I set up the camera and tripod in record time to capture this sunset outside of our apartment in Beverly.
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Sunset in Beverly
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Beverly Sunset
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Author Archives: Peter
Boston the Photogenic
As I [mentioned](http://prwdot.org/2006/05/06/sahm/), today was Becky’s last day of work. Hooray! I drove her in to the city, then took off on my own for a day of photographing Boston.
I ended up with [one hundred and forty-four keepers](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/) for the day. You can look at [all of them](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/) if you want to, but I’ll highlight some of my favorites below.
* [Closed-gate view of the State House](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080847.JPG.html)
* [Sleeping on a bench in the Common](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080852.JPG.html)
* [Lemonade cart worker in the break room](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080853.JPG.html)
* [Plethora of Port-a-Potties](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080866.JPG.html)
* [Sidewalk Sam](http://www.sidewalksam.com/about_swsstory.htm) [supervises the painting of a shark at an entrance to the Common](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080872.JPG.html)
* [A nap on the grass](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080881.JPG.html)
* [Many beautifully colored flora](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080901.JPG.html)
* [Can you take a photo of us?](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080903.JPG.html)
* [Hail to the flag](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080917.JPG.html)
* [The proposed location for the Back Bay Apple Store](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080922.JPG.html), currently facing [objections](http://www.ifoapplestore.com/2006/03/09/apple-outlines-boston-store-plans-to-commissioners/) from the Back Bay Architectural Association. Right across from the Prudential Center, it would be an excellent location.
* If that one doesn’t pan out, [there are rumors](http://www.ifoapplestore.com/2006/04/30/iconic-space-available-in-boston/) that Apple could take over the space being vacated by the Virgin Megastore, which I [also photographed today](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080941.JPG.html).
* I walked across the Mass Ave bridge, against the flow of [walkers from the Walk For Hunger](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080946.JPG.html).
* The skyscrapers of the Back Bay were looking [particularly photogenic](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080952.JPG.html) from across the Charles River.
* I love [this photo of a sailboat and the John Hancock building](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080960.JPG.html).
* More [sailbots up on the dock](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080966.JPG.html).
* [A pair of differing dories](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080973.JPG.html).
* [Memorial Drive sweeps around the bend, with the Back Bay in the distance](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080982.JPG.html).
* The new Charles/MGH T stop is starting to [take shape](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080992.JPG.html).
* [Samuel Adams](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1090008.JPG.html) – patriot, statesman, governor… [brewer](http://www.samueladams.com/)?. Do you prefer him with the [brick red background](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1090009.JPG.html), or the [sky blue background](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1090011.JPG.html)?
And the day wouldn’t be complete without a shot of [Becky at the reception desk at her last day of work](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/boston_may_7/P1080999.JPG.html).
I hope you enjoy looking at these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them!
SAHM
Tomorrow is Becky’s last official day of work at the [Otis House](http://www.historicnewengland.org/visit/homes/otis.htm), which also makes it her last day of work outside of the home, at least for the forseeable future. Our plan is for Becky to stay home and be the mom she wants to be, and for me to continue working at [CBD](http://www.christianbook.com/) and be the best dad I can be. We’re both very excited about this, because it’s something we’ve been planning for a while, and it’s what Becky has wanted to do for the longest time. We both know there will be challenges, but I know that we will overcome them, with the help of God, each other, our family and friends. Thanks to everyone out there who has been in touch with us in the past few months. We are looking forward to sharing our joy with you!
Sunny Inside Saturday
It’s a sunny, warm Saturday, so we’re spending it outside, right? Not today.
Today, we spent some time organizing and decluttering in the apartment. Since our ‘office’ has been converted to a nursery, there is a lot of stuff that has made its way out into our living room, and some other stuff that still needs to be taken out of the nursery. There is also a lot of extra junk in our apartment in general, and we’ve been in the process of getting rid of it for the past few months. Today we got rid of some extra books by donating them to the library. I cleaned out the drawers in my computer desk. I also fixed the drawer underneath our crib so that it slides in and out nicely, and Becky put away some more baby gear in said drawer.
