yomama probably wasn't here

Mac OSX stale manpages

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:39:25 GMT

So, I recently noticed that I had a number of out-of-date manpages on my laptop - apparently in the upgrade o Leopard, they switched from uncompressed to compressed manpages, and the old ones were still getting used. This (rather unwieldy) command cleans it up nicely (and frees up a whopping 40M, which is more than the entire size of my first hard drive...)


cd /usr/share/man ; for d in man*; do pushd $d ; for i in *.[0-9n] *.[0-9]{ssl,tcl,x,m} ; do if ! expr $i : \* >/dev/null; then if [ -e $i.gz -a $i.gz -nt $i ]; then echo $i stale, removing ; sudo rm $i ; fi ;fi ; done ; popd ; done

Only a month behind!

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:17:14 GMT

Okay, finally got summer vacation pics up - http://picasaweb.google.com/ermuller

A First!

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:53:34 GMT

So, yesterday we tried something we've both generally decided to usually avoid, after too many disappointing experiences - ordering a steak outside the Americas. And, sure enough, it was GOOD. Okay, a decent chunk of filet mignon doesn't need gravy or sauce or any of that, but that didn't detract from the overall experience either. Yes friends, there really is red meat served rare in Europe. Mando Steakhouse in Malmö gets two thumbs up.

Who'd have guessed it doesn't suck?

Mon, 19 May 2008 04:38:33 GMT

Volume 1: Omaha

There are places that you'd never even consider visiting normally. If asked, I would always have generally put Omaha squarely in that list, probably even near the top of it. Turns out it's not such a terrible place - or at least, it isn't in mid-May.

An old college friend of Monica's is currently on a contract job in Omaha, so we figured what the heck, we'll take the opportunity to go out and visit for the weekend. We actually flew in via Kansas City since that was a lot cheaper, so had a very pleasant (and fairly scenic) drive up. After a fantastic steak at Upstream Brewing, we wandered around and ended up going through a
park with a big lake and fountain alongside the river (OK, it's part of the big ConAgra campus, but really, really nice).

Next day we spent more time around the Old Market area of downtown, at the farmer's market,

then drove over to Lincoln for the afternoon.

I think what impressed me most was how well the old buildings had been preserved in the downtown, with a lot of well-done warehouse to loft conversions, and a lot of businesses adapting and preserving the old brick buildings - and, best of all, healthy local businesses - it's so refreshing to spend some time where not everything is TGI Fridays, Starbucks, and Crate and Barrel on every corner.

Okay, outside of downtown there's more typical suburban sprawl, but even there, there was still a lot of classic architecture preserved in the housing.
There was a vibrant community hanging out downtown (which, admittedly, may in part have been spring fever, as apparently this was one of the first weekends of exceptional weather, plus some special events going on). People were friendly, the food and drink were good (and fairly cheap). And, I was pleasantly surprised to find much more of a college-town vibe than I'd expected - lots of art, evidence of a music scene, and signs of left-leaning politics. I guess it goes to show that sometimes you don't have to go far to toss aside some preconceptions.

unclear on the concept

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:31:24 GMT

It amazes me that city council people can be calling this a "conservation penalty": http://www.ajc.com/obits/content/metro/stories/2008/04/16/water_0417.html
Supply and demand, people. water is a finite resource. If it's unusually scarce, it should become unusually expensive. You use less and your net spend doesn't change, and the higher cost encourages smarter use. Duh.

Plea for sanity

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:53:20 GMT

It gives me some hope that in the minute between when I started reading
this petition to fix Georgia's blue laws and when I signed it, 16 other people also signed it - and another 20 had when I went to grab the link for this post. I still can't believe that we have such religion-centric laws on the books.

Too much of a good thing

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:17:48 GMT

Sometimes you have good luck for a long time. Maybe that makes you take it for granted, and you get sloppy.
That's what happened to me Sunday....
I went for a bike ride, and managed to catch a flat. It's been years since I got a flat, and I'd gotten too lazy to carry a spare, patches, or a pump. So my 25mile ride turned into a 22 mile ride followed by a 3 mile hike. Given that the weather was beautiful and I was close to the end, I can't complain, I was lucky. Lesson learned, time to start carrying a bit more stuff with me...

Holiday Reflections

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:23:13 GMT

Having just returned from spending Christmas in Switzerland (and the surrounding pair of weeks in Spain, France, and Germany - pictures are up, http://picasaweb.google.com/ermuller), a few thoughts....

