Trees

Here are a couple of trees a few steps from the Fortress of Solitude's front (and only) door, as they appeared this evening at about 8:00. Those ones with the purple flowers are all over the place, and they're dropping their petals at an alarming rate. They're everywhere. Loyal Reader Number Four is pretty much constantly sweeping them up from in front of the FOS door.

Worked about three and a half hours today. I went in much later than usual and was home by 12:30. Can't complain. I even got a thing or two done.

The rest of the day was spent pretty much slacking. We did go to the grocery store this afternoon, and Loyal Readers Number 2 and 4 washed the dog, but that's about it. We read our books and I checked out an online magazine called Free Software Magazine. It's pretty interesting - has something for people at all levels of Linux expertise. They have twelve issues out so far. Check it out. Maybe even think about subscribing, although I don't think I will.

I also read most of the rest of the PocketC Architect manual. That led to a pleasant nap just before dinner. Oh, I also went outside and took a few pictures, one of which is above. Look for some actually interesting ones after the weekend. Or not.

I'm tired, so will head for bed. We're looking forward to LRN1's return home tomorrow morning. Travel safely!

Roses

Here's my sister enjoying some roses in downtown Philadelphia during Memorial Day weekend. It was a beautiful day, wasn't it? By the way, Sandy, you should really become a Loyal Reader.

I have to admit that I'm out of good blog pictures. There are lots of good ones on my Mac in Gardenville, but my Mac's not here, so I've been relying on what was in my camera when we came out here and whatever I've been found the time to snap since we got here, and I've pretty much used all the interesting ones. Some readers might suggest that I've already gone past that point. I hereby absolutely promise to take some more pictures this weekend and I furthermore absolutely promise that at least some of them will be worth looking at. Really.

Loyal Reader Number Four has pointed out that I failed to mention the cool GE Advantium microwave/speed oven in yesterday's Dream Kitchen post. So noted. Unlike the goofy heating shelf, we're getting one of those.

Our loan for the Secret Undisclosed Location got final approval today. Nothing could possibly go wrong now! Of course, we still need to sell Chateau Pathetique, but that will happen. We're exercising faith, and we encourage all our Loyal Readers to join us, along with a healthy dose of prayer. Please.

I think we've decided to go to the Alameda County Fair on Monday. Sounds like fun. Hopefully, it will be. Pictures and a report will be provided in Monday's Morrowlife. Look for Independence Day ditto on Tuesday.

A quick update on the new job, from the one-month-point prespective. I'm really enjoying it. The challenge is huge, the technology is really cool, the people are friendly and interesting, and it's great to be doing software again. I'm really glad we came here.

Speaking of work, the layoff notices are supposed to go out in Newtown in the next few days. We'll never know if I would have been hit, will we? It really doesn't matter, though. I'm much happier in Sunnyvale. I'll be interested to see which of my friends are getting the old heave-ho.

Tomorrow's my off Friday, but I have to be there to chair a meeting in the morning. I'll try to stick around less than three hours or so. That cuts my five-day weekend down to four and a half days. No problem.

I bought an update to the development system I've been using on my gadget. This one has a lot more system interface options and will generate much more professional-looking programs, but is also small and well-defined enough that the learning curve is pretty small. I really like it. The upgrade cost me fifteen bucks. Quite a bargain. I've only produced a "Hello, World" program so far, but I hope to come up with something interesting soon. Suggestions from Loyal Readers are more than welcome. What would be a useful/fun/interesting/worthwhile Palm program?

Loyal Reader Number One is keeping in touch during his vacation via Morrowlife comment posts. Check 'em out. Yet another example of the impact of the modern blog. Thanks, LRN1!

That's it for today. See you tomorrow.

Dream kitchen

Here's the kitchen in the model for the Secret Undisclosed Location. That hood over the stove is fascinating - it contains a McDonald's-like heat lamp. Perfect for those dinners when you get home late from work. Fortunately for me, our house doesn't have one. I'm not quite sure what Loyal Reader Number One is up to there. Maybe he's pretending to be a Famous Chef, looking down his nose at all the little Sous Chefs. Maybe he's just about to sneeze.

Not a lot to report today. Loyal Readers Number Two and Four and I sat in the spa for half an hour or so this evening - quite relaxing. We had it all to ourselves tonight, so it was almost like having our own. I'm looking forward to having another one of our own in a few months, along with a neato pool too.

