journaling: enabled

You Should Be a Girl Scout for Halloween!

So… anybody got a girl scout uniform I could borrow?

It’s snowing!!!!

Well, another restless night. Not sure why. It does mean that work is going to be a long day. Today (sunday) was fairly uneventful. Liz had been going to go to the wedding fair today, so I was going to work on dance theatre photos. She got a lot done yesterday and decided that it wasn’t worthwhile to go to the wedding fair today (she already has dress ordered and invites picked out). So we chilled out with her mom for a while this morning after church. After her mom left, we took a nice nap. All-in-all, a very quiet day. It was even pretty quiet outside, unlike yesterday when there were Harleys all over the place for the “nut run”. There were probably a few hundred and there was a constant rumbling outside for a while.
Tonight we did a bit more wedding planning … principally working on the ceremony.
Who knows what this week will bring. I don’t have anything major planned, but we need to go shopping and pick up a wedding gift for a wedding we’re going to this coming weekend (gal I used to babysit). Maybe do some snowblower shopping too (for some reason, neither Liz nor I are enthusiastic about shoveling the driveway at 6-6:30am). If any readers have suggestions, I’m open. Liz and I saw a Toro 2-stage at the MN state fair that we liked… I just haven’t been any place that carries them.

I’ve pretty much gotten my mythtv system rebuilt. I had to tear it apart because the P2-233 didn’t have the ponies to do what I want. My future in-laws were gracious enough to donate their P3-733 to me for parts since it was flaking out on them. I did a motherboard transplant and rebuilt the mythtv box using Fedora Core 2. The drivers for the PVR-350 are in a bit of flux, so I was going to wait for a complete “stable” release of those, but I managed to get it working by downloading a pre-compiled X driver that I found a link in a mythtv-users message. So I got tv recording playback working last night. This morning I enjoyed watching 3 hrs worth of tv in two hours (courtesy of fast-fowarding through commercials). I might make some quality tweaks at some point, but first I’d like to figure out how to get the interface “window” to show completely on the tv screen. Right now the upper and left edges are cut off. This evening I discovered something very interesting. I have the myth box connected to my stereo (Kenwood VR-407), using two different inputs. I have the PVR-350 (vid/tuner card) connected to VIDEO1, with S-Video and stereo RCA audio. I have the audio output of the motherboard connected to MD/TAPE. I assumed that I would have to live with having the visual interface for MythMusic on VIDEO1 and switch to MD/TAPE when I wanted to hear it (and lose the visual). Much to my surprise, I’m currently listening to MD/TAPE but seeing the video for VIDEO1. I’ll have to do more experimenting to see if this is an anomaly or if it will always work this nicely.
Right now I’m listening to Neil Diamond with my dad and waiting for liz4jc4ever, her mother and my mother to return from shopping. Hopefully in the not too distant future, we’ll have yummy lasagna to eat.

No subject. Just ramblings. First of all, I would like to say it sucks to see someone you love in pain and know you can’t do anything to help. liz4jc4ever has been having mouth pain, probably due to dental work she had done last week. She tried getting hold of the dentist today … called 3 times to try and set something up and they never called her back. Kinda makes me wonder if I really want to go there.
Had a “nice” little “surprise” this morning at work… one of my workers decided to quit. This wasn’t really a surprise to me since I knew he had a heavy course load.
Tonight a friend came over and helped me clean my truck’s air filter. I guess it turned out I really didn’t need his help getting the filter out, but it’s nice when someone else who has experience can show you what you don’t need to worry about when taking something apart. In case you’re wondering, my truck has a K&N high-performance air filter in it that doesn’t need replacing. In this case, it did need a good cleaning and oiling. Hopefully this will improve things … not that it was running all that bad before all this.
It’s a beautiful night outside. Nice and chill. They’re having a training session for running/using the telescopes at the observatory tonight, but I didn’t find out about it until today so that was rather short notice. I am going to try to make it to the observing session next week. I haven’t been up there since they put in the new scope. When I was outside tonight putting my filter back in I noted the pleasant aroma of wood smoke. I think I really miss that from growing up. It’s one of the things that would tempt me to live in the country, though I don’t believe there’s anything against burning wood in town (though that just seems kinda wrong). I’m heading up to my parents this weekend and hope to get some wood cut for them. Hopefully the chainsaw is behaving itself otherwise that could prove to be a frustrating endeavour.
My mom called tonight and indicated that the computer I gave them is apparently acting up … as in it won’t boot up. No lights or whirring or anything. I hope it’s not anything serious. I got a call from the shop I took my g5 to for repair last week… they finished it and it turned out that the video card was bad. I am looking forward to having it back. My laptop is nice but has nowhere near the zippiness and power. I’ll probably pick it up on Thursday.
Well, it’s off to bed for me. I made lunches tonight so hopefully I can sleep in just a little bit longer tomorrow morning.

