Mehling.org: February 2004 Archives

February 16, 2004

Day Off

Events had conspired against me on President's day. Rather than bumming around the house and playing soccer, I had made some tactical errors in scheduling. First we had to have Hol's car in for service at 7am. Seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight, I should have taken it as a warning.

From there I met Steve at his place to continue on the quest for a complete hardwood install. Thanks to some 'day labor' help from Daniel and Jeff we were able to get the floor completely laid by 6:30pm. Just in time to get home for our dinner plans. The floor looks good though, real good. There's actually a couple things left to do, but in reality, the bulk of the work is done and there's now almost an entire second story floor of hardwood freshly laid.

Hol, Tedd, and I then met Phil and boys for some pizza. Di was under the weather from a cold the boys just got over. When we showed up at the pizza place, the Colline boys had already managed to ditch dad and take up fortifications in the video game room. After dinner we stopped by Cold Stone for some ice cream. Mud Pie Mojo is so damn good. I'm not sure about Phil's choice though... banana ice cream with Heath Bar?

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
Comments (0)

February 13, 2004

Hol's Birthday

I can finally reveal Hol's birthday gift. Besides a small piece of jewelry, I wanted to get her something cool this year. I finally came up with something that would be cool for her... there was a TV series that we were able to catch for a while on Bravo. It was from the UK, called Cold Feet. Hol loved this show. Although Coupling is available in the States in a normal DVD, Cold Feet is not. Amazon.co.uk lists it and ships to the US. All 5 series in one box!

Now the problem is the evil DVD CCA consortium limits DVDs to be played only in their native region. UK is Region 2, US is region 1. (My non-techy friends tend to ask "why" when I tell them this... They have their reasons, although in this case it only limits their potential market.)

Adding an additional obstacle, in Europe they encode their color differently than we do (PAL versus NTSC). With some pointers from some friends, I was able to track down a DVD player that had been hacked (the eBay seller had done some additional work on the player) to play any region DVD and could convert between the US/Euro color coding systems (PAL/NTSC) on the fly.

Out of the box the DVD player would play normal DVDs and burned VCDs fine. However the Region 2 disks would sort of pause and stop up a bit. I emailed the eBay seller and responded quickly letting me know he'd refund me or replace the unit, my choice. I'm going to try to get a working replacement so we can watch Cold Feet. The seller is going to test a Region 2 disk before sending down the replacement. Cool!

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
Comments (0)

February 08, 2004

John Adams

By:

"John Adams" provides a very personal view of the events that transpired in the years leading up to and then following July 4th, 1776. David McCullough used a unique (to me) style of linking direct quotes from various personal diaries, correspondence, and public writings to create a third person biography "written", almost entirely, by the man himself. I imagine the amount of research required to find and then organize a book like this was incredible. Beyond the cold facts of what was going on in the world during that time, using the immense volume of personal letters and diary entries, McCullough was able to bring the story of Adam's life a very personal touch. The acknowledgements section brings to light just how extensive the collection of writings from the entire family is -- thousands of letters and journals, 600+ microfiches packed with the inner thoughts of the 2nd president, his wife, and his family.

The book did a wonderful job of presenting Abigail Adams (his wife and life long friend) as an incredibly intelligent human, and who provided Adams with a huge amount of support throughout his life. They wrote over 1000 letters to each other over the course of their life and were still incredibly close when she passed away in 1818. I can not say enough how influential she was in making Adams the man he was.

Other interesting tidbits:

During the revolution in the late 1700's, Adams would spend most of his time in Europe both as an ambassador to France and Britain, but also in the Netherlands. In fact, without his work with the Dutch, the US may not have been recognized as a sovereign state -- which led to a much needed loan for the US to continue to fund its war efforts. While the US needed Washington (and our French allies) back in the states battling the British, without Adams in Europe, we would have certainly been in a much worse position when it came time to treat for peace, if that ever happened at all without his work. For much of his time in France, his son, John Quincy was with him learning and schooling throughout Europe. For certain, this type of exposure and training made John Quincy the man that he became -- the 6th President of the United States, an event that was one of Adam's proudest.

While Adams and Jefferson spent their years in office (following the revolution) in a continual battle over political differences (sometimes very bitterly), they remained life long friends. They exchanged numerous letters, in retirement, right until the end. They died on the same day, July 4th, 1826 (yes, on the US's 50th birthday, "the voice" (Adams) and "the pen" (Jefferson) of the Declaration of Independence died. Jefferson at 1pm, Adams at 6:20.) All right, I admit it, the thought of that gives me chills.

