Grand Central Direct Dialer

I'm a huge fan of Grand Central's call screening features. It's irksome, however, that they make it hard to dial outward -- sending your GC number instead of your cell number as the caller id. To do so you need to first add the target number to your address book, and often I'm calling someone I don't intend to call again often.

I started scripting up a way around that when I saw someone named Stewart already had.

I wanted to be able to easily dial outbound from my cellphone, so I created a mobile friendly web form around his script. The script requires info you should never give out (username, password, etc.), so you should really download the script and run it on your own webserver.

It also generates a bookmarklet you can drag to your browser's toolbar that will automatically dial any selected/highlighted phone number from your GC Number.

Sasha Megan Bauer Brase

On July 29th, Kate gave birth to Sasha Megan Bauer Brase. Details and photos are on her site.

Home Carbonator

Last year I read about home carbonation, and looking at the amount of club soda Kate and I buy it made sense. The only unknown was where to put the ugly tank that would be out of sight yet still convenient to use.

Months later coworkers and I were at the Red Stag, which carbonates their own sparkling water, and talked about doing the same at the office. I still didn't act until a friend got a soda club machine as a gift.

This weekend I (or actually Kate since I was running late) went to Northern Brewer and picked up parts K003, KX03, and K026 to build the setup below. It really does work as easy as the first article promises, and the price including the purchase of a tank came to $200 total. So far the best thing we've carbonated was orange juice, but I'm looking to try some fruit purees soon.