Schick Happens

Old Man Schick

2012-04-07T15:52:00.000-04:00

Any longtime reader of this blog is well aware of my “80 year-old trapped in a 28 year-old body” mentality. Well, today I received confirmation that others are aware of this too:

Yes, the American Association of Retired Persons wants me to be a member. I would love to know what marketing tool decided I was retirement age: my subscription to Time magazine, perhaps? Regardless, I got a chuckle out of the notion and figured my old college buddies that referred to me as “Old Man River” would as well.

Playoffs? PLAYOFFS?!

2012-03-25T15:37:00.000-04:00

As the NHL season is winding down, usually around this time I’ll post something about how the Sharks need to remove this playoff albatross from their necks and finally prove the skeptics wrong. This year that seems like a nice problem to have, as I feel like Jim Mora when talking about how San Jose is in danger of missing the playoffs altogether. Their schedule down the stretch leads me to believe they will squeak their way in, but this might be the sign that the proverbial window is about to close for good.

It seems like the Sharks are always just one piece away from winning it all, but this season hasn’t felt like this was a team robbed of its destiny. The last two years saw two straight trips to the conference finals, only to lose in embarrassing fashion. It seems this didn’t light a fire under anyone, as this year’s team has struggled to find consistency over long periods of time (5-8-1 in February, for example). The Pacific division has been pretty lousy this year, so this doesn’t bode well for the playoffs.

Doug Wilson used to shake this team up every offseason by trying to bring in someone to take this team to the next level. Recently he seems to be relying on his old farmhands of Marleau and Thornton and not looking to the future. Maybe this pathetic showing this season should be the sign he needs to give up on winning it all now and focus on drafting and developing players to win it all later.

Mashup

2012-03-14T22:56:00.000-04:00

One of the two classes I’m taking this semester is called Multimedia Writing, which looks at the different forms writing takes in the digital landscape. The term “writing” is now taking on a larger meaning to not just mean words printed on a page, but the way ideas are exchanged between individuals. Complex stuff, right?

Well, it’s not serious business all the time in this class. One of the projects we had looked at the issues surrounding copyright and the blurry lines of legal protection. One area that we looked at closely were mash-ups, were one individual reinterprets existing materials in a new way, such as creating fake movie trailers using real film footage.

I am a total n00b when it comes to creating anything other than basic webpages, so this was my first attempt at video production from beginning to end. We were supposed to create our own mash-up for class and I decided to jump on the movie trailer bandwagon as well. Here is the final product, a trailer for the upcoming James Bond movie, “Skyfall.”

It’s not very polished, as I borrowed all the clips from others who posted their own mash-ups, so it really shows how complex copyright issues quickly become. I enjoyed making it and I was able to geek out a little bit in the process, so I consider the assignment a rare grad school enjoyment.

Big Ten champs!

2012-03-04T20:46:00.000-05:00

When I’m writing about my Wolverines on this blog, it is usually concerning the football team and often the hockey team. But this time I have to tip my cap to the men’s basketball team for winning the Big Ten title this weekend (well, a share anyway- there’s a lot of good teams in this conference).

I’m not a huge basketball fan but this team has been fun to watch. John Beilien has really put into place a solid system that will last well beyond this year’s team and he has some awesome recruits lined up for the next few years. All in all, the future is looking bright for a program that was pretty terrible the year I covered them for the Daily in 2005.

Even more exciting is Crisler Arena is finally scheduled to get some renovations over the summer, the surest sign that the Wolverine cagers are on the rise. I have long hated Crisler’s appearance on the inside, as it looked as if there had been no changes or updates since it was built in 1967. It was always too dark and the seats seemed to absorb sound, so it was never a great showpiece for recruits. Now with the practice facility complete and hopefully a well-executed renovation will cement Michigan as the “Leaders and Best” among basketball programs (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Nano-sized Music

2012-02-26T13:08:00.000-05:00

During our last iPod discussion, I was debating between getting a new device or attempting to get by with just music streaming from my work computer. After giving streaming a solid month of consideration, I just found myself annoyed with the song selection more often than not. Therefore, I am the new owner of an iPod Nano, which essentially is the smallest size of the “regular” devices (the smallest being the shuffle but it doesn’t let you select which song to play).

