've read it when it's not released til the end of next month, well, the MO is very clever as well as devastatingly sexy and he bought it for me from amazon.uk, where it had already been released. And just what is up with that, I'd like to know? Haven't we been waiting long enough over here on this side of the pond?)

Anyhow, all Peter F. Hamilton books hereupon even more highly recommended. But only if you don't mind cutting back on sleep, because you will turn the pages long past your bedtime, night after night, until you're done.

Apropos of not much of anything, ya know what I want? Links on links. Like nesting parentheses. So you can put an href on a title in an href.... Etc.

Yesterday we purchased our Christmas tree. It makes the car smell good ;-)

The MO handled the electrical tasks

and Melvin helped with the decorating

because cats love Christmas too, you know!

We did a good job, don't you think?

We have a ficus tree that we bring in for the winter (although it's getting pretty big, so this may be the last year we do it) and I decorate it, too.

This year it's a Penguin Tree.

Combine Christmas carols on the digital music station, a couple of glasses of wine and curious kitties, and you get a very pleasant evening and one happy Magpie. (Hello, ornaments, they glitter, right? Of course I like Christmas....)

At a small company, phone answering duties tend to get spread around, so fairly often I end up answering the main line, and then transferring the caller to whoever they really want to talk to. This call, however, left me puzzled:

Me: "Company X"
Stupid Caller: "Person Y please"
Me: "That person is no longer with the company"
SC: "I'll call back in a few minutes" ::click::
Me: " "

So what does this guy think, we're going to go out and find Person Y and re-hire them before he calls back?

OMG I just volunteered to administer ANOTHER website. What is wrong with me???

The Houston Book Arts Group is gonna be great :-)

Yes, those sentences are related.

I'm completely obsessed/involved/submerged in making a wedding scrapbook for my cuz RT and his lovely new bride Miss Cinday War and I'm having such a good time it should be illegal. Tomorrow is a break, though, for the first meeting of the Book Arts Group at the Houston Museum of Printing History. (One of my all-time favorite places in town, and soooo conveniently located!)

Completely unrelated, there is some kind of boat thing in the air. I'm reading a book about boats (see below) and tonight all the shows on the Discovery and History Channels have been about boats (Discovery) or wood (History--and thus inescapably (if indirectly) about boats (at some point)), including a story about a modern version of a 5-masted barque which seems about as far off from the experience I'm reading about as you could possibly imagine.... Wow. How was that for use of parentheses? (Programmers are quite comfy with (nested (especially)) parentheses, ya know.)

Oh, and Mr. Jurevicius, last week better not have been a fluke or I will be really ticked off, seeing as how I lost because I sat you on the bench and you decided to catch eight receptions for one hundred thirty-seven yards and two, count-'em two, touchdowns. (That would be just over twenty-nine points in the Texas Deathmatch IV league, JJ, in case you weren't counting.) Next time you're gonna break out like that for pete's sake let your ever-lovin' blue-eyed¹ managers know!!

¹Random Pogo reference. Don't know where that came from. Waiter! More wine!

Click here and confuse Amazon:

(Dad, don't buy it, I'll send it home with you at Xmas. Although a dime (currently the "best price" in the Amazon hickey) seems like a pretty good deal for a real-live book....)

I bought a different moisturizer the other day and today is the first time I've used it. I smell like a giant sugar cookie. It's just a bit distracting.

Generally speaking, I really like the Aveeno moisturizers--they work (go oatmeal!) and they're not goopy or greasy at all. I thought this Creamy Moisturizing Oil might be good for the winter months, and although I noticed the "lightly fragranced" line on the bottle, I figured it probably wouldn't be too bad. And really, it's not that it smells bad. It's more that it smells too good....

I knew it could be done--just saw an ad for this on tv. It's probably not as good as MetalTM but hey, they're the ones making money off of it, not us ;-)

I took a little road trip today and rediscovered how much I loooooove my BabyCar. The mission: Jerky. The destination: Prasek's. There simply is no better jerky anywhere, and for my husband's birthday, nothing but the best will do. So it takes a couple of hours to get there--that's why I took the day off from work ;-)

You don't have to get too far outside of Houston to realize how much of Texas is not cities. The route to Hillje couldn't be simpler. Get on 59 south and go 'til you get there. There's one billboard conveniently place 28 miles out, so you can check your odometer, although it's not like you're going to miss it. Basically, it's a gas station and a meat counter. A really big meat counter. I got there just after noon, so it was pretty crowded, but that doesn't keep everyone from being incredibly nice. The old-timer next to me in line was doing the same thing I was--a pound of turkey jerkey, a pound of beef jerkey, a pound of peppered turkey jerkey, etc. As we gathered our paper-wrapped packages of goodness, naturally we got to talking. He said the best part about working around there was that the lunch wagons brought Prasek's food. Then he patted his ample belly and said, "That's how you get this!"

