A New Apartment

I wasn't really looking for a new apartment but I seem to have found one. I knew Kenny & Monica would be moving to their new house sometime this year and figured I would probably move at that point. Even though I love my current apartment, I always thought it would be nice to be closer to Nate and to Church and cut down on my commute, if possible. I found the add for the new apartment at Clinton Bagel - it was in my price range, was near Clinton and the picture showed a big, renovated kitchen. I looked at it last Saturday and signed the Lease yesterday. I am the only tenant which was a big selling point. Here is a picture of the outside (yes, my phone has a camera so I should have taken inside pics, too, but I'll post them when I get them).


Leaving my current place in Bethlehem Township will be sad since Kenny & Monica are good friends. I'll miss the stream, too, but I think this is the right move. I'll be moving at the end of March - I have both places for about 10 days. More details as I get them.

Computer Cabling

Earlier this week, we had a maintenance window at work which included re-running about 9 cables in a computer rack. As often happens with cleanups, once I looked at the rack, I decided to cleanup all the cables - network, fiber (disk) and power. This was once of the worst racks, but we have many more to do. I'm going to be beating in to my guys to keep it neat so we don't get this bad again, but we'll see. In theory, the cables are bound together by type, but still loose enough that new cables can be run without taking it all apart. Ahh, the joys of Velcro.

Below are before and after pictures. In the spirit of full disclosure, the before picture is actually another rack - I didn't think of taking pictures until I was done. The pictures were taking with my new Blackberry Storm (which I have promised to blog about soon) - I'm still getting used to the camera, so that explains the lack of focus.

Before	After

Most & Least Affordable Cities to Live In

From Lifehacker.....

http://lifehacker.com/5157266/the-10-most-and-least-affordable-cities-in-the-us

Amazingly, neither Boston or San Diego is on the least affordable. If they did it by county, I suspect Hunterdon County, NJ, where Nate & I live, would be on the least affordable :( Interesting that Ocean City, NJ is on the least affordable with less than 500,000. Guess everyone wants to live at "America's Greatest Family Resort".

Birthday Dinner 45

Last night Nate & I went out to dinner for my birthday. Nate didn't really know what to get me so when I suggested he take me to dinner he jumped at the chance. We went to the Warrenside Tavern, out favorite local restaurant. It's an old (like 1700's old) tavern with a simple, tasty menu. It lives up to it's Tavern name in that the beer is plentiful and inexpensive. As I said to Nate, it's good it is not closer to my apartment or I'd be there way to often. Oddly, they don't have a website nor could I find pictures online. I'll try to get some and update this post.

Wednesday is Prime Rib night at the Warrenside, another reason I chose it for my birthday dinner. Every Wednesday, Prime Rib dinner is $12.97 - not 12.99 or 12.95, 12.97. We both got it medium (which was more like medium rare), french fries and bleu cheese dressing on our salads. We split an appetizer of fried calamari. I, of course, had a Sam Adams to start and then a glass of Cabernet with my steak - Nate stuck with the Coke. Not sure what got into me but I cleaned my plate, including sopping up the juices with a couple pieces of bread. We both had dessert - me, Kentucky Bourbon Pecan Pie and Nate, Confused Chocolate Cake.

I should work for the Warrenside - I recommend it to everyone I know. If you come visit, I'll take you there.

Einstein is Trademarked!

I was cleaning up some Little Einsteins videos I had downloaded for my neighbor Monica from her Tivo, when I noticed this image at the end of the video. Apparently, the commercial use of "Einstein" or "Albert Einstein" is trademarked. The trademark is held by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. According to various sources, "Einstein’s Last Will and Testament of 1950 stipulated that the Hebrew University would eventually become the final repository of his personal papers and the heir of all of his intellectual property." This included his "personality rights", including his image and name.

Christmas Lights 2008 - Update

It's been a while since my last post and there are reasons (work, a cold since Jan 4th, etc.) but no excuses. The blame may lay with Facebook, which is great for quick little posts. I only got an account since Nate did and that was the agreement, but it is an interesting, if odd, community.

Anyway, Nate and I finally took the Christmas Lights, that I posted so much about, down yesterday. Valentines Day is a long time to leave the lights up, but January was cold and/or rainy. For much of the month the decorations were buried in snow. As an aside, my Dad on occasion left the Christmas lights on until my birthday (Feb. 19th) as a birthday present.

As for the Nativity scene that was the focus of my photo lighting experiment - it did not fare so well. While Nate and I were in San Diego, there was a bad wind storm and Joseph's legs broke and baby Jesus almost ended in the stream. I was able to rebuild Joseph's legs but the ground was frozen so I couldn't get him back in the scene. I took the whole thing down in early January but many of the stakes broke so more repair will be needed before it goes back up.

The rest of the decorations survived fairly well. The luminaries got a little beat up in a wind storm, which is what motivated me to take all the decorations down. All in all, it was a fun year for lights. I can't wait until next year - whether it be here or somewhere new.