Yesterday I received a package in the mail from my brother- and sister-in-law, which turned out to be a belated birthday gift. (Thank you Simon & Coral!) It was a book from amazon.co.uk with a note attached apologizing for being unable to send it in Kindle format. That was a very sweet and thoughtful gesture, that they had considered that first. I started thinking about it though; why can’t you gift someone a Kindle book? That seems a bit weird. It should work as long as you have their correct information. If anyone knows why this is, do tell.

I went to the dentist to pick up my teeth whitening kit (after assuming they were going to do it for me, oh well) and realized that was the seventh time I’d been there since January. Yikes, that’s a bit excessive. I hadn’t gone at all for three years then I go 7 times in 8 months. :o It’s nice having insurance again, even if the coverage is minimal.

In more disgusting news, Roscoe had a bit of a rough day. Tuesday night our friend Rene brought his things over to stay with us for a few days before PAX and amongst them he had several packages of fresh almonds which he’d just bought. A bunch of us were very hungry by the time we arrived so we left all of his things in the living room and went out to dinner. When we came back, one of his plastic bags was chewed all the way through (3 layers!) and there were bits of crushed almond scattered all over the floor. Roscoe had gotten into the sugar-coated variety and had eaten a LOT of them. We cleaned up the mess and put the almonds in the cupboard. The next morning after we’d fed the kitties their breakfast, I heard a strange sound coming from across the room. When I went over to investigate I discovered Roscoe looking down at 3 piles of half-digested cat food and almond bits. Eww. After cleaning this up he proceeded to do the same thing twice more. ~_~ He was not a happy kitty for the rest of the day. Gah, I wish he weren’t so stupid and could actually learn his lesson!

Started reading the super hyped book “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer, mostly due to curiosity over its outrageous popularity on every Kindle book list I’ve come across. If thousands of people rate it so highly, there must be something good about it. Jules commented that teenage vampires will forever be a popular topic for entertainment. Plus, admittedly, the minimalistic design of the dust jackets of her books has been quite alluring. (Oh yeah, and the book takes place in Forks, Washington, the little nothing town halfway between Aberdeen and Port Angeles. We stopped there on our trip around the Olympic Peninsula last year and had a delicious burger at a diner across from a scary gas station where souped-up pickup trucks with off-roading tires revved their engines menacingly at us when we filled up our tank.) Anyone else read anything she’s written?

The summer is almost over–it’s so hard to believe how quickly it goes when you’re working every day and packing your weekends full of activities. Even when I was in college it seemed to go much slower, but I guess not having specific milestones to mark the progress of time makes it all blend together. We were really hoping to go camping a lot more this summer but just about every weekend we had something planned in town. As I was lamenting this, Jules assured me that he didn’t mind because we were doing fun things we enjoyed anyway. That’s what really matters.

One more day till PAX and I am still coughing heavily. I really hope this cold dies down before I’m amongst thousands of other people in close quarters. Not only will it be uncomfortable and unsanitary, but I don’t want to ruin anyone’s good time, my own included. Jules had a few days of ickiness but he seems to have gotten over his bout with it already, even as I still suffer! I haven’t been getting the best sleep lately since I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night with coughing fits, so I’m not as rested as I’d hoped to be. Maybe the fun will be so distracting that my body will forget it is not at its best!

Looks like we both have approval from work to take time off during the Christmas holiday so that’s one step closer to getting to the UK! I am very excited about the prospect of seeing Stonehenge after all these years of fascination. We have to try to assemble some type of itinerary of the things we’d like to see. Anyone have suggestions? We will probably hire a car so just about everywhere in the UK is fair game. We will likely be staying in Oxford for most if not all of the time.

Things are looking great one week after planting! Here are some closeups of Italian Basil and Chives. I’ll try to keep a weekly update going to show progress.

That a deal! Amazon is currently running a promotion with their rewards Visa card for $100 off Amazon Kindle! It sounds pretty simple, just click that link, add the Kindle to the cart and enter a promo code during checkout (details on Kindle page.) If I didn’t have both of these things already, I would be jumping on this deal. I have already mentioned numerous times how much I adore my Kindle and admittedly the Amazon Visa card has been really nice as well. It’s one of those point-based systems where you spend a certain amount and get Amazon gift certificates corresponding to the total. We’ve gotten back about $250 since December using the card normally, which is more than I get back using my cash rewards Visa from my bank in a full year. It’s a fantastic deal if you do a lot of shopping on Amazon.

