The Empty Soda Can

Well, long-time readers, it’s finally happened: I got a new computer! After years of agonizing over which would be best while waiting for it to finally become necessary, I settled on a solution: get a cheap Mac mini to use as a server, plus a MacBook Pro to use as my main machine. Along with the MacBook Pro, I plan to get two 27″  Thunderbolt Displays . Those grandiose plans aside, though, we’ve only received a small portion of our tax refund due to some government red tape. My new client, however, has specific needs that require me to have something newer than my 8½-year-old Power Macintosh G5. As such, I took the plunge: I picked up a cheap Mac mini—as planned—and a single Thunderbolt Display. (It’s actually pretty neat, going from a 20″ and 17″ to a single 27″ display, but to be honest, the biggest difference is Mac OS X v.10.7 Lion and the things it does differently. Not badly, just differently. I’ll adjust.) :-) Of course, amidst all this, I had to retire my old d...

I’m in a world of hurt right now. There’s a person in my life who I work with on a regular basis who obviously doesn’t even begin to appreciate what I do. It doesn’t matter how hard I try; it seems that nothing I do can ever live up to this person’s expectations. This person is constantly deriding me, telling me that I’m slow, that I’m lazy, etc.; my accuser, on the other hand, is hard-working and consequently spends most of the time cleaning up messes caused by other, ostensibly lesser people (myself apparently foremost among them). I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to cut this person off because I really do benefit from our relationship, and I even enjoy it, when I’m not being lambasted. Furthermore, doing so would be extremely detrimental to both my personal and professional life. And yet, whenever I confront this person with my feelings, I’m made to feel even worse. There’s never any acknowledgment of the very deep hurt I’m feeling, just reassurance—generally in the form o...

So I’m going through some old photos that my dad scanned in and I come across some shots from my maternal grandparents’ Hawai’ian vacation, circa 1968. As I stepped through, I found a picture with a rather… um… interesting guy in the foreground: And I’m like, seriously? Seriously? I guess it could be like Grecian Nº 40 or something, but either way, he’s like 150 years old! Who does he think he’s kidding? Seeing this, I don’t know whether to be glad or disappointed that the ’60s are over. What do you think?

I just received an email from my mother with the subject line “Fwd: World’s worth ethnic joke pun.” Apparently they’re hoping to mock people with a lithp as well. Anyway, it bears repeating: An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Frenchman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, several Americans (including a southerner, a New Englander, and a Californian), an Argentinean, a Dane, an Australian, a Slovakian, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, an Uzbek, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a N...

First of all, if you haven’t read the Introduction to this post, please do so. It’s not absolutely necessary, but it will help you better understand our search for the perfect printer. :-) After years and years of purchasing printer after printer—some good, some bad, some so horrible you’d prefer a poke in the eye with a sharp stick—we were finally happy with our Brother HL-4070CDW for printing, Epson CX5200 for flatbed scanning, and HP OfficeJet 4315 for sheet-feed scanning. We also had our worse-than-a-sharp-stick Samsung SPP-2020 for photos, but since that only worked once before being in the shop for three years and then coming back still broken , we hardly even counted that. But the one thing we still required was a functional CD printer. I hopped online and, lo and behold, Staples just happened to be running an awesome sale on the Epson Artisan 835. But did I want to risk another Epson all-in-one? Sure, my CX5200 was great, but it wasn’t a CD printer. The only CD-printing al...

When Anna and I first got married, we bought an HP printer. I don’t remember what model it was; I just remember that at the time, I wanted a nice printer that could handle 11″×17″. It cost us over $500, but we were happy—right up until we tried to print something. It was horrible . In the three months we owned it, we had no less than thirty different errors. It probably worked, about 2% of the time—no exaggeration. I remember one day, I needed to print a two-page, black-and-white text document, before I left for work. I was late, because I only gave myself 20 minutes and the printer took 32 minutes to complete it. We finally got HP to take it back, but they docked us $50 for the ink we used.  I decided it was time to find another manufacturer. Shortly after the HP debacle, we got an Epson Stylus Photo EX. It was awesome , but when we got a new computer, a few years later, its standard 8-pin serial connection was no longer standard. We upgraded to another Epson, a Stylus CX5200 al...