The book is filled with such a personal voice and obvious admiration for the man, I couldn't help myself but to be amazed at what Adams accomplished while remaining largely unchanged from his simple farmer background. When I get time I will probably read both Truman and Theodore Rex, by the same author.

Posted by ben at 11:59 PM
Comments (1)

Hardwood Install

Spent this afternoon installing hardwood floor at Steve's new loft. He's now got a lot of work done on the place. Framing/drywall is in place and his new bathroom is almost complete. His additional kitchen cabinets and half-walls are in too. Time to get a move on the floors. Tedd and I did the layout whilst Hol and Steve measured and cut. There were a few places where we had to slow down and cut custom holes for electrical in the floor or to go around corners.

Installing, once we got the feel for it, was literally "a snap". The flooring he bought is designed to fit together like Legos. No glue, no nails. It comes in 8" by 8' planks. Each plank is made up of a top layer of individual hardwood strips (2.7" thick by random shorter lengths) which is pre-treated and sealed. This is fixed to a longer plank with a tongue and groove setup -- the difference being the grooves are so well engineered they snap into place. If you screw up a seam and don't get it just right? No problem, just unsnap it and start over. Neat stuff.

Posted by ben at 08:00 PM
Comments (0)

February 04, 2004

Gum Graft

Day six of recovery from my gum graft surgery. Things are finally starting to heal a bit. While my dentist told me the procedure was the most uncomfortable she'd ever experienced, I'd say the procedure wasn't a big deal. It's the recovery.

The roof of my mouth feels as if every surface has been burned by really HOT pizza -- you know what I mean? When you stick a piece of pizza in your mouth right out of the kitchen, steaming fricking hot? And the mozzarella cheese sticks to the roof and continues to burn? And you do that whole breathing through your open mouth thing, quickly trying to cool the cheesy lava flow stuck to the roof of your mouth while not spitting molten pizza back out? And maybe you have a beverage close at hand and you quickly gulp some of it down, swirling it around your mouth, but it is far, far too late? Yeah.

But also, that morning you were eating captain crunch cereal (original flavor), and a bunch of it tore up the roof of your mouth... so you already had a nice open wound when the cheese hit you? Yeah.

It's like that. That "type" of pain, but an order of magnitude worse. (That was for you Josh, I know you love any situation involving OoM.)

There's an additional bit of fun though. By day 3 the stitches have started to come loose. There's these fun little fishing line type strings hanging around in your mouth now. Just like when you eat an orange and those white little pulpy strings get stuck between your teeth? And you are constantly fishing around with your tongue to try and unwedge these things? Well in this case, you end up hitting one of the wounds, which is, not so pleasant, and whatever you do, don't actually unwedge one of these things from between your teeth -- they're holding your new gum(s) in place! Yeah. It's like that, but you've just eaten like 25 oranges in a row --- perhaps in an attempt to cool the roof of your mouth from the scorching pizza burns.

Update: The overwhelming question I received when I told someone I had (or was going to have) this procedure was, "Owww." Followed immediately by, "Why?". I suspect this second question was asked almost always because people are looking for a way to avoid having this done in their own mouth. Good idea.

So here, goes, I asked the doctor(s) again. Both said that "agressive orthodontics" could be the cause (teeth moving around from braces too fast). The more likely way to avoid this would be to brush properly -- and no, I don't mean 3 times a day. I mean properly... I got these tips:

1) Use small circular strokes -- do not 'saw' your brush across your gums.
2) Use a nice soft tooth brush.
3) Do not push hard on your teeth/gums as that will cause them to abrade.

There you have it, dental tips. Gah. What has this blog come to? *sigh*

Posted by ben at 07:30 AM
Comments (2)

February 03, 2004

Keen Eddie

I think Keen Eddie is my new favorite show. Not as laugh out loud funny as the UK version of Coupling (you *must* see this sitcom, even our anti-sitcom friends thought this show was worthwhile).

It's that old "New-York-cop-with-a-soul screws up big and is sent to London on special-assignment with his dog and is given a sex-addict-partner and now they solve crimes for London's Scotland Yard" Dramedy formula. You've seen it a thousand times, right? Well this one has a cat too.

Anyway, it's pretty good, check it out.