We're trying to decide on the Funnest Fourth of July Activity Ever. Loyal Reader Number Four looked on the internet tonight and discovered several attractive options. We'll probably end up going to the Santa Clara celebration. There's supposed to be a lot of music, food, and other entertainment. Of course, the fireworks start at about 9:30. It's close to home, so we can get there pretty quickly and even come and go if we like. It's free, too. We don't know about the parking situation, but we can probably work it out.

LRN4 also found a few other interesting places to visit on non-holidays as a side effect of tonight's research. We might check one or two out sometime during the weekend. We have a meeting with the Pool People on Saturday, but that's about the extent of our commitments for the five-day weekend (assuming I don't end up having to go to work on my Off Friday). We've decided that we should be taking more advantage of the fact that we have practically no responsibilities for a couple of months, so we hope to go visit a few more cool places in the upcoming days. I'll try to take some pictures for Morrowlife.

There's been a very positive response to my idea of adding the comments to the front page. I'm still looking for a way to make it happen. Thanks for your comments, stay tuned, and feel free to send me any ideas for software to do the job, or any other suggestions. I may not implement everything, but I just might.

We're watching an interesting History Channel show on barbecuing. Right now, we're looking at the Weber Grill factory. Fascinating. I love the History Channel almost as much as I love the Discovery Channel (Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, and - of course - American Chopper), which I love almost as much as I love HGTV (Design on a Dime and several others). Of course, nothing beats Rocky and Bullwinkle, but they're pretty hard to find these days.

Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Buddy

Here's a picture of Loyal Reader Number Two's buddy from Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy of LRN2. Astute Loyal Readers will note that this individual has been featured in these pages before.

No post again yesterday. We were at the airport picking LRN2 up from his trip to Utah. He was in fine health and spirits, the flight went just fine, he found us without any trouble, and he had fun on his trip. Nothing to complain about there.

The weekend was also pretty uneventful. LRN1 went to Colorado on Sunday for a week-long visit with his old buddy. We miss you LRN1! Have fun, remember who you are, be safe (link warning: a little kid singing a dopey song) and have fun! And maybe recruit a new Loyal Reader while you're out there.

We went to the Computer History Museum on Saturday. It's just a few minutes' drive from the Fortress of Solitude. It was absolutely free and pretty cool. They don't have much in there yet, but they do have some really cool things, like a rack from ENIAC (subject of a fairly recent Morrowlife Book Club review) the only known part of Colossus in existence (a reel from the paper tape transport mechanism - see the picture in the link), and a whole lot of other early computer industry stuff. They also have a lot of computers that I've owned and/or used, including a Speak & Spell. Strangely, they don't have a Texas Instruments PC, so I'm sorry I threw mine away all those years ago. They do have a Sinclair ZX81, which was the first computer I owned. It came as a kit and, believe me, putting it together was the best part of owning it. But it was a start. All in all, the museum is worth a second visit, which I hope to do before we move into the Secret Undisclosed Location.

Flickr isn't working for me. I couldn't post Friday's picture - the site was in "maintenance" mode - and I can't get into it today either. I get part of the splash page (without any graphics) and can never get to the login page. Weird.

Oops. It started working again. Never mind.

I have a great idea for the blog. I want to put the comments on the main page, increasing the interactiveness quotient dramatically. I'm not sure whether Blogger will allow that, though, so I'm looking around for other blogging tools. Loyal Readers are invited to submit ideas for accomplishing this Important Upgrade.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

Admiral

Here's a statue of Admiral Somebody-or-other, out behind Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I wish I could remember his name. Maybe some Loyal Reader could do a little bit of internet research. I don't feel like doing it myself (link warning - I did it myself after all).

I missed a couple of days on the old blog. Sadly, I don't really have an excuse. Wednesday evening, we went to the Santa Clara library (great building, nice collection - especially of computer-related books, friendly people, comfortable chairs, too-small parking lot) and checked out a few books. I went home and started reading immediately and forgot to blog. On Thursday, I tried unsuccessfully to get Knoppix Linux to log on to my wireless network. It couldn't figure out the password. I then tried to install Cygwin on my machine. It would install but wouldn't open a terminal window when I tried to open it. Don't know why not. The fiasco lasted until slightly after midnight, so I forgot to blog again. Sorry about that, Loyal Readers. It must have been a depressing couple of days for you. I'll try to make it up to you tonight.

