Saturday, September 12, 2009

Smart Shopping with Apple

Once again, we haven't had a post in quite a while...and this one won't appeal to everyone.

Back in the day when I did my first blog that nobody read I did posts titled "Smart Shopping with Apple" and decided to revive it today. I would really love to have a Mac Mini as my media center PC so I was checking out the prices so I can start saving my pennies.

This is a comparison of the "entry-level" Mac Mini configured with identical specs of the "high-end" Mac Mini. These are education store prices.



Notice that the specs are identical and the low-end with upgrades is $20 cheaper? That's smart shopping with Apple...custom configuration can often times save some $.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Where's Wendi?

It's been a long time since anybody has posted anything to our blog. What happened to Wendi? I've got a sneaking suspicion that she's got a crush on Harry Potter for as much has her nose has been in that book series lately...

The summer is going by way too quickly but we've been enjoying it as much as possible. Sadly we have yet to use our camper but we've enjoyed the weekends at home and finding time to relax and enjoy our back yard and do some gardening.

Wendi and I started the Abs Diet about 3.5 weeks ago and progress for me has been fantastic. I am down 12 pounds from the beginning and feeling much better. Having more energy at the end of the day has been really helpful for enjoying the summer.

We got serious about bicycling this summer and are all set up to travel across Marshall with pedal power. Wendi, Reed and Carter all got new wheels. Wendi went all out for an extremely comfortable Trek hybrid 7200, which is now on my wishlist. What a ride! Reed upgraded to a 20" schwinn dirt bike because he just couldn't keep up on the 16" sting-ray chopper. Carter got a unicycle of sorts. A trail-along bike that hooks to my seat post so he can help me pedal up the steep hills. I'm happy to not be pulling a trailer that feels like dead weight. If Carter would sit still I wouldn't even know he was back there. Aidan of course enjoys the back seat in the child carrier riding with Wendi. The fun part is when he decides to tickle mom!

I even started pedaling to work a few days a week which has been the only exercise I've added to go along with the new food plan. I suppose at some point I'll have to add a bit more or I'll plateau.

I hope everybody is having a wonderful summer. I started a new summer project that I'll post about in a couple weeks. The back yard is going to see some additional use...

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Two for Tuesday and $20 later.

Wendi is still off in CA but that didn't stop me, in fact it probably encouraged me a little bit to take a giant leap that needed to be done months ago. Reed and Carter were in dire need of a haircut, Reed more so than Carter. As you can see in the before photo:


Since we didn't have anything else going on I drug the crew off to Great Clips to see about a trimming. Fortunately they weren't busy and within a few minutes both boys were in the chair and at the mercy of a professional. I would have been more than happy to do it with the clipper but then they would have really looked like me...and Wendi's not prepared for that just yet. I think the results speak for themselves, two fine young gentlemen:


I had other motivation for the haircuts; this Thursday is going to be a busy day. Wendi will be returning to Marshall and hopefully earlier than scheduled. Carter has his last day of pre-school which includes a short musical theater program. Daisy has Girl Scouts. Reed has his 1st grade concert which we hope Wendi can be home to attend. As for Aidan and I, we just have to be bystanders for the whole lot of it. Fortunately none of these things overlap, but it could be a late supper night.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Napa Valley Wine Tour

We started our vacation with a tour through Napa Valley wine country. After catching the shuttle back to the airport and picking up the rental car we headed West and North along the West coast of the San Francisco peninsula. This route took us though some of the city, including the Golden Gate park. We discovered the path to the Golden Gate bridge is surprisingly difficult to get to.

The short trip crossing the bridge was breathtaking. The views were somewhat limited by the sides and the fog, but it was very cool to look back and see the city skyline, as well as just the beauty of the bridge itself.

On the other side of the bridge we headed north on the freeway. We stopped for some groceries at a SafeWay - very cool store, they should build one in Marshall. This route took us through Petaluma, home to the TWIT Cottage, which I wasn't able to spot.

For the details of the trip up, you can follow our path at: http://www.goldenhaven.com/regions/san_francisco/san_francisco_directions.html

The route up to Calistoga was very scenic - but a little bit of a nerve wracking drive. Kelly handled it much better than me. We drove along the petrified forest for part of the way, and descended a hill with a great view of Mount St. Helena.