I’m going to make a confession: there are a lot of things I don’t like about our house. I mean, don’t get me wrong; it’s nice enough. I’m guessing most of my friends wonder why on Earth I wouldn’t like it. The picture at right is from before we bought it, so the weeds and mess are long since gone. It’s also still only five years old, so it’s not falling apart and is fairly modern. It’s also big—3,500 ft² big. It’s got enough room for our family and then some, which is one of the main reasons we bought it: so we could grow into it. It’s got a nice office for me to work from home, and we’ve added all sorts of wiring so that the house can handle my *ahem* enhanced technology needs. We’ve also upgraded the HVAC (as many readers already know), which makes it very comfortable. As for the location… wow. Just… wow. It’s two minutes from the kids’ elementary school, two minutes from the new Church building, three minutes from Walmart, four minutes from our bank and a gas station and resta...

Many of you probably figured I was talking about our taxes, and that would be a logical assumption. However, the fact of the matter is that, being self-employed, our taxes are far from trivial and I haven’t completed them yet. Oh well. We’re getting a refund, anyway: $1,500 in overpaid gas bills. When I posted this to Facebook, a friend responded by asking, “Wow, how does that happen?” It’s a great question, but the answer is sort of complex. As such, I’ve chosen to post it here. We bought our current home in July, 2007. One of the smartest things I did was to offer the sellers $5,000 more than asking price, so we could get cash back at closing and do some upgrades to the house. The most significant of these happened, a few days before we moved in: I hired the company that did the original HVAC system to come in and zone that system. By the time we moved in, there was one zone for the entire downstairs, one that covers most of the upstairs, and a third for my home office (which st...

Hayley Westenra • Never Saw Blue (Full Length Drums Mix) (✭✭✭✭✭) Sigur Rós • Gobbledigook (✭✭✭✭) The Locust • I Become Overwhelmed (✭✭✭) ABBA • Voulez Vous (✭✭✭½) Hayley Anderson • Every Corner of My Heart (✭✭✭✭) Mephisto Odyssey • Bump (Hot Pink Delorean Remix) (✭✭✭✭) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Once There Was a Snowman Heart • Who Will You Run To? (✭✭✭✭) Heart • Magic Man (✭✭✭✭) Heather Sullivan • Twisted (✭✭✭✭✭) We the Kings • Check Yes Juliet (✭✭✭✭✭) Holly Conlan • You Are Goodbye (✭✭✭½) Freddie Jackson • You Are My Lady (✭✭✭) Micky Dolenz • St. Judy’s Comet (✭✭✭✭) Micky Dolenz • The Moonbeam Song (✭✭✭✭) Les Rossignols de Poznan • Alleluia, Ave Maria Black Rebel Motorcycle Club • Dirty Old Town (✭✭✭) James Kibbie • BWV673 Christe, aller Welt Trost James Vargas • Sitting Pretty (✭✭✭✭✭) Tulsa • Rafter (✭✭✭✭) Pink Skull • Oh, Monorail (✭✭✭✭) Dr. Dog • The Old Days (✭✭✭½) U-Nam • Street Life (✭✭✭✭✭) Jazzmasters • Free as the Wind (✭✭✭✭) Tim Bowman • High Def (✭✭✭✭...

