When we first moved to Kirkland, I lamented the then-recently-started construction on I-405 just east of our townhouse. "This is going to go on all year," I mentioned to Layla, "and I'm sure we're going to move out right before it's completed." Well, the construction took all year and we...
And why, you may be asking, am I so surprised that I didn't crash my BMW today? I washed the car the equivalent of four times yesterday. It turns out that there's a lot of work involved in really getting a car clean. Keeping the paint in good condition requires...
It annoys me to no end when some backwards-hatted kid in a riced-out Civic pulls up next to my BMW at a stop light, hauls ass when it turns green, and is assuredly smug as he pulls away entirely too quickly for the bouncy suspension and stock brakes I'm sure...
I haven't driven the Mercedes in at least two months. At all. And I haven't seriously moved it (more than a handful of parking spaces) since the last major snowstorm we had. Since the lease at our townhouse is officially up on Monday, Layla and I trucked up to Kirkland,...
I've been using the Alienware Aurora m9700 for practically a year now and I've come to the conclusion that it's just too damned big. I admit—this was pretty obvious when I first got the machine. But I figured I'd give it a shot for a few months and would try...
I want to put 75' of fence across the back of the yard in order to separate us better from the unwashed townhomes behind us. Contrary to the picture, this will be a traditional wooden fence. I've got lots of helpful hints from around the office already, but has anyone,...
In honor of passing 1280 posts a while ago, here's a recap of posts whose index is a power of 2 (or a multiple of 128, which is why all aren't of the form /^10*$/). This post is largely copied from Power of 2 roll call (1000). The entire static...
Layla and I were playing Hoopla earlier (yes, just the two of us—we're just that cool) when she had to pantomime Mecca. After I failed to guess what the heck she was praying towards ("east?") she got me to guess:Clown? No wait, Pee-Wee Herman Pee-Wee's Big Adventure? No, Jambi? Yes!...
A while back, I bought a generic utility knife. It looks an awful lot like the one pictured at right. Yes, I scanned through a bunch of images of utility knives on the web before settling on that picture. The thing is that I lost this utility knife right the...
First, some background. Our new house didn't come with a clothes dryer. Technically, a washer was left here—but it's in crap shape and I still don't know if it works because the outlet next to it didn't even work until a few days ago. Additionally, the refrigerator that came with...
Technically, it was time to party. It's now over. After moving in three weeks ago, we've gotten the house unpacked and organized enough to throw a housewarming party. So we busted out the beer, balloons, and melon bowls (pictured) and had ourselves a, uhh, shin-dig. I think between 30 and...
Wow, it's foggy this morning. We get clouding like this once every handful of months here in the Greater Puget Sound area—typically in the spring. When I took this picture, visibility was around 200m, which is the worst I've seen it in recent memory. And in the time that it...
Remember the Lada Niva? Well, English Russia caught one stuck on a chunk of ice (cached)....
There's an outlet in the garage used for a clothes washer hookup, but the damned thing is falling halfway out of the wall and it doesn't appear to work. It turns out that this was the problem: a blurry photograph of unconnected wires. The wiring ran from the outlet, up...
I spotted this on the community cork board at the office. Click to zoom in—the flyer is advertising a Huge End Unit. Why thanks, but I think I'm good....
Everybody remember the Kursk, which sank in 2000 after it was damaged by an experimental torpedo? Well, English Russia has a salvage-boat load of pictures of the Kursk out of the water, and the damage is amazing (cached). It's really rare to see the interior of a sub like this,...
I'm sure you've all heard about the tragic news today. There's a lot of commentary on the event, and I want to make sure I have something worthwhile to add. In spite of all of the press that horriffic events like these get, do remember that for every killer out...
Over the last week, my Samsung SGH-T809 slider phone has started crapping out. The UI (and seconds later, the whole phone) will completely freeze after I've typed in more than three digits, making it completely impossible actually dial a number that isn't already in the phone's memory. Oh, and it...
This is a picture of a painter's truck cruising through Bellevue. In related news, I bought an 8' ladder today. It barely fits inside my garage, but it's fantastic for getting me onto the roof and into the attic. I'll be doing a lot of both soon, since our gutters...
You may have noticed today that the /dev/null server was down—due in no small part to the complete lack of electrical power in the house. We had our crappy old Zinsco panel replaced today with the shiny new 200A unit pictured at right. It's difficult to tell from the pictures...
We got our new trash cans today. The big blue bin on the left is for recycling. The tiny grey one on the right is for bona-fide trash. And we're awaiting a third specifically for compost and lawn waste. I've never seen a suburb so serious about getting people to...
Between all the time I have to spend at the gym and at home getting stuff done, it's been busy fitting in all the extra work I'm doing right now. And so, despite starting my morning at around 7am, I just got home a few minutes ago. P.S. Everybody go...
I'm weighing in consistently below 190 pounds, which means that I've taken 35 pounds off my weight since the start of the 20/20 program, and close to 45 pounds off my peak weight. Stokage. The chart at the right shows what happens when you move houses while you're tracking your...
Continuing with the foliage theme, I figured I'd post a picture of the bit of landscaping I'm not planning on ripping out when I redo the front and back lawns. This is a really particularly awesome bit of vines and ... err, flowering tree stuff stuck back in the corner...
The thing is that Ford used now-popular model names like "Explorer" and "Ranger" as lines of their F-Series pickups. My truck happens to be an F-250 Explorer Custom. And I get to stare at that hood ornament the entire time I drive it....
I would usually write this sort of thing over at AA but I'm feeling particularly ranty and I'm not in the mood to polish the article enough to make it worthy of anything other than, well, /dev/null. Here's the deal: every car nut out there starts on a complaint rant...
We have exceedingly tall trees in our back yard....
This came over the news wire recently. Apparently some kid came barrelling down a local road and lost control of his shiny red RX-7, and then dumped the car up a tree. Oddly, no serious injuries. Photo archive: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8...
I'm tired—no real content tonight....
home.milkmandan.org will be going down later today in preparation for Comcast to move our personal intertruck (no, wait, it's an intertube) from the old place over to the new. Comcast assures me service will be restored by 4pm tomorrow, but the lag in DNS update time will likely mean you...
My home inspector reminded me of this tip: if you need to buy tools, look first at your local pawn shop. Most pawn shops are packed to the gills with tools (and musical equipment), and some of it is in good working order. Now, you know already that practically all...
I'm short on pictures because the internet connection and the computer with the camera dock are now in different houses—but as the title says, we've got the bulk of our crap moved from the old townhouse into the new place. On a related note, it looks like I'm really getting...
