Broader fov [s]

My 20mm f/2.8 came today, the one with the 62mm diameter. Doctor Daddy wants me to shoot his kid's first birthday party and the 50mm and 105mm won't cut it. The plan is to foreshorten the crap out of them (below) so they all look like bobbleheads. That's cute, right?



The 20 will likely be my default lens, good for shooting renovations, people, and events.



Speaking of renovations, I've started on the fiberglass insert in the master bathroom. Jon and I learned form the first one that you want to detach the edges first since they're the most solid parts. Though you still have to rip it apart, piece by piece.



I've cleared the rocks out of the top terrace, irrigated it, and tossed on some seeds.



The middle terrace is still greenifying. Also I've patched the various holes made from reducing electrical boxes and carelessness.



Monday is the day one at work. There was some casual celebration.



My next vehicle is going to be a truck. But that's only cause the ft86 is a year away. That'll round out the dream stable: Itie sport bike, high power tourer, beater truck, and light rwd with low miles.



This week is my first head to head with Jon. He was apparently so overcome with confidence in seeing the schedule that he drafted two kickers with the same bye week. He's either still optimistic or unwilling to spend $5 on a trade.

Said by R: '... and then let me homestead on your land.'

Normally I outro with a cute puppy photo, but I found something cuter.

Heavy in the games [s]

I've finally made the jump to two fantasy leagues, but will maintain my own rule that

Thou shalt not speak of thine 'other fantasy league' whilst conversing about a league.

Unless it's really interesting.



Medieval Gridiron went with a paper draft this year, drawing managers from as far as San Francisco and New York just to participate in this archaic player selection method. Except Bret called it in.



The spiritual successor to the 071109 party, there was excellent food and enough drink to prevent dehydration in the sweltering September sun. Distractions included a closer-than-expected USC-SJ game, as well as some outdoor activities.



Like any good draft there was no lack of intense thought, debate, criticism, and spirited finger pointing.



Cheryl worked very hard to provide the decor and Big Board, for that I promised her plenty of imagery to document her efforts.



Sunday was the first full game of Axis, it took a mere nine hours to find a winner. Long story short:

• Germany (black) struggled with the eastern front, and finished the game at their original boundary. Its huge success was sinking the British invasion fleet twice, leaving the UK unable to move troops late in the game and producing less than twenty per turn.
• Japan (orange) kept America very busy (see Italy) in the Pacific. There were two large air/navy battles leaving each side with virtually nothing, however Japan managed to simultaneously shuttle troops to Asia. The game decision is half owed to the mechanized front approaching the Kremlin from Russia, China, and the newly-factoried India.
• Italy (maroon, around the Med) had a bit of a struggle in the Middle East. But since this area cannot easily be reinforced (especially with the British fleet at the bottom of the Channel) the Italians took Africa. The Axis stroke of luck came when the Italians landed a single artillery unit on an undefended Eastern US. The money did Italy little good, but draining the American treasury was a coup de grace.
• Russia (maroon, in Asia) managed eastern Europe very well. It retook both Karelia and Caucusus after losing them, and wasn't losing steam on their western front even as the end came. Unfortunately Japan made slow, deliberate progress across their eastern buffer.
• Great Britain (tan) landed in Europe a few times. Feinting into France won them some temporary production and would have also helped the US (via national objectives) had the Italians not been able to reclaim the country both times. Taking Norway sapped the German industry and put the pince on German Karelia, which was soon retaken by Russia. The Brits' fatal flaw, other than taking on the dice-rolling ice man, was to leave its fleet consolidated and open to air strikes.
• The United States (green) spent most of its resources trying to get back on level terms in the Pacific. While it did achieve parity in warships and clear air superiority, its long arm never managed to reach the south Pacific's prosperous islands. The Yanks fell victim to the Italian covert ops and lost its war money, preventing a push for Tokyo.
  

Time lapse blogography [s]

So the ol' 1.6 Athlon setup finally choked. Hard to say what it was, I've failed to diagnose the problem hardware having independently swapped everything out. I'll revisit when I'm setting the box up as a terminal in the garage.

The new stuff:

• ASUS M3N78 Pro mobo. $100. Supports all the nice things, particularly sli and 1066 ram.
  
• AMD Phenom X3 2.3. $110. Three core, their second tier.
  
• PNY GeForce 9800GT. $160. Listed for a whole lot more. The gig of video memory should help with photo editing.
  

Of course, Fry's gave me the X3 2.1 and I didn't realize it until they'd closed. I had to stop by the following day and recover the 200,000,000 hz they owed me.

The near-term purchases include a sata disk, another two cheap gigs of ram, and maybe a new display.

And, well, I'm borrowing Curt's monitor, the power supply is sitting on the case, and there are boards sprawled about my desk area. But at least everything is functional.

The hiatus is explained, now rewind.



Thanksgiving was good. The new house accommodates well.



I snagged Madden '09 for entertainment purposes. My dad picked it right up and Jon wouldn't be separated from the game, save for by real football. There's not much to say about it - being an EA franchise - except it's generally enjoyable, graphically unimpressive, and Cris Collinsworth follows Madden's act very closely.



Taboo was a riot, particularly the last round where Mom, Connie, and I netted several points from Mark, Jon, and Erik.





The hallway floor went in fine. 'How did you overcome the itis?', you might ask. Well I peered in the fridge and made a glorious connection:

1. Red Bull
2. Orange juice

Iced and stirred together, pure genius. It's like Sunny D with stimulants.



