markdalius.com

October 26, 2008

balcony, gaming, MBA

Sitting on the balcony today, enjoying the mid-60s weather with a Sam Adams Light and one of the St. Maarten cigars. This might be the last time I get a chance to have a cigar until the Spring; you never know with this New England weather. On the other hand, it might be 70 for a weekend sometime in December. Either way, I don't want to waste a day I can spend marginally outdoors.

Kara headed off to Vegas for her training at 4 this morning. I very seldom spend more than a day or so away from her, so when she heads off on a slightly more extended trip, it makes me realize how much I miss her when she's gone. It's nice sometimes to have a little separation since it reminds you of how much you mean to each other.

So it's just me and kitty for the week. Friends were asking me last night (we went to a couple of surprise parties for different people) what I was planning on doing while I had the house to myself. It's actually a very busy week with little time for sitting around watching sports and drinking beer. In fact, today is really the only day I have free.

Monday is class, followed by a big software release. Tuesday I'm meeting up with an old high school friend whom I've discovered through Facebook lives just south of Boston. Wednesday I had planned to grab beers with MJP, forgetting that I had already invited him to go see Coldplay with a bunch of other friends (Kara was supposed to go but it ended up conflicting with Vegas). Thursday is class again, and Kara gets home early Friday morning. So that's my week.

I have some work I want to do inside the condo, but I'm going to save that for later tonight, when it cools off more and I can't enjoy the fall leaves out here with my laptop and Labatt. I seldom drink bottled beer these days (except for the occasional imported Yuengling), but I have 5 gallons of red ale that needs to be bottled, and I need non-twist-offs. Sam bottles work very well for homebrew, with labels that are relatively easily removed (if I remember correctly; it's been several years since I last brewed) and a sort of long lip area that makes them easy to cap. That's one of the main projects for tonight.

I haven't been blogging much lately, but I am very active on Facebook. Since my blog entries tend to be "here are some boring things I did in the last two weeks" rather than "here's an interesting statement on my life philosophy," I use Facebook as a sort of Twitter service..."Mark is planning his week, Mark is releasing code, Mark is getting ready for class," that sort of thing.

I've been doing more computer gaming since I upgraded the system. I finished Half-Life 2, along with episodes 1 and 2, and I bought episode 1 of the Penny Arcade game to tide me over until Fallout 3 comes out this week. I think the last time I bought a game on release day was Super Mario Brothers 3 (well, I got Star Wars Galaxies pretty close to release), but Fallout 3 has me pretty excited for several reasons: one, I'm in the mood for something RPG-ish since I've been playing mostly FPS games lately. Two, I actually have the horsepower to run it, which hasn't happened in awhile. And three, I love that it's set in a semi-accurate model of post-apocalypse D.C. and I want to see if my house is in it. It was neat to see the movie Notting Hill in the same theater where part of it was shot, and I've never had a chance to play a game that was set in a neighborhood I know.

The MBA is coming along. I'm planning out my last 7 or so classes and looking forward to graduation in May of 2010, if all goes well. I had a bit of a problem with registration; I forgot to do it first thing in the morning after some work chaos and got shut out of a bunch of classes. But, I was able to recover when a space opened up in Project Management, and I'm going to try my luck with an Entrepreneurship-based class that I hadn't planned on taking, but does count towards the concentration and that I think I'll get a lot out of. MJP and I had a talk about picking classes and his thoughts, and he stressed to me that taking or not taking a particular class was not going to deep-six my career, so I"m trying to go with the flow as far as possibilities go. It's just occurred to me that choosing classes is very much like trying to decide attributes to upgrade in an RPG. I'm just nervous that I'll miss out on a critical skill and won't be able to wield the Advanced Risk-Modeling Bazooka when it becomes available after I become a dual-class Programmer/Businessman because I don't have enough skill points in Combat Accounting.

That was pretty geeky.

Posted by Mark at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2008

facebook, topsfield fair

The Facebook thing has been fun so far. I've run into all kinds of people from back in the day. I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but it's a nice place for casually seeing what people are doing with their lives without getting into Google-stalking territory.

We went to the Topsfield Fair this past weekend, which is like the Bloomsburg Fair on perhaps a slightly smaller scale...smaller only because there's no big horse-racing track in the middle of it. We ate corndogs and fried dough (like funnel cake only the dough is in one big blob) and popcorn and cheeseburgers and saw ducks and geese and chickens and llamas and all kinds of interesting people. We also saw Robinson's Racing Pigs. They didn't want to swim in the 50-degree water. Smart pigs.

Posted by Mark at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2008

random updates

Just a few random updates:

I'm now on both Facebook and LinkedIn. Shouldn't be hard to find me.

I am actually finding Facebook to be quite amazing...it's surprising how many people from back in the day have accounts. Since I've had this blog for quite a few years now, I never found it necessary to sign up for MySpace/Facebook--it seemed like something that was for the generation just behind mine, or for non-technical people who didn't run their own websites. But Facebook seems to offer networking resources that are above and beyond what I could easily do with just a blog, and since I'm not doing very much hacking these days, I'm finding more and more value in pre-rolled services (using Weddingchannel.com versus setting up our own wedding website, or contemplating Comcast PVR instead of building my own MythTV box).

The network effect has also grown them to the point where they are useful, which is something that, say, Friendster never had going for it. I mean, when I can find people from my class at Middleburg using a service, that means it's pretty much arrived. Nothing against my old class, it's just that I think my generation is the last who really grew up with the Internet as something exciting, new, technical, slightly scary, and optional, in the same way that you might not have had a TV in the mid-1900s. This is opposed to Brother Matt, who pretty much always had an email address, or Brother Mike, who has never not lived in a world without instant messaging and cell phones (more or less...yes, both were born in the 80s, before the invention of the Web, but I'm talking more about the presence of technology during formative years).

As an aside, I'm sure everybody has seen this by now, but I've always gotten a kick out of it: Beloit College Mindset List

Anyway, I've got people from Middleburg, Syracuse, BU, and other friends on there, and it's kinda neat seeing what everybody's been up to. Very voyeuristic as well!

We had a great pizza party last weekend with lots of friends visiting, and Brother Matt and I attended Belgian Beer Fest. I'm finding a lot of enjoyment in lambic and sour-style beers lately; I've just gotten so bored with everybody's Look-At-How-Much-Hops-I-can-use IPA. I'm not sure that I've tried as many beers as Matt has, but I've definitely had hundreds, and I find myself drawn to two styles:

boring cans of Coors Light that I can drink a dozen of and wake up the next morning without a hangover

beers that taste different

Prime examples of category 2 are the Ham on Rye beer from last Extreme Beer Fest, the Bloody Beer from the same, various Belgian sour styles, Rogue's Smoke Ale, and even beers that I didn't actually enjoy but still was intrigued by, such as the Tabasco Beer from Extreme. If I'm just in the mood to sit around watching TV and drinking beer, I'll usually go for the CL, but if I want to drink a beer to actually enjoy some beer, I do tend to go for things that are more out-there.

The new PC is running Half-Life 2 flawlessly at max settings and resolution, and I recently completed Bioshock and Portal, both of which I enjoyed. I do take umbrage, however, at Obligatory Spooky Level. I just don't enjoy being scared by a game I guess.

Minor Spoiler Alert:

Bioshock's real OSL was Fort Frolic. So you're making your way through the level and you see these "statues" everywhere which, although it's never explicitly said, appear to be actual human corpses covered in plaster. You're expecting one to jump out at you at any second, but they don't, until you go into this basement room and see spooky corpse sitting in a chair facing the corner of a room. You go into the next room, turn your back to open a safe, and when you turn back around...wait, where's the chair dude, and was that other statue there before? And said statue then proceeds to attack you. So now as you're making your way around, you need to remember whether or not a "statue" was there before or not.

Another part of the level has you going into a big square basement room with water on the floor and evenly-spaced mannequins throughout the room. Of course, you turn your back, and when you turn around again, some of the mannequins have become spooky statues, which then proceed to come alive and attack you. I mean, you know it's coming. The room is just too weird for weird things not to happen. And there's nothing spookier than turning around, then turning back, and seeing that things are not as they were.

Example here: Ninja Cat

Anyway, Half Life 2 has Ravenholm as its OSL, which actually turns out not to be quite as bad as I thought it would be...when I first arrived I figured on monster closets everywhere, but most of the spookier enemies can be seen coming from a distance away. There were still a couple of startling moments, but not that many.

End Spoilers.

Anyway, can't I just play through an interesting FPS without having to sleep with the lights on? The disadvantage of everything being first-person is that the startle factor is much more significant; you can walk The Nameless One through plenty of creepy environs with a certain level of detachment, but you can't do that if every time you walk through a door you're expecting the windows to burst open and Greater Shadows to start wailing on you. I'm hoping Fallout 3 doesn't go overboard in trying to be survival horror.

I'm sure people will tell me to just get over it and not be such a wuss, but listen: I watched The Ring and I couldn't be near a TV, well, barn, or open field for two weeks. What do you want from me?

Anyway, life is good. Kara is working late most of this week so I've been kitty-sitting. Grad school is going well, the house is once again somewhat clean, and fall has arrived. No complaints. We've got a lot of social engagements over the next few months and we're currently starting to schedule for December, which is business as usual.

Posted by Mark at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2008

electronics!

I am awash in technology.

I love the iPhone so far. Reception is a hell of a lot better than with my old LG flip phone--not that that's saying very much. I would routinely lose my signal when the T drove by. Call clarity is clearer too, which is nice for both me and the callee, given that conversations are now a lot less like "So I was...hello? Hello? Are you there? Are you still there? Hello?" and then swearing.

So far, I've downloaded and installed the standard "best of free" apps, including the NYTimes newsreader, AOL Radio, and a neat To-Do list app called Jott that allows you to record voice notes when it then transcribes into text. I also have the "flashlight" app that turns your screen different colors which allows you to use your iPhone as a low-power flashlight in very dark and treacherous environments, such as our condo at 2 a.m. Rest easy, my shins and Labatt!

Also, I finally got around to rebuilding the gaming PC. I tried to install the video editing software that came with the digital camcorder and found that it wouldn't run on Windows 2000. Combined with the fact that I can't play any computer game released after 2004, I figured I could justify spending $700 on some new stuff. I got:

• ASUS P5K Pro motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3Ghz processor
• 2 gigs RAM
• Western Digital Caviar 500G 7200 RPM SATA hard drive
• PNY GeForce 9600 GT 512m video card
• CD/DVD burner
• Windows XP

This is the first system I've built with SATA connectors or a PCI Express video card, which gives you an idea how old my existing gaming system was. I was amazed at how big video cards are now--the new GeForce is the size of my forearm. And it still amazes me that a tiny piece of silicon smaller than the top of a soda can is has more computing power than the Space Shuttle.

Anyway, the house is a mess, my diet is a mess, and I haven't worked out in weeks. Tonight is going to involve cans of Coors Light, a dust rag, the paper shredder, a vacuum, and possibly a copy of either BioShock or the Game of the Year edition of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Posted by Mark at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2008

back and married

The honeymoon was absolutely incredible...Anguilla exceeded our wildest expectations.