The last few weeks have been really hard on me. I was working on a very big, high-profile project at work which was essentially the first one I was in the driver’s seat for, so I was under a lot of stress to deliver under a very tight deadline. Our business had a personal relationship with the client but this was our first step into a business relationship with them, which was very stressful. Two weeks ago I let the stress get to me a bit too much and I had stress-related sickness (headaches, stomachaches, lightheadedness, etc) so I worked from home for a few days. After client delivery my body just gave out and I got a nasty flu that turned into a cold with a wretched cough. I’ve been nursing this the last few days, and it’s been really hard. We had visitors from out of town recently, including friends from Wisconsin (Jeff/Erin/Rene) and Jon, who came for the weekend from San Francisco. I tried very hard not to let people down by still going out and doing things despite my illness, but in some cases it was too much to handle. I missed a coworker’s wedding, a boat outing, and had to cancel plans to see movies with Jules because I wasn’t feeling up to it. I really hate disappointing people but my body is screaming at me to stop. I really need some time off though. ;_;

All of this culminates in the upcoming weekend. Friday through Monday will be jam-packed with activities because both PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) and Bumbershoot (Music and Arts Festival) are occurring simultaneously, and through a bit of poor planning on our part we ended up buying 3-day passes for both festivals. I am worried that I will be coughing and miserable throughout, and if this past week was any indication, that it will be totally wet outside (Bumbershoot is outdoors.) We are going to be so incredibly exhausted! We are trying to work out a schedule for ourselves so we can decide when and where we need to be in a particular place. Luckily PAX starts on Friday and Bumbershoot ends on Monday so there are two days that have no conflicts, but on Saturday and Sunday we will have to decide which venue gets priority. Seattle Center and the Washington Trade and Convention Center are only like 10 blocks away from each other so it will be no trouble getting a bus or walking back and forth but we have to get the timing right. At the very least it will be a fun experience, even if it’s totally exhausting. We’re doing it for good reason; we love music and video games!

Jules and I have spent a bit too much money this last month so we have to start to be a bit more conservative. We both built brand new computers in anticipation of Diablo III’s upcoming release, both got iPhones, and a bunch of other little things lately (herb garden, a bunch of shoes for Jules, recycling equipment and other “green” things like a water-conserving showerhead and LED night lights.) We are tossing around the idea of going to England for Christmas to visit his family and have a honeymoon. We definitely have enough in savings for that but it would be nice to have money put aside specifically for the trip. It feels very weird having a positive balance in the bank account with no credit card debt and still be able to afford nice things. Jules and I are still trying to find the right ratio of spending to saving which is appropriate for our lifestyle. Honestly, I am much more concerned about this than he is because he has a much more casual attitude towards money (ie, if we can afford it, why not spend it on nice things we can enjoy rather than squandering it all away for another time.) I worry about the longterm a lot more. Even so, I have serious doubts we’ll ever be able to afford to buy a place in Seattle proper. It’s too dang expensive. C’mon bubble, burst already!

Last week our company moved into our new permanent office space in the Seattle Design Center, which is an upscale interior design gallery building. There are glass elevators in the lobby area, water fountains, and two Wolfgang Puck restaurants. It is fancy. And with us there it feels a bit strange, as we are kind of a rag-tag group of software geeks, designers, and writers, and totally unlike anyone else in the building. We are not posh! It is weird to get used to, but it is a very lovely place to work. Parking is free, and it’s in a part of Seattle south of downtown, where things are mostly industrial so it feels more relaxed.

The office has a set of floor-to-ceiling windows with a beautiful view of the Seattle skyline. Everyone in the office has plenty of space and light and control over the temperature. It feels really good to have my own desk and finally more of a sense of permanency. Ever since my first year of college I have been working internships and contracts which are always temporary, so this is the first job I’ve had where I finally feel like I’ll be staying awhile. I still do contract work but at least I have the same employer throughout. I really enjoy the feeling of permanency with the variety that comes with working on projects with a definite start and end point. I guess that setup works for me; it keeps things interesting enough that I don’t get bored and keeps me on my toes when deadlines are looming. I often find myself pushing myself to work harder and faster to accomplish tasks that generally should take longer than I allocate for them. We are starting to call these SharePoint miracles when they happen.