The most annoying part of all this is I lost all my playlists and album artwork. I didn’t set up my old iPod correctly, where you are supposed to make all the changes in iTunes and then sync the iPod. The idea is that if the device is ever lost or damages, you can plug in a new one and it copies all the data over without a beat. I chose to do all the editing on the iPod itself and keep iTunes separate.

Being somewhat OCD, I did have lists of all my playlists and their respective contents, but unfortunately, they are stored in Word and they all have to be recreated in iTunes. At least this time around I learned my mistake and made sure to make iTunes the definitive source for data. I hate to admit it, but it does make sense and I’m kicking myself for waiting until now to set it up correctly. I told Tracy she needs to start getting her iPod set up this way as well, since she is one unfortunate event away from being in the same boat.

I’m optimistic I can have a majority of my music back up and running by the time I’m back to work after the holidays, but it may be awhile before I’m back to 100% for a couple of months. I guess I’ll have to put “Peace of Mind” on a loop for the next week or so to get it atop my Top 25 playlist.

Time for Change

2012-02-20T20:13:00.000-05:00

Ahh Facebook- nothing gets people more riled up than changes to your interface. I’m always amused by the vicious cycle that happens once a year when a major change is implemented:

everyone is in an uproar, demanding the previous version returned
people threaten to leave the site, saying it isn’t as good as when they joined
no one does
people come to accept the changes
repeat as needed

The latest change is the gradual rollout of timeline, which overhauls the way each individual’s home page looks. The idea is one’s page is supposed to show major events and make it easier to see milestones in one’s life, obviously shared with others using Facebook. It is being panned by everyone (surprise!) but this time, I find myself in the minority of actually liking the change.

As a history guy, this obviously appeals to me, as historians like looking at a series of events and seeing what conclusions we can reach. Obviously comparing the entangling alliances leading to World War I and how a couple started dating aren’t on the same level of importance, but the evolution of events is still interesting to me. I have been adding a bunch of events to my timeline that pre-date my time on the site, such as graduating high school and taking a trip to the Bahamas.

Does anyone really care about these events besides me? Of course not. But at its core, Facebook is pure narcissism. It gives you an inflated sense of self-worth and timeline will certainly not help shrink anyone’s ego. And damn it if I don’t want others to see how awesome my life has been!

The house update no one asked for

2012-02-07T18:14:00.000-05:00

Despite being only three months since move-in, it seems as if we’ve been here for years. I don’t have to mention the great flood of 2011, but that has certainly been the most exciting event so far. It seems as if all we’ve been doing is buying furniture for all the rooms we never had before, such as the laundry room and dining room. We also had all new carpet installed, as the existing stuff looked as if it had been there since the house was built in 1995.

I’m happy to report that everything is unpacked but the bland white walls are a little depressing. We managed to hang up all the art we had and it still seems to come up short. I think a good summer project will be attempting to paint, as it seems like the logical next step. I like to think painting is easy and straight-forward, but oftentimes I can tell when people have self-painted rooms and it looks crappy. I think we’ll try one room and see how bad we make it look.

This winter is disappointing, as I’ve only used my shovel twice on our driveway. I was really hoping for a big snowstorm and see how I manage. Not buying a snowblower this fall seems like a good move, although a big storm in March could make me regret it, as that’s usually the time the stores start swapping to lawnmowers.

Looking to the summer, I can many weekends out in the yard trying to get it under control. We left the yard pretty much as-is when we moved in, as we want to see what everything looks like in the spring and then evaluate on what needs to be replaced and what’s worth keeping. I really think the plants in the front need to go, as they are too close to the house and they are way overgrown. Plus, they infringe on my future endeavor to put a porch and allow me to tell the neighborhood kids to stay off my lawn.

I don’t expect this to be a quarterly update, but I feel as though we made quite a few changes in a short amount of time. I'd like to think the previous owners wouldn’t recognize the place if they saw photos (which I’ll get around to posting one of these days).

