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Custom Mobile Usability Testing Rig

2012-01-11T22:28:00.001-05:00

With my new heat gun and a helping hand from Molly, I produced this bad lad:

We're doing our first mobile phone usability study this week at work, and there's going to be a webcam clipped to the top of this device to record the action. Hat tip to this article on 90percentofeverything.com for the idea.

Resealable bag?

2011-12-31T15:07:00.001-05:00

Whose idea was it to make the bag resealable? Do socks go bad if not stored in the proper container? Also, this marks the last phase of the Great Sock Exodus of 2011. I'm excited about new socks!

Adios old friend

2011-12-03T10:54:00.001-05:00

Ha, so this is funny. I emailed this post in and there was supposed to be some body text, but I see it didn't make it. So instead, it's just a picture of a shirt, which is pretty random. Here's what the text was supposed to be:

Had to put down a good work shirt today. Ol 'purps had a good run; he helped me through a lot of purple shirt Tuesdays over the years. But he was showing his age, and between the tattered collar and random washer spots, I knew his time was coming to a close.

The rotation won't be the same without you buddy. You will be missed.

Filtered Water

2011-11-22T20:19:00.001-05:00

A long time ago, I started keeping filtered water in the fridge. It started with one of my Ramblewood apartments - you just couldn't get cold water out of the tap without waiting for forever. So I got a small, standard-issue plastic pitcher from Meijer, and life was good.

Then, I figured heck, I might as well be filtering this water right? I mean, filtered water sounds like a good idea. So I got the cheapest Brita pitcher I could - the skinny one pictured here.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I quickly figured out that it just wasn't big enough. I was constantly filling it up, which was a pain. To solve this, I got the next size up - it's the round version of the Brita pitcher. This worked out pretty well for quite a while. Eventually though, I moved to the Birchwood house which had a fridge door with water dispenser. Filtered? No, but convenience wins that battle every time.

It was a bit of a dark age for me and filtered water. Eventually, when I moved out, I decided to upgrade again. I wanted to recreate the gloriousness of water coming out of my fridge, so to stick with the Brita brand, I got the Brita Ultramax Water Dispenser. Yep, I upgraded to a full out *dispenser*! This seemed awesome. And it was...for about 2 weeks.

Two major problems with this pitcher. Well, three actually.

It's big. That's kinda the point, but it's really wider than it needs to be.
The spout is terribly designed. Because of how high the pitcher's spout is, there's about an inch of water at the bottom that will never come out. That means more fill-ups, and less effective storage capacity.
The thing leaks. On the list of things that a water pitcher is supposed to do, holding water is pretty high on the list. And this pitcher fails at it. I would have taken it back, but from the Amazon reviews, it's clear that it's a common problem.

I suffered (I know, First World Problem here) with this pitcher for my tour of duty at Westwind, but when I moved to the Ledge, Molly and I happened upon the ZeroWater pitcher. I was excited about this for multiple reasons:

It was a larger capacity than the Brita filter (23 cup vs 18 cup)
It was skinnier than the Brita filter (I know, the physics astounds)
It included a real-life water tester!

That's right, a water tester! How cool is that? So I could objectively say, this is what the water was before, and this is what it is now. Plus Molly had some 20% off coupons, so I was sold.

As it turns out, tap water in Grand Ledge is pretty hard. The packaging of this filter was describing various values of TDS (total dissolved solids). It listed anything over 200 as "hard water". The tap water here clocked in at about 450. Yeah, that's definitively hard. Putting water into the pitcher didn't get it all the way to zero, but after filtering the tester read "002". I'll take that.

But here's the thing - all over the packaging, it kept saying in very big letters, "DON'T USE THE FILTER WHEN THE READING IS PAST 006". Which I thought was weird...I'm thinking, heck, let's use this thing till it gets to like 100. In any case, I didn't believe the hype about filter changing.

Until yesterday. We got this pitcher about three weeks ago, and yesterday I discovered that the smell of bad cat breath wasn't actually the cat, but it was the water from the pitcher. Yeah, it was gross. Seriously like cat food. Not cool.

Filters aren't especially cheap, clocking in at ~$15 each, and with as bad as the water is here, filter life is especially short. Under ideal conditions, the ZeroWater site says the filter should last 40 gallons - here in the Ledge, it's rated to last from 8-15 gallons. I don't have any idea how much water we put through there, but I can tell you that it is not worthwhile to push the limit.

Oh, and the reading on the water meter? 018. Well past 006 for sure, but for sure not what I expected to happen.

Moral of the story...the ZeroWater pitcher is for real. Its shape is awesome (just barely short enough to fit in the fridge, but that's perfect!). Holds a lot of water. Filters the heck out of the water. Assuming your filter is good, it tastes great. Doesn't leak. Has a water tester included, which is ridiculously cool. But, the bad news is quite significant - be prepared to pay a ton for filters, and be prepared to smell bad cat breath as your warning to change the filter. I'm not sure what the science is there that causes that, but it's decidedly not awesome.

Now you know.

A beautiful day in the D!

2011-10-03T20:03:00.000-04:00

Battle hamster.

2011-10-02T12:24:00.001-04:00

Cooking with Mark: Pulled Pork Sandwich

2011-09-20T22:35:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the first installment of Cooking with Mark, where I'll discuss how I flex my culinary chops.

Degree of Difficulty: Low
Prep Time Required: Low
Amount Prepared: approx 2 dinners
Total ingredients: 3
Equipment needed: Microwave

This is a more recent creation of mine that I'm pretty proud of. The key ingredient here is the Lloyd's pulled pork. This stuff is awesome, because it's tasty, and it lasts a long time in the fridge (not the freezer, which is a pain). Even better, it comes in a sweet Microwave-safe container.

So let's get to the recipe.

Prepare pulled pork as described on the package. For me, it was like 3 minutes at 50% in the microwave, a stir, and another couple minutes at 50%.
Scoop pork onto some nice, hearty, wheaty bread.
Top with some shredded cheddar cheese (fat free preferred).

There you go. You could theoretically eat it like an open faced sandwich, that might be alright. But I recommend picking up the sides of the bread and eating it like a hot dog. You know, just like you folded over that square pizza in elementary school? Same way here. You might need a fork to pick up the inevitable fallen pulled pork, but it's worth it.

The Proposal

2011-08-25T21:30:00.000-04:00

As you may know, Molly and I have recently announced our engagement! This is the story of the proposal.

The Plan

One of the things that I've always wanted to do is to send someone on an Amazing Race-style treasure hunt, travelling across a city picking up clues for some reason. I figured this would be a good (the only?) time to make something like that happen. As things generally go, it wasn't quite as epic as I'd hoped, but I'm still satisfied with the results. There were lots of different things I thought of as potential clues - from negotiating with desk clerks to taping notes on people's doors to sending a telegram to an awesome idea involving coin-operated lockers. Here's what I ended up with:

First, a bit of setup. I took a copy of one of my business cards to my local Biggby to the street. I pinned it on the bulletin board and took a photo. This was a little nerve-wracking in itself, because there weren't any available pins. You must bring your own? Anyway I just hijacked someone else's, and hoped in the four intermediate hours, somebody wouldn't notice. I took the picture above, got an 8x10 printed at Meijer, and cut it into 6 pieces.

I hid the 6 pieces of photo around my apartment, and burned an audio CD with clues as to their whereabouts. The contents of the CD are below (any guesses as to where these locations might be?)

So, with the pictures hidden and audio clues prepared, I got out the whiteboard and wrote Molly a little note...

...and left the CD, my phone (this is important), and a little inspirational card on the table (the card played the Mission Impossible theme).

This was what I intended Molly to go through to find me:

Molly was scheduled to come over so we could play tennis. She would first find the whiteboard and then the CD/card/phone on the table.
With the CD, find all the parts of the picture and assemble them.
Figure out that she needed to go to Biggby, and pick up my card, and look at the back of it. It said something like "Hey you should call me, but you have my phone, so how else could you call me...?"
On my business card I also list my Google Voice number, which I generally don't ever use. I had my voicemail setup to play a message that said something like "You just missed me, I went to get some ice cream at somewhere that really rocks."
That was a hint to go to Coldstone. At this point, I would be tracking my phone's location via the Find my iPhone app, and when she arrived, I'd send her a message something to the effect of "you should come find me at the location of our first slide together!"
And then I would be waiting at Sharp Park, prepared to propose.

Meanwhile, I was going to be stationed at Barnes and Noble down the street with my iPad, using their wifi. I would be watching the action via a webcam and the iCam application. Also, Molly was going to have my phone, so I'd be also tracking the location of that via Find my iPhone.

What Really Happened

The first problem was I was concerned that Molly would get to Sharp Park before I would, so I drove through every parking lot in the area looking for free wifi that I could get from inside my car. I failed, and went over to Barnes and Noble as originally planned. Regardless of my failures, Molly did the first part of the puzzle pretty well. She got a little stuck on finding one of the parts, but it wasn't a huge deal. Ha, for me anyway! iCam worked pretty well, although it was a bit like watching a slideshow a few times. Setup-wise, it was super easy. Here's an example of my view:

So Molly did make it to Biggby. However, she didn't realize she needed to pick up my business card. She tells me that she was hanging out in the store, and even asked the barista if he knew what was up (he didn't).

Meanwhile I was watching her location from Barnes and Noble and I started to get a little bit worried...but, I saw her leave the area, and that seemed like a good thing to me. At this point her location was jumping around a lot for some reason; the GPS accuracy was terrible. Regardless I thought for sure I saw it jump right onto Coldstone, so I immediately sent her the message to meet me at Sharp Park, then literally ran to my car so I could beat her there.

