• Xbox 360
• Sony BDP-S580 Blu-ray player
• Nest Learning Thermostat
• My Phone (Samsung Focus)
• Diann’s Phone (Samsung Focus)
• Windows Home Server (HP MediaSmart LX195)
• Printer (Canon Pixma MX870)
• My work laptop (Dell Latitude E4300)
• Diann’s work laptop (Dell Latitude E4300)
• My home laptop (Macbook Pro – yes, it runs Windows as well)
• Diann’s home laptop (HP Mini 110)

Is anyone actually reading this?

After arriving, we were treated to a great view of the surrounding hills, excellent brats on the grill, cookies at 1am for stargazing, and a great game of cards.  Unfortunately, the weather didn’t completely cooperate: high winds (I guess there’s a reason the Wild Horse Wind Farm (pics) is just about 15 miles away) and about 30-40% upper level cloud coverage made viewing conditions less than optimal.

I did finally get a chance to play with some wide angle sky photography.  I’m so-so about the results, definitely need to do some more practicing with this stuff:

More pictures available on my Flickr stream here.

There’s more to come.  It’s interesting to think how these bits have been brought from an old 1970’s format to a current format in a matter of weeks; it’s also fascinating to see the character that these old videos have – there’s just something cool about video cracks and pops that a new HD camcorder just can’t compete with.

The week started off in a downhill slide.  As many of you know, Microsoft laid off around 3,000 of my coworkers this week.  Fortunately, I wasn’t one of them, but I have a great deal of good friends who were affected by this second round of layoffs.  I won’t say too much about it here, but Tuesday really sucked.

On the brighter side, I got some new toys this week.  I took advantage of an REI sale on Shimano shoes and bought some clipless pedals for the bike.  Today, it’s beautiful out and Diann’s out volunteering, so I hit the road with the bike.  Definitely one of my best bike rides to date: went 20.6 miles, from home to the Red Hook brewery (no beer stop this time) and back home, in just over 1.5 hours.  That gives me a 12mph average, which is great considering the route home was mostly uphill.  Here’s an elevation graph of the ride from home to work, and you’ll see what I mean (click to embiggen):

Now it’s off to get cleaned up, go get a haircut, and then drinks with a friend who’s in town for the first time in months.

Then, later on, the night looks promising for some stargazing.  That brings me to the other set of toys I got this week: a new mount for the telescope.  90 pounds of new mount.  It’s crazy.  Tonight’s not ideal for stargazing (pesky full moon), but I’m going anyway just so I can get familiar with the new gear.

Also, got the first bike ride of the season under the belt today.  One week until Tour de Lopez!

Pretty sweet stuff. I setup the keyboard and mouse today and liked them quite a bit.  Even for a productivity setup, the stuff was pretty slick.  I need to see about upgrading to the new Sidewinder X8 mouse, though.. I could use the wireless.   The winning feature is the backlighting on the keyboard – a bunch of my coworkers want to buy them now.  I’ll post a video of that tomorrow!

I also hear rumors that there’s a post-victory interview video of me… hopefully my coworkers don’t get their hands on that; I’ll never hear the end of it if so.