Seven-year writing itch

2012-01-31T17:16:00.000-05:00

The end of January means it’s time for my annual gushing over my readers. It has been seven years since I made my first post and somehow I have managed to keep churning out new content on a somewhat regular basis ever sense. A lot has changed in that time and I have enjoyed sharing my thoughts along the way. It’s pretty scary to think I’ve been writing here for just under a quarter of my lifetime. As a writer, I guess I will always need an outlet to express myself creatively, as the technical writing at work doesn’t often lend itself to originality.

I still appreciate everyone sticking with me and my ramblings all this time and as I always say, as long as people are still interested, I will keep writing to keep people entertained.

I Want You to Be a Better Citizen

2012-01-24T22:48:00.001-05:00

The State of the Union was this week and I kept with my tradition of watching the entire thing. Tracy always is amazed that I have interest in such political rhetoric and finds it to be a waste of time. While the grandstanding and ridiculous number of applause breaks are tiresome, I feel that it’s my duty as a citizen to listen to the President once a year.

This country doesn’t ask much of its citizens. We all pay taxes but that’s really about it. We don’t have to serve in the military unless we choose to. You can avoid the political process altogether and not vote. We are so lucky to live in our country that I feel citizens should be informed about our government. Taking two hours out of a year to hear about how the country is doing is not asking for much.

My love of politics goes back to my AP government class in high school and after taking a comparative politics class in college, I have always tried to take time to appreciate the republic that was created not that long ago. Around this time, they usually do a people on the street interview with average people and ask them seemingly easy questions like who is the Speaker of the House and people have no clue what the person is talking about. Is it really so hard to know who the nine Supreme Court justices are? Or is it more important to name all the cast members of the Jersey Shore?

I’m not trying to sound like an elitist snob, but I think we could have a much better political discourse community in this country is citizens were more informed of the goings-on of their government and perhaps that would ease the gridlock we have in Congress these days.

2 for 1

2012-01-10T19:58:00.000-05:00

A new year means another semester of grad school, and dare I say the end is in sight. I am over the halfway point and I am starting to get a little worried about the looming research project at the end of the program, as I have no clue what to work on.

But more immediately, this semester should be a doozy because I am back to taking two classes at a time. This poses a bigger challenge, as the last time I took two undergrad classes at once, and these are both 500-level classes. One is a required class on Advanced Technical Writing and the other is an elective on Multimedia Writing.

Since both classes are applicable to all the students in the program, the professors decided to give us a break and offering them as a hybrid online and in-person class. The way it is supposed to work is that every week we will have class in a room on campus, but who shows up to teach the class will alternate weeks: the week we take 527 in person, 524 will meet electronically, and then the next week it is reversed. I really like the way this sounds but I’m dubious that it will be effective.

Assuming I can make it through this semester, I will only have two classes left before the project. As bad as I have been with blogging lately, I’m sure it will only get worse as I move closer to the project.

iLost my iPod

2012-01-02T14:43:00.000-05:00

My iPod has been essential to keeping me sane at work. Shuffling through my music helps pass the long hours at my desk and I am a firm believer that people seeing me wearing my headphones acts as a deterrent for small talk. But sadly, my work friend has met an untimely end. As I was attempting to turn on my iPod after work recently, it started up then presented the failure screen.

I was presented with a tough choice: spend the cash and buy a new one, or try to get by with streaming music online. My buddy James turned me on to Grooveshark, which is an online on-demand music library. It has a pretty large library to choose from and it has the ability to create playlists from various songs. But it relies totally on user input and I have to spend a considerable amount of time either searching for songs or setting up new playlists. Either option isn’t desirable, as I don’t want to spend the rest of my Christmas vacation trying to get ready for Monday.

On the other side, I could try listening to streaming radio stations. All the stations I listen to in the car have online options, but I can’t stand listening to commercials. I wish there was an easy way to program favorites similar to my car that allows me to quickly jump back and forth between stations without having to go to different websites. Plus, I can’t control when they play stupid songs, like Foreigner.

I going to give the online options a try for a month or so to see if I can tolerate all the hassle I just described. I do like the free aspect, as the thought of ponying up a few hundred bucks so close to the holidays makes me irritated. I already think I know I can’t walk away with the convenience and customization of the iPod, so I think I’ll have to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

Christmas at home

2011-12-25T16:28:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas to all my readers! Just wanted to add a quick post to share some thoughts about celebrating the holidays in our new home. I was a little disappointed that we wouldn’t be moved in for Halloween, but that pales in comparison to being settled for Christmas.

