Author Archives: Peter

Good Omens

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The co-authors of the humor/fantasy novel aaa|Good Omens|0441003257|aaa are both going to be speaking and doing book signings at Harvard in the upcoming weeks! Terry Pratchett is coming [tonight](http://www.harvard.com/events/press_release.php?id=1488), and Neil Gaiman is coming [next Friday](http://www.harvard.com/events/press_release.php?id=1494)!

The Neil Gaiman event requires tickets, and they’re sold out… so we won’t be able to attend (unless someone has an extra ticket and wants to donate it). But the Terry Pratchett event does not require tickets, so we are planning to attend tonight! Hopefully we’ll be able to get in the door and hear him talk. And maybe get a book signed. Wish us luck!

Update

ggg|terry_pratchett_harvard/P1040813|Terry Pratchett|ggg

We made it! After I deftly maneuvered us about five blocks further down the street than necessary, then all the way back, we arrived at the Askwith Forum in Longfellow Hall on the campus of [Harvard University](http://www.harvard.edu/). Unfortunately, we didn’t make it in time to get a seat inside the lecture hall, so we couldn’t really hear anything Terry said. Apparently it was pretty funny, because lots of people were laughing. However, since we were standing outside the hall, we actually had a stroke of luck, and were put close to the front of the line for book signing! I had my copy of aaa|Good Omens|0441003257|aaa signed. Unfortunately, Terry wasn’t paying very close attention while signing my book, so my name isn’t exactly legible:

ggg|terry_pratchett_harvard/P1040841|Pelite?|ggg

As far as I know, there’s no letter in “Peter” that needs to have a dot over it… hmm. Oh well, it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Now if only I could get tickets to see [Neil Gaiman](http://www.harvard.com/events/press_release.php?id=1494) next week… it would be spiffy to have both of them sign the book. 🙂

You can see all of the photos from the evening [here](http://gallery.prwdot.org/terry_pratchett_harvard).

Bumper Sticker Downgrade

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So, I decided it was time to downgrade the bumper stickers on my car. Here’s what it looked like before:

ggg|camry_outside_shots/200205061717732_G|Lotsa Stickers|ggg

And here it is after:

ggg|2001_toyota_corolla/P1040810|No Stickers|ggg

As you can see, the only way I could get rid of the stickers was to get a new car… 🙂

It’s a 2001 Toyota Corolla LE. It has about 58,000 miles on it. It’s not an extravagant or terribly exciting car by any means, but it’s in much better shape than my old 1994 camry with 210,000+ miles. It also gets much better gas mileage:

2001 Corolla vs 1994 Camry

* City: 30 mpg vs 21 mpg
* Highway: 39 mpg vs 28 mpg
* Combined: 34 mpg vs 23 mpg

That should come in handy considering the constant increase in gas prices.

I’m sad to see the Camry go. We’ve had some good times in that car. Becky and I drove on some of our first dates in the Camry, and it has taken us down to Florida and back, out to Ohio and back, and all around New England. It’s taken me to and from work every single day that I’ve been at [CBD](http://www.christianbook.com/) … except, of course, on the various occasions it was in the repair shop. Becky’s dad has taken it upon himself to fix up our car and to try and sell it, so hopefully it will be useful to someone in need of a car.

Check out my [goodbye Camry](http://gallery.prwdot.org/goodbye_camry) album, and some initial photos of the [Corolla](http://gallery.prwdot.org/2001_toyota_corolla).

Gallery 2 Released

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The [Gallery](http://gallery.menalto.com/) team announced today that Gallery 2 [has been released](http://gallery.menalto.com/gallery_2_0_released). Gallery 2 is a *complete* rewrite of Gallery, from the ground up. It has some very exciting and powerful new features, the interface is a lot cleaner, and it is much easier to administer than Gallery 1. We’re currently running Gallery 1 on our [photo gallery](http://gallery.prwdot.org/), but I have been looking into Gallery 2 for a while now, as it has been in alpha, beta, and release candidate testing. It will probably be a little while before we switch over, because there are simply so many things to adapt to in this new system. Theoretically, we could easily switch over to the new system in a day, but the resulting gallery would be less than optimal for our visitors. So I want to make sure we take the time to get things just right so that the gallery is as useful for our visitors as it is for us.

In the meantime, head over and check out some [screenshots of Gallery 2](http://gallery.menalto.com/gallery/screenshots/screenshotsG2/).

S dnem rozhdeniya! (Happy Birthday!)

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I don’t know if we got that right… but the sentiment is the same!

ggg|gostinyy_dvor/P1010761|Kim, Peter, and Becky|ggg

Happy Birthday to our cousin Kim! We have many happy memories ([and photos](http://gallery.prwdot.org/russia)) from our trip to visit her in Russia earlier this year.

Eastern Fells

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fff|ggg|eastern_fells/P1040684|Half Mile Pond|ggg|fff

On Saturday, Becky had an outing with her friends [Jill](http://www.theholtsite.com/) and Kendra. We planned our day so that the outing could occur on our way up to Townsend for the weekend, so we drove from Beverly to Woburn, where the ladies met up at the [Crate and Barrel](http://www.crateandbarrel.com/) factory outlet. While they shopped and had lunch, I did a bit of adventuring.

I hiked around the Eastern Fells, part of the [Middlesex Fells Reservation](http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/metroboston/fells.htm). The Fells is one of my favorite parks in the metro Boston area. I hiked down the blue blaze trail to the yellow blaze trail. It was probably a 15-20 minute hike each way, with a couple of somewhat steep spots, and lots of rocks. I hiked down the yellow trail to the edge of Spot Pond. If you’ve ever driven the section of I-93 in between Boston and Route 128, you have probably seen Spot Pond. It’s an enormous body of water to the east of the highway, with a large island in the middle, and some large buildings visible above its eastern shore. Anyway, it’s a very nice area to hike around in, and very close to Boston. I’d definitely recommend checking it out if you’re in the Boston area.

Becky and I have previously hiked around in the [Western Fells](http://gallery.prwdot.org/middlesex_fells), which is home to three reservoirs and two climbably towers. The Western Fells are on the opposite side of I-93, and the trail systems are mostly separate, save for the Cross-Fells trail.

You can view all of my [Eastern Fells](http://gallery.prwdot.org/eastern_fells) photos.

Dolla bills, y’all

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Without going into the actual monetary values, our [ING Direct](http://www.ingdirect.com/) savings account has generated more than 10 times the interest in the year so far than it did for the entire year of 2004. And our balance is more than 50 times what it was at this time last year.

w00t!

p.s. If you’re interested in setting up an account at ING Direct (they have a 3.3% APR right now!), let me know, and we can help each other out with some referral bonuses. 🙂

Markdown

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I’ve just installed [John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net/)’s [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) plugin for [Movable Type](http://www.movabletype.org/). This plugin allows us to use nice, readable, non-HTML markup when we write our blog posts. It also allows our blog readers to use this same shorthand when posting comments to our blog entries. You can get a basic intro [here](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/basics).

Enjoy!

Zucchini Deliciousness

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Tonight, Becky and I made a zucchini layered bake for dinner, with a recipe from Becky’s friend Jen Hancewicz. (One of Becky’s bridal shower gifts was a box of recipe cards with recipes contributed by the ladies who attended the shower (and some mailed in by the ladies who couldn’t make it). Very good idea, and we have gotten some very tasty recipes out of there!) It was utterly delicious. I could have eaten the whole dish. We each had two helpings, and then saved a good amount to put in our lunches tomorrow. Yum! Here’s the recipe:
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