Or maybe not. There's not a lot to report. The fascinating book I started reading on Wednesday is called Linux Application Development. It's simultaneously interesting and incredibly boring, which is no small trick (link warning - bad rock music). It teaches the reader/programmer how to interact with the fine details of the Linux operating system. I can't really recommend it to my non-programmer Loyal Readers, but for the programmers among you who are interested in getting started with Linux programming, have a look. It gives a good description of the relevant system calls, has plenty of code snippets, and actually has interesting, meaningful prose to boot. I'm putting it on the book club list, with the above caveats.

Yesterday, one of my many bosses told me there's another program somewhere around Sunnyvale looking for a software leader. He told them about me and they were asking for a resume. I spiffed an old one up and sent it to him. He dropped by today and told me they called him back and told him they're very impressed and presumably will want to talk to me. He's kind of depressed because he's happy to have me where I am and he hates to lose me. After only three weeks, they're already fighting over me! Easy boys, just send money.

We're thinking of going to the Computer Museum tomorrow. It's right around the corner in Mountain View, and it looks like it might be a fun, although short, visit, since they're still just getting established after only four years in their present location (it's taking longer to set up the museum that it did to create all that history in the first place, but far be it from me to criticize) and there are only a few exhibits, including a big room with computers sitting on warehouse shelves. Critical though I may sound, I think it will be a fun place to visit. I'll let you know.

Otherwise, not much is scheduled for the weekend. Of course, Loyal Reader Number One is leaving for Denver on Sunday afternoon and Loyal Reader Number Two is coming back on Monday, so there will be a lot of preparing over the weekend and a lot of catching up during the coming week. Maybe we'll find time to make another library run. The one catch at the library here was that on your first visit they only allow you to check out three books. I guess they're trying to minimize the damage caused by people who get a card with a fake ID and then steal a bunch of books. I didn't know that was such a serious problem, but I'm learning to expect just about anything weird in Sunny California.

Speaking of sunny, it's been very hot the last few days. We're having high temperatures in the 90's here. My company is part of an industry group that voluntarily cuts back on energy usage on hot days, so they've been turning the air conditioning off at 2:00 every day. It gets pretty warm in there by 3:00 or so, but it hasn't been really miserable so far. They announce the plan a day ahead of time over a PA system in every building on campus (big brother is watching you!), so you can dress appropriately. There have been a lot of shorts, sandals, and hawaiian shirts this week. Of course, with Bay Area hippie software developers, it's kind of hard to tell the difference. We're definitely not on the east coast anymore.

Correction on the previous post: the picture was taken by Loyal Reader Number Two, using my camera. Thanks a lot, LRN2!

Gotta go. See you tomorrow.

Eagle

Here's a nice shot of Loyal Reader Number One accepting his Eagle Scout award a few weeks ago. We're really proud of LRNO's accomplishments in this area, as in many other things. Way to go, LRNO!

Well, there's certainly some big news in the Morrowlife Blog world tonight. We have a new reader! Vickie is hereby declared Loyal Reader Number Ten. Actually, those of you following the comments already learned that she's been reading for a while now, but she finally decided to reveal her existence last night. Welcome aboard, LRNT! Now just send us your picture for your very own Special Morrowlife Day. Don't forget!

There's not much else to talk about tonight. Work was busy as usual. I spent a little time in the software lab today and got a pretty good education. I need to learn how to run tests at various levels.

The mortgage on the Secret Undisclosed Location was approved today (actually, it was approved by two different mortgage companies), so nothing could possibly go wrong now. We're movin' to Lardville!

We got back in the spa this evening. They had changed the water today and it was much better. The Pool Guy told Loyal Reader Number Four that yesterday's problem was a simple chemical imbalance caused by inexperienced personnel operating during his unavoidable absence. Sure. He also claimed they change the spa water every Tuesday, regardless of how polluted it was on Monday night. Right. Anyway, it was much nicer tonight.

Late breaking news! We have another Loyal Reader! That's two in the same day. Welcome to Mike, our new Loyal Reader Number Eleven! Send us your picture and you'll have a Special Morrowlife Day of your own.

