Author: eaumaison (Page 170 of 210)

[Ben has been accepted as guest blogger on Rainy Morning.]

I wanted a way to watch Hulu on the TV, but I wanted it to be as complicated as possible. I also wanted to not use the over priced and under-performing wireless adapter for the 360.

This wireless adapter costs $100, and for that – it works. Barely. I could barely watch any of the streaming videos on”Inside Xbox” and I had more lag than I should have when playing online. I wanted to somehow use a better adapter for my xbox.

Rachel’s TV has lots of awesome inputs, one of them is a VGA input – which means I can plug a standard computer into it. I remembered that we had this port after a while of us longing to watch hulu on the big screen.

Rachel also had an extra computer, that was just sitting around. It’s nice because it’s decently fast, but doesn’t have too much memory. That’s a plus because it can go into hibernate mode really quickly. That makes it just as convenient as other Home Theater equipment to use!

I had a WRT54G router that I could put the famous DDWRT firmware on. With this firmware, one of the basic features is the ability to turn the wireless capability into a receiver instead of a transmitter. It then sends the signal out from the ports on the back. Perfect for getting hulu to the computer and for getting Inside Xbox to my Xbox.

Of course I still needed a router, so we bought this cheap netgear router. It works great!

Here is the computer displaying on the TV!

and full screen 480p Hulu video!

Here’s where I hid the big computer. It’s nice because the mouse is always there, and we don’t have to have a computer cluttering the place up. We have other things for that.

All nice and hidden. You can see the router behind the speaker. Everything works how I wanted. It’s a little over complicated, but given the equipment I had and the results I wanted I think it’s the most cost effective, and it was fun to put together!

I got mad that when I uploaded yarn photos for my ravelry account they took up precious space on my free flickr account, knocking good photos out of view. Hrumph. So I got myself a pro flickr account and went a little crazy. My pictures from the last year are back up and I just uploaded the last of all my old digital photos onto flickr. All 5,107 of them. I put them all up privately so no one can see them. Over the next few . . . days? months? I’ll fill in titles, descriptions, tags, and organize them into sets. I’ll switch them to public view as they become ready. If you want a glimpse back to old times you can subscibe to my feed with your rss reader and watch as they get released. Or check out my flickr account periodically for updates the old-fashioned manual way.

Here’s one of my oldest photos. Look at the shiny adolescence! And the skinniness, the excessive hair, the untamed eyebrows! Oh what fun this will be.

School started again and it’s good so far. I have OB – lecture all this week, half lecture half rotation starting next week. The professor has the obligatory baby-love and cutsieness (The picture you see was the first slide she showed in class) but so far she matches it with physiological knowledge and thorough lectures. I would be more annoyed with her talk of God and “baby” versus “fetus” if she hadn’t been so upfront about her opinions. As long as she acknowledges that she addresses her lectures with a spiritual tone I’m ok with it. Also, it’s a jesuit university, so I feel like this sort of thing comes with the package. Labor and Delivery is definitely an area I’m interested in specializing. Not because of the “Oh look at the baaaabeee” factor. Newborns are kind of gross. No, I’m interested because I think it would be a nice balance of routine and excitement. I can expect the course that each patient’s stay will take, so I’ll have some nice routine there. But there’s always the chance for disaster and strange occurances, giving little adenaline rushes that appeals to me the same way OR, ICU, and ER do. Most L&D patients are going to come in healthy (bonus) and probably leave after just a short stay, hopefully fairly healthy (another bonus). The emotional issues may get the best of me. As I get older I get more tearful when babies are born in movies. Also the family stress may be too much. Who knows if I’ll actually like it, but it’s up there on my list of things to try. I’m also stoked because this next rotation is at my local hospital. It’s a super short commute and a place I would potentially like to work! Next week I also start an 8 week course of Evidence Based Research in Nursing on Mondays. It’s another loose, liberal arts education class. I hope it’s more interesting and useful than our last “bachelor program” style class.

