I discovered today that a friend of mine from high school at York Central School is a big time opera singer here in Manhattan with rave reviews! I had no idea. I knew in school that she wanted to be an opera singer but she was several years younger than me and I did not keep in contact after graduating and I didn’t keep in contact with anyone that kept in contact with her. So I had no idea. Nice to see the hometown crowd doing well. Not many get to escape the country and really do something.
Dominica and I had been planning to get a nice, new HP machine with Windows Vista on it to use as a media center in our living room. We were going to get a nice graphics card for it and use it as a video game “console” as well. We haven’t bought it yet because we haven’t bought the LCD to attach it to and we can’t until the taxes are done. But we have been doing some thinking about how we use our computers and stuff in the house and what we already own and have invested in and we have decided that we just don’t need the extra power and flexibility and that it would really make a lot more sense for us to just use the Mac Mini that we were already planning on buying in the living room as our media center computer.
The Mac comes with Frontrow which is the same software that powers the AppleTV which we already have in the bedroom. So the two will be relatively identical with the same look and the same interface and the same compatibility. It will save money and space and it will be much more attractive than our original idea. So, for now, that is the plan. Basically we have decided to standardize our own home on the AppleTV and h.264 for now. I can tell that I am getting older. The solution isn’t so flexible as it is simple and easy. But we use our media in such limited ways that it should work pretty well for us. The only challenge is going to be Netflix which currently requires Windows to work. Hopefully they will have Mac compatibility worked out very soon.
Today was very busy at work. I was on the phone from the moment that I got into the office until noon. I had arrived at the office quite early today too. I wasn’t being a slacker this morning and was at my desk a full hour before “normal time” and still people were calling me on my mobile because they couldn’t reach me while I was on the train on my way in. One of the many reasons why I am not a big fan of commuting especially for people in primarily support roles. The unavailability while traveling really impacts things – even when traveling during expected traveling hours or, in my case, hours before that.
Our weekend trip to Niagara Falls has been cancelled postponed. The weather is expected to be bad all week and through the weekend. Driving eight hundred miles (round trip) in deep snow in a rented minivan is not my idea of a relaxing weekend. The scheduling of the snow worked out because Kevin has a lot of studying to do and really isn’t available this weekend anyway. So probably best that the snow caused us to lean towards not pushing to do it this weekend anyway. Maybe we can do it when the weather is nicer and you don’t have to be all bundled up while looking at the falls.
Yesterday and today were highly successful finding-people-from-high-school days. I found several friends that I haven’t spoken to in years. It’s so strange because in so many ways it seems like we never lost touch even though it has often been fourteen years or more. My list of people from school that I am still in contact with is pretty impressive.
Tomorrow is deal-with-the-car’s-registration day. The Mazda needs its New York State inspection and there isn’t going to be any good time to do it so it just has to be done tomorrow morning. So I am going to be driving up to West Nyack, New York to get the car inspected. I have a tentative appointment for a little after eight in the morning. So I have to get up early tomorrow, drive Dominica to work early and then drive on to West Nyack and try to get there as early as possible. Then drive back down to Newark to work at home as it is my work at home day. It will be a long morning. But it has to be done and this will get it out of the way.
Even though I went in early this morning I got stuck late supporting people. That is okay. I am going to be out for a little bit tomorrow morning anyway. I am looking forward to having some quiet reading time tomorrow actually. I don’t often get forced to just sit and read for any length of time and I appreciate the breaks when they come my way.
My grades were posted for Project Management just before I left work and to my very great relief I did quite well on the Project Titanic term paper and have managed to maintain by four point average for the time being. That is a huge weight off of my shoulders. I now have a week or so between classes where I can relax a little bit.
It was around seven thirty when I got back into Newark. Dominica was watching the final two episodes of The Gilmore Girls and wanted to be able to finish them. So I did some cleaning and talked to Andy for a little bit. I ordered in Chinese for dinner from Golden City. I watched the last twenty minutes of The Gilmore Girls with Dominica and then we watched Family Ties. Then it was off to bed. We have to be up early tomorrow.