I’ve finished migrating the site from [Movable Type](http://www.movabletype.org/) to [Wordpress](http://www.wordpress.org/). You might want to re-create your feed subscriptions, but other than that there’s nothing that should change all that much. Thanks for your patience!
A couple of weeks ago, on a Tuesday, I did my morning normal routine with a slight modification: I couldn’t take a shower because there was no water. The city had decided it’d be cool to shut it off, presumably for some construction that was taking place along Blackwell St, and not tell anybody. The apartments had no warning and thus couldn’t give us any warning either.
Then today, as I exited my apartment on the way to [work](http://www.oit.duke.edu/) I noticed a line of parked cars, including my car, all with neon orange “PARKING TICKET” envelopes on their windshields. Apparently the city had put up “No Parking” signs on the telephone poles at some point and again utterly failed to inform anyone. I’ve been parking outside my building for as long as I’ve lived here with no trouble whatsoever. I came home last night after doing the grocery shopping and didn’t notice the new signs, assuming they were there already. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten, unless some small, barely noticeable change takes place, in which case you get a $10 parking ticket.
To their credit, Ally and Kia in the leasing office had no idea they were going to be ticketing, and agreed to take $10 of next month’s rent if I’m unable to successfully contest the ticket. Still, it’s the *principle* of the thing.
First, my apologies for the lack of posts over the course of the past couple months. Life was both busy — mostly with work, but also with my sometimes overwhelming social life — and uneventful, so I didn’t really have a chance to post much of anything, but even if I had there was nothing to post. But now we’re back with exciting happenings!
This past Saturday night, there was a music event at a new bar downtown called [The Pinhook](http://www.thepinhook.com/). It was billed as a [steampunk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) gathering, which I’ve severely missed since [The Clockwork Ball](http://www.myspace.com/theclockworkball) moved to Chapel Hill with the closure of Ringside, so Betsy, myself, and our mutual friend Karaya who was in town from Atlanta suited up and headed out.
In the interest of helping the Old Bull residents maintain communication amongst one another I’ve started the [Old Bullies](http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oldbullies) group on [Yahoo Groups](http://groups.yahoo.com/). I’m inviting all residents to join, as well as frequent guests of theirs and potential future residents. It can be tough getting a community off the ground — I know because I’ve started several — but I hope that this could become a valuable resource.
Hit the page, [join the list](http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oldbullies/join), and let’s start a conversation.
Yeah, I know, it’s Wednesday. But Monday was part of last weekend, and I was too busy yesterday to write this. Join me, please, in a journey into the past.
This last weekend was really great. Friday night [Betsy](http://onlyevenprime.com/) and I just hung out. Saturday, we went over to our dear friend Kassi’s house in Wake Forest to help her celebrate her birthday. She recently came back from a London/Paris trip and had lots of amazing and beautiful pictures to show us and gifts to give. Betsy made this awesome pork chop dinner, and we watched some [Doctor Who](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/), drank some [sparkling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkling_wine) [rosé](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosé) wine, and just enjoyed ourselves. Sunday was more hanging out at home with Betsy.
Monday, Kassi came over to hang out with us, and we found out that [Six Plates](http://sixplates.blogspot.com/) does half-price bottles of wine on Monday nights. I don’t think I’ve mentioned Six Plates here before, but it’s one of my favorite restaurants. The premise behind it is that there are exactly six entrée options with a menu that rotates every couple of weeks. With each entrée are paired six ideal and unique wine-by-the-glass options of wines that you’ve probably never considered trying before. [Matthew Beason](http://sixplates.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-about-matthew-beason.html), the owner, noticed that when people went out to eat they were rarely willing to experiment with wine, so he applies his wine knowledge — which is extensive — to helping folks find new flavors and styles. Chef Ted Domville uses all local ingredients whenever possible, and it’s just a wonderful place.
Kassi and I had the Cane Creek pork chop with white “baked beans” and bok choy, and Betsy had the Braeburn Farm sirloin with caramelized sweet potatoes and tobacco onion rings. It was all amazing. We started with the cheese plate — which is brilliantly presented on a piece of slate with the cheese names written in chalk, along with fresh honey and honeycomb and some crusty bread — and a bottle of Californian rosé which was unlike any other rosé I’ve ever tried. With and after dinner, we had a pinot gris which was also simply delightful, and then we finished up with the chocolate mousse trio for desert. It’s a great place, and I absolutely recommend everyone who likes good food and good wine at reasonable prices check it out.