Off to bed. Hasta manana.

Chinatown

Since we're near San Francisco now, I figured it would be appropriate to include a picture of Chinatown. Of course, this is Philadelphia's Chinatown, but I don't have a picture of the one here. Besides, it's the thought that counts, no?

This will have to be short tonight. It's already getting late, and I frittered some time away this evening trying to solve ciphers on the NSA Kids website. The ciphers were pretty simple, but I'm not very good at solving them, so it was something of a challenge. It's a pretty cool website - check it out.

How things can change over a weekend! Loyal Reader Number Four had me look at realtor.com in the area where our Dream Home is located. I did, and there's a vacant one exactly like the one we want, but four years old and $45K cheaper. Yikes. We went into the office on Saturday and discussed the situation with the sales people. They didn't have much to say. We thought about it some more and decided we would be just as happy with the house that's basically complete already (just missing the appliances and a few knick-knacks) and much less expensive. We offered to buy it if they gave us a free refrigerator and paid for half of our swimming pool. Otherwise, we were going to go have a careful look at the four-year-old house.

Well, they bit, for the most part. They offered us much more than I expected them to offer (although they hit LRNF's expectations nearly exactly), and we accepted their offer. The contract is signed, we close on 21 July, and we move in as soon as we get back from our August vacation. Hooray! Now somebody has to tell our realtor we won't be using his services after all. I've been unable to get out of that task so far.

While we were in Lardville on Saturday, we found a good pool/spa supplier and decided on a pool and spa that we would like and could afford. It wasn't an easy thing meeting both requirements, believe me. With the extra money the builder is throwing in, we might now go back and add in a few luxuries we had redlined out the first time. Of course, we believed at the time we visited them on Saturday that we were moving into a different lot, so we have to go back and get them to lay it out again, but I'm sure they won't mind at all.

Speaking of pools and spas, we decided to jacuzzify for Home Evening activity tonight. The water in the spa here at the Fortress of Solitude was murky and smelled funny, but Loyal Reader Number One and I, inexplicably, got in it anyway. Succumbing to peer pressure, Loyal Reader Number Four did too. We stayed in for a few minutes, got thoroughly grossed out, and went back into the FOS and took showers. How smart of us. We'll probably all die of e. coli or something. Yuck.

On the positive side, I found a great reading list on the internet today. New Morrowlife book club fodder! I'm planning to get a library card soon and start looking for some of them. Stay tuned. By the way, Tales of St. Austin's is going well but very slowly - less time than usual for reading. I'll get through it, though. It appears to be a series of related short stories, rather than a completely coherent whole. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though - it's easy to break it up over time. I'm still enjoying it and still recommend it and all of Wodehouse's other work, although I'm still pushing the Jeeves books for first-timers.

I had an idea this evening that would really stir up this blog. I thought of letting Loyal Readers improve their LR number by posting more often. Less-frequent posters would be gradually demoted, although they would of course never be dropped from the list. Then I decided it would cause mass confusion and too much work on my part, so I dropped it. Still, it was an intriguing thought for a few moments though. Loyal Reader Number One suggested awarding my more frequent posters with additional titles (Extra-Loyal Reader, Super-Loyal Reader, Hyper-Loyal Reader, etc.) and maybe saddling less frequent posters with shameful titles (Disloyal Reader, Barely-Tolerable Reader, etc.), but I probably won't do that either. Too much trouble. Just keep posting, Loyal Readers!

That's it for today. Got to get to bed. See you tomorrow.

Dream house

Keeping with our Loyal Reader Number Two theme (we miss you!), here he is with Loyal Reader Number One in front of the model of our new house. No, you can't see much of the house here, but I have more pictures and there's always tomorrow! So much for Great Art.

Decent day today. Got a call from my brother Chris - apparently he didn't have our cell phone numbers and couldn't get my work email address to work. I don't know what the problem was, but he took the initiative and called some family members. Apparently, neither of my parents knows our cell phone numbers, but my sister Sandy does! It was nice to talk to Chris.

Nothing else to discuss today. Tomorrow's ostensibly my off Friday, but I'll still not sure if I'm allowed to work 9/80 in Sunnyvale, so I'm just not asking. I'll go in for a few hours and then say I need to leave to look at houses. My subtle plan is to just worm myself into 9/80. Very clever.

