Mom was surfing the internet a few weeks back and found some incredibly cheap plane tickets so she and Dad came out here for Halloween weekend. It was a trip that was too short, but you can’t argue with the price. We spent a lot of the time just hanging out at the house so they could get maximum Elijah-time. It was good to see them again, especially since we aren’t going back to Indiana for Christmas this year.
Elijah chose to be a bumblebee this year. I don’t know where it came from but he made a pretty cute bumblebee (and it was thankfully an easy costume to put together!) He got a lot of use out of his costume. He used it at our church’s Trunk or Treat program, a Microsoft family day, a nursing home program, and of course in the neighborhood on Halloween night. He didn’t care much about the candy he receives but he loved being on both ends of trick-or-treating.
Below are a couple photos of him in his costume. My favorite is one from church: he’s wearing a bee costume, wearing some silly glasses that he “won” playing a game and riding a tricycle.
The Seahawks played a doozy of a game on Monday night. Jimmy Graham had two one handed touchdown catches and he hurdled someone. The man is incredible and it’s nice to see him getting used. I loved the shock of everyone in the stadium when Russell Wilson ran in for that first touchdown. It felt like a collective, “What?! He can do that again?” Thankfully he’s good enough that her was able to keep the passing game alive despite the horrible offensive line and complete lack of a running game. It was a nail biter to the end. And oh yeah, that mess at the end of the first half was beyond ridiculous. (Also ridiculous: people who spell ridiculous with an “re” as if they are “diculous” again.)
Our league was really low scoring in most of the games. Austin and I scored a lot of points but five other teams didn’t break 100. There were some very close games with Dad and Logan coming out on the bad end of those. Dad gets the deadbeat award for missing two roster spots, but he already apologized for that one. Please keep an eye on those rosters because our league is so tight that it doesn’t take much to change the list of teams that make the playoffs… we only have 5 games left! This week’s big game in our league is Luke vs. Logan (1st vs 3rd.)
1. Ben
2. Austin (+1)
3. Logan (-1)
4. Luke
| This Week | Season | All-Time | |
| Highest Team Score | Ben had 149.19 | Logan had 170.69 (Week 5) | Tim 200.51 (2015) |
| Lowest Team Score | Dad had 94.06 | Tim had 67.79 (Week 8) | Andy had 41.29 (2015) |
| Biggest Blowout | Ben beat Austin by 18.31 | Logan beat Tim by 79.46 (Week 5) | Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010) |
| Closest Win | Luke beat Logan by 0.21 | Was: Tim beat Dad by 0.45 (Week 4) | Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012) |
| Highest Scoring Player | Matt Ryan had 35.76 for Ben | Ben Roethlisberger had 43.90 for Andy (Week 4) | Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015) |
| Longest Active Winning Streak | Ben has a 3 game winning streak | Tim and Logan had 4 game winning streaks | Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak |
| Longest Active Losing Streak | Logan has a 3 game winning streak | Jim and Dad had 4 game losing streaks | Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011) |
Phones contain more and more high value, personal information. If you don’t have some kind of a password lock on your phone, you probably should consider it. Tyla and I both use a password and with our new phones, we also do a thumbprint. That being said, there are some times when you know that you’re the only one who will be touching your phone and the unlocking step is annoying. Thankfully, Android has a feature for that. It’s called “Smart Lock“. You can tell Android to unlock your phone based on location, connected Bluetooth devices, and a couple others. (I’m surprised that WiFi network isn’t on there, but maybe there’s no good way to identify a specific WiFi network since someone else could set one up with the same SSID and MAC address.)
Obviously this feature should be used with care, but it’s nice to not have to unlock my phone sometimes.
Did you know that Windows 10 has as built-in feature that will allow you to receive SMS messages from your Android phone and reply to them right from your desktop? This feature is fantastic when I’m at work because I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to pull my phone out of my pocket and reply. (I’ll just have to remember to disable it when I’m in projecting on the big screen in meetings!)
To get this going, you need to have Cortana set up on your phone and on your desktop. There are plenty of websites that cover this, but here are a couple tips:
Now when you get a text, you should get a toast notification with the contents of the message and you can reply right from that box. You can also open up Cortana on your computer and type (or say) “Text Joe Blow Will you bring beer to the game tonight?” Note that after I set this up, it took 5 or 10 minutes before it started working but now the messages show up on my desktop within a couple seconds of my phone buzzing.
