Declan’s Blog

I am not a Mac head, but we’ve had some additions to the toy cache. The campus bookstore had a great deal on a 24″ iMac, with a rebate on an iPod. So Elaine got the big Mac and I got an iPod Touch. It’s a ton of fun!

Our newest arrival is an iPhone 3g that I got for work. It is even cooler than the Touch because it has a camera. I’ll have a lot of lower quality photos now, but it’s super convenient.

A couple complaints about the phone, that I’m sure I’ll get the whine about on the MacVeritas podcast soon:

Battery life - with 3g, wifi, and heavy use, don’t expect this thing to last more than 5 hours.

Charging change - this just kills me. The device won’t charge in my car now. Lots of discussion on the forums that Apple decided to drop the pins where most car systems charge the phone. I’m hoping there can be a firmware fix. If not, maybe my car device has a switch, or I can build a little wire switching dongle. Either way, shame on Apple for messing with this with no real warning.

Exchange email set up was a snap - but I think I’m missing some emails… It’s being a little flaky with the ActiveSync. More experience with the device is needed.

Calendar confusion - some recurring events that have canceled exceptions are showing up as valid meetings. I know this is complicated programming from the WirelessKnowledge days. Apple needs to get ahead of this or people will lose confidence in their data.

Apps crash a lot - and have to be reinstalled. AIM, Twinkle, and others just try to start, then go back to the home dock. I’ll even get an occasional reboot.

Other than that, the device is nice! It’s sleek, so it slips in and out of pockets nicely. So far it is way more resistant to scratches than my 60G iPod.

Now that I have the phone, I don’t know if I need the Touch. The girl wants it, but I might sell it and the cool Surefire flashlights I won and buy a proper lens for the camera.

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Twice. Twice the stupid dog fights with a skunk in the backyard.

For the record, peroxide, baking soda, and vinegar take out about 80% of the stink. For the record, 20% skunk stink is still almost unbearable.

Stupid dog.

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Jenny, Holly, Elaine and I took a trip to the Anza Borrego desert to take pictures of the wild flowers.

I stole Jenny’s “looking up” technique and got some pretty pictures:

Here’s a panorama of one of the flower fields with a mountain in the background. Click the image to see the full original image. Warning, it is very large!

Here are all of the pictures:

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First we got up and had some presents:

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The we joined some buddies and had some Dim Sum!

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We tried out the new BBQ place for Elaine’s birthday. It’s no Li’l Porgies, but it’s pretty good.

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We have an 18 year old boy! How’d that happen?

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Mom got up and made apple pancakes. Dad got out the camera.

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Last night, Saturday, July 21, sometime between 9:50 and 10:50 pm, an unknown car hit our son’s green 1998 Honda CR-V, which was parked on the south side of the 13000 block of Sparren Ave. This is in Penasquitos.

They scraped the left rear side bumper, twisted the rear axle, and left a large part of their car behind on the road. They left skirting, tire guards, and some type of blower from the engine in addition to lots of plastic and glass on the road just behind and ahead of the Honda. There was no one in or near the Honda at the time of the accident, so, thankfully, there were no injuries to anyone we are aware of.

A white Mazda hatchback was seen in the immediate area soon after the hit and run was discovered. The Mazda was weaving across lanes and dividers along Carmel Mtn. Road, and passed the group looking at the Honda’s damage on Sparren, narrowly missing the bystanders. That group heard the flap of a flat tire as it passed. No license plate was taken, but a good samaritan had been following the car at a distance when he noticed the driver’s erratic behavior and stopped to give the make and model information to police in case that was the car that had caused the damage to the Honda.

Even if this Mazda did not cause the damage to our Honda, the driver was obviously impaired and needs to be questioned.

PLEASE call the San Diego Police Department’s non emergency number, 858-484-3154, if you have any information about a white Mazda hatchback (or any car) with fresh damage and missing parts on the front passenger side, or information about the hit and run on Saturday night. Please also feel free to distribute this to anyone else who may have information.

Thank you!!!!

Elaine, Declan, and Nathan Fleming

Click here for more pictures of the car.

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Elaine and I tried out a new restaurant neighborhood tonight called Jasmine Cafe.  It’s a Persian and Mediterranean Cafe.  They were offering a Valentines Day special for two, charging $44.99 for a wide variety of their fare.  Bottom line, the food was excellent!