As it turns out, Molly never picked up my business card and was actually headed back to my apartment when she got the message! The good news was that due to road construction which I failed to take into account, I beat her to Sharp Park by a long shot.

At at Sharp Park, I proposed. Technically, it was less of a ring presentation and more of a "here's a Groupon I got for a bunch of money off an engagement ring". I similarly tricked Molly on our first date, asking her if she knew anybody who could help me use a coupon to a local restaurant.

And there you have it. The whole story. Hooray!

Yeah Laneurysm!

2011-08-13T11:51:00.001-04:00

The most handy versatile tool!

2011-08-10T18:59:00.000-04:00

In case you wondered what the most handy versatile tool was, wonder no more.

mrdehate shared an Instagram photo with you

2011-07-30T17:42:00.002-04:00

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Why is buying a car so hard?

2011-07-12T22:05:00.000-04:00

A month or so ago now, I traded in my car for a lease on a new Ford Taurus. Generally I'm happy with the car, although that's not really the point of this post (you can expect that later). My question is, how on earth did the car buying process end up as miserable as it is?

In my car shopping experience, I had an odd series of events go down. I rolled into the dealership on a Friday after work, and was soon met by a car salesman on the lot. We sat in some cars, no big deal. I was driving home when I realized that sitting in the car wasn't what I went to the dealership for; I wanted to know how much these cars would cost me. Unfortunately when I went back, 10 minutes later, the salesman had left already. So I had to deal with some awkwardness as I was assigned to a new salesman who would crunch some numbers for me. Then a few days later, the second person I talked to wasn't available, and I was assigned back to the first salesman that I saw in the lot.

My main complaint here isn't really the variety of people helping me. Both of the people were equally creepy, actually. It's the tension that happens when one salesperson sees their potential commission going to a co-worker. I mentioned to one of these people that I had actually worked with another salesperson in the dealership for my last new car, and you could immediately tell the sadness in his face, as he thought I might again be departing of his services. Moral of the story: It's not about you, car salesman. It's about me, the customer.

My next complaint: the whole car buying process is carefully crafted to make you buy a car. I suppose this makes sense. Meijer is also carefully crafted to make you buy stuff, but it's not nearly as creepy. Any car salesman that I've talked to, you can just tell when he's using a "power phrase" he read in some sleazy sales pamphlet. "Man that's a sharp car". Even when he's telling me about his kids in the test drive. I mean really? I know you for all of about 5 minutes, I'm here test driving a car, and you want to tell me some stupid story about your kids? Perhaps I'm a little busy here, you know, driving, and I'd prefer not to chit-chat? Call me cynical but I think you're just trying to improve our relationship so I'll buy your car at a ridiculous price. Yeah, I'm onto your game salesman. Breaking news: No, I don't really care to help send your kid to college, thanks. Complaint here: Stop being so creepy. Be a real person, car salesman. I don't want to feel like a lab rat here.

Here's one of my favorites: why is it that car salesmen are never really super knowledgable about the cars they are selling? I mean, while I enjoy cars, I don't consider myself a car buff. Yet time and time again, it's really not worth asking many questions of the salesman if you've done 10 minutes of research beforehand. The salesman tried telling me that the car that I bought only came with faux-woodgrain on the dash, even with black leather seats. Really sir? Really? That doesn't even make sense, at all. I know, that's kind of a tiny detail, but when your job is selling cars, that's what I expect you to know. That's exactly the kind of knowledge that I need, and you never ever have it.

And speaking of options...option packages are downright insanity. Even worse, is the dealership's promise of "oh we can definitely find that for you" when clearly that's not the case. I've bought two new cars, and I've had eerily similar experiences. Both times, I'm interested in a lot of the options, but without leather seats. Both times, the car salesman has expressed exuberant confidence that they would definitely be able to find a car for me. Both times, it's been a giant failure.

The first time, I actually had the car built to my specifications. This time, I caved and got leather seats (which are nice, by the way, though it hurts to know I gave in to the stupid dealership). But the best part of it was this - when I put down the deposit, they showed me the window sticker of the exact car that I wanted. A few days later though, I got a call saying they couldn't find the car anywhere in the midwest. That's odd, because you totally told me before there was one available, no problem, right? What gives?

Ford has a lot of their new car inventories searchable, online. It was incredibly inconvenient, but I did some searching in the greater Detroit area and I actually located the car that they printed the window sticker for. I even called the dealership and asked them if the car was on the lot (that was a weird phone call, FYI). When I told this to my car salesman, at first he was a little surprised at the effort I put in. Then his manager told me that the dealership with the car wouldn't trade with them, and he refused to work it out. So while I could have had exactly the car I wanted (and was promised) from a dealership in Livonia, I didn't really want to have to deal with a dealership that far away. Two morals of this story: 1) While I get why they exist, from my point of view, option packages are really stupid and a pain 2) Don't tell me you can find my car when you can't, and instead sell me a more expensive one - that's a jerk move.

All of this leads me again to wonder - how did we get here? How did car dealerships get to be such a creepy place of pain and sorrow? Has it always been this bad? Buying a new car should be an exhilarating experience, especially new cars because you're blowing a lot of cash. If you think about it, one of the biggest, yet financially-speaking worst, yet (to a point) most necessary investments of your life. Unfortunately, it's a complicated mess of psychological games, incompetent salespeople, and endless hoops to jump through. I want it to be like Amazon. I want a fair price, I want to be left alone while I shop (unless I ask for help), and I want to be able to deal on my own terms. Although maybe a good start would be just not feeling like I'm constantly getting screwed by the man.

Epilogue: Despite my rant here about the car sales process, I do enjoy my car. A necessary evil it appears.

Usability pop quiz: which is salt?

2011-06-14T10:49:00.001-04:00

A beautiful salt and pepper shaker set. But usability perhaps suffers. Guesses on which is salt?

Roller Derby. This is happening.

2011-06-11T19:33:00.000-04:00

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A letter from AT&T: An Examination

2011-06-09T20:47:00.000-04:00

I got a letter in the mail from AT&T recently. Generally, this isn't a blog-worthy event - one of the benefits of being an AT&T user is the mass amount of junk mail they send you. But this piece of mail caught my attention. Most junk mail comes with some kind of flashy and/or glossy pamphlet or brochure or something. This was just a simple letter on AT&T letterhead. Honestly at first I thought they were canceling me or somehow I was in trouble.

The letter is in 5 paragraphs, which I'll overview here. It starts off thanking me for selecting AT&T as my wireless carrier, and indicates they are going to give me an "update on their promise to provide me with best-in-class wireless service". Okay, whatever. In bold text, the next paragraph starts "Our goal is to keep you connected to the things that matter most in your world...". Ah, thanks for letting me know AT&T, I wondered if that's what you were aiming for.

So two paragraphs in, nothing of note so far. The third paragraph touts AT&T's network, the "nation's fastest mobile broadband network." Followed by a sentence declaring AT&T is trying to build a network that is "as strong and fast as possible", then randomly throwing in there that AT&T's ability to "make a phone call while surfing the web at the same time". Umm, okay, so you like your network AT&T. Got it. A little random to send me a letter to tell me that, but whatever.

The meat comes in the fourth paragraph. Another (literally) bold sentence - "Enhancing our network is one way we are working to improve local communities...". The rest of the paragraph talks about how AT&T is "giving back" to Michigan, throwing around a bunch of numbers about how many people they employ, as well as some claims of volunteer activities and corporate giving programs.

Right, so that's great AT&T that you're employing people in Michigan. I'm thankful for that, no doubt. But...why, exactly, did you elect to send me a letter to tell me this? I've never gotten a letter from Meijer saying, "hey, FYI, we employ people in your state, in case you didn't know."

The last paragraph concludes thanking me for my business, and directing me to my local store with any questions.

I realize this is a marketing letter and I'm thinking far too much about it, but the whole deal is really weird. All of these things that you've told me about - your vague and generally un-interesting goal, a random bit about your network, and the fact that you employ people in my state - really...that doesn't do anything for me.

I think I'd feel better if at the end they pitched me for an upgrade to my internet service, it might be less creepy.

The whales have returned!!

2011-05-14T16:09:00.001-04:00

Today's project

2011-04-30T17:49:00.001-04:00

That's a plexiglass front on the arcade cabinet, complete with hole for the car radio that's powering it. I think I'm going to put some contact paper (black) around everything - this way, if I switch monitors, I can just reapply to fit the new size.

I've also got to figure out how to keep the radio powered when not in use, so I can use the clock on there. Considering how everything is wired now, that may be a challenge.

Society solves another problem

2011-04-25T20:35:00.001-04:00

Easter was this weekend, and among the festivities, Mom and Dad hooked me up with an easter basket (bucket, technically) full of awesome goodies. Including a couple Rubbermaid containers. Now, I was excited at the time because I have a lot of unpleasant Rubbermaid containers for leftovers. But, I wasn't as excited as I should have been because I didn't realize the true awesomeness that the easter bunny bestowed upon me.

One of society's long standing problems is with the lids to plastic containers. How on earth does a person keep track of the lids to their containers for leftovers? You never can find the one you want, and despite whatever mechanism you try to use, you can't possibly keep them organized in any reasonable fashion. Truly, this has plagued man for as long as plastic containers have been around.

Mercifully, Rubbermaid has come to the rescue, and I am very thankful that Mom has introduced this glory to me. I present to you, the Rubbermaid Easy Find Lid Food Storage Container. As astute readers will notice, the lid is attached to the bottom of the container.

