Posted by Patrick on December 18th, 2007
Inspection
Saturday I went and took the Celica to get inspected, and besides a license-plate-light that was out, it passed and received a new sticker. Pretty crazy that it’s the second North Carolinian inspection for my car… but more crazy that its the seventh inspection for the car since I drove it off the lot. Seems like just yesterday I was throwing all my savings into a shiny silver car. I really didn’t think it would last this long, but am glad it did as we really can’t afford another car as shiny as the Celica. Kate’s car is getting a turn on the ol’ inspectotron this weekend. Her car’s had even more inspection stickers then mine… but she doesn’t drive like a maniac so it’s not really surprising that her ride still rides.
Festivus
Kate and I did our holiday shopping in (almost) one fell swoop over the weekend. We also picked up a tree from the Raleigh Farmers Market, as its all about locally-grown-tree’s and nice people who put trees on stands for you. Our friends Kat and Matt invited us over for Christmas day this year, so we’re looking forward to that.
iMac
I like my job and what I do, but up until last week my job only provided me with a computer built in the same year as my car. It was a great computer in its day, but not really up to snuff for today’s modern website worker. I don’t have proof, but I suspect it was burning oil. Or silicon.That all changed when they brought in a brand new iMac for me to use. This computer is sweeeeet in every way a computer should be. Big screen, dual monitor, and chock full of ram so Photoshop runs quickly. It even has software that runs Windows on it, which makes testing websites much easier, since I don’t have to get up from my desk and find a Windows computer every time I make a new page. It’s come a long way from the original iMac.
Photo Gallery
Our Rockland-ave photo gallery is currently busted. The hosting company upgraded their server software, and our gallery software apparently doesn’t play nice with it. Hopefully this weekend I can check under the hood and get it to work. Makes a guy want to print out all his photos and put them in a shoe box.
Posted in Automotive, Christmas, Employment, Friends, Nerdery, Rockland-Ave |
2 Comments »
Posted by Katherine on December 8th, 2007
Today Pat and I are going to meet up with one of my coworkers and her family at the local Christmas parade. I am not quite sure what to expect, having never been to a Christmas parade before. Really to me, it feels like Christmas should have come already. At work we have been getting ready for it since August. And the day after Thanksgiving was such a big deal, now it almost feels like things are winding down. Sure the store is still really crowded, but everything Christmas is marked down and next week we start getting shipments of spring merchandise… Christmas is over before it has begun!
We have been having very cold weather lately. Two nights in the twenties and yesterday I had to scrape a thick sheet of ice off my windshield for the first time this season. Oddly enough it is supposed to be 75 degrees on Monday and Tuesday. I am still not used to the weather down here.
I have started feeling Ted kick. Very surreal. Even after months of morning sickness, ultrasound photos, and a rapidly expanding waistline, it doesn’t feel real that we will have an actual baby around here in April. The kicking and punching going on inside is definitely making it feel more and more like there really is an actual infant in there.
Zoe has been climbing all over me like a mountain goat lately. She insists upon sitting directly on my belly. Maybe it is less mountain goat, more mother hen trying to hatch an egg. I wonder if it is the warmest spot around or if she somehow knows there is somebody in there.
Posted in Baby, Cats, Christmas, Employment, Friends, Rockland-Ave, Weather |
3 Comments »
Posted by Patrick on August 18th, 2007
The wave of technical difficulties having now passed (I hope), we can return to our normal posting routine. Here are some thoughts:
Hot
104 degrees again? I guess it is southern living. Central air is sweet. We went for a dip in the community pool last week and that was refreshing.
Lawn
Why does some of our yard have grass that grows almost two feet high in a week, and some not accept grass at all (just dirt patches)? The whole yard thing requires lots of learning. It’ll be a fine day for western civ when robot gardeners come on the market. Then it will be a sad day for the same civilization when the robot gardeners join together and form a super-robot that enslaves the lazy suburbanites like myself. But it’ll be good times before the great robot revolt.
Workin
My new job continues to be both rewarding (web design every day? yes please) and kind of intense. Lots of long days and learning. It’s still a little weid to use Photoshop every day and not use Excel all day long. Allegedly they’re replacing my 7-year-old G4 at work with a shiney new iMac, which is exciting.
Speaking of Webbish
Tonight I’m going to my first Raleigh/Durham Adobe User Group meeting, which I believe will be cool. Hopefully it will fill my noodle with knowledge and let me talk shop with some other designers in the field. When I try to talk about Typography with the cats, they generally just walk away. Moses will actually bite me on the leg when I talk about kerning.
Congrats
Congrats to my sister Kristen who just graduated with a master’s degree in something so fancy and smart, I can’t even begin to describe it with words.
500
Our five-hundredth Rockland-Ave.com post is coming up soon! Insanity!
Posted in Employment, The South, Weather, family |
5 Comments »
Posted by Patrick on July 28th, 2007
This week my work moved my department from a quiet peaceful office building back into the main newspaper building. For the most part its very nice, I’m now sharing an office (instead of being cubicle’d) and I get to work face-to-face with a larger group of people.
The main building, because it is a newspaper, houses a gigantic printing-press-conveyor-belt system that is an engineering marvel to behold. Daily papers are printed, sorted, and stacked across a gigantic warehouse expanse. It’s great to watch it through the observation windows above, and it’s directly below our new office. And it is loud. Volume Set to Eleven loud.
That loudness finds its way into our office for almost 2/3 of the day. It’s exactly what I’d imagine doing web-design on a subway would be like. Lots of loud noises that start and then stop after twenty or so minutes, followed by room-shaking. Complaining about the noise gets you You’ll get use to it responses from people, so hopefully I will get use to it. I’m also considering the purchase of some noise canceling headphones
The good news though, is that my new digs are a shorter walk from where I park, which means less hobo-accosting.
Posted in Employment |
1 Comment »
Posted by Patrick on July 21st, 2007
The new job continues to go well, and I’ve survived a full month there. The work is consistently web-designerish, and my co-workers are cool.
The only downside (and really it’s hardly that bad) is that because its right in downtown Raleigh (as in the look, there’s the capital building kind of downtown), the parking situation isn’t perfect. Work pays a little bit of the parking, but it’s not free.
I can either park right close to the building I work in and pay a small fortune (eight bucks a day), or I can park four blocks away and pay just over a dollar a day. A dollar a day is fairly reasonable. I decided on the cheap lot for my first month.
The only downside of the cheap parking is that it’s in a not-so-savory neighborhood, in a lot behind a company that builds burial vaults. It’s also right on the other side of a set of railroad tracks, and my lot is on the wrong side of the tracks. I haven’t been accosted or anything, but I have run into some sketchy local folk who always seem to want to chat. I also found a woman’s shoe in my spot one morning, which I imagine has a story behind it.
Another complicating factor is the fact that I just found what I imagine is oft-considered the holy grail of urban automotive storage: consistent street parking. It’s sort of near sketchy-parking-lot, but a block closer to my workplace and requires no monetary contributions on my part. It’s nice – no parallel parking required either.
The only downside of this parking situation is that I have to arrive and claim the spot before 7:30am, or I’m outta-luck. I normally arrive at work pretty early, but always having to be there at 7:30 is kind of tough.
For the next few weeks I’m going to try the street-parking routeand see how it goes. Ultimately I’d like to find a backup street-parking spot that is perhaps a few blocks further away but always available if I’m running late.
So, that’s my anti-climactic parking-related blog post.
Posted in Automotive, Employment |
5 Comments »
