I love New York?

I'm just a pawn.

My company just announced new service out of JFK/LGA which likely means less service out of DFW....maybe ORD...probably DFW. This could once again mean me up for losing my seat....maybe once again....commuting. On the plus side, we will now have many more options to get to and from New York. Hmmm...even my family members can soon use JetBlue to connect to AA flights.

Uverse is upping the Internet speeds....super fast not Fios fast (Eric would look at my speed and feel pity for me), but pretty fast.



Internet speeds haven't really increased as fast in the United States as I thought they would. I have 1/4th this speed back in 1998. One would think Moore's law would kick in...not here. In Europe, Japan and other nations they have 100Mb/s + speeds. Eh.

Today is the day we find out if Kelli needs to learn how to shop for make up and dresses or if I need to buy "How to throw a Football for dummies".

So I've been rolling with a Nexus One for about a week. I love it. Simply love it. The Android experience is 100% better with this phone over my previous G1. Everything is faster and more fluid. I can literally speak into the phone to create a text message. The accuracy is 90%. There is a noise canceling microphone on the back which helps with call clarity. To test I was sitting under a huge A/C fan/blower yesterday at the airport. It was hard to talk to the person next to me. I called Kelli, she heard me clearly. Awesome. Games are much better. Everything is better. I'm trying to convince Kelli to get one for herself.

Mooke, You ARE the father!

For the first time since February 09 I have a month of getting up early like a normal person.

For April I have the 6AM-2PM shift for airport standby. I hate this shift as I have to leave the house at 5:20AM for a 10 mile drive to work. I get to the employee lot in 15 minutes. The employee bus is random so I have to put in 20 minutes for it to arrive and take me to the terminal. This gives me a 5 minute buffer.

"Mookie, You ARE the father!" Kelli and I are planning on visiting the Maury show next month when we go to New York. Should be fun.

My battery release lever broke on my netbook yesterday. Talked with a tech support guy in India yesterday. Annoyed. They are shipping me a box for repair. If it's found it was accidental breakage it's a $89 fee. Of course it's accidental! I might just try and "fix" it myself. Spending 1/4 the cost of a computer on a repair is kinda silly.

Ipad launches this weekend. I will go play with one at least.

Now to get the taxes done......ugh.

Five year wedding anniversary

As of last Friday we were married 5 years. Wow.

Flight out was fine. We took the first flight out which meant a 6:45AM departure. Very open flight, we got a row to ourselves!

I rented a "mid-size" car from Alamo for $60 all in. Once at the facility I noticed a severe lack of options. Chevrolet HHR's and a Chevrolet Impala. Both aren't known for good gas mileage. A bit away was a VW New Bettle. We got it. True it wasn't a mid-size, but it got good gas mileage, concealed our luggage in the hatch and was fun to drive.

We attempted to find a seafood resturant I read about online. The "Daily Catch" had great reviews. I searched the address on my Android (screw I-Phones!) powered phone and used the built in turn by turn navigation. Boston has a lot of loooooong underground tunnels. Tunnels means no GPS. Ugh. The first location for the Daily Catch was on a crazy busy street. No parking. We left to another location. This is where is got interesting. Since we had no idea where we were going we blindly followed the navigation system directions. We quickly had a problem. The navigation was trying to get us go back across a huge bridge we just crossed. Fail. I used the map to find my own way. About 30 minutes later we arrived on the street. Drove by...saw it....parallel parked and paid the meter. Then we walked up to a closed resturant! WTF!?!?!? Middle of the day on a Friday NEXT to a huge college campus! Ugh. We picked a nice Thai food restaurant.

From there we headed to the USS Constitution. After walking through the museum and the ship, we drove around downtown for a bit. Very interesting city. We never realized how many colleges and Universities are in Boston. Wow.

Our hotel was in "north" Boston...which is really a whole different city. We used our Starwood Points for the room...just 3000 points! Our old Holiday Inn System typically required 25,000 points for a room....that's as much as an airline ticket!

The hotel was nice. At first.

After eating dinner at a Boston chain called Ninety-Nine we called it a night. The hotel is huge. For some reason they put us in the same hallway with a group of teenagers on a school trip.

Lots of running down the hall and yelling. Several calls to the front desk. We were almost ready to change rooms when they finally settled down...at 11PM. WTF? The next morning the chaperone assumed everyone in the hall was in there group and knock loudly on every door at 7AM. Not happy.

Day two had the first stop being the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. Amazing experience. Beautiful location right on the bay. From there we stopped by Sam Adams for a very intimate tour and tasting, Doyle's Cafe for an awesome lunch (and free fancy Sam Adams beer glass !!!), Fenway Park, the Cheers Bar and finally the Battle of Bunker Hill Monument.

