For those who want to watch the occasional .mov file but don’t want to install quicktime on your Windows box, check out Quicktime Alternative. Cool piece of freeware.

It only took 7 months, but I have finally succeeded in my page rank quest. MSN Search caught on to my site relevance a few months ago as the top hit for “Kenny Wolf”, but when I had last checked Google I was on page 7 (both Lauren and my Mom were higher ranked matches). I thought they might have something against Microsoft employees 🙂

Then last night I saw myself at the top of the list:

Probably due to the lovely Seattle November weather (i.e. 46 degress and rainy), I’m in the process of fighting a joyous head cold. To aid me in this process, I stopped by Rite Aid to pick up some Sudafed. All I could find was “Sudafed PE”. Finally I found a card for Sudafed to trade in at the pharmacy.

Turns out that while Sudafed is still non-presecription, a recent law requires you to have id checked so that you don’t run home and put it into your meth lab. God forbid you’re buying it because you have a cold, or want to make some jewelry.

You can get the non-Pseudoephedrine version on the shelf, but based on my 1 day side-by-side, I’ve found that phenylephrine is not nearly as effective.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the South Park cough syrup episode….

Lauren and I have 4 sets of parents between us. When we got engaged they all asked when they would get to meet each other. Within a week my Mom, Dad, step-Mom, and step-Dad had booked plane tickets and hotel rooms for a weekend in LA. We hoped this was foreshadowing of logistical ease for the wedding (verdict is still out, but I remain hopeful).

Lauren and I flew down last night, and today was day one of three. So far it’s been quite entertaining (as LL and I expected). Less fiascos, and much more fun than the movie “Meet the Parents” (which was a waste of time). And so far no ultra-embarrassing stories (which I don’t expect to last throughout the weekend). Just a bunch of silliness and wine and vodka! 🙂

Thanks to everyone for your concerns about my Dad who’s in Slidell, LA (on the north shore). He’s alive and well and performing much needed emergency work down there.

They got hit pretty hard by Katrina, but Slidell Memorial Hospital (where my Dad was working during the storm) made it through the storm still standing, and everyone inside was ok. Landlines and cell towers are still down, but I get bits of information through my step-mom who evacuated a few hundred miles away.

This is where I take a moment to share just how amazing my father is. Not only has he been patching the injured up as they arrive in droves (he’s a general surgeon), but when the generator at the hospital went down, he got out his tools and fixed that too! That brought air conditioning and hot water support to the hospital. (Dad was able to reward himself with a hot shower :)). Then, during breaks between surgery, he went back to his house (which had a tree fall on it, but miraculously didn’t take water), and fixed up the roof. I can’t imagine a more awesome father than Gary J Wolf. Dad, I love you and I’m continually amazed and proud. Keep up the great work!

This weekend my Dad asked me when I was going to post about kidnapping Lauren away to Victoria two weeks ago and (what he was really driving at) that we got engaged while we were up there.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I wanted to take a little time to call my friends and family first to tell them personally. However, the grace period is now over (and for those following Lauren’s blog this is already day old news :)). Everyone’s been warning me that it’s going to be madness logistically, but so far we’ve made some decent progress on logistics and it hasn’t been too bad. I’m taking that as a good sign 😉 Very exciting times.

Anyways, I was updating LL’s caption on my blogroll and did a quick google search on "fiancée" to steal an accented e. Little did I guess that help would materialize in the form of a Russian brides site advertising "Fiancée Visa Packages". Crazy stuff.

Off for vacation for a week with the family. Leaving on an Alaskan cruise out of Vancouver. Will report back with pictures and stories of dog sledding and glacial kayaking! 🙂

Star Wars Episode III opened today (actually last night at midnight from what I hear). A bunch of people from work checked it out and enjoyed it.

In preparation for tomorrow’s viewing, Lauren sent me a fun Star Wars refresher guide from Slate. I’ve also received a bunch of other silly links, including a haX0red trailer and a Star Wars photoshop contest. Yet I think I’m most partial to the Darth Vader blog.

Anyways, I’m keeping my expectations in check (Episodes I and II have set a pretty low bar), so it should be an entertaining respite from the very non-Seattle-like thunderstorms we’ve been having.

Last weekend I dragged Lauren to San Francisco to play in Shinteki Decathalon, which is a miniature version of the crazy overnight games I’ve played in the past. Tom and Eric joined us to complete the “Limber Ligers”. It was a good time, we found out just how slow a paddle boat with four adults travels, and that the Fremont Open Space Preserve is not actually in Fremont, CA (though it does sport some nice views).

We came in a respectable 10th out of 23 teams, in spite of completely blanking on one of the puzzles. After reading this article I wonder if we would have done better by lying down to work on our puzzles and getting more “noradrenaline” into our brains. 🙂