My favorite example is when we went to replace the rather ugly and weather worn front door.  We bought a brand spanking new door from Home Depot.  Nice, clean looking, great window in the middle, and highly energy efficient.  We watched videos on replacing your own door and had some good printed material.  We’re both fairly handy and felt that the job was well within our means.  When we tore out the old door we discovered many things.  The first was they used no insulation in the walls at all.  The second, and more damning, was the fact that the door frame was cut at an angle.  We always thought warping caused our door to stick, but no, it was because it was put in at a bit of an angle.  Lots of sanding and pounding with a chisel later we had a frame that was much closer to resembling something straight.  A few dozen shims later and we had a door that looked good and opened and closed with ease.

All of this brings us today and the newest discovery of previous owner ass-hattery.  While stripping the siding above our deck one of the works idly kicked at a board on the outside wall of the house.  Next thing we knew our deck partially collapsed.  Yes, while on one side of the deck they dug posts, poured concrete, and all that jazz, on the side attached to the house they attached it to the masonry with wood lags.  And went less than a 1/4″ in to the masonry.  Seriously, a tiny bolt meant to hold some wood together was the only thing keeping our porch vaguely attached to the house.  That it never collapsed before this is a bit of a miracle.  Fortunately no one was hurt, and now it’ll get attached properly.

We knew there would be something that would got beyond the initial estimate.  There pretty much always is.  This certainly wasn’t what we had been expecting it to be.  With fingers crossed we hope this is the last deviation from the master plan of home repair, but you just never know.  Stay tuned.

I’ve played with it for a little bit now, and it does feel snappy.  I’m not sure it actually feels faster than Chrome (which I had been using), but then again I haven’t run any tests on it.  Still, my initial feeling is that it certainly is a speed improvement over the previous version of Safari.

Apple also boasts vast improvements with HTML5, but seeing as how HTML5 isn’t an official standard yet it’s really hard to say if there’s any real improvement in that area.  It would require some actual development work to see how it plays with the HTML5 standards (even though those standards haven’t been set in stone yet).  I’m sure it’ll all be worthwhile, but so far there’s not much to say in that area.  I guess it’s good that Apple is focusing on it now before it becomes a widely adopted standard, but at the moment it’s not much of a selling point to the vast majority of users.

Something that has the potential to be quite interesting is Apple adding developer extensions to the browser.  This is going to allow developers to create their own extensions (much like with Firefox or Chrome) that will work with Safari.  While it seems Apple is still going to exercise some control be using digitally signed certificates, it certainly is a much more open move than they have been with the browser in the past.  All of these extensions will be sandboxed so that extensions won’t be able to access other resources or data on the users hard drive.  It’s a good step towards extension security.  Right now it’s such a new feature there isn’t anything out there yet, but it’s something to watch.  Hopefully developers will be quick to start releasing useful extensions for the browser.

Finally, a new feature that I am the most interested in so far, is their “Reader”.  In the address bar, while you’re reading an article on a website, the Reader icon will appear.  Clicking on this brings up a PDF like view of the web page, bringing up the text and related pictures, but not any of the other cruft that populates a webpage, in theory making it easier to get at the meat of what you’re trying to read by eliminating all the other distractions.  It also has controls for zooming, printing, or e-mailing of the information on the webpage.  It seems like it’ll be rather useful, especially on some sites that make reading articles fairly difficult by littering them with advertising that goes throughout the text.

Safari 5 seems to be a lot more under-the-hood style of improvements opposed to Safari 4 which was much more of a cosmetic release.  Safari 5 holds a lot of promise and it’ll be interesting to see what people do with the new improvements.

So here we go with my round 2 picks.

Eastern Conference

Pittsburgh Penguins v. Montreal Canadians

This is not the second round writeup I was expecting.  A 4th seed vs. an 8th seed?  That’s exactly where we stand and one thing is for certain, no one on the Penguins bench is going to overlook a Montreal team that sent the Capitals packing.  Jaroslav Halak was brilliant in games 6 and 7 for the Canadians.  He stopped just shy of a hundred shots in those two games, and he’s not going to have time to rest up before the barrage begins again.  Sidney Crosby had 5 goals, Malkin had 4, Cooke contributed 3, and 9 other players had one or two goals.  24 goals in 6 games.  Pittsburgh’s offense was hot.  And who didn’t expect that.  There’s a reason that this team has made an appearance in back to back Stanley Cup series.  The Canadians, meanwhile, are going to look to bring back Montreal’s glory days.  Like the Penguins, their goal scoring came from all over the ice.  They have a solid scorer in Cammalleri.  They have a goaltender who obviously has eaten his Wheaties for the post season.  What they don’t have, however, is a solid blue line.  Only one of their defensive players who played all seven games was a +1.  The others? -1, -3, -4, -8.  You get the picture.  They didn’t get in the Capitals way anymore than a traffic cone would have.  Halak came to their rescue and helped them on to the second round.  The Penguins have more offensive weapons than the Capitals who had all eyes squarely on Ovechkin.  It’s going to be hard for this Montreal team to counter the talented attack of Pittsburgh, and when the dust settles it’s going to the Penguins returning to the Conference championships.