I'll write more details later, but for now, suffice it to say that:

• our accommodations were the perfect blend of luxury, privacy, and comfort
• the beach is rated #1 in the Caribbean for a reason...some would say #1 in the world, and I have no problem believing them
• we saw sea urchins, parrotfish, an octopus, countless tropical fish, squid, crabs, and the molted skin of a spiny lobster, as well as a huge school of thousands of fish that we floated effortlessly above as they essentially surrounded us
• we met amazing people from the island, including high-powered businessman turned island restauranteur and relaxation aficionado Mango Dave, French chef Fabrice, and easygoing man of many cultures Mike
• we happened upon another couple from DC with a surprising link to a Boston band from Kara's past
• we ate, ate, and ate food that ranged from the comfortable to the sublime
• we learned to drive on the left side of the road
• we got "smoothed out" at Smoothie's, resulting in some laughs and hijinks for our friends and the staff
• we had great weather, met great new friends, read some books, snorkeled some reefs, walked some beaches, took some photos and videos, and enjoyed our first few days of married life to the fullest, making some memories that will stay with us forever

Needless to say, it was our first time to Anguilla, but it is far from our last! We're not quite ready to quit our jobs and open a restaurant there, but if someone should win the lottery...well, Kara has always wanted to open a Bed and Breakfast, but she never specified that it had to be in the US. We cannot wait to go back!

Relax and enjoy life...it's the Island Way!

Posted by Mark at 02:37 AM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2008

Mr. and Mrs. Mark and Kara Dalius

We're married!

Wedding was a smash hit and by all accounts, everyone had a great time. I'll fill in details later.

The cab gets here in 15 minutes to take us to the airport, then it's off to Anguilla!

Posted by Mark at 04:01 AM | Comments (2)

August 15, 2008

last entry as a bachelor

Vegas was awesome and I'll have to write about it sometime.

I'm getting married in about 30 hours. I'm quite happy to be getting married and not nervous about that; I'm nervous a bit about the ceremony and details and whatever else. I guess I'm nervous for the sake of being nervous.

But at this point, everything that can be done is done. Every detail has been taken care of. There's nothing left to do but have the wedding.

I probably won't blog again until I get back from the honeymoon, but I'm looking forward to that too. So that's it for my last entry as a bachelor! Wish me luck.

Posted by Mark at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2008

off to vegas

In under 24 hours, we head out to Vegas for the big bachelor extravaganza, and I couldn't be more excited. Couple that with my recent promotion to Lead Developer and of course the impending marriage, and there's no way life could be any better.

Plus, I've registered a domain name that should give me an interesting project to work on in the near future, so stay tuned...if I'm not a millionaire in the next couple days...

Posted by Mark at 01:03 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2008

obligatory bullet-point update

The past month has been very busy in a good way. Kara and I joined MJP and Stephanie at a NH lake house owned by Stephanie's family for a weekend of grilling and lazing about, and we did an Upstate NY wine tour around Lake Seneca the next weekend. This past weekend Mom and Dad were in town for Kara's bridal shower; we have lots of neat new toys that I can't wait to use.

I'm absolutely exhausted, and I can only imagine how much more tired Kara must feel. It's been a good last few weeks but I'm relieved to be sitting on my balcony with Labatt at my feet, trying to decide where we should order pizza from for dinner.

I'm too tired to write much but I guess I can put down some bullet points for some of the recent activities:

• Labatt stayed at mum's for over a week since we were away a couple weekends in a row
• Dad and I ate at several Gloucester restaurants while the shower was going on and while the girls were off doing wedding stuff
• I took MJP canoeing for the first time
• For a shared wedding present for Kara and I, I bought a Canon HF100 HD camcorder
• Mom and Dad brought me up a case of Yuengling and a snack pack of Middleswarth chips
• We saw the best 4th of July fireworks ever when our lake rental next-door neighbors lit off a bunch of fireworks from their dock
• We went to 9 wineries and tried about 70 different wines, and bought 14 bottles
• We had lunch at Tully's in Syracuse on the way back, after walking around the campus
• I had my car washed and had to replace the rack and pinion after the steering started making a horrible noise
• I made homemade chili in the crock pot we got (I know technically you're not supposed to use your gifts until after the wedding, but if Kara bails on me I've got bigger problems than returning the punch bowl to the right person)
• Rabbitt moved on from the old job and got a great position at NYTimes.com

That's a bunch of good stuff. I know there was more, but that's a good start. It's been busy but fun. This weekend we have nothing planned, just to do any wedding stuff that's outstanding, and then the next weekend is Vegas!

Posted by Mark at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2008

grilled buffalo wings

I have to write about this before I forget.

I have finally managed to cook excellent Buffalo wings.

I've tried in the past to pan fry wings, to deep fry wings, to bake wings...frozen breaded wings don't really count, but I couldn't even get those to come out all that well. That all changed tonight.

The idea to grill wings came from a restaurant on Rt. 1 that has "fire-grilled wings" as part of the actual restaurant sign; before that, it hadn't even occurred to me. So I looked for some recipes, and finally settled on a variation (obviously, because God knows I can't just follow directions without trying to give it my own little bit of flair) of this: wings

What I did was this: I semi-thawed the frozen wings under cold running water while still in the package. Then, I put them into a glass bowl while I heated the grill (I've been using cooking spray lately to keep things from sticking, and I used extra this time, just in case). I lightly dusted them with cayenne pepper and black pepper, then tossed to coat. I then added maybe a quarter-bottle of Texas Pete wing sauce, and tossed to coat.

Here's where it gets a little more involved. I put the wings on the grill, heated for about 10 minutes. Then, I took them off, one or two or three at a time, coated them again in wing sauce in the same glass bowl, then put them back on the grill...opposite side of the wing, so they would cook evenly and not burn. Wait 10-12 minutes or so, repeat again.

So now we're about 25 minutes into it. I think I did the same process maybe once more? I can't remember. Anyway, the point is, put them on the grill for about 10 minutes, remove and re-coat in sauce, place back on the grill. Continue this process every 10 or so minutes. They'll be done after 40 minutes.

At the end, I washed and cleaned the sauce bowl--you do NOT want to re-coat the wings in sauce that has had raw chicken soaking in it! Food poisoning from undercooked chicken is NOT fun, and I have done that to myself on at least a couple of occasions! So, at the 30-minute re-coat, once the wings are on the grill for the last 10 minutes, take the bowl and wash it out. At the 40-minute mark, put the wings back in the bowl and coat them again in wing sauce.

Eat.

The flavor is not initially overwhelmingly "Buffalo," because there is a smokiness and a sultry heat that only presents itself after you've finished a wing. Give it 4 or 5 before passing judgment; believe me when I say that these are not going to be your average corner pub wings. They will be different, but they will be amazing. I recommend plucking them out of the bowl with tongs, then, pouring the rest of the sauce over them, burnt bits and all. Amazing.

Now, they're wings, and they have the skin on them, so they are not going to be as healthy as a boneless skinless breast (although I intend to try this same recipe on a cutlet later this week). But, at least they're not fried. So this is absolutely the healthiest possible way to make wings that I believe exists. Yeah, maybe you could make them in the oven, but they simply aren't as good. I think this is a reasonable compromise: it's not as bad as it could be, and the smoky, charred flavor adds something that you're not going to get from the best deep-fried wings out there.

If it's still confusing:

1. Kitchen timer reads: 0 minutes. Wings are in a bowl, coated with sauce. Put them on the grill.
2. Kitchen timer reads: 10 minutes. Take the wings off the grill, a couple at a time, re-coat them in sauce from the bowl, put them back on the grill. Make sure you turn them so you cook the opposite side. Keep doing this until you've done it with all the wings.
3. Kitchen timer reads: 20 minutes. Do the same thing you did before.
4. Kitchen timer reads: 30 minutes. Do the same thing you did before. Take the bowl inside, wash it with soap and water, and put maybe another quarter-bottle of wing sauce in it.
5. Kitchen timer reads: 40 minutes. Take the wings off the grill, put them in the sauce, and toss them to coat. This is optional; if you want the wings to be more dry you don't have to do it. To make them wet and certainly a bit hotter, do it. Serve.

Posted by Mark at 01:53 AM | Comments (1)

June 12, 2008

wedding and registry

Wedding invitations have gone out! We got a bunch of reply cards in the mail today; that was quite fast.

I'll admit that I've been F5-ing the online registry...it's like Christmas morning every day. The fact that we're older and more established means that we already have a fair amount of "stuff," but the things we registered for are a) things we don't already have, b) things we don't have enough of, c) things we have but they're pretty worn out and broken down, or d) things that we have but we'd like really really good quality pass-it-to-your-grandkids versions of. Things we don't already have would be like the food processor or the mixer or slow cooker. Things we don't have enough of would be the day-to-day plates and bowls (we're using as our primaries the same plates I grew up with--now, they're very nice Corelleware, durable stuff, but a lot have gotten broken over the years to the point where we only have two matching bowls). Worn out stuff would be luggage, the bakeware, or the towels. And the "high-end" stuff is the china, the cooking knives, maybe the pots and pans.

And there's a lot on there that is just for entertaining, which we love to do, and other stuff that's for decor or just for fun--like the soft-serve ice-cream maker and dispenser.

Anyway, my time is split about 70-30 between endgame wedding planning and wrapping up a handful of projects for the quarter at work. We booked flights for Vegas for the bachelor party but have yet to book a hotel; I still have a couple questions about that and I need to make a call for some advice. We're looking at tuxes this weekend, we're working on a cake topper, and endlessly trying to answer the burning question, chair covers or no chair covers?

It's going to be a very fun wedding.

Posted by Mark at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2008

lots of little things

The last few days have been hugely productive. In that time, I/we have:

• bought a white ceiling fan and remote kit for the bedroom
• bought a new reasonably-sized and energy-efficient air conditioner for the bedroom
• accidentally ordered the "kettle chips" appetizer at John Harvard's Brewery, which I was expecting to be a small bowl of chips but which turned out to be basically potato chip nachos with cheese and bacon and scallions and sour cream and of course a ton of kettle chips, thus undoing any good that came from going to the gym/ordering a salad for my entree
• discovered that the ceiling fan required not a half-inch pancake box but a full-size box, requiring a trip to Home Depot
• correctly and without mishap installed the white ceiling fan
• more or less balanced the new ceiling fan so it doesn't wobble too much, although the living room fan doesn't wobble at all, which means at some point I'm going to have to work on it again to get it absolutely perfect
• did laundry
• got rid of an ugly hall light and replaced it with the old overhead light from the bedroom
• watched the Celtics beat the Lakers in game 1 of the NBA finals, which Kara got to see in person--the perks of working for a big company--and it was an exceptional game
• wrapped up our wedding registry (we're registered at Crate and Barrel and Macy's), removing a few items that we really didn't need and adding some nice Victorinox luggage that we would like
• became a member of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, Lodge 892, in Gloucester, MA
• made turkey chili
• put up some posterboard so we can keep track of our "Countdown to the Big Show," aka things that we need to do before the wedding
• looked at and mostly decided on groomsmen gifts (it's kinda funny that most of the people who will read this are groomsmen anyway...the gifts are going to be custom engraved rocks, and by custom engraved, I mean I will draw on them with permanent marker)

I think that's it. There was some work stuff too. I'm wrapping up three big projects, one of which needs about 8 hours more work, one of which is in the vendor bidding stage, and one of which is ready to go to QA as soon as I finish the QA writeup. It's very busy!

And that's all for now. Looks like it's going to be me and the groomsmen for the Vegas Bachelor Extravaganza, and I can't wait...it'll be a very neat vacation, and I think we can do it for a reasonable cost as well. I'm especially excited that there will be a number of Vegas Virgins in the contingent, so that will be a really great excuse to do what I enjoy anyway, which is walk through the absolutely amazing entertainment venues that the strip offers and see as many casinos as possible.