Liz and I went to the Phil Collins “First Final Farewell Tour” concert in Milwaukee last night at the Bradley Center. We got there an hour or so early. Some guy on Bradley Center staff was walking around giving out free tickets to the front row. We scored! We actually even got to sing in Phil Collins’ mic when he came down into the audience during Sussudio! How awesome is that!?

314 days until July 16, 2005.

I’ve finally gotten serious about doing backups on my server. I bought a portable 40GB FireWire hard drive to hook to my server and am using rsync to back up my data off the server. I even lock the drive in a fire- & water-proof safe when I’m not backing up. There some more tweaking to be done to the backup script, but it’s *really* fast. I backed up on Thursday night … and just did another sync backup … it took less than 30 seconds. I’m planning on giving my old HP SureStore 12000e (6 x DDS-2) to beldurnik, assuming he still wants one.
Wedding planning is slowly getting under way. We have pretty much decided on a reception venue… but we need to nail down the date. We should be able to do that tomorrow. I have two groomsmen lined up (including best man). Liz has her bridesmaids lined up, so I need to confirm with my 3rd groomsman.
This past week was the start of classes at work. It didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked. I don’t think we really had anything go wrong that qualified as a catastrophe, but one or two of the problems came very close to that. I’ve decided that I *have* to get new shoes soon. I did a whole lot of walking around this week fixing problems and my feet have been sore by days end. I don’t think it’s been quite as depressingly stressful as last fall was though. I’m still pretty up-beat.
Friday night liz4jc4ever and I went out with flutterbyefred and her boyfriend, as well as two others to San Pedro’s in Hudson. It was fun, but I should have actually eaten something … or not drunk so much. I ordered a strawberry margarita … Liz and I were poking each other and my drink got spilled … the waitress was nice enough to get me another one. I guess I’m a bit of a light-weight, since I was quite tipsy by the time we were done. This was confirmed this morning when I woke up with a bit of a hangover. Not as bad as the first one I had, but I still felt like poo and spent a significant chunk of the day in bed, much to Liz’s dismay. I did feel better after taking an Aleve and later getting out of bed to help with housework (hmm … feeling better by helping with housework … what’s wrong with that picture?).
The folks doing the road construction were nice enough to seed grass this week, so I got to try out my sprinkler. It’s one of the variety that have a stake and do an arc (or full circle) of water. Nicely constructed, but I figured out that I really do need to shut it off before moving it if I don’t want to get wet. I didn’t get too terribly wet while adjusting it to make sure it covered the right area and didn’t water the street though.
Liz is having fun doing homework right now, but I should fold some laundry before we head to bed… so, ta-ta for now!