On the way out, I was a bit ahead of a gentleman who was quite distraught that he hadn't reached the door in time to hold it open for me. I apologized profusely, and marvelled at how long it had been since I'd heard a similar sentiment.

Since the MO's birthday presents were all nice-and-neatly wrapped by the professional meat-dudes, I got myself a little travelling snack as well (they very cleverly place these items by the cash register). So the trip home looked like this:

Yeah, I know, I'm not breaking any land-speed records, but I'm too old to bat my eyelashes out of a ticket and too young for the "Sonny, in my day" schtick to work, so it wasn't a real "Italian tune-up" but it sure was fun. It was exhilarating to rediscover how much fun it is to really drive. My little car is the best.

Unable to turn up my spare car key, today I had to find out who to call to get my car unlocked. I started with RMS, because I figured they could at least give me a hint about whether to call a wrecker or a locksmith or somebody else entirely, and I hoped they might even have a referral. Once again I was reminded why I always take my car to these guys.... Not only did Blake remember me (he always does--how do people do that? it's a terrific trait for someone in a service business to have) but he took care of tracking down a wrecker in the appropriate area, who called me to arrange the extrication of my keys.

So, for any local readers, if you need work done on your car, consider RMS Auto Care (713-529-5855, corner of Westheimer and Woodhead). And if you need a wrecker, call Walter at Aaladin Wrecker Service (713-849-1333).

Thus endeth the Public Service Announcement for the day.

I locked my keys in my car in the parking garage at work this morning. What a maroon!¹ I was busy reading a document on the way out of the office, so it took me a while to become concerned about not finding my keys in purse. After standing at the back of my car and pulling everything out and looking at the empty interior of my bag, it occurred to me to look in the car. Doh!² Luckily, the MO was on the way home and mere minutes from my office, so he picked me up and I took him out to dinner. So tomorrow I get to find out who to call to get into one's locked car....

¹Bugs Bunny. (2005). Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved November 16, 2005, from Encyclopaedia Britannica Premium Service http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9095426
²Homer Simpson. (2005). The Simpsons. Retrieved November 16, 2005, from The Simpsons http://www.thesimpsons.com/characters/home.htm

(Footnotes inspired by the EB site offering three, count 'em THREE, reference formats.)

Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter: Papers and Books Dating Back to 1789 on Sale at Georgia Archives

More than 15,000 collected papers and books, some dating as far back as 1789, go on sale Friday at the Georgia State Archives. This is the first used and rare books sale for the archives, which hold official Georgia historical documents. Most of the items are being sold for $4.00 or less.

It hardly seems worth it....

Bring on the pixels!

Joel on Software: Multitasking in the Workplace

Also, I think that private offices have remarkable benefits in terms of ... people's general happiness at work.... We're doubling the size of the Fog Creek offices as soon as we can, and our goal remains to put every developer in a private office.

Payday = discretionary funds = Mint. 'Cause the MO and I wanna know who comes to read us ;-)

I checked the forums on my host, and folks are running Mint there and loving it. I ran the test scripts and all was well. I bought Mint, did the config and loaded it up, and now it can't connect and the test scripts don't complete anymore either. Sigh. So I've posted on both the Mint forums and my host forums, and hopefully will have an answer tomorrow.

It's just amazing to me how specialized the computer world is. Hardware vs. software, of course, and then inside my world of software, my expertise doesn't translate to understanding of "web stuff" at all. Honestly, I know I'm not stupid, but this "web stuff" kicks my @$$ on a regular basis.

Update:

Turns out I was having a fight club moment in that I was kicking my own @$$. Got my passwords mixed up. Duh.... So anyhow, now the MO and I are minty-fresh with pretty new statistics. I'm looking forward to the silly search terms. That's always been my favorite part of site stats...

CSS Table Gallery

The CSS Table Gallery is a showcase of how CSS and data tables can work together to create usable and pretty results.

