Christmas day at Judy and Bryan’s house
We had a great day at Judy and Bryan’s place today. My brother Colin, his wife Betty, and two of their children, Jacey and Troy, drove up from Edmonton for the Holidays.
Merry Christmas!
It’s December 25th…I’m still wearing my PJs and robe and it’s fast approaching noon- it must be a good day 🙂
Christmas has been good to Irene and I this year. We have each other, and our cats are all healthy and happy at the moment. We are going over to my Sister and Brother-in-law’s place in a couple of hours, where we’ll have a happy day of time with the family. Surrounded by loved ones, enjoying food and company- that’s what Christmas is about for me.
Dumb time to catch a cold…
I’m struggling at the moment to avoid catching a cold. I’m taking an extended break from work for the Christmas season this year, and what happens as my first day begins? I start to feel a sore throat. My head starts to feel “thick”, like I’m seeing/thinking/hearing through a layer of cotton.
Vista cometh…but no ATI OpenGL yet??!!
I’m not exactly known for my patience. You could probably find my picture next to the Wikipedia entry for “instant gratification”. If I decide I want a gadget, I’ll usually mull it over for some months, but when I make the final decision…there is no hesitation. Don’t stand in my way in Best Buy…several Sales Associates have tried that, and they are still recovering.
I think summer is over…
We had well over 20 cm of snow last night…
It’s still coming down. And for once the meteorologists had the forecast almost bang-on. It’s a bit of a shock to go from zero snow, having seen perhaps only two or three days with even light frost, to a “winter wonderland” overnight. But it is also something you just can’t avoid when you live in a temperate coastal rainforest climate. Winter means huge moist airmasses smacking into sometimes frigid air- a perfect formula for snowfall.
Meet our new kitten
We weren’t going to adopt another cat.
You know we are in trouble when my post starts off “We weren’t going to adopt another…”. And once again, it’s Irene who wedged the chisel into the cracks in my steely resolve. There were feral (semi-wild) kittens, you see, at the rescue shelter where she volunteers. And one of them was very scared, and curled up and buried his head in her sweater and purred when she was there. And it was very sad, and very cute, and couldn’t she please bring her home?
Performance of my new computer…
As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve built a new machine. And I’ve completed my first performance test on it, before any optimizations and with an out of date video driver. Here is what I got running 3D Mark 2006: (more…)
Computer upgrade 2006: the Coles Notes
I built my “new” computer over the weekend. This is sort of a tradition- every two years or so, I feel the need to refresh my technology from the ground up. Every other year I perform an “intermediate” upgrade- RAM, video, disk. The distinction between these two types of upgrade is somewhat vague, but I pretend they are different.
The last “full system” upgrade was back in 2004. I moved from Intel to AMD, NVidia to ATI, IDE to SATA, and life was good. This time around the changes are a bit more subtle…basically, sticking with AMD, ATI, and SATA, but bigger, faster, and better. Since I like living on the bleeding edge, I also decided to try Vista RC2…that turned out to be unworkable, but then it *is* a beta release.
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An extra month…
I mentioned a couple of posts ago how our cat Susu had fought back from a serious illness. A few days ago, she took a turn for the worse and stopped eating again. Susu didn’t have the strength to fight back this time. We took her to the vet just a few hours ago, and released her from her pain. Irene and I were there with her at the last breath.
Visiting folks
Irene and I went to visit my sister Connie today and to see the house she bought and refurbished. She’s done a really nice job taking an older home that had been used and abused and turning it around. Lots of TLC has gone into the place, but more importantly it’s her house- and it has a yard!