Someplace new to rest

A few months ago I lamented about the condition of my primary living room seat. Nearly 20 years old, the couch has outlived its usage, passed down from my parents to me. In one week the couch will officially be retired.

Thanks to Uncle Sam and his stimulus package, I ordered a new couch today. It’s scheduled to arrive next Wednesday and should be in place by that afternoon. I’m looking forward to having a comfortable place to sit down, lay down and enjoy living room. I’ll post pictures of the new couch once it’s in place.

Nothing to report

Over the last few weeks I’ve been leading a busy life, things at work have really taken over. We’re down in our staff at the moment which isn’t really adding extra work, but is changing some of the focus on things. In the end we’re all getting through it.

Tomorrow I’m headed to the cities with my Dad to see the Rolling Stone’s movie on a massive Imax screen. We saw the preview during U23D and both realized it was a must see. While not in the third dimension like U2, the concert film looks like it will prove entertaining based on what I’ve seen.

HD DVD may have lost the war but it doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying it while I can. Originally I only had 4 discs but I’ve more than doubled that collection, adding titles like “300,” “Transformers” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” I’m thinking about picking up “Planet Earth” and a couple other movies. I can hold off on Blu-Ray for a little while at least.

The Office is back, just finished watching the second new episode since it returned. I’m enjoying the direction it’s going. I feel a surprise coming, we’ll see what happens.

Boys and their toys

I always loved Hot Wheels and Matchbox Cars growing up. The small cars were fun to zip across the floor or ride over the sofa. I never lost that interest in the little vehicles, picking up a few over the years but never really jumping into the collecting realm.

My friend Alex started collecting the cars, encouraging me to follow suit – knowing my interest in the diecast marvels. At $0.97 a pop at Walmart it was finally a collectable that I could sink my teeth into without sinking my bank account.

Currently I have about 15 cars (including two mystery cars – you don’t know what you’re going to get). I’m going to try to chronicle my collection here in the gallery.

A new outlook

There have been a few things I’ve wanted to do more of lately. From listening to more music and watching less TV to snapping more photos for myself, I think I’m finally starting to get motivated to take those actions.

I’ve talked about wanting a new camera as my current digital camera is a few years old now. Months ago I talked about a handful of cameras I would like to get my hands on. As that is not in the budget for the time being, I think I’m going to utilize what I have more frequently. That means taking it with me wherever I go.

Once I get to that point, I’ll be sharing more photos – including the development of a new gallery (if I can get some plugins to work right on WordPress). As for the music, I’m listening to my iPod on shuffle at the moment through my surround sound. Does that count?

Reunion tour 2008

This has been a rough couple weeks around here as some of you might know. I haven’t had much time to focus on writing frivolous diatribes about technology and the latest movie I watched. Instead I’ve been relaxing by finishing off Halo 3 in a little over 2 days and making my way through Perfect Dark Zero. Video games, for the win!

I’m hoping to get some photos up soon, I have a few things up my sleeves that I think people will get a kick out of.

So I just found out my 10th High School Reunion will take place this July. Crazy talk I know, but its been a decade since I wondered the halls of almost higher education. Soon enough I’ll be hitting the 10th college reunion – that’s when the head spins.

Since we last chatted I grew up a year. Yup, the birthday has come and gone and I’m that much closer to 30. As a kid that number always seemed big, but upon closer inspection, my eyes tell me it’s pretty small. Well, actually my eyes tell me it’s blurry but that’s what happens when you get old – right?

Rough week, cough cough

This last week has bee a pretty rough one. On Tuesday night I started getting what became my first major migraine of the year. Of course it won’t be my last, but it’s never fun to deal with.

While I normally make an effort to go into the office and work through it, this one laid me out. Compounded on top of it I caught some sort of a cold. Wednesday was spent for the most part in bed. I made a point to go back into work on Thursday despite the progression of the cold. Of course once I got home from work I quickly made it back to bed.

I’ve discovered the audio commentary from “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” make for good background noise while sleeping. For the most part the rest of my down time this past week was spent sleeping.

Today I’m feeling about 90 percent better. I’m still dealing with some congestion and a mild cough, but I’m up and about. I was even so bold as to install my new TiVo Duel Tuner – replacing the single tuner in the living room. For the time being the old TiVo will live in the bedroom until I decide what to do with it.

See kids, this is why I hate winter.

My eyes, they're going bad

I am realizing it more and more these days but I need to get my eyes checked. It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I last had a good eye check. I can tell just by looking at the world that my vision has changed dramatically. Just reading what I am typing now is steining my eyes.

In the new year and I am resolving to get this done, buying a new pair of glasses and changing the way I look in the process. Gotta love having to wear glasses. And no, I don’t plan on getting contacts, I just can’t imagine having something touching my eyes all the time. Creepy.

Mouse in the house

About a year and a half ago, my then room mate and I discovered we had a mouse scurrying around the apartment. Not wanting to have rodents running a muck in the place, we quickly purchased some traps with the hope of catching it and setting it free.

Of course, the mouse never took the bait and seemed to have moved onto a new home. We didn’t see it after a few days of running around. Of course I discovered some boxes chewed in and such, but nothing too damaging, just annoying.

This morning I was sitting on the couch, catching up on some new “South Park” on TiVo when I saw something run behind my entertainment center. Registering it as a mouse, I quickly sprung to action, closing doors and picking stuff up – hoping to avoid dealing with it as much as possible – after all, I needed to head into work.

After a few moments I discovered it ran across the room and into the dining room, near the trash can. I grabbed a trap and put in some bait, trying to catch it and get it over with quickly. Finding it behind the trash can, I put the trap near by and nudged the can.

Unfortunately for the mouse, I didn’t realize how much I nudged the can. The small guy was killed.

I’m not someone who enjoys killing animals, I don’t find enjoyment out of the prospect of hunting and such, so I was pretty upset at myself for killing the little thing. I disposed of it outside and moved on with my day.

At any rate, that’s an interesting way to start your morning.

Run Harry, run!

I spent the better part of today laid out in bed, coughing, sniffling and dealing with what seems to be a minor touch of the flu. As a result I’m not very tired at the moment – but I am feeling better, so there is a trade off.

There have been a few updates in my life over the last few days, I’m saving some of it for a full post in the future, but I can say that I finally finished the first Harry Potter book. It was a read that I picked up over a year ago, but often put it down after only a few chapters. I finally sat down and finished it last week.

I have seen most of the movies of course, but I wanted to read the books as well. In my possession is the first two and sixth book – with plans of picking up the remaining titles.

I really enjoyed the first book, it played out at a brisk pace, giving the reader a good introduction to the world. Having seen the movie, and the next three, I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen, which in some ways was a set back, but also gave me a chance to learn more about the world of witches and wizards (and muggles of course).

The first film followed the book quiet closely, with only a few items changed that I could recognize, so really the need to read wasn’t as strong. I understand further films drift slightly away from the text iterations.

I’m working on a Dan Brown book at the moment, after that I hope to jump into the second Harry Potter book and finish it a lot quicker than a year. I’ve always got a few books going at once, so now we’ll see what else I can read along with Mr. Brown’s fine work.

Starbucks, finally

It had been five days since I had my last decent cup of coffee before we left. For the last few days it has been one awful excuse for java after another. We heard there was a Starbucks in Target here in Dothan, Alabama – the only place you can actually get “real” coffee.

After visiting my grandpa Bob in the Hospital for the last time tonight, we decided to venture off the circle and find the Starbucks. Some 20 minutes later I finished off my large cup of joe and it tasted good.

I should be heading back to Marshall sometime Monday afternoon, I’ll be heading to Atalanta tomorrow for an early Monday morning flight.