While it would be special to celebrate our first Christmas as husband and wife, we have already had several holidays together and I doubt this would have been much different if we were still at the apartment. Having a home to call our own and start establishing some traditions of our own was what made today truly memorable. We are a little sad that our parents couldn’t be here to help us celebrate, but this is a milestone for us, taking the next step in our relationship: being a family of our own.

On the lighter side, we need to buy a bunch of decorations on clearance this week, as we have too many rooms that need some Christmas spirit! In fact, Tracy has had her eye on a new tree, as apparently it is not really Christmas unless your tree has colored lights.

Ice to meet you

2011-12-17T21:37:00.000-05:00

I don’t think it’s a secret that we like to travel, particularly to new places. We have traveled quite extensively throughout the U.S., but our overseas travels have been limited to Canada. That is about to change, as the Rumfelt/Schicks are about to take their first trip overseas- we’re going to Iceland!

It shouldn’t come as a shock that we picked an unorthodox destination for spring break. We chose Alaska as our honeymoon site, so it shouldn’t seem like a big shock. We prefer cold destinations over warm ones, and Iceland certainly will provide cool temps. But it also provides something for both of us: for me, a return trip to Europe; for Tracy, a chance to see volcanoes after glaciers in Alaska.

The trip will last four days, starting on Easter Sunday with a redeye flight to Reykjavík. We have a couple of excursions already planned, one being a nature exploration along Iceland’s south shore one day and a visit to the famous Blue Lagoon natural volcanic spring on the day we fly home.

This is certainly a trip I never thought I would make. I always wanted to travel internationally again, but Iceland never crossed my mind. Tracy proposed the destination after her glacier class in grad school and after some investigation, it seemed like a unique experience. Iceland was one of the first countries to be hit hard in the 2008 recession, and the economy has still not recovered against the dollar, making flights super cheap. In fact, our flight from Washington to Reykjavík is cheaper than it is to fly from Detroit to Washington (Icelandair doesn’t fly out of DTW).

Be sure to check back in April for a recap and some photos!

How the West was Lost?

2011-12-05T19:58:00.000-05:00

There are all kinds of rumors circulating around the NHL about the possibility of realignment next year to accommodate the Thrashers move from Atlanta to Winnipeg (and subsequent renaming to the Jets). All six of the NHL divisions are based around geography, which now seems laughable with a team in Manitoba is located in the Southeast division. As much as I love to see Canada adding another franchise, my concern is obviously centered around the Sharks.

Right now, the Sharks are located in the Pacific division, along with Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Dallas. The name could use some work, as two of the teams aren’t even in the Pacific time zone, much less located near the ocean. Since winning its first division title in 2002, San Jose has captured the title six out of the last nine times. The way the schedule is set up currently, division matchups dominate the calendar, playing each team six times and composing almost 30% of all opponents.

The proposal that is making the rounds realigns the league into four “conferences” that are based around geography, yet they operate independently of each other. This means there is a potential for an all-east Stanley Cup final, such as Boston versus New York. I think the NHL is secretly in love with this potential series, as the west coast never receives any love.

The other odd quirk of this proposal is both western conferences have more teams than the eastern ones, presumably making it harder for these teams to make the playoffs. I assume this would also mean more games against divisional opponents, which would also make qualification tougher, with the likes of Vancouver and Calgary becoming more regular opponents.

I know the NHL is desperate for attention so it seems logical they would try something radically different. Sometimes it seems they try too hard to shake up the paradigm established by the other leagues, and this is one of those cases. I know the east coast drives the ratings bus for the league, but I think this proposal takes east coast bias to the extreme and most western owners won’t like it.

Brady bounces Buckeyes

2011-11-27T13:20:00.000-05:00

Brady Hoke does seem to be the real deal. I know I come off as a RichRod apologist, but I still think he should have been given one more year. But beating the Buckeyes is one way to endear yourself to the Michigan fanbase, and he wasted little time doing so. This was a game that had trap written all over it, as Ohio State is in a down year and a win in The Game was really the only thing that would salvage an otherwise humdrum season.

