Category ‘2009’

I’ve recently discovered an excellent movie genre: Foreign Films.  They can be a refreshing change of pace from typical Hollywood movies, and I’ve especially enjoyed watching movies that teach me something about history or another part of the world.

For example, I recently watched a move called The Lives of Others, (more…)

Last Summer Ben and I went biking at Bogus Basin Ski Resort outside of Boise.  Ben had the sweet idea of taking photos of the exact same locations in summer and winter.  We forgot to look at the summer photos before heading up to Bogus yesterday – but we took a bunch of pictures anyway and some of them matched up pretty well.  So, here you have examples of Bogus Basin in the summer vs. winter!

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Alonna and I made an interesting discovery recently: there is no longer any need at all for cable TV.

The chief reason we were paying $45 a month in the first place is not so we could watch TNT or the History Channel, but because TV antennas suck.  Most of the TV we watch is the main channels – NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox – so we were basically paying to receive a crystal clear reception of these channels.  But here’s the thing: for 2 years we’ve been watching standard def television on our HD TV, and the experience is really grating.  Every time I check what it would cost to get these channels in HD, it’s in the $50 range.  That’s $50 on top of the $45 we were already paying.  But you can get most of those same HDTV channels with a digital antenna.

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About a year ago, I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t beat the song Jordan on Expert difficulty in the video game Guitar Hero II.  One thing led to another and I ultimately hacked my Guitar Hero controller to “record” songs (what it records is the button presses and strums) in practice mode – at half speed – and then play them back at full speed.  Alonna made a youtube video showing it in action.

So that’s the kind of thing I do in my free time…  I have a slightly more detailed description of it here.

Alonna and I just had LASIK Done.  She on January 22, me on January 23.  Basic Points:

• LASIK consists of having a flap cut in your cornea, a laser reshaping the part of your cornea under the flap, and the flap replaced.  Watch this FDA Animation.
• It costs roughly $3000.  Our insurance covered $500.  You can pay a lot more or a lot less.
• We had “Wavefront” LASIK – where your prescription is determined by computer and lasers or something.  Whereas prescriptions are generally measured to 0.25 of a diopter, this measures down to .01.  This effectively means that you’ll probably have better vision than you did with glasses or contacts.
• LASIK can also correct astigmatism.

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