11:49 PM. From down the hall, an ominous THUMP…. THUMP…. THUMP… The sound of Claire kicking her legs against the mattress like some kind of imprisoned mermaid.
Liz: You know, that’s what I think every time she does that.
Me: Damn, I love you.
I’m really excited by the amount of progress I’ve made over the last couple of weekends, hacking away at what for now is known as Shindig, a group management blog/calendar app written against TurboGears. Its primary purpose is to be something easier and faster for me to maintain than ClePy’s current Plone site. I’m sure much of what it solves has already been done, but I want something exactly tuned to giving me the most streamlined workflow possible, and, let’s face it, it’s just plain fun to write code.
So ordinarily, I’d be psyched about how much I’d be able to get done this weekend… Except that the stupid Harry Potter book is showing up in the mail tomorrow, and that basically means that it will consume every waking, lighted hour until it’s done. I love the books, I really do, but it’s really putting a crimp on my Python geek-out sessions. But I have to be done reading by Monday, that’s for sure, or else I will have to gouge my eyes out to avoid spoilers. My predictions: Snape dies (he’s obviously been set up for a hard-core double-agent redemption arc, so he’ll probably save the day somehow), Harry lives (and will be the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher ever), and Ron and Hermione will finally succumb to the powerful call of teenage hormones and romantic comedy conventions and hook up in a major way.
Oh, yes, and I’m going to see Howard Shore conducting the Cleveland Orchestra in performance of his Lord of the Rings Symphony tomorrow night, so that knocks out a couple more hours of potential coding time. Which I guess I can live with; enjoying some of my favorite music, conducted by its composer, performed by one of the world’s foremost orchestras, under the night sky, with a picnic and a nice glass of wine… Should be a real treat.
…
Tonight marks 24 hours since the arrival of the Apple TV. So far, I’m very, very impressed. I have modest needs, primarily to replace an aging SlimP3 that’s prone to chronic buffer under-runs ever since I replaced my dying firewall, and it solves all of my most common use cases with total aplomb. I’ve been delightfully impressed by its streaming performance, which, even with an 802.11b/g setup, is nothing short of freaking amazing. I’m also very satisfied with the image quality out of the component video cables (chosen since our altar to the television gods predates HDMI by a generation or so). My advice so far, to any prospective owners, boils down to two points:
Beware of the YouTube integration; Liz and I must have spent an hour tonight watching videos of cats doing stupidly cute things. It is a powerful and addictive time-sink.
…
Finally, I’m happy to report that the first of two freebie poster-size prints from Shutterfly arrived today and it looks great. I picked up a 50mm prime lens for my Canon (Digital Rebel XT) recently, and the folks at Amazon threw in a coupon for one free 11×14 and 16×20 print. The 16×20 (which I expect sometime Saturday or Monday) will probably end up framed and in our dining room, next to some other wine-related art, and the 11×14 (which showed up today) will probably find a home in our living room. I’m really quite tickled–I’ve never printed any of my work larger than 5×7 before–but I fear that I could start going poor making prints of my better photos. Oh well; Liz said I should find a hobby…. 
apple, appletv, clepy, concerts, culture, harry-potter, lord-of-the-rings, music, photos, python, shindig
Keeping busy. More than a little stressed. The next couple of days are (as usual) critical. So far so good, though…
I’ve graduated from being assigned weird shifts for monitoring the farm during Val to being on call 24×7 for the duration; I’m not sure if this is an improvement or not, but it allowed me to attend the Lord of the Rings symphony on Saturday night. Liz and I met up with friends for dinner at the Severance Hall restaurant (tasty, though I had the world’s dullest steak knife) and then marvelled at how tight the symphony had gotten since we’d first heard it. The Cleveland Orchestra brought their “A game” and really rocked my socks; I got all weepy-eyed in all the right places. Beautiful, and a great early Valentine’s gift to ourselves!
