In the interest of getting some actual (if boring) content on here, I had two recent minor "i am a successful homeowner" victories:

1) Snaked my own sewer pipe. I could tell it was time to clear the roots out of the main sewer line again, so I decided to rent an electric snake and do it myself. The snaking itself was super easy. Actually getting the 100+ lb. snake out of my trunk and into the basement (and back) -- not so much. Mental note: make sure there is another adult available to help next time.

2) Upstairs sink was draining slowly again, so on a semi-desperate whim, I used the toilet plunger on the sink. Holy moley, does that ever work! (Side holey moley: there is some amazingly gross crud hanging out in our sink trap!

Of course, I'm still barely keeping up with mowing and not killing the front landscaping. One minor victory at a time, people!

Happy Spring!



I know most of you reading are familiar with the song (and at least one of you reading can be heard in the video itself!) but I had to post it anyway.

Spent the day volunteering at the Mass. Regional Finals for Destination ImagiNation today. (Each team needs to supply a volunteer, so a friend whose son was participating enlisted me.) I had only been peripherally aware of DI, but man does it seem like a neat program. It's a little hard to describe, but basically it's an extracurricular activity in which teams of kids work for several months to solve elaborate challenges. It's nice to know I had a (very small) hand in helping to foster a new crop of nerdlings (technically, I guess I was mostly dealing with nerdlettes, since I was working with the improv/theater arts challenge and it was almost exclusively girls). As a bonus, all volunteers are strongly encouraged to wear a silly hat. My hat collection is a shadow of its college-days glory, but this did give me a reason to wear the Knitted Froghat (thanks again, rsheslin!) in public for the first time in years.

In other geek news, Dexter is officially a huge TMBG fan. I had to go out and get Here Come the 123s today, because I have been playing the videos online for Dexter and he is now requesting the songs all the time ("Listen to 'number two' in car?"). And a new Terakian dork is born.

HOLY CRAP, is the new TMBG kid's album (Here Come the 123s) ever good!! Even if you don't have kids, I recommend checking out their new video podcast for families. Hosted by knit-puppet versions of the Johns, this weekly vidcast features a song/video from their new CD, along with a song/video from one of their other kids albums. "Nonagon" and "813 Mile Car Trip" are two of my favorites so far.

( Wow, all this music blather ended up being really longwinded, so I put it behind this cut )

Just so everyone does not think it's all Spectacular Failure and Large Stretches Of Never, Ever Posting In My Livejournal, here are some other bits of recent news:

1) Dexter attended his first concert Friday night (Dan Zanes). For those unfamiliar, Dan Zanes specializes in playing family-friendly all-ages music, with a healthy dollop of traditionals and standards. Basically, his concert is a big-ass all-ages sing-along dance party, which makes for a pretty fun vibe. I think Dex was a tad overstimulated, as he spent the first half of the concert in stunned silence, but after he got used to the experience he started having a good time.

2) Um, I guess that's basically it. I'll try to think of more stuff later.

1. Put water on to boil.
2. Turn on the wrong burner.
3. While prepping dinner, place a glass Pyrex casserole dish on the (unbeknownst to you) active burner.
4. Wait 5 minutes.
5. "Enjoy" the fun as said casserole dish literally explodes all over your kitchen.

The only good part is that none of us were directly in the kitchen in the time, which is why this post is not entitled "How To Grievously Injure Yourself And All Your Loved Ones."

In conclusion, harrumph.

Your charming-yet-automated phone call comes too late, for we have already voted for Obama. Not sure if it matters in Massachusetts, but we'll see.

Side note: Is Obama doing any robocalling? If so, do they call it Robamacalling? Because they really should.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years, everyone! I actually have a lot I've been meaning to post (busy couple of months), but never got to it in real-time. Perhaps I will use the holiday lull to indulge in some retro-blogging.

Bought my annual bottle of Old New England Nog last week. Only 9 LJ posts since I last talked about it, which is a pretty sad commentary on my high blogging hopes for 2007. Oh well, maybe next year. In the meantime, I drown my bloggy disappointment in nog. Bloggy nog. Mmmm.