One glaring issue with the furniture that we moved into our living room was that the “Manager’s Chair” I used for my computer desk was much too bulky for the tight walkway the computer desk is now located in. So today we went to [IKEA](http://www.ikea.com/) and bought a [STEFANO](http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15600&catalogId=10103&storeId=12&productId=48222&langId=-1&parentCats=15600*15877*15879) swivel chair. It’s much less cushy than the big leather manager’s chair, but it is still quite comfortable, and most importantly it can easily slide under the desk to allow easy access past the desk:
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With the big chair
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With the little chair
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Much nicer, eh? It was even worse when I was actually sitting in the big chair… Becky could barely get past! By the way, here’s what my computer desk layout looks like now:
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It’s a bit crowded, but still very usable, and, most importantly, ergonomically correct.
Site5 Frustrations
I’m glad that Becky has been blogging quite a bit recently, because even though there are a lot of things I have to blog about, I haven’t been able to get any of them worked into an actual post. So here’s an attempt at covering just one of those things: some of my frustrations with [Site5](http://www.site5.com/?affiliateid=9), the web hosting provider for prwdot.org.
Daddy Shower
On Saturday, [Jeremy](http://thebiggspicture.org/) came down to Beverly to throw me what I’ll call a “Daddy Shower”. It was just me and Jeremy, but we had a good time. We went out for breakfast at Michelle’s Place, a restaurant a few blocks away from our apartment. I’d never been there before, but it’s a place that I’ve heard about from [Art](http://kizoku.blogspot.com/) and [James](http://drjames.blogspot.com/), who live fairly close to the restaurant. The breakfast was pretty good… not as good as [Parker’s Maple Barn](http://www.parkersmaplebarn.com/) or the [Red Cottage](http://www.redcottagerestaurant.com/), but still very good. (Incidentally, James happened to be there when we arrived. :-))
In addition to breakfast, Jeremy gave me a gift bag with some stuff for the baby from him and Angela, but geared towards Daddy, in the spirit of the [Geeky Onesies](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/craftiness/geeky_onesies/). There was a bib hand-stitched by Angela with “Live Long and Feed Me” in the classic Star Trek font, a bunch of diapers custom labeled with funny sayings, a book of fun games to play with the baby, and a “Baby Geek” picture frame. Fun stuff. 🙂
He Was A Good Dog
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Kirsten and Beaux
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Beaux, 1992-2006
Beaux wasn’t doing so well on Wednesday night. He had starting having some severe seizures around supper time, so my dad took him to the vet. They gave him some valium to control the seizures, and kept him overnight for observation. The vet said that the seizures were probably brought on by a metabolic problem or a tumor, both possibilities for a 14-year-old dog. If the valium therapy worked, they would have recommended a treatment plan. Unfortunately, after he came off of the valium, his seizures started up again. So today at 1 p.m., dad took him to be euthanized.
It’s a sad day for everyone in our family. Beaux has been with us for so long, and he has kept my parents company at home since Kirsten and I have moved away. I would have been about 13 years old when Kirsten got him as a project for 4-H… we couldn’t have known what an impression he would make on all of us. Kirsten trained him and took him to shows at the fair as part of 4-H, and though he was never the most well-heeled dog, he did pretty well and we were proud of him and of Kirsten’s work with him. Beaux was very loyal and friendly, and very protective of his family. Being a corgi-terrier mix, he had an incredible herding instinct, and he would always follow us upstairs to keep watch when we went to sleep. We loved him even during his mischevious moments, like one evening when dad and I were down in the basement, and Beaux just ran right down and peed on the floor right in front of us. We actually had a pretty good laugh about it at the time. After I left for college, I didn’t have as much chance to see him, but every time I’ve come home to visit since then, he’d be there wagging his tail, full of energy, and happy to see me.
In his later years, he’s had his share of problems… from ear infections to arthritis to other disorders, mom and dad have taken care of him the best they can, but it’s been tough. I think he has probably been suffering for a while, but God bless him for hanging on as long as he did and staying with mom and dad.
I never thought I could get this choked up about losing a pet, but I am. We’re all going to miss you, Beaux. You were a good dog.
For more photos of Beaux, see my [photo tribute](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/etcetera/occasions/beaux_tribute/). If anyone has more photos of him, I would be happy to put them up.
If you were friends or family of Beaux, please leave us a comment to share your thoughts and memories of his life.
mini Computer, Max capability
To follow up on a comment [Angela](http://www.thebiggspicture.org/) had left on my [original post](http://prwdot.org/2006/03/20/our-new-baby/) about the mini, here’s a run-down on the capabilities of the Mac mini, in no particular order:
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* Yup, that’s our “tower”.
* The mini itself is six inches wide, six inches deep, and two inches tall. The whole machine can sit on one of my outstretched hands. In the picture above, it is sitting on top of a matching drive enclosure called the miniStack. the miniStack has the same width and depth as the mini, but is just one and a half inches tall.
* You can read Apple’s official spiel on the mini [here](http://www.apple.com/macmini/).
* It contains a slot-loading “SuperDrive”, which is an optical drive that can read, write, and rewrite both CDs and DVDs. It can even write and rewrite dual-layer DVDs at up to 8x speed. Just stick your disc into the front, and it pulls it right in!
* It has two RAM slots. Each one can take up to a 1 GB DDR2 PC2-5300 SDRAM. It came installed with two 256 MB RAM chips for a total of 512 MB, but I upgraded it to two 1 GB RAM chips for a total of 2 GB of RAM. The machine was very fast with just 512 MB, but it did take an extra second or two to switch between applications when running a lot of applications. With 2 GB you can switch apps instantaneously. If you don’t feel comfortable working inside of a computer and possibly voiding your warranty, have Apple do the upgrade for you. If, like me, you are comfortable working in computers, it might be worth it. Yes, even though I goofed up the first time, I wouldn’t hesitate to make the same decision again (this time with the benefit of a lesson learned).
* It has a 1.66 GHz [Intel Core Duo](http://www.intel.com/products/processor/coreduo/) processor (also known as a dual core processor). To put it simply, dual core means that the computer can perform two separate tasks at the same time, each one running at 1.66 GHz. It’s actually more complicated than that, but I can give you the more complicated answer another time. 🙂 Compare that to our old Mac, which had only a single core 450 MHz processor. Just one of the two cores in the mini is almost four times faster than that.
* It came with an 80 GB internal hard drive, but that was barely big enough to hold our existing collection of movies, music, and photos. Rather than order it with a larger hard drive (the internal hard drives spin at 5400 RPM and thus are a bit slow), we ordered an external drive enclosure called a [miniStack](http://www.newertech.com/ministack). This sits neatly under the mini and lets you add an additional hard drive. We ordered it with a 320 GB hard drive, so we’ll have plenty of room for baby photos and videos. 🙂
* The mini comes with Apple’s excellent [iLife ’06](http://www.apple.com/ilife/) software package. I won’t take up your time by telling you everything it does, but suffice to say, it lets you do some very cool stuff with photos, video, music, and more. Be on the lookout for more cool creations from the Wood Family thanks to iLife ’06. 🙂 Don’t take my word for it… head over and [take the tour](http://www.apple.com/ilife/quicktour/).
So that’s a little blurb on what’s cool about the mini. I’m really enjoying it, and I’m excited about the creative possibilities it holds. It’s so much easier to put together movies and edit photos when you have a blazingly fast computer to work with.
Drama King
Just to clarify a bit from my [last post](http://prwdot.org/2006/04/08/a-humbling-learning-experience/), I’d say that my interpretation of the situation was rather over-dramatized. In the grand scheme of things, it really was no big deal. The computer was completely usable with the IR receiver broken, we didn’t lose any data, and though I lost a bit of pride, I’ve mostly gained it back since successfully completing the repair. There was no household crisis, Becky didn’t yell at me for breaking the computer, it was pretty much 100% me being very hard on myself.
Thank you all for your concern. 🙂
Oh, and Mr. Anonymous, I would be more inclined to approve your mean-spirited comment if you would leave a valid email address. Then again, maybe not.
A Humbling Learning Experience
I recently [blogged about](http://prwdot.org/2006/03/20/our-new-baby/) the new [Mac mini](http://www.apple.com/macmini/) Core Duo that we purchased on Saturday, March 18. Well, up until now, I haven’t really given you the whole truth. I wanted to wait until the story had ended in a way that I found satisfactory before I told the whole thing. Kind of selfish of me, I know, but hey… it’s our blog and we’ll write how we want to. Anyway, it’s pretty embarassing and humbling, but I need to get it out there for everyone to hear:
I broke our brand new Mac.
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