“Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.” – Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727)
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Recent German Visit
I recently visited the Agilent Technologies site in Böblingen, Germany where I worked for a couple of years back in 1983-1985. It is really hard to believe it has been 20 years! The afternoon I arrived in Germany, I drove to the town of Herrenberg where Lynne and I lived.
Here are some photos of Herrenberg. The first is a photo of the half-timbered buildings surrounding the town center. This is typical of the post and beam building style. Note the cobblestone streets, too.
For more pictures, click on “More…”
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 03/16/2005 at 05:28 PM
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Saturday, December 18, 2004
Our Christmas Tree
Here is our new Christmas tree, all nicely decorated by Lynne.
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 12/18/2004 at 04:44 PM
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Thursday, December 16, 2004
Christmas at our House
Lot’s going on for Christmas at our house. As usual, we are doing things for “us” and for the house as opposed to things for “each other”.
First, we decided to go with an artificial tree this Christmas—just don’t like the idea (and recurring expense) of a live tree each year. So, we bought a 10’ tall, very realistic looking, pre-lit, artificial tree. It looks great, but getting it put up was a challenge. It comes in 4 sections, some weighing, probably, 50 pounds. I strained my back and it still hurts a week later. Still it is beautiful. Lynne decorated it with a lot of our traditional ornaments, the cats play with it, the dogs pee on it. Life is good.
Second, we decided to make the plunge into High Definition TV. That has involved buying an HD TV, then moving from Comcast cable to DirecTV satelite and subscribing to some HD channels. For more information on this gift from Santa, click on “more…”
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 12/16/2004 at 10:43 AM
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Monday, November 08, 2004
Lifetime Guarantee
We’ve been having a lot of trouble with our cookware lately. We purchased a “high end” set of Calphalon cookware back in 1985, or so. Lately, the anodized aluminum surface has begun to fade, the pans are much harder to clean, and they just aren’t cooking as well.
So, we decided a new set of cookware was a great candidate for a Christmas gift to ourselves.
We did some research and narrowed our choices down to another set of Calphalon or to switch to All-Clad. We visited the local Bed, Bath and Beyond to look into set configurations and prices and learned that we could get our money back on our original purchase of Calphalon because of their lifetime guarantee!
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 11/08/2004 at 10:58 AM
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Monday, November 01, 2004
Another Christmas Idea
Here is another great Christmas idea—and, one of the hottest “gadgets” of this Christmas season—a satellite radio receiver.
I just bought a Sirius Satellite Radio receiver along with docking stations for the car and the cabin. The hardware is pretty cheap, and you must subscribe to the service by paying a subscription fee—kind of like cable TV.
There are two choices for satellite radio systems: XM and Sirius. After investigating both I chose Sirius because of the diversity of music, NPR, and NFL games. There are about 60 channels of non-commercial music, plus plenty of news, information, weather, talk, sports, etc.
Satellite radio gives you access to all these channels anywhere in the continental US. So, our music choices at the cabin which were country, country, NPR and more country, now include many alternatives.
Check out www.sirius.com for more information on Sirius.
I bought my stuff at Best Buy, who carries both XM and Sirius systems.
If you travel a lot and want consistent access to music, news, weather, etc. Or, if you have a remote mountain cabin, or even want more music variety right in town, check out satellite radio as a Christmas idea.
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 11/01/2004 at 01:48 PM
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