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First, the aminals:
On the “bad side”, Mali has an E. Coli infection. Cats get these, and they recover, but with Mali who knows. I’m not sure what this means, perhaps her immune system is struggling even more. She’s down to one lumpy kidney, and her blood pressure is up, and she’s now on antibiotics for this infection. No second cat, as directed by my vet. Mali will now get to live out her “senior years” (she’s only 8 1/2!) in peace, as an only cat with two really annoying dogs.
Elka pulled a muscle but has mended and is doing very well. Milton is doing great as well. Daily green tripe for both of them has settled any tummy issues.
Now, the rest:
The time between Thanksgiving and January is always a busy one for me. Traditionally, mom visits over Thanksgiving for 2 weeks, which she did this year. We had a delicious roast chicken, carrots, and potato Thanksgiving dinner, after some arguing about how to cut a chicken (!). Her visit went quickly and very well. She even played Kinect Sports: Bowling, and loved it.
Dad visited this past weekend as well. He bought a new receiver for me, for my birthday. This finally enables me to run only one cable to my television, with the receiver handling all of the HDMI switching. In reality, this was a real pain in the ass to setup. Handshaking with the television wasn’t working until we powered down the TV (for each component installation) by unplugging it from the wall. Then dad had a 2 day argument with the speakers. We both gave up plentiful times, ready to purchase the Geek Squad installation, but in the end, dad prevailed and the speakers all work, including seamless handling of Zone 2 (my outdoor speakers).
On the plus side, I can now run my Cable box, PS3, AppleTV, Xbox, and Wii all via the receiver, and I still have 2 HDMI ports to spare in the receiver. The receiver is essentially 9.1 and supports the latest audio codecs, as well as 3D, so the sound is unbelievable.
The plan was always to get a ‘starter’ setup through which I could upgrade individual components over time, and that is working out really well. The receiver was clearly the first one needing upgrading, due to HDMI switching and advanced sound. The TV is now much easier to upgrade, and speakers—well, they’re speakers.
We also canvassed the house and figured out that I could put all of my components in the back left corner of my master closet, and get them out of my main room, and I’d have to run 3 speaker wires and a single HDMI cable to pull it off. I’d need to pull an outlet through to the closet, too. Not that complicated. If I decide to stay here more than the next 1-3 years, then that change is definitely in the future. I have the remote (RF) to handle that too. It would be awesome to get all of this crap out of my living room, and make the whole thing look more built-in.
Dad headed out to the airport for the California leg of his trip this morning.
I now have 4 days to myself, and on Friday evening, Chris arrives. Chris is here for an astonishing 16 days, through January 8th. I am taking the 23rd of December through January 8th off from work, as is Chris. I was only going to take Xmas - New Years off, but I badly need a reset and was granted that extra week off. Truth be told, I really need this time off and am looking forward to it.
As much as I do need the time off, I can’t help but brag about how awesome my EllisLab team is. I work with some of the most amazing people on the planet. We’ve grown a lot over the last few years, especially recently, and being part of that growth ... there are no words to describe how wonderful it is to be part of a team and community such as I am blessed with.
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And those are my updates.
-Lisa, on December 20, 2010 at 10:02 pm