You don’t notice how much tap water influences your life until it sucks.

When we first moved into our house one of the first things we noticed was how awful the tap water was. Not only was it hard, but it tasted yucky. It’s city water, and nothing is wrong with it from a health standpoint, but I won’t drink it directly from the tap, our Brita pitcher gets a lot of work. Hard water is bad for appliances, and all our glasses are getting scratched up and have a white buildup on them.

I quickly found myself getting excited when I stayed at hotels or other people’s houses because they had “nice water.” My hair feels better after washing it in non-hard water, lathery soap yay!

After a few months of this I idly started looking into water softeners. About $1000 for one, plus installation, maintenance, etc. It was something I wanted, but put on the back burner, it’s not *that* important is it?

Come Christmastime, we’re over at Michael’s mother’s for a family get-together. There I learned that one of his Uncles owns a water softener/purifier business, it’s his job to install exactly what I want! I kept it in mind and Michael and I discussed it some, at least with a relative doing the estimate we wouldn’t be lied to or the price jacked up unreasonably.

Then, a few weeks ago we were at Lowes picking up some things for our gardens. We were walking through the plumbing aisle when we came across the water softeners.

“I should really give my Uncle a call.”
“Yes! Do it! Now! Hurrygoquickly!”

And he did. His uncle came to our house a couple weeks ago and gave us an estimate of about $1000, installed, plus an extra under the kitchen sink purifier so the water will taste good out of the tap. Nice! We let them know that we wanted it done.

So today is the day our water softener is being put in. I’m hoping there won’t be any problems and I’ll be able to go home this evening and have nice water.

Yay!

And now I weep because I just wrote a whole entry about how excited I am about getting a water softener, 2.4 kids here I come, hahaha!

While on vacation I was able to spend some time drooling over Bob and Morgana’s 17 inch powerbooks. Bob isn’t a crazy mac-head, in fact he was laughing at all the people who ran out and got Tiger and were complaining that things weren’t perfect. He’s got a BSD background, and told me that he thought he’d put pure BSD or Linux on the laptop when he first bought it, but it’s been 2 years now and he’s happily working in OSX with fink.

Same story I’ve heard a dozen times, and every time I hear it, it makes me want one. Really want one. I’m in the market for a laptop afterall, why not go with mac? They’re so pretty, they have good graphics, they have good sound, they are geek chic.

Now I’m trying to figure out if this is honestly what I want, and which one I want.

What do I want from a laptop?

*nix
Music
Movies
Stability
Portability

This isn’t much to ask. My old 333mhz Compaq could fit most of these needs, lacking in stability because the hardware was just awful. It’s the stability that concerns me when looking at used laptops, I want something that just works.

How about a cheap new x86 laptop? I am concerned that a cheap x86 laptop will drive me up the wall with Linux compatibility issues, and Windows is just not an option (again, I want stability).

With a mac I know I’m getting quality hardware, a pre-installed OS that I can be at home with. I’ve been looking at the Powerbooks, and they are oh so pretty, but I’d want the 15 inch, and those start at $2000. A friend suggested that I just go with the iBook, I configured a 14 inch with a 60G harddrive, 512M ram and bluetooth for a total of about $1500, quite resonable.

I don’t know, I have to save up for a little while before I buy one, so I’ll be at least September (my birthday) before I purchase anything. I have some time to think this through. Ah but macs are so pretty!

Friday morning we got up around 7 to shower, iron our nice clothes, pack everything into the car, and drive up to Maine for the memorial service at 11. The ride up took a little longer than expected and we arrived just 5 minutes before the service.

I had mixed feelings about the service itself. The entire protestent ritual of standing and singing, repeating verses, and responding to the minister with a set script seems a bit dry. And I suppose saying things like “life on this earth is meaningless and only the afterlife matters” comforts Christians who believe that they and their dead relatives are going to heaven, but to me it just sounded depressing to the living. On the bright side, the minister told us of his time with my father. How during his last few months he came to God and became a part of the church. How he’d had meetingss with the minister and others from the church, and went to a few services, even in his weakened state. My father had some hope in the end, it wasn’t a dark, depressing end for him. I have the church to thank for that, no other organization that I know of can fulfill such personal needs in a time like that.

After the service we went to a restaurant down the road. It was a pretty typical “Maine Seafood Diner” with paper napkins and a small menu with a lot of fried fish on it. At lunch I was able to talk to my cousin Melissa a great deal, it seems she’s been playing “big sister” to my younger sisters a lot lately. She’ll go up and spend time with them, take them out. It’s really great of her. Annette is her same old self, always talking, a bit bouncy. Heather is doing well, she seems happier now that she has a set future in mind with her fiancee.

