About a week ago I read Sam’s post about the best pancake ever. Yum blueberry! I love blueberries, but they’re not in season right now, so even if I could find them fresh they’d be very expensive. The solution? Frozen blueberries! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? The last time we were at the grocery store we picked up some.

Last night I took some of the blueberries out of the freezer to thaw, and this morning they were ready to be made into pancakes. I prepared it by the directions, and 80 minutes later (the batter needs to sit for 60 minutes before cooking) I had a 8 delicious pancakes to enjoy for breakfast. Yum! They were good pancakes, but in my opinion not really knock-your-socks-off good.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time huddled with my my CSS book (The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks). I decided that the new Xelium site would be done with a huge pile of CSS, divs rather than tables, and validated XHTML 1.0. Quite a task, since I’ve only dabbled in these places somewhat unsuccessfully. Yesterday, however, was a very successful day. I have a beautiful two-column layout page made with divs and CSS that looks good in Mozilla and IE without any special tinkering, AND it all validates! Closing img and br tags with /> takes some getting used to, but in all the site is doing very well. But I can’t show it here because it’s not officially released yet (if you’re really interested I can give you a peek, but I don’t want to publish a live URL here, it’s based on this design).

I’m so proud of myself. Someday I will completely understand div positioning!

Michael took me out for Indian food last night, which was amazing. I ordered Tandoori Prawn (shrimp), yum! We hadn’t planned on going out, but all the rest of our plans for the day had fallen through and I was a bit bummed out.

Today will mostly be a relaxing day. It’s rainy out and Michael has started a fire in the fireplace.

This evening we’re hoping to meet up with Barry and Rae to make some plans for next weekend. They’ve decided to come with us to Maryland! We all have Friday off (Good Friday), so we’ll be leaving in the morning/early afternoon to drive out there. Michael pulled together a bunch of information about parks and things to do while we’re out there, and while we don’t want to make any solid plans, we want to know what our options are. I’m very excited that they decided to come down with us.

After work on Friday we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some sodas for movie night. On our way in they had a whole bunch of flowers for sale, and then I realized: Wow, spring starts in a few days! We’ve had a snowy March (in fact, there is a tiny bit of snow still on our lawn), so the realization that it was time for flowers was surprising.

This afternoon I was outside today talking with Michael about our plans for the house I noticed that my perennials had started to come up, oh my! I haven’t even cleaned the leaves out of the flower beds yet!

So that’s what I spent about an hour doing. It’s in the 50s out, so nice for garden work. I started going through the plots with my gloved hands and some small garden tools, but for the bigger beds I took a normal lawn rake and got most of the junk out. The perennials are pretty tough, so being raked over doesn’t hurt them as long as I don’t get crazy about it.

After I had gotten those cleaned out I went to the side yard and started cleaning up there, but I was hot and thirsty, so I packed up my gardening tools for the day.

I have made a couple decisions about my garden this year.

First off, the vegetable garden that I spend so many weeks on last year is being scrapped. I don’t have nearly enough time for it anymore, and the yield for most of the veggies was pitiful.

Second, I still want to grow green beans. I think I’ll be growing them in one or two of the white, concrete flower beds.

Third, I want to make an attempt at filling out the rest of the flower beds with some flowers that I have to plant, not just bulbs. Since I let the whole thing run it’s course on it’s own last year I’m pretty familiar with what beds have bulbs and when.

Still, I think it’s a bit overwhelming. I bet one of the previous owners of the house did gardening for a hobby. 11 big flower beds near the driveway, a sea of hostas on the side of our house, and a whole enclosed garden plot lining the side of the house facing the street. Oh, and the huge veggie garden that I shrunk 80% to make my veggie garden for last year. We’ll see how it all goes.

It was great to get outside and work in the yard again, and it’s a great way to work off the pounds I always put on over winter.

Last night I made steak. Yeah, I said I was going to cut it out of my diet again but apparently that isn’t going so well. As usual I made up a mustard sauce for the steaks (1/4 c. mustard, usually dijon, 2 teaspoons rosemary, 1 teaspoon pepper, 2 cloves garlic) but this time I used the newly discovered Sierra Nevada Pale Ale & Honey Spice Mustard. Yep, they make a mustard! And it contains their pale ale.