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
Comments (0)


« January 2004 \| Main \| March 2004 » February 16, 2004 Day Off Events had conspired against me on President's day. Rather than bumming around the house and playing soccer, I had made some tactical errors in scheduling. First we had to have Hol's car in for service at 7am. Seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight, I should have taken it as a warning. From there I met Steve at his place to continue on the quest for a complete hardwood install. Thanks to some 'day labor' help from Daniel and Jeff we were able to get the floor completely laid by 6:30pm. Just in time to get home for our dinner plans. The floor looks good though, real good. There's actually a couple things left to do, but in reality, the bulk of the work is done and there's now almost an entire second story floor of hardwood freshly laid. Hol, Tedd, and I then met Phil and boys for some pizza. Di was under the weather from a cold the boys just got over. When we showed up at the pizza place, the Colline boys had already managed to ditch dad and take up fortifications in the video game room. After dinner we stopped by Cold Stone for some ice cream. Mud Pie Mojo is so damn good. I'm not sure about Phil's choice though... banana ice cream with Heath Bar? Posted by ben at 10:00 PM Comments (0) February 13, 2004 Hol's Birthday I can finally reveal Hol's birthday gift. Besides a small piece of jewelry, I wanted to get her something cool this year. I finally came up with something that would be cool for her... there was a TV series that we were able to catch for a while on Bravo. It was from the UK, called Cold Feet. Hol loved this show. Although Coupling is available in the States in a normal DVD, Cold Feet is not. Amazon.co.uk lists it and ships to the US. All 5 series in one box! Now the problem is the evil DVD CCA consortium limits DVDs to be played only in their native region. UK is Region 2, US is region 1. (My non-techy friends tend to ask "why" when I tell them this... They have their reasons, although in this case it only limits their potential market.) Adding an additional obstacle, in Europe they encode their color differently than we do (PAL versus NTSC). With some pointers from some friends, I was able to track down a DVD player that had been hacked (the eBay seller had done some additional work on the player) to play any region DVD and could convert between the US/Euro color coding systems (PAL/NTSC) on the fly. Out of the box the DVD player would play normal DVDs and burned VCDs fine. However the Region 2 disks would sort of pause and stop up a bit. I emailed the eBay seller and responded quickly letting me know he'd refund me or replace the unit, my choice. I'm going to try to get a working replacement so we can watch Cold Feet. The seller is going to test a Region 2 disk before sending down the replacement. Cool! Posted by ben at 10:00 PM Comments (0) February 08, 2004 John Adams By: "John Adams" provides a very personal view of the events that transpired in the years leading up to and then following July 4th, 1776. David McCullough used a unique (to me) style of linking direct quotes from various personal diaries, correspondence, and public writings to create a third person biography "written", almost entirely, by the man himself. I imagine the amount of research required to find and then organize a book like this was incredible. Beyond the cold facts of what was going on in the world during that time, using the immense volume of personal letters and diary entries, McCullough was able to bring the story of Adam's life a very personal touch. The acknowledgements section brings to light just how extensive the collection of writings from the entire family is -- thousands of letters and journals, 600+ microfiches packed with the inner thoughts of the 2nd president, his wife, and his family. The book did a wonderful job of presenting Abigail Adams (his wife and life long friend) as an incredibly intelligent human, and who provided Adams with a huge amount of support throughout his life. They wrote over 1000 letters to each other over the course of their life and were still incredibly close when she passed away in 1818. I can not say enough how influential she was in making Adams the man he was. Other interesting tidbits: During the revolution in the late 1700's, Adams would spend most of his time in Europe both as an ambassador to France and Britain, but also in the Netherlands. In fact, without his work with the Dutch, the US may not have been recognized as a sovereign state -- which led to a much needed loan for the US to continue to fund its war efforts. While the US needed Washington (and our French allies) back in the states battling the British, without Adams in Europe, we would have certainly been in a much worse position when it came time to treat for peace, if that ever happened at all without his work. For much of his time in France, his son, John Quincy was with him learning and schooling throughout Europe. For certain, this type of exposure and training made John Quincy the man that he became -- the 6th President of the United States, an event that was one of Adam's proudest. While Adams and Jefferson spent their years in office (following the revolution) in a continual battle over political differences (sometimes very bitterly), they remained life long friends. They