I spent a bit of time today fixing up some geeky things that have been bothering me. I twiddled pirnat.com’s CSS a bit to be better behaved in IE, moved my IE-specifc hacks into a separate stylesheet to help get me ready for IE 7. And I finally managed to hunt down the bug in feedparser.py that was causing it to mangle content so badly (any “<br />” ended up getting doubled twice by its “cleanup” routines, and some bits of nearby text and other tags would get similarly repeated). I filed a bug with a very simple patch, so hopefully it’ll get folded into the main release at some point, so no one else will have to suffer. It’s amazing how different <(\S+?)\s*?/> (bad) and <([^\s>]+?)\s*?/> (good) can be.
Other than that, nothing exciting (other than watching the Canadian women’s hockey team annihilate pretty much everything in their path). At this point, I’m just hoping to survive the next two days!
concerts, dates, geekery, holidays, life, liz, lord-of-the-rings, music, python, sports, weekends, work
We’re now back from our adventures in Indiana. Friday was occupied with the drive down (filled with an amusingly punch-drunk loop of “are we there yet?”), and capped off with a bit of prosecco and tasty eats at Agio, which we selected based on its proximity to our B&B;, the immediacy of seating, and the volume of grumbles from our stomaches. After dinner–surprise!–the nearby sky was filled with a fireworks display. It was a nice echo of our string of early fireworks-related dates.
We had a wonderful breakfast the next morning, then it was off to the Indiana State Museum for the Lord of the Rings exhibit. I was prohibited from taking pictures inside the exhibit, which took a lot of self-control as it was all one delight after another, from props to costumes, models, maquettes, and concept art. This will show what a geek I am, but I got a little chill as I stood before the shards of Narsil, and next to it the reforged Anduril, Flame of the West. The One Ring was presented very effectively, suspended in mid-air in a separate chamber, ringed in darkness and fire, whispers of the black speech echoing all around. Kids seemed to quite enjoy the motion capture demonstration, and I got a kick out of getting my picture taken with Liz on the “Gandalf’s cart” photo booth.
Once through the exhibit, we had a nice walk along the canal and crossed over the river and visited the zoo, which was a nice recap to our reception five years ago at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo. Sadly, seahorses just aren’t as cool as those jellyfish (sorry, Indianapolis).
Dinner that night at Scholar’s Inn was simply excellent. The bottle of Iron Horse vintage 2000 Blanc de Noirs “Wedding Cuvee” set the stage for an evening of delicious treats. Highly recommended!
Sunday, another nummy breakfast, and then we were on the road again to head back to Cleveland. Liz drove while I read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe aloud to help us reconcile our distant childhood memories of the book with our expectations for the upcoming movie. We paused along the way to visit DeBrand for a chocolate fix; if you happen to find yourself in Fort Wayne, you should do the same.
culture, food, liz, lord-of-the-rings, travel, weekends, wine
After working eleven days straight, the weekend–a weekend, any weekend–is almost in sight. Hip-hip-fucking-huzzah!!
In brief: Valentine’s Day. We. Owned. It. Oh, baby, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh! After a year’s worth of fear, worry, and despair, it turned out that two or three weeks of frantic last-minute preparation paid off, and we sailed through our biggest day of the year, while all major competition–including Hallmark, who had paid presumably incomparable bills to IBM to pimp out their website–were crushed and left in little flaming piles by the side of the road. By mid-morning, when we started to see that we were going to hold up just fine, the shouts arose among the geeky rabble, testing the patience of the Fates–BRING! IT! ON! For the rest of the week, we of Technology were hailed as kings among men, celebrated with passing cheers and mass-emailed barbaric YAWPS from our senior management. For once, it is a very good week to be me.
Thus, I have been able to really enjoy this week’s belated Valentine’s dinner at Parallax, which is truly a culinary delight. Polite company might term it “Asian food in French style meets French food in Asian style.” Trendy company might simply refer to it as “fusion.” After a parade of wines, sushi, appetizers, salads, and entrees, I cannot describe it as anything other than this: FUCKING AMAZING. I apologize if the strong language burns your eyes or makes the Baby Jesus cry, but, honestly, this is the kind of place that can’t be expressed without HBO-level warning labels.
