2 Bit Hacker

This past weekend, Meg and I celebrated our one year anniversary with a full weekend of running around and having a great time. Technically our anniversary isn’t until Friday, but with the housewarming looming up on Saturday, we decided to celebrate early before we get all stressed out with getting the house ready.

We started off heading down to Boston for a Cake concert at the Orpherum Theater. It was Meg’s first time seeing Cake, and my second. She had giving me tickets to it for my birthday, and the timing just worked out such that we made it part of our anniversary. It was a great show, and we both had an awesome time. Our seats were on the mezzanine, near the front in the center, so we had a great view of the stage.

After the show we took the subway back to our hotel, Le Meridien in Cambridge. We stayed there on Valentine’s Day, and it’s a great hotel. Very comfortable and nicely decorated.

In the morning we woke up early and set out for the Flea at MIT, a monthly flea market of computer, electronic, and radio stuff. I didn’t find anything that compelled me to part with my money, but Meg found a gas mask for a steampunk project. Last month I picked up a rack mount APC UPS for my garage datacenter project, but I still need to pick up some new batteries for it. We also met up with the Coopers at the flea, and we carpooled down to King Richard’s Faire for the afternoon.

We had gone down there last year shortly after we started dating, and I had bought a necklace for Meg at the time. This year she got a pair or earings from Uncommon Adornments and a spinner ring. I also got to see one of the jousts for the first time this trip, and we generally acted silly for the afternoon and had a great time.

All in all, it was a great weekend, and I’m very much looking forward to spending another year with my Meggy-girl.

Sitting on the front steps of the house, enjoying the cool evening. I’ve just finished trimming the lawn and sweeping the driveway, and am waiting for Meg to get home from work. Growing up I always hated doing yardwork, and while I’m still not a fan, there is a certain feeling of satisfaction that goes along with mowing the lawn and keeping the place looking decent.

We just received our first check for the first time homebuyer’s tax credit (we each claimed half) last week, so we rushed out to buy some items we were waiting on; some new chairs, a couple tables, and some much-needed lawn equipment. Being the proud owner of a brand new Troy-Bilt, I of course had to use it last weekend. The grass was nearly knee-high when I started, but after 5 hours of walking every inch of the lawn it was cut down to size and looking much more lawn-like. Last night we went out and picked up a string trimmer to get all the little places I couldn’t mow, a Black & Decker corded electric. I was on the fence between gas and electric, but we don’t have a lot to trim and I didn’t want to muck about mixing gas. It did an adequate job, and I’m overall rather pleased with the lawn at this point.

We also had our first plumbing related fun with the house this past week. The drain from the shower stall in the master bath was leaking into our kitchen ceiling. This is covered under our builder’s warranty though, so we just had to call up and he sent out a plumber, who just tightened up something in the drain, and so far it seems to be better.

Other than that, we’ve just been running around like headless chickens. Somehow we’ve found ourselves with a fairly full social calendar between movie nights and game nights and various cookouts. To help contribute to the chaos, we’ve decided to throw a housewarming party near the end of summer, currently scheduled for late September. If you haven’t already been invited, drop me a line so we can correct that.

The bugs are starting to come out now, so I think it’s time for me to get off the stoop and head indoors.

Good morning, Internet! I’ve got the day off from work to prepare for our trip to San Diego, and while I’m waiting for laundry to cycle I thought I’d post a little update.

Life in the house is going well. We’re mostly unpacked now and have most of the rooms mostly in order. We turned on of the bedrooms into a craft room to hold Meg’s yarn and my computer stuff, at least until I can get the basement set up the way I want with a server closet and workbench. Then I’ll be moving most of my computer stuff down there, and probably just have a workstation up here. I think our next steps will be getting some more furniture so the place doesn’t feel so empty. It’s time to finally get some real bedroom furniture, as we currently just have a mattress on the floor and the room looks really bare.

Work is good, I’ve been doing some IPv6 deployment, and it’s nice to finally see that getting some traction in the real world. Also been playing around with netdot, mostly for it’s IPAM features. A little hairy to get installed on FreeBSD, but once you get it on there, it seems to work out pretty well.

Meg and I are going to be heading out to San Diego tonight for Comic-Con this weekend. It’s out big vacation for the year and we’re really excited about it. Bunch of big names will be there, including Stan Lee and Ray Bradbury. Hoping to get some autographs and generally have a good time. Also, Geek Chic will be there, so we’re going to be checking out their Emissary table. We’re thinking about getting one for the dining room, but I want to see one in person before dropping that kind of money on furniture.

Time to go move laundry around. I’m sure we’ll be posting plenty of pictures from this weekend, and I’ll try to remember to post about it when we get back.