Cars…

Admittedly, I’ve fallen behind on my entries. While I wanted to update, I was also pressed with just trying to do as much as possible and writing seemed to fall by the wayside for the past two weeks but I’m baaaaaaaack!

The last was on the 11th. Since then, it’s been one busy week weekend after the next. The 12th started at 4AM with a 3 hour drive to Atco Raceway forthe Honda Day event which turned out to be very fun. It’s been a long time since I’ve followed the drag racing scene but my brother is a big fan and had been anticipating the national event all winter. The drive was worth it to see the fastest Hondas on the planet racing. The best part of this race is that all areas are open to the public. You can go right into the pits with the crews and hang out with the drivers in the staging lanes. We were to get up-close-and-personal photos of all the vehicles that most people only see in magazines. Very cool. The nostalgia of my younger days of driving an Integra crept up on me. Who knows, maybe I’ll pick one up again some day.

We left the event at 4:30PM and rushed back home to make a 8PM dinner date with Mama and some friends from out of town. The evening traffic jams (yes, on a Saturday evening) made the driver longer than I anticipated. Sun burnt, and no time for a shower, I threw on some clothes and head out to Jack Rose Dining Saloon in Adams Morgan. This place is a whiskey lover’s paradise! While I did try to restrain myself, I did splurge a little bit (with thorough encouraging from my dinnermates) and try out two excellent drams that I had been wanting to try but couldn’t find– the Old Pultney 21 year and a Midleton Very Rare which I had never heard about before but one of the friends suggested. Both excellent although I don’t think the Midleton is worth its price.

The week went by super fast. Mama and I left little man with auntie and had a date night after dinner. We first stopped in at Bayou Bakery for some of their beignets then at small sports bar for some appetizers and drinks since there was still time before the movie. Finally, we walked over to the theater and watched the new Captain America.

I wasn’t overly excited to watch the movie but wanted to try out the theater which mama had been raving about. It’s an old theater that went through recent renovations and now instead of regular theater seats, they have reclinable leather seats that are assigned when you buy your tickets. Let’s just say watching movies at a regular theater now will be a serious let down. The movie was good, too. 🙂 And technically, since Bayou Bakery also serves alcohol (although we didn’t order any) we can say we went barhopping as well! Ah, reliving the olden days.

Saturday, we ran around town trying to find a cheap car seat for little man and ended up picking up the Cosco Scenara  which had a surprisingly good review from Consumer Reports despite it’s eyebrow raising low price. (More on why we did this in a little bit.) We finally ended up at Union Market for some breakfast sandwiches as per our usual Saturday morning routine. They also have a butcher shop that sells meat from the local farms. I was hoping to pick up a leg of lamb for Sunday but they sold the last leg to the guy in front of me. The afternoon consisted of an impromptu picnic and volleyball games at the park with friends.

I had anticipated having a small Easter Sunday dinner but emails started circulating and we ended up at a friend’s house with the rest of the group for an impromptu  dinner and Easter egg hunt for all the kids. (Impromptu is a key word with this group of friends.) I was able to source another leg of lamb and paired that with a some fingerling potatoes to bring to the dinner. Leg of lamb was a variation of Gordon Ramsay’s leg of lamb video. Instead of stuffing cinnamon into the leg itself, I used powdered cinnamon and and stuffed garlic cloves instead. Also, I added chopped rosemary into the rub. Who doesn’t include rosemary with lamb? 

That brings us to this past weekend and the need for a cheap car seat even though we went through a lengthy process to find Little Man his current car seat. Mama and Little Man took were flying back home to visit family and attend a baby shower. I should have gone also but because I couldn’t confirm my work trip schedule, they had to book without me. While the NextFit is a great car seat, it’s also an incredibly heavy car seat. The thought of mama having to handle the car seat by herself while holding Little Man and lugging a 50 lbs. suitcase just didn’t make sense. Also, the online horror stories of how car seats are handled made us rethink checking the seat in. We also thought about just renting the seat from the car rental place but at $15/day AND the possibility of getting dirty and/or broken seat, or not getting one at all sealed the deal on picking up a designated “travel seat”. At only 2 points lower than the highest rated seat on Consumer Reports, 1/5 of the price, and about a 1/3 of the weight of the NextFit, the Cosco Scenera was a great value.