Some would call the sushi menu limited, but it is simply focused, and what is offered is without flaw; I haven’t tasted its equal since our trips to Vancouver or San Francisco. The spicy tuna was especially marvelous. Also consumed were massive appetizer plates of calamari (yum!) and smoked salmon (double-yum!); a salad of seared scallops, bacon, baby greens, and tomatoes, with a light cream sauce; Alaskan black cod with a miso glace; and, one of the evening’s specials, a crispy half-duck in a Szechuan glaze, served with a bed of perfect sushi rice.
On the alcohol front, we sampled a tasty non-vintage bubbly (to celebrate), an Austrian Gruner Veltliner (round and delicious, like the best parts of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc), a German Gewüztraminer, a French Chenin Blanc, a lovely and very well-balanced New Zealand Pinot Noir, and–star of the show–cold, unfiltered sake!! Ever since our first encounter with this marvelous creature at a Berkeley sushi joint last summer, finding cold, unfiltered sake has been like a Grail quest for us. Most places have never heard of such a thing, and those that have are afraid to serve it because it is so unlike what most people consider sake to be. Thankfully, Parallax serves a bottle of the stuff that is damn near perfect, and a real blessing to behold in conjunction with the well-executed menu.
The service was very good throughout our meal; our waiter (a Champagne transplant) very quickly figured out our relaxed, try a bit of everything approach to dinner, and we never felt rushed–even after we closed out the main dining area, he was still puckishly tempting us with dessert.
So, to sum up… If you enjoy food, if you enjoy wine, if you enjoy the two together, Parallax should go immediately to the top of your to-do list.
Tomorrow, after an endless stream of pseudo-Thursdays, it is finally Friday, and the celebration continues with early-birthday treats: a trip to Chicago for One Man Lord of the Rings and the tasting menu at Topolobampo.
It’s good to be the ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
exilejedi…. 
PS: Valentine says hello from her perch on my lap. Meow!
birthday, cats, food, holidays, lord-of-the-rings, naughty-words, wine, work
aquamindy and I (okay, mostly aquamindy, but I helped) installed a cat hole on our laundry room door this week!
Julia beholds the glory
Valentine enjoys the new opening
Julia through the arch
In thoroughly unrelated news, we have tickets to see One Man Lord of the Rings in Chicago in February!! My bounces of excitement and joy cannot be tamed!! To round out our little jaunt, aquamindy scored dinner rezzies at Topolobampo, which looks like it will pretty much blow my mind. (The chef, Rick Bayless, was a recent combatant on Iron Chef America.)
Even more unrelated, Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask has its first review from Sundance. I am so completely and totally stoked to see this film! It can’t get to a theatre near me soon enough.
Having completed my official son-in-law tech support duties for the evening, I can now wrap this up and hit the mighty POST button. Cheers, and enjoy your Friday!
Apparently, today is the single day of the year that is in most dire need of listening to the Bangles’ “Manic Monday” until your head explodes with nostalgic, new-wave cheer. That’s right, today is officially the most depressing day of the year.
To cheer you all up, here’s a nice little follow-up to last time’s Darth Tater link… One of the better Fark Photoshop contests of the last few weeks.
There, doesn’t that feel better?
In other news, my copy of the one-volume 50th anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings finally arrived today, along with the 2005 calendars that had been holding up my order. It’s a really, really nice set, and well deserving of the high praise that has been heaped upon it (besides, of course, being Lord of the Rings, which rather goes without saying). And there was much rejoicing…
Similar amounts of celebration arose from my astoundingly productive work day, during which time I managed to catch up on the work I had planned to do on Saturday, and still polish off everything that was on today’s to-do list. It just goes to show what I can do with a fully-charged iPod and no meetings to get in my way. w00t!