Let that sink in for a minute. The lid...is attached...to the bottom.

And what's even more amazing, you can stack the same size lids and containers together. So if you've got three of one size, all three lids snap together, and the containers will sit inside each other. Have you got smaller containers? They, with their lids, will fit inside the bigger containers.

It's like someone took the metric paper system and applied it to Rubbermaid containers. I'm really excited about this. All that's left now is to figure out how this placebo effect business works and human kind is pretty much good to go.

Clothes Folding News

2011-04-22T23:25:00.000-04:00

A while ago I ran across this Lifehacker article suggesting that you organize clothes in your drawer horizontally instead of vertically. So instead of having a stack of t-shirts, you have a row of t-shirts. The advantage being, if you need a shirt that's not on top it makes life a lot easier. I figured I would try it out.

And a couple of months later, I'm happy to report that it's generally been a success. As you may know, I'm a big fan of the closet rotation. So when I'm wearing stuff, I just want to pick whatever's next in the queue. This is especially true for how I use my dresser t-shirts, which are just for around the house usage. The "filing" method of folding your clothes makes it a lot easier to keep this happening - just pick from one side, and fill clean laundry from the other.

I currently have my undershirts and underwear in one drawer, however, which does cause a bit of an issue. It's kinda a pain to fill from the back, unless I'm running seriously low on either. And with t-shirts, the bad news there is the back half of your drawer is also difficult to access. So there's tradeoffs. But in case you thought your clothes folding technique couldn't be analyzed, the internet is here to prove you wrong again.

Today is the first day for the rest of my life...

2011-04-09T12:07:00.000-04:00

Today is a turning point, a truely (with an e) legendary day. Today, I've decided to stop using GnuCash to manage my finances. Yep, I know, I may have understated the change that is ensuing. I'm going to rely on Mint.com for all of my checkbook-balancing needs.

But maybe, maybe you're wondering why this is such a big deal? I've been using GnuCash (and before that a variety of versions of Quicken) to manage my finances since 2002. That's a lot of receipt saving and entering. So I can tell you stats like this:

I have spent over $12,000 in gas since 2002. I also have the price of gas for every fill up - my first fill up in Dec 2002 was at $1.12/gal. It's interesting to see the rise of gas prices in 2008 (up to $4.08/gal) and the collapse in late 2008 (down to $1.48 6 months later).
Since I got my Chase Rewards card in 2007, I have earned $1,800 in rewards.
I've spent close to $6,000 on gifts, although that probably doesn't include a lot of cash payments to my sister!
Since moving to Lansing, I've spent $40,000 on rent (although some of that isn't properly classified due to the payments to Foco there for a while).
I've taken just under $10,000 out of ATM machines.

All of this, while mega-interesting, really isn't useful. And in order to make all of this possible, every receipt that I've ever gotten has to be entered into the system. Back in my Palm Pilot days, I was able to use Mobile Quicken to enter expenses directly into my Palm, and sync them back with Quicken. I'm not gonna lie that was really cool, and saved me a lot of receipt anguish. I've never been able to replicate that with GnuCash and my iPhone, although I think I could have if I migrated to iBank.

Regardless, the benefits of mint.com are too much to overlook any more. Specifically, it gets all of my various statements automatically, so there's no entering at all. I can tweak categories a little bit when necessary, but generally it knows that Chipotle is Food and Speedway is Auto/Gas. It won't be quite as specific (I have a category in GnuCash for arcade cabinet, for example) without a lot more work on my part. I think it will be fine though for my needs.

So here's to a new day of not saving receipts and reconciling bank statements. Mint.com, please don't screw it up for me.

View from this years season tickets

2011-04-08T14:30:00.000-04:00

Beeyah!

It's good to be back!

2011-04-07T18:52:00.000-04:00

A New Pop Playlist

2011-03-31T23:02:00.002-04:00

I was looking around for an easy way to share a playlist on here. Grooveshark, I should have known, has a solution. So to try it out, I put together a little 10-track playlist (in no particular order) of new pop songs that should be more popular than they are. You know, doing my part.

Laneurysm 2011 in progress

2011-03-26T12:12:00.001-04:00

Guinness for your Health

2011-03-16T22:18:00.003-04:00

Historically, I never was a huge fan of Guinness or other similar dark beers, and generally stuck to more commonly accepted light beers or wine. But since the trip to the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin a couple of years ago, I've experienced a renaissance in my beer world. Today I don't find much reason to drink light beers, unless they are $2 at a baseball game (everything is better at the ballpark - beer, pretzels, hot dogs, that's just the way it is). Guinness is my beer of choice; the measuring stick in which all other beers have to match up against. It's a tough road for the rest of the beer world.

And all this time, I've been just assuming that while my taste buds are claiming victory over tasteless beer, that my stomach is slowly suffering defeat since Guinness must be exponentially worse for me. I mean, just look at something like Miller Light vs Guinness - it's like comparing Jello with Coldstone ice cream. But recently I've done the math, and it turns out...I've been wrong. Guinness, while not exactly a health food, stacks up quite favorably in calorie and carb count. Disclaimer: those are the only values I can find on Guinness, and I'm going by those numbers only, ignoring all kinds of other totally valid health arguments in the following comparisons.

On the side of the Guinness bottle, a few numbers are listed. 125 calories & 9.9g carbs per 12oz, no fat content. Let's compare this with some other beers, sorted by calorie content (courtesy of shapefit.com)...

Beer	Calories	Carbs
Natural Light	95	3.2g
Busch Light	95	3.2g
Miller Light	96	3.2g
Coors Light	102	5g
Bud Light	110	6.5g
Labatt Blue Light	111	8g
Guinness	125	9.9g
Michelob Light	128	11.4g
Budweiser	145	10.6g
Corona Extra	148	13.99g
Pabst Blue Ribbon	153	12.01g
Killian's	163	13.8g
Colt 45	174	11.1g

Guinness is not the actual lowest calorie beer around, nobody's kidding themselves here. But, if you consider that it's only 14 calories more than Labatt Blue Light, and ask yourself if it's worth it - obviously it is. And those are all light beers for crying out loud! Clearly it's the dominant force in non-light beers.

Okay, so taste-to-calorie ratio-wise, Guinness has beer on lockdown, done deal. What about some other foods? I did some number crunching; here's the results.

Item	Serving Size	Calories	Carbs	Fat
Yoplait Light Key Lime Pie Yogurt	6oz	100	21g	0g
Rold Gold Pretzel Rods	1 rod	110	22g	1g
Quaker Quakes Rice Snacks - Caramel Corn	13 mini cakes	110	26g	0.5g
Guinness	12oz	125	9.9g	0g
Nature Valley Vanilla Yogurt Chewy Granola Bar	1 bar	140	26g	3.5g
Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing	2 tbsp	140	2g	14g
Pringles	~14 crisps	160	15g	11g
Mountain Dew	12oz	170	46g	0g
Original Klondike Bar	1 bar	250	29g	14g
13" (burrito-size) tortilla @ Chipotle	1 tortilla	290	44g	9g

When you compare it apples-to-apples, Guinness does pretty well for itself. I mean, I do love the Quakes rice cakes in caramel corn flavor. They are really good. But for the calories in 13 of the little suckers, you're telling me I could instead have a Guinness (more or less)? They are good, but not *that* good. Some of the other varieties of race cakes are even worse for you, which is insanity.

Or the next time you're at Chipotle, think to yourself - you can have your burrito in a tortilla...OR, have it in a bowl and have TWO Guinnesses with it (with lots of calories, carbs, and fat to spare!). Sounds like a combo meal to me.

So hopefully this article has brought you a new appreciation of just how tasty Guinness is. And the next time you're reaching for a granola bar, some rice cakes, or yogurt, make sure to ask yourself - is this worth not drinking a Guinness for? Guinness - it's good for you!

Greetings from Lakeland!

2011-03-13T14:36:00.000-04:00

Better Living Through Photo Frames

2011-03-07T21:43:00.000-05:00

If I had a pie chart of how I've been spending my time recently, there would be an embarrassingly large piece devoted to finding alternatives to crappy whiteboards. Both at work and at home, I'm constantly frustrated by terrible whiteboards.

At work, I've purchased whiteboards in various formats, and they just don't work out. They work fine for a couple of months, but then they just refuse to erase. Then you've got to use some kind of cleaner to get them clean, which makes it even worse the next time. Even the legit and expensive whiteboards that the company buys get the same way, although admittedly some cleaning wipes do a lot of good there. But they are expensive, and not feasible to have one of my own.

I'm pretty sure I've posted before about using picture frames in place of whiteboards, which has been going pretty well. I've got a frame on the inside of the front door to my apartment, so I don't forget anything on my way out. Total cost was I think like $1.49, plus the plastic tab to hang it up. Totally recommended; I also have one of a similar 8x10 picture frame hanging in my cube at work for small notes.

Anything of bigger size, however, has been more of a challenge. One whiteboard that I've been having problems with lately is one at home that is a monthly calendar. So by design, it only gets erased once a month. It's getting to be a couple of years old now, so it's been getting pretty rough to erase (although doable).

I had a brainstorm this weekend, and I went to Meijer and picked up a couple of 16x20 picture frames. One is pretty standard and the world's cheapest 16x20 frame ($6.99) which I brought to work, and another is a "floating" frame that has two pieces of glass in it (it was only $14.99). I also picked up some posterboard, and drew up a little grid for the days of the week. BAM, instant calendar!

