Random Thoughts

I think I mentioned that Monday we took the storm windows off. Turns out it may have been a bit premature. Why? you ask? Well, it’s currently, 33, snowing and blowing like a banshee. Our old, leaky windows are whistling as the air comes through them and it’s cool in the house.

But the good news is that the grass is really green (from all the rain), and it’s supposed to get warmer by mid-week. It was kinda sad this morning to go outside and see snow sitting on top of my new Weber. Could be worse, though. I hear they actually have snow on the ground further north! Global warming…it kills me!

Yeah, today was a day off. And I actually meant it! I spent the morning watching a great film, The Good Sheppard, then went to Caribou to read a book, sitting outside and and enjoying the high 70s temperatures. Katie and I rode our bikes around a lake near the house, and had a nice time sitting and watching birds. Then we came home and put the screens on the windows, storing the storm windows ’till next year.

There’s now a huge storm system moving north of the Twin Cities. We’re getting a good bit of thunder and lightning, and a little rain. It’s such fun to sit in the living room, looking out our huge picture window at the lightning. Oh snap! It just started pouring!

A great day of rest!

A few weeks ago the girls decided that they wanted a Playstation 3. So they started a savings fund for it in a Caribou cup. We had our meal group here shortly after the inception of the fund, and everyone commented on how cool it was that they were saving for it.

A few days later, I got an e-mail from one of them. He said that he had a Playstation 2, and with the baby and playing baseball in spring and summer, it wasn’t going to get much use. He and his wife had talked about it and wondered if the girls would be interested in a PS 2 instead. He said if they were interested, he’d be fine with just giving it to them. I said I was sure it would be fine…how do you say no to that?

It took a few weeks to coordinate logistics (we waited until our next schedule meeting to do the drop). So last night after dinner, we unveiled it to Katie (Robyn was at a friends). She went ballistic. It was pretty funny. This morning, she and I went up to the local used game store and picked up some games. Then Robyn came home. She was pretty stoked too.

Those things are addictive I’ll tell ya. Katie and I spent 3 hours playing Nascar Thunder. Both girls are still downstairs playing SIMs now. Like all new electronic gadgets, it requires an investment in peripherals. I ordered a component cable for it, so it will look better on the big screen. I also ordered an optical cable for better sound. If it does a decent job playing DVDs, we may even ditch the old DVD player. I found a used DVD remote at the game store for $5. I need to check and see if I can program my AV receiver remote to control it.

So that’s our fun for this weekend. It’s been pretty cold the last few days, and it’s been snowing again. So it’s a good time to play PS2.

So, the other day, Jake tells me that he found the beta release of FireFox 3. He sends me a link and I try it out. While I’m a big Apple fan most of the time, I really like FireFox better than Safari (even 3.1). I have to say, FireFox 3 is a hit. It’s wicked fast (much faster than 2.x), and has a great new look. Sure, there are some bugs (like the double “Back” buttons), but so far it’s been rock-solid and has some great new features.

I like new new bookmark feature; to bookmark a site, just click the star in the URL bar. It adds it to an “Un-filed” bookmark list, and allows you to sort it later. Or you can pull down a menu and drop it right where you want it. It also has better password memory features. Instead of popping up a dialog that has to be dismissed before the next page will load, it loads the page, and puts a bar at the top asking if you want it to remember the password. Much faster.

It also has a more “Mac-like” look to it. It looks like a Cocoa app now (because it is), and feels more polished overall. I’ve also been playing with a new blog-entry tool called ScribeFire. It’s a simple add on that lets me post to my blog without opening my blog. Just click the icon in the bottom bar and start writing. Very quick. I’m not sure I’ll use ScribeFire for my ChurchTechArts blog because I do so many custom things with each post, but it’s still handy for posts like this.

In other news, it was 60 on Saturday. It seemed a fine time to go buy a new grill. We needed a new grill because we sold our old one to Don in Canandaigua before we left (hope you’re enjoying it, Don!), and because I was ready to go back to charcoal anyway. This may seem odd, as everyone is going gas. However, there’s something about a charcoal fire, and I missed cooking on it. So I bought a shiny new Weber Silver One Touch 22, a chimney starter and some charcoal. I also swung by the grocery and bought some steaks. Boy was that good.

Sadly, today it’s back to around 40 and it was snowing when I went for my walk this morning. Nothing stuck, though, it’s all good. I bought Miami Vice today on DVD and watched it (it’s my day off). I got the unrated extended version because it was on sale, and it may have been a mistake because I felt it was too long and plodding. I expected more from Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral). By the end it was a good thriller, it just took too long to get there. The good news is that because I had some Best Buy reward certificates I got that film, Memento, and The Good Shepherd for all of $3.50. I can take Miami Vice to FYE and probably get $4.00 for it. I’ve seen Memento before and loved it, and am looking forward to The Good Shepherd.

So that’s it. My first post from ScribeFire. Thanks for reading!

Since I had a day off, and the girls are spring break, we decided to do what every fun-loving family does when they have time to spend together. We slept in until 11. Actually, Robyn and I were up at 10. I shoveled the drive and walks, then made french toast. We then settled in to the arduous task of deciding what to do today. After much though, consideration and AAA book reading, we decided to take the light rail train from Mall of America to Minneapolis and walk around the skyway.

Minneapolis, being a northern climate city and all, had the foresight to install all these skyways between the buildings downtown. Turns out there are some 8 miles of indoor walking that you can do down there. We didn’t expect to cover it all, but decided to see what we could see. So this is what we saw.

Robyn and Mike sandwiched in our seat on the train. It’s Robyn’s first ticket (train ticket that is…)

Katie chills in her seat with her iPod. What a better way to see the city?

One of our stops was the very architecturally cool Minneapolis Public Library. It’s also the home of a Dunn Bros., where we had some tasty treats.

A really, really tall building.

This was a neat water feature inside one of the buildings we walked into. I think it was the Gaviidade Common. I have no idea what that means.

This was up one level of the Gaviidade Common. Behind the girls is a giant bird/water feature that pours water into the above fountain deal.

Katie looks a bit confused… (I stand corrected, Katie says this is a “Hmmm” face, not a confused face)

Robyn reaches out and touches the force…

Yup, spring is definitely here. You can tell by the blue skies. And it’s warming up, too. 52 on Thursday!