Boston Bruins v. Philadelphia Flyers

So, you’re the number 6th seed, it’s the second round and you have home ice.  What?  That’s the treat the Bruins received when Montreal sent the Capitals to the links.  The bad news is they are facing a well rested Flyers team.  The good news is that Flyers team is going to be without Simon Gagne and Ian Laperriere.  These two players are arguably the Flyers best PK’ers, and when you’re a team that spends a fair amount of time in the box you rely on those guys to get you through it.  So it looks like Philly will turn to Claude Giroux to pick up the extra ice time.  Wait, who?  Claude Giroux led the Flyers in scoring in the first round of the playoffs, putting 4 past Brodeur.  This 22 year old is making his mark with the Flyers team in the post-season, and they are going to have to turn to him to keep it up as they are going to be facing a tough Boston squad.  Rask may have started as Boston’s number 2 goal when the season began, but there is no denying he is their number one guy now.  After several brilliant saves and solid play he helped the rough and tumble Bruins turn aside the Sabres and dispatch them after 6 games.  Boston has a similar look to Philly as they aren’t going to burn you with a all-star offense, continually lighting the lamp.  They are going to look to wear their opponent down with hard hitting playing, constant screening of the goalie and staying in his face, and just plain out working teams to the puck.  This game might look more like a rugby scrum than a hockey game.  Expect both teams to come out of the gate making their physical presence known.  In the end of the day it’s going to be which upstart goaltender can keep the fire burning and on this one my money is with Rask.  I think the Dunkin Donuts crowd is going to get to see their Bruins play for the Conference title.

Western Conference

San Jose Sharks v. Detroit Red Wings

While I thought this would be the second round matchup it is also the hardest one to call.  Even thinking about it coming up during the first round I just couldn’t get a handle on it.  Detroit, led by Zetterberg, has a potent offense with a lot of experience.  While I could take the time to figure out how many playoff game experience the Red Wings have, I think it’s safe to say it’s a pretty big number.  They appeared in the last two Stanley Cup series, and after a slow start this season they have once again become a contender.  Goaltender Jimmy Howard came out of nowhere to slam the breaks on a season that was getting away from them.  With him in net the Wings turned themselves around and went from a bubble team to a solid playoff team.  The veteran players on the team have certainly responded, especially in game 7 against the Coyotes.  They were determined to not go gentle in to that goodnight and they out played the Coyotes, beating them to every puck and just being the hungrier team.  That drive is going to have to continue as they are about to run in to the best team in the West.  Nabakov seems to have shaken off the monkey on his back that has dogged him the last few playoff years.  Joe Pavelski has become a post-season offensive weapon, scoring 5 goals in their 6 games against the Avalanche.  They got help from all over the map with 10 different players scoring in the first round.  Dan Boyle recovered from some fairly tragic play and finished the series right where he was at in the regular season, one of the best blue liners in the game.  A good mix of youth and veteran players are the core of this San Jose team who has a lot to prove.  Last season they went in the playoffs as the President’s Trophy winner, and had an early exit to the 8th seeded Ducks.  In fact they have a long playoff history of being upset.  There’s a fire to this team, and it’s going to have to turn in to a blaze against the Red Wings.  I think, in the end, it’s going to be the Red Wings veterans that are a weak link.  After a long 7 game series, to jump right back in to the playoffs after only a couple of nights off is going to take a toll.  The Detroit players are going to want to show right away that they have plenty of energy, and can still control the pace of the game, but the Sharks won’t make it easy.  With some fast players who have had a few extra days off, they are going to have more than enough in the tanks to put the pedal to the metal and take it straight to the Wings.  It’s going to be a good series I’m sure, but at the end of it the Sharks are going to be playing for the title of Best in the West.

