Friday, August 29, 2008

Applewood

Last Saturday we set on checking out some new place for dinner. After the choice was made we were going to a new place that had rather big history for Alena and I — Applewood.

Applewood happened to be located in the same very place that Blah Blah Lounge used to be located at. And Blah Blah Lounge was the place that we went to for our very first date, on December 6, 2002, and spent over 8 hours talking. We went there one our first anniversary as well, but then the place went out of business and closed forever.

Going there definitely brought up some memories even then it looks and sounds nothing like it was inside 5 years ago. The food however was great, even though everyone complained that the portions could’ve been bigger.

In: Food & Dining Tags: Applewood, Blah Blah Lounge
Time: 10:38 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Hiking Shoes

I don’t get excited about shoes. I also hate shoe shopping with passion. That’s the reason I have 2 pairs of shoes total including a pair of sleepers.

Lately, however, I started to realize that probably I should wear something more comfortable than my dress shoes for times when we go hiking, be it either long walks around the city or exploring the trails of some national park. We decided to buy me a pair of sneakers, something that I didn’t have since high school.

That’s where Zappos.com makes its entrance. The selection is huge, the shipping is free, including return shipping and they have all the sizes and a bunch of reviews. We settled on two pairs of hiking shoes near the top of the list when sorted by popularity. Turns out Eldar has ones of those, so that’s what we ordered¹ based on his recommendation — The North Face Hedgehog GTX XCR.

We got two pairs still, since I wasn’t sure on the size, and looks like one of the two pairs is a good fit. First real life test of these will be the upcoming weekend in Pocono Mountains. Either way it’s going to be better then running around the mountains in dress shoes.

P.S. Shipping was extra fast too. Zappos upgraded us to the next level (they probably do this for everyone), so we basically got them 1 day after we ordered.

$109 per pair. [↩]

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: hiking, shoes, sneakers, The North Face
Time: 14:33 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

My Cubicle

Заказала себе для работы “самодельный” календарь и несколько фотографий на Snapfish — хочется как-то свой уголок украсить. Я уже пристроила возле компьютера кактус, веточки бамбука, цветочек из IKEA, кружку, привезённую Маруками нам в подарок из Арубы, и пачку с разными чаями.

Мышка, кстати, оказалась очень удобной — все мои коллеги тоже заценили.

Фотография рабочего места получилась не супер — снята iPhone-ом.

In: Life In General Tags: desk, job, office
Time: 22:43 Comments: 3 Comments Post a Comment

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Двоюродный Братишка

Примерно месяц назад я решила поискать своего единственного двоюродного братика по отцовской линии на просторах интернета. Вбила в Google имя и фамилию — и на первой же странице натолкнулась на явно его записи. Покопавшись еще нашла и email на одном из форумов, посвященном моделькам самолётов. Обрадовавшись, написала Саше письмо — и он (ура! ура!) ответил.

Хочу заметить, что живёт он с моими дядей Юрой и тётей Светой в Минске — и его координаты прекрасно известны моим родным (я уже адрес подзабыла, но живут они в квартире, оставшейся после бабушки и дедушки), так что мне не составило бы большого труда связаться с ним более традиционными методами. Почему-то мне хотелось написать ему e-mail именно так, без чьей-либо помощи в выяснении электронного адреса. Наверное, тут играет роль и то, что не виделись мы с ним уже не знаю даже сколько лет — может, 10, а, может, и все 15. Я имею очень смутное представление о том каким человеком он вырос, да и хочет ли вообще со мной общаться.

Саша младше меня на 2 года, работает он сейчас инженером-конструктором, что совсем неудивительно учитывая его любовь к математике и самолётостроению с “младых ногтей”.

Вообще мне помнится что он был суперумным, но иногда испытывал сложности в общении. Я с нетерпением жду его emails — пока он прислал два. Я попросила его поискать и отсканировать какие-нибудь старые фотографии наших предков. Он прислал мне несколько старых фотографий — и я была ну ОЧЕНЬ рада! Еще я попросила его порасспрашивать дядю Юру об истории семьи — мне это очень интересно. Надеюсь, Саше будет не слишком внапряг написать мне какие-нибудь интересные истории.

А вообще я на прошлой неделе болтала с Таней, и показала ей фотографии, которые прислал мне Саша (он прислал мне одну свеженькую семейную фотографию). Таня сказала, что мы с Сашей чем-то неуловимо похожи — одной породы.

Мне было это приятно слышать. Еще мне было приятно, что моя мама обрадовалась, когда я ей сообщила, что мы с Сашей обменялись несколькими письмами.

In: Life In General Tags: family
Time: 17:59 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

Friday, August 22, 2008

Magnet Collection

As you can see there are very few empty spots left on our refrigerator. The main reason is that we try to buy a magnet every time we visit some place — with few exceptions where we forgot to find one. We also got a bunch from friends and family.

The top door has magnets of the places that we’ve visited. Majority of them are from the places that we visited together — the exceptions are Minsk and Moscow. I like to just stand it front of the fridge sometimes looking over our collection and remember how and where each one was bought. So many good memories.

In: Home Sweet Home, Travel Tags: magnet, refrigirator
Time: 11:35 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

IKEA Billy Bookcases

As I wrote before we went to IKEA this weekend to get some stuff for our apartment. Out of all the stuff that we wanted we didn’t find anything, but one thing — IKEA Billy bookcase, even though even this item was marked as sold out.

To our surprise we were able to find the right color bookcase and the glass doors for it at their warehouse. So that’s what we bought. I assembled it the same very evening and Alena moved some of our books and a whole bunch of trinkets into the bookcase.

