It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I would like everyone to take note that we have purchased at least half of our Christmas presents already and with little to no drama. People, this is basically unheard of! Alert the papers! (People still read papers, right?) I am a gift fretter. I second guess every item I pick up and wonder if I will find something else that will be more "perfect" at the next store. Rich is more of the "That looks cool. Get it." kind of shopper. So at some point we are likely to disagree about whether something should be in the cart or on our list. Today we were like a Well-oiled Shopping Machine! I'm not sure what has led me to just Chill the Fuck Out about shopping, but I'm enjoying every last minute of it.

I highly recommend the method we employed at Best Buy of browsing the shelves for an item and then ordering it through Amazon Prime for $5-10 cheaper. Normally I would fret about Best Buy suffering from this, but they're not one of my favorite stores anyways, so I'm not making it my personal mission to give them business. Just one more way I'm trying to leave the fretting behind for the rest of the year.

Since we're feeling so ahead of the yuletide game, I uploaded a few of my favorite peppy Christmas tunes through OpenTape for you all to enjoy. I know the We Three Kings song cuts off at the end, but that's how it is on the CD (transitioning into another song I don't care for).

Sleigh Ride is a song I have fond memories of from high school choir and think it's a completely appropriate song to hum whenever one is in a good mood, regardless of the time of year. Enjoy!

Peppy Christmas Classics - OpenTape Mix

Techie news in a convenient list format

• I bought and setup a Windows Home Server to manage all of our home computer backups. Rich's computer has never (!) been backed up and I was not good about remembering to maintenance mine. With my photos now being in RAW format and our music all being on hard drives, I wanted to safeguard from that sad day when one or both machines bit the dust. Much like buying a UPS, it's not necessarily a fun purchase, but I found myself strangely excited about getting home to set it up. I think that makes me a nerd, but I'm not sure.

• HOLY CRAP I GOT THE WIRELESS TO WORK! You have no idea how excited I am about that (although the caps lock probably gives you a hint). It only took about 100 feet of ethernet cable to move the router to a more central location. I'm going to leave it there in its temporary setup for a few days and then start drilling holes to put it there permanently if it continues to do so well. Since we don't have a phone to put in the phone nook under the stairs, it has just become a wireless nook. As a side note, if you ever have to untangle 50 feet of cable, over-under is your friend (there's a video link here). My little gem of knowledge to you.

• WordPress 2.7 will be out on December 10 (if not sooner) for self-hosted users. I am happy to note that threaded and paged comments will finally be included by default. LiveJournal's only been doing that for years. But I'm looking forward to playing with all the new WordPress features.

• To celebrate the new WordPress version, I'm going to work on a new blog design. I have several ideas for the masthead, but suck at PhotoShop. I can't bear to spend $699 on software I suck at so I'm trying out Gimp which is much cheaper, being FREE! Gimp recently came out with a new version and so far I'm pleased with it. I still suck at it, but I'm getting better.

• Since Amazon Kindle is out of stock these days and Curtis is playing Wrath of the Liche King instead of reading, I have commandeered his until further notice. I have also forced him to buy me books to read on his account. I hope he likes vampire romances.

• My new Minimed 522 insulin pump came in the mail today! The excitement of the new pump was tempered by it being almost identical to my 515 pump except that the 515 is no longer under warranty. The jury is still out on if I will have my sensors covered, so until then I just have a new pump that's clear instead of smoke. But it has that new pump smell! (And doesn't have all that funky dust in all the crevices of it like my old one.)

Why they invented image stabilization

I didn't have the best run tonight. The phone rang with an automated reminder for my Friday doctor appointment right in the middle of one of my running intervals. When you receive a call on the iPhone while listening to an MP3, it pauses the music. I can't pause while running very easily,though. Then there's the matter of having to wrestle the phone out of my sports bra and remove a glove so I can actually work the screen and next thing I know I'm all messed up and can't figure out if I'm supposed to be running or walking or just giving up and going home. But the dog and I soldiered on and when we finished our five minute cool down, my parents had just sat down for dinner. Score!

When my parents were honeymooning in Hawaii, their section of the island was nearly deserted. Since this was the first time they had spoken or seen each other in the nine months since Daddy left for Vietnam, they didn't mind the deserted area except that there weren't a lot of other vacationers to take their photo.

As they were out walking they saw a runner approaching and my mother asked him if he would take their picture. He agreed but wouldn't stop jogging in place as he pointed the camera at them. Boing. Click. Boing. Click. Somewhere there is a snapshot of my very young parents, with my mother looking like she's about to wet her pants from laughing so hard.

So while I was cranky my run didn't go all that smoothly, I should keep an eye out for tourists who need someone to take their photo on the beach.