Weekly Wrap-up (Mon Dec. 27 - Sun Jan 2)

Happy 2005

It's been a wet week. Lots of storms passing through. We've had rain followed by sun and blue sky, followed by more rain. The snow level has gotten down to 300 feet according to the weather reports, which means that if we could see Mt. Diablo (barring the fog) we'd see snow on the peak.

Last week's computer gremlins returned to nibble at us all when our friends tried to upgrade the OS and the system crashed. So friend Bruce drove the computer back down to us on Tuesday. We reinstalled it (and reinstalled it). We tried to upgrade it. Finally we ended up simply replacing it entirely. Rich found a 450 MHz blue & white G3 on craigslist.org for a good price. We swapped that for one of our machines (our 300 MHz media-server), then gave the hardware for the media server to the friends and are giving the "intermittently unstable" box to yet another friend whose son wants to try Mac OS X. That friend loves to tinker with hardware so this should be a good deal all around.

It was a very quiet week at The Company with lots of people out on vacation. Even the break room was quiet. I took Thursday off and Friday was a holiday so I had a 4-day weekend.

Rich has been doing some cooking (he's had a 2-week enforced vacation due to the lab being closed). Last week we had pea soup; this week we have had turkey cabbage soup.

As we usually do, Rich and I stayed home on New Years' Eve, curled up on the couch with cats, eggnog, and a video to watch. This year we watched Resident Evil: Apocalypse; a friend lent us the DVD he'd rented/ The movie wasn't at all what I had expected, given the title, I had thought this was a "horror movie" but it wasn't. It had zombies, but they were "manmade" — the product of a nasty virus that got loose and reanimates dead tissue (ewwww yuck :). The "standard horror movie monster" was also manmade (by the makers of the virus, the mega-corporation called the Umbrella Corporation). There was plenty of action, two strong, likable, female leads, lots of armament and martial arts style flips and runs and an interesting plot. For those who missed the first movie, there was plenty of background... and there's a good setup for another sequel. Rousing fun.

The movie ended just before midnight, then we walked over to the park and watched and listened to fireworks around the neighborhood. We really enjoy the neighborhood fireworks for the 1st of January (even more than we enjoy the 4th of July displays).

I read several books last week (a four-day weekend helps :-) I finished On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. This is an interesting book, presenting a rather new theory on intelligence. Rich and I both recommend it.

I also finished Love for Sale, the fourth "Grace and Favor" novel by Jill Churchill. These are fun books and I look forward to the next in the series.

I greatly enjoyed High Rhymes and Misdemeanors by Diana Killian. This is an unusual British cozy, being more of a suspense novel than a murder mystery. It would have made an excellent Alfred Hitchcock movie. I enjoyed the book, characters, and dialog a lot and have ordered the second book in the series

Leave it to Cleavage is a punnily named romantic comedy by Wendy Wax. The protagonist, Miranda, represents the current generation for the family business, Ballantyne Bras, the primary employer in the small town of Truro, GA. As the story opens, Miranda is in for a shock - her husband has a secret passion for wearing women's lingerie, he's been having an affair, and he's left, taking his clothes, the contents of the joint bank accounts, and Ballantyne's reputation (in the form of $3 million in fraudulent receivables). Miranda decided to keep her husband's disappearance a secret while she singlehandedly attempts to save the company.

I've been reading Chindi, by Jack McDevitt, on and off. This is an excellent (but intense) science fiction novel with lots of characterization and personal interactions and essentially no rivets. I prefer to read some of it, then put it down for a bit in favor of something lighter, then go back for another few chapters.

In between and around the rest, I've had my four-day weekend, almost enough naps and plenty of snuggles with the cats. I've had good meals, chats with my Dad, and interesting conversations with Spouse and friends.

Weekly Wrap-up (Mon Dec. 27 - Sun Jan 2) ( in category Gemisch/Gallimaufry ) - posted at Mon, 03 Jan, 07:53 Pacific | «e»