Chicago Blackhawks v. Vancouver Cannucks

This is the series.  This is the kind of series you wish was for the Cup, or at least the conference title.  The Cannucks come in to this matchup with not only the player with the most first round goals (Samuelsson with 7), but 12 different players contributing to the goal scoring.  Averaging just over 4 goals a game this Vancouver team is explosive.  Daniel Sedin has found his stride.  Him and his brother Henrik are players possessed.  Wherever the puck is there is at least one Sedin near by winning nearly every battle along the boards.  Not a single player on this team was a minus on the score sheet.  How’s that for a way to go through the first round?  The only chink in the armor?  Luongo allowing 17 goals over 6 games.  This is not the goaltender who won a gold medal for his country.  He hasn’t been himself since the Olympics, and his lackluster play has carried over in the post season.  Vancouver’s potent offense has needed to be on the top of his game in order to outscore their opponents.  That’s going to be a tall order as the Blackhawks have a pretty devastating offense of their own.  The Blackhawks averaged 3 goals a game in their opening series, with Kane and Sharpe leading with 4 and 3 goals respectively.  This has actually been a rather under-achieving affair by the Hawks.  Their young gun offense is capable of a lot more than they showed against the Predators.  Though Nashville’s Pekka Rinne had some fairly solid games, the offensive talent of the Hawks should have been able to amount to a lot more.  The hole in the Hawks game is the same as it has been all regular season long, the netminder.  Niemi may have chased Huet out to become the starting guy in net, but lets face it, Huet was playing downright miserable hockey.  Any backup netminder in the NHL would have ousted him from his starting role.  Niemi is a fairly solid goaltender, but he isn’t a dominating one.  He’s not going to steal a game for you, and for the Hawks to advance that’s exactly what they’re going to need.  If Luongo finds his stride there will be little chance for the Original Six Blackhawks (and hey, a side not, 4 of the 6 Original teams made the playoffs and all 4 are in round 2!) to move on.  Despite a valiant effort by the youthful Chicago team, I have to say Vancouver is going to move on to play for the Western Conference title.

Eastern Conference

(1) Washington Capitals vs. (8) Montreal Canadians

Washington, behind the not quite best goal scoring performance of Ovechkin powered through just about every team that they faced this season.  With a powerful offense, solid defense, and moments of inspired goaltending, the Capitals won the President’s Trophy for the best record in the regular season.  Montreal comes in to this series having played some of the worst hockey of their season.  They had been around the middle of the pack in the playoff race, but lost so many games in the final few weeks that they just barely squeaked in to the finals.  However during the season series between this team they both walked away with 5 of a possible 8 points.  Carey Price, who played all 4 games against the Caps this season, looks like he’s going to be relegated to the bench, backing up Jaroslav Halak.  Halak has been solid most of the season, and if he steps up come playoff time the Canadians might make a couple of games interesting.  Overall though I think this one is probably one of the easiest calls.  The Capitals will move on to the second round.

(2) New Jersey Devils vs. (7) Philadelphia Flyers

If I were to pick a potential big upset in the East this would be the one.  The Flyers owned the Devils in the regular season.  The Flyers went 5-1-0 against the second seeded Devils, and that has to have the Devils staff worried.  I have a feeling they were all cheering for the Rangers on Sunday and were a bit disappointed by the loss.  Brodeur has been solid all season (though he has lost a lot of the spark of his early days – still a top goal tender who can steal games, but not so good he’s going to steal a series).  New Jersey, however, has more than a fighting chance in this series.  With some great scoring talent in the likes of Travis Zajac and Jamie Langenbrunner facing down a less than talented goal tender (Brian Boucher), the defensive core of the Flyers are going to have their work cut out for them.  Pronger will be leading the defensive effort for the Flyers, and he’ll bring it, big body hits, getting the stick in the chest of the shooter, and the occasional less than legal hit – Pronger will be hounding Jersey’s top lines.  I think there’s every indication that this series will go the full seven games, and when the dust settles I’m calling the upset, the Flyers are going to move on to round 2.

(3) Buffalo Sabres vs. (6) Boston Bruins

Here’s another series that has the whiff of upset around it.  The Bruins handily won the season series between the two teams, going 4-2-0.  This certainly wasn’t the best possible matchup for the Sabres who are back in the playoffs after going 3 seasons of early tee times.  Unlike the Devils v. Flyers, this series looks like it’s going to be a low scoring one.  Neither team had high scoring players, but relied on solid goal tending, tight defense, and spreading the offensive love around.  Tuuka Rask, and not Thomas, will be starting in net.  Rask won the starting job after some early poor play by Thomas.  Rask took the opportunity to start and ran with it, helping the Bruins earn their sixth seed.  Ryan Miller will be in net for the Sabres.  It’s been a long season for Miller with the addition of the Olympics, but he’s handled it pretty well.  He’s had a couple stumbles, but over all he put up some of the best numbers in the NHL.  The Sabres defense is looking much better this year than in years past.  Rookie Tyler Myers has been a dominating force on the ice.  And at 6’8″ he’s capable of moving all kinds of bodies around.  He also put up 48 points during the regular season and is not afraid to take big shots from the blue line.  If Tim Connoly or Thomas Vanek can step up there game it would give the Sabres a huge offensive lift.  They’ll be the x-factor in this series.  It’s going to be a tough fought one, and it may sound like the fan boy in me, but I think the Sabres will manage to pass this test and move on to the next round.

