I’m in the process of rolling out a new design for the site. I’m doing it in fits and spurts so there are going to be some serious formatting and presentation errors over the next few weeks or so. Please bear with me.

This happened today when I tried to check out Windows Live while using Internet Explorer. With all the press about the Google/AOL deal, I wanted to check out Windows Live to see what it was all about, which IMHO is nothing much. It has the same basic functionality as the new Google homepage.

Here is an interesting exhibit from the Smithsonian that profiles the unique Headcuts from the Wall St. Journal and how they are created. Surprisingly, even in today’s digital world, these images are hand drawn by artists commissioned by the WSJ. What would be really cool would be an online application where you could submit an image of yourself, and it would be rendered in the same manner as the WSJ headshots.

Its a sad day in London today. Yes, the Queen is still kickin’, Chuck and Camilla are still an item, Harry is still partying away. But alas, the sadness is for the decommissioning of the old London “Routemaster” double decker bus. London is phasing out these classic busses in favor of more boxy double decker types that can accommodate handicapped riders, and single deck busses like you see in almost any other city.

The image of the Routemaster is an indelible icon of London, as is the image of passengers hanging out of the rear entrance to jump off while the bus is coming to a stop, or running to catch the bus and jump on. And there is also the conductor, another icon that is just as important to the Routemaster. The new busses won’t have the conductors as the driver is the one who collects the fares. No matter how you cut it, its a sad day and the passing of an era in good old London towne. London is one of my most favorite cities and I am definitely sad to see this style of bus go away! I wish I was there to take one last trip to Notting Hill Gate or Knightsbridge.

The good news is that if you are really a fan of these busses, I guess you could buy one or even live in one.

Here is the finished living room. The tables are there because we hosted Thanksgiving this year and we turned the living room into the dining room to accomidate all the guests/relatives/friends. The room ended up far exceeding my expectations. The bookcases and the wall color are great and I am just thrilled with it. And for a point of comparision, below is how the space looked when we purchased the house. Note that it only had one doorway. We broke through the wall to create a 2nd doorway to improve the flow in the room and the entire first floor. My previous post from 11.01.05 has some photos from when we were in the middle of painting the fireplace and some photos from before the shelves were installed.

Happy Turkey Day! We just finished up a pair of marathon days of entertaining at our house on Thanksgiving Day and on “Black Friday”, the day after Thanksgiving. We had about 35 friends and family over for Thanksgiving and then an additional 20-25 friends and family over on Friday for an additional round of entertaining. We had lots of screaming kids running around the house and more food than we know what to do with. We also unveiled our newly refurbished living room which got rave reviews. More info and photos of the room will be posted shortly on the House area of the site. I’ll be eating hot, open faced turkey sandwiches for the next month. But we also have lots of yummy desserts remaining including some good chocolate chip cookies and some apple pies. Overall, it was a successful but immensely tireing couple of days.

I literally spent this weekend raking (or actually, moving) just an immense volume of leaves off my front and back yards. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many leaves in one concentrated area. And the irony is that after spending the better part of Saturday and Sunday cleaning the leaves, I still did not finish. There is a huge pile of leaves in the backyard still and the back corner of the property has a huge amount of leaves that still needs removal. Hope to get photos posted shortly.

Found this on Diggnation…a Google Maps version of the New York City Subway system. You can plot out where is the closest subway stop to any address in NYC. Pretty slick!

eBay today announced an amazing new premium feature that will enable its premium customers to research product prices of items recently sold on eBay over the past few months. The implications of this are quite profound as it will provide some amazing insight into what is the true value of items that auctioneers are selling.

Herre are some before and “almost after” shots of our soon to be Living Room and the built in shelves we had installed. My goal was to have the room painted and prepped before the shelves were to be installed, but the carpenter actually finished the shelves about a month early and that threw my plans and schedule off. This is the last room on the first floor that needs a full overhaul (obviously). As you can see in the first few photos, I am in the process of painting the 1970′s monstrosity that is the fireplace to make it somewhat more visually appealing. The prospect of ripping that out of the house entirely is just too scary for me.

I don’t seem to recall where October went? Much less 2005. Is it me, or do the years seem to be passing way too rapidly these days. As I look back at this year, I have to say that its been quite a busy but fun year. The most exciting part of it was moving into our house in February. That was very exciting and we have spent countless hours fixing up the place.

I realize that I have been a little slack in posting up to the site, but promise to get back in the swing of things soon. I am not at a loss for things to say or discuss, but I just need to remember to take the few minutes to post these thoughts and get them recorded.

In any case, Happy November! Turkey Day is right around the corner. Oh, and we will be hosting our first Thanksgiving here in the new house. That will be fun, hectic, and exciting!

We recently had the floors sanded in the main living room, the dining room, and in the upstairs hallway. We also had the rancid carpet in the TV room removed and replaced with hardwood floors. With that work done, I was able to finally install the basboards in these rooms. Below are some photos of the final results (yes, we still need to put things on the walls. That seems to be a common theme throughout the house!). If you want to see the “before” and “during” photos, visit my Flickr ‘House’ tag. There are also some fun photos of the kitchen with all our stuff piled up since the rooms had to be completely cleared out to do the sanding and floor installation.

Wow, they never cease to amaze. Not a month after they released the amazing looking nano, they take the next step towards media convergance and release the often rumored Video iPod. The real challenge becomes how interested and engaging this will be with consumers. I think the popularity of the iPod is a direct function of the fact that with music/audio, you can be doing other things while you are listening. With video, you need to be fully attentive to the content.

But even if you don’t download a single video, the bigger screen, the larger amount of disc space, and the increased battery life are reasons alone to seriously consider an upgrade. My iPod is now closing in on 1.5 years old, and while its still serving me quite well, I am starting to get a little bit of iPod envy.

Knowledge@Wharton recently posted an article on the Red Sox from a branding and marketing perspective. It talks about the Sox’ run to the 2004 World Series Championship and the notion that Red Sox Nation may not exactly know how to react to the fact that the Sox won it all, after 86 years of frustration and painful defeats. Its an interesting article however it re-inforces the notion that as much as we want to think “its just a game”, the reality is that its really all business.

And as irony would have it, the Red Sox lost last night to the White Sox in typical Red Sox fashion, when an error by Tony Graffanino led to a 5 run inning for Chicago. As the NY Times put it, “Just because the Red Sox won the World Series last season does not mean that baseball cannont torture them on occasion.”

A bit over a year ago, I purchased an iPod. While I have had a few bumps in the road while owning this product, I am pretty much lost without it, especially with the commute I have to work.

I key accessory of the iPod that I use all the time is the clip on remote, which enables me to forward past songs and podcasts I don’t want to listen to at that time without having to take the actual iPod out of my pocket, shoulder bag, or whever it is being held. About three months ago, the little “Hold” switch broke on the remote. I took it back to Apple and they replaced it with no problems. Then today, I noticed that the cable of the headphones was “fraying” and exposing its wiring. And being that I had this replaced almost three months ago, the warrenty on the replacements expired tomrrow.

So at lunch today, I went to the Apple Soho store to see if I could get replacement headphones before the warrenty expired. I walked into the Apple store, found a salesperson, and told them the issue. In the middle of my explaination, another floor person joined the conversation, assessed the issue as I showed the fraying headphones, and said “Come with me”. We walked over to the Genius Bar, they then took the old pair of headphones, and gave me a new pair on the spot, no questions asked. I did have to provide some info about my iPod but that was it. I was there and back in 45 minutes (took the subway).