Posted by Mark at 12:01 AM | Comments (2)

June 01, 2008

wedding stuff, general life stuff, ceiling fan

Kara has been off in Rockport since last night for purposes of attending a bridal shower this morning, so I've had the day to myself. It's been awhile since I've had a "man day" to just sit around, surfing the web, drinking beer and smoking cigars. The kitty has been hanging out with me; our next-door neighbors, I found, also have a kitty, whom they brought out onto the balcony, albeit unsuccessfully, as neighbor kitty was not interesting in lounging on the porch. I wonder if Labatt would like to come out here, but maybe not...at any rate, I'd be a little too nervous that she'd try to jump in one of the flower boxes or something.

I hung out with MJP the last two nights, talking about plans for our joint bachelor party in Vegas. It looks like it will be a nice small crew, which I actually prefer. Of everybody who has RSVP'ed, I've been to Vegas the most, so it will be fun to kind of lead our merry troupe from casino to casino, play Star Wars penny slots, watch the fountains at the Bellagio, and so forth.

Work has been good and the Q2 software release has been evolving as I have hoped it would, going from a monolithic update to a series of smaller, discrete updates. We've taken the company from a reactive model where we were always fixing bugs in a panic to a proactive model where we're consistently producing upgrades in response to real or imagined customer need. I am very proud of my company and happy to be part of it.

We just about have the wedding invitations finished. The last step is actual assembly of the invite page with the blue backing cards, and the assembly of the entire invitation package into a single unit. Mrs. Hartman was really great in that she hand-lettered all of our envelopes, which looks fabulous and saved us a ton of time. The new "wedding heart" stamp comes out on June 10th, so that will be the date the invites go into the mail.

I had my Elks indoctrination last week and I will be inducted into the Gloucester Lodge on Tuesday night, which I'm excited about. I don't think I'll be able to be super-active in the lodge just yet, but who knows...it will be good to be part of the organization, in anticipation of someday moving to Cape Ann for retirement.

The motorcycle has been back out on the road recently; I did a little work on it on Friday, replacing a very important bolt that had fallen off at some point (one of the bolts that holds the front brake to the fork). It needs to be inspected, which requires me to find the missing registration certificate. I think it's somewhere on my mess of a desk.

Everything is very good. The three tomato plants are growing well, I've re-started some hot pepper seeds in an effort to get viable seedlings, and the pansies in the window boxes are absolutely huge.

I am also adding to my repertoire as a general contractor. I successfully hung, wired and installed a ceiling fan in the living room last weekend, which marks the first time I've done real electrical work. I had replaced just about every outlet and light switch in the condo during painting, but that didn't involve anything more significant that attaching wires to terminals. The fan actually involved attaching mains wires via wiring nuts, correctly identifying hot versus neutral wires in connecting the fan remote, and even cutting into the ceiling so I could mount a fan-rated pancake box to hold the fan. I'm very proud. Next house upgrades include a fan in the bedroom and a couple of light fixture replacements...the fixtures in the hallways are ugly, and Kara and I found a nice new hallway fixture called, ironically, "Kara," at Home Depot the other weekend. So that will go in as soon as I get a coupon from Home Depot so I can buy a bunch of stuff at once.

I haven't been running as much lately owing to some shin splints a few weeks ago and general laziness, but I'll get back into that in the coming week.

Posted by Mark at 06:44 PM | Comments (1)

May 12, 2008

random update

I'm actually feeling pretty good today, despite still being sick. It's nice to be back in the office after mostly working from home last week, and as much as I really do enjoy the experience of grad school, I think I needed a break. The triple-threat of work, school and wedding was wearing me down a bit.

I would really like for spring to finally be here. It is in the high 50s, windy and overcast today. I should be wearing shorts and grilling every evening by this time. I blame global warming and the related shifts in weather patterns.

I think I also kinda missed coffee. I had a cup this a.m. before our phone conference and it really perked me up.

This week, I think we're going to try to make some headway on invitations, get back into the habit of cooking regular meals, and...I think that's it. That's enough.

Posted by Mark at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2008

sick, run, engagement

Happy Mother's Day! Some short tidbits:

• I am sick. Somehow, I have both an ear infection and conjunctivitis (pink eye). I know, what am I, five? The pink eye seems to have gone away but I still have fluid in my ears. I'm taking some antibiotics, but if it doesn't start getting better soon I'll head back to the doctor's again this week.
  
• Despite being sick, we ran a 5K in Somerville this morning. Kara did great in her first ever competitive run, coming in with a time around 32 minutes, and I managed to do what I wanted to do, which was finish in under 35, at about 34:20 or so. Not quite my old Middleburg Cross Country times, but I'm satisfied for just having done the run.
  
• Afterwards, we went out with friends and various mothers and grandmothers for brunch. Mum is staying with us for the weekend and she and Kara have been busy cleaning the house while I mostly sit around trying to not be sick.
  
• School is done, with final projects and exams wrapped up last week. It occurred to me last week that I have been very harried this spring between work, school and wedding planning. It will be nice to only have two things on my plate.
  
• We had our formal engagement photos taken last week. Kara will look beautiful and hopefully our photographer can use the "Hotness" filter in Photoshop to make me look good. I suggested a McConaughey setting of 2 and maybe tweaking the Pitt to .47.
  
• MJP and Stephanie are engaged! He proposed on Saturday...I went out with him on Friday night for a last "single" night out. I'm extremely excited for the two of them...they are definitely a perfect match, a long time in the making.

  That's it for now...hopefully I will be less sick this week, and better able to focus on work and other stuff. My head feels like a wet paper towel right now.

  Posted by Mark at 09:00 PM | Comments (2)

  April 29, 2008

  fenway, wedding, semester

  I finally got to tour Fenway Park on Sunday, through a tour set up through the SU Alumni Club. It was really neat seeing the inside of the ballpark and learning about all the history of the place. In an interesting turn of events, we got to sit inside the press box, which is where I could have easily ended up had my journalism career gone otherwise!

  Wedding planning is going well and is pretty much wrapping up. The next steps include finishing the invitations, planning the shower and bachelor party, and other last-minute things like tuxes and whatnot.

  The semester is also coming to a close. It's been a good one, and I've learned a lot. I'm tired though...I really can't wait to have my Monday and Thursday nights free again.

  Other than that, not really much going on. I probably should write more but what else is new.

  Posted by Mark at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

  April 15, 2008

  plugging along

  Just a short update here while I wait for a conference call to begin...nothing all that interesting has happened lately. Mostly your standard domestic stuff. We bought a new shelf for storing excess groceries in the kitchen; we're trying to get the cat to stop jumping on certain pieces of furniture. Went out for a pub crawl with some friends this past weekend. My 4th semester of grad school is wrapping up. Nothing else much.

  I've been 30 for just over a month so far and that has probably been the biggest...I hesitate to use the word "struggle" because it's not like anything that significant has changed, except that I feel more inclined than ever to try to take certain things more seriously, etc. I'm not sure that I'm doing a great job of it. Just the standard stuff: get up earlier, exercise more, drink less, eat more reasonably, do the sorts of things I should be doing. I find that to be kind of difficult given the sort of extended adolescence that our 20s are these days, and I'm sure I shouldn't be treating it as this sudden lifestyle change sort of thing, but I find it hard not to.

  That's really about it. Lots of stuff on my list to do, not a whole lot that I feel that motivated towards, unfortunately. Plugging along.

  Posted by Mark at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)

  March 10, 2008

  it takes 30 years

  I've had a pretty good run in these last 30 years. On the ride home, it occurred to me that I am certainly in the 99th percentile of all humans who have ever lived, in terms of health, success, opportunity, and general quality of life. And even amongst humans alive today, I'd put myself in probably no lower than the 97th or 98th percentile...I'm not a millionaire, but there are very few of those relative to poor peasants in China, Pacific islanders and starving sub-Saharan Africans.

  As many bad times as I've had--and there have been plenty--I've had it better than pretty much anybody in history, statistically speaking. It hasn't been too bad a life.

  I started thinking about things I've done. This is not for bragging purposes. I sometimes have a hard time feeling like I've accomplished things...I feel like I should have done more, that I could work harder and be more successful and whatever else. I want to keep working on my life and trying to be a better person, and try to experience as much as I can in the short time I have on Earth, but I thought it might be nice to reflect back on the last 30 years and say, honestly, I've done some really neat stuff. I've done stuff that 99% of people have not done. And when you combine all the variables together, it's been a one-of-a-kind sort of life, and that makes me feel a lot better about things.

  I have:
  

  
  
  • gotten engaged
  
  
  • graduated from high school
  
  
  • graduated with honors from college
  
  
  • completed part of a post-graduate degree
  
  
  • set a state record in an academic competition
  
  
  • been an Eagle Scout
  
  
  • flown an airplane
  
  
  • ridden a motorcycle
  
  
  • sailed a boat
  
  
  • caught a fish
  
  
  • made pottery on a wheel
  
  
  • written and taken photos for a real newspaper
  
  
  • visited 11 countries on two continents
  
  
  • ascended the Eiffel Tower twice
  
  
  • climbed a rock face wihle blindfolded
  
  
  • gotten a perfect score on my verbal SATs
  
  
  • made Dean's List
  
  
  • made the honor roll
  
  
  • spoken at my high school graduation
  
  
  • spoken at three Eagle Ceremonies, including my own
  
  
  • read in church
  
  
  • won public speaking competitions
  
  
  • crashed a mountain bike badly enough to need stitches
  
  
  • skied down a triple-black-diamond ski slope and an Olympic ski mountain
  
  
  • come up with several original recipes that others enjoyed
  
  
  • run a 5K
  
  
  • finished a running race with a (slightly) broken leg
  
  
  • hiked part of the Appalachian trail
  
  
  • lit a fire with two or fewer matches
  
  
  • brewed my own beer
  
  
  • played guitar, wrote songs, sang and performed in a band
  
  
  • written a play that was performed
  
  
  • sung a solo in a musical
  
  
  • built functional and decorative wooden furnishings and accessories
  
  
  • replaced electrical sockets
  
  
  • painted a condo
  
  
  • bought a condo
  
  
  • purchased and paid off a car
  
  
  • gotten an Employee of the Quarter award
  
  
  • made a real difference to a business
  
  
  • smoked a Cuban cigar
  
  
  • scuba dived the ocean wall
  
  
  • kept fish
  
  
  • owned a cactus
  
  
  • played paintball
  
  
  • swum a mile
  
  
  • run over ten miles
  
  
  • changed a tire
  
  
  • changed a motorcycle's oil
  
  
  • repaired a motorcycle's brakes
  
  
  • learned martial arts
  
  
  • forded a stream in a car
  
  
  • painted a picture
  
  
  • developed my own film
  
  
  • won money in Las Vegas
  
  
  • gotten kicked out of a bar
  
  
  • "borrowed" a lawn ornament
  
  
  • jumped off a high dive
  
  
  • streaked a campfire
  
  
  • gone tubing on a river
  
  
  • walked through a bees' nest
  
  
  • drunk a Mind Eraser
  
  
  • gone to multiple rock concerts
  
  
  • crowdsurfed
  
  
  • done a kegstand
  
  
  • shaken the hand of a well-known person
  
  
  • recorded an album
  
  
  • made a layered shot
  
  
  • realized that the tenses of the verbs in many of these points did not match, and fixed them
  
  
  • lost a fight
  
  
  • learned to use a fencing sword
  
  
  • been a photographic model
  
  
  • learned to sight-sing
  
  
  • built my own computer
  
  
  • designed a T-shirt for a college function
  
  
  • built a commercial web application for a private client
  
  
  • interviewed a prospective employee
  
  
  • lost my job
  
  
  • survived layoffs
  
  
  • built a fort in the woods
  
  
  • "Robin Hood"-ed an arrow
  
  
  • kayaked in the ocean
  
  
  • ridden a horse
  
  
  • explored a cave
  
  
  • grown popcorn
  
  
  • done donuts in the snow
  
  
  • learned to smoke a pipe
  
  
  • studied abroad
  
  
  • touched the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
  
  
  • ordered food in another language
  
  
  • installed a toilet
  
  
  • played golf, tennis, horseshoes, darts, quoits, bocce, badminton, pool, soccer, basketball, football, baseball, frisbee, kickball, volleyball, and gone bowling
  
  
  • won a hand of poker
  
  
  • sewn something with a sewing machine
  
  
  • beaten a video or computer game
  
  
  • actually proven something in a science project
  
  
  • written a computer game
  
  
  • been in a short film
  
  
  • hand-lettered a commercial sign
  
  
  • been a pallbearer
  
  
  • camped out on the beach
  
  

  That's just what I can think of at 1 a.m. I know there's a lot more. Please don't spent a lot of time reading it; this is just self-indulgence. I'm just reminding myself of how good my life has been.

