Up and At'm Turkey Trot 5k

The whole family did this one! It was low 40s with a light breeze, and I'm pretty sure it was the exact same course as last year. Plenty of rolling hills, but no huge ones that really destroyed us. Being sick the past two weeks, my training regimen was negligible, but I just did my best to keep up with Lauren and Mom (even if it almost killed me!). We found out later that mom actually won her age group! Woohoo!

It took us about 30 seconds to reach the start line, so I adjusted all the times accordingly.

30:57

Mom - 30:41
Lauren - 30:46
Dad - 37:36

Sender: Fishel This one was made of wood!

Sender: Fishel

Sender: Corey

Sender: Mom and Dad

Sender: Matt and Lynn

My Motorolla Droid!

As I was one of those folks anxious to get an Android phone as soon as I could swing it on Verizon, I thought I would do a little post about how it has been working out for me. So here it is, my new phone!One key thing I've enjoyed is the ability to get a widget for putting my calendar events on my home screen. I never found a good way to do this and it was one of the most useful features for me on phones I've had in the past. I have been using the Blackberry Storm, which hasn't gotten very good reviews, but I have definitely gotten used to. I did a mobile programming course over the summer where we programmed exclusively for Android so I was excited about the possibility of having a phone that I could write applications for. Anyhoo, more about the Droid. One of they key selling points for me was the fact that it was almost the same dimensions as my Storm, yet had a slide-out keyboard.
Having to use a software keyboard was one of my biggest gripes with the Storm. Even with its tactile feedback, I really liked the feel of an actual keyboard. So combine that with a similar size and I was pretty stoked! One thing I don't understand about this design of this phone is its "underbite." See any similarities?I don't really understand the need for the lip when they could have just made the screen a little larger or reduce the keyboard a little (I mean, do I really need a control pad?) Anyway, that is pretty minor, but still a little odd. Another design issue is the inclination of the phone to go from
to
without much effort at all. I've not had it a week and the back has come off as I pull it out of my pocket at least 3 times. Again, it's minor, but still worth mentioning. As I mentioned previously, this isn't my first experience with Android and they seem to be continually improving it. Currently my favorite feature is having 3 "home" screens to make my common things more accessible.Pretty snazzy! Thus far it has been very responsive and everything seems to be working great. I'm not sure if it is possible, but I haven't found a way to set a sound for individual txt messages (I can only change people's ringtones), but otherwise I'm extremely satisfied. Everything works well and sync's with Google pretty easily. I've heard that Verizon is kinda being an ass about nickel-and-diming people for little things (now a tethering charge is 30 dollars a month? Screw you Verizon), but it is still nice to have a really good smartphone with Verizon's network coverage. Oh, and here is another little video clip of the dock for applications (for those less familiar with Android). Pretty simple and clean.I may have more to come, but there are my initial impressions!

Home Project - Spice Rack

Ok, so I may not be the best at updating this lately, but at least I am better about throwing in a mobile post every once in a while so it doesn't get completely stagnant ;-) The weekend before last was pretty chill and I'm totally gonna mooch off MC's post about last weekend once we get it together. Anyhoo, as we just finished up this project I wanted to post to document the process!

As MC and I have both been cooking at decent amount in our new place, we knew we'd need a method of organization for spices and such. We saw some cool things, but none really suited our needs as well as we had hoped (or it was close but ridiculously expensive). So what better way to remedy than for me to just build us one!

I pulled some ideas about how to do it from what I had seen, but I would say a good portion of it was original creation. So first things first I had to get my tools "in order."After a few trips to Lowe's, I finally had the drill bits I needed and I started going to town!Unfortunately, I needed the holes to be a size that was between the standard steps between drill bit sizes. So then it became time to get creative! Something tells me you won't see this in "Carpentry for Dummies."So yeah, I essentially wrapped the drill bit in sandpaper (giving it just about the perfect amount of extra thickness) and "sanded" the holes to a slightly larger dimension. It actually worked better than I thought, except there were a few times that the sandpaper started smoking and I had second thoughts about the degree to which my new technique constituted a fire hazard. Luckily I made it through with no combustion occurring, though I did get the drill stuck a few times.Once I had all the holes drilled it was time to start priming!This was no ordinary primer. We had actually seen something similar used in a makeover-type show on television and I thought I would try it out...That's right, magnetic paint! I thought it would be super cool to be able to decorate it and attach things to it just like the fridge. I put on about 4 coats, but, unfortunately, it needs somewhere between 20 and 200 coats to be effective (my educated guesses). So we ended up with VERY slight magnetism, but not really enough to be useful. Oh well. So since all our appliances are white, I decided to go ahead and paint the spice rack to match then did the appropriate labeling.While it did match the appliances, it seemed a little "sterile" and we decided it needed a little something extra. We'll get to that in a minute.

On a side note, last year's christmas trip included an old Fincher family past time, putting together puzzles. I can't recall a single time that we visited Dad's parents where there wasn't a puzzle being worked on. So MC and I decided to take that idea and use our fairly new (to us anyway) kitchen table to put together our first puzzle in the new apartment! Don't puzzles always look a little daunting when you first lay everything out?I like putting together puzzles, but it became a serious challenge to MC. I think she may have even dreamt about the next piece she could fit together. She definitely caught some puzzle-mania! Anyhoo, as I think is fairly standard we started out trying to get the border together.Then we continued whenever we had a free moment! Getting a little closer...And done!Now you may be wondering "why is he telling me a random story about a puzzle? Wasn't this supposed to be about a spice rack!?" Don't worry, it will all make sense in a minute. So as I mentioned earlier, the spice rack looked a little bare. It's a pretty large item and having it be completely white was just too dull and bland, especially for OUR kitchen! So I had the idea that we could get a puzzle with an appropriate theme (in our case fruits and vegetables) and we could piece together some decoration (pun intended). I thought it was a cool idea because we had some fairly large blank spaces that would lend perfectly to larger completed portions of the puzzle, and then we could use appropriately sized sections to fill any spaces we wanted to fill. I did an initial template, then MC finalized the layout of the pieces. It is a little busy, but I still think it turned out pretty snazzy and definitely unique! Here she is in her entirety.And here's a close up of the measuring spoon sectionWhile it took a while from start to finish, I think it is definitely worth it to not only have the customization aspect, but also to know you made it yourself! This handyman stuff is turning out to be pretty fun! :-)