Now Officially Middle Aged

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Among this weekend's highlights

  • Missing dinner with my beloved because of a bomb threat
  • Turning 40
  • Almost getting Media Center 2005 working

On Friday, yours truly hit the big 4-0. Not so much trauma, but I did take encouragement from a card that said "You can't get old if you don't turn the music down". No chance of that happening soon.

On Friday night, my wonderfully sweet wife planned a surprise dinner for me. All I knew was that we were going somewhere. After arriving at the ferry dock in Seattle, we headed next door to Ivar's for a drink while waiting. While sitting there, we noticed our boat approach the dock, then back up and head away. Luckily I had my i730 phone with internet access and was able to learn that "police action" was stopping all further ferry service. Subsequently we learned it was a bomb threat. It all worked out well, as we ended up at the Islander, one of my favorite places in Seattle.

Saturday evening a group of us went go-karting in Renton, followed by a tropical themed party back at our place. My best birthdays are the ones where I'm surrounded by my friends in a casual environment.

Sunday I finally finished moving my life over to my new barn burner machine. What to do with the one? I had it planned from the begging to turn it into a Media Center 2005 PC. After a little fiddling, I had everything working except the video playback. I struggled with a bunch of MPEG decoders before finally learning that my video board (a Radeon 9500) seems to be the last Radeon ATI made that's *not* Media Center 2005 compatible. Just my luck. :-) So... tonight it's off to Fry's to locate the cheapest AGP board that'll get me up and running.