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New Year’s Resolutions – 2013

David G. Stinner — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:59:25 +0000

Last year, I decided to post my New Year’s resolutions for 2012. They were:

Save up enough money to move into an apartment
Lose at least 10 pounds
Save up money to purchase some items on my personal wish list

The first resolution kinda didn’t happen as my wife and I bought a house instead of moving into an apartment. When I made the resolution, I didn’t think we could afford to buy a home but after talking to her aunt and cousin who are both real estate agents and getting pre-approved through Wells Fargo, we wound up buying a nice ranch house in Middlesex.
The second resolution almost happened. As of two months ago, I was down 14 pounds (from 191 to 177). As of this morning, I was down to 182, so I missed this by one pound.
The third resolution fell flat because of the first resolution. We’ve had to use any spare money to get stuff for the house. I’m thinking about having a yard sale next spring to sell a few things I don’t need/use anymore.

My New Year’s resolutions for 2013 are:

Lose 10 pounds
Save up money to purchase some items on my personal wish list
Create a will, living revocable trust and a financial power of attorney

Droid RAZR

David G. Stinner — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:32:47 +0000

For the past month, I’ve been using a Droid RAZR as my work cell phone. I decided to switch from the iPhone because for some stupid reason the iPhone can’t do voice and data at the same time on Verizon unless it’s on wifi. The iPhone can do both over 3G/4G on AT&T and T-Mobile. The Motorola Droid RAZR and Samsung Galaxy SIII can do both over 4G on Verizon. I would’ve upgraded to an iPhone 5 if Verizon could get their shit together.
So far, I like the phone. It took a little getting used to, considering I’ve only been using iPhones for the last four years. I like that the apps automatically update in the background without any user interaction, whereas on the iPhone, I have to tell it to update an app. I don’t like that the RAZR doesn’t give me count of the unread emails I have like the iPhone does. It would be nice looking at the icon and seeing a little bubble with the amount of unread emails. It does, however, flash a little green light letting me know I have new email. The closest thing the iPhone does is display the new email as banners on the lock screen.
Because of the security settings in my company, I can’t use the pattern to unlock method to access the phone. I’m forced to use a PIN to unlock the phone. I guess their reasoning is that someone might be able to figure out the unlock pattern by looking at the smudges on the screen.

One Year Anniversary

David G. Stinner — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:23:38 +0000

One year ago today, my wife and I got married during a freak snow storm. Luckily for us, she had decided early on that she wanted the ceremony and reception to take place in the same location. Luckily for our guests, everything was at the Hilton Woodbridge so if anyone didn’t want to try and drive home, they didn’t have to. It’s amazing how fast the past year as gone. In one year’s time, I’ve gone from single to married, and from living at my father’s to owning a home.

iOS 6

David G. Stinner — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 14:24:24 +0000

I’ve been using iOS 6 on my iPhone 4S and new iPad for a little over a week now. I like that Siri can finally do more things like tell me sports scores, make dinner reservations, and launch applications. “She” still takes time, occasionally, to perform a task. I have mixed feelings about the new map application. I enjoy the new driving directions, yet I don’t appreciate having to download additional apps for traveling via public transportation. I have had limited experience with Passbook since I only have two apps that work with it – United Airlines and Walgreens. Considering it was shown during the presentation, I am very surprised Starbucks didn’t get their app updated prior to the official release of iOS 6. I was expecting Passbook to be more like CardStar or KeyRing with some added functionality but there’s no way to enter a frequent shopper/loyalty card. Everything has to be done through a separate app.
I haven’t updated my iPhone 4 which I use for work since there wouldn’t be much added capabilities and I plan on upgrading to an Android phone in a couple of weeks.

New House – Update

David G. Stinner — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:24:35 +0000

We’ve owned the house for a little over a month now. We’ve finally begun painting so we can officially move in. After this weekend, the bedroom, kitchen and hallway will be painted. Our new washer and dryer get delivered on Monday. New carpet is getting installed next week. There’s still a hint of canine in the air coming from the dining room. We’re eventually going to replace the carpet in that room with some kind of hardwood floor (either laminate or engineered hardwood). The chimneys are fixed. We’ve had to replace the kitchen faucet and the water shutoff valves. Other than not having furniture, we’re ready to move in.

New House

David G. Stinner — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 22:50:53 +0000

Last Friday, my wife and I finally closed on our new home. We were supposed to close three weeks prior but the house our sellers were buying had issues and couldn’t close until the issues were resolved. We were signing our names and initials for nearly three hours. My hand started to cramp up near the end.
We took possession right away but didn’t actually enter the home until Saturday morning. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday trying to clean the house but didn’t even make it out of the kitchen. The previous owners had two dogs and we found dog hair EVERYWHERE, even places you wouldn’t expect.
While my wife cleaned the kitchen, I ripped down the faux wood beams in the living room, caulked the front porch, installed our Nest thermostat, assembled the TV stand and changed the door locks.
We still have a lot to do, like paint, replace the carpeting (it still smells like dog after airing the rooms out all weekend and using a big bottle of Febreze), and get furniture. Hopefully we’ll have enough done before the end of August to fully move in.