It’s a bit sweet as far as mustards go, even for honey mustard, but it was delicious on the steak last night. During and after dinner we watched some more of the MST3K that we got from . It was a nice, quiet, computerless evening and we went to bed early.

Shouldn’t have gone to bed early, I slept horribly and woke up at 4 am, 4:30, then 5:15, then finally got out of bed around 5:30. This gave me some time to play around with rss2email. You obviously need to run it on a computer that has a mailserver that can talk to the outside world, no problem for me. I set it up per the instructions, it was pretty simple, and pointed it at my gmail account (since that’s the one I can access from work). I opened up rss2email.py and edited the subject line so that it includes [rss2email] in every mail to make filtering easy. I set up gmail to filter everything with [rss2email] in the subject line and drop it in it’s own folder. I then set the script to run at midnight and noon every day.

I was so excited when I started my lunch break at 1pm this afternoon and had new mail in my gmail rss2email box %)

This is a pretty cool solution, but I’ll still be poking around at my other options. Planet looks cool if I want to spend the time to set it up, and I really haven’t explored bloglines enough to say if I like it or not. In any event, this will help me keep up with all these RSS feeds, I’m afraid I’ve been terrible with everything outside of livejournal lately (sorry everyone!).

Reading… I picked up a few books while at the library last week. The book version of islam-guide.com, which was interesting to read. Also got Breaking The DaVinci Code: Answers To The Questions Everyone’s Asking, which would have been much more interesting if summarized as “In reality Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, and women did have more power in the Christian church than in most parts of life back then, and that evidence is still in the Bible, but everything else Brown wrote was silly.” I picked up Who Needs God by Harold Kushner, which interested me because I’m fascinated by smart people who follow organized religion, I started reading it this morning and it’s great so far. We’ll have to see where it goes.

But right now I have to go back to work.

Since I am not just journaling from home anymore, I decided I want to try out some of the online RSS aggregator sites out there, so I can access them from anywhere. I browsed through the newsgator site, and signed up for bloglines (haven’t played with it much though).

What do other people use?

Last week we finally recieved our coupons for the Stash Tea Bed & Breakfast Offer. We learned about the offer last year when we went on vacation and stayed at a B&B that was part of the promotion. You buy 3 boxes of Stash Tea, send them in with $3.95, and they send you a coupon to buy one night and get one night free at a participating Bed & Breakfast.

Very nice.

But a couple weeks ago we had our offer and $3.95 check returned. The reason? “Promotion has ended” what? I thought it lasted until April 2005!

Michael called them up and it turns out that they are starting a new promotion in May and didn’t want to keep giving out the older coupons. When Michael told them we had plans and wanted to use the older ones they apologized and sent us TWO coupons! So now we have two coupons that we definately won’t be using before April of 2005. We’ve asked a few friends if then wanted to come with us but everyone is busy.

Too busy for a lovely bed & breakfast stay in Maryland? Yep. We planned our Bed & Breakfast weekend away for March 25, 26, and 27. Easter weekend. We didn’t even realize it. We’re so silly.

We’ll be staying at the place that told us about the promotion in the first place, The Castle in Western Maryland. And in the same room as before, the most expensive one in the place with the most wonderful comfy bed. We’ll be doing some hiking, and Michael has been looking at local and nearby WV things to do for the weekend we’re over there. And we have reservations at a couple really nice restaurants in the area for our evening meals. I’m so excited, it’s less than 2 weeks away!

Caligula is feeling better.

And today marks our one year anniversary with him! We brought him home from Pharo’s Best Cattery on March 13th, 2004.

Then

Now

He’s such a great cat %)

Last night we went out with , , Barry and Rae for dinner and to see Robots. Robots was decent, if I were to do it over I wouldn’t pay $9.75 to see it. It had a couple original ideas, but like most of these computer generated films it seems like they spent too much on big actors and making it look great, less on story development. I did get to see the new Star Wars trailer though.. and even though I’m not a fan of the sequels, I can’t help getting excited about it, it’s Star Wars.

We had a nice time though, when we got home around midnight I was pretty tired.