  Posted by Mark at 12:45 AM | Comments (2)

  March 09, 2008

  syracuse, surprises, the 10th

  We spent the past weekend in Syracuse doing our usual yearly basketball game and meetup. It was a good time...good to see everybody. Plus Syracuse won, and that was neat. I also picked up some new CDs at Soundgarden and we got Labatt a 30-pack of Labatt Blue Light so she could play in the box (after we empty out the cans of course).

  Kara completely surprised me when we got to the hotel room...she had our friend Stephanie get a Star Wars cake and party favors and Star Wars balloons and everything and set them up in the hotel room before we got there. We went out and had a few beers, and then when we came back to the hotel everybody came up to the room and I blew out the candles and we all had cake.

  I have never had a real surprise birthday party but I always wanted one, and I was completely taken off guard. I was actually speechless, which pretty much never happens. It was really awesome for somebody to put that together for me.

  I have been trying not to get all pensive and overly thoughtful about turning 30; mainly I've been feeling a little bit nervous. I can't help but feel like I have to do something on Monday...like something is going to change and I have to give a speech or whatever. I know it's not, but I still feel that way.

  Kara's dad is turning 60 tomorrow, which is a big deal too, and Brock and Jody are expecting their baby...she is going to have a C-section (just like I how I was delivered on March 10th, 30 years ago) tomorrow morning, and then little Emmalyn will be there. So it's a big day for a lot of people.

  I'll write some more stuff about turning 30 after I actually do. Mom and Dad sent me a care package which I'll probably open up at midnight and Kara says I can open my gift then too. And I picked up a 6-pack of Yuengling at Wegman's in Syracuse so we'll be able to have a little midnight toast...I know I wasn't technically born until something like 10 in the morning, but whatever, close enough.

  Posted by Mark at 09:30 PM | Comments (1)

  March 05, 2008

  trivia, work, school

  We had a respectable showing at trivia last night: 23 out of 30 possible points, in a many-way tie for 4th or 5th place, I think it was. The event was put on by a Penn State alum for a bunch of friends, and I think there were about 80 people there...something like 12 or 13 teams. Considering the size and general competitive makeup, we did quite well...plus Team Hamster Dance has never competed together before. I think we'll do so again.

  One hole in our offense is sports. We missed Latrell Sprewell for the coach-choking incident. We did quite well in TV, movies, news and general pop culture, though.

  I'm going to be 30 on Monday. That's pretty crazy.

  Work is very busy this week, as I've got two midterms to balance out with several concurrent projects. I had my data analysis midterm on Monday, and I think I studied enough to give it a real run for its money. Operations management is tomorrow. Also have some school projects going on...March is going to be a busy month.

  There are some Indian developers working with us, and I owe them some project specs later today. The nice thing about India is that they are 13 hours ahead of us, so if I get them work to do, by the time I come in the next day, there should be something there for me to look at.

  We're heading to Syracuse this weekend for our annual basketball trip. Can't wait for Tully's chicken tenders on Sunday.

  Posted by Mark at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)

  February 27, 2008

  trivia, running

  Two things that I'm a little bit obsessed with getting involved in right now: competitive running and pub trivia.

  As we all know, I did cross country about 70 pounds and 20 years ago, and I did do one competitive 5K back in DC, but have not done any real running since coming to Boston. I'm trying to actively use my Nike+ipod thing to keep track of my running, and so far, I'm doing some damage on the treadmill. Right now I estimate that I could go out and give a 35-minute 5K performance, which is obviously more than a 10-minute-mile average, but you have to start somewhere.

  Pub trivia I've done once, but I'm kind of obsessed with that because a) I like pubs and b) I like knowing random stuff.

  The intersection of A and B--the "why are you doing this"--has to do with the fact that I no longer gain any kind of meaningful recognition in the stuff that I do, and I don't really like it. I guess I get grades in biz school, but I don't really care about those...I'm more focused on what I'm actually learning than what I get on a test or two.

  I'd like to take two things that I can already do reasonably well and get stuff for doing them. I don't have any medals on my mantle right now and I kind of like the feeling of even the most rudimentary participatory awards. I was involved in so many things that resulted in medals and patches and trophies and whatnot when I was a kid...it would be nice to do something like that now.

  So, sounds like I should go compete. I'm going to try to do a 5K possibly as early as April, and the invite to go to pub trivia on Tuesday night has been sent and accepted.

  Otherwise, everything is good. Labatt is good, school is good, Kara is good, no major worries.

  Posted by Mark at 06:48 PM | Comments (1)

  February 13, 2008

  kitty, wedding, beer

  Having a cat at home is like having a small person around. I think it might be good practice for having kids. It certainly feels odd having another presence in the house.

  Labatt is becoming less of a freak as time goes on. She used to flip out completely when Kara was making lunches in the kitchen, but she's apparently become more mellow. She tends to still follow us around the condo, but not quite as constantly now.

  Of course, if she hears somebody in the kitchen, that's a different matter entirely.

  We spent some time wedding planning last night and we have the rehearsal dinner guest list all laid out. We also figured out a short list of family and wedding party people who will probably stay at the hotel right next door...that makes is easier for people that we really need to be close by.

  I do hope that people coming from a long ways away treat this as a vacation. I mean, Rockport is a tourist town on the ocean with some amazing craftsmen and artists, there are plenty of legitimate tourist beaches around, and Gloucester is the closest thing to a working fishing town that you're likely to visit. So hopefully people will make a long weekend out of it, work on their tans, go see where they filmed The Perfect Storm, buy some paintings and fried clams, and have fun.

  Extreme Beerfest 2008 is this weekend! Matt is coming into town on Friday afternoon, and we're going to the Night of the Barrels at 6, and then the 2nd session of Beerfest on Saturday night, along with MJP. I think it's going to be a fun weekend. I'll try to take pictures.

  Posted by Mark at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)

  February 12, 2008

  labatt the cat!

  Hola, amigos. Been a long time since I rapped at ya.

  We have a new member of the DeMarco Dalius Household: Labatt the Cat.

  

  She is a black and white American longhair housecat, and she will be 2 years old on March 2nd. She had been adopted before from the same shelter where we got her, but I guess she was aggressive towards other cats. That won't be a problem for us since we're a one-cat household.

  She's very friendly and affectionate, and constantly follows the two of us around the condo. She sleeps with us, and this morning she was sitting on my lap while I checked my email at home. It's a little challenging having another sort of person around...we have to have rules about where she can and can't go, so she's allowed to get up on the furniture but just not on the coffee table, for example, because that's where we tend to eat dinner. It's a little tough getting around sometimes because she has a habit of running right under our feet, and she wants to come with me to work in the morning too. She is also extremely vocal, always meowing and yelling about this or that. I think her previous owners must have given her people food because she always shows up in the kitchen if one of us is in there.

  But, she's getting used to the house and our schedule, and seems like she's a pretty good cat. She's already litter trained so no issues with that yet. I don't think she's crazy about her cat food either but she'll get used to that as well.

  Most of the other stuff that's been going on is a ton of wedding planning. We've really started to ramp up in the new year so we can get as much stuff done now as possible and be able to both enjoy our summer and take care of minor last-minute stuff without a lot of panic. Things we have done so far include:

  • booked the Elks in Gloucester as our function hall
  • booked a caterer and set a menu
  • booked a DJ
  • booked a photographer
  • ordered a wedding cake
  • bought a wedding dress
  • bought both wedding rings
  • booked a florist
  • talked to Kara's minister to do the ceremony
  • reserved some hotels for guests
  • designed and mailed Save-the-Dates
  • started registering for gifts
  • scheduled Bridal Shower and bachelorette weekend
  • booked Gloucester House restaurant for rehearsal dinner

  Things we have yet to do (that I can remember):

  • design and send out invitations
  • plan bachelor party
  • assign accommodations for bridal party and immediate family
  • dance lessons and choose music for special dances
  • finish designing centerpieces, accent decorations, favors, table cards, etc.
  • rehearsal dinner guest list
  • rent tuxedos
  • plan honeymoon

  So most of the big stuff is done. Just smaller detail things at this point. Not too worried about it.
  

  Posted by Mark at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)

  December 31, 2007

  games, food, cleaning

  I am so proud.

  Kara just had to play one more game of CakeMania on her DS before going to bed tonight.

  GRIN.

  We spent the day cleaning, shopping, and cooking...Kara had her apron on and made some cinnamon-sugar bread, and some brownies. Robin and her roommate Amanda are coming over for a very very nice and pleasant and low-key New Year's tomorrow night. I'm making pizza for the main course, and I brought the deep fryer out of the basement so I can fry battered shrimp and buffalo chicken niblets. I made salsa yesterday, and I'll do some pita chips, some dill dip, and maaaybe even soft pretzels...we'll see.

  I'm working on renaming the MP3 collection right now. I'm updating the ID3 tags on all the server files. Tomorrow I'll work on sorting out the genres and that sort of thing.

  The house looks great. Kara spent most of the morning cleaning up things, and I joined her in the afternoon. Like the sailor's creed, a place for everything, and everything in its place.

  Posted by Mark at 03:42 AM | Comments (0)

  December 29, 2007

  ds-es, gifts, grades

  What a Christmas it was for gifts! I made out like a bandit. It's funny that I asked for--and got--more toys this year than I probably got when I was a teenager.

  I was hoping for a Nintendo DS, and I got my wish...times two! Kara mentioned to Mom that she was going to get me a DS, but neglected to tell Matt, and so immediately after opening my "big" gift, I opened a package that Matt had sent to Rockport to find another DS nestled inside. Now, I don't want to be greedy, and I want to make certain that everyone understands that a) I asked for a DS for a gift because it's something I would never actually buy for myself, b) I would never buy Kara one for a gift unless I wanted to be killed, and c) I would never actually go out and try to get a pair of video game systems unless I knew that both were really wanted. However. Given the circumstances, I thought it would be nice to try to get Kara into video gaming via this very friendly little handheld, so I convinced her to keep both of them. So I am now the proud owner of an Onyx DS Lite, and she the owner of a Red and Black DS Lite.

  This, in a way, is the best gift of all...the opportunity to maybe, just maybe, get my significant other into gaming. Just in the last few days, I've picked up a total of 7 games. I've made a point of picking up not your average 3D platformers and shoot-em-ups, but games that appeal to the casual gamer--that's Kara--and the bored-with-FPSes gamer, which is me. On Christmas, I got the Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (excellent game and worth playing), the DS remake of Mario 64 (a fun remake), and Brain Age (EXCELLENT "game"...I'm going to try to keep up with doing the daily exercises. If nothing else, it should make me better at math).

