Author Archives: Josh

This will inevitably end badly…

Aside

Imagine a Sears, a Best Buy, and an Ikea got together and adopted the baby of two Boeing 747 assembly plants.

Welcome to Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Bevin is so excited by EVERYTHING. She may have a stroke.

The Texas Commandments, 1-4

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It’s been a busy week, haven’t had a lot of time to comment on it, nor really any interesting things to comment on. Unless you want to hear about a lot of emails and signatures. Which you don’t.

However, in the middle of my second week here, I’m starting to figure out the important differences and such. So I thought it’d be fun to start writing them down.

I. Thou shalt carry thy sunglasses at all times
There is no shelter from the unforgiving nuclear fireball overhead. Forgetting to put on your sunglasses in the short walk from the door to the car may cause lasting retinal damage. Absolutely do not leave your sunglasses in the hotel room accidentally. (In fact, it may be prudent to buy 3 or 4 more sunglasses and pre-cache them in strategic locations to prevent this problem!)

II. Thou should change thine understanding of the word “onramp”.
Freeways are a bit of a different beast here. The distinction between “frontage road” and “freeway” is… fungible. And in several cases the “onramp” between them is actually just staying in the lane you’re in. This confuses the Google.
I do like the dedicated freeway u-turn lanes though, that’s helpful. Confusing sometimes, but helpful.

III. Thou shalt not re-use your cup at Starbucks
I’m used to getting a tea/iced-coffee refill by taking the lid off of my cup and handing the cup to the barista. Apparently that is not how it’s done here, you get a whole new thing. For a while they politely ignored me by grabbing a new cup and writing on it, giving me the subtle “throw that away yourself” signal, but today I got low-key yelled at by a barista about it. Message received.

IV. Thou shalt buy an umbrella and keep it handy
In stark disregard for Portland’s disdain for umbrellas they are quite useful here. The term “downpour” also seems to mean something rather different than I’m used to. I’ve never seen the streets fill up with water almost to the top of the curb within 5 minutes before. Getting from your car to the front door of anywhere will be a much better experience with an umbrella. No raincoat can save you.

Welcome to Texas, hope you didn’t need your laptop…

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Subtitled: “Windows 10, please go eat shit and die.”

So here’s a new one to add to the immense number of minor annoyances and decently long list of consequential fuckups windows 10 has caused me. It remains to be seen which category this fits into.

I made a terrible mistake last night, and I left my laptop in Windows 10, and closed the lid, figuring it would be fine until I needed it again.

Apparently not. Sometime after I picked it up and put it in my backpack at 5:30AM PST this morning it decided a reboot was in order, probably because it had silently done some updates in the background while the lid was closed overnight. You know, as one expects a sleeping laptop with the lid closed to do.

Well, surprise there windows, but you’re not the only operating system on my laptop, and the real OS’ require passwords to decrypt before they boot. So I arrive at a Starbucks in DFW, open my backpack, and find a laptop that is absolutely BOILING as it has been running at a BIOS boot prompt without the benefit of power management, inside a sleeve, inside my backpack, for the last 7+ hours.

And now, after plugging into power, it doesn’t want to boot up. Probably a thermal issue. I’m hoping this new ThinkPad lives up to the ruggedness my previous ones have, or it’s gonna be a long week. For now though, it is literally untouchable, I nearly burned my hand grabbing onto it in my bag.

Windows. Not even once kids. (For reference, I run Arch Linux, commonly known as “Hard Mode Linux” because it has NO training wheels, and your computer doesn’t even go to sleep unless you configure it to. Even that has never done something quite this boneheaded.)

I need to figure out how to run Overwatch on Linux, I can pretty much boycott all other windows-only games and just never see that retarded pile of regressions again. But Overwatch. Damn you Blizzard. (Both for a game I really enjoy, and for not supporting Linux, you lazy lazy jerks.)

Obligatory airplane picture, again!

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It’s basically the same as last week’s picture, except we’re one row further back, and Bev’s wearing a different shirt.

To be fair, I didn’t check the tail number, might be a different plane. But this flight just goes back and forth, so maybe not.

Going to be another whirlwind week of adventure! For now though, either audio book and game on tablet, or listening to music and reading, how to decide?

(Bev says I should’ve brought my knitting project so I wasn’t faced with such decisions. Like I need more stuff to carry.)

On the plane and headed back home.

Image

Good thing we checked in exactly on the 24 Hour early mark, 5 unlucky customers are getting booted to another flight as ASA 655 here is “oversold”. (weasel words if there ever were any!)

Homeward we go, a week back in PDX, then a week here, then two weeks back home, and then this becomes home!

Well, we’re moving to a Carolina it seems..

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No, not North, nor South. Not that crazy. But almost. Instead, it’s a “Carolina IV” floorplan by Bloomfield homes, in Justin TX. If all goes well, 27 days from today it’s ours!

The post is weighty, and full of images.

  • Front, view #1
  • Foyer!
  • Dining room.
  • Bedroom #1
  • Downstairs bathroom, by the front bedrooms.
  • Livingroom/Kitchen
  • Living room left side, stairs up and hallway to master behind.
  • Entrance to the master bedroom.
  • Master Bedroom
  • Master bath/shower.
  • Master bath: Closet to the back, sinks to the left.
  • Master bath, because details.
  • Master bath – Vanity (Closet to the right)
  • Master closet.
  • Kitchen from breakfast nook
  • Looking at kitchen as you come out of master
  • Fireplace close-up.
  • Upstairs, game room, looking back at media room on left and bedroom on right.
  • Upstairs Bedroom
  • Slightly odd built-in desk and door to media room.
  • Media room.
  • Upstairs bathroom
  • View out back door from breakfast nook
  • Right side backyard
  • Side fence goes all the way to the front, actually fairly uncommon in most neighborhoods.
  • Out in the backyard looking at the back porch
  • Front, view #2.

We also have a number of 360-degree photos, but the 360 degree viewer plugin seems to be even more broken than before. I’m looking into a way to display those here, so hopefully there will be more to see soon!

We’re incredibly excited. These quick photos don’t do it justice, but it’s what we had time for. So much to do, and so many papers to sign! (And we’re told that this isn’t even close to the amount to be dealt with at the end of the month!)

Aaaaaand we’re off to our next meeting!

Texas… Waffle?

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I’ve heard of Texas Toast, but this is a new development.

But wait, there’s more!

Bevin, as usual, is indecisive about her toppings.

Dangit, why’d we have to be in the syrup swamp? I could stand to adventure across the great Nutella plains and strawberry mountains.

Pretty sure there’s a movie idea in here.