In Avignon, gazing upon the papal palace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_des_Papes), Monica and I spent a while reflecting on the irony that as a couple of solidly agnostic/atheistic types, we were way more in tune with the spirit of Christmas than most Christians that I know were. We were seeing some fantastic examples of the whole history of western Christianity, from Roman ruins at its dawn, to the aforementioned home of the papacy through its schism, to the Sagrada Familia representing the height of a moderninst approach (and on track to be the coolest cathedral ever, whenever they finish it...); everybody back home was at the mall.

There's always the classic "$%^&@ Americans" meme that comes up when traveling - public transit that works, news coverage of important international news instead of Paris Hilton (I think I learned more about the primaries for the 2008 US elections, crime trends in Mexico, and any number of issues in Africa and Asia, from one issue of the local paper in Augsburg - and I don't speak/read German for diddly-squat - than I have from a month of the AJC), sane concepts of personal liability instead of pandering and sanitizing everything to reduce the threat of frivolous lawsuits...

and on a more frivolous note... why the heck does it take an hour for the atlanta airport to get my bags off the plane, just so I can recheck them and reclear security before I can even leave?

(Happy New Year, Y'all!)

update time again

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:11:05 GMT

Let's see, I've been slacking...

recent news - just completed this year's instance of the Great Canadian RoadTrip (though it was more US than Canadian this year, with an itenerary of Everett, Tri-Cities, Portland, Vancouver, and Seattle). Brandon blogged the first half of the trip, then we got lazy. Unlike in previous years though, pictures are already up. Trip highlight - the souvenier shop at the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology (aka "the Hanford Museum"), where we each obtained a (working!) vintage 1960 Anton CDV-700m5 geiger counter. For future reference, please note - if you want one of those spiffy "notice of TSA inspection" papers inserted into your bag on a flight, packing a geiger counter between beer bottles, coffee beans, and a handful of assorted laptop cables is a fantastic way to ensure that happens (on the plus side, I got to the airport late, and my bag still made it onto my flight - the only delay being the typical "atlanta baggage handlers loaded it onto the wrong conveyor" issue). While I really didn't have enough time to catch up with all the Seattle peeps I keep neglecting, I did manage to also fit one of the things I'd always meant to do before moving out from Seatown - an afternoon of kayaking on Lake Union before heading home.

Beer news - After a fairly idle summer, batch number 7 is now ready. This is a classic ESB (a Fuller's clone recipe I found in a British Ales recipe book several years ago), and turned out really, really well. I still need to verify a bit more thoroughly, but based on the first two bottles, I think this is the best batch yet.

Happy Healthy Gardening Tips

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:48:59 GMT

(Today's episode is brought to you by the letter "B" and the number "lots".)

So, from now on, there will always be a new site survey step in my gardening process.
Yesterday, I decided it would be a good day to tackle some of the more egregiously overgrown plants in my yard - it was a nice day (at only 95, I'm pretty sure it was the coolest day we've had in the last couple of weeks), and it really was overdue. However, on about the 10th swipe at juniper bush #3, I shook the bush a bit more thoroughly than I had in previous cuts, and in so doing awakened the wrath of a small swarm[1] of wasps[2]. Not that I knew what happened right then, I was lucky enough to get away with just two stings, and that was because my reaction was something like "oh shit, ow (drop hedge trimmers, jump back while pulling off gloves). oh SHIT, OWW! what the fuck was that?!?" After letting the initial reaction wear off (and thereby validating that I'm not allergic to wasps, at least not badly enough to go into anaphylactic shock), I proceeded to move on to bush number 4 and on down the line, leaving one wasp-infested, partially shorn juniper now shaped suspiciously like Sideshow Bob's hair. By this time the wasps have settled down a bit, and I can finish very gently trimming it, running away every time I relaunch the wasps.
Now almost 36 hours later, my right hand and wrist are still sore, swollen, and hot. Wasps, you are not my friends any more - I'm totally taking you off my Christmas card list!

1. maybe only 10 or so - not really a "swarm" by most definitions. But when they're mad, and pointing your way, that's a swarm.
2. Or maybe hornets, something in the genus Vespidae, in any case.

back home

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:21:12 GMT

quick wrap up:

Best Bar (drinking): Kafka, Brussels (cozy dive, nice selection)

Best bar (music/people): Flex, Vienna (great location on the river/canal, excellent DJs)

Best bar (food/ambiance): Turf Tavern, Oxford (everything a proper English pub should be, though for full effect they should have older and slightly surlier staff I suppose...)