  Kara was obsessed with a game she saw--Cake Mania--so I picked up a copy of that, along with Cooking Mama and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Round that out with a copy of Puzzle Quest, and I've got plenty to keep me occupied...and hopefully some good games to re-introduce Kara to gaming. Cake Mania is a puzzle game about baking cakes, Cooking Mama teaches you how to cook, Phoenix Wright is an interactive Law and Order, and Puzzle Quest is basically Bejewelled RPG. There's a lot of fun stuff to choose from, and it's not about just blowing stuff up. Not that I have anything against that, but I've been blowing stuff up since the airplanes looked like they were made out of bricks, and I'm looking for something a little more esoteric.

  Plus, some of the games are two-player, so we can sit on the couch and play against each other. Or, she gets to watch TV and I can sit on the couch with her and play games.

  Other highlights of the holiday season include:

  • Ryobi Router - haven't picked up any bits for it yet, but I'm looking for a good deal on a rabbeting bit so I can start on those picture frames
  • iPod dock/alarm clock - ok, this thing projects the time on the ceiling, it has built in nature sounds, a couple of alarms...this morning I awoke to artificial chirping birds instead of "BWAMP BWAMP BWAMP." I told Kara she could take the old alarm out in a field and beat it with a bat like the fax machine in Office Space.
  • Logitech Harmony Remote - this thing is absolutely awesome. It controls everything. No more messing around with 12 remotes. No idea how I survived this long without it.
  • cooking lessons - Kara made me a handmade card and is going to send me to a cooking class of my choice. The great thing about Catholic school is that it made me book smart; the lousy thing about Catholic school is that I missed out on formal training in things like Home Ec and Shop, so I'm self-taught when it comes to cooking, woodworking, etc. This is a great chance to learn the basics, properly.

  And of course there were lots of other things: various kitchen implements, some small tools, Legos, a subscription to Cook's Country magazine, gift cards, decorative tidbits, a neat Star Wars game that you plug into the TV, and, of course, socks. I like socks.

  The actual holiday was good. We relaxed in Rockport, we did family stuff, we ate, we sat around, I slept, I played video games, and came back here a few days ago. I've been on vacation and I have no idea what day it even is right now. I love it.

  Last night, I did a huge audit of all the clothes I own, and came up with 4 garbage bags to donate and one small bag of "vintage" T-shirts for Mike to go through. There's some real good stuff in there...tech company giveaways, old high school shirts, random souvenirs. I now have much more space, and consequently, I spent today redoing one of the hall closets so it is full of shelves instead of being used to hang coats. This means I have more room for my tools, and we have more room for storing other stuff.

  Finally, got my grades: B in Leadership, B- in Econ. I am quite happy. I thought I would have done worse in Econ. At the end of the day, I know more now than I did going into the semester, and I can sit down and intelligently analyze and discuss the financials of a company from an economic perspective, and that's good enough for me.

  Posted by Mark at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)

  December 20, 2007

  fall 07 over

  That's it for the semester. I got a B in Leadership, and I felt good about my Econ final, so there's a chance I got even better than a C. We will see how it goes.

  I'm a little miffed at my peer review...the person I was assigned to as a peer coach did not get along with me too well, and vice-versa, but I was at least nice about it in my evaluation. Not truthful, but nice. She was not so kind. I'm annoyed about it, which is why I'm blogging it, but there's probably no point in sending a snarky email or anything like that. After all, much of what she said was true.

  One thing I have still not quite learned how to do is how to deal with somebody you just don't like/respect. Sometimes it's a boss, sometimes a peer, sometimes a subordinate...how does one get past the fact that a person adds nothing positive to a situation? A lot of what I've learned in the class has to do with how to put forward positive credibility oneself, but not how to deal with someone who has no credibility.

  Anyway, it's all water under the bridge now. I have a meeting tomorrow morning, a few things to wrap up at work, and then I'm done until the new year.

  Posted by Mark at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

  December 19, 2007

  gifts, rockettes, upgrades

  I finally finished my Christmas shopping yesterday, and I'll spend part of my afternoon wrapping gifts here in the office. We're having our little office Christmas party, along with a Yankee Swap, so pretty much everybody who works for Curaspan is here right now. It's odd to see the office so crowded...I told one of our newer employees that this is the only time you'll ever see everybody in the office at once.

  I'm really in hibernation mode right now...I can't seem to find much energy. I'll be excited once December 22nd passes...that's the Winter Solstice, and the longest night of the year. I'm always happy once I know the days are going to start getting longer. Maybe it's just an excuse, but, I don't know...I'm pretty much all for shutting down.

  We have a bit of a parking situation. The city of Boston thinks that one of our rental spots is a sidewalk. So, while the condo association we rent from tries to get things sorted out, we're parking one car on the street. This wouldn't be as bad if not for the Nor'easter we got this past weekend. We had a couple of late nights of shoveling and trying to get the car over snowbanks.

  We did miss most of the actual storm, though, because we were visiting Kara's friends Steph and Alex in New Jersey this weekend. On Saturday we went into the city for dinner at an Argentinean restaurant (Alex is from Argentina) and on Sunday we went to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall--that's the Rockettes show. Pretty amazing choreography, and I'm glad we finally saw it. We also walked by the window displays at Macy's and the tree at Rockefeller Center.

  This weekend, we'll hang out with friends on Saturday for our annual friends Yankee Swap, we'll wrap gifts and finish up some minor gift-making, and on Monday, we'll head to Rockport where we'll stay through the 27th. I'm taking the whole week off between Christmas and New Year's, and Raytheon is shut down, so we both have some time off. We need it...it will be great to spend a few days lounging around, watching movies, playing with our presents, reading books, and doing nothing much. Plus, the house is a disaster area and needs a few hours of TLC and some rearranging of the too-much-stuff that we own.

  Unfortunately, I need to get through my econ final tomorrow night first. Honestly, I don't think I've ever gotten a C in a class before in my life, and I'm perfectly content to start now. Do I understand fundamental principles of economics? Absolutely. Am I able to work out those principles in a spreadsheet and give reasonable support for conclusions I make from economic perspectives? Yes. Can I do the math? No. No, not at all. And that is why I will never be an economist. But I know as much as I need to, and if I someday need to know more, I have a basis for it.

  Unrelated, but, Alex and Steph have a great downstairs home theater/video game setup. I believe it's a 50" Sony Bravia with an Xbox 360 hooked up to it. We watched Shrek in HD-DVD...amazing.

  Now, that said, I don't think I'm going to rush out and buy a 360. Instead, I'm going to spend some money next year upgrading my PC. Reasons including, I don't think it makes sense to buy a next-gen video game system without a next-gen TV, and I'm not ready to spend money on that yet. Second, I don't like monopolizing the TV to play video games; watching TV together is more of a Kara and I sort of activity. Third, the best monitor I've got is my 24" LCD on my computer. Fourth, I like the ability to put on headphones and play a game in the study when Kara is there doing work or whatever. And fifth, most of the Xbox games that I really want to play are coming out for PC...at some point, anyway.

  I looked at Ars Technica's latest guide, and I think I can do a new system for $700-800, depending on whether or not I buy a new hard drive for it. I can get their recommended motherboard for $150, processor for $200, 2 gigs of RAM for $40, and video card for $300...those are the essentials (really what I need is the video card, but because my current mobo doesn't have PCI-E, I need to upgrade the mobo, which means I need to upgrade the processor, which means I need to upgrade the RAM). Now, my 250 gig HD is IDE, as is my DVD drive and CD burner, but the mobo comes with SATA connectors and one IDE. A new 500 meg HD is about $100. A DVD burner/CDRW combo is about $35, so there's not really any good reason not to just get one while I'm having all that stuff shipped. The hard drive...well, not sure about that just yet, because I can hook it up to the one IDE connector. Also, I should probably buy a legit copy of WinXP so I can stop running Windows 2000 on my gaming machine.

  Onboard audio is fine. Onboard ethernet is fine. Not upgrading to an SATA hard drive would make it the bottleneck in the system...we'll see. I guess I could always spread the purchases out over a couple months if I didn't want to spend it all at once.

  Anyway, that's down the road...got lots of games and things to do before I even need to do any upgrades.

  Posted by Mark at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

  December 11, 2007

  leadership lessons

  I thought I would copy-paste some of my final leadership paper into the blog, since I think it turned out pretty well. I'll try to explain the parts that explicitly reference readings that you might not be familiar with, and I'll add some links as well. Imagine that...a research paper with the references simply hyperlinked for easy access. I wonder if we shouldn't all be writing our research papers online...

  ---

  Defining leadership is not hard. It is the process of convincing others to act so to bring about a vision. Throughout this course, my goal has been to take the theoretical and qualitative subject of leadership and reduce it as best I can to quantities and practical examples. I wanted to be able to say, at the end of the course, “If one attempts to do X, Y and Z, in 99% of cases, one will probably be able to provide effective leadership.” I feel I was somewhat successful: I came up with three key components of leadership, which I discuss in more detail below.

  Talking with my old friend and former English teacher, Bob Margoles, over the Thanksgiving break, I mentioned my theory to him. He chuckled, asking me if these three components were formal parts of the course. No, I said, I had extracted them on my own from the many things we had discussed. He replied that he found it amusing that I had, on my own, matched the lessons of leadership with Aristotle’s three lessons on rhetoric: ethos, pathos, and logos.

  So my own theory is clearly not without precedent. And it is unsurprising, as leadership is fundamentally about formulating and communicating a message to an audience that leads them to take some action. Like actors upon the stage or councilors before a court, leadership is a bit of a performance, and these three essential ingredients ensure most reliably the desired result from the audience.

  Or, to use a different metaphor, leadership can be thought of as the process of constructing a building, requiring a solid foundation, raw material, and tools. The end result is the project or task being built. Here, then, are those components:

  Credibility – The essential foundation of trustworthiness. Without modeling credibility, no leadership is possible. This corresponds to the Aristotelian proof of ethos, which is the requirement that the audience consider the speaker believable.

  Credibility was best illustrated by Joshua Chamberlain’s “locker room” speech to the deserters before Gettysburg; it was effective because the men identified with him, saw that he would do what he said, and realized he was trustworthy [Chamberlain had been given a group of Union deserters from his native state of Maine to bolster his depleted ranks, but was told that he could shoot them it they were not willing to fight. He instead gave a speech that actually inspired them to take up arms again and voluntarily fight with his unit.]. He had not threatened them, he had fed them, he had listened earnestly to their concerns and would try to do what he could for them, but he did not make false promises above his ability to deliver. In contrast, a leader who is always missing meetings, over-promises and under-delivers, blames others, and sets himself apart and above his peers and subordinates, is unlikely to gain their trust.

  Keys to establishing credibility include: setting realistic goals, keeping deadlines and appointments, not making excuses, taking responsibility for failures and mistakes, setting a good example, and overall honesty—including humility. All these things say, “I am one of you, I am accountable as you are, I am human, and I will try to go first where I ask you to follow.” They are the traits of one who commands loyalty without asking for it.

  Vision – This is the message that is communicated to the audience—the “bricks” or raw material of our leadership project. It is what we say, what we want, what should be done. It is formulated through a combination of the leader’s ideas and the input of the audience; in some cases, the leader may make his own ideas appear to come from the audience. Aristotelian logos, or logical argument, is the basis for vision: a vision must be sensible and well-formulated for it to be accepted. This is why input is essential, from within and without the organization.

