Monday, February 8, 2010

Our Little Secret

Our future child. Sonogram taken at the end of the 12th week.The image above should be enough to guess what is going on. If it’s still not clear — we’re going to be parents! mrgreen It sounds really weird, I know, and we both find it hard to believe just yet.

On the other hand we were planning it for a while now, and everything worked out almost as planned. During the Spring of 2009 we made a decision. We went to see a doctor to make sure everything is OK and Alena stopped taking birth-control pills and started taking vitamins.

First ever picture.Even though doctors said that there is no need to wait, we decided to make sure birth-control clears out of the system and waited 3 more month, before actually trying. Plus Alena has a list of signs that are preferable. ) First month was October (with due date to be in mid-July). At the end of the month she had a week delay, and we thought that we’re there. But she had her period after all and we were very disappointed. Read more…
In: Family   Tags: , ,
Time: 12:10pm   Comments: 7 Comments   Post a Comment  
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

О Налогах

Смысл Жизни, М. Веллер.В понедельник ходила к бухгалтерше чтобы подытожить налоги за 2009 год. Результат оказался несколько неожиданным — несмотря на ипотеку, пожертвования и некоторые другие расходы подлежащие списанию, мы оказались должны федеральному правительству и штату Нью-Йорк немного денег (в общей сложности $320). Конечно, сумма, которую нам надо доплатить невелика, но мы-то привыкли к возврату! Ну да ладно, что тут поделать? )

Еще я начала готовить к подаче документы на гражданство. Ужас сколько бумажек надо собрать (в том числе и информацию о налогах за посление пару лет). И стоит это удовольствие не так дешево – $700. Ну ничего, я надеюсь отправить пакет с документами в течение ближайшего месяца (задержка происходит из-за того что надо получить официальную бумажку о налогах 2009 года, а это займет пару недель). Зато, как говорится, уже виднеется свет в конце тоннеля (тьфу-тьфу-тьфу). Read more…
In: Life In General   Tags: ,
Time: 10:43pm   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Presidents Day Weekend

With a Presidents Day coming up we booked ourselves a little trip for the long weekend. This time around we’re going to drive south of New York and visit our local states and their capitals.

We will make Annapolis our base of operation1. Annapolis itself is a capital of Maryland. I’ve seen the name many times on the road signs, but have never visited the city itself.

One of our objectives will be visiting the capital of our nation — Washington, DC. The reason is to collect all the capital’s National Parks stamps. The city has a ton of monuments and memorials and each one has a stamp. For all the time that I’ve been there we’ve never visited after we started collecting those stamps.

On our way back we’ll stop by Dover, which is a capital of Delaware. I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Dover before, but I never realized that it was a capital and therefore I’ve never seen the capitol building.

  1. Doubletree Hotel Annapolis, 3 nights, king size bed room. 30,000 hhonor points for the first night, and $89.10 per night for the other 2 nights. Plus a room upgrade and free breakfast as our Diamond VIP benefit. []

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Чучля Weight

Chuchlya WeightI’ve been keeping a record of Shublik’s weight progress since his arrival at our house. I really just wanted to use an iPhone application called WeightBot, but since my weight stays constant it wasn’t fun.

So here we have the results for the first year. He went from 3 pounds at the end of March to 9 pounds at the end of December, thus tripling his size in these 9 months. We think he’s about done growing by now, but who knows?
In: Life In General   Tags: , , ,
Time: 12:47pm   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Friday, January 22, 2010

Home Workspace

My home workspace setup.You can finally congratulate me. The upgrade to my home workspace is complete — new computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse and general clean up. And yes, I finally did get my computer. Not the way I planned it originally, but much better in the end.

Dell Studio XPS 8000.Here are the final specs of the machine — Dell Studio XPS 8000.
  • 2.80GHz Intel Core i7-860
  • 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws 1600MHz1 DDR3 SDRAM — 4×2GB
  • 1TB Western Digital RE3 32MB Cache SATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
  • 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 SATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
  • nVidia GeForce GTS240 1024MB GDDR3
  • 16x DVD+/-RW w/ Double Layer Write
  • 19-in-1 Media Card Reader

And that goes in conjunction with:
  • Dell UltraSharp U2410 24 inch IPS Panel Widescreen Monitor
  • Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500 Revolution Keyboard & Mouse
  • Window 7 Home Premium 64-bit
  • Dell AS500 Sound Bar2

Inside the case -- not a lot of room for anything else.When I received my computer I had a lot of plans for it. I wanted to do a number of upgrades and modification, but I also wanted to gage how much of an effect those changes are having. For that I decided to use a rather simple benchmarking applicaiton — Geekbench.