Best trains: Germany (DB NachtZug scored a lot of points, but the Eurostar stays a close second for having no issues changing a nonrefundable/nonchangable ticket at no cost; Virgin Trains gets points for outward class, but no idea how they fare servicewise)

Best Airport: yeah right. OK, Vienna should be very nice once they're done remodeling/expanding, assuming they do go to jetways instead of the current shuttle bus setup. Berlin Tegel gets points for being easy to get to and navigate.

Worst Airport: Toss-up between Heathrow and Hartsfield (Heathrow has some really inefficient signage, and has several spots where your only real option between point A and B is elevators, which isn't great for moving lots of people - no idea how they're going to hold up in 2012; Hartsfield has the obnoxious "recheck your bags and go through security again, even if you're not getting another flight" feature)

Best natural disaster: Flooding of the Thames (seriously disrupting train service this week)

Best unnatural disaster: Traffic on the A40 into London

Best Beer (pint): Ottakringer Zwickl Dunkles, Vienna (delightful all around - the zwickl is an Austrian unfiltered style, wheaty but not as much so as a typical hefeweizen)

Best Beer (half): Abbot Ales Last Rites, cask conditioned (11% barleywine, strong and smoky but very smooth and tasty, not too heavily hopped)

Best street-meat: Escargots for breakfast in Brussels (fresh from the boiling pot from a little stand at the antiques market on Saturdays on Grand Sablon; salty, with bits of leek and celery. No, not actually sold as a breakfast food, more that we overslept, so breakfast was at about noon)

Best taxi value: London (by local cost, anyway - not so much of a value after the exchange rate though; for the dollar Berlin wins this one - and I have a soft spot for the paint color of the beige German taxis)

Worst taxi value: Brussels - flag drop starts at about €4, and adds up fast

Best Hotel: Jolly Hotel, Brussels - 4* on the cheap at the last minute

Worst Nemesis: Rod Stewart

Vienna

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:56:14 GMT

Last stop on the trip was Vienna.
We spent a full weekend there, and it was fantastic. Beautiful city, very friendly people, and a fantastic public transportation system - good combination of U-Bahn, S-Bahn, and trams covering the city (and just 12€ covering a 72hour pass for all of that). Only complaint was that is was crazy hot, especially on friday (102°F).
It was a wonderfully lively city too - behind the city hall, the park was set up for a open-air film festival inthe evenings, with a great foodcourt/biergarten layout. Friday night, we ran into a group setting up for Friday Night Skating, a big group event for rollerbladers (and some bikes, skateboards, and whoever else showed up) that pretty much turns into a rolling party through the city.
Saturday, we wandered around the Nachsmarkt (big farmers/flea market) for breakfast, and ended the day hanging out at the Prater (a big amusement park; at 110+ years old, it's the oldest still active amusement park, and is free to get in and wander around - you pay per ride, rather than the huge entrance fees at Six Flags or Disneyland). It made for some great people-watching, and was amusing to see some of the cheesy American themed ride/attractions (like "Alaskan Adventure", the "Texas Kid" shooting gallery, and the Hollywood bumper cars - pictures of at least some of those coming soon on Picasa), as well as great fun to be had watching the "CountryMuzik" festival or whatever they called it going on - square dancing, American country music cover bands, and so on.

Night train to Berlin

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:56:04 GMT

So, we eventually did succeed in getting to Berlin.
The DB nachtzug (night train) seemed a bit nicer than the spanish/french versions I've used before - newer cars, also with a very nice and stylish inerior. The real bonus came though in that they also had a shower available - which is a mighty nice thing to have before getting in in the morning.

Anyway...
Berlin was beautiful. My most immediate regret was that we not only ended up with such a short time, but that it also came on a Sunday when most shops were closed and there weren't a lot of people out and about. My second big regret was that I didn't come here 16 years ago. In 1991, just a year after reunification, I made it as far as Leipzig - which was a great taste of the legacy of the DDR and the drama and trauma of the cold war years - but I think there was a real opportunity to experience more of the depth and contrast of it all. And in retrospect, the fall of the wall is probably the most significant world event in my lifetime thus far - I wish I had gotten closer to it when it was fresher.
All that aside, Berlin was beautiful, and seems to have done a good job of healing from its wounds while keeping reminders around.

Plans/Reality

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:53:53 GMT

The Plan:
thursday evening after work, catch the overnight train from london to Berlin, with a change in Brussels, then spend Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday in Berlin before flying back to London.