The stairs are the only remaing hardwood to be done. You've come a long way, baby. The constructon tiredom led to my second genius (derived re-)invention: post-Thanksgiving pizza.

1. A fresh pizza from Round Table: the canvas.
   
2. Leftover turkey piled on top.
   
3. Mashed potatoes piled on top.
   

Delightful.

Thanksgiving weekend also saw d'Chris's d'Brickapult claw its way from the grave to a winning record and fourth seed in the Medieval Gridiron playoffs. Similarly, Santos surmounted the impossible and overcame a large point differential to knock James out of contention. It's been a white knuckle end to a unimpressive season.

This weekend I'm up against Potats' team, which is predicted to beat mine by 25 points even after his tight end netted zero on Thursday.

Sunday also featured the long-awaited return to the water. It was pretty good-sized, but rides were characterized by straight drop-bottom turn-close, so not exactly elegant. It's phenomenal how life on land maintains absolutely zero of the muscles required for paddling.

A few quotables:

• Schooled three little college guys. They seemed not happy to lose to a girl.
  
• Go Raiders! ... We're horrible. Marty! Marty! Marty!
• I heard you put Rob and Dave against the glass.
• I am ridiculously addicted to yr blog. Will you please update it more often?

Epilogue:
I'm a firm believer in giving the people what they want, so I'll break you off one more piece of culinary revelation.

1. Sirloin burger with ample Dorchestershire sauce. You probably don't have that, so you can substitute Worchestershire sauce instead.
2. Leftover turkey.
3. Fried onions.
4. Sourdough.
   

Odds and ends [s]

I cleared out the car hold on Sunday thanks to the garage-media room proximity. I was able to relocate all of the tools to the adjacent storage room, though they've been in disarray since being displaced from the upstairs bedroom.

Now there's room for a work bench, should that be a pressing need when the indentured serv- family comes down for turkey and A Colbert Christmas.



And perhaps I'll I find myself in an industrious mood wherein the garage is a fine test spot for concrete polishing (Jay's garage, above). On the subject, a good amount of dust has accrued in the media room - and it's not like I've been sloppy down there; the couch, et al, are still pristine. Concrete's a quick clean, not so for carpet.



I think the shiny, minimalist garage will be a boon for the eventual sales process. Most of the houses I looked at months ago used the garage as storage locker, dog house, evil dungeon, or all of the above.



There's shelving to be done. First, a few for helmets and such to be located where my riding and surfing gear hangs. Next, some small ones for the sound system rescued from Casa Morelos. Apparently the thing only likes me- it would continually overheat and shut down for my old roomies and did the same for Rob when he tried it recently. Last night it worked seamlessly with my mp3 player.

The next step is to move the extra tv down there since garage activities mesh well with American sports. Then hook the ol' laptop up to the tv and audio system for access to Pandora and internet accessibility.



Now, Alfa owner I am not (yet). Nor do I wish to act the Ferrari owner. But how awesome is the above dude's place?

I'm a fan of lighting- flashes for photography, fluorescents for wrenching, and accents for everything in between. So I'd like to install some red, recessed led bulbs on a motion sensor. Red because it's close to safe light color, leds because they're instant-on and I could leave them going overnight and use less power than thirty minutes of tv. And it'd go nicely with a chair out front and some sort of beverage. My block isn't quite as interesting as the Adams-Morgan strip where I learned to love the practice, but excellent nonetheless.



So, those vents on the side of the garage. Are those for thermal equalization or what? Cause honestly I'd much prefer to close them up and stem the flow of moisture to my sensitive metal products within.



I'm still unsure how to execute on the storage room. It's a convenient way to access much of the house, so I'd like to keep it uncluttered. It's an accessible but unseen storage spot for garage materials and that will be its primary purpose. The room is also ideal for wine, perhaps the northernmost section could be outfitted with a rack. And there's the choice of ground cover for the exposed hillside.



I found some black crg levers on the Pro Italia site, so on Saturday I stopped by the Glendale store - yeah, the one from Entourage.



Good spot. I've never had any serious complaints about GP or Forza, but the shop is certainly much friendlier than their southern equivalents. They even knew Chris from Ca.



Barring any bad scoring corrections, looks like I have a shot at the Medieval Gridiron playoffs.



The Raiders game was a breath of fresh air. The recipe for success was a pretty obvious causation: half of Denver's defense was on the bench -> the Oakland offense could be somewhat effective -> the Oakland defense was not stuck on the field for fifty minutes -> there was no fourth quarter defensive collapse.

Rob Ryan is brilliant. I didn't need a victory to say so, this is just the first Monday I've actually wanted to think about football. Oakland has put up some fantastic challenges (remember how they dominated SD through three quarters) but the d would always falter having been saddled with spending the most time on the field and putting points on the board.

Russell and McFadden may be developing, the only thing to say for sure is that they need time on the field. Fargas is solid.

Cutler had a less-than-stellar day. Perhaps Shanahan trusted his second string defense a bit too much against an ineffective Oakland attack. Against any other team he may have tried making the game a shootout a la the Browns. The Raider secondary is good, but Cutler had a solid pocket all game and with receivers like Marshall and Royal, it's surprising he only completed 43% of his passes.

And then there's the absence of Jason Elam...

Furnishments [s]

I furnished the media room with some proper couches. They're just one palette up at the moment, but it's great for running audio wiring.


That displaced the futon which is now furnishing the kitchen area.


And I furnished the living room with a sofa. Pretty good Vets' day deals, especially on this one.


And I furnished Jon an xr400. Much thanks to Ted for the leg work, and Christine for the bow.

And Jon furnished me a fantasy football victory.