Finally got gas for the BabyCar tonight! Turns out I was less than 10 miles from empty....

On the way home, I noticed Machinery at the Art League. Looks like it's finally time for Inversion to make its way into the annals of Art Projects Past.

And just around the corner, it seems that some neighbors got a little fed up with the notoriously slow drainage in the 'hood.

'Gators, indeed.

Not to be too snarky, but really.... I always ask the Coke guy to drop the cases in the kitchen. New guy this week, so I guess he figured the closer to the machine the better. Maybe he thought I needed the exercise.... Surely he knows that you can't load the machine without opening the door?

Well, what a relief! I know other places did get pounded by Rita, but it turned out to be a non-event for us. Today has been Hurricane Cleaning Day (like Spring Cleaning but hotter). The house was pretty much torn apart from our preparations, so we just decided to clean all those places that usually don't see the light of day before we put all the furniture back. Man, did I vacuum up a lot of cat hair. We had a couple of power flickers early this morning, but it was not out for more than a minute either time. If we hadn't known that a hurricane had gone through, we'd have thought we just had a nice thunderstorm.

The morning survey yielded one small twig attacking my car and one shingle definitely out of place. There were a couple of hibisus flowers on the ground, and a lot of leaves from the yellow-flower tree out front. The east-side cypress got tangled up in the crepe myrtle. Lots of leaves in the gutters of the road. It was still blustery, although very comfortable temperature-wise, outside this morning, but it's already hot again now.

And that's all there was to Rita here in our corner of Montrose....

Here's the view from our front porch at about 10:30 this evening. The storm has not yet arrived. Every now and then a gust comes by and whips the trees around a bit, but that's it so far.

(Unfortunately that's a streetlight and not the moon.)

We stood out on the porch for about half-an-hour. The MO enjoyed a small cigar and we took pictures and generally enjoyed the cool(er) temperature.

I know it's going to get scary, but for right now, it's actually quite nice.

Believe it or not (based on what they're showing on TV) it is absolutely calm here right now....

Well, our house looks pretty weird by now. The walls are bare--that's something we haven't seen since we painted before we moved in! As we were wrapping and packing art, I commented to the MO, "We really do have a lot of art, don't we?" And he said, "That's why we're not rich." He was kidding, but that didn't stop me from thinking that the art itself qualifies as riches. We have beautiful pieces that we've picked out together, things like we like individually, stuff that came with each of us from "before".... And it all is part of who we are. I mean, if the roof blows off and the house falls down and we lose it all, we will get new art, and some of it will be from the same artists, even, and it will be just as wonderful, but I'd miss these pieces that contribute to how we are right now.

The living room is full of plants from the front porch. The office has been denuded of desktop clutter (well, the clutter has been relocated, at least) and all the bookcases are taped up with garbage bags. (Two bookcases are next to windows, there's not really anywhere to move them, and we figure this is the room most likely to leak even if a window doesn't break. Old house. Original windows. Not exactly hermetically sealed.) The game shelf (the window seat in the dining room) is nekkid, all its contents wrapped up in plastic bags and distributed on various flat surfaces around the house. The dresser-tops in my bathroom, the only place in the house where knick-knacks are allowed, are swept clean. Before long we'll move the dressers away from the windows up against the interior wall. The tub is full (nearly overfull--I almost forgot about it!) because I refuse to not be able to at last sponge-bathe. I even bought some of that water-less shampoo, so if we're without water for more than a day we'll see if that stuff really works.

But meanwhile, we wait. There has been lots of waiting. Which really is better than just suddenly having a catastrophe dropped on your head, I understand that, but it is a little odd.

The MO is your source for personal updates during Rita. He's going to "disaster-blog" as long as we have power and internet connectivity. For a list of local bloggers, see Laurence Simon's This Blog is Full of Crap. (And don't miss his explanation of hurricane categories!)

This morning we bagged art. I already packed my duffel bag with desperation essentials so now I am just following the MO's instructions. He is much more organized than I am. I am operating on a cup of coffee in one hand (those of you who know realize how odd that is) and a cream soda in the other. This way I can use either hand to swill sudafed as necessary to dry up the snot that is being generated in copious quantities by all the dust we're stirring up. I guess as soon as I have a beer, I'll have all the major food groups represented in my bloodstream.

In all seriousness, the MO is in charge and taking care of things.