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I think Anson has heard those words mumbled around our house almost every day this month. The weather in Kirkland is “beautiful,” according to random people in the street. It’s sunny and hot (but not too hot).  Unfortunately, my allergies have kicked into super-crazy-evil mode this year. I have tried avoiding the outdoors, but my current job is making that near impossible. You see, I’m teaching elementary summer school. We have TWO recesses every day. TWO!  So, I take solace in watching Christmas movies and drinking hot cocoa while waiting for Anson to get home from work. I know that Christmas will be here soon (and hopefully snow will come with it). Just 148 days to go!

Aside from that, things have been going pretty well. I have a job teaching special education in the fall. It will be at the preschool level, so I’m pretty excited. I’m hoping there’s a unit on teddy bears   I’ve been slowly skimming through some of my old textbooks while also trying to finish the Wheel of Time books before the new one comes out. I’m almost done Book 10—it’s amazing how little has happened in that book. Hopefully Book 11 will be better

For those of you who haven’t talked to us in a while—Anson and I recently spent a bunch of time in Maryland. We had a lot of celebrating to do!  On June 12th, we got to meet our new niece, Mia Elaine!

That’s not the greatest picture of her (I have one of her smiling somewhere—probably hidden on my phone), but I like it because she’s sleeping in the blanket I made her

The very next day, on June 13th, we got a new sister-in-law! Welcome to the family Daniela!!!

And on June 25th  we got a new brother-in-law! Welcome to the family Tim! There’s no way out—probably should have told you that before you said “I do”

While in Maryland, Anson and I also got to visit with our good friends—Mark , Ioana and Dave. We all went to Hershey Park one weekend. There is only one picture of the trip (mostly because I didn’t want to carry around a camera while I was on the roller coasters). It accurately expresses how each of us feel about roller coasters:

Aside from all the excitement with family additions, we had some time to relax and got addicted to a new tv show (thanks Angie and Eric!). We’ve been watching NCIS non-stop since we got back. We’re on season 3 now. We’re actually buying them, so we’ll be able to lend them out and get everyone on the west coast addicted as well. Yay!

And now it’s about time for Anson to be getting home from work—so I’m off to go daydream about snowflakes and stockings

I’ve been meaning to write about our home network for a while now.  It’s funny, because as with most things getting it 90% set up was 10% of the work.  I’ve still got a ton of changes to make, but things are starting to come together.  I think I’ll keep this post mostly at a high level and then write more later about the specifics of how we set certain things up (like WHS and our multiple routers).  Our network generally looks like this:

We have FIOS for internet and TV which is piped in through coaxial cable into our master bedroom.  We have hard-wired connections between the closet and the living room and the office upstairs.  Unfortunately we don’t have it hard wired into the master proper, though that’s something I’m going to do in the next few weeks.  For the moment we have two routers, one which acts as the DNS server and has a coaxial WAN input and the other which proffers the N access point.

In the master bedroom we have our new TV which I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before.  If not, it’s one of the Samsung LCD LED TVs; it has an amazing picture.  We have an Xbox Elite hooked up to it for gaming, watching DVDs, and streaming content.  In the master closet we have our Windows Home Server which stores all of our media (videos, pictures, movies, etc.).  In the office we have my desktop which currently acts as our Media Center.  We don’t record TV with it at the moment, but it’s what we use to stream movies to our Xboxes.  The printer is also in the office.  Both the computer and the printer are connected to a switch which then connects to the router through the wall wiring.  We also keep the wireless picture frame that I have in the office, though with the changes I made yesterday it will stop working soon.  Finally we have a switch  in the living room with an Xbox and Tivo connected to it.

This configuration enables the following:

Automated backups: The Windows Home Server will back up every configured machine on the network on a daily basis.

Streaming media: From either the living room or master we can stream any of our videos or music by using the Xboxes as extenders (which connects them to the Office computer which then reads the content off of the Windows Home Server).  Our Zunes can auto-sync with the media center PC upstairs so they are always up to date with whatever music we may have downloaded recently. 