Steve Miller Band • Abracadabra (✭✭✭✭½) The Mills • Abran fuego (✭✭✭✭½) Steamroller • Absence (✭✭✭✭½) Jewel • Absence of Fear (✭✭✭✭½) They Might Be Giants • Absolutely Bill’s Mood (✭✭✭✭) Kelis • Acapella (✭✭✭) Counting Crows • Accidentally in Love (✭✭✭✭✭) Ex-Voto • Accidents Never Happen (✭✭✭½) Power Music • According to You (✭✭✭✭) Lita Ford • Aces & Eights (✭✭✭) Crash Test Dummies • Aching to Sneeze (✭✭✭½) Mark Morgan • Acolytes of the New God (✭✭✭✭) Sigur Rós • Gobbledigook (✭✭✭✭) The Locust • I Become Overwhelmed (✭✭✭) Chicago • I Believe (✭✭✭✭) Cloning Einstein • I Believe (✭✭✭✭✭) Micah Stampley • I Believe (✭✭) Tears For Fears • I Believe (✭✭✭) The Studio Sound Ensemble • I Believe I Can Fly (✭✭) The Darkness • I Believe in a Thing Called Love (✭✭✭✭½) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • I Believe in Being Honest The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • I Believe in Being Honest (Instrumental) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • I Believe in...

Paula Abdul • Coldhearted (Quivering 12″) (✭✭✭½) Love Derwinger and Roland Pöntinen • Concerto in A♭ Major for Two Pianos and Orchestra: III. Allegro vivace Lenny Kravitz • My Love (✭✭✭½) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • The Tenth Article of Faith Pepe Ahlqvist & The Rolling Tumbleweed • Big Pig Beta (✭✭✭✭) Narvalo • Aven Aven (✭✭✭✭) Blind Pilot • Go On, Say It (✭✭✭½) Blind Pilot • Go On, Say It (✭✭✭½) Blink 182 • All the Small Things (✭✭✭✭) Cathy Dennis • Falling Aretha Franklin • Angels We Have Heard on High (✭✭✭✭) Fresh Body Shop • Can't Get Enough (✭✭✭✭) Bryan Adams • Cuts Like a Knife Mainz Chamber Orchestra • Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K. 201: II. Andante Boom Crash Opera • Forever Ron Davis Trio • Popeye (✭✭✭✭✭) The B-52’s • Roam (Extended Remix) (✭✭✭✭) Winger • Baptized by Fire (✭✭✭) Frida Hyvonen • Enemy Within (✭✭✭✭✭) Throw Me the Statue • Lolita (✭✭✭½) The War on Drugs • Taking the Farm (✭✭✭) Sen Dog • Fumble (✭✭) Near the Parenthesis • Not Here, No...

It’s been noted by many authors that a surprising number of Latter-day Saints don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions. It’s not that we think ourselves above improvement; in fact, quite the opposite: we’re so constantly trying to improve ourselves, attempting to become more like our Savior, that making a New Year’s resolution is actually kind of redundant. So with that in mind, yesterday I came up with a New Year’s resolution that is completely unrelated to bettering myself per se , yet something that I can actually work towards with some semblance of completion. So, on to the task: in my iTunes library, I have a smart playlist with every track that iTunes has no record of me listening to. Obviously, I’ve actually listened to a lot of them: many are ripped from CDs that had been played at least once, often more than once, before I added them to iTunes. However, having never listened to them in iTunes, they have no play count, no volume adjustment, no equalizer preset, no ✭ rating, ...

A few weeks ago, my parents came for a visit. As it happened, just before leaving, my father accidentally deleted five songs he had recently downloaded from iTunes, and contacted technical support to see if he could download them again. Now, in my experience, this is a fairly simple endeavor. Long-time readers may even remember that I blogged about it, a while back, when a few of my own tracks went missing. Unfortunately, my father, who has probably the worst luck on the planet, was not so lucky. By the time my parents arrived at their hotel, en route to our house, a support tech had contacted him and re-enabled every track he’d ever purchased from iTunes . Let me re-emphasize this: he needed five tracks replaced, and they supplied his account with something to the effect of 981 tracks, 976 of which were already on his hard drive. What’s more, they were queued up in chronological order, so he had to download all 981, to get to the last five. In a hotel room. Over hotel WiFi. He le...