So I've had enough freelance coming in that I finally decided to update my super-old program suite, and bought* CS3 and Quark 7. They just arrived today! Yay! So excited for all my new tricks! Of course, now all I need is for my new computer to get built so that I can actually install them. Boo!
!
*Technically, Liz bought them. Thanks, Student/Faculty Discount! I love you the best!

Title says it all. There are plenty of bitter aspects of fall and incipient winter, but a cozy fire burbling* in the wood stove sure as hell is NOT one of them. Mmmm.

*Those of you who might take issue with this adjective have probably not seen what happens when you close the damper and turn down the airflow on a fire. The flames get decidedly more ... languid.

So, in my recent excursions around the intarweb, I stumbled upon a moneymaking scheme known as the "app-o-rama" which has me somewhat intrigued. If you haven't heard of it, these are basically the steps:

1) Apply for several dozen credit cards all at once, picking ones with good bonuses and cashback, and most importantly including several that have 0% Balance Transfer for 12 mos. (and ideally very little transfer fee).

2) When all the cards come in, take out as much as you can in Balance Transfers from the 0% cards.

3) Take this money and put it in a 5% or 6% savings account for 11 months, then pay the cards back and keep the interest.

Obviously there are a lot more details, and while not illegal, this is certainly not encouraged by the CC companies, so you have to pay close attention to minimum monthly payments and other letter-of-the-law stuff. But if you're willing to put up with all the hassle and CSR-wrangling, and you're willing to have your credit score go down the crapper for a few months (it eventually comes back), you can actually make pretty good money -- $50K at 5.5% is nothing to sneeze at, interest-wise.

But, to me it seems like too much hassle, and I absolutely HATE haggling, which is a lot of what this is (calling the cards and asking for higher limits, to waive the BT fees, etc.). Also, as a stay-at-home dad with a personal income of <10K/yr, I suspect I wouldn't get enough credit to make it worth my while.

If anyone else wants to try it, though, let me know how it goes! There is no shortage of websites to tell you how to do it.

First off, finally changed the template for my page -- nice to see they've implemented Vox-style templates. Most of you probably just read this via your own friendpage, but personally, it's nice to have something with some contrast. My eyes were going out reading this on Liz's Macbook (did I mention Liz got a new Macbook? She's spoiled!), even with Nocturne activated.

So, before I completely forget what happened. Last weekend we took a quick trip to Boston. Perhaps financially ill-advised, as it took our monthly finances from "surprisingly in the black" to "oh shit," but what else is new? Friday morning we headed into Boston to hit the Children's Museum, which was a lot of fun. Had some lunch by the water and then headed over to our friends Jenn & Jim's house in Lexington. That evening was J&J's standing babysitter appointment, so we just added our kid to the pile and then the four of us went out for a fun adult evening. Sushi, drinks, and dessert fondue*. Pretty damn fun! Then to bed.

Saturday morning we hung out a while, received our biennial giant pile of hand-me-downs from J&J for Dexter, and then they all headed off to a SteveSongs concert, while we headed over to the
DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Gardens, which we hadn't visited in a year or so. Very fun, and it just so happened their current indoor exhibit was very cool: Trainscapes, in which they commissioned a dozen artists or so to make landscapes for a model train to drive through. As one could guess, the results ranged from the traditional-looking to the avant-garde. I think this was my favorite:


Then we drove home and had a quiet rest-of-the-weekend.


*no, not all at the same restaurant.

Heard about this on the Kevin Smith SModcast. Lisa & Greg, sounds like you picked a great time to get the hell out of AZ: Lake Havasu teen 6th person this year killed by brain-eating amoeba

So. ( Quite a week. )

This entry is already getting long, so Friday and Saturday come later.

Hello, LJ-world. Sorry I suck at keeping you updated!

Short list of what is going on:

-- Liz is taking two classes this semester and trying not to explode. Hopefully she won't.

-- Latest Braun Exercise Fad: Yogalates classes! They're fun, and the teacher is great. Liz and I are taking the class together on Monday nights (a "fitness date night") and hopefully her presence will inspire me to actually stick with this long enough to see tangible benefits. Plus, yogalates is totally fun to say. yogalates.

