Network Drives

As I mentioned, I spent yesterday installing Windows 7 on Erin's machine among other things. Got done, everything worked perfectly without a hitch, including his mapped network drives vs. mine which iTunes seems to decide to destroy every time it's on for awhile. So I decided it must not be our network or the server, and I was going to figure this out.

I probably read about 50 various forum posts until it finally dawned on me that the antivirus I still use, "Blink" might not actually be compatible with Windows 7 - they are a research company and tend to be slower to upgrade on stuff like that. Sure enough, uninstalled it, installed Microsoft's free "Security Essentials" (which btw, for a free program is quite nice, small, and fast), and no more problems. Hooray!

It's a cloudy snowy Sunday, a great day to be drinking coffee and looking out the window - with Erin working again today I will be doing a lot of reading, finishing household chores, and just enjoying the day!

Merry Christmas

Four fun filled days of celebration! We kicked it off Wednesday night with a "small" gathering at our house (ended up being 15 people, but we had plenty of great food!) Besides eating, Erin and I had our wills witnessed and notarized. Who else has their own personal notary public? (thanks a million Shelley!)

Thursday was a little quieter, but fun nonetheless! For the first time in 12 years in Rochester, I not only attended a Christmas Eve service, but we played bells for two of them. That was fun in itself, but I managed to get 5 handbell "alumni" to come and play as well. It was a very fun afternoon! And the weather held - it rained a lot but nothing too bad. Erin and I enjoyed a quiet evening of apple cider, opening presents, playing with the kitties, and watching "Superhero Movie" (I wouldn't recommend it)

Friday, I woke up expecting to be completely snowed and iced in. Looked outside, didn't look like much happened, started reading weather reports and it appeared to have stayed above freezing all night, and the roads looked to be ok. So we started out, and really didn't encounter anything bad - a little slush here and there but we made it to the cousins without any problem. Lots of fun catching up with my "second family" (they were my Rochester family when I moved up here 12 years ago), a big yummy lunch, and then off to my "first family" to see the nieces, mom, Chris & Erin. More fun, running around, opening presents, and watching Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas videos.

Saturday morning it was snowing but since Erin had to work in the afternoon we started out at 9:30 onto the snowy roads. As it turned out, the snow must have stayed north because by the time we got to St. Paul it was sunny and the roads were clear. Erin went off to work and I enjoyed a quiet afternoon of unpacking, cleaning up the house, and installing Windows 7 on Erin's computer (I did mine the other day).

The complete photo album:

2009-12-25

...A Cisco Small Business Christmas

OK, really this had nothing at all to do with Christmas - I've been looking at this for over 2 years and it finally dropped to the price I wanted it to be, and since I was ordering Christmas stuff anyway...well there it is. A Cisco 24-port gigabit switch, complete with rack mount brackets.

Yes I'm a geek.

Lazy Cat

Thanks to friend DJ for this one (~20 seconds worth the watch)


Lazy Freaking Cat - Watch more Funny Videos

Completely just for fun

"The Year We Make Contact"

It just dawned on me this morning that in a few weeks it will be 2010. Now officially that is the last year of this decade (since years started at 1 not 0) but it still sounds all impressive/scary! What I think is kind of amusing is the movies, TV shows, and predictions of the future that we all grew up with, and those with years on them are approaching. Or, in some cases, "past" events that happened in shows set in the future (a la "Star Trek").

Some notables that I've thought of:

-"2010 - The Year We Make Contact" (2010) - ok this one could still happen, and actually we may not be far off from this given what's going on with the space program - and it could very well be Americans and Russians too!

-"Back to the Future 2" (2015) - I don't see 2015 being much like the 2015 they had. Power laceup high tops (no on both counts), power jackets (no), flying cars (not likely), and inflation to where a Pepsi was $50 (no). Not to mention everything was run on fusion - and we haven't figured that one out yet. From a 1985 perspective, those things, particularly the inflation one, seemed likely! And we certainly haven't abolished all lawyers!

-"Star Trek series(s)" (events in their past) - the engenics war was supposed to have happened in 1992, although they altered the timeline and explained that one away. 2009 was supposed to be an Earth-to-Saturn manned flight (no). 2012, the "Millenium Gate" (no - and one of the worst Voyager episodes ever). 2024, the reunification of Ireland by the UK (didn't this already happen a few years ago?) 2053, WWIII. 2063, First Contact with the Vulcans.

