Journal

Busy Sunday...(oh and friday too)

So Friday night, I headed over to Cedar Rapids, had dinner with Clif and then went to the Mattas for some chatting and cards and drinking. Good times, lots of memory sharing with Nathan, Clif, Scott, and Bret.

So we helped Jerry and Renee move this morning. They moved from a third story apartment, to a house in lower Beaverdale. The first part of the move took quite a long (3 flights of stairs is annoying) but the second part went very quickly (lots of help).

Afterwards, we met up with Chris and Holly at Lowes and bought paint and painting supplies. Looks like we're actually going to go through with it. Chris offered to lend us several things, so we saved quite a bit of cash (thanks Chris and Holly). We just need to figure out when to do it.

Joseph Update

I saw him Saturday afternoon, and he look ok to me, a few bruises a few scrapes. He told me that usually the delivery drivers cash out after each delivery run, and only keep a small amount on them to make change. So he's doing good. It also sounds as if the case is moving forward, which is good.

Just freakin crazy

My younger brother got mugged about 23 hours ago, while delivering a pizza. He lives (with my parents) pretty close to where it happened.

All they got was less then $20 (apparently they thought he had more so they kept kicking/punching him), some spicy buffalo wings and a 2 liter bottle of sprite...

Just crazy...He's fine and sounds like he's ready to go back to work...

The Market at Jordan Creek

So for dinner we headed over to The Market at Jordan Creek. Lots of free samples. We had intended to maybe buy dinner there, but with the array of samples, we ended up just eating the samples. A good sample of wines, food, lots and lots of mustards. Some crafted soda, Bells Beer. A large variety of cheeses and other things. Interesting place. I want to go back when it is less busy. No cognac (they had an OK selection scotches), I didn't see any chocolate other then the stuff made into things...

A funny thing I saw is a sign that said "The freshest seafood in W Des Moines." Even fresher then the waterfront?

We saw, Adam and Tiff (and Savannah), Chris and Holly, and Pat and uh..what's her name...

Good night...Gonna have to go back when it settles down a bit.

Wireless fixed?

So after mucking with the various wireless components for the last while here...I was messing around last night (systematically checking each 802.11g channel), and found that when I switched on the router from TKIP to AES, everything started working great.

And I mean great.

Reboot the macbook (to make sure their's no residual connection), login, less then 10 seconds later bam, on the wireless.

Did that a few times last night, logged in this morning (as well as Shannon) and we were both super.

I hope that was all it was, cause that was just obnoxious.

I also found this neat little app called iStumbler that was giving me the statistics that I wanted to see (strength in a percentage that I could see over time, instead of Apple's wireless icon, which tells me about nothing).

The only weird thing I saw through the late evening watching the statistics was that for about 5 or 10 minutes, some neighbor's wireless cranked up to a huge signal strength. iStumbler said 130% (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense). But it makes me wonder if they were using a cantanna or something...anyways. I'm happy now, we'll just see how it goes for a few days.

Pills Pills Pills...

So this is a little silly.

6:00 AM - Blood Pressure Meds (2 pills)
6:05 AM - Antibiotic (2 pills)
7:00 AM - Fish Oil (Omega 3 Fatty Acids) (2 Pills)
7:00 AM - multi-vitamin (1 pill)
6:00 PM - Antibiotic (2 pills)
6:00 PM - anti-nasal irritant thing (forget what it's called) (1 pill)

I should do the fish oil with dinner too....but that's a lot of pills a day...

Pile o' Poop

So I went to the doctor last night, and after a week of snot, muted hearing (some on the left, a ton on the right), and what not, I found out that I have an ear infection! Yay!

Anyways, I've got and antibiotic script and a few free samples of stuff that should bring down tissue swelling in my head...Oh and my blood pressure was high. I don't know if it was because I was having a higher then normal stress day, or that I had a few more doses of caffeine then I normally do...but it was at an unacceptable level.

Got paged at 7:45 this morning. The PDF converter that we are currently using was having some issues and locked up the coldfusion service...(hoooray). I was also having trouble connecting to the ssl/VPN at work with my macbook, so I then had to quick get dressed and drive into work. (although I did email the co-worker responsible for that so we can maybe look into it on Monday).

I got my new laptop on this past Monday...now one would think that this is a good thing...but no...it's not. I don't know how they installed stuff on there, but nothing is working like it should. Double clicking on a document somewhere (like on my desktop or in an explorer window) will cause the directory open to hang and then takes somewhere between 1 to 2 minutes to open...considering this is a brand new, Lenovo T60, it should be a bit faster then that. Or if Brandon sends me a link to look at a site or something, it'll take about the same amount of time to open that in IE or FF (it seems to choose at random). Also It's wireless doesn't work worth a crap. IBM's or Lenovo's wireless utility sucks balls and I have to hand enter anything and half the time it resets what I put it and changes them back to WEP instead of WPA. And even after changing my wireless WPA key to something simpler then what I normally do. The only time it would connect was when I had encryption turned totally off, which is not acceptable. It is having problems with settings. I tried to change the default settings for what IE will open when you want to edit/view a webpage...every time I would save, the program would lock up (I even let it try over night). They nuked my profile and that was better, but it still didn't fix the other stuff. Now my debate is, do I wipe the computer and start fresh myself, or do I make them do it (they said they'd get me a new computer, when in all seriousness it's the image that they installed on there)?

Ever since we moved the wireless from the family room downstairs to the laundry room (better wire to the cable), we've had intermittent wireless problems. Sometimes things work great, but most of the time, it'll connect...and then drop, then reconnect then drop, when sitting upstairs. I think that apple's wireless strength meter is total crap. It used to work great with A and not so much with G and now it's working decent with G and not so much with A.