Did I mention my new drill? I got it at Costco the other day with some money my colleagues in Newtown gave me as an Extravagant Parting Gift. It's totally cool. I already have a cordless drill, but this is one of those high-powered ones that all my friends have. Now I can really work on things!

See you tomorrow. I'll let you know how the subtle plan works out.

Thumbs up

Here's Loyal Reader Number Two relaxing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I'm not sure you're allowed to lie on the floor there, but he appears to have suffered no serious consequences. We miss you, LRNT! Find work and fun there in Utah. Your pirate days are over!

There's not a lot to report tonight, other than that Chateau Pathetique still isn't sold. We're getting just a little bit worried. We're praying for success, though, so we know it'll work out. I invite my Loyal Readers to join us in our humble petition. And if for some bizarre reason you feel uncomfortable doing so, then at least have the decency to buy it from us. I can guarantee you we'll get absolute top dollar!

The other good news is that my company laptop (you're soaking in it now!) is finally able to connect to the internet here in the Fortress of Solitude. I had to cycle power on the modem before it would take an IP address. We need to connect it back to Loyal Reader Number One's laptop in a few minutes and see if power has to be cycled again for him to connect again. Weirdness reigns.

In a tragic turn of events, I discovered some damage to my precious Honda's body this evening after I got the gas tank filled. I don't have any idea where it came from, but it has to be fixed. This isn't exactly a good time for us to be paying an insurance deductible, but it will work out.

Short post tonight. See you tomorrow.

Cherubs

Here's an architectural detail from the Fortress of Solitude. These guys remind one of Loyal Readers One and Two, no? Except that there are three of them here. And they're a little bit smaller. And they look completely different. And they're not wearing any clothes. Otherwise, the resemblance is amazing.

Well, there's certainly a lot to report today. Things are really hopping in the Morrowlife Fortress of Solitude. Let's start with the most important one, shall we?

Loyal Reader Number Two went to Utah to visit his friend Jay for a couple of weeks. Boo hoo for us! We miss you, LRNT! While you're out there, how about recruiting a new Loyal Reader? And have fun! And don't worry about us! And have fun!

Now to the second most important order of business. We found a new Morrowlife Secret Undisclosed Location on Saturday. We started off with the intention of looking at a townhouse near the Fortress of Solitude, but they wouldn't even let us look at the model. Apparently, they won't sell any more of their large models until they get rid of the remaining small ones. So no townhouse for us. Instead, we decided to just drive out to Modesto and look at what was available before we decided on someplace closer, just in case it turned out we really loved it out there.

On the way there, we saw a sign for houses in Manteca (pronounced man-tee-ka by the locals), so we stopped in for a look, although I had previously announced my Unshakeable Resolve to never live in a town named Lard. The first sales office was decidedly unpromising - the houses were too small and the models were miles away anyway. There was one more set of models nearby, though, so we drove on.

Well, they turned out to be absolutely great. There was a gigantic (3500 square feet or so) one we fell in love with at first. It's really cool, but the price is quite high and there are some serious issues with the layout - for example, the entrance from the garage goes through the laundry room, which is right next to the master bedroom and way across the house from the kitchen. Then there's the front door opening directly into the dining room. Et cetera.

Then we saw the second-largest one (link warning - this picture is correct in its basic layout, but it's missing a lot of stuff, including the third car garage). It's a little over 2900 square feet and laid out much better. It has five bedrooms and three full bathrooms upstairs, plus a nice large loft. Oh, and the laundry room. Downstairs, there's the usual stuff. There's also a covered porch in the back - not huge, but a nice touch. And then there's the gigantic three-and-a-half-car garage. The third bay has doors in the front AND the back! Wow. It's affordable too. We picked out an already-framed house on a nice lot that's on a curve, so there's more space between houses than elsewhere in the already generous (for California, anyway) neighborhood. The exterior colors, roofing, and cabinets have already been chosen, but we get to select everything else.

We love new houses and we're really excited about this one. It will be truly nice. The big downside is the commute distance for me, but there's a commuter train station about five minutes' drive away. We checked out the ward on Sunday and it seems fine. There's not much shopping in Manteca yet, but it's pretty close to both Tracy and Modesto, both of which should be okay in the store department. All in all, we're excited about it.