Our first winery was Zahtila, a relatively young winery that also grows some of its grapes. The gentleman behind the bar was very helpful, explaining a lot of information to us. We tasted a few different cabs, and although I don't like cab, I could taste the differences. One uniqueness to this wine tasting was the blind tastes - we didn't know which wines we were tasting until after we told him our favorites, we usually picked the more pricey wines. The average price per bottle there was $65.

We headed back into Calistoga for some light browsing in the many shops and found a nice little place for lunch. A delicious lobster bisque fit the ticket for both of us.

We headed south along HWY 29 to the Castello Di Amorosa winery. This was an amazing place to visit. Built on the vineyard grounds is a medieval replica castle. We opted for the self guided tour, visiting 2 of the 8 levels of the castle, including a chapel, knights chamber and the tasting room. We tried several wines here and learned more about one of our favorites types of wine - Moscato, which is a dessert wine. The website for the winery is: http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/

We then continued down the road again stopping next at Sutter Home just south of St. Helena. This was a nice little winery/shop, very low key. Sutter Home wines are widely distributed, and value priced. They also offered free tasting, which was customized for us. We tried a White Merlot - which I loved! I'm a white Zin type of wino, so the merlot was a nice find. He also let us sample their version of the Moscato, and one just called "Red", which is red with a cab undertone, but the lightness of a white zin. This was a very nice meet in the middle for Kelly and my tastes. We each picked a four pack to bring home and bottle for the hotel room.

The last winery stop was the Napa Cellar/Folie A Deux, which is a part of Sutter Homes winery. This was a neat shop, but the staff was not very friendly. We each tried three wines, and didn't really love any. I did try a Zin, which was very full bodied and dry. I did not like - so I'll stay with the white zin, it is a big difference. We did however try a spicy peanut sauce that begged to come home with us for Kelly's homemade pork dumplings.

We both were in good spirits from our day together in the car, and didn't even mind the heavy traffic back to the hotel too much. We did decide to stop in Napa for dinner, at an Italian restaurant. It was recently painted, so the smell was offensive at first, but wasn't as noticeable by the time we received our food. Kelly had a pasta dish with lamb shoulder, artichokes and olives and I tried the linguine Lina, which was a sausage pasta dish. Both were wonderful and we split a tiramisu for dessert. Fabulous!

The heavy traffic slowed our return. It was very heavy as we headed south on the I-80 crossing to the main land, then driving down along the bay coast toward Oakland. We then crossed the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. One neat note about the Bay Bridge, it goes through Treasure Island and on the other side of the island becomes a double-decker suspension bridge. We then continued back to the hotel via the 101 S. I did create a little unexpected detour when the GPS was directing us back to the point Kelly had marked to see how the I-80 turned before the bridge. We were able to pull off, correct, reroute and make it back to the hotel without further incident.

Back at the hotel we enjoyed some wine and rest. Day two was spent in the San Francisco city.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Twins?

Staying home with Aidan today was a bit trying. The best solution I found to make him happier was to let him play with PhotoBooth on the new Mac Book Pro. This is the mirror effect, it's the only picture that didn't include me....

The kids have all been affected now, with the sickness. Hopefully it has worked its way through them all now and will be done. Kelly and I both need the time back at work.

Hope you are doing well,
Kelly & Wendi
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Saturday, February 14, 2009

Carter: "When I sleep I see movies in my head."

Today for lunch we had leftover pizza heated by our new range! We are so excited to finally replace the one we have used for the past 5 1/2 years.

The water heater and furnace are the only appliances left that we inherited with the house....but I guess the fridge is in the garage where it does do a great job keeping my beer cold.

Anyway during lunch Reed was talking about how he was so tired last night that he didn't have any dreams.  He went on to say how he only has dreams when he knows he falls asleep and last night he didn't realize that he fell asleep.  At that point Carter chimes in with: "When I sleep I see movies in my head."  Which of course brought a bit of a chuckle to both Wendi and I.

It has been a busy Saturday so far and Wendi deserves a break.  She spit-shined the old range which will soon be listed for sale.  I got the new range installed and also managed to re-install the dishwasher so that we could finally after 4 years put the toe plate on.  I am so happy to not see the hoses (and spilled cereal) under the dishwasher.

I admit, that honey-do list item was LONG overdue.