Tony Young's Blog

My Yearly Update

2004-10-07T11:32:00.000-05:00

Alot has happened since the last blog update. I suppose I commented about how long it took for my last post too.

Amy (Christina's coworker) had her baby on Tuesday. Christina went to visit and see the baby yesterday after work. I got home somewhat later to find Gimli had crapped all over his cage and rolled in it. He's been sick. That wasn't a good situation. I just tried to keep him outside until Christina got home and gave him a bath. We just decided to get him a new cage, because we'd been meaning to get him a bigger one. He now has the same cage, but in the Large size. He seems pretty happy with it so far. It's a little heavier duty, with two latches on the door instead of one. Still, with the lessons learned from the last cage, we ziptied this one together right away. No Escaping!

All the pre-election stuff is going on - so that's all most people talk about these days. I'm just hoping America makes the right choice. If they don't, then the future of millions of people are at stake.

We'll definitely be getting our townhome in Eagan. We got an amazing deal, between the free first month and $200 off every month for a year. (No - not -$200 for the first month). They had to change which unit, but it will be exactly the same. We'll be moving at the end of November / Dec 1st.

As far as weather, it's been much more fall-like lately. It got pretty warm the past few days, with highs as high as 80. It still had much lower lows at nights though (in the 40s). A few days last week we had a freeze, and had to turn on the defrost/get out the ice scrapers in the morning. The trees are almost in full color now.

Me Slow Blogger

2004-09-14T10:42:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile. There hasn't been alot going on since the reunion.

The reunion was cool. We met almost every relative on Christina's mom's mom's (grandma) side of the family. There were 10 siblings in their family, and everyone at the reunion was descended from one of them. With 3 generations starting with 10 siblings, it's no wonder there were 2 or 3 hundred people there. Christina met her long lost cousin for the first time.

Since the reunion, we've just been trying to settle down and relax. We're finally at a point where life is a little easier and we have fewer commitments. We're probably going to go camping this coming weekend one last time - to sort of bid summer farewell while we have the chance, and get ready for the 6 long cold months of winter ahead. I guess some people actually go camping in the winter up here. The campgrounds are open year round, but only vault toilets in the winter. That is completely insane. I guess if parkas, igloos, and sled dogs are your thing, then winter camping might work out.

This Weekend

2004-09-01T19:23:00.000-05:00

We're going to Arcadia for a family reunion on Christina's mom's side. That's Saturday. We'll still have a 2 days before we head back to work after that, thanks to Labor Day.

Hurricane Frances looks set to give Florida a one-two hurricane punch this year, after Charley just ravaged it diagonally from one side, Frances looks ready to criss-cross florida the opposite direction. If it deviates even slightly to the north, I sure hope my cousins in Jacksonville evacuate. It could stand to be MUCH worse than Charley for them. It's already at Charley strength and it looks very possible that it could come onshore as a Category 5 storm in a few days.

Blogger Lost my Last Post

2004-08-27T12:20:00.000-05:00

I wrote a big post yesterday about how things are going, etc.. I can't even remember what I wrote. Unfortunately, it's nowhere to be found.

Basically, I had mentioned that the trip with my parents and brother coming up to visit me and my wife was very enjoyable. I think I also said some stuff about how fall is coming fast and alot more leaves have started changing in the past few days.

I also mentioned that we got Burnout II because it was so fun. Christina and I have gotten up to about 15 million in crash mode on the first level. We've also figured out all the drifting and near miss stuff so we can race and unlock things. We don't have the yellow and blue car yet. We're stuck on the roller coaster grand prix at the moment, since you have to get gold on all 5 races and start over if you even mess up one. That's alot worse than our previous difficulty, which was the police chase with the classic car with the tail-fins. That was tough because every time you get a boost it's like the computer cheats and just gets to drive faster than you without boosting. It basically won't let you ahead, you can only rear end once and the car gets to go faster than you no matter what after that. Man, that crash mode is fun. I could play that for hours. I just hope that they have fewer menus to navigate between attempts on Burnout 3.

El Nino

2004-08-18T10:20:00.000-05:00

It must be the cause of the weather this year. Though Christina and I aren't native Minnesotans, we've been here long enough to know what to expect. What we're getting, isn't it. Now the forecast is upper 60s all weekend for the high. I've actually seen a few random trees here and there that have thrown in the towel and started changing colors already! Some have gone completely red. They're still very rare though, but it's just a sign of how different this year really is.

