Before my first Mac, I was considering Sonus as a way to stream music throughout the house and onto the deck. The cost to stream music to 3 locations (at the time…haven’t checked lately) was about $3,000. Instead, I installed an Airport Express in each location where I wanted music and streamed my iTunes to each device…problem solved. It streams in a synchronized stream so there is no weird effect as you walk from keeping room to the back deck. Total cost - don’t care, as the ease of use was worth it. But I think each Airport Express was around $179, so I’m way ahead of Sonos.

I started the system using a Linksys WRT54G like 90% of the world. I’ve since retired the Linksys and substituted an Apple Time Capsule with a 500 gig hard drive to get 802.11n wireless speeds and for Time Machine backups. It works well, and I’m actually (mis?)using it as a file server. AS it turned out, I’m not crazy about using Apple’s Time Machine backup program to back up every durn thang I do as I use my brain instead to figure out what to back up. I also like my backups to be off-site, so I ended up with a spare 1/2 terabyte in the Apple Time Capsule to use to store files.

We currently have music streamed to living room, back porch (sorry, neighbors, and yes, I realize music carries over water), master bedroom, master bathroom, and upstairs to the Apple TV. To stream music from iTunes, I just choose from the menu:

Next in the series….what music do we stream? Hint-XM radio on the web, iTunes (with special playlists), Pandora….more to come…

Since Brian and Peggy have abandoned their annual Halloween bash, RC stepped in to fill the void. It was a cool night, so we had a fire down in the natural area and borrowed a heater for the patio. The weather turned out perfect! I wish we had taken more pictures, though.

Rhonda found this old cooler on one of her dumpster-diving trips. It has a drain plug on the bottom (Duh! Why don’t all big coolers have that?) and a bottle-opener on the side. This morning, all the ice is still in there. The only melting came from the first bag that cooled it down.

The totem of warmth was a big hit. I wish I had some to sell. I may have an Tupperware-style party for Lowe’s and sell these suckers (assuming Rhonda will put them together).

Me: How do you turn off the flash for night photos?
RC: It’s easy….just move this doo-dad to here…

We looked like pyromaniacs, but no one got burned.

We only got good pics of these 4 folks.

As usual, all the photos (such as they were) were uploaded to Flickr.

The other day, I was leaving the parking garage and heading up State Street. I glanced down at the odometer and noted 21,414 miles on my car. I thought, “How long am I going to have to drive this car?”

Flashback: I remember leaving the parking garage and heading up State Street in my BMW. I remember thinking, “How long can I drive this car before I have to give it up?”.

p.s. I still occasionally try to downshift when taking the Gluckstadt exit.

After only 17 days, Rhonda harvested my salad and ate it up like it was Hansel and Gretel. In her infinite cruelty, she made me eat it too!

I hope that the next generation is ready by Halloween.

Rhonda wants to scarf down my salad, but I’m not ready to pick it yet. It’s only been a week…

We transplanted some rocket salad (also known as requette) and red sails lettuce in a basket on the back porch today. We added cilantro and parsley, with peach superbells for color.

Let’s see if they will produce enough for salads at Rhonda’s Halloween shindig….