Yesterday started early with a 7am conference call and I was running late, fortunately traffic was pretty light and I was able to make it just on time. From that point forward it was business as usual and for treated myself to FatBurger for lunch.

I headed home to meet Sarah and open up a couple of presents. I got a great gift from Linda/Dwight/Janessa, a framed painting of the 1824 Alamo flag. I’ll have to get the full story from them but it is very cool. I also now have a grown-up watch, courtesy of Sarah and Swiss Army and a shirt that I have been searching for God-knows how long. My parents helped with the technology upgrade around our house and kicked in a new router which should come online next week and will give me yet something else to blog about.

We highlight of the evening was dinner with Sarah. She looked amazing and our meal at Drinkwater’s City Hall was out of this world. For desert we went for gelato and a cappuccino from Olive & Ivy. She has been to it before and I have been wanting to check it out so this was a very good opportunity.

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes, I am sorry for those calls that I could not take during dinner but I appreciate your call and texts. So we are now officially living the 30s and thus far I would say it is going to be a-ok!

Tonight marks a new phase in Mexican and American soccer, when both teams face each other here in Arizona. It is a new phase due to the coaching changes both teams made after the World Cup, but also because it is the start for a new generation of players to make their presence known in their country’s National team.

The game is at University of Phoenix Stadium here in Glendale. I have not been able to see the stadium first hand although I have seen just about every tv show made about it. We are going with several guys from our soccer team, even getting a little early to do some tailgating before the game kicks off. Univision and ESPN2 are both television the game which has been sold out for a few days now.

update: the final score does not really reflect what went on inside the field. Both teams seemed a little unsettled, playing the game with more strength than skill and letting scoring opportunities go (especially Mexico!). We had great seats, just a few rows up from the pitch. There were a lot more American supporters than one would’ve imagined for a Mexico game on the west coast, overall there were about 63,000 in attendance supporting their colors.

So Mexico did not look all that great and once again the speed of the American’s was a factor, especially up front with Donovan creating dangerous opportunities with his runs. Mexico created a lot of opportunities and once would say they dominated the game. However, possession time does not win games and the US put away the chances they had — by the way, what a great assist by the ref on the second goal. We’ll see what Hugo brings to the table once his teaching/learning process starts to sit in with the players. For now, it was great to be able to watch these two teams in our backyard.

We have been talking about it for a while, even before the holiday season but never were able to get past our conversation. Then Saturday night came around and we now own a beautiful 40″ Samsung LCD display!

We went to Circuit City after doing some research and price comparison finally ready to make a commitment and hopefully bringing home a new tv. Our current tv’s (living room and bedroom) are from our days in college so you can only imagine we were a few generations behind and ready to join the HD generation. We left circuit city after an associate was not very helpful and they didn’t have the model we had in mind in stock.

Then over dinner and with the help of some margaritas, we started talking about it again. We were already there maybe we should go back and take a look at some of the other displays they had in stock. This time around, Steve was extremely approachable and helpful. Instead of a sales pitch, we had a conversation, sort of like a conversation you would have with your other geeky friend. So we went over several factors when trying to choose between a 720p/1080i (the one we got) and a 1080p display. It was a very helpful and without any pressure we believe we got the best option for our current needs.(customer reviews

A little note about the LN-S4051D, every site lists the width of the display to be 39″. In reality it is 39 AND 1/4″ wide and this quarter of an inch is killing me! We have a built-in entertainment center and the opening is exactly 39 inches. I wanted to stay with a 40″ display (to avoid going to 37″) and meant we only had a certain number of models to choose from. The fact we found the Samsung to be only 39″, it seemed like it was a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, we the space is quater on an inch too small so we had to set the tv in an angle for the time being. Solutions are currently under consideration and if you have any experience with sanding 1/8″ off sheet-rock let me know your thoughts.

I still have to arrange for all of the remote controls (tivo, sound & tv) to work together and upgrade our cable package for HD programming. However, we watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith over the weekend on the new tv and it was a great experience.

After their showcase on national television, the Suns went to Minnesota and could not answer Kevin Garnett’s scoring in the final minutes of the game. The Wolves beat the Suns 121-112. The current winning streak ends at 17 wins in a row, one short of having the perfect month. They now come home to face San Antonio and Utah before going back on the road.

After asking for input we finally decided on Netflix for our movies. Feedback from current Netflix users, a very good description about Blockbuster’s treatment of movies as a commodity and a well timed trial coupon all played a factor in our decision, but also as a technologist I see Netflix provides a more interesting environment and one I would like to experience.

If you would like to add us to your friend’s network, this is our invitation url.

Our first two movies were Inside Man and Click. We got these a couple of days after we selected them into our queue so I was very impressed by the distribution process and its timing. I don’t have a degree to give you a professional review of the flicks but Inside Man was our favorite of these two. It had a good story to tell and although you could argue it was a bit predictable it kept us engaged through the end. We gave it 5 stars.

Click on the other hand was a little slow and quite predictable. It followed pretty much the romantic-comedy formula that has been Adam Sandler’s staple for the last few movies. We watched it because all of our Sunday shows were reruns so at least we got it off our queue on a slow evening. I believe we gave it 2 stars.