Public Service Announcement...

You may have already heard that there is supposed to be a particularly nasty computer virus dubbed "The Conficker Worm" hitting computers across the country on April 1st. In reading an article on Yahoo Tech, I found a free scan offered by Microsoft that will give your computer a full check-up. I ran it last night on our desktop and we were virus-free! I'm planning to run it again after the 1st of April. Since this is a brand new virus, you may want to run a scan even if you have anti-virus software running.

Here's the link to the free scan.
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm
You just need to click on 'Full Service Scan' .

And in case you are interested, here is the article that descibes the Conficker Worm.
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/128643/beware-conficker-worm-come-april-1/

Happy scanning!

Spring Projects at Our New Old House...

With the arrival of warmer and longer days comes the revisiting of the list of projects we'd like to check off around here. We are not having tons of luck contacting tradesmen via Craigslist (who would'a guessed?) so we're reaching out to you for help. Here's what, or who rather, we are in need of...

-A certified electrician
-A registered plumber (or very skilled handyman comfortable with installing new sinks)
-A stone mason
-A flooring specialist with access to linoleum and/or cork and capability to install it.

In case you were wondering about the Craigslist guys...
-This Saturday, we had one electrician who showed up to look at the job, said he'd call us with a quote in 2 hours, and then never called. If he was not interested, I wonder why he didn't just say so?
-We had another electrician scheduled on Saturday who never showed up for his appointment, then called hours later and said that he had been at the hospital with one of his guys who got hurt on the job (red flags going up already). We gave him the benefit of the doubt and rescheduled for today at 4pm. And surprise, he did not show up, or call, again. Scratching him off our list.

So, if you know anyone fitting the above catagories, please post in the comments. Thanks!

Our New Old Lawn...

We have known since last summer that our lawn is not cutting it. We were blessed to have a full, lush, green lawn at our old house, becuase the lack of trees allowed for plenty of sunlight to flow into the yard. Our new lot is much shadier, and while we love the trees (and privacy), it makes growing thick turf next to impossible. We are considering this summer our transitional season, which means that hopefully by next summer we will have a respectable lawn.

We started things off two weeks ago by raking up as much of the leaf debris as possible, and then followed up with an round of all-over fertilizer applied by Scott's Lawn service. Last week, they came by again and aerated the entire lawn and applied grass seed. Unfortunately, the soil plugs have to remain on the lawn to break down, and in the meantime, it looks like our grass is covered with goose-droppings.

We have been lucky that it has rained every day since the seed went down, so we have not even had to water so far. The next several weeks will be wait-and-see, as I for one am skeptical that new grass will really take root. Hopefully the yard will get a lot of sunlight in the next month before the foliage comes in on the trees. If this doesn't work, we may have to apply Scott's Patchmaster, which is a combo of seed in a newspaper like growing medium that we have had good luck with in the past.

Here are some shots of the current state of the lawn (it actually looks worse in person). I'll post an update every so often to show the progress.

The Legendary Dole Whip...

I had a request to post this information, so here you go....

Those of you who have been to the Tiki Room at Disneyland or Disney World are likely familiar with the one and only, Dole Pinapple Whip. It is a delicious frozen concoction that can be found few places outside the gates of these parks. Lucky for me, I happened to come across a website for a company in Hawaii that sells the actual Dole Whip mix used by Disney. A large bag of the mix can be purchased online at http://www.unifiedenterprisescorp.com/products2.html . They actually sell it in many other flavors, including Strawberry, Orange, Raspberry, Chocolate and Vanilla.

You will also need an ice cream maker. I went with the Cuisinart® Automatic Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream and Sorbet Maker, which retails at Bed Bath & Beyond for $39.99 (using a coupon). All you need to add to the mix is water, and the whole dessert comes together in 20 minutes in this machine, which does not require ice or rock salt to work. There is a video online that walks you through the steps to make perfect Dole Whip, although I thought it was even easier than the video made it seem. Here's a link to the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1fnJHTrI_o . The mix also comes with clear instructions, although I cut all the measurements in half to make just enough for 2 people instead of 4 or 5. In case you were wondering, the Dole Whip IS actually low calorie and low-fat!

It's always a great day for a Dole Whip!

The Magic of Photoshop...

Jim took this photo years ago, before we even had a digital camera. Recently, he scanned the negative, and here's how it turned out. The scratches were actually worse than you can tell here.

With a little Photoshop magic, look how well it turned out. I love this shot. Nice work, Jim.

FINALLY....

Let me be the first to say, HAPPY SPRING!! For some reason, this year I was especially anticipating the change of seasons. Probably because winter has seemed extraordinarily long and drawn out this year. Here in Pittsburgh, the weather still won't be changing for a while, and it easily could snow, but at least I feel like we're making progress. You'll notice the winter trees are gone from the blog header (yay!). Now if we could just get our neighbors to turn off their Christmas lights. Anyway...

When the seasons change, it reminds me of a song I love by Nicole Nordeman, aptly titled, "Every Season". It talks not only about how we can see God in the beauty of creation, but also how He works in our life in all "seasons" we may pass through (see Ecclesiastes Chapter 3). These are the lyrics from the verse about Spring.

