The One and Only Katie wrote:
I'm just wondering how much of a hassle it would be to keep a computer in the kitchen area.
Two words:
Keyboard condom.
Seriously, my biggest concern with keeping a computer in the kitchen would be crumbs and splatter. POwer strips can take care of the outlet space and ventilation can be arranged, but the crumbs are going to be a problem no matter what you do.
As for Mr. Ambrya and I, at present it's only two desktops that we actually run. We have two laptops that theoretically work, but which are quite obsolete so we rarely use them, except when travelling. At times in the past, we've had a network/print server set up in addition to all of this, and my husband sometimes builds a server out of spare parts left over after we've upgraded our boxes so that he can practice stuff when it's time to get his various certifications upgraded (Cisco, MCSE, Novell, etc.) My computer tends to be the better box of the two we actually use, because I'm the gamer, so keeping me in reasonably modern video cards, memory, etc, is a must.
As for kitchen organization, we tried to get elaborate with it, but ended up discovering that simplicity works best. In my Shared Documents folder, I keep an Outlook .pst file that has two different calendars in it. One, which we print out weekly, lists which chores need to be done on a given day and whose turn it is to do them. The other, which is also printed out weekly, gives our menu for the week, which I sit down and plan every Sunday afternoon so that we can go grocery shopping Sunday evening. I type up the grocery list just as a task list and print it out, and thus far we haven't had too much trouble if we end up buying something we already have, unless it's produce or some other perishable item. I mean, who cares if we end up with a few extra cans of tomato paste or chicken broth? They'll get used, eventually. When there is a recipe I need to write down (such as there was this weekend, when I called my aunt for the recipe to her broccoli cheese soup--YUM! Next weekend, chicken and corn chowder!) I just type it up as a note in the same .pst file.
I tried a whole bunch of recipe book programs that you could theoretically use to create your menu and generate a shopping list all at once, and they were just a pain in the ***, because for recipes you simply keep in your head, you actually have to do the data entry of the recipe in order for the program to generate the shopping list. Isn't it funny how, in an effort to streamline things, we actually end up making them more complex and calling it "efficiency"? I spend less time going over my menu and creating the shopping list myself than I would typing in all my recipes and having the program generate a shopping list and then having to go through that shopping list and correct the stuff the program somehow screwed up. Every few months, we tend to empty out the pantry and reorganize as things get shifted out of their proper spot (I'm one of those "canned goods on this shelf, dry goods on that shelf, boxed stuff on the other shelf" people) so we usually tend to have a decent idea of what we have on hand.
Edited, Tue Apr 25 03:23:13 2006 by Ambrya