This also enables streaming of DVD content, so I have started to take our DVDs and burn them to a folder on our Windows Home Server so that we can easily browse and watch them from either the master, living room, or wherever we happen to have a computer lying around.

Shared devices

Any of the computers on the network have easy access to the printer upstairs.  They also can access each other for shared files.

Remote access

A Windows Home Server gives you the option to set up your network to be publicly accessible (even without a static IP).  If you do that then you’re able to remote desktop into any machine that is active in your house.  I use this every once in a while when I need something I left at home for work.  It’s extremely useful, particularly when paired with addins that let you remotely wake up computers that are on your network.

The interesting posts will come later I think.  I want to write about the best way I’ve found so far of encoding ripped DVDs for playback on XBox, how I’m copying and encoding TV shows off of the Tivo for streaming to the 360, and the best ways I’ve found to use your own router when you have FIOS delivered with coaxial cable.  On the other hand, I’ll probably write about our new car first

Family updates:

1) We got the recording numbers today for our old house.  We’ve officially sold it! Sadly we don’t get the check until Tuesday because Monday is a holiday.

2) I’m busy reading Personal Finance for Dummies on the Kindle app for the PC (on my Acer Aspire tablet) in order to figure out the best way to invest some of what we make off the old house.  If anyone has suggestions please let me know (on either good places to invest or good books about investing to go read).

3) We have most of the furniture we ordered but the dining room table isn’t going to get here until sometime in Feb .  As soon as it does we’ll post some updated tours.

4) We have the ground cleared, leveled, and set up for the shed that we want to get.  We’ll be working more on that in the next week or so (finalizing it with the city and actually getting something ordered).  We’re looking at using the Tuff Shed folks from Home Depot.  Here’s what the area looks like (cans represent 6’x10’ which is the size of the shed we want):

The retaining wall isn’t quite finished in that picture, but it will be soon

5) Our mole problem is slowly getting fixed.  One down, no more than 100 more or so to go.

6) We’re pretty sure we’ve got everything we need for our Bahamas trip next month.  Swimsuits, shorts, sandals, and our wedding outfits.  

More soon…

Today is the last day of 2009.  It’s amazing how fast the year went.  In this past year I have become a student of routine.  I get up in the morning at roughly the same time every weekday, head to work, make progress on whatever I need to, eat pretty much the same thing for lunch, pretty much the same thing for dinner, spend time with my lovely wife and then go to sleep.  I am convinced that routine; that same pattern over and over, accelerates the passage of time.   

In 2010 I am going to make time pass more slowly. I am going to try new things and regularly break routine.  I am going to get better at the things I’m good at, so I have more time for the things I’m not.  And, I’m definitely going to turn on my ‘motivational speaker post spam filter’ in the future so no one has to read more posts like this

• Start writing a book: This is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while now.  I’d like to eventually write a fantasy novel.  I’ll most likely start with a short story though.

   

• Increase breadth of reading: I want to read more outside of the genres of which I’m already deeply familiar.  I’m certainly going to read more of the ‘classics’, and I think I’ll try to read at least a biography or two.
• Get better at my job: I want to spend less time at work and get more done with better results.  Nice idea eh? This is a constant one of course; I’d hope I’m getting better at my job daily.  I’m writing it out more as a mechanism for thinking hard about good ways to go about it.
• Make our house a better place to live: Rach and I are already making good progress on this one.  Since we’ve moved in we’ve done a ton of things to the house which make living here more pleasant.  New bedroom furniture is the most recent   I would like to end 2010 with an army of robot minions that maintain our fully automated smart home.  I’m guessing that’ll be more than a single year in coming though.
• Travel more: There is nothing quite like travel to broaden your horizons.  We’ll certainly be heading out of the country at least once next year.
• Attend church regularly: Rach has become an increasingly active participant at church, and I want to start attending regularly with her.
• Double my Xbox gamer score: Yep, it’s still low enough that it’s in the realm of possibility to double it in a year 3590 at the moment.
• Stay in shape: I want to exit next year in roughly the same shape I’m in now, or at least in the same ballpark!  Rach and I plan to do the 60 mile, 3-day walk.  I also want to do a 5k sometime during the year.