nataliedee.com

I started a knitting streak on break thanks to free time, cooler temperatures, and joining Ravelry. I have a very portable project now and took it into class yesterday and today to knit during breaks. (Actually the prof came up to chat about knitting and quilting and said that it helps her listen, and said she was totally cool with me knitting DURING lecture – sweet!). I’ve brought in my knitting at least a dozen times and every single day at least 5 people come up to talk to me about it. I’m grateful for the chance to make friends, but it gets kind of annoying. Natalie Dee hits it on the head with her comic. Knitting is not that hard. I think anyone can do it. If you really want to then you should learn! I didn’t learn until high school and I taught myself all the advanced stitches. If you used to knit then bring it in! Don’t say to me every day how you should bring it in. I don’t care if you do or not. Ok, my gripe is done. Thanks for listening 🙂

Whoa whoa, Brian is going nutso with his new flickr account. Today we made jam out of his box of peaches (lots of peaches in August). He took pictures all along the way and already put them online! He also has photo sets of old stuff. If you’re bored you can browse around past movie sets, halloweens, and other events.

Brian posted his pics on Flickr. Hooray! Pictures without me holding the camera at myself! Check out the rest on his flickr page.

Ack! only a few more days until I have to handle responsibilities again. My fridge is busting with desserts. Amanda brought over a delicious carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I made the NY Times chocolate chip cookies (verdict: decent but not worth the hassle). I made the fruit salad from Cooking Club again. I have greek yogurt to make fro-yo. April and I canned peaches and made peach jam this morning. Tasty tasties surround me!!

I discovered Ravelry.com and am loving it. I found all sorts of projects I would make if I had lots of lovely silk and alpaca balls. Lots of patterns to browse and great organization. I uploaded my “stash” of yarn and lined up WIP and queued projects. Little Sheldon here immediately caught my eye. I’m working on another knitted tortoise (almost done!) then I’ll try a couple of these before school starts.

Mavi and I spent some good time in Anthropologie cooing our eyeballs out. So much cuteness! Look at those grape-colored pleats! That pink sweater has POSIES in the pocket! Their stuff is so inspiring and beautiful.

I figured out my life plan. Once I’m a nurse making the $$ I’m going to get a powder blue vespa scooter and anthropologie outfits to drive to and from the local hospital. Once home again after a long day elbow deep in body fluids I’ll don my ruffly half-apron to catch the salsa dripping from my Chipotle burrito. Perfect.

Welcome to Brooklyn! We arrived via taxi from LaGuardia around 6 pm. Mavi and Jeff gave us a quick tour of their abode before the hit the streets looking for food. They had Thai on their minds. (That’s one of my patented “Rachel holds the camera at arm’s length” photos)

Below is the menu for our resteraunt – I forgot the name. It’s in Williamsburg, hipster central so I’m told. Sure enough, we entered through an unlabeled barred garage shop-like door revealing a hidden warehouse converted fancy resteraunt with a DJ table by kitchen.

Ben ordered squid (on the left) and I had delicious peanut chicken curry. Sorry for the low lighting pictures, but I try not to make a show about taking photographs in resteraunts.

After dinner we walked to the Williamsburg bridge and admired the city lights. We crossed over into Manhatten and took the subway back. We finished off the night at the Barcade (bar + arcade). Ben set a few high scores before we called it a night.

Saturday morning. Here’s a nice shot of our bohemian friends’ living room. Buenos the cat was very social while Trixie mostly stayed out of our way (that must be a tiger tabby trait!).

Breakfast was at Tiny Cup where I had my requisite toasted bagel with cream cheese and a hot chocolate.

After a long subway ride we arrived in Queens. We walked all over the park and cooled off in the fountains, despite a cop warning us that it was “the dirtiest water in the city” since they reuse the same tanks filled in the 60s. Whatever. It was a hot day.

The US Open was happening at the stadiums near the park so there was a lot of security and tennis fans wandering about. Once we were thoroughly hot and tired Mavi led us to the “real” chinatown for supper. We ate “hot pot” at the place with the red awning. Hot pot is where they bring a pot of flavored broth and spicey oils to your table stove so you can cook your own food. For just $25 including tax/tip you can eat and drink all you want. You mix your own sauces (note that that had a bowl of M.S.G. you could add to your mix) they bring you whatever frozen meats or fresh veggies you want. You can also order dim sum items like dumplings. The staff got very excited when Mavi started talking to them in Chinese. They were eager to please and helped us use the correct tools and mix good sauces.