Loyal Reader Number One believes we should change the name of our software company from Gardenville Software to Lardville Software. I disagree.

Work continues to improve every day. I'm starting to get a vague idea of what's going on around there, and the boss keeps giving me more assignments. So I'm busy, which is a good thing. I'm starting to get to know the people too.

Well, the time has certainly gotten away from us tonight, hasn't it? Time for bed. See you tomorrow.

Fortress of solitude

Here's a brief glimpse at our Secret Undisclosed Location. It turns out to be pretty nice. We moved in yesterday.

There's a lot to report today! Where do I begin? Well, let's start out by mentioning that we're now in California! I started my new job on Monday and I'm enjoying it, although I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by all the things I don't yet know. Time will take care of that. Loyal Readers Four, One, and Two have started looking at places to live. So far, they're all too small and we can't afford any of them anyway. Something will work out, though.

As most of my Loyal Readers are aware, today is the Most Wonderful Day of the Year. That's right, it's my birthday! Happy birthday to me. Lavish gifts are still being accepted. Just address them to Secret Undisclosed Location, Fortress of Solitude, California. Operators are standing by.

Once again, my apologies for the long delay between posts. My computers are all still in Pennsylvania. I'm borrowing Loyal Reader Number One's laptop today. I tried to use my new one, but I don't yet have administrator access and it won't allow me to get an IP address. I need to have the EIS weenies at work fix that tomorrow. As life settles down a little, it will become increasingly easy to resume Normal Blog Posts. Stay loyal, Readers.

Well, I guess there's not really that much to report today after all. See you tomorrow-ish.

Two Loyal Readers and a Loyal Pet

Here's a nice old camping picture from right after we got to Pennsylvania. Loyal Reader Number One has changed a bit since then.

Blogger's alive again! I tried posting the other night, but couldn't get into Blogger. It had already been way too long since my previous post, and now it's even longer. Must . . . post . . . more . . . frequently.

Today was my last day at work in Newtown! I must say they're not really rolling out the red carpet in Sunnyvale - I had to call somebody to find out when I should report on Monday, since they made no effort to contact me. If I wasn't so full of self-confidence, I'd be a little worried. I'm really excited to be finished with all the integration clerical work and start actually doing some software again. And to become a boss. Check back with me in a year or so to see if I'm still excited.

My coworkers took me to lunch today, as might be expected, and give me some Extravagant Gifts, which consisted of a very cool lava lamp (link warning - lava sounds), a bottle of Excedrin (for manager-sized headaches), and fifty-five bucks of Cold, Hard Cash. I thought about using the cash to buy a video iPod, but Loyal Reader Number Four pointed out a slight discrepancy between the cost of the ViPod and available funds. That's never stopped me before, but it just might stop me this time. We'll have to see. My sister Sandy (sadly, not a Loyal Reader, in spite of my best efforts) has one, and it looks really nice. It might come in really handy on the train between Tracy and Sunnyvale. Assuming we end up living in Tracy, that is. Which I'm pretty sure we will. But maybe I should wait until it actually happens in a few months.

I noticed that I forgot to update the Morrowlife Book Club when I changed books several days ago. Strangely, there hasn't been a Loyal Reader outcry over the omission. Luckily, I'm fixing it now, so there's no need for an outcry after all. Stay sharp, Loyal Readers!

A thunderstorm is rolling into town as I type this. It is suddenly pouring and there's lightning o'plenty. The Loyal Pet is freaking out. It's supposed to keep raining pretty much until we get on the plane to leave on Saturday morning. Fortunately, the lawn is pretty short already, since it doesn't look like there will be much opportunity to cut it again before we leave. Also fortunately, they're not trying to move our furniture into a truck this evening.

We bought an old (built in 1924, actually) Chickering grand piano yesterday afternoon. It will be delivered tomorrow, and they're taking away the hideous Steinway. Good riddance. It plays and sounds just fine, but it's an upright and it looks like it belongs in a saloon. The Chickering needs to be refinished, but that's something we can do, and it will then be absolutely beautiful. It has real ivory keys. Very cool. Although I'm of course totally opposed to the ivory trade. Stay away, PETA.

I hope to blog something short tomorrow, and then the next post will be from our new Secret Base of Operations in California. See you then.