Saturday, June 26 2021

2019-06-01 Saturday

Good Morning Journal!

It's a lovey day outside, and Rodney and I were just sitting down at the breakfast table to plan how we're going to take advantage of it. Today the main thing we'd like to do is make Chicken Marengo, which was first invented on the battlefield to console Napolean after losing his best friend. It seems oddly fitting, Marissa was pretty bummed all day yesterday. The lady who owned Ziggy's brother unexpectedly passed away and as it turns out, Jack also escaped. So I think Marissa needs some comfort food to say the least.

We had a wonderful night last night. We made a pizza, walked to get icecream, then Marissa and I sat outside in the new outdoor chairs she got. I think it might be my new favorite part of our backyard. The chairs are low to the ground and right over the cool rocks, so the puppies love lounging around. Additionally, it also makes for a very nice private place to smoke. Marissa and I just chatted while I drank a beer, but the more we talked the more I got excited about really gussying up our backyard.

We had lots of YouTube to catch up on as well. The new season of hot ones had already started, and we also wanted to start doing some research about what to do in Vancouver. Which reminds me, I ought to look more into that. Today I may start a google doc for Vancouver research. I'd like to make a list of some interesting restaurants I'd like us to hit.

Let's have a great Saturday! Let's take advantage of the nice weather, make some good food, help each other grieve, and recharge for the coming week - the last week before vacation.

2019-06-24 Monday

Good Morning Journal!

I'm reeling this morning. I just saw on reddit that the Raspberry Pi 4 was released, and it looks like a pretty big performance bump. It supports USB 3.0, has twice the RAM, and even 4K video. This is a pretty big deal for me, since I run three of them at home (including my desktop). I think the first machine I'll look into upgrading is my personal desktop, since I use it often. The file server can come later, but that would be a big win since plex reads from it. I'll have to do some research and see where the bottleneck is because the file server also has that silly powered USB hub hanging off of it, and for all I know that could be what's slowing everything down anyway. Ha - jumping right into the tech stuff this morning. I can't help it - raspberry pi releases are very exciting. That team does an amazing job sticking to their $35 price point, and it's so little money I can almost buy it immediately without it being a big deal.

So what else is going on. Ah, I'm finally off of ticket duty this morning. It was rough coming back from vacation and going right to being on call, but I can't complain. I had more than my fair share of intoxicants in Vancouver, and I probably benefited from a bit of a break. Still, I'm really looking forward to taking a night off.

Yesterday, Marissa, Rodney, and I went to Sal's pizza for dinner. We discussed Rodney's birthday party. I'm pretty excited about it this year. Last year, I didn't do much to help plan, and I sort of under delivered in the food department. The only prep I did was just making burger patties, and I let my dad take over half way through and he started putting sriracha and cheese on all the hot dogs, which was still fun. This year, to say the least, I'm going to make people feel like they're stepping into a very planned and loving meal. Plus, my cornbread recipe is pretty lit. You know I'm going to make like four of those babies and stick them in the fridge the night before.

Ah, I finally finished Kelly's laptop. Yesterday was the final piece. I just had to take it apart and clean it out, then hit it with some Windex. I'm not going to lie to you, it looks pretty amazing now. It's like a brand new (10 year old) laptop, but I think it's a proper refurbishing. No reason why that thing can't sit in the kitchen or a kid's room for a few more years to come.

Man, I've been really cranking out the word counts these days. It only takes me about fifteen minutes to hit 400 words. I'm proud of that progress. Well, I'm going to use the rest of my morning to checkout the specs for the new pi. Daddy might be getting an upgrade soon, and daddy likes upgrades.

Let's have a Monday!