  Vision is not difficult to find: leaders like Herb Kelleher and Rachel Hubka show that a logical vision, augmented with facts and reason, is key to the success of an enterprise [Herb Kelleher founded Southwest Airlines, the premier successful budget airline, which is known for a shockingly genuine atmosphere of passionate, dedicated, rah-rah teamwork. Rachel Hubka founded an inner-city bus company famous for hiring those whom society gave up on, and transforming them so completely that they were able to move on to bigger and better things--with not just her best wishes, but her support and encouragement.] They both found market niches and exploited them, but they relied on shared vision to achieve success. Kelleher got buy-in from everyone in the organization from the mechanics to the pilots, and the result was a level of commitment to that vision so significant that readers of the case have had difficulty believing it. And Hubka, by making training, pride and professionalism part of her vision for the company, became so successful that some employees were able to move on to start their own ventures.

  Keys to establishing vision include collaborative relationships with peers, drive to innovate, looking for new ideas from all sources, challenging the process and taking risks, looking for diverse viewpoints, and having conviction about goals and processes for reaching those goals. Vision cannot come from one individual alone: without buy-in, vision is simply a list of orders. The best way to get buy-in is to find viewpoints from multiple sources. And, of course, vision comes from looking at the way things are done, and trying to do them better.

  Communication – This is the need to match the message with the receiver, and is probably the most “traditional” part of leadership—it is the toolset, the hammers, scaffolds, drills and levels. Aristotelian pathos is the use of emotion to get a message across, and emotional intelligence is essential in determining how a given person will react to the manner in which information is presented.

  The LSI [The Learning Style Inventory is a self-test that measures how you learn--how shocking to realize that perhaps you didn't do as well in some classes as others because the teacher didn't teach in a way that best resonated with you... Some people learn best by reading books or articles, some like lectures, and some learn by doing.] shows that different people “hear” messages in different ways, and the differences between self-scores and observer scores in the LPI [The Leadership Practices Inventory is a survey where you ask people to answer questions relating to how you handle leadership situations. These can be friends, family, bosses, peers, or subordinates, and the results show you where your strengths and weaknesses lie, as well as the gaps between your self-perception and the perception of others] shows that there can be gaps between self-perception and the perceptions of others. The right message delivered in the wrong way will be rejected and the desired course of action may not be followed: a speech can come off as hollow and insincere, a request can come across as bossy and dictatorial, or a requirement may sound wishy-washy.

  Good communication requires the right tools and the skill to use them: a wide arsenal of communication and leadership styles, a high emotional intelligence, a clear and open dialogue with peers, an understanding of the cause-effect nature of interpersonal relationships, a selection of sticks and carrots and a knowledge of what works in what situation, and plenty of experience. Experience is the hardest component, as it comes only with time, but continuous self-challenge and a commitment to learning can accelerate the process. Peer review and mentorships are a good way to gain feedback on communication styles.

  Posted by Mark at 12:06 AM | Comments (1)

  last class 07

  I had the last class of the semester tonight, and turned in my final paper. So that leaves only my Econ final on the 20th, and Semester 3 is down.

  I'm kind of exhausted from it. It was a mentally and emotionally challenging semester, with a lot of introspection. The whole topic of Leadership--that was tonight's class--starts with looking at yourself and trying to figure out what your values are, how you relate to people, how you communicate. It's immensely rewarding but the size of the reward is paid for in internal effort.

  That said, it's been enormously satisfying. I feel like I have a simple, straightforward blueprint for how to be a better and more effective leader. Putting it into practice is the harder step, but at least I sort of know what I'm doing.

  Most of my classmates in this class are in their final class or next-to-final semester at BU, but I'm really glad I took this elective long before I was done with my MBA. I feel kind of like I found the secret treasure cave at the beginning of some video game where you get all kinds of cheats and overpowered weapons. If I can really put what I learned into practice, I'm going to be in a great position compared to even classmates with more technical knowledge.

  I really do like being in school. I'm mentally pretty tired, but I think that's a good thing.

  Posted by Mark at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

  December 04, 2007

  tree, school, history

  We went out on Saturday and got our first Christmas tree for the condo! We got a great deal on it, and it looks perfect. All the lights are up, and I'll post some pictures later on.

  Our big econ presentation is coming up on Thursday. We're putting the finishing touches on it today. Then I've got one more paper due and a final exam, and the semester is over. Between school stuff and trying to wrap up our Q4 software release at work, the next few weeks are going to be busy.

  I need to plan better around this time of year next year...I always want to hibernate between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it's fairly difficult to do that when you're really busy.

  Speaking of Christmas, I found this to be a very interesting article. I hate it when people complain about "how bad things have gotten" because I think we tend to look at the past with rose-colored glasses...I call it "We didn't start the fire syndrome," from the Billy Joel song. No matter how bad things seem like they are today, if you really compare the statistics and look at the reality, the truth is that every era has had its share of problems. Seems like there's a lot of teen violence? Guess what? Teen violence is actually down in recent years. War, killing and disease? Yeah, but a lot less than there used to be. That doesn't mean to ignore problems, but it does mean to not blame all the evils of the world on "progress."

  So, that article talks about Christmas, and how it's always been materialistic and commercial...and about the origins of Christmas as a pagan holiday, etc. etc. If anything, things are today about the same as they've always been...maybe even a little better.

  Posted by Mark at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)

  November 28, 2007

  sick, school, q4

  I was going to jot down yesterday that I was finally recovered from Thanksgiving week, but then I woke up with a porcupine in my throat this morning. I'm going to head for home after a 2 p.m. meeting and take some NyQuil in an effort to nip this thing pretty quick.

  The semester is coming to a head, with a major paper due in a few weeks, and an econ presentation that is due next Thursday. I'm more nervous about the econ thing because I have a much more tenuous grasp on what we're supposed to be doing in that class. That said, I have a feeling it's going to end up being one of those situations where procrastination pays off, as our professor will likely give us more details on the project tomorrow night.

  I'm wrapping up development on our big Q4 software release, which has gone pretty well. I've learned some good lessons about project management and planning, and I think that will help me in our next set of releases. This also will mark one year of us doing quarterly releases, which shows how far we've come as a company. I'm pretty happy with our progress.

  I'm actually getting Christmas shopping done in a reasonable timeframe this year. A lot of the gifts are already purchased, and I know more or less exactly what stuff is left to buy.

  Posted by Mark at 11:50 AM | Comments (1)

  November 26, 2007

  holiday, corks, presents

  I think I'm mostly recovered from the whirlwind of Thanksgiving. Neither of us did anything yesterday beyond ordering pizza, watching TV and playing video games.

  Well, except, I did finish up the bulletin board in the hallway, courtesy of a garbage-bag filled with corks, courtesy of the Margoles family. I'm going to be making a lot of cork-themed gifts in the coming months.

  We went out for Robin's 30th on Saturday night and met up with MJP at Lir for a couple drinks, which was fun. He's setting a moving date for coming up here, so Hank Freightliner will be coming out of retirement for the midnight Manhattan-Boston run in January.

  I got some Christmas shopping done, and the family liked their fake-Christmas presents...we decided that, since we would be out of town for the holiday, we would give them a couple of their presents early. We gave Mike a carved-wood puzzle box that opens only if you slide the pieces apart in the right order, and Matt got a grill branding iron with letters you can put in order to personalize your burgers or steaks or whatever. Dad got a sharpening steel, and Mom got a brownie pan shaped like Hershey's kisses.

  We in turn got a beer bread mix (packaged with a bottle opener in a glass beer bottle) and a really cool wireless indoor-outdoor thermometer. You mount the thermometer outside, and it wirelessly broadcasts the temperature to you inside the house.

  This week seems like it will start out slow and build up towards the end, which is fine by me so far. Kara is in Rockport tonight for her mum's birthday, and I have class, after which I'll continue trying to clean up the house.

  Posted by Mark at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)

  November 21, 2007

  drive, hdtv, 300

  Made it to PA with no problems...I'm blogging from what would in most households be considered the "family" computer, but given that all Dalius's have their own, this is Dad's computer. Hit some real pea-soup fog through CT/NY, but otherwise fine. Got here just before 2 a.m.

  There is a very nice new 47" HDTV in the family room. It is bigger than the entire entertainment center for the old 27" or whatever it is. I guess with most of the birds out of the nest, somebody's disposable income has increased somewhat.

  The cat was here to greet us, and there is a lot of her to love. It makes me that much more excited about adopting a cat nearer to January.

  Should be a very relaxing next few days.

  Oh, and happy 300th blog entry!

  Posted by Mark at 07:41 AM | Comments (0)

  November 20, 2007

  thanksgiving

  The condo association meeting that was scheduled for tonight was cancelled, so we're going to be able to get on the road a little earlier than anticipated...probably around 6 or so, I'm hoping. That puts us in PA around 1 in the morning, which is better than I expected.

  This week at work is always a struggle, because I have a fair amount of stuff that I'm trying to get accomplished in enough time before Christmas that we can get it properly tested and deployed, but my mind tells me "vacation!" and so I don't feel particularly driven. I guess the end result is going to be a very busy week after Thanksgiving.

  Matt will be back from his Beerotrip, and I'm excited to see pictures and hear stories from that. It will be nice to see the rest of the family and get caught up.

  Posted by Mark at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)

  November 19, 2007

  100,000

  The Jetta rolled over 100,000 miles yesterday, just outside the Boston Garden, on the way back from our annual North Conway weekend. I never would have thought, after buying the car brand-new in a one-week period just before my first real job, my first real apartment, my first real everything, that I'd be flipping the odometer in Boston, on my way back to my condo, with my fiancee and a friend in the car, listening to Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me" on the stereo, working on my MBA, parking next to a motorcycle, almost 30, pretty happy with the last 7 years.

  The car is running great, and after having some seals replaced around the fuel line, no longer seems to occasionally smell like gasoline. I don't know if I'll get another 100,000 out of it, but I have a feeling the engine could definitely go that long. Maybe I'll give it to Mike as a graduation present when I buy a bigger car for a family in a few years.

  North Conway was good this year, although we are getting older and bedtimes get a little bit earlier. We had lots of beef stick, Chex Mix, salsa, and some homemade jerky. I finally got around to making jerky at home this past week, and it turned out excellently. It does take about 6 hours to make, since I'm drying it in the oven at about 150 degrees, but it's worth it. I think so, anyway...Kara may disagree, as it does tend to make the house smell like meat.

  I'm in the office today and tomorrow, then heading to PA in the wee hours of Tuesday/Wednesday. We'll do Thanksgiving, we're meeting up with the Margoles family for drinks on Friday, and then we'll leave early on Saturday to head back up here for Robin's official 30th birthday dinner. Not as much time to spend in PA as I would like, but we're going to take a trip down in January/February to make up for it. On Friday, if I haven't been able to find some nice antique wooden crates for beer storage, I'm going to take the truck down to Wood Mode and grab some pallets to break up for the rough-cut lumber, and build my own.

  Otherwise, things are quiet. The house is a mess and covered with gifts and other stuff from the weekend, and it is likely to remain that way until next weekend.

  I've thought about Christmas stuff some more and updated my list. Really I would be happy this Christmas if I got a DS Lite and a Home Depot gift card, but in the interests of presenting some options, I fleshed the list out a bit.

