Today started with yesterday. Last night, I upgraded the firmware of my router. Instead of going smoothly, it failed to complete. I spent 2 hours trying everything in the documentation to revive it. To no avail. I gave up about 1am and crawled into bed next to an annoyed wife.

You get the good and the bad with nerds. I got the lecture this morning of, “Most people don’t even know how to login to their router. Why are you even logging into the router to know there was an update to install!” And she’s not wrong. I had a second router up until a few weeks ago, when I set it up and leant it to her sister to replace a failing router she had.

I am a believer in Two is One and One is None. The idea is having one is the same as none because when that one thing breaks, it’s gone. However, having two means you’ll have at least one left. It’s an idea for backups, which I need to revisit after this, but it can be applied to other things. I’m not saying you should have two routers around at all times, but I wish I did.

I replaced the router this morning after Microcenter opened. After a few hours of research trying to balance a router with enough nerdiness for me and ease for my wife. If I can work on projects and she has no idea, that’s a win.

The router I settled on was the TP-Link Archer C3200 which is an older router, but I was able to find one at a good price. I liked that it combined both the 5ghz and 2.4ghz networks into a single name. The extra 5ghz channel will be useful as our home becomes smarter it helps to have more lanes on my information superhighway.

After getting the router setup and making sure the smarts in my house started working again, I had a long, long day at work to get through.

After work, we went to see the new Addams Family movie. And get a donut. Which inadvertantly let to the Discovery of the Season.

After selecting our donuts, we went to Home Goods to see what sort of wonders it held for Christmas. We were there a few weeks ago for Halloween decorations and a small topiary.

My wife made an Edwards Scissorhands doll for Halloween since she couldn’t find one (and is extremely crafty).

Edward with the trimmed tree we had to use instead of a topary.

We were looking for a topiary. We went to Home Goods, Michaels, AC Moore, Targets, and every other store we could think of that might have anything. We failed at every turn.

There was no topiary to be found. Certainly not one of a proper size to stand next to Edward in the front window.

Until Christmas.

Edward and topiary. Reunited.

We walked into Home Goods and there it was. My wife about screamed in delight and rage. The perfect topiary. Standing there. Waiting. A week too late for this year. But perfect for next year.