The New Home Office

When Robyn and I were married, I told her that in my line of work I was likely going to need to purchase a new computer every 2-3 years.  My laptop is several years old, so we've been talking for several months about the possibility of me getting a new desktop.

I love my laptop because it's portable, but I really wanted a dual monitor setup.  I also wanted to have a Windows 8 machine because I'm interested in doing some Windows 8 development.

After talking about it for several months, we finally pulled the trigger.  Behold my sweet new setup!

I had an old monitor from a desktop that died a few years ago.  I also had a set of speakers.  I bought a new touchscreen monitor to be the main monitor and used the old ghetto one for the second screen.

I'm totally loving it!  Windows 8 definitely takes some getting used to, but I actually really like the live tiles.  I have it setup to have the weather on my main screen, both locally as well as a few different cities (Clovis, CA where Robyn's parents live, and Minot, ND which is the coldest place I've ever lived.)  I also have facebook on my live tiles.  It's kind of cool because it shows a small stream of recent updates from my friends.

I also figured out how to make Windows boot into normal desktop mode, so I can feel warm and fuzzy in normal windows unless I choose to move to the tiled mode.

This setup will be much better for when I need to work from home.  The small screen of my laptop is painful when I do work on it.  This setup will probably get me writing more code at home.  And if I'm being honest, I should probably admit that this setup might revive some of my gaming that has been lying dormant for a while.

It's also really crazy to think that this computer was one third of the price of the 486 my dad bought when I was a preteen, and it's about 600 times as powerful.

Technology is cool.

New Backpackers in Town

Robyn and I have always loved nature.  (Though Robyn doesn't always like nature to touch her.)  We've loved nature but we've primarily only experienced nature that could be reached in a car.  The main reason for this was that we were much too fat to carry ourselves very far into the wilderness, not to mention carrying the gear and food we would need to survive.

Our attempts to be more active and healthy have included such things as biking, hiking and even scuba diving.  With our recent trip to Havasupai, we added backpacking to that list.  We had a great experience on that trip and wanted to do much more backpacking.  My BFF Jared W loaned us all the gear we needed so that we could have a great backpacking adventure.  Unfortunately, Jared is like 15 feet tall and I am like a third of that.  That means that a backpack frame that fits Jared fits me terribly.   Clearly we decided we needed to get our own.  (Not to mention that, while Jared is always willing to loan us his stuff, it's much easier to use it more often if we have our own.)

This past weekend, REI was having a Labor Day sale on all sorts of gear.  Clearly that meant we went shopping.  Let me reiterate, I WENT SHOPPING!  You know that if I was willing to go shopping, I must be excited.  We were shopping for approximately 500 years.  We were trying on backpacks and walking around the store.  I've used up my ability to shop for the next century or so, but it was totally worth it.

Look at that cutie with her cute new backpack.

Robyn was very concerned that she wouldn't be able to buy a backpack that was properly cute.  I honestly didn't know that backpacks could be cute.  But she tells me that hers is, so I'm happy for her.

Neither my backpack nor its wearer are anywhere near as cute.  But I'm excited about my purchase as well.

We selected the backpacks we wanted, and then noticed the tents were on sale as well.  We debated that we might be spending too much money, but we figured that we were going to buy a good backpacking tent at some point anyway, so we may as well get it while it's on sale.

When we got home, it became important to setup the tent in our front room.  Robyn assured me that having a tent in the front room was fun.  I wasn't entirely convinced, but despite my skepticism, this cute girl in a tent in the front room did turn out to be pretty fun.

Tents are like blanket forts, with the added benefit that they don't fall apart.

So now that we have all this gear, we need to go on a backpacking trip before it gets too cold to use our gear.  If you have any good suggestions for places to go let us know.

Two Weeks with a GoPro

I have a new toy.  If you haven't figured out that I like gadgets, you probably better just keep that to yourself, because it should be very obvious, and if anyone finds out you'll be really embarrassed.

So now that we're on the same page about my love for gadgets I can tell you about my new toy.

So the deal is, I wanted a camera to take diving with me.  (Since I'm now scuba certified.)  I have a waterproof camera, but it only goes to 30 feet.  Clearly, I'm going to be diving deeper than that.

I did some research and found that there are some really super fancy schmancy dive cameras out there for gobs and gobs of money.  But I also found that I could get a GoPro for $300, and it can go as deep as 100 feet.  So there are nicer cameras that are better for diving, but none of them for as cheap as the GoPro.

So I made the purchase.  But it turns out that the GoPro has lots of super fun features in addition to being able to go deep underwater.  I haven't had a chance to take it diving yet, but I've made sure to try out some of the features.

I tried out the time lapse feature.  I wanted to get a sunset, but there were too many clouds.  It turned out the clouds were pretty cool too.

I bought the chest mount so that I could wear it.  It's an awesome fashion accessory.

Since I've become a biker, I decided to wear it out biking.  However, it turns out that at first I had the mount connected incorrectly so it was kind of pointed downward.  I thought it looked like it was pointed down, but at first  I thought maybe it was supposed to because the wide angle lense would compensate for it.  FYI, if it looks like it's taping your legs, then it is taping your legs.  I got excellent video like this with my first try:

"I hope it's not taking video of the ground.  It kind of seems like it is."

