Why I hate phone companies

Here's a recent article by Walt Mossberg of the WSJ and All Things Digital that talks about freeing the cell phone...

http://mossblog.allthingsd.com/20071021/free-my-phone/

Engadget has a great thread about Walt's article.

Free music...

Just noticed that in addition to the weekly free song from iTunes, Amazon is giving away free mp3s as well. I just downloaded 3 free songs...The nice thing about Amazon's mp3s, besides being DRM-free, is that their downloading engine automatically updates your iTunes library.

Juncos have returned

This past Sunday I saw four Dark-eyed Juncos in our backyard...The Juncos are returning to Minnesota for the winter. Last winter we had quite a few Juncos feed from our deck.

Deck close to completion...

The deck is almost done! It's been delayed by rain but progress was made since Monday...Here is a few photos I took a few days ago...The footings and boards are in and yesterday the builder put up the railings. Today they will install the stairs.

Deck without landing, stairs and railing


Deck with railing and landing completed Wednesday

River birch

The River Birch has been planted in the front yard and is doing quick well. I think all the rain has made that tree happy, happy, happy. In addition to the river birch, we have planted an Autumn Blaze Maple and Japanese Lilac tree. The Autumn Blaze is planted in our backyard in hopes that it will provide shade for the western side of our house (as well as the new deck) which get very, very hot in the summer.

Here are photos of the three trees

River Birch


Autumn Blaze Maple


Japanese Lilac Tree