Following lunch was a trip down to the ocean to spread the ashes. It was quite a personal experience. The weather was beautiful, the only nice day we had up there.

From there we said our goodbyes and we drove up to the Maine Mall to meet my mother, who was down in Portland to pick up Annette. At the mall we spent about 20 minutes with my mother, sisters and my Aunt Elaine. We had plans with friends though, so left around 4:30.

We then drove to Oxford, Maine to see Morgana and Bob! The ride up was fine, and it only took about an hour. When we got there Morgana had a delicious meal waiting. It was an Ethiopian lamb, lentil and flatbread dish. My mouth waters just thinking about it! I admit to eating 2 helping worth – delicious!

After dinner we watched a movie, had some wine that we brought up, and then had some absinth (well, I didn’t, I was a bit too tired). Then we got to get online for a bit. Just before midnight I surrendered to my sleepiness and went to bed.

Saturday was a great day. We stayed in bed until nearly 11, showered, had some homemade blueberry muffins and got online for a while. So we spent the late morning and early afternoon just hanging out with Bob and Morgana in the computer room. Finally some relaxation! At 2pm we got our shoes on and drove to Freeport for some shopping at L.L. Bean. I don’t like clothes shopping, but I can get excited about shopping at L.L. Bean, because I know they’ll have clothes that I like and fit me properly. I picked up a few shirts and a nice rain jacket, and Michael picked up some jeans, and a gift for Michael’s mother and some toys for Caligula. We managed to get out of there for under $300, but agreed that we’d need to order some things from the catalog when we got home.

We had planned on doing a little walking through downtown Freeport, but since it was raining we skipped it and went right to dinner. We ended up at the Muddy Rudder. It was a really nice place, only about 40 minutes from Portland, I’ll need to keep it in mind the next time we go up and are looking for a nice place to eat our lobster dinner. Michael ordered the traditional lobster dinner, and I tried their “lobster pot pie” meal. Yummie! I also got their version of a Bloody Mary, which tasted like cocktail sauce, had a bunch of veggies on top of it (olive, onion, lemo
n, lime, and of course celery) plus a cocktail shrimp! It was quite a drink. We also ate dessert before going back to Bob and Morgana’s completely stuffed.

We spent the rest of the evening at their house, drinking and watching episodes of Coupling. Around 11:30 we retired to our bedroom.

6am Sunday morning the alarm on my cellphone went off. It was time to get going. We showered, packed, and Morgana made us a great egg breakfast made with fresh eggs from their chickens. We were out the door by 7am.

The ride down to Manchester was pretty traffic-free, and we arrived at the airport around 9:45. Dropped off the rental car and went to check in. We sat in the terminal watching some episodes of the West Wing on Michael’s laptop, and discovered that the airport offers broadband Wi-Fi at a daily rate of $6.95, which is pretty neat, especially if you’re a business traveler or geek ;) But we were only there for a short time, so didn’t see it as worth the trouble. We had lunch and then got on our plane around noon.

The flight home was bumpy because of the rainy weather in New England. Ugh, I hate bumpy plane rides! But we arrived in Philadelphia a few minutes early, around 1:40. We got our luggage and got on a train to Glenside. Arrived in Glenside (where Michael’s mother lives, where our car and Caligula were staying) around 3:45. I was tired, and when Michael’s mother offered to feed us we accepted. After dinner we packed Caligula into the car and went home.

Home, it was so good to be home. We unpacked a few things, started some laundry, and then I fell asleep on the couch around 7:30. Got up a bit later and went to bed for real. What an exhausting day. But a good trip overall.

*so tired* And I don’t have time to write this whole trip up in one sitting.

The trip went pretty much as expected. It was nice seeing my Aunt Elaine, Uncle Chris, cousin Erica and her fiancee, and it was really great of them to let us stay at their house.

We rented a car while we were up there. Originally thought we’d just get the cheapest 2-door, but once we got up there the rain, wind and realization that we’d be doing highway driving for most of the trip convinced Michael to get a bigger car. We ended up with a Dodge Magnum. What a yucky car! But it was roomy and better than a little metro or whatever 2-door we would have ended up with.

Wednesday night we saw my Grandparents briefly, then had dinner with my aunt, uncle and cousin. We went to bed pretty early, traveling days are so exhausting.

When we went up to the storage locker on Thursday morning, there was more stuff in it than I expected. All sorts of things like a whole box full of tupperware, boxes of plain mugs, and other household items that I already have. I did manage to find my parent’s old china, knife collection, crock pot (yeah chili!) and a whole bunch of old photos (loose and in albums). My Aunt Meg will be shipping those things to me when she has a chance. I’m glad I went up there, it would have been sad to lose all that. The rest of the things in the locker were taken away by a local church for a rummage sale. It was sad to see some of the furniture go, but I really had no reasonable way to bring it down here to Philadelphia.