What are other people’s resolutions?

 

Greetings from Maryland!  We’ve been on the east coast for a few days now and have been keeping pretty busy. On Sunday, a few hours after getting of the plane, we went to cut down Christmas trees with Angie, Eric, Kira, Mary and Tim. We had a lot of fun picking them out, but decided that Anson’s allergies might not be able to handle a real tree (no matter how much he wants one). That night we had a great family dinner with the Hortons. Anson finally got to meet Daniela! Also, his mom made one of his favorite dishes, chicken/sausage/potatoes, so it was a good night

Monday, we went to Angie and Eric’s house to do a Hotovy family dinner. They grilled steak and chicken (also one of Anson’s favorites) and it was super yummy! I think Anson is getting spoiled by all of these amazing dinners. It is going to be pretty tragic when he gets back to WA…

After dinner, we played the traditional Hotovy family Christmas game. This year, the prizes were novelty t-shirts. I managed to snag one that says “More Cowbell,” which I fully intend to wear to my next bell choir rehearsal. Anson got one that says “I’m what Willis was talkin’ about.” There are a few others (such as, “I often wonder if the frisbee is getting bigger. And then it hits me.”) which I am sure all of you will see over the next few months   There were candy canes involved which allowed you to steal shirts or force trades. It’s too bad Tim wasn’t able to make it…I’m sure the game would have gotten pretty intense over a few of those shirts. Mary was too nice After that, we decorated one of Angie’s Christmas trees and then played some board games. See some pictures below:

 

My mom’s earrings were blinking Christmas lights. And Kira, cute-as-a-bug in her Christmas dress!

 

Anson and I, rockin’ our Christmas sweaters.         Angie and Eric, wonderful hosts.

Kira and Mary, opening presents. As you can see, Kira opened her gift a bit faster

 

    

Angie with her “Pregasaurus” shirt. The second picture is my dad officiating the game and Mary winning a t-shirt.

  

These are a couple of tree decoration pictures This is just the upstairs tree….

 

On Tuesday we got to spend the day with Anson’s family. We played Buzz Word in the afternoon and got to run around town a little bit during the day. For dinner, we had brisket (I think Anson will go on a hunger strike when we get back). It was delicious!  Afterwards, we opened presents (see below):

 

 

The beautifully decorated Christmas tree! And Anson’s mom, opening her birthday card. It was “edited for content.”

 

   

The Grandmas both enjoyed reading their cards

 

   

Aaron likes to have his picture taken. Really, he does. <evil laugh>

 

   

Anson’s Dad opening his present and Schrodinger wrapping himself up in the extra paper

 

It has been a busy, fun-filled trip so far! I’ll post more later this week. Though, unfortunately, probably not many more pictures. I forgot to pack the battery charger and the camera was blinking at me tonight. Fortunately, both of our dads like to take pictures, so maybe they will email me some to post <hint, hint>.

Rach and I decided to switch our blog software to Wordpress so that we can more easily update themes for the site.  Wordpress is a pretty amazing blogging engine and has tons and tons of pre-built layouts and designs; they happen to be pretty easily customizable too.  Sadly this is only about a week after Eric went through all the trouble of updating his blogging software to support the Windows Live Writer interface (probably XML-RPC) so we’re feeling a bit guilty about doing it.  On the other hand, Rach has been asking me to update our page for a while now and I was getting pretty tired of the 4th of July theme.  So, it’s a toss up really – but either way, Eric was able to update his blog software in a few hours, so I figure I just need to ask him to add themes to it and we can switch back

 

I’m off to finish packing.  Rach and I are leaving for MD in a few hours on a Red Eye.  I expect that we’ll be extremely tired tomorrow but, no doubt, happy with the snow, family, decorations, and food!