This morning I booted up Ubuntu to try out the movie player that comes with it, Totem. I tried to play an .avi in it and it wouldn’t play. Can’t play an AVI? It’s under heavy development, so someday it might work as well as mplayer, but not now. I had to install mplayer. So I did a quick google search and found this Ubuntu Multimedia HOWTO. It compiles mplayer, and since the system is only 450 mhz it took about an hour to complete the install. It went flawlessly! And I had no trouble playing the avi, screenshot. Since I can play movies in Ubuntu now I decided to get out another monitor to use for it (I was using the second input in my 19 inch). Now I’m watching movies and getting stuff done on my computer %)

I’m watching MST3K episode 912 “The Screaming Skull” in that picture (and the screenshot). When came over on Friday for movie night he brought 3 DVDs full of MST3K episodes that he got from BT, which encouraged Michael to start getting some MST3K episodes from BT, yay!

I should go make dinner now

Last night Caligula seemed to be feeling better, when friends came over for movie night he came out and slept in the livingroom to be with everyone instead of hiding in the closet. Then he spent the night on the couch in front of the fireplace.

This morning he was still very tired, but he did manage to eat a little. He tried to jump up on one of the chairs he usually sits on when we’re working upstairs and didn’t have the energy to get up. In the early afternoon when he was sleeping on the couch Michael mentioned that he felt warmer than normal. Sometimes he feels warmer when he’s sleeping because he’s all snuggled up, but I figured I’d give the vet a call anyway to see if we should be concerned.

They told us to bring him in soon so he could be looked at.

We got to the vet and there were dogs in the waiting room, which made him hiss and growl like usual. Once in the exam room he was more mellow than usual (but growled a lot), and kept wanting to crawl back into his carrier. They took his temperature and it turns out he had a fever. Oh no!

The vet wasn’t terribly concerned, but he gave him a Benadryl injection which should bring his fever down. He said it was probably a reaction to the flu vaccine, The cat flu shot that Caligula got contained live (but weakened) virus, and the vet said that some cats do become slightly ill from it. He told us that he’d probably still be sluggish for a couple days, but should be fine by Wednesday, and if not to call them. He also suggested that the next time he gets his flu vaccine we should give him some liquid Benadryl a couple hours before he comes in to the vet.

Poor kitty, I hope he starts feeling better soon,

In better news. I am really loving Ubuntu. Synaptic is much nicer than I remember it (it’s been a while), but I’d definately still go command line for updates and installing, especially on the slower computer I’m using for testing. Still, even using Synaptic, the system runs reasonably well. And since it’s debian-based dependency resolving is all done for you, and it works great. There are lots of how-to’s on and linked to the official Ubuntu site, and the forums are very active and helpful, so the community is there for supporting you, and it seems like the popular packages that aren’t in apt have been dealt with by someone, so finding instructions for that isn’t hard. So I’m impressed, and it’s definately going to the top of my “Recommending to Newbies” list. Yay Ubuntu!

Hopefully tonight we’re going out with some friends to see Robots. Yay!

Now I must go.

Last night we took Caligula to the vet.

They wanted a relatively fresh stool sample, so I cleaned out his litter box on Tuesday evening, assuming he’d go again before Thursday night.

Nope! As disgusting as it is, I ended up grabbing old Tuesday litter bag out of the trash and getting an older “sample” figuring that would be better than nothing. Yuck.

As always, Caligula hated the car ride and meowed a lot. Then, about halfway there, a horrible smell came from the back seat where his carrier was. He had finally given us a stool sample, in his carrier. Double Yuck.

So we pulled over and I threw out the old sample and cleaned out his carrier and put some of the fresh stool in the bag. I’m just glad we had tissues in the car to wipe it all up with and he hadn’t stepped in it before we were able to pull over and clean things up. Cats are gross sometimes.

We finally got to the vet and he was weighed.

11.6 pounds.

Eep, isn’t that a lot?

Eventually we followed a vet tech into the exam room, and passed a dog on the way, which made Caligula start hissing and growling. Oh brother. He hadn’t calmed down much when the doctor came into the exam room, and promptly growled as soon as he touched him. Most of the exam went this way, poor Caligula was very unhappy about the whole thing.

He got his 2 year rabies shot and a cat flu shot, which he took fairly well. The vet also emptied his anal glands (cat’s have anal glands? Apparently.) because we mentioned that he sometimes rubbed his bum on the floor and it was slightly irritated. The vet didn’t seem concerned with this because the irritation didn’t look bad.