And we're at an odd place to buy new wireless equipment. I've seen a thing online to replace the wireless adapter on the macbook with one compatible with N, but N is still draft and even if it supports G do I really want to get N if I can't use it to it's fullest extent? I've also been thinking about Apple's Airport Extreme router (supports draft N), but can I be sure that I can have one and have it work in the house, or will I need a second access point to get it to the point where I have strong wireless signal all over the house. Does Apple's thing support that or do I need to go with another wireless brand, so I can get the repeater...or do I even want to go there first and maybe I should just investigate a wireless repeater/access point...grrr...

anyways I gotta go get ready to get my tux fitted.

My Sweetie's Birthday

Being that it's kinda hard to cook a whole bunch on a week night, we celebrated Shannon's birthday yesterday. After running a few errands I started making the chocolate torte (la bête noire). It was actually surprisingly easy, with only a few ingredients. This was the first time I've ever cooked anything in a water bath.

After it was done and in the fridge, I started making the lobster alfredo. Going with the white and red theme, I also made white shopeg corn with red peppers and garlic. I also used white pepper in the alfredo, so it didn't have any black flecks in it.

Everything turned out great. The pasta sauce was good (a little bit of nutmeg helped out a bit) and the torte was just divine.

We kinda lounged around and just had a lazy Sunday.

I took a large part of the torte to work and it went over very well there.

For her actually birthday, we walked through the wonderful weather and had dinner at Chef's Kitchen. Mmmm...comfort food.

Happy Birthday, baby. I love you.

Chris and Holly get married

So Shannon and I headed down to Cumming to go to a retired church that was converted into a wedding Chapel. We left a bit later then we meant to and looked around the small streets for parking. I let Shannon out, so she didn't have to walk through the car and then parked and got out to myself. The church was old, and needs some repair to get back to a more pristine level. Still beautiful, just a few rough edges.

Most of the Cribbers were near the back we got pushed off near the middle and the side (away from the center). The chapel had wonderful old fixtures and some new ones (not so wonderful, more practical). It had some beautiful stained glass and an ornately carved alter. I can see why they picked it.

The ceremony was very heartfelt. You could tell that the pastor (a long time family friend of the Bidney's) had deep feelings for the entire family. The ceremony was very beautiful. Holly was gorgeous in her dress and Chris was very handsome and the bridesmaids and groomsman (including Dave and Tinker) were very nice looking. There was no receiving line, which made me wonder why the line took so long to get out of the church. I did see Dusty, and strangely enough, he was wearing a tie.

After a bit, we headed towards the reception at the Hyperion Field Club. Now I've been to a few country clubs in my life, but I've never really seen the point in belonging to one....and I really still done. I guess I've had experiences with three. Cedar Rapids country club (my sister worked there for a short while), one in Chicago (a friend of mine worked there) and this one. I guess if I golfed it would make more sense...but I don't know...*shrug*

Anyways, the building is nice and where we sat had a superb view of town. Initially over a golf course and at night, seeing most of the lights of downtown. Quite fantastic actually. The cake (done by The Bake Shop, where we had our cake done) looked very good (and ended up tasting fantastic...I only got to try the lemon cake though).

We ended up sitting way in the back (the close tables looked like they were taken) and couldn't really see much of anything over the people. The wedding party did, however, make their entrance near our table.

Shortly afterwards they started feeding us. The salad was pretty good, a nice mix of greens and I had it with the balsamic vinaigrette, which was good. The main course was a chicken breast stuffed with mushrooms, cream cheese, spinach and asiago cheese with a twice baked potato and green beans with bacon and onions. The twice baked potato was good and the green beans were also nice. The chicken was good, after you got through the tough top. It was like it was heated from the top for too long, or sat in a dish or under a heat lamp for just too long. After the upper layer, the quality greatly improved.

See, that wasn't so bad of a critique...

Seth and Brianna showed up (yay!) So we had lots of interesting conversations.

Chris and Holly both had video programs that showed them growing up, which were fun to watch and they also had special music for the dances with their parents. They put in there what they admired most about the parent. It was pretty cool.

We did the dollar dance (both said they were tired). We also took pictures of Pat dancing with Chris too...it was funny...I was curious as to what Chris's dad said to them.

After a bit, we called it a night and headed home, only to be joined up by Seth, Briana, Dusty, Drew, and Ryan. We chatted, caught up and what not and had a good time.

Beautiful Bride, Handsome Groom, Beautiful wedding.

Busy Morning...

First up was Kitchen Collage. Picked up a new spice grinder, with white accents for the white pepper and another whisk. They didn't have the pan I wanted (they had an all-clad one but it was twice as expensive as the one from Calphalon).

Then I wondered down to the Village Bean and got myself a nice coffee (very good).

I headed up to Gong Fu Tea and picked up a few ounces of tea. I got a couple of herbal teas and a couple more greens and another tea thing (one for home) and a few filters. I had "donated" all my old tea bag based tea to work (more like I took it and left it at work).

Then it was across town to Bed Bath and Beyond, to pick up the baking pan (same one we bought for Alissa when she got married) (the torte that I'm making wants to be cooked in a water bath).

Then Barnes and Noble to pick up a couple of cookbooks (Bon Appetite's, Best New Recipie and an Irish one).

Then Best Buy to buy head phones (I took the ones at home to work since the ones at work were giving out).

Then to the Waterfront for some lobster (chaching!).

Then Hy-vee for some groceries and then finally HOME!

Now...time to get ready for the wedding!