Clodagh blogged!
Archive for the ‘Hobbies’ Category
Can’t believe it!
July 30, 2007Random Blurbs
May 3, 2007- We had brown water all day at work, and people were showing up late. Why? A sinkhole developed from a water main break half a mile from work – it delayed (and continues to delay) all sorts of traffic and screw up some of the water systems. For more, see Greg’s post or the Seattle Times article.
- Pubnight last week was at the Capitol Club, which is a perfectly good place, but I don’t think was a great pubnight choice (no offense, Greg). One, it’s not a pub! It’s pretty clearly a bar, or even more, a restaurant. I know it’s a fine distinction, but it’s part of the overall ambience of the place that changes the term. Nearly all of the other places we have visited were beer-focused, and while the Capitol Club had some good beers (Stella, Hooegarden, etc…) and some fancy-shmancy drinks, it wasn’t the same in terms of trying new stuff out. (That said, I don’t think sticking to "pubs" should actually be a requirement – the only requirements need to be having alcohol and being cool; and not being too far away, of course!) More importantly, there was some rather loud flamenco music that started playing, which is all well and good, but we felt like it was rude to try and talk over it, which put a crimp in the conversation. On the positive side: everyone seemed to like their food, and the pillows are abundant; you can actually have a nice drink and relax there (music notwithstanding) more than at most places. So I guess it’s cool from that perspective. Carl is in charge for next week – do us proud!
- I finally upgraded to Money 2007 for tracking my finances. It turns out, I probably shouldn’t have – no noticeable feature changes, and I keep running into 100% CPU issues, reproducible every time. I am sure there are some positives, but I shouldn’t be running into these issues, especially as it looks like they have released at least 2 service packs so far. This frustrates me tremendously, especially since the Money team was a group I always wanted to join in my Microsoft days. I had informally interviewed with them once, but their openings weren’t a good fit for what I was looking for at the time. I still think it (or a competitor) would be a cool product to work on, but only if you were actually allowed to make improvements year to year.
- Started reading http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm more for football information, seems to have a ton more stuff (albeit, not always true), than either ESPN.com or SI.com; I think of it as the debka.com or drudgereport.com of the football world. Pretty much what ESPN Insider was a year or so ago, but still free.
- Going to St. Louis this weekend; first time Joelle will be there, and it will be nice to be able to see some old haunts (although I’ve heard that the Fox and the Hound closed, which was one of my favorite bars – that makes me very, very sad). Now, I just need to remember how to get everywhere!
- New book I am reading: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. Sort of interesting, it is just interviews with startup founders, both large and small, older and newer. For example, VisiCalc and Hot or Not, TripAdvisor and Hotmail. I don’t have a ton of entrepreneurial sense, at least at this stage of my life, so it’s a little fascinating to see how these people got into their risk-taking and what the ups or downs they had. Nothing I can use directly, but subconsciously, I am sure there are some great learning’s even for my current position. (Warning: I may hold off on finishing this book in lieu of Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which I have mentioned in the past, since that just came in the mail).
- I got called out on a grammar issue last night, so I thought I’d do some research into the correct usage of whoever and whomever. Grammarbook.com has a good writeup; basically him == whomever, he == whoever. Need to remember that!
- Speaking of word choices, there are a few words I always spell wrong, and I managed to use them all above. For some reason, I can never get these right (I have since fixed these up thanks to the trusty http://www.dictionary.com):
- entrepreneurial – enterperneurial. r comes before e, except when Aaron spells it.
- restaurant – resteraunt is how I spell it. Every time. Without Fail. Why?
- noticeable – where does that e in the middle come from?
- grammar – I always want to make it grammer
- Last talk of the wine tasting I promise: Here’s what it looked like:
Electrician Am I
October 11, 2005Doing manual stuff for myself is not something I am very good at (or was ever tought). However, I can usually figure something out. Putting a new toilet in; call a friend for sure. Replacing light/fan switches, now that I can try.
So on Sunday (after watching Alias on Tivo; but before West Wing and Grey’s Anatomy), I ventured my second try at putting in a switch from Intermatic (http://intermatic.com/). The first one I did by myself a while ago (whole house fan timer was breaking, so I put in a new digital one). As the first electric work I had done, I asked questions from my knowledgable co-workers, but got it done.
One lesson I learned from that is that since you have to turn off the circuits (and thus the lights) a second pair of hands is much needed to hold the flashlight. That’s where having people over to watch Alias helps 
I got my switch replaced wickety-snap. Now, I have a 60-minute timer for my bathroom fan, instead of just a normal off-on switch. Should help keep the bathroom dry. I need to figure out how to clean the fan next, but one thing at a time!