I still have a hate/love relationship with SharePoint, but…it’s something I have a knack for and there is a high demand for it now. Business will keep coming in as long as I am willing to focus on that application. I may not be the best visual designer but I know I am a fast and efficient implementer, which is a niche where there is a great gap. There are a lot of people who are purely visual designers, and others who are only software developers, but it is rare for there to be a solid overlap between the two. I seem to keep finding myself in jobs where I fill in this gap, and it makes me happy when I am working. This is a rare thing indeed.

I often wonder what I would do if I were not in this line of work. Am I meant to be in technology or art? I don’t know. My conclusion always ends with “nothing.” I love art and crafts, but I don’t know that I could make a living that way. I don’t think my body could hold up either, if I were to crochet or paint for 10+ hours a day. I keep reading about Etsy sellers who end up quitting their day jobs to sell full time but I doubt I would have the stamina for such a thing. But who knows? Anything can happen.

Yeah, it’s just what it looks like. Jules and I both got an iPhone 3G last Saturday. Jules’ is thankfully being paid for by work so he can be on call at all hours by voice and email (yes, it works nicely with Exchange, amazingly enough) but unfortunately mine was totally unsubsidized by AT&T since I wasn’t eligible for an upgrade (LAME.)

We were advised to show up at the Apple Store about an hour before opening to ensure our place in line, but we got there at 6:45 and there was only one guy out there. Jules and I went and got a coffee and came back and still there was only one guy there. By the time 8AM rolled around there were only about 10 people hanging around and the entire process took about 15 minutes from start to finish. Very easy and painless. (Side note: Those Apple employees must have it so easy. They don’t have to sell their product at all; it already has an incredibly high demand. Their customers are generally knowledgeable about the product they are buying so there’s little convincing necessary. All they really need to do is try to sell accessories!) It was kind of fun hanging out in line with the few people crazy enough to be up that early on a Saturday morning.

My impressions of the device during its first week in my hand: what an extraordinary device! With the new Application store available there is almost nothing it cannot do that I wish it could. The text input method is a bit iffy at times (laggy during certain operations, inconsistently) and there is no copy/paste, but otherwise it is solid. The battery is pretty much dead at the end of every night due to heavy usage, but being able to connect to WiFi rather than 3G when in range of an access point is a fantastically useful feature (and does save some battery.) I’m a bit annoyed that Apple expects you to buy their ringtones or create your own only from songs purchased from the iTunes store, but luckily there is a simple workaround. (I have yet to try this though.) I am happier than I even expected with the phone. Highly recommended.

Apologies for my long absence in the world of blogging, but I have been extraordinarily busy and/or ill (both interrelated.) Rest assured that things have been good, though, and life continues happily at the Lancaster’s. I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading and a little crocheting here and there, but certainly not as much as I’d like. Work has been *insane!* (More on that later.)

Jules and I have been wanting to start an urban garden of some variety for awhile. We had been toying with the idea of doing square-foot gardening up on our deck since it’s a decent size, but the gathering of materials seemed too daunting of a task and we never actually did anything about it this summer. Just as we were about to give up on the idea for this year, I got an email from Amazon for their deal of the day, which on this particular day happened to be the Aerogrow Aerogarden Indoor Herb Garden for less than $100. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to give gardening a shot in a sort of futuristic, gadgety way. Last Monday Jules and I planted the first of the herbs, which come in these little pods. They sit on top of a base full of water, which gets cycled and pumped through the lip of the hole and down through the spongy base of the pods, where the plants take root. There is no soil involved, it is all done with water and mineral supplement tablets (which appear to be mostly seaweed.) Until now I had never seen a hydroponics system in action, and let me tell you, it is incredibly awesome. Our cats are especially interested in the sound of the running water!

I wish I had taken a photo of the progress this morning, but after a week, all the plants have come up and are almost an inch tall! The growth rate is quite incredible. We were able to take a few of the caps off the herb pods this morning. I’ll be sure to take a photo soon to show off the progress.