About his weight, the vet said it is not a problem right now, but it could become one if he kept gaining. He suggested that we make sure he only gets 3/4 cup each day and bring him in to the vet in 6 months to be weighed and make sure he’s not continuing to gain weight. No more cat milk for Caligula!

It was about 6:30 by the time we got home. The vet warned us that cats often act a bit “off-color” for 24 hours following these shots, and we shouldn’t be concerned unless it lasts longer than that. He acted fine when we got home, but some time last night he crawled on top of my clean clothes in our closet and went to sleep.

This is strange behavior for him, he never sleeps there, he usually sleeps on our spare blankets, a pillow on the couch, or in our bed with us. When Michael saw him on my clothes this morning he moved him to a pillow on the couch, but he immediately went back into our bedroom to sleep on my clothes. Very odd indeed. He didn’t move from his place on my clothes when I filled up his food bowl this morning, which he usually runs to investigate. I’m glad Michael is working from home today and can keep an eye on him. Poor Caligula.

For years Michael and I just ate the same veggie burgers, Flame Grilled Boca Burgers. Boca tries to be like real beef, complete with “grill marks” on some. They fall short of this (meat eaters tend to run away screaming), but I like them.

But after eating the same ones every week I was starting to develop a taste aversion. When we were shopping a couple weeks ago I decided to pick up a different brand, Amy’s Kitchen meatless burgers, Chicago Style. Unlike Boca, Amy’s doesn’t try very hard to taste like meat, and soy is not the largest component (mushrooms and other vegetables are).

The verdict? They’re good! They don’t taste like burgers, I said they tasted like mushrooms and Michael said they tasted like stuffing, I guess it’s a mixture of the two. Very tasty. They aren’t as greasy as the Boca Burgers tended to be, so I need to cook them with the lid on the pan to retain as much moisture as possible, but otherwise I’m very happy. I think we’ll switch off between Boca and Amy’s Kitchen burgers from now on.

Amy’s Kitchen Meatless Chicago Burger

Last night I installed Ubuntu on R2Q5, no more Fedora!

Install attempt # 1 – 4:00 pm

The install started out going fine, but then I ran into a bunch of errors when installing the base system. I logged onto forums to see what the trouble could be, but when I tried the fix they suggested I ran into more errors. The problem? It seems the cd-rom stopped responding during the middle of the install. Stupid old thing, it’s done that before. So I had to do a complete shut down for a few minutes and then bring it back up and hope the cdrom was seen by the BIOS again. It was.

Dinner break from 5-6:30 pm

Install attempt #2 – 6:30 pm

The install was going fine, but once again I was hung up at installing the base system. The error led me to believe the CD was at fault (“try burning at a lower speed,” it said), but since burning an ISO is such a PITA I refused to give in. On a whim I went to the next step in the install to install all the rest of the packages, and hope the installer would be smart enough to see that the whole base wasn’t there. And it worked! The base system installed without a problem. The rest of the install from the CD went flawlessly. Then I got to boot into the new install.

The first thing the new install seems to do is pull up apt and finish installing by updating packages and things. Apt downloaded 80+ packages and I had to sit around and wait for it to install them all, it took about an hour. No GUI, just text on my screen zooming by for an hour. Eventually that was done and I log into my new system!

You set up a user which will have sudo privs (root account is disabled by default), and use that. It uses a nice GUI login, and dumps you into Gnome. It looks really slick! I started poking around and I noticed that it was much nicer than the default desktop that Fedora gives you, and it just looks so much nicer. I went through the menus and noticed that it doesn’t install as much as Fedora did, but that’s perfectly alright, Fedora installs too much.

By then it was about 9pm and I was getting too tired to play with Ubuntu, so I haven’t started checking out how apt works with it or anything. The package management system is really the key for me, Fedora has come a long way, but the up2date GUI still freezes up, Fedora’s yum is painfully slow, and Fedora’s apt is clunky and imperfect at resolving dependencies.

I’m optimistic though, Ubuntu might very well take it’s place at the top of my “to recommend to newbies” list.

Yesterday it got up to 65 degrees F. When I left work I said:

“Haha! And it’ll probably snow tomorrow!”

I shouldn’t joke like that.

IT’S SNOWING.