Logitech MX Revolution mouse.My first 3 runs yielded an average result of 7071. After that I updated BIOS to a new version, enabled a bunch of BIOS features3, upgraded RAM and did a fresh install of Windows4. The top benchmarking score after these updates was 88085 with an average score slightly below 8800 mark. When I run the same benchmark after installing an antivirus, keyboard control application, a pair of IM clients, adding several gadgets to the desktop and so on I get consistent scores of 8650 and higher.

Ports on the top. Continent way to hook in a USB key without having everything else on the key chain hang in the air.Needless to say I’m very happy with the setup and performance. Photoshop CS4 starts up in under 3 seconds. Everything else starts up even faster. Also I can’t say how happy I am to finally move to a widescreen. Everything is just so much easier and more efficient. Photo editing is great as well with so much screen real estate.

Old vs New. Old Gen 3 XPS next to a new Studio XPS 8000.And on top of that I was able to get rid of a million useless cradles and accessories plaguing my work space. The card reader is built right into the computer, speakers are replaced with a sound bar and mouse and keyboard no longer need an RF receiver on the desk, just a simple bluetooth dongle in the back of the computer.

I also will say that I’m very happy with Windows 7. Never had the urge to try Vista, so I stuck with XP for many years. I’m glad I made the jump now.

  1. Because of Dell BIOS limitations RAM runs at 1333MHz. Mobo upgrade? []
  2. This one can be considered an antique, but it’s a nice space saver. []
  3. Dell, by mistake, has left several key performance CPU features on disabled. []
  4. I used a Dell CD that was included with the computer and was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s a clean version of Windows, without Dell “features”. []
  5. My score and how it compares to others. []
1

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Студзеньская Нядзеля

Dell Studio 17 Laptop.Сегодня воскресенье. За окном пасмурно и даже немного дождливо. Последние пару дней на улице держится плюсовая температура, и от этого возникает обманчивое ощущение того, что весна уже на носу. Я думаю, февраль как обычно будет самым холодным месяцем, так что до весны еще далековато. Я вот недавно переводила Дане названия зимних месяцев на белорусский — Снежань, Студзень и Люты. По-моему, названия даны “в яблочко”. )

Сейчас мы стираем. Я как всегда оттягивала это дело донельзя, и вот сегодня это самое “нельзя уже не стирать больше” наступило. Вещи закинуты в стиральные машинки, и через 25 минут мы пойдём и перекинем их в сушку. Каждый раз когда мы стираем я убеждаюсь, что сама работа оказывается легче чем её рисует моё богатое воображение (хотя всё равно пару часов занимает процедура). )

"The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy.На прошлой неделе мне подняли-таки зарплату на работе. Повышение небольшое — 6%, но всё равно лучше чем ничего. Хотя бы это компенсирует возросшие расходы на страховку и проезд. Еще в пятницу Рон уведомил менеджмент о том, что через 2 недели он увольняется и переходит на гораздо более высокооплачиваемую работу. Что ж, получать он будет (с учётом бонуса) почти на 100% больше чем в нашей компании, да и повышение по должности у него получилось очень хорошее. Это подтверждение того, что рынок труда становится лучше.

Продолжаю свою писанину уже в понедельник (в воскресенье времени и сил не хватило дописать). Read more…
In: Life In General   Tags: , ,
Time: 8:50pm   Comments: 2 Comments   Post a Comment  
1
2

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

California Road Trip

California trip plan diagram.We have booked1 yet another one of our mega-road-trips. This one is going to be our first official2 visit to California. California is where we’ll spend 90% of our time and about 10% we’re going to spend in a neighboring Nevada. We spent several days looking for the best route, picking out the hotels and lodges and reserving3 everything.

On early morning of Saturday, April 24th, we fly4 out from JFK to Los Angeles. We rent5 a car at the airport and proceed to check out the city and its neighborhoods. Then we drive out east in the direction of Joshua Tree National Park and spend our first night6 in a hotel located in an adjacent town of Yucca Vallley. Read more…

  1. Full diagram of our route is available. Blue pins stand for the places where we’re spending a night and green ones for our planned destinations. Full driving map is also available via Google Maps. []
  2. Four of us. Alena and I have changed planes several times in CA, but that doesn’t really count. My parents have been to California before. []
  3. All reservation prices in the list below include the tax. []
  4. JetBlue, non stop flights, $269 per person, round trip + $15 insurance per person. []
  5. Fox Rent a Car, $478 from LAX to SFO, Jeep Patriot or similar. []
  6. Best Western, $154 total, 2 rooms with king size beds. []
1
2
3
4
5

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin