We’re deploying a MacBook for one of our users. Thanks (?) to Boot Camp, we’re able to install Windows XP and set this as the default OS. But there is one glaring problem with running Windows on a MacBook–no right button on the trackpad! Under OS X you can “right click” by holding down the control key while clicking the one-and-only mouse/touchpad button, but this doesn’t work while running Windows (at least under Boot Camp). I finally found a solution buried in the responses to a comment on Engadget — just touch the trackpad with two fingers and you can “right click” with the trackpad button. I agree with one of the replies: not the typical elegance I expect from Apple, but at least it works!
Archive for May, 2007
Oh. My. God! Hat tip to acetylene for this Elizabethan-flavored “Who’s on first?” I laughed so hard I almost threw up!
30
May
Memorial Day weekend
We had quite a busy weekend for the Memorial Day holiday. With temperatures getting into the mid-90’s, we did most of our outdoor work before noon and after 5:00 pm. But over three days we managed to get nearly all of the OSB put up on the sides of our addition!
More photos in the addition sheathing photoset.
Caira had Qiana, (one of her friends), over for dinner about a month ago, and they decided to make stuffed mushrooms for us. They were delicious, but I didn’t have a chance to write the recipe down at the time. Tonight, Barb and Caira tried to make them from memory. Here’s the recipe:
- 4 portabello mushrooms
- 1/2 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- ~12 oz. hot Italian sausage, ground (or links–just remove the casings)
- seasoned bread crumbs
- Italian seasoning
- garlic salt
- ground black pepper
- crushed red pepper
- 1 egg yolk, whisked
- Parmesan cheese
Wash the mushrooms. Break off the stems and set them aside. Scrape the underside of the mushrooms into a mixing bowl. Lay the mushroom caps upside down on a baking dish. Put the mushroom stems, onion, and garlic in a food processor, chop, and add to the mixing bowl. Add the bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, garlic salt, ground black pepper, crushed red pepper, and egg yolk. Mix thoroughly, then put 1/4 of the mixture into each mushroom cap. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake in a 350° oven for 35-40 minutes.
25
May
Tokyo Fro’s sushi bar
Barb introduced me to Tokyo Fro’s sushi bar several months ago. It was pretty good, but I just haven’t had a chance to go back there. A few days ago Andy suggested sushi for lunch, and Tokyo Fro’s is conveniently close to Sac State, so off we went.
We arrived about 10 minutes before noon. The place was busy, but not packed. The service was pretty slow, which the waitress said was due to our arrival during the middle of the lunch rush. (The place opens at 11:30, so you’d think they’d be expecting people to drop in for lunch, right?) We ordered cucumber salads, which were excellent but took inordinately long to get to the table. We also ordered three sushi rolls:
- “Godzilla”, outstanding!
- “Coach T”, pretty tasty, nice complement to the Godzilla roll.
- “S.O.S.”, which I remembered was very good when my wife and I ate here. Unfortunately, we were served the “G-spot” roll, which was disappointing. (We didn’t find out it was the wrong roll until it was almost gone.)
After visting Tokyo Fro’s with my wife I was pretty happy with them, but if this had been my first experience I wouldn’t come back. I’ll give them one more chance to see if they had an “off” day.
The electrician was out yesterday installing our two electrical panels, the main service panel on the quilt shop and the sub-panel on the house. (Also, Barb and I finished sheathing the west wall of the quilt shop last night.)
SMUD is scheduled to be out on June 6. They’ll take down our overhead power line and pull underground conductors through our conduit to energize the new panel. The unterminated conduits in the pictures above are for telephone and network lines. AT&T will be out on June 1 in the afternoon to put these services underground.
This evening we should finish sheathing the quilt shop. (We got started on the last wall yesterday, but the mosquitoes came out early and in force, so we quit a little early.) Once we’re done with the quilt shop, we’ll start knocking off the remaining rafter tails on the west and north walls of the house.
Our lumber package for the roof should arrive today, and a crew should be out today or tomorrow to get started on the roof. Woo hoo!
Also today or tomorrow, one of the framers should be installing the fascia on the quilt shop. Once that’s done, Barb and I can start sheathing the quilt shop roof.
22
May
Roof delay
Looks like we’re going to have a slight delay before our roof is started. The lumber for the roof won’t arrive until later this week so there’s no rush for us to get the rafter tails pulled from the existing roof. Instead, we worked on Barb’s quilt shop this evening and got the north and east shear walls all nailed.
Tomorrow night we’re hoping to get the rest of the shear walls nailed.
21
May
W.W.G.W.B.D.?
Andy left a hardcopy of the W.W.G.W.B.D.? flowchart on my desk the other day. It was so hilarious that I had to share it with everybody!
21
May
Framing finished
Don, our lead carpenter, was on-site this weekend to work on the framing for our addition. He finished the job mid-morning on Sunday, and I must say it turned out very well! We’ll definitely be requesting a bid from Don for our next job, (my shop). He doesn’t have a website yet, but it’s in the works. For the time being, here’s his contact info:
Don Moreno
Moreno Construction
916-727-4447
The next step for our project is roof construction, which is supposed to start this week. (I think our contractor wasn’t expecting us to get the roof demolition done in one day; otherwise, they would have had the crew ready to start today.)
Barb and I still need to pull the rafter tails from two walls, which we’ll start on tonight. Once we get that done, we’ll get back to sheathing the quilt shop. After that, we get to hone our skills by sheathing the addition.
20
May
Roof demolition
Eight people came to our party yesterday and we managed to take off nearly the entire roof.
We tried to take good care of our help–Gatorade, water, coffee, and sodas in the morning, more Gatorade, water, sodas and barbecued burgers and dogs in the afternoon. We’re immensely thankful to our friends and family: Dad, Barbara and Reggie, Tod, Andy, Joseph, Bill (not in picture) and (also not in picture) Punk!
More pictures are online in the roof demolition photoset on Flickr.