I think in some ways Star Wars was smart to set their story "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away". That makes it kind of timeless.

Post some of your favs

Addicted

I noticed last night that there was a new version of Picasa, 3.6, so I went ahead and installed it. One of the new/expanded features is face recognition. I was mostly curious, as I wondered how good it could really be. The answer? Scary good. And very organized. I typed in about 40 names on faces from pictures (it is hooked into your google address book so it's really easy), and then it just started churning on everything. I understand the technology involved, the product I work on uses things like this in its real-time analytics code. But for a free home product to be this good...well I was surprised.

A few that matches it made that were truly scary good - I labeled about 5 pictures of my niece at ages 3-5, and it started matching pictures of her at 1 or younger. I don't know that a human person would make that connection unless they had known her. So there must be a lot more smarts in there than just "match this face to this face".

Now for me, this is about the best (worst?) possible combination of features given my mild OCD, love of computers, and organizing things. I sit here and it's like a playing a great new video game - label a picture, see what else it matches. Frankly I'm getting WAY too excited about this.

I'll leave you with a picture we just took (no the face matching stuff doesn't do cats!) I thought this one was particularly adorable, Madame Sparkles just loves sitting under the tree.

Shameless self-promotion and catchup

OK, this isn't exactly "self" promotion, but once again, my church (Zumbro Lutheran) is presenting their annual Christmas concert, the "Service of Lessons and Carols", at St. Mary's Hospital chapel, on Sunday, December 20th, 6:30pm-8:30pm. Open to the public. I'll be directing and playing handbells, and as always there will be many great groups and ensembles playing traditional Christmas music. The picture above is from 2007 - a little blurry. For people who have never been to St. Mary's "chapel" (I quote that because it's huge), it's a beautiful place.

See my facebook page for additional details.

I can't believe it's already December 12th! People will start dropping off of work this week for the rest of the year, I plan on working the Monday and Wednesday of Christmas week, and I'm very excited that a friend of mine from college will be coming up that Monday night and we're going skiing Tuesday. And there might even be a lot of snow with all that we've had now!

The storm this week sort of forced me to make some decisions about my ailing snowblower and what to do about it, and after deciding the one I really wanted to buy if I was going to buy one was $950, I decided to sell the old one for cheap and get a snow removal contract for the year. Four different friends recommended "Minnesota Outdoor Maintenance" and the guy was very friendly and thorough on the phone, price was reasonable, and did a nice job clearing everything out from the Tuesday/Wednesday stuff. It's nice to have that taken care of - the snow of course, and not wondering if the old snowblower was going to start or work. For those of you who think I sound lazy, I'm really not - I don't mind shoveling, and on the lighter days I will. The problem is the heavy days and having the time to do it - snow isn't like lawn mowing that you can sort of do on a schedule or put off another day if you need to.\

Both Erin and I are avoiding mainstream shopping for the most part - partly just not buying so much, and the things we are doing have been ordered online. If you're not one of those last-minute people, online shopping is sure a lot easier and less stressful, and can probably save you a bit of money too if you are willing to look around.

Otherwise, I'm just enjoying the season, seeing friends, attending a few small gatherings, and looking forward to some time off! I hope everyone is finding this year's holiday season hopeful and exciting, as well as rejuvenating, and a time to be with those you love.

I'll leave you with a great quote from a video they showed at church last week - the video was describing the aspects of Christmas that we often seem to miss out on in today's world. One of the statistics mentioned was that it would cost $10 billion for everyone in the world to have clean sources of drinking water. Americans spend $450 billion on Christmas every year. Kinda makes you think about it a little bit.

The quote I'll leave you with: "Give less presents. Give more presence."

Christmas Ornaments

"We are the Borg. Enjoy your holidays. Resistance is futile." (yes, it says that when you press the button or turn on the lights)

I have to admit that Hallmark Keepsake ornaments are a lot of fun. We decided to update the collection this year and get all the Star Trek: Voyager past ones (5 total). The whole album (tree, closeups) here:

2009-12-04