So while they’ve been running around and visiting family and friends — never a relaxing task — I’ve been trying to get odd things done around the house. And go fishing. 🙂 Twice. But! I got things done around the house, including bleeding the brakes on the car, finally patching the big hole from the water damage, and putting winter gear away for the summer.

Day 5. It’s been five days since I’ve seen Mama and Little Man. Most of the things I’ve been doing is to keep my mind off of that. Google Video chatting is great but when the boy is only 8 month, he quickly recognizes that that the video really isn’t Daddy, he gets disinterested quickly. But, I pick them up from the airport today after work! But sadly, I leave for my 5-day trip starting tomorrow. 10 total days broken up by just one evening where Little Man will probably be asleep most of the time. 😦 Regardless, I packed my bags last night to make sure I could maximize the time tonight instead of packing while Mama and Little Man are home tonight and I went to the store at 9:30 PM last night to pick up a toy for Little Man – the first one I’ve bought for him. 

I really wanted to pick up one of those Radio Flyer Bumper Cars or a Walker Wagon but the boy can’t walk yet so I’ll have to put that off for a few more months.

So there it is, the last two weeks in a few paragraphs.

 

 

All-Day, Every Day

Our Saturday morning adventures resumed!

We started off the morning with trying out The Commissary – a restaurant/bar/lounge/coffeehouse. 

Great location – right across from a Whole Foods, located on a busy street and most importantly, located in an area that Michelle Kwan has been sighted multiple times. Unfortunately, this time around there was no Kwan sighting. Spacious dining area with single tables and group tables. The sitting bar also welcome individuals. Red, white, and blue coloring seemed to be the theme.

While I liked the rustic feel of the place, it was too dimly lit for a brunch location. It’d be nice for an informal dinner, but then again I don’t know if I’d consider it a lounge-type place either. It almost has a…Texas Roadhouse feel to it–as sad as that is to say. It’s like the place is trying to do too much with the same location. The bar did look nice and there was clearly a drink staff that was separate from the wait staff which was separate from the cooking staff.

A bonus: Since we seated right next to the open-ish kitchen, we did spy a line chef using Sriracha and fish sauce to make what looked like a salsa. Southeast Asian ingredients in a traditional American restaurant? You get an extra star!

However, the food was pretty good. I had a variation of my usual: rye toast, eggs over easy, turkey sausages, and their specialty: potato pancakes (which are basically like the hash browns you get from McDonald’s but firmer and with apple sauce or sour cream. Mama had a smoked salmon omelette which was clearly the best thing on the table that morning followed by the turkey sausage.

It was such a nice day out we decided to walk over to Georgetown to enjoy the weather. Little Man didn’t seem to mind one bit even thought it was a little windy

It also allowed me a chance to stop by P Street Wine a place I had been meaning to check out but never had the time to stop by. Their selection was amazing! Proudly on display was every bottle from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection as well as a bottle of A. H. Hirsch. I doubt any of them are for sale, but I did see the hard-to-find Black Maple Hill. But $120 for the red label? I’m sure that’ll fool some K Street/Dupont Circle-3rd year-associate-lawyer-yuppie-wannabe-bourbon-enthusiast into thinking it’s high-end stuff, but c’mon… Before it got hot, it was selling for about $30/bottle and that’s where it should stay. But I digress…

We continued with our day by stopping at Behnke’s to stock up on herbs for our straw bale garden.

And then finally, since it’s just down the street from Behnke’s, a (relatively) quick stop at Ikea where little man got his first taste of french fries!

And finally home.

 

 

 

One for you, Two for me!