We drove almost 200 miles and only used 6 gallons of gas. Score.

We tried for First Class, got coach. Awesomely the gate agent assigned us coach seats 2 hours in advance. This has never happened before. Normally when we list for First Class we get seats after boarding as started even if First Class is full. Again we scored a row to ourselves even though the plane was nearly full.

In front of us was a couple with a baby who had the aisle and middle. At the window was a single guy. The look on his face when he saw the baby was priceless. Pure terror. He scanned all around for an empty seat. Over and over again. He stayed put.

The baby was very happy. Think they said 8 months or 13 months...fat baby. Laughed the whole time...all four hours. For about 30 minutes the parents held the inflight magazine and let the baby tear our pages and toss them in the air. I could hear the ripping even though I was wearing my comfy Bose QC-15 noise canceling headphones. Annoying....and a mess!!!!

Next trip is New York next month. Pretty sure that will be Kelli's last trip for a while. Gonna be traveling on my own for a while. What? I'm not the one who got knocked up!

Too lazy to place the photos in the text above....here are the photos from the trip...Captions even!

[nggallery id=41]

Insured for less

Our homeowners insurance is up for renewal. Homeowners insurance in Texas is expensive.

Right now we have Farmers Insurance. We started with Allstate when we bought the house in 2004. We switched to Farmers 3 years ago. Last year our policy was $1175. This year it was going to be $1350! Ouch.

I began shopping for new insurance. Call it wasteful, but I prefer to be properly to slightly over insured. We don't carry "state required minimum" insurance on our cars. We are insured so that if we hit a Mercedes S500 full of a family, the insurance will pay for their car and all of their medical bills. State minimum won't do that.

Same for homeowners. I shopped around. Allstate initially quoted $985 for apples to apples coverage. Nice. However after "refining" the quote it went up to $1120. WTF?!?!?!

I called my Farmers agent yesterday and discussed our situation. He said there is a new product for newer homes that might lower our premium while providing better coverage. The thinking being new homes are built better and aren't as likely to suffer damage as older homes. Sure enough...new policy...$1020. Score!

Think we are going to Boston this weekend.

Decided to keep my Macbook Pro for at least 6 more months...maybe another year. I don't play games anymore. It is plenty speedy. Should last fine. Just need to get a new battery at some point.

The dogs are still alive.

Years go by

Another year older....meh.

Thirty three years ago at 7:36AM on March 21, 1977, a 10 lb 13 ounce baby walked out and told the doctor to "cut me so slack."  The world has been a better place since.

Kelli continued her "one upmanship" by getting an even better cake than last year. This year I had a cotton candy ice cream cake from Marble Slab with gummy bears and marshmallows. She said the employees commented on the "interesting" cake that's not one of their norms. I bet they thought it was for some fat kid....instead of a 33 year old man. Eh. It was and still is awesome. Still over 1/2 the cake left. Moderation my friends.

I have new license plates on the way. This year I am supporting the deaf and hard of hearing.

Got my annual car inspection. Since my car was new I initially had a 2 year sticker. This year was a full inspection. I assume everything would pass. Somehow my wiper blades were too worn. Really Mr. Inspector? Too worn for a car that's been in the garage more than not and has just 15,000 miles? Eh. He offered to install a new set for $30 plus labor. No thanks. I went to Autozone and installed my own for $20. Done.

Spent my birthday night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Never been there before. No desire to go back. Stayed at the Wyndham airport. We arrived two hours late, just a few minutes prior to midnight.

In the hotel van was another crew. When we got to the hotel, the van driver told them too stay put and he would DRIVE them to their rooms (huge hotel!). We got out. I joked, "We have to walk to our rooms because we're the red headed step children."  We were in building "5" they were in building "4" where the crew room (snacks, coffee and computers for crews) was located.

After getting to my room I quickly noticed it was hot and stuffy.

I saw a wall unit with JUST  a fan switch. I turned it too high. It made noise. I then saw a thermostat looking device. It was set on 75. I moved it down to "45". I then tried to settle in. After 10 minutes the temp had not changed. I went back over to the wall unit. There was a trace amount of air coming out.  Packed up (after snagging the shampoo, conditioner and lotion....because I have too) and went back to the front desk.

My Captain was already there. Also a hot room. Front desk explained building "5" has a central AC unit for the entire building. It's set on full cold. There is a heater as well set on full hot. By changing the temp selector, a flap opens or closes to regulate how much of each temp of air gets too the room. The fan speed just sets how fast the air comes out. It's an ancient system.