-- Dexter goes in tomorrow for ear tube surgery. General anesthesia, which is freaky, but only for five minutes, so that takes away a lot of the freaky factor. But seeing as how he has gone through nine rounds of antibiotics for various ear infections since last November, we are actually looking forward to his new infection-free middle ear lifestyle. Not as fun: getting to the Surgicenter (another fun word, btw) at 6:15am tomorrow morning. Boo!

-- My brother Larry is getting married next year. We have met his fiancee Marissa a few times and she is awesome. Wedding will be in the Torch Lake area of Michigan, so that will be a fun (if random) vacation. I have been asked to be a groomsman, and Dexter has been asked to be ringbearer. Hopefully by next July, he will be old enough to not eat the rings or run out of the church or say "Hail Satan!" or anything (since I don't believe AJV will have any access to Dexter between now and then, the last one at least seems pretty unlikely).

OK, I better go. The Dexter stirs from his unearthly slumber. I will try and post again before, say, May 2008. Bye!

First off: Hi. Sorry I've been gone so long. Goal for 2007 is to up my posting from "rarely" to "infrequently." Baby steps and all that.

On to the main event. I don't know if there's any sort of award for zookeepers, but whoever had the brilliant idea to put squirrel monkeys and capybaras in the same enclosure should get one. Monkeys riding around on capybaras? That, my friends, is capital-A Awesome.

In other news, things go well. Lots of housework. Doing some freelance, which is nice. Dexter grows ever larger. Looking forward to summer and the multiple trips we will inevitably be taking.

This was my impulse liquor-store purchase of the holiday season. Ye Olde Eggnog is made in beautiful Ye Olde Somerville, and it will ye olde fuck you up in proper holiday style.

My favorite bit from the label: "Our laboratory staff developed this traditional NEW ENGLAND EGG NOG after extensive research and experimentation and we unconditionally recommend it to be America’s finest."

Kudos to you, Old New England laboratory staff. Kudos.

Additional Verses Of "The Wheels On The Bus" (And How These Items "Go") When Daddy Sings To Dexter:
Monkeys ("eek eek eek")
Lions ("roar roar roar")
Robots ("beep beep beep")
Lasers ("zap zap zap")
Zombies ("eat your brains")
Draculas ("bla bla bla")
A Bus ("I am recursive")
Godzilla ("reaaaaahhhhh")
Pirates ("arr arr arr")
People ("let us out!")

Verses Which Daddy Is Officially Not Allowed To Add To "Old McDonald's Farm"
Slaves

By and large, bugs and spiders do not bother me. This guy, however -- eesh! Wikipedia helped me to confirm that this is, in fact, a common "house centipede." I found this quote to be especially funny-because-it's-true: "Because they eat household pests, house centipedes are considered among the most beneficial creatures that inhabit human dwellings, but because of their alarming, frightening appearance and painful bite, few homeowners are willing to share a home with them."

Busy week for going out; tonight we went to a concert of the semi-famous Jonathan Coulton at the Montague Bookmill.

First, it was a great opportunity to visit the Bookmill again, which is a fantastic used bookstore right next to a river (it is, in fact, an old mill building) out in the middle of nowhere. And you've got to appreciate any bookstore whose motto is "Books you don't need in a place you can't find."

Second, if you are unfamiliar with Mr. Coulton, please make yourself familiar with him. I've pimped him several times in this journal, so what are you waiting for already? As a bonus, also in attendance was his frequent collaborator, noted author, expert and PC John Hodgman.

Thirdly, we had already been planning to go to the concert (with much anticipation, I might add), when Liz received an email from a friend of ours, Liz C. in New York, telling us that she recently realized that we lived (relatively) near Montague and, as such, should come up on Saturday because her brother-in-law was doing a concert there. Oh, and had she told us about her brother-in-law, because his songs were really great and we should check out his website.

So yeah, we got to hang out afterward and catch up with Liz and meet Jonathan Coulton. Not that it would have been hard to meet him otherwise, I suppose, but it's the "having something to talk about" that usually prevents me from starting conversations with performers I admire.

Oh, and the cafe attached to the Bookmill (the Lady Killigrew) serves delicious food as well as beer floats. Not root beer. Real beer. Mmm, dark stout and vanilla ice cream!