After visiting the storage locker Michael and I went out to lunch to Bugaboo Creek with my Aunt Meg, Aunt Elaine, Uncle Paul and my sister Heather. At the end of lunch we were talking about what our plans were for the afternoon when Michael got a call from work. They had a situation that Michael needed to take care of, and we were 2 hours from his laptop and an accessible internet connection, our afternoon plans were decided. We drove back to New Hampshire so he could get online.

When Michael was finished with work we went over to the retirement community where my grandparents live. It’s a very nice place, brand new. The entrance looks like a hotel, their apartment is roomy and they have a full kitchen and a bigger bathroom than I have! They have access to a pool, library, small movie theater (with a popcorn maker!), and all sorts of other things. I want to be old! Well, not really, but it is a great place, and they seem happy. We ate with them in the community dining room, it was like eating in a restaurant, very impressive.

We spent some time with them in their apartment. My grandparents spoke a bit about my father, then gave me a few of his things. One was a term paper he had written in 1971 about Buddhism and Hinduism, he had written it after a tour around the world with his brother when he was 19. It’s quite good, I think I’ll retype it and put it online. Then there was his wooden Buddha statue that I had always been quite fond of (and had in my bedroom for the better part of my teenage years). Then, most importantly, were his Runes. I nearly teared up when my Grandmother told me she had them, I didn’t know anyone had kept them, and as far as spiritual things go that’s the only real link I had with my father. He taught me about Rune stones, and I carried the art into my adult life. Having his stones, the ones I used before I made my own, is very special.

To be continued…

In 24 hours we’ll be on a plane to New Hampshire.

I tied up loose ends for the trip plans this morning via email. Michael reserved a car for us at Enterprise. And we even ventured to the mall last night so I could get a dress for the memorial service.

Our plan is to pack up this evening, drive to Michael’s mother’s house with Caligula. Spend the night there in the morning we’ll hop on a train (which is right across the street from her house) and head to the airport.

Our flight leaves Philly a little after noon, we’ll be in Manchester, NH by 2. Meet up with family at my Aunt’s house, do the family thing.

Thursday we’ll be going to my father’s storage locker to go through the last of his belongings. We’ll probably spend dinner with my grandparents

Friday we’ll be heading up to Maine for the memorial service, then out to lunch, then to spread the ashes. Michael and I will stay in Maine, maybe take Heather and Annette (my sisters) out in the afternoon or something. That evening we will drive to see our friend Morgana, who will be feeding us dinner and giving us a place to sleep for the rest of our stay.

Saturday we’ll spend with Morgana and her husband, just hanging out. She has a couple food places in mind for the real Maine seafood experience (there is nothing like lobster on paper plates!).

Sunday morning we’ll need to leave Morgana’s around 8 so we can be in Manchester and ready for our flight home around noon.

I’m going to take every chance to relax during this trip. Family vacations almost always require a second vacation to recover, but that’s just not an option %\ Must be back at work on Monday.

But first I need to finish today’s work day. Only a little over 3 more hours to go…

It was a good weekend, still is a good weekend.

On Saturday I spent part of the morning organizing my desk area. I have two computers, hour, my primary workstation, and r2q5 which I use for a test box. hour and my UPS were beside my desk, and r2q5 was taking up room under my desk near my legs, and the wires were just a mess:

Plus, I had two monitors, which was needlessly excessive because my big monitor has a second input. So I put the second monitor away, unplugged all my wires, moved r2q5 next to my desk with hour, and made it all look nice:

Late Saturday morning I went out to the grocery store to pick up some rolls for lunch, when I pulled in the driveway a van pulled up behind me. It turned out to be the mailman who had a box for us. It was the rhizomes that Michael ordered from Freshops.com! I put them in the refrigerator until we had time to plan out their placement in our yard and plant them.

In the late afternoon we decided to have some beers. Then some more beers. Then watch Carinvale and have more beers and some absinth. See where this is going? We both got pretty wasted, but we had fun, even if we went to bed at 8pm.

Today we mostly just hung out here at home. I wasn’t in the mood to do friend things, and was pretty tired from the night before (I think I got up a dozen times and drank a gallon of water last night, hah!). In the afternoon we started to plan out our hop garden, decided that we’d tie the thin rope that the hops will grow up to the side of the garage roof, then stake it into the ground so the hops have plenty of room to grow up. We headed out to Lowes in Quakertown to get the stuff we needed for that, and a few other things we needed.

I really started feeling how tired I was while at Lowes, just followed Michael around to get what we needed, and yawned a lot. We decided to get a taller ladder, which had to be tied to the roof of the Rav4 to get it home, and I picked up some AA batteries for my new wireless USB mouse. It was a good shopping trip.

