[caption id=“attachment_5961” align=“aligncenter” width=“480”] My Cities XL Region - 1 city with 75 thousand residents[/caption]

I first played Cities XL in May of 2011.  I last played a year ago in April 2012.  At the time I said I couldn’t wait until Sim City came out.  However, we know what a fiasco that has become.  So, discouraged about playing Sim City I decided to load up Cities XL.  This is the first one - not 2011, 2012, or Deluxe.  The graphics are pretty amazing and rival anything in the current Sim City.

For this quarter I’ve gone back and forth between picking albums to listen to and having dynamic playlists determine what I listen to.  For most of March I was listening to a bunch of free South by Southwest samplers with some pretty GREAT music.  Not a lot of repeat among the artists there so none of them appear on this list.  Some of those songs could potentially end up in the most listened song list at the end of the year.

The wedding day went the way these things always go. If you’re not involved you’re spending most of the day waiting around until it’s time to get your nice clothes on and go to enjoy the wedding. I went to get In-N-Out Burger for lunch and learned that Scarlett really, really likes french fries.

Today’s post makes the series name somewhat inaccurate, hence the subtitle.  We awoke and, having spent the week debating the best course of action, decided it made the most sense for us to all go to the airport to pick up the rental car since it cost the same to get out there whether it was just me or all of us. Additionally, we’d spend less gas than having me circle back around to pick up the girls.

After confirming with Danielle that her family didn’t want breakfast, I went out for breakfast and saw the above mustachioed car. They’re for a service called Lyft that uses regular people as cab drivers. More about that here. The first time I learned about the way taxis are regulated was when I was at Cornell. In my experience, the taxis there were horrible. They were often late when they came at all and they charged per person rather than distance like most cabs. I wondered why someone didn’t come along and compete against them with better service. Well, because in most (if not all) jurisdictions Taxis are a regulated monopoly. The thing about monopolies is that not only do they not have an incentive to provide good customer service, they also don’t have an incentive to innovate. That’s part of why Lyft and Uber are so awesome - they have features like being able to track where your ride is - via your cell phone. You know how far they are and when to actually go outside. (Not like the many times I was freezing outside at Cornell waiting for the cabs, since they refused to call when they arrived) Then again, you’re putting your life into the hands of a random Joe. I know Taxis aren’t perfect and the ones in big cities sometimes drive like maniacs, but this nascent movement will probably die on the vine the first time someone gets kidnapped or murdered or something.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375”] Crazy boutique Hotel Diva Blackout Curtain[/caption]

We awoke wondering what shape Scarlett would be in. We were instructed to only give her Pedialyte or ginger ale. Scarlett, being her usual picky self, was having none of it. So we decided to try milk. She was OK. The vomiting was over.

When traveling through time zones the first few days are often spent on the home city’s timezone. I ended up spending the entire trip on EST thanks to Scarlett. And that is fine because it made going back to work easy.

As I mentioned yesterday, there were a bunch of diners around our hotel. We spotted Lori’s Diner when we went to get water at Walgreens. It’s a 1950s-style diner with vintage stuff all over the walls and floors. Great breakfast (for a diner) and great staff.

We flew to San Francisco to attend my brother-in-law’s wedding, but Danielle and I had wanted to go there for years so we decided to have a week-long vacation. Scarlett was amazing on the airplane. It was her second flight in her short life. However, the flight to Florida is so short that if you can time it with a nap, it’s EASY to travel with her. The 6 hour trip to San Francisco is another matter entirely. However, we kept her entertained and that kept her calm. There were a lot of other little kids on the plane including a 2-3 year old who spent 30 minutes crying. Scarlett never cried although she does whine every now and again if she doesn’t her needs met - it only lasts a minute or two. We brought crayons and painter’s tape (to stick to the seat) and that seemed to keep her pretty well entertained. When she grew bored of that, I walked her up and back the aisle. She seemed to love seeing so many people. We went back and forth a half dozen times before I grew tired of almost falling onto her when going towards the back of the plane. (The plane was angled up)

Back in October I created a GUI for my Python amortization table program.  One of the things I lamented was that the buttons in QML look like crap.  I want my buttons to look like buttons, not blue patches no a white screen.  I don’t really know what made me look, but yesterday (during the No Snow Snow Day) I was looking through the file system and it turned out I had Plasma Components installed on my system.  So I added

[caption id=“attachment_5858” align=“aligncenter” width=“480”] Saint’s Row: The Third - Playing with Dan - the only way I could beat this mission[/caption]

Saint’s Row: The Third (15 hrs) - I played a lot of fun missions, including Deckers.die, but in order to get there I had to get Dan’s help on this helicopter escort mission.  It was fun having him join in.  I might need him in March as I finish up the game.