The Reality:
massive road construction and and accident on the A40 turned the normally 1.5-2hr bus ride from Oxford to 3.5 hours. Trains were missed, calls were made, a last minute hotel room was found for the night in London. We were able to rebook the eurostar (the chunnel train to Brussels) for Friday morning, but the folks at waterloo station couldn't do anything with the continental tickets we had for the Brussels-Berlin leg, and said that basically our best bet was to head to Brussels and let them sort it out there.
So, we got an extra evening in London, had some great chinese food and a good night's sleep, and got to Belgium early Friday afternoon. However, that night's train to Berlin was booked full, so really the best we could do was saturday night, leaving us a day and a half in Brussels. Fortunately, that is time easily and joyfully filled; Brussels is a pretty fun city for a couple days (I can't imagine electing to be a visitor there much longer than that though). Found out that they do a pretty nice light show at the town hall at night, confirmed that Kafka is still one of the best bars I've found in the world, saw lots of neat stuff, and generally had a really great time.

Got to the train station again late Saturday night to head to Berlin - after everything at the station had closed for the night, but while waiting and wandering around the station we found a cool automat with everything you might ever need at a train station.
We got a couple cans of really good beer (Grimbergen and Leffe) to enjoy while waiting for the train. The grimbergen only came in .33l, but the Leffe was a great find in the .5l can (Sorry PBR, but this is a REAL tall boy - way better tasting, and at almost 7%, a lot more kick too)

Had a nice ride to Berlin and a good day there; but more on that later.

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:46:17 GMT

Bath and London pictures are up.

things I...

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:01:33 GMT

Love: Airports, train stations, subways...
they smell like opportunity, and the peoplewatching is great

Hate: Rod Stewart, and inconsistent train schedules
these two items conspired to derail my plans to spend the night in Cardiff and get some real time there. It was a beautiful, fun city, and the few hours I spent there begged for more.
Instead, we ended up in Bath - which is also lovely - and had a great time, but it's a bit more of a 19th century disneyland rewrit in 20-21st century trappings than an integrated, functioning town.

Unusually impressed

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 05:31:27 GMT

It's weird. Sometimes you have things that you'd think would drive you crazy but they don't really bother you that much - and it's even weirder when everybody around you does the same.
Case in point - I had a 19:30 flight from IAD back to ATL today, but we (myself and a former coworker who's now with the blue-green networking empire) finished up early and got to the airport about 17:00 in hopes of catching the earlier 17:40 flight. That fight was delayed til 18:10 as the plane was late getting in, and we cleared the standby list, but once we'd taxied out almost to the runway, we got directed over to the side to wait out a storm passing atlanta, after a couple false starts we finally got airborne about an hour and a half later. Uneventful flight, except that about 80 miles out from atlanta, we got put into a holding pattern again to let another wave of thunderstorm pass. Eventually we landed and finally got to the gate around 22:15.
Anyway, throughout the whole thing, I was astounded to never hear anybody on our flight complaining, yelling, harassing the flight attendants, or any of the usual stuff that I see when a significant portion of the plane knows they're going to miss their connections. I'm not sure if I'm just too cynical, or if that really was an unusual display of civility on everybody's part.

(to add insult to the whole thing, it turns out that our original later flight made it in before our earlier flight. Okay, only by two minutes, but the important thing is that it was earlier. Oh well.)

Belize!

Thu, 31 May 2007 05:50:39 GMT

It's hard to beat a good weekend getaway. Especially when its beautiful and sunny, and comes with tasty fruity drinks...

One of the great things about living in a major airline hub city is that it's easy to start by saying things like "maybe we should drive to Florida, or New Orleans, or somewhere like that for the weekend", and then find out that for the price of a hotel there, you can get a hotel and last minute flight to somewhere that's a little bit off of peak season - in this case, Belize. Site59 FTW!

It was fantastic, if a little bit hot and mosquitoey. We stayed in Belize City, which was pretty nice if (or maybe because it is) not very tourist-oriented, and also got out to a couple of the outer islands (Spanish Lookout Caye and Caye Caulker) for the day on Saturday and Sunday. Didn't have enough time to make it inland to see any of the Mayan ruins though.
It was pretty interesting, being a lot like Mexico but also English-speaking and still having a bit of British/Caribbean influence very visible. Belize City was kind of odd actually, despite being the major commercial and population center of the country, it's only about the size of Lodi (and not much more to do than Lodi, either) and fairly impoverished. Caye Caulker was much more interesting, but also doesn't feel quite as authentic (it's still less developed, but much more tourism-driven). I also managed to get some diving in on saturday, which was fantastic - very warm water (84), good visibility, and a lot of marine life - saw a turtle, lobsters, grouper, manta rays, moray eels, many types of corals and sponges, and a whole bunch of who-knows-what-they're-called-but-they're-pretty-and-colorful fish.
Despite a weather forecast that basically said "hot with thunderstorms every day", the weather cooperated well - a nice thunderstorm the night before we left and a couple showers the next morning, otherwise sunny and lovely (they were right about the hot, and I was reminded just how tasty I am to mosquitoes, but that doesn't really detract from the experience at all).

