Redeeming Qualities

So the entire family slept until 7:30 am this morning, which is amazing! I mean it, for Arianna its like a new world record.

She was really good for grandma yesterday and she did take about 3 hours worth of naps during the day. She still managed to have 20 oz. of milk yesterday but she didn't feel like eating many solids - which I can understand if she's not feeling well.

I got off I-95 N at the Rt. 140 exit in Foxboro, so that I could get gas (no close gas stations getting off at the N. Main St. Exit). I drove through the center of town and stopped at the Cumberland Farms on Mechanic St.

I'm not sure why, but being back in Foxboro always gives me the creeps - like I don't belong. I really did like growing up in Foxboro (ok, after 8th grade - up until then I wanted to run back to Boston as I felt I was the focus of taunts and ridicule by the kids in my grade) and especially in High School I found I really had 'found my place' with music and gained alot of self confidence. But for some reason I don't feel I belong there and I seldom drive through town. I drive to my parents house and back to the highway, which are fairly close to each other.

I was really hoping that I wouldn't see anyone I knew at Cumberland Farms. I pumped my gas quickly and got back in the car. As I was putting on my seat belt I looked around at the people and realized that everyone I saw was over 40. Wow, the census stuff is right - 80% of the people in that town are over 40. It is an expensive town to live in, if I remember correctly the median home price is over $350k now. We paid much less than that for our first house, I couldn't imagine paying over $300k, WOW!

So I got my my parents and was greeted at the door by my Dad holding my beautiful daughter, who was all smiles. She is just too darn cute! But I have to remember to tell my mom to do the whole pig tails thing better - she looked like she had ant antenna on her head... no wonder my mom cut my hair into 'the Dorothy Hamill' until I was 9, she was really bad at hair!

My brother had called me at work today. He was at Best Buy buying a laptop and wanted to know if the qualities he saw were 'good'. In reality, for what he's going to use a laptop for (a beer bottle rest) anything other than a Pentium 386 is going to work for him. But he paid $800 for an HP that actually sounds really good. Being that my entire family is totally computer illiterate (its funny to talk to them about what I do... "Yes Mom, I wrote a program that does just that"... boy would they be floored by the PRV430 file importer I just wrote! hahaha), Jim wanted me to 'optomize' his machine for him.

Um, 'optomize', reminded me of Optimus Prime that he was so found of as a kid.

He picked up a cingular aircard which I really feel is overkill for him, especially at $60/month... but hey, its his money if he wants to blow it. He paid $150 for the card and I can almost guarantee it'll be broken by spring. His new machine is slick looking - it has a 100 GB hard drive which I'm envious of (I've got 90 GB on my work machine but only 40 GB on my home laptop), and 1 GB of memory (my personal machine has less but my Dell has a gig). And it has Windows Vista... I was anxious to play.

Ok, windows vista sucks. I've never been so annoyed by an operating system before. Every time I did almost anything a window popped up to ask me if I really wanted to do that. The real kicker came when I was installing the airbus card - apparantly cingular didn't realease a driver with the card that was compatable with Vista. In the past windows would just let you install it anyway because if it worked with a previous version of windows it would work with the current, something called 'backwards compatability'... well I guess Vista doesn't want to deal with possible headaches and doesn't do 'backwards compatability' very well. It was funny that the error message said I could connect to the internet to get the latest version... um, ya, I'll get right on that chief... with an airbus card that will actually let me connect... fruckin' geniuses.

I have a love hate relationship with microsoft. I'm a .NET programmer. Microsoft .NET is the Microsoft strategy for connecting systems, information, and devices through Web services so people can collaborate and communicate more effectively. .NET technology is integrated throughout Microsoft products, providing the capability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, security-enhanced solutions through the use of Web services. (official MS release statement). I do most of my programming in C#, and have never written anything for the web using it... despite MS statement. Windows is written in a combo of C/C++ and assembly. These are very basic level languages and have been around for almost 30 years. When Microsoft releases a new version of windows it is usually just a rebuild of the current version - an ammendment. I do ammendments to my programs often, why re-invent the wheel. But I think that a company as large as MS can do a better job of quality control - many of their operating systems are released unfinished. This is one reason why I always wait for the first 'service pack' before installing.

Anyway, Jim will be coming over with a new aircard sometime today and I'll get to play more.

So Ari and I stuck at my parents house through dinner and a movie. They have sattelite and get a great channel called the independent film channel (IFC). We watched The Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp and Lena Olin. I really enjoyed Lena Olin when she stepped in as Syd's mom on Alias so was excited to see the movie - and surprisingly it was fantastic. Highly recommended.

Arianna was angel the whole night. My parents just love her to bits, which is very cool. We left about 9 PM and Ari slept the ride home and even getting her out of the car and into the house. I sat in the recliner just rocking her (still in her coat and cute hat) for about 30 min. before puttin her in her crib. She slept until 7:30 this morning... what a great kid.

And yes, her cold is much better - thank god.

On the docket for today is cleaning...and laundry. I have to get some time downstairs today, have to finish my scrapbooking swap (ok, I have to start it). Shawn offered to go food shopping and I'll go to BJs to get Ari diapers and baby food. Its still sub-freezing outside, so Ari doesn't step outside, again. The winter lockdown thing is hard... I'm anxious for spring.