Hours spent: 1.5 (busy day today)

NYT Magazine opened (Y/N): N

Articles worthy of passing along:

• Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan a Gentler Vision of Islam
• Dressed for a Meeting, Ready for Mayhem - The intricacies of wearing a suit to conceal guns, radios and other fun items.
• Frank Rich: The All-White Elephant in the Room - How Democrats, and Obama in particular, get ripped on for the actions of their preachers, while Republicans get a free pass even though their preachers rate just as high on the wacko factor.

After a few bluescreens and other unpleasantness, my ThinkPad is more or less running again. Despite a rather thorough cleaning, some of the keys have a weird click to them now, and my LAN connection appears to be toast. More ominously, though, the computer no longer will wake up after I put it in sleep mode. Instead, it requires a reboot.

I see laptop repair expenses in my future. In retrospect, I’m kind of wishing I’d spent the money for the accidental damage protection.

• Good food. While some dishes were better than others, with one exception Lisa and I didn’t have anything bad at Duplex. The squash soup I ordered was probably a bit better than the carrot ginger soup Lisa picked out, although both were enjoyable. (Lisa’s soup may have been just a bit too heavy on the ginger.) Our main courses were good as well, although in this case her potato gnocchi edged out the steak available for the evening, a rib eye served with French fries.  (Those fries were the low point of the evening.  They didn’t pair well with the steak, and by themselves were, well, gross.  I found myself yearning for the fries at the Town Talk.)
• Nice atmosphere. Duplex manages to be romantic and unpretentious at the same time.  Basically, it’s Hennepin Avenue without the attitude problems.
• Good service.  Prompt and friendly without hovering.  I know a lot of places that could learn from Duplex in this regard.

And, alas, the bad:

•  Price.  Including my one solitary glass of wine, our dinner came in just over $80.  Off the top of my head, Ike’s, Giorgio’s, Figlio, and Masa are all places we could’ve had a better dinner for the same price or less.  (Despite the wildly divergent experiences we’ve had there, I’d have to throw in Town Talk as well.)  $80 is starting to scrape jP territory, too, and if you’re willing to spend the couple extra bucks for jP, well, it’s really no contest.

This kind of pains me, as for some odd reason I really want to like Duplex.  Because of the price, though, I can’t see us returning any time soon, but for those who haven’t tried the place out, I’d still have to give it a tentative recommendation.  Maybe you could see that something else in it that Lisa and I missed that would justify the cost.  If you do, let us know.

Hours spent: 3.5

NYT Magazine opened (Y/N): N

Articles worthy of passing along:

• In Zimbabwe Jail: A Reporter’s Ordeal - I’ll take stories you’ll unlikely see “citizen journalist” bloggers writing for $1000, Alex.
• Saddled With Legacy of Dioxin, Town Considers an Odd Ally: The Mushroom
• Seeking Employment for Ex-Cons in Newark - Newark tries to bring convicts back into society, and runs into a number of challenges in doing so.

While we obviously haven’t had a chance to try out Sprint’s service yet, I’m kind of appalled by how much Lisa and I will be saving by making the switch. Despite increasing our overall minute, text and data allowances, we’ll be saving almost $900 a year because of the change. I’m kind of kicking myself for not doing this sooner.

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In related news, we’re renting a garage. No more covering myself with grease trying to drag the bike up the stairs.

Ah, the complicated trials of parenthood. If we spend all this time trying to figure out how to best handle his sleeping habits, I can’t wait to see what we do as we encounter other issues that are more complicated.

Beyond that, Lisa and I went on a date Saturday night. It was fun, if a bit expensive for our cash-constrained household. We didn’t do much: We started with a tasty but overpriced dinner at Duplex, following that with an hour or so wandering around Uptown and desert at Cafe Latte. None of those things would’ve been unusual 15 months ago, but now they’re rare moments to be enjoyed and savored.

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No news on my grades yet. Then there’s that immunization hold on my account… Had I started school two years earlier, it wouldn’t be a problem, but because of some apparent discarding of records, I may have to get a whole mess of shots before I can take another class. It would’ve been nice if this became clear a bit earlier in the year so I could have more time to respond to it, but I guess that’s how the U runs things.

Oh, there’s laundry to do.  Okay.