New Job, New Place, New addition on the way
I've announced elsewhere, but I'd like to officially announce on my blog that Amme and I have a baby on the way! Can you believe it? It still blows my mind. Amme looks great (so adorable) and is over her nausea, which only bad for a couple of weeks (which was fortunate). We don't know if it will be a boy or a girl yet, but he/she will be born around February 9th. We still have so much to do, but there is so much else going on right now that we haven't had any time to prepare.
I just started a new job for the State of Maine Office of Information Technology (OIT). I'm working out of Augusta, which is a decent commute for me, but even after gas I'm making much better money, and the experience so far has been great. I'm just finishing my second week here. The people are really great and there's no shortage of things to do. I'm working out of a huge office building (1.3 miles circumference), and the state has numerous departments located here. Every day I'm learning how to find my way to a new office and meeting new people there.
As the title suggests, we also have just moved--I told you we were busy! When it rains, it pours, and our lease was up so even though we had lots of other things going on we had to decide whether to stay another year or find a better place. Our old apartment was great but there were lots of little things that were wearing on us, things that can't really be fixed by maintenance, so we decided to look for greener pastures. We checked out many places but finally found a place, and a landlord, that seem to be a perfect fit. We're about 15 minutes from our old place, and have most amenities within walking/bicycling distance. There is slightly more square footage and it's much better distributed. Also, the windows are huge! There is light flooding every part of the house (I love that). If you want our new address just drop me an email.
The cats adjusted quite well, except theres one closet that causes Riley to start whining pitifully whenever he goes in to explore it. I'm not sure if the things in there smell like the old place and confuse him, or if he's sensing a poltergeist-like portal to another dimension just behind the shoe rack. Bruski, as always, took the move in stride and didn't seem to mind in the least.
That's about all the news we have for now, so digest, digest!
USA Beats Algeria 1-0 in the Stoppage Time
Today USA had a match with Algeria that would determine whether they stayed in the FIFA World Cup or not. I'm not usually a big sports person, but I played soccer for a good part of my childhood and it's probably my favorite team sport, shortly followed by curling (don't judge... either know curling is awesome, or else you've never watched a full match). The reason I'm blogging about this match is that it was one of the most immensely frustrating yet ultimately rewarding matches I've seen in a long time. I'll spare you the play by play, and cut to the meat of it.
Twenty minutes into the first half, USA player Clint Dempsey scored a goal that was nullified because the refs called him for being offside, however instant replay shows it was valid. Over the next 70 minutes, neither side scored a goal, although there were some close calls and the tension was incredible. After the 90 minutes of the match were up, play was extended for stoppage time (time lost during substitutions, injuries, etc). One minute into stoppage time, Landon Donovan took a shot, was blocked, and on the rebound slammed it into the net. The stadium went apeshit, and the game was over. After being robbed a goal, and for the rest of the match feeling like all hope was lost, that one point felt like breathing for the first time.
Go Team USA.
Fireflies
The fireflies impacting my windshield are tragically beautiful. Their last earthly moments given to showing me how magical they had been before I snuffed that beauty out.
Repositioning of High-frequency RF Cooking Appliances
Okay, I can't get this out of my head. According to WNYC Radiolab (the best podcast in the universe--Listen to Lucy and tell me I'm wrong), the thing to do is make you suffer too:
Yeah… I’ve changed my theme, again.
Big-whoop-wanna-fight-about-it?
I know it's not as fancy as the old one, but I think it's a much nicer reading/viewing experience (less clutter and fluff, more information density). Lemme know what you think.
FYI: I still need to reimplement mouse gestures. I'll let you know when they're back.
PAX East 2010

Wow, I'm sure I cannot do PAX East justice. This was the first PAX East (as opposed to the original PAX from Seattle, now called PAX Prime) and it was pretty much the greatest thing in the history of gaming and conventions and geekery (and fun).
Since I can barely remember the whole blur of a weekend, I'll rely on photographs to tell most of the story, with some highlights thrown in along the way. If you're on a mobile device, take heed; this will be bandwidth intensive.