Denard was his typical dynamic self, producing five touchdowns through both rushing and passing, and it was still almost not enough as the Buckeyes always kept within striking distance all afternoon. I hate to be a downer, but I’d hate to wonder if this game would have gone the other way had it been played in Columbus.

With only two losses on the season, this was quite the statement to end a “return to glory” season for Michigan. Stupid loss to Iowa aside, it was a pretty convincing turnaround for the Wolverines and it appears that a New Year’s Day bowl game is on the horizon. There seems to be quite a clamor for a BCS bid, but I’m nervous that would be too much too soon for this team. I’d hate to lose some momentum from this season with another beatdown at the hands of a far superior team from the SEC.

Wherever the team ends up, it has been quite the coaching job for Hoke and it’s refreshing to see the increased focus on Michigan tradition that was lost during the previous regime. Unfortunately, buying a house this year will not allow me to attend the bowl game for the first time since 2003, breaking my streak of seven consecutive games.

Water, water everywhere

2011-11-20T20:09:00.006-05:00

Well, that didn’t take long. Everyone who heard I was buying a house said be prepared for some crisis in the first few months after moving in, but I wasn’t expecting something so severe happening so quickly. Barely two weeks after the movers left, our basement flooded.

We’re not exactly sure how it happened, since we were both at work all day. I came home and saw a big puddle on the sidewalk and thought that was odd. I tried to find the source and saw a big spout of water coming from a pipe on the side of the house. Try as I might, I couldn’t turn the valve off. I decided I needed to shut off water for the whole house and reevaluate. After walking down the stairs, I almost fell over seeing about four inches of standing water in our basement.

At that point, it became even more urgent to shut off the water. I slogged through my new swimming pool to turn off the emergency valve for the whole house. At that point, it was just a waiting game for the sump pump to do its job. It seems to be working, as the water level is significantly lower now.

Since it is late on a Friday, no one with the insurance company is picking up right now. I hope they make house calls on weekends, as I’d hate to wait until Monday to get the paperwork going. The carpet is a write-off (thankfully, not part of the new installation) and I hope we can save the drywall from being totally ruined as well. As you can see from the picture, we also had several boxes stored downstairs that are now water-damaged. Aside from our DVD collection, nothing major was damaged.

11/11/11

2011-11-11T18:14:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to post a quick note to celebrate my parents’ birthdays and anniversary today. Yes you read that correctly: both of my parents are born on the same day, and they even managed to get married on their birthdays. Both Ma and Pa Schick were born on November 11. I’ll spare them the years, but it wasn’t the same year; Mom is one year older.

After they were engaged, they were lucky enough to have their birthdays fall on a Saturday and chose it for their anniversary. That might sound romantic, but they are far too practical to get married in middle of the week and would have selected a different day if it didn’t fall on a weekend. But after seeing how much cheaper weddings could be on a weekday, I’m surprised Dad didn’t push for one!

Moving day

2011-11-05T18:09:00.003-04:00

At long last, the long journey towards homeownership ended today- the movers have wrapped up and we are moved into our new home. It’s been quite the journey since we started looking back in August, but from some of the horror stories I’ve heard, I think we were very lucky. We found a house we fell in love with almost instantly and were able to close on it within a month. Financing was a pain, but that always seems to be the case.

During every step of the process, it was hard to get excited about the end result. Even at closing, it still didn’t seem real. But today was the first time it really hit me: I own a house. Looking around, it feels like we’ll spend most of the winter unpacking and it seems really daunting. It took the movers about four hours unloading the truck, which was surprising since I didn’t think we had that much stuff.

It also feels a little scary to really be out on our own. I am so used to relying on apartment maintenance staffs being only a call way from fixing any problem. There are a number of things around the house that need fixing, and of course I don’t know how to repair any of them! At least we were able to tackle one of them before we moved in- we had new carpet installed yesterday and we don’t have to much a bunch of furniture around ourselves.

Obviously the place is a disaster for the next few months, but once everything is presentable, I’ll take some pictures and post them on my website.