(4) Pittsburgh Penguins vs. (5) Ottawa Senators

The Senators have been hot hot hot.  However last season the Penguins took them down in 4 games, and haven’t been too shaby this season either.  No surprise that Crosby has been dominating, and Malkin has played pretty well himself.  The Pens are loaded with offensive assets and are going to look to hammer Ottawa’s netminder.  Marc-Andre Fluery has had a pretty good season in net for the Pens and he’s going to be looking to keep players like Jason Spezza off the score sheet.  While the Sens are going to be going with the relatively unknown Brian Elliot in net.  He’s got a tough job ahead of him facing the Penguins how powered offense.  Defense won’t be much of a factor in this season.  Both have defensive players who look to jump up in to the offensive rush when the opportunity presents itself.  Look for a high scoring series that the Penguins end up coming away with in the end.  Penguins are going to be going to round 2.

Western Conference

(1) San Jose Sharks vs. (8) Colorado Avalanche

Quite frankly the Avalanche weren’t even supposed to be here.  At the beginning of the season most hockey circles had Colorado finishing in the bottom of the West.  The Avalanche don’t have much flash on offense.  Their defense isn’t a hard hitting core.  But both offense and defense have contributed to getting the Avs to where they are now.  Throw in to that mix Craig Anderson, the surprising journeyman goaltender who is playing the best hockey of his life, and some of the best hockey in the NHL.  Colorado is going to need Anderson to up his play to a whole new level.  The Sharks have one of the deepest offenses in hockey this season.  Thorton, Heatley, Marleau, Pavelski, etc.  This guys are going to make it tough on Colorado to continue their feel good story.  Still the spectre of playoffs past haunts the Sharks who last season, as the Presidents Trophy winner, got taken out by the 8th seeded Ducks.  San Jose’s playoff history is riddled by upsets, underperformance, and just plain bad play.  Nabakov, who is dominating in the regular season, seems to put his A game up on the shelf come playoff time and that’s going to need to change if they don’t want to be chased early yet again from the playoffs.  I think San Jose has learned a lot from the past, and it’s a core of very determined players the Avs are going to be facing.  Unless someone on the Avalanche steps up to become a big playmaker the Sharks are going to be able to take this series.  I say the bad luck is over, and San Jose is going on to round 2.

(2) Chicago Blackhawks vs. (7) Nashville Predators

Chicago comes in to this series as an offensive powerhouse.  Nashville is just the opposite.  The Predators squeaked by in several low scoring affairs, losing a lot of matches when faced with dominating offensive performances.  Score more than just a couple goals on them and they’re hard pressed to catch back up.  Goaltending is perhaps the only area that the Predators have been solid in.  Pekka Rinne, when he’s been on his game, has carried his team to several victories.  He’s managed to steal a few wins for them, and he’s going to have to do it again if the Predators want to hang with the high powered offense of Chicago.  What could be the Predators saving grace is Chicago’s abysmal performance in net.  They’ve needed the high scoring offense to carry games for them as they’ve yet to find a solid netminder (something they had issues with last season as well).  Niemi is likely to get the nod over Huet, though neither of them have been a safe bet.  There’s a chance the musical goaltenders will continue for the Blackhawks, which makes it hard for the team to rally around anyone.  If the Blackhawks can manage to find some steady net minding they should do well.  At the end of the day while the Hawks might have trouble further down the road, they should be able to move on to round 2.

(3) Vancouver Cannucks vs. (6) Los Angles Kings

How do you spell offense in Candian?  Sedin.  Sedin.  The Sedin twins have played great hockey this year, more so than the year before.  In fact when Daniel Sedin was hurt, his brother Henrik stepped up his play and led the offensive charge for Vancouver.  With Daniel back their line has been simply dominating no matter who the opponent.  Add to that goal medal winning Roberto Luongo and you have a team that’s looking to go deep in the playoffs.  The Kings are looking to stop the Cannucks dead in their tracks.  Their deep core of blue liners is going to look to shut the Sedin’s down, clogging the passing and shooting lanes, and bodying up anyone who comes close to the net.  The Kings aren’t slouches in the offensive category either.  Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, and Ryan Smith are going to look to take Luongo off of his game.  Unfortunately for the Kings Jon Quick, their goaltender, has been on a bit of a slump.  When he’s been on his game he’s been tight, but he’s going to have to find that game quick (no pun intended) if the Kings are going to pull off the upset.  It’s hard to see the Cannucks not making the second round with their talent.  They’ll move on to round 2 and send the Kings off packing.