Yesterday was a day of deliveries:
- TiVo HD
- TiVo Wireless G Adapter (for the old TiVo Series 2 unit in my bedroom)
- Linksys WRT54GL wireless router
- A couple more HDMI cables
I hooked up the TiVo HD to plain old basic cable for now, but Time Warner’s arriving tomorrow to set up my digital cable and give me a CableCard adapter for the TiVo. I realized I had a bunch of devices in the living room that need to be on the network, and rather than put all of them on the wireless individually — which, in some cases would require purchasing an additional wireless adapter for the device — I could just get the Linksys router, slap the awesome and free Tomato third-party firmware on it, disable the routing functionality, and set it up as a wireless bridge to my main wireless router. Then I can just plug things in to the LAN ports on the “router” in the living room and they appear to be on the same network as the rest of my LAN. Neat stuff. I also finally put an 802.11g adapter on my older TiVo, which means I can shut off the 802.11b network that I was running solely for its needs.
Here are some photos:
The new TV was delivered by Yellow Transportation freight Monday evening. It was later than I’d expected because the driver had a really bad day; first his cargo liftgate was stuck in the up-and-extended position, and then later the rolling door on the back of the truck lost a couple of hinges. But he was incredibly friendly and professional and helped us get the TV inside. The set itself was remarkably light, and we had no trouble getting it on the stand I’d gotten and assembled the week before. I let it relax for about an hour to reach room temperature — setting up the PS3, cable, and stereo hookups while I waited — and then fired it up. It looks, in a word, glorious. It’s bright, crisp, and fast. If I try real hard I can see the rainbow effect when quickly moving my eyes across the image, but I don’t notice it when I’m watching. Two games that I’d had problems with — Burnout Paradise and PixelJunk Eden — on my older, smaller TV are a lot easier and more engrossing on the big screen. Vann’s was great, with phenomenal prices, free shipping, and excellent sales support, so I’d recommend at least checking their prices if you’re going to be making a big A/V purchase.
I’m looking forward to enjoying this thing for a very long time. Here are some photos:
Well, actually, I haven’t yet. But Kevin over at [Bull City Rising](http://www.bullcityrising.com/) has: he talks about the [illuminated sign on the corner of the building](http://www.bullcityrising.com/2008/08/atcs-old-bull-s.html). I still haven’t seen it, since I spend more time paying attention to the inside of my apartment than the outside, but I might meander out tonight or tomorrow night to take a gander.
As most people who have worked for a university or college can attest, higher education has parking and transportation departments that can border on totalitarian. [Duke](http://www.duke.edu/) isn’t really any different in that regard. I understand that most of the folks in the [Parking & Transportation Services](http://siren.auxserv.duke.edu/parking/) department are good, honest people who are doing a very necessary and important job, but the reality of the situation is that sometimes that job requires them to be stern and draconian.
Today, however, I had the sublime experience of being able to return their parking permit to them. I was paying about $30 per month to park in the decks here at [American Tobacco](http://www.americantobaccohistoricdistrict.com/), and that’s something I no longer need now that I both walk to work and am provided two permits — one for each bedroom in my apartment — by the leasing office. That’s around $360 a year I’ll be glad to have back.
Yeah, it’s a [D&D](http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome) reference. Sorry. The [TV stand](http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-TR-500X3BX-Adjustable-61-Inch-Stand/dp/B000P53JRG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1219163958&sr=8-1) was one of the most difficult pieces of furniture I’ve ever had to assemble. After about two hours of struggling with it, it’s together, looks great, and seems sturdy enough. You can’t even tell where the back fell off, stripping out chunks of the [MDF](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard), when I inadvertently applied too much pressure in the wrong spot during construction. It’s not as if the screws were load-bearing, at least, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.
I drove out to [Legends](http://www.legends-club.com/) in Raleigh last night to see a [dear, dear friend](http://bejipan.livejournal.com/) off before she moves to Atlanta. I’m going to miss her, and I got in pretty late because I didn’t want to leave the club. This morning I awoke with a headache — which isn’t uncommon for me after not getting enough sleep — and one of the construction people was in the courtyard alternately banging and circular-sawing. The joys of living in a construction zone. I can handle headaches; I can handle noise. But the two of them together? Ugh. I’m looking forward to an evening in, and getting to bed early.
More Toys!