It's a little bit smaller than my old one, but I think it will do the job. The other whiteboard-calendar also had a cork board section & another blank part for notes, so that isn't duplicated here, but I can either survive without them or replace those sections with their own solutions.

An outstanding question is why do I still have a whiteboard calendar anyway since I put everything on my phone, and generally refer to that with date questions? Good question! I have no idea!

Taxes

2011-02-19T17:06:00.000-05:00

Every year when I do my taxes, it's amazing to me how complicated they are. Well actually, I guess my taxes are pretty simple. But taxes in general aren't simple. Sales tax - that I can figure out. 6%, done deal. Even the idea of your taxes is a pretty straightforward concept - everybody pays in and we get government services to do stuff for us. Easy enough.

There's a whole industry dedicated to helping you figure out your taxes. Think about that - they don't really provide any actual value in the grand scheme of things. How did we get to this point?

And who are the people that write the tax forms? If there's ever been a great example of something designed by committee, there it is. It's like cruel and unusual punishment, every year from Uncle Sam. The IRS has got to know that the rate of people really getting their taxes *right* is approaching zero. It's just not possible.

Unless, of course, you're in the business of tax preparation, which means you're spending your career figuring out how to appropriately allocate the taxes on your earnings. That seems like a paradox of some kind isn't it?

Even the heated sidewalks can't keep up

2011-02-02T07:45:00.000-05:00

From my office building.

Lorem Ipsum on a Chipotle bag

2011-01-28T12:03:00.000-05:00

Chipotle has the Lorem Ipsum text on their take out bag. That is awesome.

Lorem Ipsum, if you're unaware, is a Latin phrase that is used in design as placeholder text. It doesn't have any real meaning translated, and is basically gibberish.

2010: A Year in Review

2011-01-19T22:06:00.000-05:00

I know, it's a little late for a year in review post. So let's do this in a pseudo-list, in chronological order? Most of these are things that I have photos of; obviously, if I didn't take pictures of something, I've almost certainly forgotten it. Sorry about that. All of the photos here link to my Flickr sets, which by the way, hopefully you have added me as a contact so you can see *all* my photos (not mentioning any names, *cough* Dad *cough*).

Tower of Power & The Whitney

One of the coolest things that Molly and I achieved last year was to pay a February visit to Detroit. First we saw Tower of Power at the Motor City Casino, which was really really awesome. I think Molly even enjoyed it some (maybe) =). We stayed in one of the houses associated with a old mansion, which was bizarre in a good way. And the next morning made it to The Whitney in Detroit. It's a ridiculously old and ridiculously fancy. We were there for a brunch buffet situation, and I actually wasn't blown away by the food. But there was a guy playing the piano behind us, and the whole place was awesome. Definitely I'd like to make it there for a way-overpriced dinner one day. There's a lot of cool stuff to be seen in Detroit, and we got a taste of it that weekend.

Opening Day

If I ever do this list again, any year that I make the trip for Opening Day you can bet it will be on the list. It was cold, but it doesn't matter. Nothing beats Opening Day in the D.

Lost Ends

While it seems weird that I'm putting this on here, Lost (remember that?) is unquestionably the most I've ever gotten into a TV show. I'm pretty confident that there was some kind of "Lost night" at every place that I've lived in Lansing, and that's a feat. It was a very innocent beginning, somehow I just sort of was at the right place at the right time to watch the whole first season with Pete & Paul. The rest is history. I shudder to think of the hours invested into watching, discussing, and researching Lost. All worthwhile though.

A Move Upstairs and Back

Last summer I was fortunate enough to be granted a transfer to a new group at work. It was...let's say, a welcome change. For quite a while I've made it no secret that I've been interested in doing web usability and design work, and I was finally moved to a place that is in charge of that situation. Better yet, just squeaking into 2010 after Christmas was another move into a new group that's officially, legitimately dedicated to those tasks, which has exactly been my goal for a long time now. Ha, now I just have to figure out what I'm doing!

Westward Ho

Among the things conquered last year was California. It was a mostly random trip to hang out with the guys, that included stuff like eating a wide variety of Michael's NutriSystem food to avoid starvation, visiting moderately shady casinos in the middle of nowhere, tapping around the desert in pitch darkness, failing at renting a boat, Mitchell doing his best Rock Lobster impression, and experiencing Route 66. Good times were had by all.

Volleyball

I played a lot of volleyball this summer, and it was pretty awesome. That's all I got there.

Peter leaves, Birchwood House Abandoned

It was a busy summer. Peter left for the Peace Corps also last summer and Brandon moved out too, marking an end of a long series of inhabitants to the Birchwood house. Other things this marked the end to:

Lots of Monday Night RAWs with Pete
Sunday Night Arkham Horror (or should I say, Sunday afternoon-and-evening)
"Poker Face", "Diamonds on my Neck", "Poker Face on my Neck", and far too many other well-overused catchphrases
Impromptu living room raves
Incredible feats of eating
Shoveling snow
Cutting the grass
Slaying bees

Mackinaw Island

Molly and I went to Mackinaw Island, marking the first time that I'd been there. It's not a place that I'm excited about visiting regularly, but it was a fun time regardless. Well, other than the 24 hours that I thought I might have to go to the hospital due to overexerting myself, of course.It's pretty much a requirement to live in this state to have gone there, so that's out of the way. I practiced my sunset photography, with largely mediocre results. Practice though, right?

The Cruise

It took quite a few changes of plans (both pre-cruise and during-cruise), but the cruise that Molly and I were on in September was incredible. It was like a week of surreal experiences. As I said in my original thoughts on the topic, it's definitely not the only type of vacation I want to have. But it's definitely got some pros.

Lions vs Redskins

Seriously, Molly and I went to a Lions game and they won. How does that not make the list? If Detroit ever has a reasonably good football team, the whole town is going to go nuts. It's going to be like the excitement of the 1997 Red Wings + the 2006 Tigers, all rolled together into one. We may not survive. Thankfully, I'm not real worried about this happening anytime soon.

Holidays 2010

The holidays are always great. It's always good to see friends and family that you just don't spend enough time with. Thankfully this year Molly and I were able to spend a majority of it together, which was awesome. And while it's not ever possible to hang out with everybody I'd like to, I think we made a decent dent in the list.

Well that's all I got. 2010 was by all accounts, a smashing success. The good news is that 2011 is going to be better. Let's do it!

Assassins Creed: Defeated

2011-01-11T23:04:00.000-05:00

I finished playing Assassins Creed tonight. I'm pretty torn about the game. I really enjoyed the story that happened in present-day. The ending of the story was quite a twist I thought, which was cool. Since I'm about 4 years behind on the series the epic cliffhanger wasn't unexpected though.

The gameplay, as has been well documented over the years, slow and repetitive, absolutely. The combat controls were basically terrible. Stealth killing people, way cool. Swordfighting, not so much. And while the end of the game's story was excellent, the actual gameplay wasn't. The whole game mostly played out like a puzzle game, just one that took forever. Looking back on it, there wasn't anything insanely difficult. Just really time consuming. Except for anything that happened in the dock area of Acre - that was misery. Ugh.

Overall, I guess I enjoyed the game. Mostly I'm just glad to be done with it though. I've heard Assassins Creed II solved many of the flaws of the first game, so at some point I may pick that up. But I've got a few games already in the queue I need to clear out, not to mention lots of other neglected projects. Some day!

Thanks, Family Video

2011-01-10T12:13:00.000-05:00

I just got a voicemail from a "blocked" number. Turns out that it's Family Video, saying that they missed me (awwww). They missed me so much that they'll give me a free rental in the next two weeks! Nice!

But oh wait, the automated message never bothered to mention which Family Video location it was. One of my least favorite things about Family Video is that their accounts aren't linked between stores; you've got a separate account for each store you've ever been to. So that means at one of the Family Videos that I've ever been at, I have a free rental waiting, but I have no idea which one. And since you've blocked your caller ID, I can't even figure it out by phone number. Good work thinking that one through guys.

I like this.

2011-01-05T17:26:00.000-05:00

This big number page a day calendar makes me happy.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T13:12:00.000-05:00

Creepy carolers

2010-12-24T01:29:00.000-05:00

These carolers are on the sidewalk leading into my office building. This is the first year I've heard them in their full singing and moving glory. Weird stuff.

Breathalyzer

2010-12-21T21:01:00.000-05:00

I "won" a small breathalyzer in a white elephant gift exchange this past weekend. I was reading the instructions for some strange reason today, and I ran across this gem:

"Our testing has shown that this device functions accurately for at least 400 tests. Based on NIAAA studies, (www.alcoholism.about.com) this corresponds to one year of device use for most drinkers. YOU SHOULD REPLACE YOUR DEVICE ONE YEAR AFTER FIRST USE. FAILURE TO DO SO MAY CAUSE YOUR READINGS TO BE INACCURATE." (emphasis not mine)

First off, they really referenced about.com, which is awesome. More importantly though, let's do some math here. The device works for at least 400 tries. But they correspond that to one year of device use. That means, they are expecting you to use this at least once a day. So their intended market then, every day, has a drink then shortly after drives home. EVERY DAY. Really???

Usability Fail

2010-12-14T20:02:00.000-05:00

So this is the sort of thing that makes me angry. I'm going through and changing all my passwords due to this whole Gawker password failure thing, and I get an email from LinkedIn telling me to reset my password. Okay, fine. So I fire up 1Password and generate a 20-character password, which is my default setting. I've done this about 30 times in the last two days, copy the generated password, paste it into the new password fields, submit, logout, then test it to make sure it works. No big deal. Except LinkedIn *refuses* to work properly.