Del.icio.us links (February 20th to March 9th, 2009)
- Windows 7: Copy A Modified User Profile Over The Default Profile - I customized an account only to have a new one created when I joined our company's domain. This helped me copy the settings over.
- How I Was Able to Ace Exams Without Studying | Zen Habits
- BBC News - The Boneyard: World's 'biggest' plane cemetery up close -What I wouldn't give to go here!
- Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and hundreds more
- 5min - Find the best how to, instructional and DIY videos – Life Videopedia
- Zeer | Find ingredients, nutrition info and gluten free foods
- www.benjoffe.com | Texas Hold'em Experiment
Baking Soda Shampoo

I started using Baking Soda shampoo late last year and it's been going fantastic, so I thought I'd share my experiences.
I'm not exactly sure why I first decided to look up baking soda shampoo, but I think it had to do with the fact that my head gets so oily. I shave my head down to about a half centimeter and I hate exposing my scalp to soaps/shampoos filled with chemicals. I know there are great natural hand-made soaps (Amme uses local handmade soap) but I remembered reading somewhere that you could make your own baking soda shampoo and liked the idea. A quick search online revealed two things: 1. My mind wasn't playing tricks on me, lots of people make and use it. And 2. It's dead simple to make!
Del.icio.us links (October 30th to February 11th)
- Steak: How to Turn Cheap “Choice” Steak into Gucci “Prime” Steak — Recipes Steamy Kitchen
- Unhappy Hipsters
- Amazon.com: The Wine Trials: 100 Everyday Wines Under $15 that Beat $50 to $150 Wines in Brown-Bag Blind Tastings (9780974014357): Robin Goldstein, Alexis Herschkowitsch: Books
- The Passive Splice Network Tap - Home of Janitha Karunaratne
- The Best Grey Paint Colors | Apartment Therapy Los Angeles
- Ghostery - See here for why this is important
- SecurityFocus
- Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted
- How to Make a US County Thematic Map Using Free Tools | FlowingData
- jessenoller.com - SSH Programming with Paramiko | Completely Different
- How Not To Sort By Average Rating
- The SF Site: SF Masterworks Reviews Archive
- Cap'n Crunch French Toast - 311788 - Recipezaar
- Download details: User Profile Hive Cleanup Service
Blotner L-85 IFC
I've added a bunch of UrbEx photos to flickr for the Blotner IFC, FJETC, Runway POL Garage, and the Dow WSA.
Radio In My Head
Do you have a radio station in your head? I do. Every once in a while I notice I have a song stuck in my head that I definitely haven't heard for a while. One of the most frequent times this happens to me is in the morning. Almost every morning as I start my morning routine I realize I'm humming or singing some random song. Sometimes they're songs I really like and have listened to recently, but other times they are songs I hate or am indifferent to, and haven't heard for years.
At any rate, this is the playlist my brain has created in the past two days:
- Bonnie Raitt - Something to Talk About
- Bob Marley - I Shot the Sheriff
- Fleetwood Mac - Landslide
- Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer
- Metro Station - Disco
So, what random songs have you had in your head lately? Don't be embarrassed... hell, Landslide is up there.
Del.icio.us links (September 12th to October 4th, 2009)
- YouTube - Legit - How to make a bike polo mallet - legit style - Who's down for some bike polo?
- Steve Albers' Planetary Maps (Global Images) - A very good resource for planetary maps.
- Carry any Bottle with a JUG KNOT Handle - A good knot to know.
- The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks - Hilarious unintentional sarcasm.
- Bicycle Safety: How to Not Get Hit by Cars - All cyclists should read this.
- 63xc.com--How To | FG 101 - Into to riding a fixie (fixed gear bicycle).
- Single-Loop Knots
- Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Glossary-A - The bicycle repair god. R.I.P. Sheldon.
- Fixed Gear Gallery - Fixie pron
- 16 Common Items to Get Rid of Ants | Household Item Uses | Reader's Digest













































