Mike, Jill, Lucy, & Wubie!

Over the last year or so, our little garage has gotten a little messy, full of boxes piled on boxes, all crammed with random stuff. This in itself is bad enough, but to top that off, we had no idea what was inside said boxes unless we actually opened ‘em up and started rooting around.

It was the worst, especially when you were looking for something important. This video, taken in November, 2009, shows off some of the mess:

Garage Days Revisited from Mike C on Vimeo.

Jill knows me well enough to know that when things start getting messy and unstructured, I start getting antsy. Well, I must have hit my maximum capacity for messiness, because I spent much of the weekend (and part of the week) straightening out the garage.Though it’s still a work in progress, it’s a lot better than what it was.

When I first started cleaning up, I noticed that many of the cardboard moving boxes we’d been using for our junk were starting to break down. The cardboard was beginning to warp and sag. I decided to replace them with 18 gallon plastic tubs.

Though it took a while, during the transition from old, soggy cardboard to shiny, new plastic tubs, I made sure to inventory all of our junk and keep the data in a Google Docs spreadsheet.

Though our wireless network initially didn’t extend to our detached garage, I created a second wireless network with an old Airport Express access point I had and placed it as close as I could to our garage. Luckily, it worked out and I now had wireless access in the garage!

It’s so cool. I can bring a laptop into the garage and use Google Open Docs to help keep the garage in order. I share the spreadsheet with Jill so that at any time she can see if something she needs is in the garage. If she sees something she wants in the spreadsheet she can grab it herself or just say, “Hey, can you grab me that Diddy Kong Racing cartridge? It’s in bin #27.”

Yep, it’s a very satisfying feeling indeed when your techy, geeky, and Felix Unger sides can all meet and play nice.

BTW, this is our 400th post. Can ya believe it? 400 posts about cats, babies, and tv shows. In case you’re interested, here are some past ‘milestone’ posts:

• 300th Post
• 200th Post
• 100th Post

It’s 1:40 am and I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d do a quick post in hopes it makes me sleepy. Let’s see, it’s almost the end of the month, so I think I’ll just jot down a list of random stuff that happened (or will happen) this month:

I decided to do some cleaning up in the garage. Though the clean-up is a definitely still a work in progress, I’ve been stumbling across a few things I don’t really need. Here’s some stuff I found and sold over this past month. Goodbye, gadgets. May your new owners get much use out of you!

Stuff I’ve watched/read this month:

• movies
• Avatar
• The Botany of Desire
• Extract
• Pirates of Silicon Valley
• The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires
• books
• Revolution in the Valley
• tv
• Better Off Ted (Season 2)
• The Biggest Loser (Season 9)
• Project Runway (Season 7)
• web
• Kimba Intro (Lucy loves this. Her version: “who lives down in deepest, darkets apricots — apricots”)
• Looking into the Past

Misc. January Events

• Lucy’s Birthday!
• I’m actually going to an old geezer’s friend’s 50th(!) birthday this weekend
• We got a chance to see John and family from Arizona

Well, I think that covers it for now. Time for bed!

A couple of months ago I posted a video of me making a green smoothie. Since my smoothie has changed a bit since then, I thought I’d jot down the revised recipe here in case I forget how to make it later!

This new smoothie is basically a tweaked version of Alton Brown’s smoothie. Jill and I like watching Alton’s Good Eats. He had a really good episode recently where he documented how he got back in shape (including how he made his smoothie.) It was very inspiring, especially with the new year and all. We actually keep the show on the our DVR (a poor excuse for our old, beloved Tivo) for reference.

Anyway, though Alton’s smoothie is great, I changed my version a bit by adding spinach (to make sure I get my vegetables), Omega 369 oil, and water (so that the smoothie isn’t so thick—I usually drink this before I leave for work in the morning and need to be able to down it quickly if I’m running late.) I also use some different fruits (basically I substitute stuff I can get frozen at Costco.)

Here’s my recipe:

• 4 oz Acai Juice
• 4 oz Soy Milk (or Almond Milk)
• 8 oz Water
• 1 Tbsp Omega 369 Oil
• 4 oz Spinach
• 4 oz Banana (basically 1 frozen banana)
• 4-8 oz Mango, Papaya, Strawberries, Pineapple (amount depends on how I feel)
• 4 oz Raspberries, Blueberrie, Marionberries

One really good tip Alton had that helps a ton: combine all the ingredients in your blender carafe, then cover and refrigerate overnight. This saves a lot of time in the morning and also makes the blending a lot easier since all the frozen parts have been given time to thaw a bit.

Each morning before work I’ll whip the carafe out of the fridge, blend it up, and make two drinks. I down the first and leave the second in the fridge for the girls to drink once they wake up. It’s been working out great so far. However, I’m sure the recipe will change again in the future!

This is a geeky TV-centric post similar to something I wrote about Battlestar Galactica back in 2008. Season 6, the last season of Lost starts on Feb 2. (Sheesh, season 5 ended in May, 2009. That’s a long time to wait!)

Anyway, Wubert and I are totally psyched for this last Lost hurrah (Jill’s a 24 fan—whatever!) Like most cats, I think Wubert’s fave character is Ben. I kind of bounce around but Faraday is my favorite character at the moment.

If anyone needs to get caught up on the series, Netflix has just about all of the seasons available to watch instantly. This is gonna be fun.

More Lost info:

• Lostpedia

Lucy and I meandered over to Los Gatos to visit a cat store last week. (Funny, that…cats…los gatos…)

Down the street from the cat store, we noticed a curious store that sparkled and shone. It was a candy shop, so of course we went in!

Lucy stood in the entryway, a bit overwhelmed, stunned, amazed, and unable to move. It was a bit of a sensory overload…shelves and shelves of candy, music and movies playing, sparkling tin ceiling tiles, lights, umbrellas, old signs, toys and games, lots and lots of things to look at.

It was a very Willy Wonka kind of place…they even had the movie playing on the back wall.

I found some nostalgic favorites, like the little dots on paper that you peel off, and a curly-whirly for Lucy’s daddy, which is the closest thing left to his childhood favorite Marathon bar.

Powell’s Sweet Shoppe it’s called. Oops, I forgot to get a Wonka bar! Guess we will have to come back…