Category: General

Things so normal as to not fit neatly into any other area.

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General Rants Site News

Dearth of Newsletters

I am having a hard time writing a newsletter to send out. What I have discovered is that after 3 years of using LCD monitors at work and on laptops I simply cannot stand to stare at a blurry screen for more than an hour or two.

This means that I either must crank the resolution way, way down or hijack someone else’s laptop to get a newsletter written. I could also get a new job, as that, presumably, would also have access to LCD displays again.

In the mean time I’ll spend a little time in front of the CRT and a lot of time away from it.

Categories
General Rants

Another Ski Trip in the Can

I just got back from a ski trip to Heavenly and although its good to hit the snow this trip was a bit of a let down for a couple of reasons.

  • Not enough snow
  • Temperature was too high (48 F)
  • Rocks on the trails
  • Too many folks in lift lines

Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful to be up in Tahoe hitting the snow. But I just wish it were good, functional snow. 4 hours each way for crappy snow just isn’t much fun when you think about the time spent. Maybe next time will be better.

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General

Vanity Googling Coolness

I was just looking up some old colleagues of mine when I decided to do a vanity search on Google. Since I’m such a big, important guy, I expected a lot of hits and Google didn’t disappoint. What I didn’t expect to find is this:

???? ?????

Coolness! According to Tom’s Hardware Russian language site, that’s my name in Cyrillic. You learn something new every day.

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General

First 04/04 Season Ski Days

I just returned this evening from two mostly full days of skiing up in Lake Tahoe. There was no new snow this week, but the weather is cold enough to keep last week’s snow around, so it worked out OK. Additionally, the resorts had the snow makers turned on, so there was some “fresh stuff” to be skied.

I’m really tired but glad to have capped off two days of skiing already this year. It certainly helps take the sting out of the loss of a job when you are freezing on the lifts and hobling around in pain at the end of the day of hard skiing. 🙂

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General Work

Stick a fork in me

… I’m done. After spending no more than an hour going through the various inner workings of HR, benefits, legal obligations, and the standard “why are you leaving” talk I am now officially no longer employed. It was an interesting road taken to get to this point, but that road is now complete.

My next task is to go do some serious skiing, work on the house, assemble a PC for someone’s birthday, fly an R/C plane or two and do a lot of Christmas shopping. Oh, and that whole looking for a new job thing, too. Is it always the case that “to-do’s” fill all freely available time or is it just poor time management?

Categories
General Work

Job Search Speed Up

I am now in the mode of serious job searching. From a meeting yesterday I have a clear mandate to go off and find a new job as soon as possible and I need to make it my top priority. Right up there with buying Christmas gifts and paying mortgages, that is.

There are several ways at looking at this decision, but at the moment I find myself wondering how I can rationalize my need to be passionate and engaged in my next job while balancing my need for steady income. I see many opportunities before me if I’m willing to seek them out and wait, but the strong desire to keep a roof over my head tends to take precedence these days. I suppose I will see if principle or payment wins out in the end.

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General Rants

Holiday Online Ordering

I spent a good part of today doing some online shopping for Christmas gifts. Much to my surprise, after doing research this past week, capturing prices and URLs, I go back and find that most of the prices change quite dramatically. A combination of local taxes (thanks California!) shipping costs that aren’t known, and just plain bait-and-switch tactics by the web sites have conspired to raise just about every price.

So when you do your shopping and you see a price that is just too good to be true, be sure you verify it by going down the purchase path until the tax, shipping, and availability questions get answered. And watch out for those restocking fees… they’ve gone up to nearly 20% on some items this year.

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General Photos Site News

A Photo Experiment

It’s a P-51 fighter converted to racing form at the Reno Air Races.

If it works as it should, there should be a thumbnail image and the ability to see the full thing. Hopefully you will see it as well.

Categories
General Rants

Post Spam Sucks

Just after I posted that last story I went to look at comments. I found that I have been spammed about 200 times since I last checked, basically once for every time the blog gets updated. This really bites, so I’ve turned off unmoderated comments again until I can find a better way to do things.

That is just poor behavior and I find it difficult to believe it does anything more than upset people. I certainly won’t be going to any casino mortgage gaming web site for my favorite interest rates again.

EDIT: I have found an excellent site that has many possible solutions for spam comments. If you run WP like I do you’ll want to visit the WP Spam Comments site and get some help. Highly recommended.

Categories
General Review Technology

Roku SoundBridge 1000

I just picke up one of these Roku SoundBridge 1000 boxes to fiddle with. So far, I’ve found it to be pretty cool and relatively easy to setup. This version is WiFi (b) enabled, so I just find some speakers and a power plug and I’m up and running anywhere. It is reasonably easy to go, now with the Windows UPNP functions working.

The downside, as it always is for me, is that none of the server software that talks to the Roku can handle the volume of music I want to play. Simply put: they choke. Currently the Windows Media Connect service running on my home server is pegged at 100% CPU utilization and over 163MB of memory usage. This is after it has been trying to digest my music for the past 6 hours or so. Guess there is still room for improvement with these devices. On the other hand, iTunes and SlimServer do work with smaller quantities of music, so it isn’t all busted dreams.