My dad turned 60 last week and we really surprised him (even though I almost blew it the night before). I told him I was taking him to the Twins game against Detroit and out for dinner before the game. We also told him my sister couldn’t get off of work (in Duluth) and that my brother wasn’t able to visit (from Orlando).

My brother had arranged to use frequent flier miles for a ticket, though, and I picked him up at 1:30. My sister also drove down from Duluth and we all surprised my mom while she was watching my kids after school. I purchased five tickets to the game, so I took two, while my brother, sister and mom snuck in the Metrodome while my dad and I were at dinner. We had my brother come up from behind us so he could tap my dad on the shoulder and tell him he was in his seat. It took him a few moments of fumbling for his ticket stub before he realized who it was.

Despite the Twins not coming through with a win, we all had a good night. My sister arranged to have a happy birthday message displayed on the scoreboard, which we saw during the sixth inning (and should get an emailed photo of soon). We had a nice dinner the following night too at Cherokee Sirloin Room in Eagan with a few more friends and family.

Next milestone birthday: my uncle in Spokane turns 60 in December…DK

The kids started lessons again at Wise Swim School in Apple Valley this weekend. I just love the programs and instructors at this school–highly recommended…DK

Today Apple announced revisions to the iMac line of consumer desktop computers. Processor upgrades are always nice, but the big news was the new top model, the 24-inch iMac. To me, this seems to be a great value at $1999 ($1899 education pricing). That was the price of a 23-inch flat panel monitor by itself not that long ago.

While the standard config is great out of the box for almost any user (2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 1GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive, 8X SuperDrive, 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 7300 graphics card and Firewire 800), the options to max out the machine only add another $1200 or so (education pricing). That would upgrade the processor to a 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, increase RAM to 3GB, up the hard drive to 500GB and switch to a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT graphics card. Not sure why they list 3GB instead of 4GB as the max RAM–there are two slots and the 3GB is listed as 1×2GB, 1×1GB.

We have several of the pre-Intel iMacs at the school and have been very happy with this form factor. My wife purchased a 17-inch 1.8GHz iMac G5 last year that we are getting ready to sell (she ordered a black MacBook portable for her return to grad school this fall). It’s been a great unit: 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, combo drive and Airport/Bluetooth wireless. Looks like eBay says it should sell for $650 or so. Anyone interested before I list it? Drop me a line if you’d like to know more…DK