Wife and I went out on a rare date night last night. Started with dinner at Atlanta Bread Company where we enjoyed their soup loaves, because they’re just so yummy. I love their loaf of chili. Then a quick trip to the bookstore to kill a bit of time, where we picked up a copy of Marley & Me, a book about a lab retriever and his family that we’d heard a lot of people talking about. And to finish off the night, we went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Growing up I read the series countless times, so I was looking forward to seeing how the movie version would be. I was quite impressed with the screen adaptation. I thought the movie followed the book pretty accurately (as accurately as it could in 2 hours anyway) without feeling too rushed. The acting was well done, and the actors cast in the rols of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy did a good job of capturing the spirit of the characters from the book. Definitely a movie I’ll plan on adding to my collection.
A nice quiet night with some tasty food and a good movie. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Firefly marathon
The wife would probably kill me if I took the day off and did nothing but sit my plump butt in front of the TV all day, but I’m seriously considering doing that Jan 6 for SciFi’s Firefly marathon and SciFi Friday. Starts at 8 AM, all 12 episodes and then into the second half of the season for Stargate: SG1, Stargate: Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica.
That’s 15 hours of some of the best TV on the air now (the wife would have other things to say about that). Mmmm, I’m getting all wobbly just thinking about it.
Anybody want to join me for this SciFi orgy?
Slurp slurp
Boy, these trees sure do suck up a serious amount of water. Since we’ve had it home, the pine tree we got has sucked up a good 10-12 liters of water. I’d read that they’ll usually go through about 8-10 liters the first couple of days. Going to have to keep an eye on the water level and check it at least 2 or 3 times/day.
Now the wife’s started to feel bad about cutting down a tree just to decorate for the holiday, so we’ve decided we’re going to get another sapling to plant in the back yard. Would have been nice to take this tree and plant it in the yard, but I don’t think it would do too well without roots. Maybe next year we’ll find one of those tree farms that sells trees with the root ball still attached so it can be replanted.
That dual-Opteron system again
Last year, a dual-Opteron system caught my eye, so I priced one out to see what I’d need. Of course now that same system is pretty much obsolete, but I thought I’d check and see how the price changed between then and now.
| Part | Quant | Price | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tyan Thunder K8W | 1 | ||
| Opteron 246 2 GHz | 2 | ||
| 512MB Corsair |
4 | ||
| 1 | |||
| Maxtor 250GB SATA HD | 2 | ||
| Sony DRU-530A DVD+/-RW | 1 | ||
| Thermaltake |
1 | ||
| Samsung 193S 19″ LCD | 1 | ||
| Enermax EG651P-VE Power Supply | 1 | ||
| Extras | $100 | $100 |
Total cost: $4200.40 $2389.15
That’s quite the change in price over a year and a half. It’s stil a system that would be more than sufficient to cover my computing needs for the next few years. Naturally I’d probably want to replace some of the components listed above with newer items, which would no doubt bump the price back up. I wonder if two dual-core Opterons would fit in this motherboard…
Trimming the tree
Went out to the tree farm and cut down the tree we picked out last week. Got out there, they handed us a saw and a long pole to measure the tree with, and off we went to our tree.
Here’s the tree temporarily lashed to the roof of the car so we can get it back up to the front of the tree farm. Up front, they shake all the loose needles and other crap off the tree, and then bundle it up in some netting.
The guys at the tree farm were very helpful and tied the tree to the top of the car for us so it wouldn’t blow away as we drove home. We made it home with the tree intact.
Getting the tree home was the easy part. Getting it all set up was another matter entirely. After a little bit of effort, we managed to get it propped up and reasonably stable in the tree stand we got from the wife’s parents. Half-way into cutting away the netting to unwrap the tree, the wife noticed the floor was starting to get wet. Uh oh. Water definitely wasn’t something we wanted to see on our new hardwood floor. So down came the tree to figure out what was going on. Discovered a big long crack in the side of the tree stand. So much for that. Off we went to Lowe’s, where they were out of tree stands. With company coming for the wife’s party, we decided to drop me off back home so I could finish off the cooking, while she went to Target in search of another tree stand. An hour and a half and much traffic later, she came back with one from Home Depot. Up went the tree again in a nice new tree stand.
And here’s the tree all unwrapped. Looks pretty doesn’t it.
With much help from the wife’s friends who came by, the tree got all nice and decorated.
It’s not done yet. The wife took pictures of all the people who came and had them make and decorate their own ornaments with their picture on it. Those will probably go up later. Should be a nice personal touch. More full size pictures to come in the gallery once I get around to uploading them.