243/365 Unexpected passenger

243/365 Unexpected passenger
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

242/365 So much for time-saving

242/365 So much for time-saving
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Sewing machine FAIL.

The SOOTTAD ended up having to do her alterations by hand.

241/365 Ducks and a Gull

241/365 Ducks and a Gull
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

240/365 Overly Coordinated

240/365 Overly Coordinated
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I'll occasionally find that my shorts and shirt match, but I don't usually expect them to also match my sports drink.

239/365 Double FAIL

239/365 Double FAIL
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Still not having any luck getting the second display to operate as an independent workspace. I'm glad I found the 1920x1080 monitor because it's a lot easier to troubleshoot a screen just to the right than a projected image that's behind and over your shoulder. (plus, it's not burning minutes off our projector lamp)

Nevertheless, it would be nice if I could get it up and running. Sadly, I don't feel like I'm really going to learn much from this exercise other than how to get two displays with separate workspaces running in Ubuntu. I guess it's learning, but it's specialized but probably not applicable elsewhere.

238/365 Receipt Bloat

238/365 Receipt Bloat
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Irritated enough by the extreme ridiculousity of the receipt from a Staples purchase that I had to take a picture of it. (and not many other pictures today.) It's mostly rebate stuff, but... wow. And the rebate price wasn't much better than the price at Costco, except that I won't get it for 6-8 weeks and it'll be in the form of a Visa gift card. Not thrilled with the whole experience.

Otherwise, not a bad day. A bit on the warm side, but not overly humid. Track workout (hard) in the morning. Appointment with the nurse practitioner in order to get Xrays because I started worrying that my wrist might actually be fractured -- but no word yet on that.

I keep wondering whether I should find a new doctor. The NP has misdiagnosed me at least twice (missed a torn ligament and whooping cough on separate occasions) and then the pamphlets on osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes and bereavement counseling make me consider I'm in the wrong demographic. I had some photos of the pamphlets but they weren't very interesting, and I missed an opportunity to get one of the v!agra-branded wall clock -- seems like there should be a good v!agra/bone-density joke in there somewhere. (fingers-crossed that this post doesn't generate comment spam or ridiculous hits for the ED references.)

237/365 Tomato diversity

237/365 Tomato diversity
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Yay, tomatoes! (Take that tomato blight. No wait, don't take it. Please, please don't take it.)

236/365 Nauset Light Beach

236/365 Nauset Light Beach
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I was talked into driving to the cape to surf the post-Hurricane swells. It's about 100 miles each way, taking a bit under 2 hours (which is why we tried Narragansett for our first forays into surfing in the northeast); gratefully, no traffic at all. (From what I heard, they didn't let people in the water on the big overhead surf days over the weekend, which is unfortunate, because I imagine that it'd be fun to just go and watch even if I couldn't surf that stuff.)

A beautiful day, and the waves were of goodly size, but it was a bit choppy at times and honestly, I'm not really good enough for even the smaller 5-6' waves. Plus, getting used to yet another board didn't help. (this time I got a 9'4" surftech longboard from Nauset Surf in Orleans -- only $20/day! Good prices for buying boards, too, at least compared to the shop we've been to in Narragansett.)

Still, a nice day to be out at the beach.

235/365 Slimey McGiantslug

235/365 Slimey McGiantslug
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

234/365 Picking Blueberries

234/365 Picking Blueberries
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

...at the SOOTTAD's parental homestead.

Got totally devoured by mosquitoes, but we did get blueberries and blackberries as compensation, which I guess makes it worth it.

233/365 Grapes of all sizes

233/365 Grapes of all sizes
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

[UPDATE: 26Aug2009] Unfortunately, it looks like most of these have been eaten by the stupid opossum.

232/365 Blackberry Treat

232/365 Blackberry Treat
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I think the SOOTTAD may have mentioned something about this, but freshly picked blackberries plus vanilla ice cream equals WIN.

And NOM.

231/365 Blowout

231/365 Blowout
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Thankfully, it blew out when we slowed down for the tollbooth, so there wasn't much loss of control and we could pull over before totally trashing the rim. It did kind of kill the plan to make it a quick trip out to the SOOTTAD's parental homestead to take care of the garden. And we still have to see about getting new tires tomorrow...

