David and Claire's Blog

Starcraft 2 Has Finally Arrived

davidv — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:17:19 +0000

I have literally been waiting 10 years for this game to arrive! If it doesn’t live up to my expectations I will not consider that a flaw in the game, but a flaw in my myself- I must be too old!

Starcraft 2 is a real-time strategy game set in space. With the previous version I used to play against my buddies at Melbourne IT pretty much every day “after” work. This time I suppose I’ll play people over the internet instead of the LAN.

I have already pre-warned Claire of this game and it’s effects on pretty much all of my spare time for a while. I hope Rhys likes watching me play the game!

The Leash

davidv — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:54:39 +0000

Now that we have 3 kids, the leash is necessary. In fact just with two kids Evan is such a handful Claire found it necessary to tether him while shopping. Unfortunately putting Evan on a leash had some unintended consequences. Evan likes to pretend he’s a dog when he’s got the thing on. He gets on all fours, then pants and barks. Last time at CVS Claire was standing in line and some of our neighbors approached while Evan was leashed. They asked if everything was ok, and Claire said “Oh yeah, I’m just taking the dog for a walk!”

Rhys Sheean Valentine

davidv — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:34:03 +0000

Please join me in welcoming the latest Valentine to the family:

Rhys Sheean Valentine
8 lb 0 oz
20.5 inches long

Claire and Rhys are doing just fine. More pictures to follow…

St. Patricks Day

davidv — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:08:27 +0000

This happens to be our 9th second wedding anniversary as well as St. Patty’s day.
Since Claire is pregnant we’re not doing much this year.
To observe the day I wore a green tie to work, and made Shepard’s Pie for dinner.

Big Updates – Short and Sweet

davidv — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:19:25 +0000

Claire is pregnant – due in early June
David has a new job for 2010
We bought a new mini-van this weekend.

Further Details on Maleeha Valentine Siddique for Friends on Facebook

davidv — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:20:57 +0000

Further Details

I’m an Uncle!

davidv — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:57:26 +0000

Congratulations to my sister who gave birth to a healthy baby girl yesterday. While I’m dying to provide the relevant details, I have been told by Claire that I’m not allowed to steal their thunder. So you’ll just have to wait until they tell you the name, weight, time of birth, etc. on the appropriate social networking website (or via a good old fashioned phone call!).

I Beat my Speeding Ticket

davidv — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:18:07 +0000

Way back in July of this year just after a long road-trip up to Canada and back, I was just driving around local roads in Montclair when I got caught in a popular speed trap on Bellevue Ave. It’s on a downhill stretch of road where the speed limit is 25 MPH, but everyone drives 35+. That particular day I forgot to pump the brakes and a cop pulled me over and issued me a speeding ticket.
After some research online I found a lot of sites that offer techniques to beat speeding tickets and after reading some other articles online (like this one) I decided to try my luck in court.
I purchased the services of SpeedTicketBeaters.com. They gave me a set of instructions to follow and some case law to back myself up. Turns out that I didn’t even need any of this stuff since the officer, and at one point even the prosecutor, weren’t present for me to go to trial. So my case was dismissed. This apparently happens all the time, and is a good reason to always plead not guilty when you receive a ticket.

It’s unfortunate I didn’t go to trial though because I believe I still would have won the case. That is because the area I was ticketed really is a speed trap. The law states that the township is supposed to measure the average speed of vehicles on every road every five years to determine the appropriate speed limit. This is called a speed survey. Montclair and Bloomfield have essentially violated this, putting a blanket 25 MPH speed limit all over the place, even though no one drives that slow. This is not lawful for a town to do so. They are supposed to put the speed at what 85% of the average drivers drive on that road. Thus practically the whole town is a speed trap, and then they rake in the money issuing lots of speeding tickets that almost everyone (except annoying pests like me) just pay. Resulting in revenues for not just the town but also the insurance companies that raise your rates.

So the next time you get a speeding ticket try fighting it. You may very well win!

Roadtrip slideshow

Claire — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:42:16 +0000

Copying David here, I made a slideshow of our trip over the summer. We visited Cape Cod MA, Lexington MA, Ganoque ONT, Toronto, ONT and Chardon OH.

Halloween 2009 Slideshow

davidv — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:21:59 +0000

I used slide.com to make this slideshow. I recommend this site to anyone with a bunch of photos to display. I heard about them on Fortune.com in an article about how they’re hiring right now.