We were both given rooms in building "4". Each room had individual AC units. Much nicer. The next day I found out all airline crews stay in building "4". They gave us building "5" because....well I don't know why. Pretty crappy.

Did very little on the 22nd. Long overnight.Sat in my hotel room for most of it.  Flight didn't leave until 4:15PM. The hotel van had 4 airline crews inside...20 people. The Milwaukee airport doesn't have a crew only line. We all had to cut in line to get through security in a reasonable time. I hate when I have too do this. Makes us all look like asses.

Somewhat normal flight back. We did a reduced power takeoff. People a lot smarter than me run the numbers and tell me what power setting will work and be totally compliant with safety. Ooof. My leg (meaning I manned the controls), it was a very exciting takeoff.....not a whole lot of runway left when I pulled the plane into the air.

Looking forward to next week.....pretty sure it's a boy. I could be wrong.

April 3rd will see me driving to the airport for a 6AM report. Not happy. For most of the last year + I have done 2PM-10PM shifts at the airport. No longer. Now 6AM-2PM. Ugh. After my shift I will be checking out the I-Pad. Kelli *might* get me one.

Our five year wedding anniversary is this Friday. We are going somewhere. We wanted to hit Boston, but the hotels raised the required points. Might go to Michigan....or Nashville. Eh.

Five years. Been shacking up for almost 8 years. Eight years.

Annoyed

Frustrated. Byrdintheoven.com post explains why.

Work was annoying yesterday. Assigned to fly an empty plane to Abilene for scheduled maintenance. No Captain was assigned to fly with me. Sat in the cockpit for 20 minutes before I headed to the gate. Found out my flight had cancelled....and no one bothered to call my cell, the radio or message to the plane's computer system. Annoyed. Sure it will happen again.

Was hoping to pick up overtime over the next three days. Denied. All overtime is bid on....I am the lowest bidder always due too my seniority. Annoyed.

Macbook Pro battery on it's last legs. Don't REALLY need one as I am plugged in nearly all the time. Annoyed.

Stopped by an Aldi yesterday. Aldi is a new grocery store chain canvassing North Texas. It's a risk for them as they are a little quirky. Cash/Debit only. That's it. Gotta pay $0.06 per bag (we bring our own). Gotta pay $0.25 for a shopping cart, although you get the quarter back when you return the cart. Limited brands.

I could see doing 90% of my shopping there....Kelli about the same or slightly less. Kelli is more brand picky than I am. Off brands burned her pretty badly last year when she bought "Fruity, Toasty, O's" instead of Fruit Loops. They were gross. Still the store was a nice change from a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Small...cozy....yet high quality.

Still working on my man cave. Got some ideas.

Kelli is doing a good job updating Byrdintheoven.com. I do a decent job updating Stillageek.com and Darrenbyrd.com.....because they are now the same site you are reading. Darrenbyrd.com used too be different. Eh. Maybe it will splinter off again. The domain is coming up for renewal. If I don't renew it will likely be bought by the famous Darren Byrd baseball player  (really there is one). I update my "work" blog about twice a week and Byrdintheoven.com once a week.....just the name of the week really.

I blog not only to boost my social media cred...but too help others. Not so much this blog, but my work blog and Byrdintheoven.com blog.

My geek co-hort Kerry has several blogs. She's so cryptic sometimes in her blog. I understand the need for privacy and a cloak of secrecy. She's moving somewhere....1000's of miles away. Hmmm.

Gotta cut the grass....and do house stuff.

Just can't throw away $1000

Moving stuff around. Our old sectional couch was moved to the man cave. I didn't care for it. I wanted to move it to the area of the living room occupied by the slot machine and treadmill. I would then move the treadmill and slot machine to the man cave. Kelli put the smack down on my idea.

She doesn't see a need for the couch and thinks I should toss it. Well sell it on Craigslist....but we wouldn't get more than $100 or so because Craigslist people are cheap bastards. I just can't wrap my head around 90% depreciation of such a large purchase. Working on a plan B.

Throwing away a desk that I've had around for....11 years. It's been under a bed for a few years. I don't mind throwing it out because it only cost $110 at an OfficeMax 11 years ago and I've lost many parts too it.

Kelli is going to New York next month along with my mother in law, sister in law, niece and my sister in law's girlfriend. I might go. Depends if I can get time off...which is looking doubtful based on my success this month. Eh.

Back on the I-Pad fence. A Captain I fly with bought a Nexus One over the weekend. Hopefully I can check it out soon. Never actually held one. Eh.