Like Shel‘s, our current washer and dryer is ancient. More ancient than the one we left at the last house. So, our washes aren’t as washed as we’d like and well, damp is not a synonym for dry. I checked.

We were going to wait a year and do a huge home appliance upgrade (fridge and and stove same vintage). Tumbling around in my head Kristin is saying, “… blah blah paying for inefficiency until then blah blah…”

So, we’re looking for recommendations on high-efficiency washer and dryer set, Not a combo, separate machines. Front-loading preferred.

What do you like?

UPDATE 20 January 2007:
We decided on the Whirlpool Cabrio pair from Warners Stellian. We got a good price, and Warners Stellian offers the best home appliance shopping experience in the Twin Cities. Also, it was a super easy decision – these were the only top-loading, no-agitator in the store.

Lunch today cost just under $7. Good thing it wasn’t yesterday, I wouldn’t been spooked..just a little.

I’m writing this from a panel discussion for Twin Cities artists on building out a music career. An hour and 15 minutes into it, a question from the audience started out:

“We haven’t talked a lot about making records…”

I chuckled.

Aside from the bits about making sure you’ve correctly setup a small business – the rest of the conversation seemed very backwards-looking. I don’t see a difference between trying to make a living podcasting and make a living as a musician, same for writers/journalists/reporters and bloggers, video too.

I don’t see it. I’ve said that before.

So, what’s a budding creative mind to do? Get a day job?

What’s a “day job”?

Fountainhead Café, on West 10th Street in NYC.

Yes. It is a Ayn Rand-themed vegetarian restaurant. Something about it feels as ironic and Rand’s softball team nicknaming themselves “The Collective.” Hopefully the cheese doesn’t ooze as thick as in the Fountainhead movie.

For those of you reading this via RSS, I’ve redesigned the site. Tweaking and torquing Scott Wallick’s VeryPlainTxt theme.

I’ve also re-org’d the sections, and generally make the site more extendible, while also pulling in my writing from other sites into the sidebar.

One of those sites being my account on Flickr. In the sidebar of garrickvanburen.com, I’m pulling in 2 randomly selected photos. I think it makes for a fun diptych and a nice way to dance with apophenia.

J Wynia ran some numbers concluding retiring at 65 will probably happen less and less.

So says, My Personal DNA Report.

Cooper didn’t sleep very well last night. Up every hour and some change. For a kid that’s been sleeping (or at least lying quietly) 12 hours at a stretch for the past month, this has been unfortunate change.

An even more unfortunate change, I was up – wide awake for way too long. Got a call from my dad (hundreds of miles north) first thing in this morning- saying he wasn’t able to sleep last night.

This afternoon, the green grass in the yard was covered with a fresh layer of snow.