exchanged numerous letters, in retirement, right until the end. They died on the same day, July 4th, 1826 (yes, on the US's 50th birthday, "the voice" (Adams) and "the pen" (Jefferson) of the Declaration of Independence died. Jefferson at 1pm, Adams at 6:20.) All right, I admit it, the thought of that gives me chills. The book is filled with such a personal voice and obvious admiration for the man, I couldn't help myself but to be amazed at what Adams accomplished while remaining largely unchanged from his simple farmer background. When I get time I will probably read both Truman and Theodore Rex, by the same author. Posted by ben at 11:59 PM Comments (1) Hardwood Install Spent this afternoon installing hardwood floor at Steve's new loft. He's now got a lot of work done on the place. Framing/drywall is in place and his new bathroom is almost complete. His additional kitchen cabinets and half-walls are in too. Time to get a move on the floors. Tedd and I did the layout whilst Hol and Steve measured and cut. There were a few places where we had to slow down and cut custom holes for electrical in the floor or to go around corners. Installing, once we got the feel for it, was literally "a snap". The flooring he bought is designed to fit together like Legos. No glue, no nails. It comes in 8" by 8' planks. Each plank is made up of a top layer of individual hardwood strips (2.7" thick by random shorter lengths) which is pre-treated and sealed. This is fixed to a longer plank with a tongue and groove setup -- the difference being the grooves are so well engineered they snap into place. If you screw up a seam and don't get it just right? No problem, just unsnap it and start over. Neat stuff. Posted by ben at 08:00 PM Comments (0) February 04, 2004 Gum Graft Day six of recovery from my gum graft surgery. Things are finally starting to heal a bit. While my dentist told me the procedure was the most uncomfortable she'd ever experienced, I'd say the procedure wasn't a big deal. It's the recovery. The roof of my mouth feels as if every surface has been burned by really HOT pizza -- you know what I mean? When you stick a piece of pizza in your mouth right out of the kitchen, steaming fricking hot? And the mozzarella cheese sticks to the roof and continues to burn? And you do that whole breathing through your open mouth thing, quickly trying to cool the cheesy lava flow stuck to the roof of your mouth while not spitting molten pizza back out? And maybe you have a beverage close at hand and you quickly gulp some of it down, swirling it around your mouth, but it is far, far too late? Yeah. But also, that morning you were eating captain crunch cereal (original flavor), and a bunch of it tore up the roof of your mouth... so you already had a nice open wound when the cheese hit you? Yeah. It's like that. That "type" of pain, but an order of magnitude worse. (That was for you Josh, I know you love any situation involving OoM.) There's an additional bit of fun though. By day 3 the stitches have started to come loose. There's these fun little fishing line type strings hanging around in your mouth now. Just like when you eat an orange and those white little pulpy strings get stuck between your teeth? And you are constantly fishing around with your tongue to try and unwedge these things? Well in this case, you end up hitting one of the wounds, which is, not so pleasant, and whatever you do, don't actually unwedge one of these things from between your teeth -- they're holding your new gum(s) in place! Yeah. It's like that, but you've just eaten like 25 oranges in a row --- perhaps in an attempt to cool the roof of your mouth from the scorching pizza burns. Update: The overwhelming question I received when I told someone I had (or was going to have) this procedure was, "Owww." Followed immediately by, "Why?". I suspect this second question was asked almost always because people are looking for a way to avoid having this done in their own mouth. Good idea. So here, goes, I asked the doctor(s) again. Both said that "agressive orthodontics" could be the cause (teeth moving around from braces too fast). The more likely way to avoid this would be to brush properly -- and no, I don't mean 3 times a day. I mean properly... I got these tips: 1) Use small circular strokes -- do not 'saw' your brush across your gums. 2) Use a nice soft tooth brush. 3) Do not push hard on your teeth/gums as that will cause them to abrade. There you have it, dental tips. Gah. What has this blog come to? sigh Posted by ben at 07:30 AM Comments (2) February 03, 2004 Keen Eddie I think Keen Eddie is my new favorite show. Not as laugh out loud funny as the UK version of Coupling (you must see this sitcom, even our anti-sitcom friends thought this show was worthwhile). It's that old "New-York-cop-with-a-soul screws up big and is sent to London on special-assignment with his dog and is given a sex-addict-partner and now they solve crimes for London's Scotland Yard" Dramedy formula. You've seen it a thousand times, right? Well this one has a cat too. Anyway, it's pretty good, check it out. Posted by ben at 10:00 PM Comments (0)		Bookmarks Ben's Resume Ben's Lists Mehling Photo Album Flickr Photo Album Recently Archived Cozumal and Playa Palancar Akumal Desperately Seeking Lodging See you in nine days Sian Ka'an Coba Ruins Tulum Ruins Finally! 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