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November 29, 2005
640
GMAT score. Good 'nuff.
More later.
Posted by Mark at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2005
busy
North Conway was a blast, as usual. I picked up a few Christmas presents for others and some cold-weather gear for myself. DC was relatively warm, compared to Boston, and Kara and I want to learn to snowboard this winter, so I needed a new parka. I cashed out some Visas Rewards Points or whatever from my old Wachovia account in DC and saved 30 bucks on an nice waterproof L.L. Bean parka, and Gap outlet had a really nice wool coat for $35. I also got a pair of waterproof boots that will be helpful for rainy/snowy days.
Tonight I have a bunch of little things to wrap up before we head down to PA for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it. I have paintball gear all ready to go, and I'm picking up some nice random Boston-area beers for Matt today after work.
For some reason I feel like there is an awfully lot of stuff to take care of right now and not much time to do it in.
Posted by Mark at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
Syracuse
I just read Matt's blog entries, and so that made me realize that I need to blog.
So I was in Syracuse last weekend and that was great. I really enjoy seeing that old core group of people and just having fun together...you see people you only get to see once or twice a year and it's great seeing how we're all still the same in some ways, and growing and changing in others. The football is just a footnote. Especially since we lost 27-nothing.
This year, we stayed much closer to campus, at the Marx hotel. It was formerly a really ugly 20-story Holiday Inn or something in the middle of town; the ugliness was chiefly because of the lime-green paneling on the exterior. They've redone it, and now it's quite nice. It was within walking distance of both the Armory Square downtown bar district and the campus.
Some years we spend more time on campus than others; this year we were mainly downtown except for the game, a brief trip to Chuck's after the game, and my usual trip to the Greek Shop and Shirt World to pick up a few Syracuse-themed shirts and such. As is also traditional, I picked up some stuff for Kara...she got a shirt and a window sticker that she may or may not actually put on her car. It is possible it may appear on her car sometime when she isn't expecting it. I got myself a new baseball cap and a license-plate frame for the Jetta.
I spent part of last night manufacturing large quantities of Chex mix for the annual North Conway trip, which should get underway in a few hours. While I'm up there, I'm buying a dedicated winter coat. It's getting cold up here.
Posted by Mark at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2005
job
Congrats to Matt on landing a job! Good work!
Posted by Mark at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2005
loose ends
Chacarero Wednesday! Good times.
Mike's state champ soccer dreams are over. At least he scored a whole lot more goals this season than I ever did as a soccer player. Because zero times anything is still zero.
Been seriously keeping up with hitting the gym. It really, really makes me feel good to go. I'm actually starting to look forward to it. I don't screw around--in and out in 35 minutes. My muscles are remembering very quickly how to lift, and I mix it up with a little light cardio on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don't have any reason not to go every day, so I just go. What's an extra half-hour anyway?
Got my gaming box back up. Dad confirms that I wasn't an idiot in incorrectly hooking up the power supply the last two times a power supply exploded on me. So I have no clue whatsoever what the problem is. Honestly, his theory of bad capacitors in power supplies over the last few years is simply the most plausible. There's just no other common thread, other than the fact that all the power supplies I've vaporized have been relatively new. Well, that and the fact that I've got way too many things plugged into one outlet, but that would cause either blown fuses or computers that just wouldn't start up at all for lack of power. So bad caps it is.
Matt is still waiting to hear on his potential job. Good luck to him, and good luck to Mom as well.
Things are quiet at work with our last big project winding down. I'm trying to clean up some loose ends on this and that before the next big project gets underway.
Syracuse this weekend!
Posted by Mark at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2005
various things
As I just mentioned to brother Matt on the phone, yes, I have been in a non-blogging state lately. But let me fill you in on the latest:
I'm printing out my credit report right now. Looks good! You have to pay for your score, but based on the credit report itself, I'm sitting pretty. Something like 3 total late payments in the last 5 years...each one for less than 30 days.
Kara and I looked at neighborhoods this weekend. We found a nice area just over the Brookline town line in Brighton which has some decent-looking buildings. One in particular that was listed for $325--over our price just by a little, but worth compromising on--has an amazing view and pretty much everything that we want. Also found a McCondo neighborhood of the variety I had looked at semi-seriously a few years ago in DC. Also a possibility. Not that much character, but very nice landscaped yards, tons of parking, pool on the premises, etc.
I blew up another power supply in my gaming computer. I need to look into what is causing that to happen. Looks like I won't be playing EVE much this week. The one nice thing about that is that I can train skills while I'm not actively playing, so even if I don't get around to fixing it soon, I can continue to level up my character and be pretty uber by the time I log back in for reals.
Syracuse homecoming this weekend. Good times.
Launched a successful new product. Smarter Travel Destination Guides, or Travel Guides, or whatever they're calling it.
Went to the gym 5 days last week. Pretty proud of that. My muscles are slowly returning.
GMATs are on the 29th. Continuing to study. Then I have to figure out how to pay for it, but let's cross one bridge at a time here.
The room is clean. The AC is finally out of the window. I have food at home. Good thing, because I'm going to be out of town for the next three weekends in a row.
That's all for now.
Posted by Mark at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)