This isn’t my first post about my new Galaxy S7 and it probably won’t be the last, but I have some more thoughts about the phone and about Android in general:
I’m still finding more cool features so stay tuned!
What an incredible game 7! That game had everything. They put on a good show and in the end, the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years. Watching these Cubs games brings back a flood of great memories. Go Cubs go! Fly the W!
Before we get into football, I have to say something unbelievable: for the first time since 1945, the Cubs are playing a game that could win them the World Series! After being down 3 games to 1, they have fought their way back to even. Last night, they won 9-3 which is the score that they lost game 7 by in ’45. I’m not a superstitious man, but I’m thinking about stopping at the butcher on the way home to grill some fresh goat. Go Cubs go! End this curse!
The Seahawks had another frustrating day. The highlights of the game for me were the big goal line stands. The Tanner McEvoy play was good too but the penalties in the game were killer. So. Many. Penalties. The weak offensive line is hurting the team pretty bad. It’s hard to throw down the field when Wilson doesn’t have time and they get extra penalties as they try to get the first step in the blocks. The final drive down the field looked great but didn’t end in anything. Bleh. After 7 games, they have only won 4. Hopefully Kam Chancelor and Michael Bennett come back soon and Wilson gets healed up. Otherwise this season isn’t heading very far into the playoffs.
In our league, three of the four games were upsets according to the Yahoo projections (those projects are oh so accurate and useful, aren’t they?) The biggest upset was definitely Jim getting his second win against Logan who had the top spot in the league. #8 topples #1. Andy is now top dog in the league and he’s only made 2 roster moves! He has also had the easiest schedule so far so well see if he can keep it up.
We’re over halfway to the playoffs in our league but the league still feels pretty tight. Nobody has clinched yet but another win or two for Andy might get him a spot. Everyone still has a chance I think.
There were some big moves in our power rankings this week:
1. Ben (+4)
2. Logan (-1)
3. Austin (-1)
4. Dad
| This Week | Season | All-Time | |
| Highest Team Score | Ben had 123.56 | Logan had 170.69 (Week 5) | Tim 200.51 (2015) |
| Lowest Team Score | Tim had 67.79 | Was: Tim had 77.09 (Week 6) | Andy had 41.29 (2015) |
| Biggest Blowout | Ben beat Tim by 55.77 | Logan beat Tim by 79.46 (Week 5) | Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010) |
| Closest Win | Andy beat Austin by 1.88 | Tim beat Dad by 0.45 (Week 4) | Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012) |
| Highest Scoring Player | Derek Carr had 43.82 on Jim’s bench. | Ben Roethlisberger had 43.90 for Andy (Week 4) | Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015) |
| Longest Active Winning Streak | Ben has a 2 game winning streak | Tim and Logan had 4 game winning streaks | Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak |
| Longest Active Losing Streak | Logan has a 2 game losing streak | Jim and Dad had 4 game losing streaks | Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011) |
The building across the street has been taken over by WSDOT for the east side light rail extension project. It got me curious about exactly where this line will run.
In addition to the stop across the street from my building, it runs a little farther up to the Overlake Transit Center. I suspect this line will be popular with Microsoft employees since it runs right to campus.
I have mixed feelings about the project. It’s a HUGE expense (~$50 billion for the full plan) and most of that is coming out of property taxes. The proposed lines are mostly in Seattle but us east side residents will bear the brunt of the costs. The cost per rider is going to be huge compared to installations in other cities.
On the flip side, I really don’t like going into Seattle because it’s so annoying to drive and park. Buses are available but generally it takes twice as long to get where I’m going. I expect that the train will be a faster option and since the western end of this line is right by the stadiums, that could be pretty convenient.
And anyone who drives in this area knows that traffic is pretty rotten. The lake and the mountains don’t leave much room for people to travel so everyone ends up using the same roads as everyone else. With the area rapidly growing, changes need to keep coming.
Is it worth a couple hundred dollars per year in extra property taxes (and even more in other kinds of taxes)? Many of the people footing the tax bill for this will be retired or moved away from the area long before this plan is ever completed. How do you do transit planning when you can’t build fast enough to keep up with demand, costs are enormously high because of the terrain, and oh yeah, there’s not really any ROOM to put in a rail line? Sounds like a tough job. I wonder how far we could get with $50 billion if we were investigating teleportation?
Bass Pro Swallows Cabela’s