Man, do I ever enjoy Bruce Willis’ John McClane character in the Die Hard movies.
This song, which I first heard probably a year or so ago, has been buzzing around in my head for a few days now. I just rented the “Live Free or Die Hard” video from Blockbuster and really expect (hope?) it will be satisfying.
Anyway, for your listening and viewing pleasure. I may have to go rent the other movies now!
Posted under Very Cool
This post was written by Marc
on December 5, 2007 at 7:43 pm
OK, so I realize that looking at other folks’ pictures is not always the most exciting thing in the world, but maybe you’ve got some free time on your hands! 
Here is the photo album from our Charleston, South Carolina trip if you’re interested:
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Posted under Photos
This post was written by Marc
on December 2, 2007 at 8:46 pm
We’re here in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina eating breakfast at “Joseph’s”. The food portions are generous and the atmosphere convivial. There is a live band playing sax, clarinet and guitar about 15 feet from us.
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Here is a link to the growing album. I’m trying to blog more or less real-time.
We had a bit of a SNAFU when we arrived last night, they assigned us to a room that had plenty of space, but few amenities:
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There were a couple of other hiccoughs but I used the “comments” section on their internal website and the manager called us this morning to apologize and is moving us to a new room. I’ll let you know if things are great now.
Posted under Retail Experiences, Travel
This post was written by Marc
on December 2, 2007 at 1:56 pm
We met up with the Naidus in Savannah over Thanksgiving. We spent a couple of days at the “Westin Savannah Harbor“. Hint, if you’ll be spending a lot of time in your room, shell out the extra $30 a night and get the River view. The golf course view is OK, except it’s really the “parking lot, marsh, roadway *then* golf course view”. No worries for us since we spent so little daylight time in the room but it *does* explain why there were no images of that view on their web site.
Check out the pictures here:
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Largely the place was a ghostland for Thanksgiving. I was *very* surprised. The River Street that I was expecting is completely packed, you know tourists in the sidewalk, kids in their parent’s cars cruising up and down the boulevard. So we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Since we arrived later in the day we were looking for a place to eat right away, but most places were either closed, or their kitchens were closed.
Fortunately, a friend at work told me about
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Kevin Barry’s (Irish) Pub. They were open until the wee hours (at least *much* later than we were going to be up), but they had some great live music – Irish songs, of course.
We ended up at the Bacon Park Golf course before heading home. Not one of my best games, but I’ve been unable to practice much lately at the driving range…
Overall a great trip and a nice diversion. We only spent the Thursday and Friday there so we still had the rest of the weekend available for getting the Christmas decorations culled (still haven’t set those up yet!).
This post was written by Marc
on December 2, 2007 at 1:21 pm
If you enjoyed Jill’s song you’ll probably enjoy this tongue in cheek offering from TED talks. This one about Global Warming. The first 25 seconds of TED credits are always a little much but the content of ANY TED talk is worth it. I subscribe to both the video and audio TED feeds and heartily recommend them to anybody. They cover a breadth of topics that are sure to have an appeal for anybody with an interest in anything…
Posted under Opinions
This post was written by Marc
on December 1, 2007 at 1:26 am
Now that we’ve had a few months to live with and consider some of our renovation choices I just wanted to share some of my thoughts.
One big change that I would make is to NOT go with fitting the standalone bathtub into an alcove. Even though they offer the bead kit that will prevent water from seeping through and damaging the wall, and even though Tommy made sure that there was going to be a great seal with caulking, etc. to back that up, the fact is that the bathtub itself lacks a sufficient slope for the water to cascade down the wall and flow into the tub. Instead it tends to accumulate around the base of the wall.
After each shower we make sure to quickly wipe up the excess water to prevent mould from forming from this accumulation.
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Our toilets are GREAT, they have overcome our bungalow’s naturally sluggish sewer drainage and all perform consistently and well. However, Michelle didn’t favor the flush handles and so we installed some that protruded from the tank by a good inch or so over the original ones. This means that the toilet seat lid rests against the handle. The flush is VERY vigorous and can be felt through the handle when they are depressed. What this means is that the handles are wearing through the toilet seat lids.
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It’s gotten bad enough that, if we’re not careful, the handle can actually be held down by the friction of the toilet seat and allow the water to flow slightly after the flush. This is remedied by pulling the seat forward when flushing but these handles will need to be replaced.In designing the bed end tables, I specified that the cupbard doors open “traditionally” with the hinge on the side and the handle in the middle. I was thinking of “normal” use such as accessing the cupbard when standing in front of it. This, of course, makes it awkward to open if you’re in bed which is when you want the most convenience. So I’d have these cupbards open the other way. I may be able to swap the doors from the right and left end tables… hmmm.
I had elected to have only the heating lamp and not the fan on a timer in our master bathroom. I’ve never had a fan timer before in there and I was simply used to it. But, given the risk of mould from the water accumulation above I’d now like to put in a timer for the fan so I can have it run for an extra hour after we’re done in there, but not for the whole day. Since the fan is on a half-size switch, I need to think about a way to do it, but nothing obvious comes to mind.
I don’t think there is anything I could have done about this, but the thermo-balanced faucet does come at a water-throughput price. It’s not nearly so bad as those severly “lo-flo” fixtures but I can see that it does limit the water somewhat. I don’t have a problem conserving water (you can just look at my water bill to see that) but my morning shower isn’t a place that I wish to scrimp. I temporarily replaced the new showerhead with the one that used to be there and I could tell that there was some restriction imposed by the new head itself. This was resolved by a quick trip out to the garage and drilling out the restriction. But there is still a limitation imposed by the faucet itself that I’m willing to accept for the great temperature control features that it offers.
Aside from those trifles (the bathtub being the one that I would most caution folks about) we’re still extremely pleased with the work and the results. It wasn’t cheap, but you need to invest your time and/or your money to get what you want in life. Lacking the great amount of time it would take (and some of the requisite skills) the money trade-off was well worth it to us.
Posted under On the Home Front
This post was written by Marc
on November 24, 2007 at 11:02 am
My department at work held its annual Thanksgiving potluck lunch. I decided I’d make some of my chocolate chip cookies for this event and set to work.
I’ve been tailoring this recipe for years now. When I found I was going to be a little light on the flour I rationalized that the original recipe had actually only called for exactly as much flour as I had available so I would just go with what I had.
Unfortunately, it seems some of the other “tweaks” I’ve made to the recipe over the years depend on the right proportion of flour and the dough melted rapidly and spread out on the cookie sheets. There it browned rather nicely and became somewhat crispy such that, when I tried to pull up the cookies with a spatula, the outer, crisped edges broke away. Leaving me with a bunch of soft “cookie hearts” that, while still tasting great, looked absolutely wretched.
I *was* able to salvage some cookies (they turned out OK due, presumably, to temperature differences between the upper and lower oven racks) but the vast majority I didn’t think looked very appealing (they’re in the foreground below)…
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So I ended up buying some pastries and will next time go out and get the flour when I’m low!
Posted under Amusing, Gastronomy
This post was written by Marc
on November 19, 2007 at 7:21 pm
