We ordered the cakes this morning. We tried asking the nice lady at the bakery counter for a phone number so we could call the night before the event to check if the cakes were ready. Her eyes only bugged out slightly when we said we'd just ordered 13 cakes. (The bakery lady's at Safeway bugged out a lot when I mentioned 200 guests. This was back in the old days when we were planning for just over 100 people.) Slight problem with the water: we couldn't find the ones we wanted, so we'll have to settle for the ones that come 35 bottles to a case. Now we'll need 18 cases of water instead of 13. Fortunately, there are now even more volunteers (something like 20 cars).

It would be nice if your car stereo could increase the volume in response to noisier road conditions, such as driving on the highway. Several years ago on an interview trip I rented a car (Chevy Impala) that had this technology, but it didn't work very well. I couldn't tell if the volume would increase if, say, you were stopped at a railroad crossing and a communter train blew by, because that never happened. It correctly increased volume to compensate for noise from highway driving. However, it overcompensated. I'm not sure if the trigger is based on ambient noise or is directly tied to the speedometer.

My opinion is there ought to be a way for the driver to specify the correct volume levels for different driving conditions. Compensating for the freeway doesn't always translate into a constant increase. It depends on the highway conditions, the CD or radio station, and so forth. Ideally, the audio system remembers different settings for different radio stations and CDs. For a new CD or station, it would pick a fixed constant, and the driver can adjust accordingly. It should recognize that you might want, say NPR to be louder than the Top 40 station since in the former, you might actually want to hear what they're saying. The increase should be tied to ambient noise. The system should distinguish persistent traffic noise from, say, a big truck.

Finally, the stereo digitizes volume control. This is fine, but the quanta should be smaller. It always seems to be too loud or too soft.