Grandpa Sgriccia

I found out that my Grandpa Sgriccia died this morning in Punta Gorda, FL. The last time I got to see him was "thanks" to Hurricane Charlie, which forced him and my Grandma to leave Florida for my parents' house in Broken Arrow, OK.

It was there that I took this picture and had what I'm pretty sure was my longest one-on-one conversation with Grandpa, mostly about patents.

He was the inventor of patent number 3055311, "Trolley Control," in the 1960s. At the time, I didn't have any granted patents, but I do now -- still, can't help but think his is better, since it is for a real physical object, and mine is just for software.

Once when I was a little kid, I woke up crying from a dream where I was in heaven, but all they did there was golf for infinity, and this really upset me for some reason. But for Grandpa, this really would be heaven -- I'm sure he's already there, chippin' and puttin'!

A Washington Feast!

Speaking of organic grapes (which were from the Yakima valley), we also got pound-and-a-half peaches, Bakery Neuveau bread, Beecher's cheese, and Salumi salami ... it's fancy snackin' time, Northwest-style!

Dave's Grape Awakening

We went to the West Seattle Farmer's Market today (Laurel and I go a few times a year, but this weekend Laurel's father, Joe, is in town, so we made sure to go).  Normally, I just look at the hippies and wait until Laurel goes through the whole market, but today I saw some samples of organic grapes that I decided to try. These grapes were incredible!  I had no idea that grapes could actually taste ... grape.  I normally like grapes, but now I won't be able to eat the sub-standard grocery grapes.  I had to buy 2 pounds of grapes and didn't even complain when the hippie woman charged me an extra dollar over the marked price (but she gave me the dollar back when she realized her mistake on her own).

September 20: Parity Day, eh?

Today, the US Dollar and the Canadian Dollar reached parity (within a tiny fraction of a penny).  Will tomorrow be the day we become Canada's Canada? Who's loonie now?

Smile!

My new camera, the Sony DSC-T200, can be set up to take pictures whenever it "sees" a smiling face. Meaning it'll never take a picture of Laurel! I kid.

My first Sony digital camera was the DSC-T1. This new one is 199 better.

The maddest I've ever been at Apple

What am I supposed to use when David Lee Roth calls me? Marimba?

Everyones' a winner!

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Originally uploaded by Seattle Dave.

Laurel ran a 10K this morning at Seattle's Green Lake Park. She must have won, because she got a medal! Hooray!

No Fat Nano for the Fat Boy!

We rushed to the Apple Store after work today to check out the new iPod Nano, aka FAT NANO. I was impressed by its super-small size, especially its amazing slimness (the "fat" is for its width, which honestly isn't that terrible when you see it in person). But ... I had to go ahead and skip a generation of iPods this time. I still have a shuffle and the iPhone, after selling my old nano and 30-gig video, and I don't feel like there is a Fat Nano-shaped hole in my iPod line-up. Laurel disagreed, however. She was able to justify the nano and walked out of the store the proud owner of a silver 8-gig model (sporting the sticker they put on it at the register: "LUCKY YOU").

You'll say, "Thanks for the memory!"

Of course, Apple makes you remove some memory before putting some in, leaving you with this chip sitting around. So if you happen to need a gig of laptop memory (I think it'll work in more than just a Macbook Pro), check out my ebay auction.

11 20 21 30 48!

My parents won the Oklahoma Lottery Powerball with a string of numbers based on our family birthdays. If only we had another brother born on the 18th, they would be millionaires. Think about that next time you wonder if you should have another kid -- could be a great investment in the long term!

At age 88, time wasn't the only thing that was wrinkled

Madeleine L'Engle has died.  Although I didn't know she was still alive, so this isn't too shocking to me.  She wrote some cool books!

Giggeddy giggeddy giggeddy

I just upgraded my Macbook Pro to 3 gigs of RAM (oddly, that's the upper limit on the version of the Mac that I have). Took less than 5 minutes and cost less than $150 ... not too shabby.

I feel like I just won the lottery!

Horray for Steve Jobs, giving us a tasty $100 rebate on the iPhone ... since we have two, that's $200 worth of iTunes credit that we'll use up pretty easily. I can't imagine that actually winning the lottery feels much different.  Can you?  Stay tuned here to find out.

Now it'll be crowded

We just got invitied to a dinner tomorrow night at La Rustica, a really cool Italian restaurant tucked away near Alki Beach. The place is normally pretty packed, but I just heard that Pavarotti died ... so now the place will be teeming with sad Italians.

Yet another reason to go to Starbucks

I'm gonna love this -- how does Apple keep doing things so right?  Thankfully, this will work on the iPhone, so I don't have to buy the iPod Touch. But I'm gonna have a "FAT NANO" as soon as they come into the store ...

2:23:38

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Originally uploaded by Seattle Dave.

Laurel came in first at the half-marathon today -- first in her class, and as we all know, she is in a class by herself!