Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I've made a couple of pumpkin pies and some herbed almonds. We're getting ready to head to Jen's folks, and then Oklahoma. Let the Thanksgiving games begin!

Very Autumnal

The application I'm working on is taking about 3 minutes to compile each time I want to test it, so why not write a blog post?

This weekend was quite the amalgam of activities. In the brisk morning we took care of the last of the leaves, dropping them off on the last day of the leaf drop off. We had a total of 42 bags this year. That doesn't count the thin carpet I left on the lower lawn and the leaves I later tried to mulch with the mower.

We had lunch with Jen's friends Andre and Vanee and got to see the very old farmhouse they are converting. A walk around that property is a good way to feel very distant from Denver and Boulder. Later on we got together with Lisa, Josh, Kara, and their friend Kelsey to see the new Harry Potter movie and knock back a few pints. The new movie is quite good and stays pretty true to the feel of the first half of the book. Unfortunately that means it's depressing as Harry, Ron, and Hermoine are figuratively and literally lost in the woods, sniping at each other. It had a really good use of sound though; more accurately, a lack of sound that went so well with the loneliness and tension of the story.

Before we went to the movie, we finally got a meal at Mumtaz. The food was decent. The gyros were good and the baklava was great but the rice was dry and the tzatziki was bland. I guess for what I paid, I would have liked to eat on non-styrofoam plates. Anyway, decent, but not worth the effort of trying to get there when they're open.

On Sunday, we got up way too early (considering the movie and beer the night before) to help out at church. We then had lunch with Jen's family and planned for Thanksgiving and picked dates for our trip to Europe next year. That's exciting! Afterwards we went home and made pumpkin tacos. I was skeptical as I made them, but once all the ingredients were in a tortilla together, they were quite good.

Now it's time to make a couple of pumpkin pies and some herbed almonds. The Thanksgiving cooking starts tonight!

Eye on the Blackberry

Blackberry is coming out soon (Q1 2011) with their Playbook tablet. I’m stoked that it will be supporting apps built in AIR, among other languages. I’m glad to see that Adobe is carrying through with their vision to get Flash on as many screens as they can.

I’m also stoked to see that if you get an app approved for the Blackberry App Store before the Playbook launches, you’ll get a free Playbook. Now that’s a good incentive for me to get going, especially since Blackberry is currently waiving the fee for getting set up as an App Store developer. The device looks pretty sweet and sports a dual-core processor. It also weighs in under a pound.

I’ve gotten a start with the development for my app idea. I definitely recommend listening to the webcast series on developing for the Blackberry Tablet OS in order to get started. They have some good advice on setting up the dev environment. They also cover some basic development stuff. If you’re already familiar with AIR dev, you might want to also watch the MAX session on Blackberry AIR dev which focuses in on the Blackberry specifics. Another good starting point is to get the SDK and Playbook simulator.

My app I have planned is niche enough that I’m not worried about anyone duplicating it, so I can safely recommend to any developers reading this to get developing and get your free Playbooks. I will note that I haven’t had the easiest time getting the dev set up. I can’t get debug to work on the simulator, but I can run my app on it. Thankfully the Blackberry developer community seems to be quite responsive in the forums for Blackberry AIR dev.

Now get coding!

The Heavy Lifting

It's November. However, on Saturday, I was mowing my lawn, wearing shorts, and enjoying an 80 degree day. It sure is nice to live in Colorado. Of course, of course, the snow will be starting tomorrow, but it was 80 on Saturday.

I'm grateful for the good weather because I spent most of the weekend outside doing things that my lower back would later regret. Jen and I volunteered this weekend with Heritage House, which is a home for at-risk girls. We helped them move a couple of tons of gravel leftover from an earlier landscaping project. Following that workout, Jen cleaned and I did a couple hours of weedeating. I became very proficient in rethreading the wires, which had a disappointingly short life span.

Following that, we took on the leaves on our front lawn. I experimented with mowing the leaves, which seems to have worked pretty well, though I may change my story when I check out my mower's air filter. It took a couple hours to mow and bag the grassy area of our yard, but things looked a lot better. We left and played some Catan with friends.

The next day, the wind picked up and all the work on the front yard was undone. The silver lining for that, though was that the cottonwoods in our back yard finally gave up the fight and relinquished their leaves to the wind and I could tackle the large weedy expanse of our backyard. We raked and bagged and got most of the leaves taken care of. It has been much easier to do before snow and rain have soaked the leaves and tripled their weight.

With all that and some laundry, we have been sore, sore, sore, and tired. Thankfully it seems like the "hair of the dog" principle works for soreness, and Jen and I both have more or less bounced back after exercising this morning. The sneak preview of old age, however, has left me unexcited about going through that stage of life. I guess it beats the alternative, though.

Mumtaz Mystery

I'm having one of those days where I want to rip people out of their cars and shake them until they agree to never drive again. So, if I'm terse, well, deal with it.

There's this Middle Eastern restaurant near our house called Mumtaz. It's been recommended by friends. It gets good reviews online. However, as far as I can tell, it is never open. Jen and I have tried to go to it twice, and it has been closed both times. Once on a Sunday, and then yesterday. Their hours are Monday through Saturday, 11-6. They close at 6PM. 6PM! Frankly, if you're not open past six, there's no need to be open past two. They're not in a business district where all the customers would come at lunch. It's a mystery. How do they stay in business? I'd love to try their food if they ever deigned to be open to sell it.

We went to Pinnochio's instead. It's a good, solid Italian eatery that we've gone to before. The food, though not incredible, is quite good. Their tiramisu is one thing that stands out as far above others I've tried.