Nest Learning Thermostat

David G. Stinner — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:22:35 +0000

My wife and I were supposed to close on our new home within the next few days but the sellers are having issues with the home they’re buying so we have to wait a little longer. That hasn’t deterred us from getting ideas on what we’d like to put into the house. One of the things I found to put into the house, which my wife actually was on board with, was the Nest Learning Thermostat.
Unlike other programmable thermostats, Nest learns from adjustments you make to it and begins programming itself after the first week. It also senses when you’ve been gone and will adjust the temperature so you’re not heating/cooling an empty house. It’s also accessible over the internet so you can adjust the temperature while you’re out of the house and make sure the house is comfortable when you return home. When you’re adjusting the thermostat, a little leaf will pop up when you turn Nest to a temperature that’s energy efficient.
Nest is a little more expensive ($250) than other programmable thermostats but with the auto-away feature, the leaf, and the self-programming, Nest estimates it’ll save us almost $200 in the first year alone compared to a traditional thermostat. Considering one of the things we have to do to the house is move the thermostat (the current owners moved it from the living room to the inside wall of the bedroom for some reason), it’ll be an opportunity to replace it with the Nest.

Buying A House

David G. Stinner — Thu, 31 May 2012 16:25:01 +0000

For the last couple of months, my wife and I have been looking at buying a house. Originally, I didn’t think we could afford a house but after speaking to a mortgage specialist at Wells Fargo, we found out we could. We spent almost every weekend since then looking online at houses in the areas we’re interested in. Since we spoke to the mortgage specialist, we knew how much we were pre-approved for and therefore, how much house we could afford.
We originally found a house in Middlesex, which we both fell in love with, with brand new kitchen cabinets, counter tops and flooring. The living room was pre-wired for surround sound. The only issue was it was in a flood zone. The seller stated that $10,000 would raise it out of the flood zone. After we looked at the house, I got an email that the price had dropped $10,000. We put an offer in right away. While waiting to hear back from the seller, we did more research and learned that $10,000 would just raise the house. We’d still have to pay for the electrical and plumbing to be extended, the masonry to build up the foundation and add steps to the front porch, and the carpentry to add steps to the deck. After all that, we still wouldn’t be out of the flood zone entirely. The flood insurance would still be required but after raising the house, it would only cost $200-300 per year instead of $2,000-3,000 per year. We’d also have to figure out what to do about our cars.
We have found a house in Middlesex and have been under contract since May 1. We just received the appraisal and the house appraised for exactly what we’re buying it for. There are just a few more hoops to jump through before we close. We never knew buying a home was so time intensive and exhausting.

ReQall v. Remember The Milk, Round 2

David G. Stinner — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:36:20 +0000

About a year and a half ago, I chose ReQall over Remember The Milk as my GTD/productivity reminder app of choice. I eventually upgraded to the Pro version of ReQall because I liked the idea of adding items by voice and the integration with Evernote. After upgrading to my iPhone 4S though, ReQall stopped recognizing my location and therefore couldn’t remind me to do something when i was near a particular location (i.e. pickup milk when I’m near the grocery store). I’ve been in contact with ReQall’s tech support since October 24, 2011 and they’re in no rush to correct the issue. They say the developers are too busy working on a new product called ReQall Rover. Personally, I think three months is too long to have to wait for a bug fix, especially since I’m a Pro user.
Because ReQall has been pissing me off lately, I’ve decided to give RTM another try. They’ve found a way to use Siri to add new reminders to RTM. I never really used the Evernote integration but it was nice to know that feature was there, should I ever want to take advantage of it. RTM also has the ability to remind me by location.
I tried using the built-in Reminders app in iOS 5, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. If I wanted to assign a location to an item, I had to have the address attached to a contact in my address book. I didn’t really like that I had to create a contact for my grocery store or my pharmacy just to add a location to an item. I did, however, like that I could have the Reminders app notify me about an item when I leave a location, instead of only when I’m arriving or near one. I’ve used it several times to remind me to do something when leaving work or home. I would use the Reminders app exclusively if there were a web interface through iCloud to add items more quickly and if there were a way to dictate a list of items to Siri and have her/it recognize it as a list and create one entry per item (instead of one entry for the entire list).

New Year’s Resolutions – 2012

David G. Stinner — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:59:07 +0000

It’s been another couple years since I’ve made any New Year’s resolutions. Here are my current resolutions:

Save up enough money to move into an apartment
Lose at least 10 pounds
Save up money to purchase some items on my personal wish list