Everything that's new has bravely surfaced,
Teaching us to breathe.

What was frozen through is newly purposed,
Turning all things green.

So it is with you, and how you make me new,
With every season's change;

And so it will be, as you are recreating me,
Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.

Jim's Show & Tell...

What's the topper to the Steelers winning the Super Bowl? How about getting to meet the Super Bowl-winning coach, Mike Tomlin? I had the privilege of meeting Tomlin and getting his autograph this weekend at the Soul Gala fundraiser for the Pittsburgh community organization, Hill House. I do a lot of freelance work for Hill House and for the last few years I've done the invites, program and other materials for the event. They are always gracious enough to invite me and Carrie to the event at the Carnegie Museum. He was very nice and I got him to sign one of the programs that I designed. (I was amused that he cautioned me to not touch the autograph for a while to make sure it didn't smear-he actually cared). Very cool!

Jim's Go or Don't Go - Changeling

Sometimes a film is only believable because it is based on a true story. That's the case with 2008's Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood. It's the factual account of a mother whose little boy disappeared, and of a corrupt Los Angeles Police Department.

OK, that doesn't sound so hard to believe, but what follows is almost beyond comprehension. Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins, whose 9-year-old son, Walter, turns up missing in March 1928. In an effort to cover up their own incompetence and corruption, LAPD returns the wrong child to Collins and tries to convince her that he actually is her son. Her efforts to fight back against this insane scheme by the police eventually result in her being forcibly admitted to a mental institution. Aiding her in her cause to be freed and fight the corrupt system is a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich). The film portrays a gut-wrenching series of events documenting Collins' search for her son and ultimately, justice.

A few weeks ago, I had never even heard of this movie, but I am huge Clint Eastwood fan, (as a director and actor) so Carrie moved it to the front of the Netflix queue (I have such a thoughtful wife!). Jolie is excellent as Collins, a mother who experiences the unthinkable. She's a strong, hardworking, decent person who tries to do the right thing in the face of unbelievable corruption and circumstances. Jolie is near-perfect; she never goes over-the-top in her performance. You'll despise Jeffrey Donovan as the dirty police captain J. J Jones. Malkovich is his usual intense self as the unstoppable, crusading pastor. Jason Butler Harner is wonderfully psycho as serial killer Gordon Northcott and even little Devon Conti does a great job at playing the creepy substitute boy.

At times that I thought the film came close to being a little too courtroom-drama-with-a-cause, but stopped short and got back on track. And the film looks amazing. It's almost like walking into a time capsule of 1928 Los Angeles. Sometimes the best CGI is the stuff you don't notice.

There are a few scenes of some pretty disturbing violence, but they are off-camera and there are just a couple of instances of profanity. It's a long movie at 2 hours and 21 minutes, but it didn't feel like it. This movie will put you through a wide range of emotions, and like life itself, there is no perfect ending where every question is neatly answered.

Even Carrie, who is no fan of Clint or Angelina, liked this one. I say "Go."

Shout-Out

An article about Jim was recently featured in the Februrary edition of Lux Magazine. Click on the photo below to go to the online edition to read. Once you link you'll need to go to page 50 to see the article (just type '50' in the box at the top of the page to jump there). The writer took his quotes a bit out of context, so part of the article doesn't exactly make sense. It is still great exposure though and I was very proud!

Update: Now that the March issue is on the site, you can no longer link to Jim's article.

Long Overdue...

We had depserately needed a long runner (19ft, to be exact) for the downstairs hall, but hadn't been able to find anything in that length anywhere. They come in standard sizes of around 15' and 23', neither of which would work. So we had to go the route of ordering a custom length through the Home Depot. They have a lot of nice designs to choose from. We had to wait a few weeks but it finally arrived and it turned out really well.

Anniversary: Sixburgh Style...

This weekend we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary by doing 6 fun things in Pittsburgh. We kicked things off on Friday by attending opening night of "Movin' Out" at the Benedum Center (#1). On Saturday, we checked into the Sheraton at Station Square (#2) and then headed to dinner at Pittsburgh Rare - a delicious steak house with a great view of the city (#3).
After dinner, we changed into comfy clothes and walked over to the Funny Bone to catch a comedy show featuring Andy Pitz of NYC (#4).

On Sunday morning, we exchanged gifts. Jim gave me a beautiful necklace and lots of candy! (The traditional gifts for the 6th anniversary are iron and candy). He went the candy route, which is fine by me! His gifts included a blu-ray of 'Iron-Man' in keeping with the theme.

We enjoyed a fabulous brunch at the Grand Concourse (#5), which also has terrific city views, as well as a beautiful interior.

Before we departed, we were able to continue our anniversary tradition of having someone play our wedding song on the piano. The Grand Concourse's pianist played us a beautiful rendition of "The Way You Look Tonight". Here's a clip...

To finish things off, we attended the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show (#6) which may not sound exciting, but since we have several house projects we are considering undertaking, we were looking forward to it.

We are also looking forward to many more years and many more anniversary celebrations.