Taking a bold step into 1999 (or perhaps 2000), I finally got around to setting up a Photoshop droplet to automatically batch process photos to be uploaded/attached to entries in my wine notes wiki. This should give my iMac something to do while I tinker on other things, and it’ll get me one step closer to computing nirvana (or something).
Finally, and thankfully, the kittens graced us with the easiest and least-fussy claw-trimming session so far. If only all “claw nights” could be so–what’s the word I’m looking for? Injury-free!
cats, geekery, links, lord-of-the-rings, music, retail-therapy, wine, work
Two bottles of not-so-tasty wine on Friday night eventually led to one that was happy, which ended up paired with grilled brats and Return of the King.
Slept in far past our originally planned time, then discovered that our lack of hot water on Friday morning was not a fluke, as the shower would only briefly flirt with being mildly tepid before producing nothing but ice water. Showered very, very quickly. It turns out that some of the collection of random wires which the electrician did not attach to the new electrical box were the circuit for the water heater. Whoops! So I think he and our general contractor will be having a little conversation at some point soon…
Dealing with the water took up much of the afternoon. Liz had a bit of a nap, then we were off to the pseudo-going-away festivities (I say “pseudo” because it was a fairly laid-back affair of casual conversation and good times that never really even touched on ayb2’s departure). The meal was tasty, and a good time was had by all–save, of course, for Ronald Reagan and Smarty Jones, who appear to have both had a jolly rotten day.
Zipped on down to the theatres at Valley View for Harry Potter, which was much better than the first two films. Lots of subplots and details got dropped in order to service the taut main storyline, but I was okay with most of the omissions. The end credit sequence was also quite fun and worth paying attention to. I’m very glad to see the films improve as the books did (though the second one is still my least favorite, in either medium).
Hung out at Champp’s after the movie for a bit to nosh and have a drink and chatter some more. Saw the end of the hockey game. Whee, hockey. Realized that I’m really going to miss Angie, but that I’m still overflowing with happiness for her. Whee, life.
The photos from Thursday’s Food Forum outing to Carrie Cerino’s are now online; mad props to Joel for his excellent work, and for allowing me to host them for him.
Hmf. It is way, way too late for me to be awake if I am serious about doing some work on Sunday. I wonder if I’m really that serious. Hmf. Perhaps mildly. I’ll have to see how I feel after some much-deserved sleeeeeeeeeeep.
current-events, food, friends, harry-potter, house, kitchen, liz, lord-of-the-rings, movies, weekends, wine
Somewhere, someone has flipped the switch, and Cleveland has suddenly lurched out of its long, dreary season into one of sunshine, flowers, and warming temperatures. Of course, there’s always a day or two of delay before the climate control in the office adjusts to the change, so it’s currently just shy of fifty million degrees in my cube, and what’s left of my motivation has thoroughly evaporated. I can’t even say that “all I can think about” is getting out of here to go enjoy the weekend, because I apparently can’t even be bothered to form such a thing into a single, coherent thought.
Yup, it’s definitely spring. Hard-core.
In other news… Um. Let’s see.
house, kitchen, liz, lord-of-the-rings, retail-therapy, star-wars, weather
Egads, but it’s been far too long since I’ve posted anything here. I guess I’d better write about this weekend while it’s still fresh.
Sometime last fall, I bouncily reported to my wife that the Columbus Orchestra would be performing Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings Symphony: Six Movements for Orchestra and Chorus in March, and would she at all be interested in possibly maybe going. At the time, she shrugged and said sure, and I ordered tickets online just as lickety-split quick as I could.
Fast forward to this weekend. It turned out that Columbus would have the honor of hosting the US premiere of the symphony. Oh, excitement!
We both took Friday off from work so that we could sleep in, pack some overnight things, and have a leisurely drive down to Columbus. Stopped briefly along the way to feed my addiction for Mephisto shoes (damn comfy, and a good outlet for a portion of my bonus), then got settled in at the Capitol Square Hyatt for a brief rest.
We got appropriately spiffed-up and embarked on our journey.