(4) Phoenix Coyotes vs. (5) Detroit Red Wings

The Coyotes might not have big offensive names carrying them.  Instead what they do is roll 4 solid lines on offensive all capable of scoring the big goal.  It’s hard to defend against a team when you don’t have any single player to key in on.  The defense of the Coyotes have some playoff experience with players like Jovanaski and Aucoin.  Again the Coyotes are able to roll defensive lines and match up against the top offensive lines of most other teams in the NHL.  Speaking of experience Detroit has plenty of it.  While not as offensively dominating as the season before they still have what it takes to light the lamp and often.  The biggest surprise for the Red Wings this season came when Osgood was chased from his starting job by Jimmy Howard.  Howard has taken the ball and run with it, taking a team on the outside looking in all the way to the 5th seed.  Single handedly he turned the Red Wings season around for them.  He might not have playoff experience, but watching him play you wouldn’t know it.  It’s not surprising to think that the experience of the Red Wings combined with the fantastic play in net will help them move on to the second round.  The Red Wings will live to play another day – they’ll take down the Coyotes in a long knock out drag down fight.

I found in the past month I’ve used Twitter (meh) and Facebook (blah) quite a bit more.  In some ways they are a little bit interesting for instant gratification.  Well now it’s about time to start tying the different parts of my online life together.  First off I’ve started out with a bit of Twitter and LiveJournal integration.  In theory this post will get put on both my LiveJournal and referenced in a tweet automagically.

My next step is to work on Facebook integration, and after that I’ll start working on some Flickr integration.  That might mean I’m in for another theme change, and if so, then so be it.  Still, it’ll be nice to get back in to the habit of playing with WordPress while also adding a little bit of organization of my online persona.

In the meantime, for those looking for some pictures, check out my Flickr photostream.

From your GMail account you can go to settings.  Select the Buzz tab, then click on the link for “Disable Google Buzz”.  This will take you to a page to confirm that you really want to do it.  Once you confirm it, that’s it, it’s all gone.

While some I know have initially been favorable towards Buzz, I find myself looking at it in a different light.  Of course I have to admit that I am not much fun of “social media” or most of the things with the “Web 2.0″ label.  My involvement with them is mostly limited – checking and posting occasionally merely because a great many people I know use them frequently, and in some cases short of calling them is the only way I have to contact them.  With Twitter I never go to the website if I can avoid it.  It’s hideous, and has already had incidents of being compromised.  I use a Twitter client that is nice, uncluttered, and sits in the background until I’m bored enough to skim it.  Facebook, another site with history of compromises, seemingly changes their layout, privacy controls, and way you interact with it on a weekly basis.  I look at it once or twice a week, but damn I wish it’s popularity amongst the people I knew would wain.  All of this basically goes to say that Google Buzz, from the get go, is not likely to be my cup of tea.  It also should be pointed out that I haven’t touched it at all yet.  I’ve never liked webmail (I find it handy to have at some times), so I deal with all my e-mail via a client.  I can’t remember the last time I logged in to my GMail account via the web.  To be fair I probably should try it, but I’m not one to falsely claim that anything I write here is “Fair and Balanced”.  Generally it’s more “Biased and Obscene”.

Somehow what was meant to be a skeptical look at the idea of Google Buzz turned more in to a rant of my loathing of social media.  I like long rambling posts.  I like actually taking the time to read things.  The short form “thought bursts” or more colloquially “tweets” or “status updates” are fine and well but there is no substance and often times I find myself yearning for me.  Perhaps it’s my background in English literature, but I prefer substance to form, rambling to quips, and long diatribes to a simple pronouncement like: “Social Media Sucks”.

This is the reason that the US is lagging behind the rest of the modern world in home network infrastructure.  The so-called “gate keepers” of the internet have no real desire nor incentive to fix the ever growing list of network problems.  Because there is a severe lack of provider options in this country, and little to no regulation, companies use rebranding tactics in an attempt to dazzle people in to forgetting their internet sucks.

Nice try, but your 90′s edgy naming attitude ain’t going to cut it Com… er XFINITY.