Pictures are up at home or on Picasa.

brewery update

Sat, 12 May 2007 15:01:17 GMT

lets see... couple updates here, since I never write anything else.

Several months ago, I made batch #4, a dry porter. This was also the first batch with a real partial mash accounting for about half the fermentables. In retrospect, it's a little too dry, and either a less attenuative yeast strain or a bit more nonfermentable ingredients would have helped. It was a bit too sharp and toasty tasting at first, but mellowed with a month or so of aging and is now really, really good.

3 weeks ago, batch #5 got kicked off, this is a Scottish 80. Postferment/prebottling, it tasted pretty good so I have high hopes for it. I think I overhopped it a bit for the style, but I don't think so much so that it'll be a problem. Lesson learned: do the math to adjust recipes for the actual quality of the ingredients *before* you start, lest you get sloppy and use too much finishing hops because, well, you needed to ues 33% more bittering hops because they were lower AA than typical for the variety - shouldn't the same scaling apply everywhere?

And finally, early this week, batch #6. It's a Mexican style Vienna Lager (eg, like Negra Modelo) with a twist, using a bunch of agave syrup as well. I've been planning this one for quite a while, and really hope that it turns out well despite the lessons learned in brewing it. To wit, Lesson learned here: Pre-flight instrument checks are a very, very, Good Thing. There's nothing like getting almost all the way done with a batch and realizing that your thermometer is now reading 100 for room temp and 244 for boiling water - doh! So, I _think_ it was reading reasonably when I started, but I didn't actually check it. Was it weird all along? Did it go weird after mashing, or before? Did I get anywhere close to the level of conversion I expected from the grains, after maybe spending almost no time at the temperatures I wanted? Well, no. OG came out about 10 points lower than I expected, so I had to do a rush adjustment to add some more extract to compensate at the end. We'll see if it works out, or turns out starchy or otherwise weird. Oh, and I guess I need to go buy a new thermometer...

pictures

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:53:19 GMT

trip pictures are up, mine are at http://picasaweb.google.com/ermuller, Eric and Toni's are at http://picasaweb.google.com/oostingt .

Vacation packing

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 20:53:38 GMT

So, I'm skipping town for a week for spring break (to the warmest and sunniest destinations available right now with frequent flyer miles. Ummm. So, Edinburgh and Amsterdam - seems the tropics are in high demand this time of year, go figure.)
This entry is not directly about the trip however. I was more amused by the pile of expired monies I found while searching the bucket o' coinage for euros or pounds....

1.75 ChF
5pfennig De
55p Eir
5 BeF
100 MxP
10p Es
200 lire
5.10 FF
1.22 GBp (plus 1 Gibralter pound)
5 yen (I think yen, it's definitely asian, maybe yuan or won - I can't read it in any case. Anyway, how the heck did that get in there?)
3.90 euro
and about $11 Canadian (enough to not be worth counting)

Be back in a week, maybe I'll get back to blogging more frequently then...

misc update

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 04:53:25 GMT

Hmmm, I'm not writing a lot lately, am I?
Well, I've been busy. Here's the quick rundown....

Got back from canada - GCRT VIII was fantastic. Brandon (ensign_pulver) just published the daily reports (note that, as I've observed before, it looks like they were retroblogged and so they won't show up in RSS if you read thusly), so feel free to peruse. I expect to get the pictures posted shortly after the pictures from Brazil and last year's road trip (so, don't hold your breath!).

Right after getting back from the Pacific Nortwest, I had my birthday (I think I'm officially "thirty-something" now, as trying to remember my exact age really no longer seems all that important), which was good (hard to beat good food with good friends!). Oh, and yes, my birthday present to myself was the new MacBook Pro I'd been waiting for (It's NICE ;) ).