Good news: I tried the bike riding again and was able to wear it correctly.  Most of the video consists of me breathing really hard, but it is fun to look back and see exactly what I saw as a biker.

Of course, another important feature of the GoPro is that it has an iPhone app that allows you to see what the camera is seeing through your phone. This clearly means that my niece and nephew take awkward extreme closeups of noses and tongues.

The remote control app also works really well while wearing it.  I wore the chest mount and had my finger on the button on the phone.  Then I pushed it when Robyn started laughing.  I was able to capture this preciousness.

The moral of the story is, the GoPro is super fantastically cool.  You should get one.  I'll let you know how good it is for diving eventually, but until then I'll be geeking out about all the other features.

Robyn's Sweet New Ride

This past weekend we said goodbye to an old friend.  Robyn's been driving Malora (That's the name she gave her Toyota Corolla) for approximately one million years.  (I may not be the best at estimating time.)

Malora has been burning oil for 6 or 7 months.  A few weeks ago, our mechanic had a heart to heart with us.  He said that the oil burning problem is getting worse and the worse it gets, the more risk there is of destroying the engine.  He said that to fix it would be a couple thousand dollars, and we decided that just wasn't worth it.

So we began shopping.  Robyn really wanted all wheel drive so she can stop being so afraid of snow.  We decided that a Subaru would be the way to go.  Robyn really liked the SUVish look of the Forester, so that was the model we had been looking at the most.

On Saturday we test drove a 2011 Forester with 76,000 miles.  The miles were a little high for its young age but it meant that we got a pretty sweet deal on the car.  So we decided to make it happen.

Saying goodbye to Malora

Hello to the sweet new ride

I was in charge of approving the finances.  I thought it was a great deal.   I was also very pleased with all of the safety features.  That left Robyn the ability to make the emotional decision.  I really wanted her to get something she would be excited to drive.

An added bonus is that it has an after market media system with DVD player, navigation, and bluetooth.  Robyn called me today on her way home from work, and she spoke through the car!  She was very excited.   I told her we need to drive into the mountains and watch a movie, because we can.

Robyn pulling into the garage for the first time.

Now we're totally gonna be outdoorsy.  Next step is to buy some sweet bikes and a bike rack.

Isn't she so cute in her sweet new ride?

Holes in my life

Today's interesting story is actually two interesting stories, but they both took place in the past week and they both involve holes. As such, I felt it was appropriate to bring them together into one post.

The first story is the story of the hole in my wall.

I'm not sure if you can tell the size of the hole in the picture. There is nothing in the picture to really refer to. So I'll just tell you, the hole is about 2 and a half feet wide and about 4 feet tall. It's a pretty good hole. It's also a pretty good story. So the story starts with the smell. I don't want to get into the story of the smell, because there was quite a battle fought to defeat the smell, and that battle was about a week long but it's not that interesting of a story. Let's just say that there were lots of smelly things that were destroyed. The last smelly thing was the refrigerator that had died. I don't know how long it was dead, we weren't really using that fridge anymore but it still had some random food in it that went very very very bad.

Once we discovered that fridge as the source of the smell it had to be vanquished immediately. So, clearly Zack and I decided to vanquish it ourselves. We put it on the dolly, making sure to secure the door closed so that no smell (or goo or other strange entities) could escape. We were using all of our might to get it up the stairs. We were doing well but we decided we needed to rest. We stopped with about 2 more stairs to go up, and just held it in place. I was holding it from below and Zack was holding in from above. Well, somehow it started coming down toward me. Zack apparently lost hold of it and in an effort to save me from certain death he yelled, "Move! Move! Move!" In an effort to save myself from certain death I did such things as move move move. Unfortunately, I didn't move fast enough. My main objective was to stay upright as I'm running backwards down the stairs. I figured if I fell over and the fridge ran over my body and landed on my face then I would be fairly unhappy, and relatively dead. So I accomplished my main objective and did, in fact, stay upright. I couldn't, however, get out of the way in time so the fridge hit me right in my stomach. I was pinned against the wall and was somewhat disheartened by the situation, since I couldn't really breathe. Zack rushed down the stairs and lifted it off me which I appreciated. As soon as the pain of having a fridge crush stopped, I realized that there was also pain in my back side. That's when I examined my location a little bit closer and realized that I was embedded in the wall. Imagine my surprise! I had gone through a wall without even realizing it. So now my wall has a very precious Jeff print in it.

On to the next story. This is the story of why there is a hole in my hand. It's not as interesting, but the picture is cooler. (I put a link to the picture instead of having it be directly in the blog, because it is somewhat gross. Most people won't mind it, but I knew Robyn wouldn't want to see it. So anyone who is not Robyn can follow the link.)

I went to the store because I needed a new and glorious barbecue. (As a side note, it was one of the greatest purchases of my life.) My roommate was helping me take it out of the truck. When he lifted it he didn't support one side very well and it started tipping. My pride and joy was about to fall to the ground and die, I was not going to allow this. I reached up and grabbed it on one of the stainless steel edges. I was able to safely lower it to the ground but not without the stainless steel scraping away the skin of my hand. If any of you ever eat food that was cooked on that barbecue I hope you realize the sacrifice I made.

That's all I have to say about that.