A Quiet Christmas

Cathy and I slept late (why do people say "slept in"?) and had scrambled eggs and a bagel for breakfast. I fried some chopped onion and some smoked salmon that my NJ sons had given me for Christmas as extgra treats.

We then opened our presents to each other. I surprised her with a coffee mug with this picture on it:

And she surprised me with a great book about the CIA!

We spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing (except talking to Alan, Alisa, Sara and Lisa)! Perfect.

Cathy made some filets mignon from Omaha Steaks, along with a baked potato, fancy string beans and a salad. Simple fare, but the best! Later, we had some of the "Death by Chocolate" that she had made for her aunt's traditional Christmas Eve dinner. And then we watched "Law & order" reruns! Perfect. :-)

H D T V !!!

I bought Cathy and me a nice Xmas present - a Samsung LN-R328W HD-ready LCD TV set. Cost under $1440 delivered from B&H Photo. Comcast came up with a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD/DVR cable box and the tech installed it yesterday.

Wow! What a picture! I'm looking forward to watching the Patriots football game today.

However, there are a few negatives. (1) No closed captioning available in HD! I suspect that has to do with the fact that the Samsung doesn't have its own tuner. However, if I switch to "analog" mode I can get captioning. Maybe it's time for one of those wireless headphones. (2) The signal from the cable remote to raise and lower the volume doesn't work continuously when you hold it down. But the TV remote works nicely. (3) Not enough channels broadcast in HD. (4) The over-the-air networks have two channels each: one for regular and one for HD. Cathy is annoyed at that.

Comcast has two INHD channels that broadcast nature and music shows designed to show off the HD. Very cool.

Interestingly, the picture size when using 4:3 format is exactly the same (27") as the old CRT TV I moved to the great room. But it looks smaller because the screen itself is so much wider than the old set.

Snow and Getting Older

It's amazing to see how some people react to decisions made by our homeowners association board! Five to eight inches or snow were forecast for overnight into Friday morning and at some point, someone has to call the snow removal people. Well, they did and when the actual snowfall was only about 3 inches, a number of people complained about the bad decision (our guidelines are for snow removal only when the accummulation is more than 3 inches). Their complaint was based on the sun melting a lot of what had fallen. They ignored the homes that didn't get the benefit of the sun and, more importantly, the fact that it was a wet, heavy snow that would have taxed many of our residents. Oh, the snow guys also managed to remove much of the ice on walkways and driveways.

I have been fighting bronchitis for about two weeks now. Started as a cold, as it usually does, and very quickly "settled in my chest" as my mother used to say. But it stayed and stayed and stayed. Finally went to the doctor who gave me Zithro and Flonase and they had helped a lot. However -- and here's where getting older comes in -- I am tired! I've been sleeping well but after I'm up a few hours, I want to lay down. Not to sleep, just to rest. I would surely like to bounce back more quickly but it ain't happening. But I'm rested enough, I believe, to resume going to meetings, playing bridge, etc. For which I'm thankful. :-)

Ordered an HD-ready TV set!! Samsung 32" LCD. I think I mentioned that I had seen part of a ball game on a friend's set a couple of months ago and decided that I had to have that. And the prices have come down a lot! I think that the HD cable box is a $0 upgrade according to thw plan I have, so that will be nice. I'm hoping it will be here and running in a week.

The winter baseball meetings have ended. The Red Sox will have an entirely new infield and maybe 2 out of the 3 outfielders will be new, too. I'll have to learn all new names and faces. "Can't tell the players without a scorecard!"

Slide Show

MAKE Magazine showed me how to blog all the pictures in my Flickr account into a slide show!!! Put your cursor on the "screen" and you'll get some controls.