We started with a Lentil Soup, which was tasty.  Next came a dish of appetizers, including hummus, babaghanooj, cashk bedamjoon, musto khiyar, filafel, and dolma (Man, the spell checker HATES those words!).  These were all fantastic, especially the babaghanooj.  I really don’t like eggplant, so I wasn’t expecting to like it.  It was smoky, garlicky, and full of subtle flavors.  The dollop of olive oil on top didn’t hurt either.  The other spreads were great, as was the yogurt based dip in the middle.  The dolmas and filafels were nothing to blog about (did you catch that subtle modernization of “to write home about?”  Clever, eh?), but the high quality of the rest of the plate does more than forgive that.

The main dish was a selection of Shrimp Kabob, Chicken Kabob, and Beef/Lamb Shawerma.  Again, we loved all of them.  The shrimp was a little salty for Elaine, but I liked the way the flavor permeated the whole shrimp.  And anything that slows Elaine down around shrimp is a blessing.  I think I got 2.  That’s a record.  Yep, she likes shrimp.

The chicken was soft, moist and had a great lemony flavor.  The beef/lamb (I bet that’s a funny looking animal) was very nice.  I’m a big lamb fan, and I asked if they had just a lamb version, but no.  Anyway, it was still good and had a nice lamby flavor.

On the plate was a lump of white stuff.  We asked what it was - whipped garlic with lemon and olive oil.  Really neat mix of flavors and texture.  It went well with a fork full of their nice basmati rice.

We finished the meal with a nice baklava.  Not too sweet and garnished with pistachios.

I love it when I find a new place with good food, especially unique dishes.  I really recommend the place and hope it gets enough traffic to keep it around.

Their web site sucks, but shows the address:

13185-3 Black Mountain Road
San Diego, CA  92129

This is the Vons shopping center in Rancho Penasquitos.

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December’s a pretty busy month at our house. Nathan’s (the boy) birthday is on the 5th, Elaine’s (the wife) is on the 16th, then there’s Christmas soon after. Because the wife handles most of the shopping around here, I’m just on the hook for her birthday and Christmas gifts. Yes, it’s a little inconsiderate for her birthday to be so close to Christmas, but I can’t blame her for that. I blame her parents.

Anyway, somewhere near the beginning of December, I normally log on to Amazon, check the wife’s wish list, add a few things, and, bada bing, I’m done. All I need to do is collect boxes as they come in and decide which things I’ll give the wife for her birthday and which I’ll save for Christmas. There’s a whole other story about brow beating Erin (the daughter) into doing the wrapping for me, but I’ll save that, or get her to blog it.

So, I fire off my order on December 3rd, and within a week three big boxes show up addresses to me from Amazon. Now, we’re a Midwest family who transplaned to San Diego. At this time of year, there are boxes coming in every day. Since I outsource the mundane business of mail to the wife, I just had the boxes piled up under my desk, planning to select her birthday booty the evening before the 16th. The wife is a crossword freak and had added:

“Excalibur The NY Times Deluxe Touch Screen Crossword Puzzle”
Excalibur Electronics; Video Game

to her Wish List. I ordered that, and, since I wanted to look like I put SOME effort into the process, I added:

“Wordplay”
Chris Astoyan; DVD

a (very entertaining! who knew?!?) movie about crossword freaks. I imagined her delight upon opening TWO birthday presents, ONE of them a non-Wish List SURPRISE, and ANOTHER that’s also on-theme! (And not just a Starbucks card. “Here, you LIKE coffee. Right?”)

So, the evening of the 15th comes and I go hide in my office and pop open the three big boxes, in search of the two crossword related items. Three boxes. Three items. WHAT? There were eleven items in total that I’d ordered for the two occasions. Oh man, I’m screwed… Thankfully, the crossword video game was one of the three, but my masterwork, the accompanying DVD, was not here. In fact, the only items that had shown up were the ones Amazon offered through third parties. All of the other stuff, DVDs and books, Amazon stock and trade, were missing. I quickly looked through my email for the Amazon Order confirmation and was stunned to finally notice this:

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Our hosts:

Gabe show his power move:

Looks like he’s boring Elaine to sleep…

TJ, between poses:

We even got a special appearance by Nathan!

Erin’s got a power move too:

Click here for more pictures.

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