For those of you who don’t read liz4jc4ever‘s journal, we are now engaged. There have been many requests for “the story”, so here it goes:
This has been in the works since late July, which Liz knew … but didn’t know how fast it progressed because I kept her in the dark about how the shopping was going. beldurnik had put me in contact with Carl (bigdaddy00), who works at Wedding Day Diamonds in the Mall of America. I made several extra trips to visit Carl to keep her guessing as to when I might ask her. The only thing I would concede is that it would happen before Thanksgiving (U.S.).
The first trip happened the latter part of July … took a day off and went over there. We figured out basically what I wanted then, including picking out the size of the center stone. I also indicated I wanted two trillian cut sidestones. We more or less picked out a setting for the stones too. Liz didn’t really have any part in designing the ring, particularly since for fun, we had each gone to adiamondisforever.com and designed rings on our own last spring, and ended up designing rings that were very similar (hers had heart-cut side stones, mine had trillian … or vice-versa?). I figured since I managed that, I could handle shopping on my own because we had very similar thoughts. At the first visit, Carl had a nice center stone, but I can’t recall if it was quite the right size … he then had to have his boss find the stones and he would get back to me.
So, the beginning of the second week of August, Carl called me up at work and told me that they had found some stones, but if I wanted the ring on the 20th, they had to move on it “yesterday”. I made the down payment over the phone but kept making some Friday trips to the Mall just to keep Liz thinking that I was still shopping and finalizing things. Over the following two weekends, we had trips down to DeForest (where she’s from) for various reasons. Being somewhat chivalrous/traditional, on our first trip I asked her mother for permission to propose and asked her father on the second trip. They both gave their blessing.
We had been planning a trip for Canada to visit a friend of mine and relax some, which we had scheduled for the 3rd weekend in August. As things worked out, Liz had something she wanted to do that Friday morning (I had thought work … turned out to be helping a friend move). So, while she was doing that … I ran some “errands” to “finalize the order” (she knew I was shopping so this is what I told her). I went over to the Mall after helping her some in the morning … picked up the ring … then did some running around to try and find some foam because I wanted to hide it in a small round earplug container I had (so she wouldn’t suspect I had the ring on me). I couldn’t find the foam … so just had to hide the box in the bottom of my laptop pack (since I was bringing that with to Canada). The trip to Canada was fairly uneventful.
Saturday morning I took Liz out to Kekabeka Falls because I wanted to hike down to the “little falls” … which is also in the park. It’s about an hour and a half round trip hike. We got to the main falls and it was awesome … much better than the last time she saw it (at that point they apparently had some dam gates closed and there wasn’t a lot of water). We went across the bridge to the other side to the trail along the top of the canyon (which at one point connects up with the trail to the little falls) and there was a sign on the map/description board indicating that due to recent storms that downed some trees, the trail to the little falls was closed. I did a pretty good job of hiding my disappointment … said a mild bad word but not much else about it. I had planned on proposing there, but of course now I couldn’t. So, we started walking around the upper trail that makes a loop past some nice lookout spots and I debated what to do. There are several lookouts that look out over the canyon along this loop that we were on … we stopped at one and I decided to go for it.

I told Liz to sit down on the bench because I had a question for her. She sat down and I told her to close her eyes. I got down on one knee .,.. dug the box out of my pocket (which I had transferred from the laptop bag to my coat pocket when she was in another room reading a book earlier that morning). I opened the box and told her to open her eyes. She did of course … and was speechless for about 10 seconds, before reminding me that I had a question for her. I asked “Elizabeth Irene Neppl, will you marry me?”
Of course she said “yes”, so I turned the box to take the ring and put it on her finger … and noticed that I had presented the box upside down. Thank fully it didn’t make a huge difference the way the box is set up but it was still funny. I put the ring on her finger and we kissed and hugged. After walking a bit farther on the trail, she decided that any long-distance and/or roaming charges on her cell phone were worthwhile and she called her parents.
On the drive back to where we were staying, she indicated she thought her face would probably be sore by the end of the day, which of course made me happy.
There has been no date set yet because we need to talk to our pastor about it first. Be assured that it will be posted when known, but we’re shooting for July 2005.

Last weekend I went down to DeForest with Liz for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. That was fun. We were only there for a few hours though … spent the rest of the weekend visiting with her parents and playing with their new puppy dog. I think I also acquired a nasty cold from Liz’s brother John.
Monday night I went to see Metallica at Xcel Energy Center with my brother. It was apparently his first concert. Amazingly enough, he almost dozed off during it. I have no idea how tho … it was *loud*. Not as loud as the first concert of theirs I went to because I was farther away this time, but it was still loud.
Tuesday night Liz and I and some of Liz’s friends went to see “The Village” in downtown RF. I am not a big fan of suspense films, but this one is a must see. It’s a very well-done film that I recommend to anyone. If you don’t like scary movies, feel free to wait until it comes out on DVD so you can pause the scary parts or hug your teddy bear. I don’t think they should be skipped though… they add something to the movie of course.
Yesterday President Bush came through RF. I was kinda hoping he would go through while I was in the rest room so that if someone asked me what I was doing when he went by, I could say I was taking a sh*t… but alas I was just working on installing a computer. Probably a good thing I wasn’t outside … I may have made an obscene gesture towards him.
On the computer front, I tweaked my MythTV setup again so that the database and webpages are served from the MythTV box again rather than my regular server. I also added a Firewire card to my server tonight so that I can get a portable FW hard drive to back up to.
Well … ttfn … I think I need to crash soon. My head feels icky stuffy.