Dinner was a handful of blocks away at Mitchell’s Steakhouse, which is located in a former bank. An enormous space, with huge, ornately decorated ceilings, it still manages to feel intimate. The food was delicious, the wine we selected Langtry’s 1998 Meritage) was a fabulous match, and the service was great (I was amazed by the fact that our waitress took the vastly over-charred creme brulee off of our bill even though we’d eaten almost all of it, and hadn’t asked for it to be sent back or anything).
Our destination for the performance was the Ohio Theatre, conveniently located right next to the Hyatt. It’s truly a beautiful location, absolutely lovely at every square inch. I was somewhat alarmed as we were shown to our seats; I remembered I had purchased loge tickets all those months and months ago, but I’d never actually bothered to work out where we’d be sitting. Well. Surprise! We were in the very first row of the loge, just a few seats to the right of center. I honestly could not have asked for a better location. Wow! And, hey, I asked, what might be the deal with the three screens with the tengwar glyphs on them? I hadn’t heard about any kind of video accompaniment. Double wow! As the musicians (three choirs and a full orchestra!) started to file in and warm up, I started to really geek out with anticipation.
I can’t even begin to describe how much I loved the performance. Shore’s Rings music has a way of completely captivating me. And, I’ll be honest, there are certain places in the score so achingly beautiful that I can’t help but get quite teary-eyed. All the while, music was matched with projected video of sketches by artist John Howe, which in themselves were stunning. The video was fairly straightforward, with lots of “Ken Burns Effect,” but quite powerful with the music, really tapping directly into the imagination. The balrog and the destruction of Mordor were particularly powerful sequences when paired with the video. It was really a tremendous, amazing honor to be present; the audience’s standing ovation at the end went on and on and on and on… Shore seemed quite overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and appreciation. (I half expected him to good-naturedly shoo us out as I’ve seen John Williams do, but it didn’t happen; I don’t think he’s quite so used to this kind of “rock star” treatment yet.)
Okay, so there were a couple of nits that I’ll pick. The soloist from the children’s choir was decent, but not quite up to snuff, and certainly no Edward Ross, so the vocal portion of “The Breaking of the Fellowship” was not quite as exquisite as I would have liked it. On the other hand, I was impressed by the female soloist who sang in the movements from The Two Towers and The Return of the King–she had a LOT of different material to cover, and acquitted herself quite well. (She had to sing the Emiliana Torrini “Gollum’s Song,” had to try to fill Annie Lennox’s shoes for “Into the West,” had all of Ben Del Maestro’s material from both Towers and King… Impressive!)
My only other nit is just from the perspective of wishing certain things hadn’t been cut in order to fit the symphony into a comfortable length of time. For the most part, I had no problems with what was omitted, or how transitions were constructed, but I really wanted to hear the “Shelob’s Lair” music, because I love how much of a tripped-out Bernard Herrman homage it is, all kinds of creepy and wild and tumultuous and perfect for Shelob.
But, like I said, it was a tremendous evening, and I loved it.
In case you were really curious, here’s what makes up the symphony:
Today we had some quickie errands to take care of in Columbus, had lunch at The Ocean Club, another of Cameron Mitchell’s restaurants. The food was delightful and I must now publicly declare my passionate love for the decor! Every inch is organic, elegant, underwater, cool! I will definitely be back, and you should check it out too.
Along the way back home, we also stopped at Grandpa’s Cheese Barn, because, well, with a name like “Cheese Barn,” it has to be worth checking out. It made a nice excuse to get out of the car for a bit, and didn’t disappoint. The cheese and other things out for sampling were quite tasty. Grandpa’s also features a deli, various meats and smoked dead things, über-quaint kitchy gifts, home made ice cream, and fudge. We escaped with minimal damages, only a block of cranberry cheese, the best seventy-five-cent chocolate chip cookie in the universe, and a bottle of water. (The whiskey cheese was also tempting, but I was able to resist it.)
And thus we are returned, grateful for the journey, but glad to be home.
dates, food, liz, lord-of-the-rings, music, retail-therapy, travel, wine