  Posted by Mark at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

  November 15, 2007

  christmas list 2007

  I started thinking about stuff I'd like for Christmas. I really don't need a lot. But in case anybody wants to get me toys, here it is:

  • Nintendo DS Lite - I'd like a mobile game system, as I have plenty of at-home games/systems to keep me busy. I think this is probably the one thing I would like the most on this list, even if it is kinda expensive.
  • New Super Mario Bros. for DS
  • Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS
  • one of the Brain Training games for DS
  • Home Depot gift cards - I'm there about once a week buying lumber or some new tool. What I'd really love is a basement workshop, but I think that's a little too expensive :)
  • renewed subscription to The Economist - great magazine.
  • good beer/beer-of-the-month club - I like the sauce.
  • good wine/wine-of-the-month club - But no more glasses please...if I try to build any more glass racks, Kara *will* seriously murder me for real this time.
  • golf lessons - meant to do it this year, but I'll definitely do it next year
  • jerky seasoning - finally made some the other day...excellent!
  • 2008 MA fishing license - I'll post the striper I caught as soon as Brock develops the film
  • indoor R/C helicopter - these are all the rage and I think it would be cool to play around with one
  • a good book or three - I swear I cannot find anything worth reading, and all I read these days are case studies and management texts
  • poker chip set - I want to start a semi-regular poker game. Plenty of cards, but I need some chips. They don't have to be weighted clay chips with gold inlays. If I get a Home Depot card, maybe my next project will be a portable poker tabletop.
  • (added 11/16) programmable remote control - We currently have, in regular use, four separate remotes: cable remote, TV remote, surround sound remote, DVD remote. I need a good programmable all-in-one.
  • (added 11/19) driver's side door mat for 2000 Jetta - I've long since worn a heel-spot through the existing one. I could probably fix it with duct tape, but a new mat would be nice.
  • (added 11/19) guitar multi-effects pedal - My DigiTech RP-3 died about a year and a half ago, and I never replaced it. I really don't need anything crazy. Just something basic.
  • (added 11/19) tire inflator - One of those tire inflators that plugs into your car's lighter adapter. It would be handy for emergencies, but also for motorcycle tire inflation purposes.
  • (added 11/19) staple gun - Would be handy for some projects around the house.
  • (added 11/19) Energizer rechargable battery charger - Mine died in Europe. We were using a voltage converter, but I guess something didn't convert.
  • (added 11/19) jerky cure and seasoning - Finally got around to using the last package of seasoning, and wow is that stuff amazing. Pretty easy to make too.
  • (added 11/19) baking sheets and cookie racks - I need more of these for jerky-manufacturing purposes, but would be nice to have a couple extra around for other cooking tasks.
  • (added 11/19) garlic press and apple corer - Would be handy to have. Just small things for the kitchen.
  • (added 11/19)Xbox 360 wireless controller - I believe you can hook these up to a computer, and they are supposed to be about the best gamepads out right now. I don't have a 360, but would be great for playing platformers on my PC.
  • (added 11/19) router and bits - This is about the only fairly significant power tool I don't have that I would both use, but also have the space for. I'd love a portable table saw, but I have nowhere to put it. A router would allow me to do some neater projects, like corner joins and decorative edges.
  • (added 11/19) cooking class - Not sure how this would work. I'd love to take a full-day cooking class at some point, really learn some of the basics of the kitchen, since I do really like to cook.

  I'll add more stuff as I think of it. It's kind of difficult...mainly what I *need* versus want is to lose more weight, have more money, and have more space to store stuff/get rid of extra junk. And the main things that I want aren't easy to give in gift form, like travel, more time to see friends, and more opportunities to just go out and experience life.

  Posted by Mark at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)

  November 08, 2007

  phases

  I go through phases like the moon. Just for example, I've purchased a number of bottles of wine recently because I've been going through a wine-tasting phase. Tonight, I picked up some cranberry juice so I could make Kara a Cosmo and ended up with some creme de menthe and bitters as well...I think a mixed-drink phase may be in the near future. Of course, that is a result of my building a wineglass rack to free up more space for cocktail glasses, but who says that phases must be unrelated? Not I!

  I think I may buy a Ryobi biscuit joiner. I'm putting up a couple of bookshelves in my office at work--I've moved up from a cube to a shared office--and I purchased some joining biscuits to fashion an angled shelf. The joinery worked ok, but I think it would have been stronger and more solid had I had the right tools for the job. I have another project in mind for the near future which uses mitred corners, so I think it might not be a bad purchase for my growing tool closet.

  Oh, and that's another phase...I'm building stuff like crazy lately. I've got pine boards and tools all over the hallway and living room. Kara has been ok with it so far, because I clean up after myself...hey, at least it keeps me out of the bars.

  Posted by Mark at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)

  November 04, 2007

  wine glass shelf

  This is the result of months of browbeating Kara until she would let me do this. She actually likes the results, and it's both stylish and functional:

  

  I have seen commercial shelves like this one, which use a wire hanger to suspend the wine glasses. I wanted to build one myself so the design of the shelf would match what we already have in the living room, but I couldn't find the wire wine glass racks any narrower than 10" deep. I didn't want something jutting out that far from the wall, so the only solution was to build it myself.

  Unfortunately, I don't have the tools to bend and shape wire, so I had to do the job with wood. I decided that, although I might like to use a thinner wood than the 3/4" pine I use for pretty much everything else, the project would be simplified by just using the same material everywhere.

  So I sketched out a rough design, featuring these T-shaped racks. I measured the wine and martini glasses we have around the house and decided that I wanted it to hold two red wine glasses deep by 6 wide...building it to hold martini glasses would have required a deeper shelf, and I was really trying to essentially replace the small shelf we had previously had above the "bar" with something similar in size, just with racks on the bottom of it.

  I did a little math (that took way longer than it should have) to figure out how much space I needed between the "pillar" of each T to fit the base of the glass, and how wide the gap between each top of the T needed to be to accept the stem of the glass. I decided that I would use glue and finishing nails to give maximum strength to the design, as I didn't want it to come apart and demolish any glasses later...it's overengineered enough that you could probably hang wine bottles from the rack and you'd be just fine.

  As always, I screwed up a couple of measurements and the cuts didn't line up exactly. Plus, the boards I was using were just slightly warped. But all things considered, the end result was pretty good. One of the 6 "channels" is only big enough for white wine glasses, because I probably should have just taken 6 glasses and used them to test the spacing before I glued/nailed everything together, but hindsight is 20/20.

  Here's a closer look, where you can see some more detail of how it's put together:

  

  I like it, Kara likes it, and it's on the wall. It gives us a lot more space for other stuff, plus I think it fits our decor. And it was fun and educational to build.

  Now, one of these days I'm going to have a workshop and a table saw, and maybe then my cuts will start to line up better.

  Or I guess I could stop eyeballing things and get out the tape measure.

  Posted by Mark at 09:19 PM | Comments (2)

  woodwork, mum, jerky

  I'm working on a very cool new piece of woodwork...check back in about 8 hours for a pic, assuming it's all done by then. It should be, if I don't screw up any more measurements.

  I know the carpenter's motto is "measure twice, cut once," but I think mine is more like, "eh, you can always sand it to fit, and besides, it's supposed to look rustic."

  Kara's mum is staying with us for a few days to get out of Rockport and enjoy the city. It's kind of funny, but when you do live out in the country, sometimes you can get stir-crazy from how quiet it is, just the same way as I sometimes need to get away from it all. She and Kara are in the kitchen baking some sort of pie.

  Currently the living room is knee-deep in laundry. Which is fine, because it's clean laundry, and we have an agreement: I make sure the clothes get washed, and Kara folds them.

  I picked up a bunch of cheap beef that I'm going to marinate for a couple days to finally use the jerky mix I got probably a year ago. Jerky is delicious and not all that bad for you, but it's expensive to buy it. I think it's actually going to be much cheaper to make it myself.

  Posted by Mark at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

  October 29, 2007

  red sox!

  YEAH SOX!!!!

  Posted by Mark at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)

  October 24, 2007

  sox!

  I honestly feel a little bad for Colorado right now. I mean, I like to win; I like to see the Sox win, but at this point, I kinda want to say:

  "Ok, guys. You're having a rough night. Let's just give us the win, you guys head back to your hotel, rest up, come back tomorrow. This has got to be really painful for you. I mean, look, you just walked in 3 runs. 3 RUNS. THREE. Every one of our starters but one has at least one RBI, and the one guy who doesn't has a couple of hits, and you gave him the intentional walk once anyway (of which I do not approve, by the way, no matter how much you suck...be a man; throw it over the plate).

  "But this...this is doing nobody any good. In the interests of good sportsmanship, I don't feel it's necessary to continue. Get some Z's."

  Now, I know the situation can turn around at any point, but so far, there is no sign of the poor Rockies pulling it back together. And they are just a mess right now.

  On the other hand, it's kinda nice to be watching the Sox play and being able to relax for once, unlike the ALCS, where I pretty much couldn't watch more than about 3 innings in a row on account of my nerves buzzing like bees in blender.

  Go Sox!

  Posted by Mark at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

  washer, kitchen, spring

  More or less as expected, the repairs to the portable washer exceed the cost of replacing it with a new one. We've been doing the laundry downstairs for the last few months, as I've only now gotten around to having a repair guy come by. The transmission is bad, and when I asked him how much it would cost, he made a face like eating a lemon and showed me his laptop screen.

  So we're probably going to wait until post-wedding and just remodel the kitchen. New fridge, new stove, new dishwasher, new cabinets, countertop and floor, and a proper plumbed-in washer/dryer stack. Maybe instead of plates we'll register for applicances.

  It always feels like registration for the next semester happens before I'm even settled into the current semester. But, I'm signed up for an Operational Management course and a required but hard-to-get Stats class in the spring, and textbooks are on the way.

  Matt is going to Belgium and the Netherlands, which is cool. That's a neat part of the world to see, and a lot of fun. Good beer, too.

  Posted by Mark at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)

  October 21, 2007

  bulletin board

  I finished the bulletin board today and put it up in the hallway. It looks pretty neat:

  

  The secret is this: read Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel and Pier One catalogs...for the ideas. Then steal them and make them yourself. You really don't need much more than a small circular saw, a drill, a sander, a hammer and some wood glue, and you can pretty much put anything together yourself. If you stick with a rustic look, your mistakes will look like just another part of the piece. Pine may be soft, but it's cheap, and it looks just fine unfinished. Or, if you want to stain or lacquer it, pine is light enough to provide a blank canvas for whatever color you're going for.

  Not to be limited only to the wood shop, I also baked some whole wheat soft pretzels. The secret to making really good soft pretzels is to poach them in boiling water before baking them. I think I might have to try making my own bagels sometime too.

  I've been running around all weekend and am having trouble slowing down. Kara is still sick, so I'm going to work from home tomorrow so I can continue to play nurse.

  I am basically the male Martha Stewart.

  Posted by Mark at 10:32 PM | Comments (2)

  October 20, 2007

  kitchen, corks, leadership

  Kara is sick, so I told her to take a day off and sit on the couch. I, on the other hand, have been pretty busy.

  The pot rack is up, as seen below, and we did some fairly significant rearranging of the kitchen. I was getting annoyed at never being able to find the spice I was looking for in the cabinet where we were keeping the spices, so I built a couple of new spice racks. I need to start cooking with a lot more cilantro because I've got doubles of that, along with some other spices, but it's nice having more space and being able to find what you're looking for.

  

  I'm also building a combination blackboard/corkboard/mailbox/key rack for the entry hall. I've seen similar things in Pottery Barn and such, but they aren't 100% what I'm looking for. The great thing about having some basic tools and the ability to use them is that you never have to rely on what somebody else is selling for too much money. I'd expect to pay at least a hundred bucks for something like this, but it's going to cost me about $30 in materials.

  The corkboard part is going to be made out of wine corks, similar to one of these. Unfortunately, I discovered tonight that I've only got about half the corks I need to finish it completely. I guess we'll just have to drink a lot of wine!

  If any family or friends read this, please consider this an invitation to save your corks for me. I'd prefer corks made of real cork, not plastic or reconstituted cork (although the latter is preferred over the former), and champagne/beer corks won't really work. If I end up with more corks than I need, well, they make a nice centerpiece if you put them in a jar, or I could always make some nice trivets out of them as gifts. So save those corks!