Then after a couple days at work, turned around again to head back out west to see my family for the first time in close to a year. Then back to the office for a couple of supremely busy days (in a personal first, I had so many meetings that by the end of Thursday, I still hadn't read all of Wednesday's mail - oi!). Got to check out Trois during their pre-opening shakedown (it's good to have friends with connections - thanks Renee!), and am happy to report that it's really good.

Today was a couple of "finally"s - I finally went to the aquarium for the first time (with about two weeks remaining on the annual pass I got over a year ago before their opening), I'm finally caught up on laundry and unpacking from the last few weeks' trips (mail and housecleaning are another story altogether), and homebrew batch number 3 finally got bottled (at this point, it is now being called "Novemberfest", as I'm about a month behind my expected finish time for it - as the name suggests, it's a Marzen style lager clocking in at about 5.75%)

GCRT-VIII, Day -1

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 06:53:51 GMT

A very fine day indeed. Slept in (well, by eastern time which my body is still partially on, anyway - 8:30 local is an early morning for a sunday otherwise), grabbed breakfast at Cafe Ladro, and wandered around downtown a bit. Headed up the hill to spend some money at Musicwerks, then wandered around some more. Headed over to Magnolia and spent a little over an hour hiking the Discovery Park loop trail. Then I stopped by Lighthouse coffee, and headed down to Gasworks Park to hang out for a bit before heading to the eastside to meet Boh and Heather for dinner. As I was heading down Fremont Ave, I passed Cooper's place (whom I had revised my original plan, and was planning to meet for lunch tomorrow). At the bottom of the hill, at the west end of gasworks park, I saw a grey-haired fellow who otherwise looks a fair bit like me walking a Chihuahua. This of course entailed a quick-and-very-illegal uturn to park there, catch up halfway, and holler "hey, Coop!" Sure enough, I was right - it was him and his sister Dana, whom I hadn't seen in many years (not since highschool, at least). So we spent a while hanging out at Gasworks. How cool is that? Fate sometimes has a way of smacking you upside the head for no obvious reason...
Headed on over to Bellevue, and met up with Boh and Heather and the kids at I Love Sushi... much fun and tasty sushi was had. It's always fun to touch bases with the folks you only see about once a year, and even more fun to get to play uncle a little bit - I haven't seen Alec or Chase for several years (and I'm not sure if I'd ever actually meet Parker in person) though I've kept pretty well appraised via blogs and pictures. Still, I was impressed by how much they'd grown, and especially by how truly hardcore Chase is - I don't know many adults that will so gleefully eat fisheggs and shrimp eyes...
Capped the day off with a quick stop in at McMennamin's Six Arms. Mmmmm, Hammerhead....

GCRT-VIII, Day -2

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 16:14:22 GMT

Got to Seattle today, and got a chance to wander around a bit... weather is beautiful. Sigh, I do miss it here.
Anyway, met Jeremy and Cyndy and went to the TBirds game - it was good to be back in the Key. Pretty good seats too, S128, row 3 14-16 - right behind the visitor's box, just up from the blue line. Good game, both teams (Birds vs MH Tigers) were very well matched, and it ended in a tie which the Birds finally lost in the shootout. It's really nice to see the old home team again, but a little bit sad too - attendance seems to have continued slipping since I was last there, so it really felt pretty empty - I imagine Everett has canibalized more than a few regulars. Judy the beer lady was gone, but Zamboni John was still there, as was Tuba Guy out front. And the Zamboni Chick seems to be by far the best zamboni driver I've ever seen at the key :)

minor accomplishments

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 06:23:34 GMT

Sometimes, it's the smallest things that make you happy.... right now, what am I smiling about?
It's not about the fact that I'm feeling optimistic that the... ummm... "management issues" at the office are likely to be resolved soon.
It's not about being happy about the speed and quality of habitat yesterday.
It's not about anything significant.

It is about the satisfaction of finally completing a tiny little project that I started months ago - I finally got around to adding an SPDIF output to my mythtv box today. This was not a huge undertaking (sum total of parts invested: one Toshiba TOTX179L transmitter, about $2; one 0.1uF radio shack capacitor, about $0.50; one 3pin header connector [recycled from the "turbo button" connector from my first post-286 computer], [depending on how you count, either $0.00 or $2500 in 1993 dollars]; a tiny bit of solder, $0.000001; and one 1-1/2" drywall screw), but it made me very happy to have finally gotten around to it.
The world is a better place when you're freed from the scourge of 60hz hum (and god only knows what other, higher frequency, interference was there with the mess of cables behind the stereo).

In a funny coincidence, the first track that came up on random was KMFDM.