Introduction: Risk Taking

Not much of a risk, mind you, just a small one: the risk of riding the coattails into the blog-o-sphere of my friends. Kevin has been blogging his trips on his globe-trotting adventures and Bryon musing on being an aspiring author (I don't know if you can still be called aspiring if you've been published... interesting). Bryon just started blogging a few days ago and I've always been meaning to but never had, well, the time to be honest. I'm hoping my efforts here to share my occasional experiences will be of interest to friends and family.

Well, enough of the intro and I'll dive into my first posting here about what's going on with me.

Tribulations of Television
Kari and I have been trying to secure the purchase of a new TV for a little while now and have been saving up money. It came as a shock to us as we're usually accustomed to spending 300-500 dollars for a new TV. With the advent of HDTV and Plasma vs. LCD, those cheap TV days are experiencing its death knell as technology advances. So, using Consumer Reports as a guide we have (or I should say, I have) settled on the brand and model. Armed with this, I've been watching prices and I have been encouraged as I've watched the prices drop a few hundred dollars as Christmas was approaching. Those good times seem to have ended as just this week the prices went up either $100 or $200 depending on where you're looking. I had a verbal agreement from one salesman that I could buy my TV when they received stock (today) and indeed they did have them when I went in, but $200 more than when I was in the store just a few days before. I challenged them on this and they said that I would need to have had a raincheck in order to get the cheaper price. Bastards, I tell ya! So, now I'm confined to watching the ads again and I'm hopeful that the Superbowl is good for TV prices over the coming weeks.

Other news: School starts again in a few weeks and I'll be finishing up my stint in physics unless I decide to do the minor which would need two more classes. This should be the last semester I take something on the fringe of my major. I'll be back to the Computer Sciences courses soon! I've been contemplating the master's degree as it is only seven classes beyond the bachelor's. Interwoven into this is my desire to take more math classes too and possible get a master's in math. Beyond just the joy of more math (math is a four-letter word for fun as everyone knows!), it would allow me to skip out of the corporate world either through desire or once I decide to retire and I could teach at community college.

Random topic change: The house projects are coming along nicely and I'm starting to know exactly where everything is in the Home Depot and Lowe's near my house. Latest addition was the reverse osmosis system in the kitchen. I'm getting set to change the shelving layout in the coat closet, add the water line for the refrigerator and redo the gas line hookup for the dryer.

The bread pudding in the oven is starting to smell realllly good. Time to start making the hot rum sauce topping...