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.

1

Alex says:
August 29, 2008 @ 14:02

Everyone except for the goat. The goat didn’t complain.

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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.

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.

1

Daniel says:
August 27, 2008 @ 10:32

Good thing nobody can see me work desk.

2

Alex says:
August 27, 2008 @ 16:58

Nice mouse:) And also, nice monitor stand

3

Tatiana says:
August 29, 2008 @ 16:46

Nice mouse, i bought the same one for my bf and he doesn’t use it that often. Gotta get the same one for myself.

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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.

1

Air says:
September 15, 2008 @ 06:38

Очень трогаиельная история
рад что вы нашли брата!

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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.

1

ufly says:
August 22, 2008 @ 14:41

It seems time have arrived to buy an additional fridge

2

Daniel says:
August 22, 2008 @ 14:48

Heh, I will pitch the idea to Alena. We’ll see what she says.

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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.

1

иван says:
August 22, 2008 @ 12:25

trinkets?

2

Daniel says:
August 22, 2008 @ 12:48

Сувениры типа.

3

иван says:
August 22, 2008 @ 16:39

:) была такая мысль, когда картинку ближе посмотрел… буду знать…

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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.

1

Alena says:
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.

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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…

1

ufly says:
August 13, 2008 @ 15:56

Great, dude! So when is next real life testing?

2

Eldar says:
August 13, 2008 @ 17:44

Hehe sounds like a good little app, too bad that majority of waiters/waitresses we encountered are so bad at math that people have to come out with such utilities.

3

Daniel says:
August 13, 2008 @ 17:51

Yeah, it’s impossible to get them to do the math for you. And it becomes even more complicated if people shared an appetizer or something.

Strangely enough when we were in Canada waiters would ALWAYS ask if we want to have the check split or we want a single check.

4

Daniel says:
August 13, 2008 @ 17:51

Oh yeah, and the next test probably will be this Saturday and hopefully with a fully working version already.

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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…

1

ufly says:
August 12, 2008 @ 12:30

Вот во что может превратиться Линукс в неумелых руках разработчика

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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.