Because sometimes, it’s just nice to unwind.

For the record, this photo was from LAST Friday, not today at 10:15AM. We like our drinks, but we don’t like them THAT much.

 

Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

My brother never calls me. We text. That is, unless something’s up. He’s also watching Little Man for the time being. So you can imagine the thoughts that were racing through my head when my phone rings and his name pops up.

“Dude!!” he says in the most panicked voice I’ve ever heard him say in his life. “Dude, there’s water coming out of your wall!!!”

A silent sigh of relief. Little Man is safe. He’s good. I can hear him crying in the background a bit, but am attributing it to his Uncle’s chicken-with-its-head-cut-off tone.

“Calm down. Go downstairs and shut off the main water valve.” I walk him through the process of finding the main valve and shutting it off. “I’m heading home now. I’ll be there in 30 minutes.” Click.

I get home to see him chilling on the couch like any regular day. Little Man is sleeping. He was crying earlier because it was nap time. I make myself a sandwich, change and then go assess the damage. Apparently the neighbor was coming home and saw a mini waterfall of steaming hot water shooting out of the ceiling from underneath the house extension—directly below where the main floor’s half-bathroom is located. When the previous owners renovated the house, a ½ bathroom was more important to them then good planning. As such, water pipes run from inside the house, through an uninsulated section of the floor and then back up to the bathrooms. In previous years, the pipes have frozen over but have always melted away. And of course, I’ve always said, “ok, I’m going to fix that little problem before it becomes a problem.” That didn’t happen.

It’s been an especially cold winter and with this last freeze, the pipes decided it had done enough flexing.

My first step was to locate the crack. To do that, I had to remove a large section of the drywall ceiling using a drywall utility saw. Luckily, I have a shed directly underneath the pipes that I was able to lie on and gain easy access.

After tearing about a quarter of the ceiling down, I was able to track down the crack—a 3” section right at an elbow joint on the hot water line.

This is actually the “after” image of the first attempt at the repair. The purple sections are the first attempt at repairs.

After cutting the section out, I made a trip to Ace Hardware and Home Depot to purchase a CPVC pipe cutter, some joint cement, ½” CPVC pipes, some couplings, and two valves to install indoors so I can shut off the water to the pipes during cold nights. 

Note to self: Standing in wet clothes at Home Depot during Winter months is not advisable. Change first.

The actual installation isn’t very difficult. The pipes are fairly flexible so there’s room to move them around a bit if needed.

1. Measure the sections twice.
2. Cut it once.
3. Clean all areas where the primer and glue will touch.
4. Apply the primer and then the cement quickly to the sections
5. Insert the pipes into the couplings and elbow joints using a screwing motion.
6. Let it sit and dry for the time suggested on the directions. THIS IS CRUCIAL!

I got a little overzealous and wanted to see if the cement would hold after about 15 minutes. Keep in mind that in cold weather (which is when pipes like to freeze) it takes even longer for the cement to cure—up to 24 hours. My brother turned on the water and I immediately saw drippings from one of the couplings. Back to square one. Lucky for me, I didn’t cut too far up the pipe that goes up into the floor. I was able to redo this again by just cutting above the coupling.

In my haste to do all of this, I forgot that my original plan was to add dump valves in the lines so that I could drain the pipes on nights that would dip below freezing. Since I had the pipes off again, I decided to purchase two more valves and add them onto the lowest section of the pipes. After instructing everyone to do their showering, #1, #2, teeth brushing, filling up pots with water and ordering the pizzas for dinner (no dishes to wash), I shut off the main water again and redid everything.

The valve set into a T-coupling.

The finished product.

After 24 hours, I made sure all the valves were shut, had my brother turn on the water from inside the house while I looked for drips. Success #1!!  No drips. To test the dump valves, I had my brother closed off the valves from the pipes inside the house. Turned the knobs to the left to let the water fly and……NOTHING!!! Not a drip. Nada, zilch. I was expecting a gush of water! After shaking the pipes a little bit, I suddenly remembered physics class and equalizing pressures and all that stuff. Ran back into the house, turned on the faucet and heard a “whoosh!” as the water drained out. Success #2!

It’s been two weeks and everything is still working perfectly. I’ll add some hoses to the dump valves so I can direct the water flow next time I have to empty the valves. Also, once it’s warmer, I’ll put up a new ceiling. I think it’ll justify buying a new cordless drill for the drywall screws. 🙂

Not Really Out of this Galaxy

Category: Drills

“Our consumers want beautiful design and performance; our consumers want a simple, yet powerful camera. Our consumers want faster and seamless connectivity, and our consumers want a phone that can help them stay fit.”

–       Samsung CEO J.K. Shin

Now we’re getting somewhere. Now they’re talking my language.

Here’s what we know so far about the Samsung Galaxy S5:

• This is not the grand, sweeping new creation that everyone forecasted. It doesn’t slice and dice, or send messages to the International Space Station (is that still at thing?). It doesn’t connect wirelessly into your brain and download data and “to do” lists without you even blinking. What it is, is another iteration of the S series. Nothing more, nothing less.
• It’s bigger. I thought the S3 was a great size. I thought the S4 was getting too big. While I don’t have it in my hands yet, reports are that the 5.1” screen of the S5 is darn near the Note 3 size. That’s pretty big.
• It has a heart rate monitor. Absolutely useless to me since I wear a Garmin Forerunner 910XT paired with Garmin Connect for my jogs and workouts. Same goes for the wearable watch.
• It has a fingerprint reader. I guess this is important for security purposes and for sealing a folder within the phone. Maybe this gets a few extra points.
• The hardware has been upgraded. Faster processor (not that I’ll be able to tell the difference between the Snapdragon 801 vs the Snapdragon 805 vs the Firebreather 2000). 2GB of RAM, 2800mAh battery, and 16-megapixel camera with 4K video capabilities. I try not to get caught up in the megapixel war since it doesn’t really make a difference to me. Low-light performance and fast camera start-up speeds are much more important to me. Only time will tell once people actually start to use the camera in April. Also, I don’t own anything that’s 4K capable so having a phone that is, really won’t make much of a difference to me.
• There’s less software crud. To many, some of the most awesome things about the S4 were all the bells and whistles that Samsung loaded onto it. (E.g., web pages that scrolls down because your eyes move.) Unfortunately for me, this is all too confusing. I have no issues with the .045 calories it takes to swipe a page down with my finger. Simple works.
• The case is different from the S4. I’m not sure why this even deserves its own bullet point. I guess people are really caught up in the way a phone feels and the (implied?) luxuriousness of an all-metal/glass case. What I do know about metal and glass is that they shatter and dent when dropped. While I try not to make a habit out of dropping my phone, it does happen. Heck, it just happened yesterday and now I’m on my second, cracked screen for my 4s.
• The screen looks to be the same Super AMOLED 1080p. Lots of people love this thing. I hate the oversaturation of colors. It hurts my eyes. Maybe I can tune this down a little bit.

Conclusion: Samsung struck first and it wasn’t a knockout blow. This wasn’t even a left hook or right uppercut. This was more like a stiff jab. If I had to buy a new phone today, I’d probably be okay picking this up. But with the other flagships being released soon, I’ll keep my ear to the ground and see if something else better comes along.

Also, there’s a nasty rumor going around that this release is not the highest end S5. The rumor is that Samsung is waiting for HTC to release their new flagship and then Samsung will release a higher end model shortly after. So that to say the current one is the “5c” model to a potential 5s release. I really hope Samsung doesn’t do this. They’re going to piss off a lot of customers.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Category: Drills, Bills

In the beginning, it was just a digital/analog, candy-bar Samsung phone that was slightly smaller than the Zack Morris special. It didn’t play music or send messages. It didn’t let you play Candy Crush, or let your friends know exactly what you thought about the latest Hunger Games moves in 160 characters or less. It had exactly 20 minutes of “anytime minutes” each month. It worked perfectly as long as I stayed on I-35 and I-90 which worked fine for me. It meant that I would have a way of calling for help if/when my car died on the 6-hour drive to and from college. Somewhere along the line, that Samsung was traded in for a few different phones, some better, some not. Finally when the Treo 680 was released, we signed up for a family plan on AT&T’s network. And then iPhone changed everything.

The love for Apple begins…and ends. Maybe.

It started with a 2GB iPod as a graduation gift. And then another Nano. And then the iPhone 3G. And then the iPhone 4s. And finally the iPhone 5. Throw in a MacBook Pro and an iPad 2 somewhere in there. We were sucked into the Appleniverse including being grandfathered into the unlimited data plan for $30 through AT&T. Apple UNDERSTOOD us! We aren’t tech gurus. We want things to work, and we want them to work well without ever having to wonder about if it’s going to fail, or why it works. And so, Apple received its fair share of our earned income. But lately, Apple has been losing ground. Screens keep cracking. Batteries keep reading below 10% when 5 minutes before, they read 75%. Or, they may simply just shut off without warning. The microphone won’t work when on speaker phone, but it’ll work perfectly for voice memos. Granted while my MBP and the iPad have performed flawlessly over the past 5 years,  I’m starting to lose faith in their phone cousins. So begins the search for a new replacement.

The Contenders

It’s an exciting year for those who are searching for new phones. The top three phone producers (Samsung, HTC, and Apple) are all set to introduce and release a new flagship at some point this year. Samsung has already announced its Galaxy S5. HTC intends to introduce its phone in March, and Apple…well Apple is being ninja Apple again. While the idea of a simple update (i.e., iPhone 6) is alluring, it may be the right time to switch platforms entirely. So as the next few months unfolds, I’ll be figuring out what my next phone will be according to the following criteria:

• Ease of Use – The simple truth is that I’m lazy. I don’t like having to mess around with too many things. I don’t need cool widgets that pop up and remind me of things I should be doing, or angry birds flashing across the screen. I need something that makes a call, sends and receives text, has navigation, and can surf the web without using very much brain power. I’ll never publish a movie using my phone or use it to start a fire in outer space. It just needs to work when I want it to work.
• Camera – This kind of goes back to being a little bit lazy. I have a DSLR with big lenses, filters, stands, flashes, and all sorts of memory cards. But if Little Guy decides that today is the day he’s going to to start walking, The first thing I’m going to grab is my phone and videotape it immediately and send it to his mom, grandparents, and everyone else that won’t block me for spamming them with videos of the cutest kid in the world. A phone that fails at this (Definition of fail: Does not do exactly as it is described it will do, fails to capture a high quality image or video, or in any other way disappoints and misses out on the big moment) will most likely get the boot.
• Size – Phablets may be fabulous for some, but I’m not a big guy and my pockets are not that big. I don’t even like carrying my current 4s in a case because it adds too much bulk. Also, I ride the metro subway quite often. If I need two hands to handle my phone, at some point I will be using my phone and will fall flat on my face when the metro comes to a screeching halt. I’d like to avoid that moment of embarrassment if I can.
• The X Factor – The reality is that sometimes there’s just an “X” factor that makes you sway one way or another. Sometimes its the  deciding factor. Sometimes it’s the tiebreaker and sometimes, it just isn’t relevant. But, it exists.

Everything else is trivial. The few apps I use are available on Android and iOS. They probably are also available on Windows if I decide to go that route. Some may run smoother on one platform vs. the other but that’s just part of the transition. Music is great but just because I switch from iOS doesn’t mean I can’t continue to use iTunes. Yes, I’ll need to do some sort of converting to get iTunes to play on an Android but I’m sure the smart folks at Google/Samsung/HTC or whoever have figured out some awesome way to do this in the background.

Let the search begin!