No home for Halloween

2011-10-31T20:16:00.003-04:00

Nothing new to report on the house, except that our closing is all set tomorrow. I am a little disappointed we couldn’t have the house ready for Halloween tonight, as the thought of handing out candy seems like the quintessential homeowner activity. No one comes to the door of an apartment so I was looking forward to the chance to carve a pumpkin on the porch and hand out full-sized candy bars to make us the cool house on the block. Alas, it will all have to wait until next year.

As lame as it sounds, there is nowhere else I’d rather be on Halloween than at home handing out candy to little kids. It seems that the holiday has evolved into being more adult centric as the years go by, with a bunch of my friends having costume parties and dressing up in more elaborate costumes than I ever had as a kid. I never liked getting dressed up; all I wanted was the free candy. With no candy on the horizon from a costume party these days, Tracy and I skip them altogether. In fact, we made the mistake of going to a Halloween party a few years back with no costumes and we were the awkward couple at the back of the room.

So all you adults out there can have your parties with your fancy costumes. Someone has to stay and hand out candy!

Rethinking Playoff Baseball

2011-10-14T21:11:00.007-04:00

I seem to be writing more and more about baseball these days, and I guess I have the 2011 Tigers to thank for that. With the AL Central title in the books, I have been watching nearly every game in the last few weeks as the playoffs become more intense. As crazy as it may have sounded a year ago, I think I am slowly becoming a baseball fan. It has been a long and strange journey (save that for another post), but I find myself enjoying the game more and more.

As a result of my newfound love of our national pastime, it seemed crazy to pass up an opportunity to watch playoff baseball in person. After unsuccessfully trying to buy tickets for the division series against the Yankees, I was lucky enough to snag two tickets for game 5 against the Rangers. It turned out to be the ideal game: Verlander was on the hill and the Tigers won an exciting 7-5 game.

I’m not normally a fan of online gimmick sites, but this one was too cool to pass up. Be sure to check out our seats from the game, and admire my eating skills!

The time is now

2011-10-08T20:55:00.004-04:00

I’m not sure why I write a new season preview for my Sharks each fall. It seems that constantly repeat what I said the year before: last season was a disappointment and this year should see a decline in performance since the core group of players is a year older. I also like to complain that GM Doug Wilson doesn’t make any significant free agent signings and assumes he can grow young talent. However, I can’t believe I’m going to say it, but look for the Sharks to improve this season. I know – I just saw those pigs fly by as well.

Every offseason, I can always rely on Wilson standing by while the marquee names are shipped around the league. I’ve never felt he was a bad GM – quite the contrary, in fact – but he always seemed to err on the side of caution than take a risk once in awhile. But this year, he swung for the fences and signed the biggest defenseman free agent he could: Brent Burns. Another thing that never changes in each preview is complaining about a lockdown defender that opponents have to scheme against. Burns is that guy, and pair him with existing guys like Vlasic or Boyle and you might have one of the better pairings in the league.

On top of that, he also decided that any sluggish performances from last year wouldn’t be tolerated this time around. Dany Heatley never seemed to fit in San Jose, and it was painfully obvious last year. So Wilson sent him packing and brought in Martin Havlat, who will add some grit which is desperately needed.

The Sharks have rightly earned the reputation of playoff underachievers and another trip to the conference finals won’t help matters again this year. Even a trip to the Cup finals might not be enough to stop the doubters, and I think this is the year they can make the leap. I think San Jose finally has the defense to go along with its potent offense, and provided Niemi can stay healthy, there should be no more excuses to stop the Sharks from being Stanley Cup champions.

Where the Heart Is

2011-10-01T21:58:00.006-04:00

I am please to write the following sentence that strikes both fear and excitement in my heart: We will be homeowners! We placed an offer on a house in Pittsfield Township and after a couple counteroffers, we have a tentative deal in place. Closing is expected to take place in exactly one month, so we’ve got some feverish planning to do in the next four weeks.

I should say that we were incredibly lucky to complete this process in the amount of time we did. We officially started looking back in late August, and now we have a deal in place six weeks later. I have heard horror stories from Tracy’s friends that they had several deals fall through at various stages of the process to be left more heartbroken and defeated with each disappointment. However, once we settled on the house we wanted, we put in a bid and everything seemed to work out.

