November 1, 2006: Back in New Jersey

I am back in New Jersey and SGL is back online. Life is good. I was a little tired this morning after all of the driving over the past five days but at least that is done now. (200 miles on Friday, 110 miles on Saturday, 200 miles on Sunday, 360 on Monday and 310 yesterday – that is 1180 miles in five days!)

Today we are sending out a special W.O.R.D. to Chris and Eric from Long Island who are now reading the site. Once you start you just can’t stop. SGL is addicting.

Oreo had a great time at daycare yesterday. All of the dogs were dressed up for the holiday and it was like a giant party. Oreo just loves parties. He knows when there is a party going on and he gets so excited. And he really likes wearing his costume so he was having all kinds of fun. Oreo’s Yoda costume won the highly coveted “Most Original Costume” award and he got a special treat bag to take home.

On the way into the office this morning I managed to record the first video blog using the new Kodak V530 digital camera. The one that we got is black and very attractive. It is small and far easier to hold than the old camera – the CX7530. Additionally the new camera captures 30fps at 640×480 instead of 15fps of the old camera. (I believe that all of the old videos were shot in 20fps 320×240 so brace yourselves for some seriously updated video quality.) The new camera also has zoom and focus working while the video is recording which was missing from the last camera. This is a far more versatile unit.

The one thing that really concerns me about the new camera is the battery situation. It uses a Kodak rechargeable battery which in and of itself is a good thing. My Nikon uses a Nikon battery and I am extremely happy with that but the Nikon is used differently (by me) and charging the battery is not a big deal (even though after having had it for a year and using it I have never had the battery even decrease in strength let alone need to be charged!) but the Kodak I carry with me and use all of the time for silly stuff and the last thing that I want to have happen is to have the battery die just when I go to use the camera and then I have to go put it onto the charger and wait three hours or more for the camera to be useful again. There is no way, as far as I can tell, to charge the battery without having it in the camera which is a huge pain. The camera comes with a totally useless base that you would think would be used for charging batteries outside of the camera but that is not what it is for. It apparently just exists to use extra plastic.

In any case I am quite excited to be able to use the new camera and I can’t wait to post the first pics and videos so that everyone can see how it is working. I managed to record a nine and a half minute vlog post this morning while driving in to the office which is much longer than I ever was able to record with the old camera so that is a very good sign. Perhaps the bad flash on the old camera was more of a problem than we thought.

For lunch today I went out with a buddy from the office and looked at a condo that he was interested in and then we headed down to the thriving metropolis of Warrenville to get some Thai from the Thai House. I haven’t managed to get down there for a while. Apparently this is the week of eating places that I haven’t made it to in a while. First the Omega twice yesterday. Then the Thai House. Maybe Tanjore later this week?

Dominica has been furniture shopping and discovered that getting the bookshelf delivered from Ikea that we want will cost as much for the shipping as it will for the bookshelf so we have to go and pick it up ourselves which will be awful. She did find a hall table from Target that she really likes that has to be ordered online which she attempted to do today. We desperately need those two pieces of furniture as we have no space to store anything and there are books and magazines just sprawling everywhere in the apartment and the hall table is critical for giving us a place to put down our keys and stuff. Right now they keep making their way to the kitchen counter and that has become a disaster.

Dominica also managed to find bar stools that we like but we are going to wait on getting those. Too much furniture all at once. We need to pace ourselves. The first thing that we need to do is to get all of these servers wrapped up and shipped off. They take up a lot of space and are really in the way. It is tough having “work materials” in such a small apartment. I am very hopeful to have them all moved out next week. At least most of them. That means, of course, that I have to make a trip back out to Scranton soon. Just what I wanted – more driving.

I am going to post early again tonight. I know that everyone has been SGL deprived and I managed to get a lot done today so enjoy.

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