With full bellies we rode the subway home to ready ourselves for an evening of fun. First off, The 39 Steps at the Cort Theater. The show was a real hoot, we all loved it. (Thank you Mom and Dad!)

We walked through Times Square to gawk at the lights then ducked underground to get to Marks Place. This time we went cheap and grabbed sandwiches from Bamn, an updated automat. Across the street I finally finally got to try Pinkberry! I’ve been curious to try it for over a year but alas, they are only in NY and LA. It was delicious and I’m already trying to recreate fro-yo at home. I hear their is a place in Denver called Kuulture that makes a similar fro-yo.

Next came my most anticipated activity – Karaoke! Sing Sing Karaoke is Asian style karaoke. Instead of singing in front of a large group you rent a private room with your friends. This has two benefits: 1) Everyone is encouraged to sing without the public embarassement and 2) you get to sing more songs in your own room.

I have some videos of the night that I might not get around to posting (do you really want to hear our drunken/full sugar cola insprired 2:30 AM ravings?). We sang our wallets dry, slumped onto the train, falling into bed well after 3 AM.

So Sunday we decided to take it slower. We slept in mightily and cooked breakfast at home. Mavi took me shopping on 5th avenue and the guys went to central park and Toys R Us.

Late afternoon we met up and took another long train ride out to Coney Island. I think our true destination was Nathan’s Hot Dogs, but what the heck, we looked at the park too.

I gotta say that most everything about Coney Island, aside from the hot dogs, was disgusting. The beach was filthy. The whole area stank even more than usual. The rides were ancient and overpriced. Nevertheless we had a good time laughing at it all. Brian rode a couple spooky-type rides and Ben took a lot of gorgeous pictures. We took one last trip into Manhatten for another Pinkberry and headed home.

Monday our friends needed to return to work. We just had time to have breakfast in Bedford, Brooklyn, walk around a bit, and go back to gather our luggage. Travelling home was very smooth. I’m so glad we took the time and money to make this trip happen. Jeff and Mavi were FANTASTIC hosts!

I uploaded my photos to flickr this afternoon. You can see them here or by clicking on the widget on the right side bar. I promise that I’ll follow up with a photo blog post, explaining where we are and what we’re doing. I might even toss a couple videos online if I get real fancy. For now, here’s a little background on our trip.

We knew Jeff and Mavi from high school in Fruita and all went to CU Boulder where we really became friends. I hooked up with Mavi when we both signed up for East Asian Civilization, me because Ben recommended the Japanese history portion, and Mavi because she was majoring in Chinese language. Jeff was at CU’s film school. After school they got a cool place on Capital Hill. We went out dancing, crafted, cooked, and even made a Movie Saturday at their place. Soon they decided to move to New York to give themselves more opportunities in music and film. They make internet movies and are working on a film about their Breakfree Project music tour. Meanwhile, we had a standing offer to come visit New York and stay at their place for free. That was . . . three years ago.

Gosh darn it – it was high time we took them up on their offer. I had these two weeks off from school so we booked a flight and convinced Brian to come along (later finding out he had NEVER been to New York. Ben and I have been several times). Even more than visiting the city, I think we had a blast just spending time with great friends. Ben and I got to see a different side of NY, away from the touristy stops.

Now I’m home and despite the laundry and work to be done, it’s nice to be back. There’s nothing like a trip to make you appreciate home. No more polluted humidity making us sweat the moment we step outside. We desert folk like our dry, clean air. My comfortable bed encouraged me to sleep much later than I should have this morning. Molly is affectionate and happy we are home. Jem is exhausted from playing nonstop at her kennel. My tomato plant has tiny green tomatoes(!) and my clematis bloomed a second round of purple stars. I’m so glad I have until Tuesday to enjoy the quiet of Colorado before going back to school.

We’re back! Back from a glorious long weekend trip to NYC. I’ll get my photos up soon, I promise. In the meantime have a look at Ben’s fabulous flickr photostream.