This is not a complicated process I'm doing, but it is a bit tedious. Copy and paste, that's it. So I repeat the process, thinking somehow I must have screwed it up. Reset the password, regenerate a new one, copy/paste/paste, submit, logout, test it out. Still doesn't work. What the heck???

That was this morning. This evening, I tried it again, same results. I tried changing my password to something that wasn't generated. That worked. Okay, weird.

So finally I figured, well I'll try typing the password in this time. Maybe somehow the copy/paste/paste process is getting messed up. Sure enough, the textbox is limited to 16 characters. When I pasted it in, the last four characters got cut off. Then to complete the failure, the password textbox when you login? No character limit at all.

Anytime a website limits the number of characters in a password, that's frustrating. Let me do what I want with the password field. But even worse - nowhere on the password change page does it tell you there is a limit at all. All this, for a website that's so concerned about my security that they reset my password for me since I was involved in the Gawker password debacle. I appreciate the thought, but I would prefer if you guys fixed your website instead!!!!

$19 of non-buffet in Vegas

2010-12-06T16:05:00.000-05:00

Almost there...

2010-12-05T21:46:00.000-05:00

Yeah in seat tv!!

2010-12-05T17:39:00.000-05:00

Fireplace 2010

2010-12-02T17:36:00.000-05:00

Dean's Christmas Trees

2010-12-01T07:28:00.000-05:00

I was in Meijer the other day and I ran across a box of "Dean's Christmas Trees" in the freezer case. Intrigued, I picked them up.

It turns out, inside the box there were 6 individually wrapped slices of minty ice cream, decorated with the little dots that you find on sugar cookies. That's a little weird if you ask me. I'm not sure what the appropriate way to eat these are? You can't really just hold it because there's no stick. I guess put it on a small plate is the answer.

Bizarre.

Best Buy

2010-11-30T21:27:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, I think it would be fun to work at Best Buy just for the holidays. I feel like it would be like working at McDonalds on the 4th of July - just craziness all the time. Seems like it would be fun.

Right, then I actually go to Best Buy. I was in the laptop section with Molly the other day, and in the span of about 10 minutes, I overheard this awesomeness.

Convo 1

Customer: "What is...like, a normal inches for these laptops?"

Employee: "ummm...inches?"

Customer: "Yea, you know, like the inches."

Employee: "...oh, you mean screen size? About 15 inches."

Customer: "Yea, yea. So what's the absolute cheapest 15 inch you got?"

It was about this time that I realized I am not nearly man enough to work at Best Buy.

Mac pro SSD restart time

2010-11-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

I got a solid state drive for my Mac last week. I'm so excited about how much it's decreased my boot time, I made a video about it. It's pretty awesome.

Honestly apostrophes aren't that hard.

2010-11-20T14:16:00.000-05:00

My Cube, November 2010 ed

2010-11-15T21:58:00.000-05:00

A while back I posted some photos of my cube. I figured since I moved, I would post an updated set of photos. Again, really not sure why I feel the need to post this, but I do for some reason. Maybe it's just I'm feeling guilty of Blog Neglect =)

Like a mullet, it's business in the front...

...and party in the back.

Somebody stole my idea, finally!

2010-11-14T10:20:00.001-05:00

Lions score vs Redskins + victory song

2010-10-31T21:53:00.001-04:00

Go Lions!

2010-10-31T13:04:00.000-04:00

Shower Soap Dispenser

2010-10-23T13:55:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I picked up this soap dispenser from Bed Bath and Beyond. I've used these a couple of times in hotel rooms, and they really seem handy. The one I got was the cheapest model I could find, not only because I wasn't sure if I will like it or not, but also because I assume I'm going to break it unrepairably when I move out.

I've only had it installed for a couple of days. Initial reports are good though. Here's why: it dispenses a way better amount of product than I otherwise would use. I use liquid soap in the shower, and the manufacturers of these soaps put epic holes in the top so you get a ridiculous amount of soap - way more than necessary. The shower dispenser gives you a lot smaller amount, so while you may need to use a few pumps, you aren't wasting the soap. Not to mention its way easier than trying to fiddle with the wet bottles in the shower. It just makes sense.

Some Amazon reviewers claim theirs started leaking, which would sorta defeat the point. I'll keep you posted (because I know you want to know!) So far, looking good.

Pictures

2010-10-18T21:43:00.001-04:00

I just realized that I take a lot of pictures of food. Is that weird?

Speaking of pictures, I've been working backwards to upload photos to my new Flickr account. It hasn't been quite as awesome as I would have hoped for a few reasons. For one, it seems I have to do it one event at a time, which is annoying. Also, it's cool because it does sync tags, but it doesn't sync iPhoto's faces to Flickr people. I don't get that one, because iPhoto does sync faces to people in Facebook.

Then, each album I export shows up in the bottom of my iPhoto navigation column in one giant unsortable list. If I exported every iPhoto event into Flickr, that's going to be ridiculously huge and unmanageable.

The thing is I don't see any better options. I'm pretty entrenched in iPhoto - I'm not sure what kind of desktop integration happens with Picasa, but even if it was awesome I don't think I could switch now. Even Apple's own MobileMe has problems similar to Flickr's (although probably not face tagging I'd guess), and has a storage cap (weak man, weak). All a guy wants to do is share his 40gb of meticulously tagged photos with his friends, it sure seems like it shouldn't be this hard. Maybe the next version of iPhoto will help...

I've gotten back almost through 2008, which is probably about 1/3rd of the way through my library. I'm not sure how much farther back I'm going to go because it's getting progressively more annoying to manage them the more events I add. I ran across a for-pay tool that seemed to offer assistance in uploading a whole bunch of stuff at once, but I don't entirely trust it. Oh well.

It's not all terrible though, Flickr does offer a lot of cool features, and a reasonably slick interface. I think it's not meant for the mass quantity of photos that I'm throwing at it, which is part of the problem. But one event (excuse me, "set") at a time, it gets the job done.

If you're going to check out my Flickr photos, I'd encourage you to add me as a contact so you get the whole experience. Most of my photos are restricted to friends & family; there's a few hand-picked public ones, but anything with people in it is generally on lockdown.

Found on an A1 bottle

2010-10-15T19:11:00.000-04:00

Epic DIY pulled pork sandwich

2010-10-15T11:56:00.000-04:00

Mmmm

2010-10-06T17:50:00.000-04:00

That is a cornbread crust on a chili pie. Awesome!

Brief Server News

2010-09-30T00:04:00.000-04:00

As promised I powered down my Linux server this evening, and what's left is now on my Mac Mini. The gallery server is back up...I think. It's currently rebuilding thumbnails, and I'm sure there's something that's going to end up broken. After about the 5th or so move I should be good at this gallery stuff you'd think, but you would be wrong. Anyway if things are weird, don't say I didn't warn you.

Shower Knobs

2010-09-18T11:54:00.000-04:00

Something that's always bothered me is how much shower faucets really suck. There's a variety of designs out there that we've all seen, and none of them really work as well as they should. My main beef with shower faucets is the fact that when in the shower, you generally want the temperature to be about the same as it was the last time. Sure it may fluctuate up or down a bit given the season, but more or less you've got a temperature that you enjoy and that's what you want to keep it at.

Most shower faucets don't care about this fact, and make it a challenge every time you get in the shower to recreate that magical temperature, so you spend most the shower tweaking with the stupid faucet. Let's look at some designs.

Giant Pointy Ball

We'll start with my least favorite, and actually the type that's currently in my shower. The giant pointy ball. This one actually has an up arrow on the front, which is an advanced feature for this type of shower knob. You have about 90 degrees from hot to cold on these guys, and positioning it just right is impossible. The very uniform pointiness on the plastic ball means there's no "landmark" positions for you to remember where to set it at. There are so many ways to rotate these, it's a total guess and check on what temperature the water is going to be. If I never saw another of these knobs ever again, that would be awesome.

Knob Segregation

So here's a close second in the race for worst shower faucet, which was featured at the Birchwood estate. Two knobs independently controlling the hot and cold water. If the knob in the middle controlled the pressure then we'd be talking, but nope, it controls tub vs shower output. To take a shower then, you need to turn three different knobs. And breaking news, I want to control the temperature of the water coming out, not deal with ratios of hot to cold. The reason this isn't my least favorite is at least you can develop some kind of routine to get in the neighborhood of the right temperature - hot all the way on, cold a quarter turn and a half. I'm sure this is the plumber's favorite, but usability wise, it's terrible.

Single Twist Handle

Finally we're getting somewhere. The good news here is you've got a single knob to control all your functions. It's also a circle, so as long as you can remember sorta what angle the handle is at you'll get in the same temperature range. The example pictured here even has a well defined hot and cold zone with little notches so you can landmark where you like the temperature, which is awesome. Many faucets of this type try to be "clean" with only faint markings for which side is hot and which is cold. Those are lame.

The bad news is you still have to touch the handle each time, and you've got go through either freezing cold or scalding hot to get to the temperature that you need. Certainly a passable design, but we can do better.

Single Twist Round Knob

On a side note, here's an example of how to screw up a good thing. This works the same way, just it is designed as a perfect circle with just a tiny notch to indicate where you are in the temperature scale. Faucet designers, why do you do that? It's just making it harder. Not to mention that you have no landmarks to where to point it at, just a vague angle that you have to remember.

Don't use a round knob, it just doesn't make sense. Is your clock a giant round knob with just tiny sticks pointing out to tell you the minute and hour? Nope. Neither should your shower knob. You want a handle.

