FMC 3.0

Time is certainly relative. Today is my Niece Sydney’s 2nd birthday. Sometimes it seems like time has flown by so fast, and other times it seems like so long ago. It is rather amazing to watch her grow up and develop. Seems like every time I see her, she’s a little bigger, and she’s always learned something new. Right now it certainly seems like time just flies right by.

Time is definately paradoxical too - for a span of time that seems to have flown by, so much has happened. Loved ones born, loved ones died, major other changes - the car, the laptop I’m typing this on (though that’s pretty damn recent, even for those two years), changes at work - the list goes on and on.

Crazy, Crazy stuff. At any rate, I’m looking forward to a weekend of Birthday stuff. I’m so glad all the attention has passed from mine.

I realize I posted pictures of one, but here’s mine:

I realize the pictures are nothing special, but it’s kinda cool that I just pulled the SD card out of the camera and put it in the side of the laptop to pull the pictures off of it. Much easier than fooling with cables.

So far my only minor problem is adjusting the display to make it readable. The 1920×1200 resolution makes things pretty damn tiny.

Other than that, it’s a been a quiet week. Of course, this weekend is sure to make up for it. It’s not every weekend you have a really long party for a 2 year old. Should prove to be interesting. Which reminds be, I have birthday presents to wrap.

The weather was beautiful, I got more Odyssey in (and invites to two more tournaments), and had a few get-togethers. Also, a surprise or two, which is always good.

Saturday after MD’s tourney I headed down to Alexandria to help a buddy out with some computer stuff. Nothing too crazy, but I was playing with software I’d only used once. Got to eat out at a few good places, and had a good time all ’round. Also got my plane tickets ordered for Iowa in May. That makes it official I guess. (Did I forget to mention that my invite to World Finals came through?)

Made ridiculously good time home from VA, it came in at just a hair under 2 hours. I wasn’t even speeding all that excessively. Came home to a B-day card and gift from my Aunt Nancy, and my mom working on my requested B-day dinner. People think I’m nuts for this, but I requested my favorite meal ever. They can’t believe I picked Mac and cheese with stewed tomatoes and smoked sausage as a b-day dinner when there’s so many amazing things in her repertoire. To them, I simply say "It’s my Birthday, I’ll get whatever I want." They can get their pick on their Birthday. But it won’t be as good as mine.

I also discovered today that my self-bought Birthday present shipped today. Over a week early. So that’s kinda nifty, cause the anticipation isn’t the fun part.

Also, I did get two other gifts. The small thing I asked for from my parents (mostly because I knew I didn’t have time to look for it) and the regifted camera from my sister. (She’s making regifting into an art-form.) But that wasn’t her only contribution, she also did my birthday cake:

She’s pretty damn good at them. The idea was all hers. When I saw it this afternoon, I just bust out laughing. It’s a pretty accurate portrayal as well. Oh, and warning, the linked picture is NSFD.

When she and the rest of the clan came over for dinner, she asked what I thought of it. To which I replied "It’s freaking amazing, but it would be nifty if he had a dialogue bubble saying ‘Damn You, Vile Woman!’". It was only a half-hearted request, cause I was already gonna regret cutting into this one. But, keeping to her perfectionistic ways, she whipped out a bag of ready to go icing (she apparently just carries it around with her wherever she goes) and made this little update:

Which just made it absolutely perfect. (Oh, that linked pic is NSFD as well.) I mean, it’s Stewie, and I got to have a cuss word on my Birthday cake. How amazing is that?

All in all, a good weekend. Even with the 250 mile round trip, one that included nearly all of the capital beltway. The only part I missed this weekend was the section between New Hampshire Ave and US 29. But the miles are ok, cause Nighthawk’s mileage improves as the roadtrip gets longer. Oh, and speaking of miles, Nighthawk climbed up over 18000 miles on the drive home today. That’s after hitting 17000 on Friday the 10th. The downside, of course, is the rather sudden increase in gas prices. Not as bad as they were before, but they’re getting there.

Yay, a quiet, mostly uneventful Birthday. Took care of some errands, did some minor web work, ordered a laptop, had breakfast with my sister and Sydney, and caught up on some much needed sleep.

Now, I’m most of you are gonna harp on that laptop part, wondering what the heck I’m doing ordering my own birthday present. Truth is, it is something I wanted, and have been planning on for a while. On top of that, it’s not like I’m expecting anyone to up and buy me a birthday present thats $2056.56. That’s a job for myself.

So just what did I get?

For those of you still not sure, it’s an Dell Inspiron 6000. No, it’s not cutting edge by any stretch of the imagination, but it’ll do anything I want it to. It may even handle the games ok, though that will require some testing.

For the geeks that want to know:

Inspiron 6000
Inspiron 6000 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 760 (2GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
LCD Panel 15.4 inch UltraSharp WUXGA LCD Panel
Memory 1GB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 1 Dimm
Video Card 128MB DDR ATI’s MOBILITY™ RADEON X300 PCI Express x16 Graphics
Hard Drive 80GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
Genuine Windows® XP Professional
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Combo/DVD+RW Drives FREE! 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW)
Wireless Networking Cards Intel® PRO 2200 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards
Primary Battery 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr)
Additional Battery 9-cell Lithium Ion Battery (80 WHr) Additional Battery

Preliminary ship date is monday the 27th, with an estimated delivery date right near the end of the month. Obviously I’ll get pictures I took of it up then, once I get my camera back (I’m halfway expecting it to be regifted for my birthday.)

Anyway, it’s off to clean out the car, and head over to MD for their Odyssey tournament. Then to VA for tech help giving (well, prolly more than that, but… eh, nevermind) and then back to DE Sunday for my Birthday shindig.

They call me anti-social?

Actually, it’s tomorrow. I’ve never been one much for celebrating myself. Besides, the last interesting birthday happened a few years ago. At least it was interesting from what little I remember of that one. There’s no more milestones until there’s a 0 in the ones place. Even then, I probably won’t be that excited about it.

So what am I doing for my birthday? Well, I’ll start off by finishing up my work week. Then i’ll probably sleep a bunch, maybe run a few errands. I gotta come off the overnight schedule this weekend anyway, so sleep is gonna be wonky as it is. It’ll be typical St. Patrick’s Day dinner around here.

For the weekend I’m getting up damn early Saturday to go to MD for their Odyssey Tournament. That’s right, one isn’t enough. The way I see it, the MD tourney is just for fun - it doesn’t come with the hard work and sleepless days that DE’s does. After that I may come back to Delaware. Or, I might go to DC, depending on how the winds blow me.

Sunday night will be the family dinner/get-together/etc. I still need to figure out a dish for the meal. That I’m looking forward to, just cause its nice to have the family around. That, and my sister is making the cake (as she does most years) and has promised something very interesting. That’s my kind of suspense.

Also, I’ve had a few questions about why I don’t want anything for my birthday. It’s not really because I don’t want anything, it’s mostly because I just have expensive toys. I just don’t see the need for anyone to shell out the money for my crazy gift ideas. But that’s me.