  Classes are going well. My leadership class is making me really stop and think and question what I'm doing and how I am professionally, and that's a good thing. I have a feeling it's going to end up being one of the classes I really come back to as my career goes along.

  I did this thing called a "360-degree review," which is where you ask bosses, coworkers, friends and direct reports (if you have any; I don't) to answer some questions and thus rate you in five categories. I discovered from this that, while I thought I would rate very high in the Inspire and Challenge categories, I in fact rated lowest in those. However, I thought I would rate low in the Enable and Model categories, while those were my two highest. From this, it seems that I'm not as much a firebrand visionary as I thought I was, but am in fact a lot better at helping people get their jobs done and setting an example for how to do them.

  As touchy-feely as a lot of this stuff is, I am starting to think that actual management requires knowledge of how to get people to do things. It has very little to do with being good at the things your subordinates are doing. In that sense, a great computer programmer can end up being a terrible manager (as I've seen too often in my career) because of lack of people skills. Yet a lousy carpenter can be a great architect.

  I maintain that you have to have some idea of how to do what your subordinates do, simply to gain and keep their respect. But being good at a thing does not mean you ought to be leading others in doing it. And, in fact, if you are good at leading people, I think you ought to be comfortable with the fact that others are better at the actual tasks than you, and be able to gain their respect by being a good organizer and administrator...leaving them free to do their thing.

  I was talking with my classmate, Lindsey, the other day, over a couple of beers. He did his undergrad in econ, so for him, the MBA is more symbolic than actually learning new technical skills. We talked about the housing market, and how it has been said that people need to stop seeing their homes as investments, and more as just places to live.

  I think that's overstating it. I think a home is an investment. I do not, however, think it is a get-rich scheme. The same goes for the MBA. I don't think you get your MBA and suddenly everybody is giving you $120K job offers (although that might be true in some sectors). I think you get your MBA so your career can progress being "being really good at doing what you do." So that when you get to the leadership stage, you might have a little more knowledge about how to go about doing that effectively.

  So I have to say that life is going pretty well. I was in a bit of a rut, towards the end of summer, but I think I'm breaking out of that now. If nothing else, at least I can find my spices.

  Posted by Mark at 08:18 PM | Comments (1)

  October 12, 2007

  guests, cuse, mjp

  We finally buckled down last night and finished the wedding guest list...at least the final version before we send it to parents for a last once-over. Save the Dates are scheduled to go out before Thanksgiving.

  I found a nice website that lets you do a mail merge into photo postcards, and lets you design your own layout with a stripped-down web-based Quark-ish interface. It's a lot cheaper because you design it yourself, whereas a lot of the other places are basically charging you a premium to have one of their people help you with the design. Considering graphic design is what got me into web design in the first place, I don't think that's entirely necessary.

  I might actually listen to my dad for once and get a car he recommends. But regardless, I'm not buying anything just yet...I don't need a new car, even if I like getting new toys now and then. Got a wedding to pay for.

  We're planning the annual Syracuse basketball game trip, which has evolved out of Homecoming. We're better at basketball than football, and it's not like we ever go to any of the official Homecoming events anyway. Looks like we'll be up there for March 8th, so we'll sorta celebrate my birthday while we're there.

  MJP looks to be officially moving back to MA. He's up here this weekend looking at condos. We'll do the usual drinks and catch up thing later tonight. Sox are on at 7, so it'll be somewhere with a TV.

  Posted by Mark at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

  October 09, 2007

  fairs, animals, truck

  We started the weekend by going to the Topsfield Fair, which is a local agricultural fair about on par with the Bloomsburg Fair. Maybe a little smaller, but it's been a long time since I've been to the Bloomsburg Fair, and you know how everything seems bigger when you're young.

  Probably the highlight was the Robinson's Racing Pigs. Those pigs sure do race. And swim, too!

  We were fairly well-behaved as far as food went, but I did have a nice kielbasa with peppers and onions from Mr. Kielbasa (which is funny because we know a real Mr. Kielbasa), and some fried dough, which is funnel cake without the funnel.

  On Saturday we went up to Vermont for the Newfane Heritage Festival. We got a bunch of Christmas shopping done, and got some stuff for the house as well. I've been wanting a kitchen pot rack, since I hate trying to shove all the pots in a drawer, so we got a nice wrought-iron one from a blacksmith who works up there.

  Also, we got a dish for the cat that we don't have just yet. But I got Kara to agree that we'll get a cat in the new year. Too hectic with the holidays, but once January rolls around, we're getting a kitty.

  We did the usual "Super Raffle" which is really just their name for a Chinese Auction. Kara won a pottery cookie jar.

  We rode around in a relative's Ford Explorer Sport Trac, which has the all-important sunroof in a king-cab pickup truck configuration. That got me thinking about vehicles. Since I'm about to put the one-hundred-thousandth mile on the Jetta, I figured I'd at least entertain the option of getting something else. So I did some research and determined that I want a Nissan Frontier. You can get a used one, recent model, for a decent price, and with all the options. Fuel economy isn't great, but it does have a small bed and room enough for five.

  But of course I like not having car payments. So I think I've decided that I'll buy a new vehicle as a grad school graduation present for myself. I will keep up with the tradition of buying myself new vehicles whenever I get a new degree. That means I'll have to make the truck last until I get a PhD in something.

  Posted by Mark at 10:06 AM | Comments (1)

  September 24, 2007

  europe travels

  Just a quick and irregular update.

  Went back to London last week...was a great trip. Not enough time in the old city at all; there's so much to see. But I did get a chance to swing by the old digs and some of my old haunts. The Syracuse London center is somewhere else now, and the Ladbroke Grove building is still there but now belongs to someone else. I think the Bayswater flat might be part of the Comfort Inn next door, now, but I couldn't remember the exact address, and so, not sure.

  Taza is still there and still making excellent chicken shawarma, and I made it a point to go sit and eat lunch under my old reading tree in Kensington Gardens. The Kensington apartment above the Indian restaurant is still there, and I hit Sainsbury's next door for some salt and vinegar Pringles, and Orange Coke, if you believe it.

  Julie's wedding in Kew was beautiful and we had a good time. We took Robin on a bus tour the first day we were there, did the full tour of the Tower of London, and ate lunch in an old pre-London-fire pub called The Bell. Spent some time in Harrod's buying gifts, and walked along the Thames out in Richmond, where Julie and James live.

  Paris was nice as well, but don't drink the water...I wasn't thinking and had a few glasses of tap water the first morning we were there. Within an hour I was sweating like I was running a marathon. I told Robin and Kara to go do tourist stuff and I headed back to the hotel...once I figured out why I was sick, I was much relieved, and I took a walk that afternoon to try to sweat out some of the whatever I was feeling. The next day we did the D'Orsay in the morning and the Eiffel Tower in the afternoon, then ate lunch/dinner in the shadow of the Arch De Triomphe.

  Our trip home took us through Dublin, where we actually walked down a set of stairs outside the plane instead of a jetway, and I sampled a new type of Guinness called Guinness North Star...I was hoping that it would end up stateside eventually, but checking the website seems to say that it's only available in Dublin for a limited time. I feel lucky, then, for having had the chance to sample it.

  Now we're back and we've pretty much unpacked everything. School is ramping back up. It was nice to be on vacation, but it's nice to be back home again.

  Posted by Mark at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)

  August 27, 2007

  short summer, travel, school

  Haven't updated in forever, so thought I'd write a brief something.

  This summer has flown by...been busy with a lot of stuff. Kara has been out of town quite a few weekends with stuff involved with the 3 (!) weddings we're going to in September--apparently girls have a lot more supplemental events besides the big day. Speaking of weddings, we've picked our caterer, most of our menu, and our photographer, and we should have a DJ by the time we go to London.

  Which is in a few weeks. We're booked to fly to London on September 11th, which I think is maybe mildly patriotic, and we'll head to Paris for a few days on the 16th. Should be fun. I have a big list of places to go back to in London, and Robin has never been to either city, so it will be neat to introduce somebody to what it's like across the pond.

  In other travel news we spent Saturday/Sunday of this past weekend at a friend's rental house in Newport, RI. We usually just go up to Rockport, which is neat, but it's also nice to go someplace new and different when heading off for a beach weekend.

  The house is also mostly painted. I finished the living room the other week, and added some shelves as well. Right now we're trying to figure out what to do about fixing up the kitchen. It looks like we'll paint and probably get a kitchen cart sometime in the fall.

  Nothing too exciting. School starts up again...next week? How did that happen?

  Posted by Mark at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)

  June 08, 2007

  mini-update 2: painting

  Kara was away for a couple of weeks on business, so while she was gone I did some painting around the house. I managed to get the bedroom, small hallway and large hallway all painted. The bedroom is a nice light purple color that matches a lot of stuff, and the hallways are a light beige.

  The painting process went fairly smoothly. I did end up putting two coats on the bedroom so it covered adequately, but other than that, there were no major issues. The more I paint, the better I get at it.

  Also, had a few electrical problems. I went to replace the light switches in the main hallway but forgot that they were wired in such a way that you could turn the lights on or off from either switch. I don't have the right kind of replacement switches for that yet, and when I realized it, I tried to put it back together the way it was with the old switches. Only, not quite. So the lights don't work perfectly.

  And the intercom no longer lets you buzz people in. I'm also not exactly sure what I did to break that. I have a couple theories. For now, we just get extra exercise.

  I am not looking forward to painting the living room, as there is a lot of stuff in there and there's going to be virtually no way to paint it all at once...I'll have to do a wall or two at a time. I also don't really want to do the kitchen, for the same reason. I have discovered that two things I really hate doing are painting and folding clothes. I like it when the painting is done, but the process is just not fun.

  That said, it looks so much better in here from the yellowish bedroom and toothpaste green hallway.

  Posted by Mark at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

  June 06, 2007

  mini-update 1: new grill

  I haven't blogged in awhile and usually that leads to a super-long entry, but instead I'm going to try to write a few mini-entries to catch people up.

  First, I ordered a new Weber Q 200 grill the other day. We used it last week; it's awesome. Just the right size for grilling on the balcony. So far, I have tried grilling various things with the following results:

  • Chicken shish-kebabs - I used grape tomatoes, green peppers, vidalia onions, yellow squash and chicken marinated overnight with olive oil and Grillmates mesquite seasoning, then brushed on a little more olive oil and mesquite during grilling. Turned out amazingly awesome.
  • Corn on the cob - Leave it in the husk, throw it on the grill, leave on for 25-30 minutes, turning once. Possibly the most corn I have ever tasted in my life. Didn't even really need butter or salt, it was so sweet.
  • Trader Joe's chicken jalepeno sausage - Perfect for grilling. Just tasted excellent with no special prep at all.
  • Frozen beef mini-tacos - Turned out quite well. Similar to cooking them in the toaster oven. Brushed a few with olive oil, which made them crispier, but that was the extent of it.
  • Frozen green beans - Turned out excellently. Brushed lightly with olive oil while cooking. I prefer whole beans anyway, and you have to be careful not to let them fall through the grate, but tastes essentially like grilled asparagus.
  • Dill pickles - Yeah, not so much. Tasted like hot pickles.
  • Baby carrots - Also not so much. Tasted like cooked carrots (brushed with olive oil).

  Tonight I'm doing turkey burgers and corn. I'm going to pick up some other random stuff for grilling.

  Posted by Mark at 01:28 PM | Comments (2)

  May 11, 2007

  one year down

  I took my second exam last night, thus ending my first year in