Separate Temperature Knob

So then what do I want in a shower knob? I can't actually find a picture of one, but I want the controls that we had on the cruise ship. Pretty simple. On the ship, it was shaped like short handlebars. The grip on the right was temperature. Yep, just the temperature, and it was labeled with actual water temperatures. The left grip was water control. Totally independent. So that means once you figure out what temperature you like, then you can just turn the water on and off and NEVER HAVE TO MESS WITH TEMPERATURE EVER AGAIN! How awesome is that? It remembers what temperature you like from the last shower you took. So simple, so perfect. Even if someone messed up the temperature on you, you had an actual, definite, black and white number that you could remember and set it back. No messing with "oh the handle was about at the one-thirty position" or "three twists to the cold and five to the hot". Set it and forget it.

I'm not sure how much a faucet like that costs, or what kind of plumbing work has to happen to make it work. In my head, we aren't doing anything revolutionary, this should be in every shower in America. It's still hot and cold + water pressure. Just it totally makes sense. And when I have a house, that's one of the first things that's going in.

Cruise Recap

2010-09-16T21:18:00.000-04:00

As mentioned earlier, last week Molly and I went on a cruise to the Western Caribbean on the Carnival Inspiration. This is a (likely not-so) brief account of our journey. We were slated to visit Grand Cayman Island and Cozumel (Mexico), although there was a slight change in plans. A passenger had a heart attack on the first name, and we had to re-route to Key West instead of Grand Cayman for our first day on shore.

While we weren't fired up about it, Molly and I didn't have much of an opinion on the change in scenery. If anything, we were excited about getting cell phone signal! But there were lots of people on the ship that were fired up about it, and none of them in a good way. Lots more people than I would have expected are from Florida, and we heard from a couple people that lived in Key West for many years. I could see how that would be a problem for them.

So our first full day on the ship was supposed to be at sea, but instead at Key West. Our excursion planned for Grand Cayman (which I am a little sad we missed, we were going to hang out with dolphins and stingrays at Stingray City). Being mostly unprepared for the destination, we sorta walked around for a while in Key West. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously hot and walking around was really unpleasant. So we actually ended up going to the movies at a theatre downtown. Long-time readers may recall this isn't the only time I've gone to the movies on vacation, but this time was considerably more satisfying because of the 1 3/4 hours spent in air conditioning.

We ate dinner at a harbor restaurant (where this video was filmed) that was actually really tasty. As the video (may?) mention, it looked like death was about to rain down from the sky. After eating we booked it back to the ship area where we ran across Dominique the Catman. This guy was a cat-tamer and absolutely 100% insane. I took some YouTube video which you can watch here and here. We did not get rained on, by the way, which I was thankful for.

The next day was at sea, so let's talk about the boat. The Inspiration is of the smallest class of ship Carnival has, supposedly there were over 2,000 passengers on board. To me, that's huge. There were two dining rooms (one of which you were assigned to), three or so buffet sections, 4 or so "clubs", a 1,000+ seat auditorium, mini golf course, pool, and lots more stuff on board. Every day we got delivered a newsletter with the day's activities on it. Evening-time was busy enough on ship, as they had 2 song-and-dance-type shows on our trip and a couple adult comedians. During the day they had various contests, trivia (Molly and I dominated one of the "12 S of Z" type trivia contests and got a trophy out of it), bingo, and that sort of stuff going on. Including this amazing older asian guy with a guitar singing legit Johnny Cash-style country. So since during the day was a little sketchy as far as activities, we spent a fair amount of time trying to find some shade on deck to spend quality time with a book. Despite me complaining a lot about the heat, with the breeze on the boat, it was pleasant in the shade. Not in the sun though. I had a lot of pictures turn out foggy because my lens was fogging up due to the extreme temperature difference from inside the boat to the deck of the boat.

Our next destination was Cozumel, Mexico, where it was again hot. Right off the ship was a shop-type area that was moderately nice, although obviously mega-touristy. In retrospect that wasn't so bad, and I'll get to why in a second. Our excursion here was a clear kayak and snorkel adventure in Chankanaab National Park. The beach was Corona-ad beautiful, and we kayaked up and down the shore. On the beach is a dolphin park, so we got to see dolphins, sharks, and stingrays through a fence. After that was the snorkeling, which was unanimously the highlight of the trip. Like swimming in a fishtank, it was incredible! If you held your hands in a fist, the fish would think you had food, and you would get swarmed! Ridiculous! Our guide was helping point stuff out to us too, as well as fetching a seahorse from the ocean floor, which we held in our hands.

At the park we ate some very legit and tasty mexican food (we might have paid in Pesos) and had some Coke "Light". After a quick trip back to the ship to attempt to wash off the ocean, we headed back out this time to downtown Cozumel. Lots more shops here, but things got shady immediately. Every shop had a guy out front trying to bring you into the shop (always addressing me in particular by the way, never Molly...). One guy quietly asked me if I wanted to buy any knives. Around the corner was police with machine guns. Not really my scene. We stopped in Carlos & Charlies and Senor Frogs, two famous Cozumel bar/clubs for a couple of drinks, where we were also constantly pressured to buy something. Or slightly assaulted by an overly friendly waitress selling shots of some unnamed liquor. All in all it was fun; I'm definitely glad we went downtown, and I can see why those bars are so legendary. But once is enough for me!

The last day at sea we had scheduled the "Behind the Fun" tour, where we learned a lot about how the ship works and life on the ship for the staff. We got a tour of the bridge (among lots of other places) and an impromptu tour of the captain's quarters! I'm always excited about the behind-the-scenes stuff, and we made a good decision by dropping the cash on the tour.

We ended up eating in the dining room for dinner all week, which worked out pretty well. Our table-mates were all nice and our age, both of which were exciting (our table sat like 10 but there were only 6 of us there each night). Perhaps my favorite crew person on the trip was our waiter, Claudio. He was pretty excited as he was about to go on vacation himself - he said his contract is for 7 months working then 7 weeks off, so I could understand why. At the end of dinner, all of the waiters would sing and dance to usually some techno song. It was really odd, and at the same time absolutely hilarious. Claudio would dance with the pole next to our table, and another waiter was dancing on a nearby chair. Totally ridiculous. The last night they sang us "You're leaving on a Funship" (NOTE: that video isn't our cruise, but it's the same song).

Overall it was a great time, though I'm left with mixed feelings about cruising in general. While food was plentiful, eating was a lot harder than I imagined because the buffet was crazy busy most the time. For five nights of room and board, it was relatively inexpensive - but they were constantly badgering you to buy stuff. Soda was extra, pictures were $22 each, alcohol was standard bar prices but you could in no way achieve your own - even the on-ship duty free shop didn't let you leave with bottles in hand, you had to get it delivered on the last night. There were people of all ages on board, which means there were kids running around pretty much everywhere. So while it was fun, and I would do it again, it's not the only method of vacationing I want to do. If nothing else, I appreciate the cruise forcing me to relax and take some naps, not to mention the fact that the tropical destinations essentially come to you instead of the other way around!

When in Rome...

2010-09-07T18:55:00.002-04:00

Key West

2010-09-07T18:16:00.001-04:00

Cruise Detour

2010-09-07T13:41:00.001-04:00

Our cruise ship has made a minor detour...while we were scheduled to go to Grand Cayman island, due to a medical emergency on the ship we're headed to Key West instead. No big deal for me, I'm excited to have cell service for a day! We are going to miss the dolphin and stingray excursion at Grand Cayman, but oh well.

Other than that things are good on board. Lots of food and old people, and more people that stink than I would have guessed. Lots of shops, decks, chair areas, and frozen yogurt. I've heard that the shows on ship are terrible, and from the "welcome aboard" show we saw yesterday, I can see why people would say that. But there are various scheduled things to do pretty much non-stop, so that's a good thing.

It's hot, unsurprisingly. It's breezy on ship though, so if you can stay out of the sun it's not a big deal.

Currently the ship is docked in Key West, and we're avoiding the rush off the boat by eating some free lunch on ship. An ambulance came and took away the man in need of assistance; hopefully that works out for him.

Looking forward to seeing Key West!

Mark D

I'm on a boat!

2010-09-06T14:36:00.001-04:00

Cruisin'

2010-09-05T18:04:00.001-04:00

I'll see you on the beach soldier...

Server update (last one)

2010-09-05T17:48:00.000-04:00

My photo gallery server is back up and running. A little reinstall fixes everything! Also, the Ubuntu update process is ridiculous, at least if you use the GUI like I did. It took two or three days because it was constantly waiting for my input. If you're not babysitting the process, I guess that's what happens.I think I'm going to get a Mac Mini for the living room and move the gallery server there. I still see some value in having the gallery server, as long as the cool services like Flickr aren't free. Plus the new Gallery 3.0 software is slated to be coming out soon-ish, and it's looking to be moderately sweet. I think that will be a good reason to move it and get rid of my Linux server, again. I just don't have the inspiration to battle with re-learning Linux every time something is messed up. I have no idea what I'm going to do with that box though. I'll have to compare it with what's in the arcade cabinet, maybe that will get a little upgrade.

Moving Update/Server News pt 3

2010-09-02T23:07:00.000-04:00

The good news is that I have legit internet again. It was a bit of a pain to setup however. The U-Verse connection goes through my phone line, and I discovered that none of the phone jacks in the upstairs seem to work - only one jack (that's actually a cat5 jack) in the basement actually works. Anyway it's hooked up now.

