Asymptomatic

Friday night, while the remains of Ernesto howled through Twin Hills, Abby and Riley hung out at Pop-Pop's house and Berta and I spent the night alone.

Having recently watched a Food Network show, "Good Eats", where the host explains how to make your own sushi at home, we decided that we would rather have someone make it for us. We dined at Aoki, and sat at the sushi bar. We didn't get to order anything fancy, instead opting to eat off the menu. I don't think the chefs at the bar were too enthusiastic to be creative with their food construction, and have become a bit too Americanized with an expectation that if it's not on the menu, then it's not available. In any case, the food was tasty.

We considered going to see a movie, but the next showing of the movie we wanted to see was not until late, so instead we went over to the mall to shop for a bed. Yes, I know movies and beds are not even close to the same thing.

We came to the Sleep Number store in the mall, and waited for the sales guy to free up from these two daft ladies who weren't going to buy anything. We asked a few questions, tried out the beds. I think my sleep number is 35, but that might change with the arrival of our own bed.

The Sleep Number bed is basically a mattress with several air chambers that inflate to provide support. The mattress is fully inflated at 100, and gets softer the lower the number goes. There is a remote-operated pump that puts air into the mattress and lets it out. Each side of the bed can be inflated or deflated separately, so we can both sleep in comfort on our own side of the bed.

The bed we picked has a kind of cushion built into the mattress top. It's not that temper-foam stuff, but it's squishy and nice. It's a king size, so it should fill the room a bit more (our bedroom is big and looks really empty) than our current queen. The bed will also come with a wireless remote rather than two wired remotes. Our bedroom is going to have more remotes than the family room soon. One for the TV, one for the light/fan, and one for the bed. Crazy. more

I find myself driving a lot more often than I would like. During those times, I am usually listening to my XM radio. The XM tuner uses an FM modulator that allows me to tune my radio to an otherwise empty channel and listen to satellite radio.

I also have a Creative Zen Micro that I use on longer trips to listen to audiobooks. I'm using some Belkin-brand FM modulator to listen to the Zen playback on channel 107.3.

The funny thing is that these two devices don't always work as intended, and I think it's the fault of the iPod. more

I wrote this entry on June 20, 2006, but did not post it until today.

After a nice evening dinner and playtime in the park - spawned by yet another evening of a completely uninhabitable eating area at home - we returned home to prep the kids for bed and another day's cycle of painters-gone-wild self-inflicted eviction.

Riley was the first to bathe, and Abby whined insistantly (a habit that I am soon to break her of in likely unpleasant ways) that she wanted to spend a few minutes across the street with her friends. With Berta occupied, I was the only one "available" for the task, in spite of the growing mound of after-hours work that isn't being done due to - dare I mention it again? - the blasted painters. ...

Waking up is often terrible for me. I'm not sure why our mattress is doing this to me, but I occasionally wake up with really crisp back pain, and headaches that last all day.

I'm sure that whatever causes these things is something that happens while I'm sleeping. Whether the headaches are related to the mattress I can't say for sure, but I know that the back pain is.

Recently, Berta and I went shopping for a new mattress. Partially because of these issues, and partially because of our house planning. Our new bedroom is much too small for our Queen-sized bed (yeah, but if you saw it, you'd think it was a twin compared to the room size), and we needed a guest bed anyway. To this end, we visited the Sleep Number store in the Exton Mall and chose some beds that we could blow up. more

Nothing. Or, not much. Today. Soon there should be plenty of things on TV with which I can empty my brain. But what will the fall TV season offer me? Let's take a look at some of the returning shows that I will be watching this year once again...

Gilmore Girls - The first couple of seasons had good rapport between the Girls, and the middle entries played on breaking that, and the most recent seasons were enjoyable if a bit less whimsical. I'm sticking with it because I like the dialogue, but I hear that the original creators are not going to be with the show this season, so I wonder if that witty banter will continue. Remember what happened to West Wing when Aaron Sorkin left.

Veronica Mars - The first season kicked butt. I think I expected too much greatness form the second season, but I still wasn't disappointed with it. Third season should see Veronica attending college in Neptune, which will hopefully bring a bit of new blood into the mix and make the big mystery more mysterious.

House - I didn't watch this show when it was on TV. But I downloaded an episode or two, got addicted, and then downloaded both seasons to watch non-stop to the end. The first two episodes of the fall season have already aired, and they keep the same attitude as the first two seasons. House, incidentally, is one of the few shows on TV made up of self-contained episodes that doesn't suck. more