This past weekend we celebrated the annual anniversary of Anthony’s 21st birthday. After the traditional birthday gifts of kitchen wares and Dr. Who videos, we headed down to Frys. Because not only was it Anthony’s birthday weekend, but it was also payday weekend.
Since moving to the new house we have wanted to condense all of our multiple computers backups and music and photos to one safe location, a home server. This was the weekend we decided to make it happen.
We picked up two 1 Terabyte drives and a powerline networking kit. Because the house is rented and we
do not want wires running around the house, we have been using a wireless network for all of our computers and devices. But since the home for our server is our bedroom closet, wireless might not be the best way. So we had to find a work around. The answer turned out to be a NETGEAR XAVB101 Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit. We plugged one down stairs into our network switch then the other upstairs with the server. Then poof, a instant 85 Mbps wired connection. We were even able to wire in our bedroom desktop to a wired connection point.
We spent most of the day playing at Frys, drooling over Macbook air’s and super flat TV’s. We then drove home, did a quick change and then headed downtown to the Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant) for Anthony’s birthday dinner.
If you have never been it is a real fun dinner experience. Once you are seated the hostess turns on your own personal cook top with fondue pot, which is built right into your table. We should also mention that our restaurant curse held up here as well. It is a strange curse we somehow acquired, but it seems that every restaurant we go to, we get seated by the bathroom or the kitchen. This time it was the kitchen, but it did not ruin our meal.
We ordered the “big night out” which comes with four courses. It started with an alpine cheese fondue, which was prepared tableside. Then a yummy alpine salad. Then for the main course they bring out a big pot of boiling broth, which goes on your cook top. With the broth we got a large tray of assorted raw meats, veggies and 10 different sauces. You skewer your choose of meat and then stick the skewer the pot to cook for a min or 2. Joshua loved the sausage and Anthony loved the duck!
For dessert we have the flaming turtle. Which starts with a big bowl of melted chocolate. Then the server dumps in pecans and a good helping of 151 rum, which is set aflame. To dip in the chocolate they brought out a large plate of cheesecake, brownie squares, strawberries, sliced banana, pound cake, rice crispy treats and 2 different types of marshmallows. One rolled in graham cracker on rolled in oreo cookie. It was a great birthday feast, we both exited the restaurant stuffed.
On Sunday Shawn came over for his weekly visit. Joshua and Shawn worked on setting up our new home server. Shawn also helped Anthony install the powerline routers and help run the wires to the server home. Shawn is really focused on technology. Mostly in the form known as video games and TV. So we decided a little refocusing of that energy might be good in the long run. The night before Joshua had installed all the next hardware, but all of the software install and tweaking still needed to be done.
Joshua and Shawn hooked up our 61 inch TV (aka the biggest shiny object) in the living room to the server and spend the whole morning installing and playing with the server. After lunch and quiet time we cleaned the house up and then drove over to Red Robin for a surprise party for Shawn to celebrate his graduation from lifeworks into mainstream elementary school.
There was one really bittersweet moment during dinner, echoing our last post on the waiting game blues. The family seated directly across from us (directly behind Shawn), across from the bathroom door (see curse above) was a two dad family with 2 little boys ages 2 and 4. You know that perfect picture of what we want to be/have for our own family.
So there we were celebrating Shawn (and Sara’s) big graduation and each time we looked at them we got a double gut shot of a future we have been working so hard for. These melancholy feelings were of course was immediately masked by application of the short walk next door to the world market. For a large basket of chocolates, bubble up soda and jelly babies.