230/365 Sappy

230/365 Sappy
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

The cherry tree is sad.

229/365 Tomato Salad

229/365 Tomato Salad
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

228/365 Spirit Winner

228/365 Spirit Winner
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

227/365 Huck

227/365 Huck
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Day 1 of the end-of-season BUDA summer club league. We were 2-2 with a +9 point diff for the day. Lots of close games making for lots of excitement, even for a Div2/Div3 team like ours.

226/365 Heatsink

226/365 Heatsink
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

complete with thermal gel... putting together the HTPC -- I was able to boot Ubuntu, but didn't have time to figure out appropriate partitioning to finish the installation.

225/365 Jaunty Installation

225/365 Jaunty Installation
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Worked on some trial installs of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu 9.04 (codenamed "Jaunty Jackalope") in preparation for our new HTPC, on my old AMD Athlon PC I bought back in 2001.

Nothing like a long day sitting in front of multiple computers constantly googling on one and rebooting the other. But hey, it auto-mounts the network drive now, so, y'know, progress.

224/365 Bathroom FAIL

224/365 Bathroom FAIL
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

The piece o' crap shelf system in the tub (that was in the house when we bought it) finally rusted through and came crashing down... while I was showering.
Thankfully, no unwanted piercings.

223/365 Garlic Chive

223/365 Garlic Chive
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

222/365 A Good Start

222/365 A Good Start
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

We've started getting a few tomatoes from the garden this year, which is a little encouraging after hearing about the late blight outbreak that's been spreading throughout the northeast. I panicked when I read the news and tried to prune any sketchy looking leaves while saving as much fruit as possible Saturday morning.

Since then, I've poked around the internets to get a better idea of what I should be looking for and it seems like I may have overreacted, or at least, it seems like the fruit isn't showing visible signs of infection. Still, I'm going to try to keep an eye on things. Unfortunately, blight or no, the plants are definitely not looking particularly healthy this year -- fruit set seems low and a few of the plants were definitely getting attacked by something, although not late blight as far as I could tell. (seemed bug-based to me, but then again, what do I know?)

221/365 Tilt'n Diner

221/365 Tilt'n Diner
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

We stopped at the Tilt'n Diner on the way back from our friend's birthday ziplining extravaganza. We may need to keep it in mind when we head up to Dance Camp next month.

220/365 HBD FeGurl!

220/365 HBD FeGurl!
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

219/365 Wacked

219/365 Wacked
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

218/365 Surf Lessons at Narragansett Beach

218/365 Surf Lessons at Narragansett Beach
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Back down to Narragansett for the second time and had much more success with a 9'2" board and a full wetsuit. I'm still just a beginner, but at least I caught a few waves this time.

217/365 Fruit Stripe

217/365 Fruit Stripe
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Like the gum, only tomatoier.

I guess that's why they call them Mr. Stripey tomatoes.

216/365 Geese on the Charles

216/365 Geese on the Charles
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I had a late start this morning, and didn't want to make the SOOTTAD take off any extra time from work, so after dropping my car off for service in Watertown, I decided to run home (just under 6 miles) and then biked back when I had to return to pick it up. Which allowed me to catch this view crossing a footbridge on the Newton/Watertown line that I otherwise wouldn't have seen. Plus, lots of exercise today. (even went to frisbee practice afterwards)

It's nice when life works out like that.

215/365 Sending Out Scouts

215/365 Sending Out Scouts
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

The strawberry plants are sending out runners in search of new territories to settle, but they're not going to find much luck in the driveway.

214/365 Chumpion Champagne

214/365 Chumpion Champagne
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

...or perhaps, CHUMPAGNE.

We were surprised with two bottles of "champagne" for winning the B-pool at the Hingham Invitational Ultimate tournament this weekend. People thought the non-purple one was acceptable, but if you dispensed with the expectation that it should actually taste like champagne, or sparkling wine, or... well, WINE, the purple stuff really wasn't that bad -- basically, boozy grape soda.

And no insta-hangover -- it's WIN-WIN!

213/365 blueberries

213/365 blueberries
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

from the SOOTTAD's parental homestead.