Category: Uncategorized

YouTube’s compression really did a number on the video quality, which is a lot better in the original. Maybe I’ll post a Flash or QuickTime version somewhere else soon. The video was made at my friend and colleague Lauren’s housewarming party. She is dancing with Juan, another colleague.

As I wrote earlier, I haven’t bitten my fingernails since sometime around when I came home from my English vacation. Well, I may have bitten one off once, but it split. There is now a nail clipper in my desk at work just in case one or two happen to reach that length where they can be uncomfortable while typing. Dana asked, “what have you replaced it (biting them) with?” I said “nothing” at the time. At this point the answer might be “a much higher stress level,” which makes it even more impressive to me that I haven’t chewed them off. One thing I have discovered they are useful for is removing ticks from Mario, which I wish I didn’t have do except there seems to be a bumper crop of them around here this year (and the people at the vet’s office and pest control company concur).

Or so I have discovered as master of the obvious. I made a decision a week or two ago to quit biting my fingernails. You see, when you’re not regularly chewing them down, they seem to grow pretty darn fast (still wearing the “master of the obvious” cap). Last week I bought a pack of emery boards. This week some of those went to the office. Then, earlier this week, I stopped at Walgreen’s on the way home and bought a pair of nail scissors because I don’t like how nail clippers work. The scissors will be a challenge for someone of my clumsy dexterity. I’m determined to make this work, for a number of reasons.

(And hopefully this marks the return of somewhat regular posting on here. I’ve been busy.)

It all started just after my last post, when I undertook a major yard project during the last weekend of February and the first weekend of March. You can check out the photos here or on Flickr. During part two of the operation, I must have inhaled a whole bunch of allergens and other lung irritants because I came down with a bad case of asthma.

I’d feel good after a couple of days, then I’d overdo it somehow, then I’d feel worse again. Rinse. Repeat. The first overdoing of it was a day trip to Tampa for a Yankees Spring Training game. Then the next day I was off to Mom’s for the weekend to see my nephew in Pippin at his high school. The following Tuesday, 10 days after it started, I went to the doctor about it. Two weeks of inhaling steroids later, I finally felt back to normal.

I missed no work and was actually very busy and productive all month, see that blog. It left me without much energy for writing or photos here though.

Busy and tired, in two words (not that anyone really reads this). I found a solution for automatically transferring my old photo gallery from Gallery to Flickr and I have a thing going here that lets me show them in the context of this site. I moved several albums, but stalled when another project started occupying my evenings last week. So for now everything that’s been copied exists in two places on this site. I’m also thinking about re-templating this site, but that stalled a couple of weeks ago.

After 19 years and I don’t know how many pizza crusts, my trusty old Cuisinart food processor bit the dust this evening. The cause of death is cracks in the drive shaft and the blade assembly at their interface point. It’s been making motor bearing noise for years though so I’ve known the time was coming.

Quoth Dana, “I think you got your money’s worth out of it.”

It almost couldn’t happen at a better time as this weekend is a holiday weekend and that means that there will be a sale at the outlet mall. It will probably be replaced with a KitchenAid.