In hooking things up, I also elected to use the "wireless gateway" that AT&T gave me, as I got way better speeds with it than with my old Linksys router, which sorta surprised me. I was really digging the Tomato firmware that I put on there, but I'm opting for speed and change in this case and instead dealing with the misery that comes pre-installed from AT&T.

Among other things, that also affected my server setup. I was having a heck of a time just getting the server an IP address, although it appears I got that resolved. Apache for some reason wasn't started, so I fired that up and it seems to be working, thankfully. The gallery software is still down however. I suspect MySQL isn't running, but at this point I can't even remotely login to the thing. Between having to physically walk into the basement and my lack of Linux skills (and upcoming vacation), I have no idea when it will be back up. I know Pete just put some photos up there, so I'm committed to getting it back up...at least for a while. We'll see about long-term options. My patience for Linux is growing thin.

As far as the moving goes, I'm as unpacked as I'm going to be. So far everything has been good. Now that I have internet, I can figure out how to get Hulu+ to my TV. Still haven't done so, but now I can! The new Apple TV is cool, though I really don't see it entirely fitting my needs. A Mac Mini may be in my future, despite the price tag. I dunno.

Anyway that's the story. Server is in progress - in my frustration I decided to update to the latest Ubuntu, which probably was a terrible idea. It seems to be randomly prompting me for information during the install, which is making it take forever since I'm not babysitting it. I'm worried that it's going to severely break stuff when it finally completes. Oh dear, such is life I suppose. I may need to get my IT friends over to help me out... =)

Fire on the river

2010-08-28T18:20:00.000-04:00

Pulled pork sub at subway

2010-08-27T18:29:00.000-04:00

It exists!!

My Water Bill: Usability Fail?

2010-08-26T22:13:00.001-04:00

So after searching for an hour for my checkbook, I set out to pay my last Delta Township water bill. For some reason, they are the only bill I have (had) that didn't offer an auto-pay feature, which is miserable, because that means I have to pay via check. Although that's questionable based on the last bill that I got talking about EFT in some fashion, but that's another story.

And for some reason they failed to include a self-addressed envelope like they usually do. Needless to say, I totally forgot to get the address before sealing the envelope. So at this point, I check the part of the bill that isn't sealed in the envelope. There is an address at the top of the page, but it doesn't say "remit payment here", so do I really trust it? It ends up that I rip open the envelope to verify the address that I'm supposed to send it to.

Which leads me to this: why is the part that tells you where to send payment listed on the section that you include with the payment? In what situation does that make sense? Maybe if you upon receiving of the bill, immediately separate the "please return with your bill" portion and throw the other half away. But does anybody do that? Perhaps it's just me that only separates the two halves as I'm paying the bill. How about, just in case this happens, you put the address to send it to on the part of the form that you'll be able to actually read?

Now I realize that the address WAS on the other portion of the bill, in the upper-left corner, much where I would expect an address to be. It seems plausible though that the address on a company's letterhead could be different from where you send your bill. Maybe my bill paying method is just oddball, that's entirely possible. Regardless, Delta Township owes me an envelope.

Moving news (also server news)

2010-08-24T20:24:00.001-04:00

Good news, I'm moved into my new place! Due to some clutch help from a lot of people, the moving process wasn't too painful (although a wee bit warm). We finished in about 2 1/2 hours, which I say is pretty good time. Unpacking, well, that's still ongoing. I'm doing well though I think - my bedroom is basically good to go. The TV is more or less hooked up - I probably won't attach the back speakers to the surround sound, so it's a relatively simple setup going on there. I still have the arcade cabinet to piece together and a few other things to clean up, but I'm well on the path to victory.

Achieving internet is a long story - unfortunately, the end result is I won't have legit internet until August 31st. I've been hijacking my iPhone's data connection which works surprisingly well, though not so much for a server. So my gallery server will be unavailable until then.

The new place generally has been good. It's clear that the office doesn't excel at communication in my dealings with them so far. Hopefully I won't have to deal with them too much.

That's about all I got there. Glad to have this moving thing more or less done. Still have to change a few addresses, which is lame, but necessary. Also have to return my Comcast goods, which I am really excited about being done with them. After much hand-wringing, I'm bailing on cable and I'm going with AT&T's U-Verse internet. I think it will be a good thing.

I'd really like to get Hulu up and running on something on my TV, although I need internet before I can do that. I've had Hulu Plus for a while now, and it's been less than awesome. That's another post though. With any luck, by the time Molly and I get back from the cruise, Apple will have released a sweet new Apple TV replacement for $99 that will make all my worries go away. Somehow I doubt that will happen. Otherwise it's time to get serious about a home theatre PC (again). Though in the meantime, I might start by just getting a good pair of rabbit ears...I forget that HD comes over the air for free these days!

Server downtime (also, moving!)

2010-08-19T23:03:00.001-04:00

I'm moving this weekend into a townhome down the street. It seems like I've been moving for months now, but I'm for real going in the next couple days. So, not only am I using that as my excuse for not posting, it's also going to cause some downtime in the gallery server. I know, that's heartbreaking, but that's the way it is. It actually might be a couple weeks, as I didn't plan far enough ahead apparently to get AT&T in to setup my internet. I'm going to be limping by on my iPhone for a while. Yeah, that's going to suck.That's all for now, I'll see you on the other side.

Sorry Ralphie...

2010-08-15T12:01:00.001-04:00

Win

2010-07-29T11:57:00.000-04:00

I love you Turkeyman.

Northern Michigan 2010

2010-07-26T23:37:00.004-04:00

Molly and I went on a little weekend vacation last weekend to northern Michigan. You can see all the photos from the trip on my Gallery server. We started on Friday going to Traverse City for some wine tasting. We did pretty well; I forget what the total was, but we hit like 7 wineries on the Leelenau Peninsula including quite a few that we hadn't been to before. Keeping in mind my imminent house moving, I managed to keep the number of bottles purchased to a modest 4 or 5.

One of the wineries we went to was very Mexican adobe-house type of themed, which was way cool, and included the equally cool statue I've termed "Square Mary" pictured here. We also ran into an establishment that sold only hard apple cider from a variety of apples that I'd never heard from. I didn't think any of the cider was all that tasty, but it was interesting. The girl working said that apple cider is one of the only drinks that you can mix different varieties of and potentially end up with good results. Beer, wine, soda, can't mix different types of those. Hard apple cider, go to town. Now you know.

Friday night we drove over to Mackinaw City where we were staying, but stopped in Petoskey for dinner and a shout out to the sunset. We actually attempted to stop in Charlevoix, but there was some kind of fiesta happening in the streets and it was chaos, so we bailed. Anyway the sunset was rather nice, and provided quite a photographical challenge. I've only a couple times tried to photograph a sunset, and any positive results have been mostly on accident. These pictures turned out alright, although I've learned you're at the mercy of the clouds quite a bit.

The picture here on the left, I have no idea who the people are that are standing there. I would like to thank them for making my picture way better though! This picture really reminds me of OutRun for some reason. I can't find the picture to support it, although I swear the high score screen from the original OutRun has a similar vibe. Or something like that.

So we made it to Mackinaw City, then Saturday to Mackinac Island. We sorta fell into a special "bridge view" boat ride, where we went under the Mackinaw Bridge before making it to Mackinac Island. That was pretty nifty, I do enjoy the bridge. It was my first time to Mackinac Island, and it was quite an experience. People everywhere, at least in the little shopping area near the boat docks. We tapped around in that area before hiking up the hill to Lookout Point, which is supposedly the highest point on the island. Even picked up a few Geocaches along the way (having a real compass in my iPhone is awesome)! It was about that time that my back decided it had enough climbing steep hills, and I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding anything that looked like a hill.

We continued wandering around, thankfully downhill this time, and ran across a few interesting things. One being this totally abandoned playground, which was pretty awesomely creepy. Especially because some storm clouds were rolling in. Good stuff. Ran across the Grand Hotel, complete with a tiny woman guarding the street in front of the hotel, off-limits unless you pay $10 to visit the hotel. No thanks. Almost got run over by some giant horses hauling about 50 elderly people, who seemed unconcerned that we were in their path. And found a pay phone along a random road in front of a standard farm. Odd.

Mackinac Island is pretty cool to see. I'm curious what goes on outside of the little tourist village there by the docks. Probably not necessary to go back anytime real soon though.

We headed back to Mackinaw City proper, and made the long trip back to the hotel room. After some much needed rest, we went back out to find dinner. We ended up eating at The Chippewa Room, which I can best describe as "northern Michigan fine dining". I posted a picture of the bread basket we got before dinner. The food was good, but it was totally just a townie restaurant with ridiculously jacked up prices, dim lighting, and some more exotic food choices (I actually wrote a review on Urbanspoon about it). Given our other opportunities, I think we made the right choice for food, but it was a really weird experience.

Also in Mackinaw City, I got the awesome opportunity to take this photo of a very overweight woman sitting on the stairs, right next to a sign that says "DO NOT SIT ON THE STAIRS". Molly reported she also had her shoes off and was generally "owning" her space, although I was too excited about the potential photo to notice such shenanigans. Awesome.

Finally we ended up back at the bridge for another sunset, as well as a couple of night shots. We didn't really have an awesome view for the sunset due to the location of the sun. Probably would have been better on the U.P. side, or better yet on Mackinac Island. Or, just a short walk to stand underneath the bridge actually so we didn't have the bridge in the way anyway. Oh well, it worked out alright.

On the night shots...I forgot my tripod, so I was attempting to position my camera using my iPhone to prop up the lens. Unfortunately, the glass-backed iPhone 4 came back to haunt me here, as it reflected some light into the top of the shots. So if you look at the upper part of any of the night shots of the bridge, you'll see a whole bunch of little green-ish dots. Yep, that's reflected from my iPhone (I think anyway). Oops.

