OpenTable.com allows you to book your reservation online

Via The Dip, Seth points out OpenTable.com, an online restaurant reservation system.

From the OpenTable.com website:

When you book a table on OpenTable.com, your reservation is instantly recorded in the restaurant’s computerized reservation book – the same one the restaurant’s host uses to track all reservations. (It’s the black terminal you may see when you arrive at the restaurant.)

Unlike other “online” reservation services which rely on faxes or table allocations, OpenTable has live Internet connections into the restaurants themselves. So restaurant availability information is up-to-date, and your reservations are confirmed.

Pretty cool. Austin doesn’t have nearly as many participating restaurants as say, Boston or Chicago, but I’m looking forward to giving it a try soon. (Austin has 26 restaurants listed. Boston has 284 and Chicago has 313.)

A few pics from fishing in Port Aransas

I spent the past Saturday fishing in Port Aransas with a few buddies. There’s a few pics on my flickr page.

Wheatberry Salad – yum!

Elizabeth added a recipe for wheatberry salad to her web site. It’s my favorite new summer salad. Yum-O!

Goodbye ugly fluorescent tubes, hello beautiful recessed lighting

While my Dad was in town this week, we tackled a project that’s been on my list for a while – replacing the fluorescent lights in the kitchen with recessed lights.

First, we removed the old light boxes and fluorescent fixtures.

 

We laid out the positions of the 7 new cans, drilled holes, and popped the new cans in. An adjustable hole saw with a dust shield made this real easy to do.

 

Up in the attic, we wired all the lights up, in the kitchen we replaced the toggle switch with a dimmer, added some full spectrum bulbs and the trim rings, and it’s like a whole new kitchen.

You can also see the under-counter Xenon lights and the above-counter rope lights that I added a few months ago.

Last step is to sand down the joint compound where we had to patch the drywall, and repaint that area where the old light boxes were.

I’m really happy with the result. More importantly, Elizabeth loves it!