PeteCarpenter.com

11/28/2005

• i can get used to 2 and a half day work weeks. it’s like waking up after the weekend and it’s already wednesday afternoon.
• knocked off a bunch more house projects this weekend. finally found shelves for the bathroom (after whoever designed that place decided to have a wall that is 23 inches across rather than 24. dummies), learned all about toggle bolts, finally straightened the bathroom light fixture, finished up the dining room china hutch, built my medicine cabinet (!) without cutting off a finger or doing any damage to myself, learned how to use a circular saw, completely covered the basement room in a fine layer of sawdust, hung up some pictures and mirrors on the walls, got my computer network running smoothly, and completely finished unpacking. yes, we’re crazy.
• for the first time ever, i was one of those crazy people in line on the friday after thanksgiving at 6am. i got to target at 5:50am and there were already about a hundred people in line ahead of me. the doors finally opened up about 5 minutes later, and the stampede began. seems like everyone rushed over to the electronics section and started snappingup digital cameras and gameboy advances. i was there for the 15″ LCD TV’s that they were selling for about half price. after waiting in line for about 5 minutes at the electronics counter, they tell me that they’re actually located near the dressing rooms. so i sprint across the store like an idiot and find the stack of tv’s. there are about 20 left, so i grab 2 of them, just in case there was a problem with one. i bring it home and hook it up (after a 2 hour nap), and the picture isn’t quite what i was hoping for. i try to use s-video cables to do the hook-up, and the picture improves substantially. i think i’ll pick up an HD box this week to see if that makes a difference. otherwise, all that effort will be for nothing.
• we made our first visit to stone hearth pizza. it’s rare that we go out for pizza, but we didn’t feel like cooking, and we wanted to try this place in our hometown. they’re obviously trying to create the beginnings of a chain, and they do a pretty nice job with it. the room itself is warm and inviting, full of families and couples. the menu consists of pizzas, salads, and gelatto (from belmont’s own angelato), and they keep things pretty simple. a list of about 15 pizzas along with design-your-own selections. things got off to a good start when we noticed that they had whale’s tale on tap. very nice. we went with the basic margherita (every pizza place should be judged by it) and a make-your-own of goat cheese, zucchini and olives. the pies are about 14 inches across, very thin-crusted, and are meant to be individually sized. both pizzas had some nice flavors and fresh ingredients; very promising. the crust was slighly charred, but a bit underdone. with a crust this thin, anything underdone will be a bit floppy in the middle, and this was the case here. it has a nice chew and a good flavor, but if they had just tossed their dough a little thicker and cooked it an extra minute or 2, it would be a great pizza. as it is, it was pretty good, and it did the trick for us. it’s nice to know that it’s close-by, and we’ll know to order it wel-done next time. this place is obviously doing very well, and i expect to see more of these pop up in the suburbs very soon.
• speaking of cisco, we finally found their triple eight cranberry vodka on the mainland. it’s every bit as good as we remembered it. nice and smooth and tasty. this coule be dangerous.
• after having just talked about him 5 minutes earlier with our buddy at formaggio, we saw tom from this old house. i should have asked him to build a medicine cabinet for us.

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11/21/2005

• the frigging painting is finally done. i’ll be happy to not see a paint brush or a dropcloth for a very long time. by the way, i’m a terrible painter.
• i only set the smoke detectors off twice this weekend. even though we had a visit from the maytag man this weekend, our exhaust fan is still broken. well, at least we know the smoke detectors work. i think i unplugged the detector at our old place in the first week and never plugged it back in. imake some smoke when i cook apparently.
• my first pizza attempt in the new oven was a complete and total disaster.i didn’t think it was possible for an oven to be too hot for a pizza, but i had the same result as when i tried putting the pizza stone in my gas grill the bottom burned and stuck before the top had a chance to cook. maybe the bottom floor of this oven is much hotter than the rest? experiments to follow.
• in my attempt to extend the range of our wireless network, i managed to irreparably crash my computer. not a good weekend for me.
• although i did redeem myself somewhat by installing our new bathroom fixture using some extreme engineering skills. please don’t mention that it’s slightly crooked. i’m going to fix it. i swear.
• is there a funnier product name than butt paste?
• our stupid dishwasher makes this beeping noise when it’s done with its wash. it beeps about 5 times to tell you that the dishes are all clean, and if you fail to open up the door, it continues to remind you about every 15 minutes. so if you start it before you go to bed, it beeps allllllllll night. stupid design. who decides that this is a smart thing? well, after some research, i managed to unlock its myseterious controls and silent the cleaning beast! finally, peace!

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