Thanks to the good graces of the grandparents, Margie and I actually got to go on a date Friday night. Woo-hoo! First off, a visit to an Indian restaurant by…
Thanks to the good graces of the grandparents, Margie and I actually got to go on a date Friday night. Woo-hoo!
First off, a visit to an Indian restaurant by the theater which we’ve been meaning to try. Good choice, with excellent food at a reasonable price (and appropriately snappy service).
Then a stroll across the sidewalk to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Thoughts (and, likely, spoilers) in no particular order:
… yes, Christmas. After a couple of years of serious slackage regarding Christmas decor, we pulled out all the boxes and went hog-wild yesterday afternoon. All with the aid of…
… yes, Christmas.
After a couple of years of serious slackage regarding Christmas decor, we pulled out all the boxes and went hog-wild yesterday afternoon. All with the aid of …
… our new Christmas tree.
Yes, we have joined the ranks of the Artificially Treed. Given our normal December schedules and time in California, joined with our Twelfth Night party some time in January, having an artificial tree makes a lot of sense. Living trees can only tolerate a brief time indoors here (since they think it’s spring and start in with the new growth, with disastrous results when they are returned outdoors), and cut trees are a fire hazard after a few weeks.
So, Margie and I had been shopping for an artificial tree for a while. On Wednesday, after she picked up her folks, they did some shopping for it, and managed to stumble onto a bargain-fargain at Hobby Lobby on a floor model, 7.5-foot tree with lights and everything.
We put it up yesterday, and decorated it. It took nearly all of our ornaments (something that’s never happened before, but when it was all done …
… it looked fabulous.
I’m sure it’s all part of deep-seated memories of Christmas and all that, but seeing the tree, all lit up and decorated and all, made me feel all mooshy inside. Like Christmas wasn’t a big shopping hassle and travel hassle and gift-opening hassle, but a really special time.
Garsh.
And Kitten liked it, too.
Firefly will be on hiatus in January. Which will probably be okay, since it will likely take us that long to watch our tapes of the December episodes, given our…
Firefly will be on hiatus in January.
Which will probably be okay, since it will likely take us that long to watch our tapes of the December episodes, given our schedules.
Still, it’s annoying. The plan from Fox was to move the show to Wednesday nights. At which point, WB announced that they were moving Angel to the same time slot.
While I’m irked that Fox is putting the show into hiatus while figuring out the schedule change, I am gratified that they didn’t just plop Firefly into that time slot anyway. That would have been … unfortunate.
At the same time, momentum is important for shows. Throwing it off the schedule for a month (after a spotty November/December) isn’t going to help attract viewers. And I really want this show to succeed.
(via Doyce, who has more geeky goodness about the goings-on)
Ah. Yet another of those thoroughly depressing “See How Geographically Illiterate US Young Folk Are?” tests. Still, it was interesting. (I got 20 of 20, natch.) Now, how to work…
Ah. Yet another of those thoroughly depressing “See How Geographically Illiterate US Young Folk Are?” tests. Still, it was interesting.
(I got 20 of 20, natch.)
Now, how to work on Katherine to make sure she’s not one of the ones dragging down the average …
(via Doyce)
A classic activity for visits from the Ks is big household projects. While the projects this time out were not earthshaking, they were all satisfying: First off, Jim and I…
A classic activity for visits from the Ks is big household projects. While the projects this time out were not earthshaking, they were all satisfying:
First off, Jim and I finished off the gates to the new fences. Most excellent. We now have the extended side yard fully secure for Bambina to run free in, not to mention the dogs. The last step will be disassembling the remains of the old gate on the.
Gate hanging was hampered a bit by the, ah, lack of plumbness (along multiple axes) between gate posts. We managed to work around that one, and these things should be solid as a rock.
I do need to figure out the best way to thread the latch pulls through the fence, and I have a couple of pickets on the west side that need to go up next to the old fence, and so forth, but, basically, the project is done. Updated pictures to follow RSN.
The second thing we did was install a new porch light we’d had still in the box from buying it at Restoration Hardware four or five years ago. As part of that, the old porch light was moved to flank its mate on the other side of the garage door. Piece of cake, and it looks great.
Lastly, we put in a doorbell.
When we redid the kitchen four years back or so, part of it involved ripping out the intercom/radio system that was installed in the house when built. Only after that was done did we discover that the doorbell was wired up through it.
Since then, we’ve been using a wireless doorbell of dubious quality and reliability. It got so that Margie put up a “Please Knock” sign at Halloween, and we’d left it up since.
Now we have …
… a really nice doorbell button on the porch (albeit at a different spot that the old one).
… a “hidden” doorbell chime on the ground floor that should be nicely audible throughout the house.
… a doorbell chime in the stairwell down to the basement, which mean (huzzah!) we can hear when the pizza delivery guy arrives during games.
The only problem is that the two chimes are not quite in tune, especially on their second notes. Not much we can do about that, I’m afraid.
All in all, a much more productive weekend of that sort than I’d expected (but certainly one reason why the bloggage was a wee bit light).
Sorry about that — dropped out of Reality (or, perhaps, Virtuality) for a few days to enjoy my in-laws’ visit and associated activities. More on those anon. But just wanted…
Sorry about that — dropped out of Reality (or, perhaps, Virtuality) for a few days to enjoy my in-laws’ visit and associated activities. More on those anon. But just wanted to let everyone know I’m actually alive and back on the air.