So that was our trip! The total photo haul currently stands at 221, although you should know that I actually *shot* something close to 800 photos! I had a ridiculous amount of sunset photos; mostly of the same thing. I really should be able to trim it down further, but I need a break from looking at sunsets!

Hope you enjoyed the recap...

Breadbasket

2010-07-17T19:13:00.000-04:00

Fine dining in Mackinaw City

Sunset FTW

2010-07-16T21:13:00.000-04:00

Took a lot of pictures. Probably many terrible ones.

July $5 Amazon MP3 deals

2010-07-03T10:49:00.001-04:00

I'm a big fan of Amazon's monthly $5 mp3 deals. Yesterday I picked up Allison Iraheta's album "Just Like You". Her sound seems to be somewhere between Hayley Williams (of Paramore) and Kelly Clarkson. I'm hesitant to give it a review after the first listen, but I'll say it doesn't suck. Which is surprising, considering her American Idol roots. Definitely I can tell there's some lazy generic rock-ish tracks, and some ballads that I'll probably decide are just boring. Once you get past those, I think there's some winners in there though. We'll see. She does refer to "texting" a couple of times, which I think is weird. I guess what can you do.

I also picked up the Silversun Pickups' first album, Carnavas. Salgat introduced me to their second album, "Swoon", which is as the kids say, straight dope. I haven't fully listened to the first album yet, although I know a couple of tracks from elsewhere. I don't expect it to match the awesome subdued intensity of the second album. I think it will be alright though. I did just realize that the second song is "Well Thought Out Twinkles", not "Well Thought Out Twinkies", which does make me less excited. I'll try to contain my disappointment.

And while it wasn't a deal, since I'm on the topic (although quite a departure musically from Allison Iraheta), I also picked up the new Eminem album last week, "Recovery". I have listened to it a couple of times, but not real closely, so I'm going to abstain on an official review here too. I'll say though I can already tell it's better than "Relapse" if for no other reason than he stopped using that obnoxious Triumph the Insult Comic Dog accent. Ugh, that was so annoying. Anyway it's no Slim Shady LP, but that's like asking Metallica to remake "...And Justice For All" (although they did come close with "Death Magnetic", which rocked hardcore).

In my new group at work, I'm no longer allowed to listen to headphones. The nicest way I can possibly put that is "lame". Especially since I now get enough cell phone signal to actually stream music from Pandora or Last.fm. So close to being awesome. So I'm not sure exactly when I'm going to listen to all this music, but at least I've got it! Can't have too much new music, right?

Indecision

2010-06-29T12:31:00.000-04:00

Went to the post office today. The woman in front of me, when asked "credit or debit", responded, "whatever is easier for you". Now...I understand her point, but honestly, just make a decision there. Do you really think it matters to the cashier? It's not like the processes are that different. Instead you make the cashier make that choice for you, something they probably don't want to deal with. Suck it up. Choose one, and let society go on knowing that you can make tiny decisions for yourself.

Mark D

iPhone 3G for sale...

2010-06-27T21:52:00.001-04:00

If anybody wants to pick up a fixer-upper 8gb iPhone 3G, I know a great one for you to check out... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140421604304

Sounds like a great deal, I'm just sayin..... =)

Mark D

Mmmmmmm....

2010-06-20T23:15:00.001-04:00

Desert

2010-06-20T17:17:00.000-04:00

Viva Laughlin!

2010-06-19T12:43:00.001-04:00

Laughlin!

2010-06-19T03:02:00.000-04:00

Wow

2010-06-07T17:12:00.000-04:00

Can anybody explain the physics of this to me?

Don't buy this toothpaste

2010-06-06T13:13:00.003-04:00

I got this "Aquafresh Flouride Toothgel - Deep Impact" toothpaste a while ago. Generally I'm a big Mentadent fan, but for whatever reason, the Meijer over here doesn't always have the Mentadent refills. So I got this stuff instead, mostly because it comes in a sweet looking dispenser. Unfortunately, it sucks.

You might notice the nasty residue that is coming out of the container. That's the problem. Regardless how you get the toothpaste onto your toothbrush, what's left on the end will "foam up" and turn into a nasty jelly-goo like substance. It doesn't go away and you can't even really ignore it, because unless you clean that mess off, it's going to get on your toothbrush, and it's not very pleasant.

Stay away. You've been warned.

A serious pile of meat

2010-05-31T20:28:00.000-04:00

At Slow's BBQ in the D.

The Office

2010-05-14T17:58:00.001-04:00

For some reason I was inspired today to take a photo of my desk at
work. So here you go.

I do what my closet tells me to

2010-05-12T22:49:00.000-04:00

The dress code at my job is decidedly "professional". Dress shirt and tie, dress pants, every day. In some ways that can be a pain. The good news though, is that (at least for guys) it makes getting dressed in the morning a brain-dead decision.

In an effort to make getting dressed really require as close to zero thought as possible in the morning, I've been taking it one step further by implementing a simple rotation for shirts and pants. You might notice in the above photo that there's shirts on the left, pants on the right. The rotation is simple - every day, just wear the shirt and pair of pants that meet in the middle.

Now, it's not always zero-thought. Sometimes, I might have to go slightly outside the current pair of pants to avoid a particularly unfortunate color combination. But you've got a queue of options just ready to go. Not only is it zero-thought most of the time, it also generally ensures equal wearing of the shirts and pants. And when you've got 5 pairs of the same Steve & Barry's pants, that is critical!

So it's that easy. One less thing to think about in the morning. Your clothes are treated equally. Everybody kicks a goal. Efficiency for the win!

In the club

2010-05-10T19:26:00.000-04:00

I'm not buying it...

2010-05-09T10:30:00.000-04:00

Thank you iPhoto

2010-05-08T15:44:00.003-04:00

Another one from the depths of iPhoto's brilliant face-tagging engine.

So good

2010-05-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

Yikes

2010-04-24T18:22:00.000-04:00

Burger with pulled pork on top. Ridiculous.

What???

2010-04-17T22:31:00.000-04:00

This sounds terrible!

Cork board strip

2010-04-11T11:09:00.000-04:00

Just installed this cork board strip above my desk to hold some
transient paper stuff. So far, seems like an awesome idea. 3M
command strips are awesome!

Shamrock shake!

2010-04-11T00:04:00.000-04:00

Better late than never, finally got a shamrock shake this year!

Live from Comerica Park

2010-04-09T13:28:00.000-04:00

Happy Opening Day!!

Google Analytics

2010-03-21T21:38:00.002-04:00

I just installed Google Analytics on this blog. I remember using the similar OneStat back in the day on the PASD.org site, but wow, Google Analytics is way awesome. Just wanted to throw that out there.

A Weekend in the D

2010-03-21T21:13:00.003-04:00

Molly and I had an adventure this weekend in the D. Saturday we got tickets to the Tower of Power concert at the Motor City Casino. The concert was, in a word, way awesome. I didn't bring in my camera for a variety of reasons, and I didn't really think about using my phone until the encore. I took a couple tiny clips, one of which I'll present here just as proof that I was actually there. The quality is miserable at best, unfortunately, so you'll have to extrapolate how awesome it actually was.

Before the concert though, we ate at the Assembly Line buffet at the casino. As you may know, I'm quite a fan of casino buffets, and this one was top-notch. There was a bit of chaos trying to get into the place, as there were some high-rollers that cut in front of us in line and were having all kinds of problems figuring out the automated payment machines. Anyway, the pretzel roll in a previous photo-post was just one example of the awesomeness of this place. They didn't have soft serve ice cream, and the server wasn't real excited about work, but other than that, outstanding stuff.

The "Sound Board" was the concert venue, which happened to be right next to the buffet. The only prior experience that I've ever had with casino shows was (Sir) Tom Jones at the Soaring Eagle. While Sir Tom was outstanding, the setup of that concert hall was misery. This was a lot more standard, and while not the highest of comfort, there was at least a reasonable amount of space to move around. Also, Molly noted there were a lot of guys that looked like they should be dentists that were really showing their musical soul in the crowd, doing their best to groove with the music. Naturally, with mostly hilarious results. If only I was able to get some footage of that. Obviously, a good time was had by all.

We stayed overnight at "The Inn on Ferry Street" which is right off Woodward near downtown. It is a series of restored Victorian homes, so it was quite a nifty place, not your standard Motel 6. Classy stuff, cookies in the room waiting for us even.

Part of the hotel deal was Sunday brunch at The Whitney. The Whitney is a mega-old (completed in 1894 I think) mansion that is nowadays a fancy restaurant. The building is beautiful for sure, and there was a guy hanging out playing the piano about 10 feet from our table. The food was pretty solid, although I'd say not really worth the mega-expensive that it was for a Sunday brunch buffet, even with endless mimosas. Especially considering the cheaper (although also not cheap) buffet that I ate at the casino for dinner the night before. Why is it that brunch is always so expensive anyway? Regardless, Molly and I agree that we'd still like to go back for dinner sometime. I do think that would be good stuff.

Also to note, this may be the only case in history that the men's bathroom has an actual sitting room in it, while the women's room does not. Score one for the guys.

Overall, a good weekend spent visiting Detroit. I look forward to seeing you again soon, friend...

Pretzel roll

2010-03-20T18:41:00.001-04:00

Pretzel roll. Awesome.

This is going to be awesome

2010-03-14T10:38:00.000-04:00