I thought we would have a hard time agreeing on a house together. I assumed our preferences would be so different that it would take months to reach a consensus. But it turned out to be really easy. At the beginning of the process, we met with our realtor and she set up a filter for some basic criteria (3+ bedrooms, attached garage, etc.) and it produced some 50 homes in our searching area. We slimmed that down to about 10 viable candidates and I suggested we rank our favorites independently and then compare afterwards. Somehow, we both had the same house as our #1.

The house itself is located really close to the house I grew up in when I lived in Saline the first time. It’s two stories with four bedrooms and a finished basement. It has a decent-sized yard that backs up to a pond, and the neighborhood is pretty quiet. While it does have some improvements that need work (stupid half bathroom with the door opening the wrong way), it is in good shape for being 15 years old. I’ll try to post more pics once we get the keys.

Photo: Home sweet home!

Foo Fighters were Fricken Phenomenal

2011-09-22T19:56:00.004-04:00

I have mentioned before that I can count on one hand the number of concerts I have attended in my life. As embarrassing as that is, I have slowly begun to improve these numbers by going to more concerts in the last few years. So when I say that I attended my best concert ever, I would understand your apprehension. But let me try to convince you otherwise.

Tracy and I went and saw the Foo Fighters at the Palace and it was nothing short of amazing. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve had a man-crush on Dave Grohl for some time, and this only further deepened my love for him. They played for three hours and at the end of the night, we could only come up with one song we wanted to hear that they didn’t play.

The concert was part of the Wasting Light tour, which is the group’s latest album. It’s really solid all the way around, especially given that it was recorded in Grohl’s garage. I’m pretty sure they played every song from the album, as well as the rest of their most popular hits throughout their career. The highlights were an acoustic version of “Long Road to Ruin,” the extended version of “Stacked Actors,” a cover of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down,” and the encore finale was our wedding song, “Everlong.”

Since the Foos seemed reluctant to leave the stage, we didn’t leave the Palace until after midnight and arrived back home after 1 am. No matter – it was worth it and would see them again if they decide to tour again. The next time you see me I’ll probably be wearing my concert T-shirt, which I’m unlikely to take off for the next few months or so.

Qwik to Disappoint

2011-09-19T21:29:00.006-04:00

Oh Netflix, why I waited so long to sign up is still a mystery to me. I have loved watching a ton of movies conveniently delivered to my mailbox, discovering new TV series and I have finally been able to fulfill my desire to watch all the Oscar nominees for best picture the last two years.

When the company announced higher prices last month, I was annoyed, but begrudgingly understood that times are tough and the Post Office isn’t getting any richer these days (in fact, Netflix might be one of their biggest customers). I didn’t flip out the way some people online, and I surely wasn’t going to drop them altogether. However, the company announced yesterday that it would be splitting off the DVD-by-mail side of the business into its own company, Qwikster.

We decided to drop the streaming service back when they announced the price increase. We noticed the selection was slowly getting smaller over the last six months or so, and with the announcement that Starz was dropping all its movies next year, things certainly weren’t looking great. Besides, it was easy to forget about your instant queue, since there wasn’t a tangible reminder like a red envelope sitting on the entertainment center.

I know Netflix has been trying to force subscribers to use the online services, but I really feel like a second-class citizen with this latest move. I just hope Qwikster is here for the long run and not just the beginning of the end of DVDs.

Ten years later

2011-09-11T15:33:00.006-04:00

As we approach the ten-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it seems that the media is adamant that we relive one of the darkest days in American history ad nauseam. I will spare you my account of the day’s activities (as I posted them on the five-year anniversary) since it seems that every network wants you to watch their show.

It makes me sad to see all the networks exploiting a tragedy as a way to grab ratings. Everyone has his or her unique story and perspective to share about 9/11; why should I care what Anderson Cooper has to say about it? We all lived through it together and I would imagine everyone’s memories of that day are still as fresh as they were on September 12.

I know everyone deals with grief differently, so I hope I am not coming across as callous. I would rather watch a discussion on where we are as a country ten years later and whether our nation is safer than it was on that fateful day.