It’s came out like a micro version of my parents’ bookcase that I wrote about a while ago. But even though it is much smaller it looks just as good, or so I think.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: Billy, bookcase, IKEA
Time: 17:31 Comments: 3 Comments Post a Comment

Monday, August 18, 2008

IKEA Food

Yesterday we went to a new IKEA in Brooklyn, for the 2nd time — we wanted to get a couple of things for our apartment, but as always most were out of stock.

Either way, by the time we were passing the restaurant for the 5th time or so I couldn’t resist my hunger anymore. We went in and got ourselves one set of meatballs and one set of chicken tenders.

For about $5 each we had a decent dinner, which even seemed delicious at the time. However I don’t think we’ll go there any time soon again. Cheap food is cheap food after all.

In: Food & Dining Tags: IKEA, meatballs
Time: 18:37 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

Alena says: Subscribed

August 18, 2008 @ 22:58

I also really like Ikea’s jams. This time we bought lingonberry, blueberry and cloudberry preserves, and last time — 3 jars of gooseberry preserves (2 of them are gone already).

Funny thing — when I was little, I read about sweet yellow cloudberry (морошка) in some children’s book (can’t remember the title now). I always wanted to try it — this berry clouded my imagination with its wonderful and unknown flavor. And now I finally got an opportunity to taste it (even if in the processed form). My verdict — nice, but not exactly what I expected.

After being unable to find a reasonably priced hotel in Cape Cod for Labor Day weekend Maruk suggested remembered about Mountain Springs Lake Resort in Pocono Mountains. Yesterday we made a reservation. Maruk, Alina and their parents reserved a cottage #40 and Alena, my parents, Ignat, Misha and myself will stay in cottage #36. This should be fun. 4

There is a bunch of cool little apps that developers are putting out. I think iLightr is one of them. What I don’t get is why some people keep whining about that fact that it’s useless and demand that Apple doesn’t approve those. Don’t like it — don’t fucking buy it, assholes! It’s that simple. 1

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Split Check: Entering Info

I still have a lot of development to do to finish this app up, but here’s a short update on progress.

The check creation (list display + price entering) screens are ready, so is the screen to set up tip and tax values with persistent data storage. The split itself is the last thing that needs implementation, but it’s probably going to be the easiest step now.

On Saturday we gave it a real life test on entering information only to find out that the original idea was flawed. Read more…

In: Software Tags: app, iPhone, SDK, Split Check
Time: 12:57 Comments: 4 Comments Post a Comment

Monday, August 11, 2008

Vending Frankenstein

We have the weirdest vending machine in our office. That’s what I call a good idea and a horrible execution.

It runs on nothing else than Linux. It’s able to read your finger print and based on that know how much money you have on your account and if it can dispense drinks for you or if it needs to recharge your credit card. And if something gets stuck while dispensing it generally can sense it and give you an option to select something else or try to drop the item again. Read more…

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: finger print, Linux, vending machine
Time: 17:54 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Mice Infestation

Yesterday we went to our local Best Buy and bought¹ a whole bunch of mice. I wanted something for my Mac, since some development tasks with a touch pad are much harder to perform than they should be. A natural choice was Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse — Apple design and bluetooth technology in one package. So far I like it.

Another one was for Alena’s office. Apparently they still use non-laser, non-optical mice at her company, and since she spends all day holding that thing in hand it makes sense to get something nice, comfortable and wireless. We went with Logitech MX™ Revolution. It feels good in hand, has additional buttons to speed up certain tasks and comes with a charger — she doesn’t need to worry about replacing batteries.

Apple’s mouse was $69.99, Logitech’s was $99.99. [↩]

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: Apple, Logitech, Mighty Mouse, MX Revolution
Time: 16:53 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Olympics 2008 Opening Ceremony

Last night we watched a translation of 2008 Olympic Games opening ceremony which took place earlier that day (08/08/08) in Beijing. I was REALLY impressed with artistic ideas, their implementation, and the sheer scale of the whole thing. Around 15,000!!! performers participated in the show. There is a good article in The New York Times on the subject.

I enjoyed feeling national pride that permeated different elements of the ceremony, I was amazed by how synchronized movements of so many people were! I also really liked how the last torch-carrier was “running” in the air to light up the grand Olympic torch. Undoubtedly Zhang Yimou did a superb job orchestrating the ceremony.

In: Life In General Tags: Beijing, Olympics
Time: 19:32 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

Friday, August 8, 2008

Office Shelves

Well, this past weekend we finally decided to do something that we haven’t gotten to in over a year that we’ve been living here — add some shelves to our office closet.

The thing is that the guy we bought the place from mean for this room to be a bedroom I guess, and he made the closet for hanging clothes. We, instead, piled up a bunch of our photo and computer bags in there, and then more then half of that space was wasted, because you can’t store anything on top of the bags.

We carefully measured the size of the shelves that we would need and went to a local hardware store —

Doody Home Center. Now this place might not be as big as Home Depot or Lowes, but it’s by far the best hardware store I’ve been to. This wasn’t the first time experience either. Basically we just asked a guy working there where we could find the boards for the shelves. Not only did he help us find the boards, he cut them for us precisely to the right size. Go get someone to do that at Home Depot.

Went home, drilled some holes, installed the pins, the shelves, attached the moldings, done! Came out rather nice.

In: Home Sweet Home Tags: hardware store, office, shelves
Time: 10:08 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

Alena just picked up her Baruch diploma. It shows that she has earned it with Summa Cum Laude honors. We were slightly worried about the fact that they would find a way to screw her out of it, because of the way the bureaucratic speak is used to list qualifications for it, but they didn’t.

I just want to say that my wife makes me super proud! How did she end up with an uneducated bum like me anyhow?