They say to expect El Nino this winter, so maybe that's the cause. The good news is that this is more of a moderating trend rather than a straight drop in temperature. This is good because winter will be 20 degrees warmer rather than 20 degrees cooler like the summer. The only negative that could come from that is alot of extra snow.

The townhome is just about ready for our guests this weekend (if everything works out). I can't really take that much credit though. Christina is the hard worker that perpetually keeps our place from turning into a severe trash pit. I'm just the lazy bum that generates severe trash pits wherever I go.

Back

2004-08-10T07:47:00.000-05:00

We got back to Minnesota yesterday evening. We stopped to see Kris and Christina, Grandma and Charlie, and then spent the night with Aunt Katie and Uncle Joe (Christina's great-aunt and uncle actually). Ed's wedding was really nice and everything went pretty smoothly.

We had to get Gimli from the kennel on the way back in, and get up early this morning. I took Christina to work and will pick her up from the Healtheast pain center. She's having the actual nerve deadening procedure done this afternoon. Hopefully that will last at least 6 months.

It is 55 degrees here this morning! The high is 61, and tonight's low is 48! Beware! The second ice age is coming! Actually - I heard that we'll probably get a mild winter, that whatever is happening, is more of an averaging effect, than just lower temperatures. A cooler summer and a warmer winter than average are expected. Of course, that means we better brace ourselves for a blizzard or two up here this winter.

Back Home Again....

2004-08-05T07:37:00.000-05:00

We are leaving for Indiana tonight. We will drive all night and get there early Friday morning. Grandpa and BJ were agreeable to us arriving pretty early in the morning.

We'll probably take a nap and/or visit, then be off to the rehearsal.

The schedule looks something like this:

Leave 4PM.
Arrive 4AM Friday morning.
Sleep until 8AM. (We may stop at a hotel if we're too tired)

Rehearsal 2:30 PM Friday - Botannical Gardens
Rehearsal Dinner - 5:30 PM Friday - Murder Mystery Dinner Theater

Saturday morning - Visit / Lunch with Grandpa & BJ, and Andy? (if it works out)
Wedding is at 6PM at the Botannical Gardens. We'll probably need to be there hours in advance for pictures and ushering.

Sunday morning / early afternoon - Visit with Kris and Christina on way to Chicago

Sunday evening - Visit / spend night with Christina's Aunt Katie and Uncle Joe

Monday - Drive back

Tuesday - Back to work

Storms & Traffic

2004-08-02T09:52:00.000-05:00

Yet more proof that people can't drive as soon as a drop of water hits the pavement... Some storms rolled through this morning right before I left for work. Traffic was horribly backed up due to accidents. By the time it was said and done, it took me 2 hours to get to work this morning. I left early, but got in at almost 10 AM!!

I saw a Beatles' tribute band called the "Return" on Friday night. Saturday, just stayed in and watched some movies. On Sunday, we got free tickets to the Twins game from some of my wife's coworkers. It was a good game too. It only lasted about 2 hours, but it was very closely matched and had some exciting moments. It was against the Boston Red Sox.

TGIF

2004-07-30T08:43:00.000-05:00

Actually, I'm enjoying work alot lately. My new projects are getting me more into the areas I had sought after upon graduation. That includes embedded microprocessors and firmware. I'm doing alot of low level software right now that will end up helping to run the hardware in our projects. That's not hardware design, but it's exactly the stuff I learned about in school.

Regardless, it is Friday - we're supposed to have good weather, and Christina has a big surprise planned for tonight. I've known about it for weeks. We're going to something (someone is performing) about an hour away or so. I haven't tried to figure it out so it can remain a surprise. Guess I'll find out tonight!

Oops

2004-07-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

This is my first post this week I guess. I forgot about it due to all the crazy goings on. On Monday, Gimli escaped from his cage and completely trashed the house. We still haven't gotten it cleaned up. We don't know if the set in 6" diameter red dye #2 koolaid stains on the light beige master bedroom carpet will ever come out. We're going to try ammonia, a wet towel, and a clothes iron on it. That's the last ditch effort before covering it with a rug and getting totally screwed out of our deposit and then some for the massive recarpeting they'll need to do. The carpet is already bleached a little from the cleaners we've tried. Even if it comes out, there will probably be weird spots.

Tuesday we met with the mortgage broker and found out yesterday that we were approved for the loan up to an amount that could get us either a nice townhome or a small or fixer-upper house. We will meet with the realtor next Tuesday to get started. The key in all this will be if we can get a downpayment somehow. We need 3%.

So, yesterday was my first chance to relax this week - and here we are at Thursday. Nothing much happening today. The weather is nice. It rained and was kinda crappy yesterday.

I'm starting on some new projects at work also - so life is going pretty well in general.

Weather and Stuff

2004-07-23T09:40:00.000-05:00

The weather is really nice today. The high will only be in the low 70s. It's 65 right now.

We're going to go talk to a realtor this weekend. They think we can get financed pretty easily on FHA, but we'd have to come up with 3% down. That could be quite a bit on a 200K home. If it doesn't work out at the end of our lease, maybe we can go month to month. I hope something works out - it would be nice to finally have some space and build some equity.

Much Cooler

2004-07-22T10:22:00.000-05:00

The high was around 100 yesterday. Some strange storms came through. They weren't that severe, but it was sunny while raining and we saw a double rainbow. That was our cold front - it's only 73 this morning.

Temperature

2004-07-21T14:30:00.000-05:00

I thought it was amazing to beat 90 yesterday. Some weather stations in the twin cities are reporting temperatures in the mid 90s today even after our cold front. I saw a high of 96 at one station in particular. I think it's warmer than expected because a freak Severe Thunderstorm watch was put out just to our west, but the probability maps for severe weather haven't even been updated to reflect a potential for storms.

www.spc.noaa.gov

Dedicated Server

2004-07-21T10:40:00.000-05:00

http://www.ev1servers.net/english/index.asp

This isn't that bad of a deal. For $99 per month you get a computer, directly attached to the internet, and maintained by an ISP. You can upload webpages, pictures, or anything you want. You get plenty of space, could operate a commercial service if you want, and would have a large storage area on the internet that could be linked to websites, etc.

You could also create small accounts for strangers to store their webpages and charge them $3 per month to profit off of your server.

Regardless, for that price, if 4 or 5 family members were willing to pitch in, it would only be $20 per month to have a massive amount of storage and an easy way to share large files and digital pictures between family members. That is assuming that you don't find a way to make some of the money back through webhosting other people's pages.

We could even host our blogs on our own server, and have our digital photos posted directly in blog entries.

Anyhow, this is just a thought. I probably wouldn't have the money to consider this for another year or so.

Traffic

2004-07-21T09:49:00.000-05:00

Something should really be done about traffic up here. Almost every exit in Minnesota doubles as an on-ramp. As a result, everyone is trying to get to the opposite lane. It doesn't even take rush hour to bring traffic to a standstill. A small cluster of cars trying to exit and get on at the same time is plenty to screw things up. Of course, if people would be considerate enough to leave a small gap and allow a person or two to go ahead of them, there wouldn't be a problem. People get extremely territorial and selfish out there on the road though. They would rather be allowed to go first or make everyone stop. In turn, these small clusters of cars pace each other, bumper to bumper, and hold everyone up at the end of the merge lane.

Oh well - maybe someday there will be a better solution. There needs to be something to force interleaving of cars while in motion. Before the merging lane there should be a sign "maintain 100 foot spacing" and a law to back it up.

93 degrees

2004-07-20T15:41:00.000-05:00

Today's high looks to be about 93. I guess it is finally summer in Minnesota.

Storms Today?

2004-07-20T09:55:00.000-05:00

It's only 9:58 am. However, it is 88 degrees out with a dewpoint of 75. It was like wading through pea soup on the way into work this morning.

Gas Thief

2004-07-19T12:50:00.000-05:00

I had 3 gallons of gas siphoned out of my car over the weekend. This was out of a full tank. How considerate of them to only take what they need! I hope they used it for something useful (like driving to work) rather than something typical (like driving to the liquor store). Whoever it was, should get rid of their car and take the bus if they’re that hard up.

First Post

2004-07-16T14:36:00.000-05:00

Just getting the blog started. I'll probably delete this entry later.