Once back home we started putting together our hop garden. Unfortunately Michael’s drill was at work so we couldn’t put up the ropes. We were able to plant the rhizomes and put in the stakes, so we’re well on our way to having home grown hops. I’m pretty excited %) I’ll have to take pictures throughout the process.

This evening we headed over to Chiaros in Skippack for dinner. Yummie chicken stromboli.

And now we’re going to get our pajamas on watch a few more episode of Carnivale.

Holy crap, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers work.

It’s rare that I buy something after seeing a television commercial. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve done it in years, but after seeing all the commercials for “Magic Erasers” I decided to spend the $2 and get a couple. There were some marks on our TV room wall from the chairs rubbing against it that I wanted to try it on. And what’s $2 if they turn out to be another loser, right?

They sat under my sink, forgotton, for a couple weeks. Today I pulled them out and brought one over to the scuff mark on my wall. Per the directions I got the thing wet, squeezed it out, and brought it over to the mark on the wall and started rubbing. Within just a few seconds I could see a difference. Holy crap! It actually works! I worked my way around the room getting rid of scuff marks.

I then made my way to the trim around the doors that had fingerprints on it since we moved in. Cleaned it up with no problem. No way!

I went into the kitchen and tackled a nasty black scuff mark on the front door that I’ve tried EVERYTHING to clean. Within a minute it was gone. AMAGAD!

Fingerprints on the textured doors. Gone in a few minutes.

Dirt on baseboards.

Scuff marks on walls.

Marks on the stairs.

Throughout this process the sponge like thing was slowly disintegrating. It was entirely gone when I decided that I should probably stop and get back to my normal cleaning. But man, this was cool.

So like any geek, I couldn’t leave this “Magic” mystery unsolved. I had to figure out how this works.

householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov factsheet

The things are made out of: 85% Plaster of Paris, 5% Ethylene Vinyl Acetate Polymer, 5% Formaldehyde-Melamine-Sodium Bisulfite Copolymer, and 5% Crystalline Silica.

The Formaldehyde-Melamine-Sodium Bisulfite Copolymer is the active chemical. As far as I can tell the rest is just a light abrasive (so light that I didn’t realize it was an abrasive until I looked it up, it really just feels like a sponge, but using the Magic Eraser on some surfaces is not recommended and can do damage because of the abrasiveness). I’m not sure how the active ingredient works, and Google hasn’t been much help, it just ends up bringing me to more Magic Eraser sites, I guess that’s the “Magic.”

And side effects? The same as any other fine dust really. This is surprising, I thought something so magical would somehow kill me.

When swung by the store this morning to pick up some rolls for lunch I got another 4-pack.

Michael and I are starting to get more into exploring spirituality in a group setting, spurred on by our need for someone to marry us. These past couple weeks Michael has been doing a lot of exploring of websites and contacting pagans in our area. We’re planning on going to a couple meetings in the near future. This search for someone to marry us has again made me look at how much I lack as far as spirituality. I can say that I’m an atheist, cast my rune stones, but there is something missing when I get into lousy, hopeless moods. Some days I just can’t pull myself up by my bootstraps.

But honestly, that’s ALL I’m missing in life right now. I’ve never been this happy before, I never thought I’d be this happy. Even a year ago when I felt great and didn’t think better was possible, I have learned that it is.

I have Michael, we have a house, we both have good jobs, the only debt we have is our home mortgage, we’re healthy, we have great friends, we live in a nice area, we have the greatest cat ever. Things have really come together for us. The pessimist inside of me keeps warning me to watch my back because things can’t possible stay this good.

Last night I had a dream that it was raining. Nothing else was happening in this dream, just rain.

I think this is the 11th beautiful, sunny day in a row, they say it’s supposed to get over 80 degrees out today. I like sunny days, I can go for walks and work in my garden and enjoy being outside, but 11 days? Barely even a cloud in the sky? It’s weird.

I miss the rain.

I also miss the trees outside of the Univest Insurance office in Lansdale.

Last week while walking I happened to overhead a man in overalls telling a man in a suit that “They never should have planted these trees here, they get too large, the trouble you’re having comes from the roots…” I thought it was sad that someone would not take into account how large the trees grow when planting them in front of a building, like all those poor trees in cities that look nice on a city block until their roots start breaking up the sidewalks and they need to be removed.

Yesterday while out on my walk at lunchtime I walked past a big line of trees, enjoying their pink flowers, and approached the Univest building.

The trees were gone! Only piles of dirt where they had been remained. It’s now just a little bit harder to breathe here in Lansdale.

I wonder what they do with trees like that. Did they have to chop them up and tear them down? I’ve certainly never seen a live tree larger than 15ft be moved on a truck.