Geekery and a great dinner out

[mdlbear]

Woke up at about 5am to find that my marvelous flower_cat had been up before me and made some peach custard. We both went back to sleep. The custard was delicious.

Went out for a pleasant five-mile walk this morning. After that, I drove over to REI and bought a new pair of hiking boots, because a comment by quadrivium a couple of posts downwhen made me look at the soles of the old ones -- they were practically worn through. The new ones are the same type (Keen Brooklyn) but half a size bigger -- 11 rather than 10.5. (My current walking shoes are size 11, too. It seems one's feet never stop growing; I was a size 9.5 30 years ago.) So these should be a bit more comfortable in addition to not being on the verge of falling apart.

After the shoes I went to HSC's annual anniversary sale. This is always worth the trip, and comes with free hot dogs and chocolate-covered donuts besides! This year's haul consisted of a pair of rack shelves (actually half-shelves: they go on opposite sides of the rack and butt together to make a symmetrical shelf) for about $25, and a 9-LED flashlight for $3. Came damned close to spending $40 on one of a pair of gorgeous 8' racks, but decided I didn't have room in the car. Good call, especially since it wouldn't have fit anyplace but the garage.

Spent most of what was left of the afternoon working to get trantor, my main workstation, back in operation after last Sunday's disk crash. This was precipitated by two things: trantor has the backup drive installed (and I do backups on Sunday morning), and the new monitor looks like crap with a VGA input.

So, with a DVI-capable card "borrowed" from work (from the old Dell workstation I haven't used in over a year) and a nice fresh Debian 4.0r1 install disk, I set to work. Hey, where did the X configuration go?

Surprise! You don't have to configure X anymore. It just fscking works. Swapped in the DVI cable (after we got back from dinner), installed a few essential packages that aren't in the standard set, and here I am.

There's still an hour or so worth of installing to do to fill in things like fonts, version control, and the like, but it's basically up and running.

About 5pm the flower_cat and I went out on our dinner date. We'd been going past the Forbes Mill Steakhouse in Los Gatos for years, looking at their menu, and thinking we ought to try it some time. Some time was tonight, and a fine time it was. We started out with Sarticious gin (from just over the mountains in Santa Cruz), which we had never tried. Both of us loved it: smooth, slightly fruity. Yum. Shortly after that they brought the bread (made on the premises, I'd guess) and the apetizers we'd ordered off today's specials: figs stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in prosciutto, and oysters on the half-shell. There were three figs and three each of two kinds of oysters; we split the odd fig and divvied the oysters by proximity: one of the far ones and two of the close ones.

For the main course we just had more appetizers: the beef carpaccio, day boat sea scallops (two big scallops on a bed of black "forbidden rice"), and the filet tips (with cognac peppercorn sauce, scallions, and garlic chips). All made of yum. I personally thought the figs were the best.

We finished off with a cheese plate, cappuccino for the Cat, and espresso for me. Total was a little over a C-note before tip: high, but not outrageous as long as we don't do it more than every couple of months. We've paid more taking the family out for sushi, and enjoyed it less.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Figs *are* made of yum...

I wish I had the space for a rack in here, but I don't. Actually, what I'd really like to have is a data closet, even one such as you do, but... *sigh* ah, well. We make do.

[mdlbear]

Attics and garages work for that kind of thing if you have them, especially in a climate where it doesn't get excessively hot. And you can stuff a two-foot-high rack under a table or desk.

There's a Spanish place in Palo Alto that serves figs stuffed with ground walnuts, with a balsamic reduction sauce. To die from for.

[ohiblather.livejournal.com]

Why is the rice forbidden?

I look forward to getting my copy of your CD!

[mdlbear]

I have no idea, but that's what it's called on the menu. It was tasty, though; sort of a short-grain wild rice.

Let me know when the CD arrives. Hopefully it hasn't been held up in customs.