Greg

Where's that stupid button again?!?!?!?

There are a number of things that drive me crazy about technology and gadgets, but one of the biggest is the lack of standards

On the expensive and annoying end of this is how device manufacturers (e.g. cell-phone, music player, etc.) all seem to have their own form-factor for adaptors and accessories to ensure that you buy “their” stuff or at least 3rd party items they’ve licensed. 

On the just annoying side are things like keyboard layouts.  I’ve been switching back and forth between two laptops a lot lately and it’s driving me crazy.  One is a netbook and so has a tiny keyboard (“big size” if you listen to MSI :)), the other is what passes for a ‘fullsize’ keyboard on a laptop.  The two keys that are driving me crazy is “delete” and “ctrl”.  I keep hitting insert on one laptop and then typing over text :(, and the other has the ‘fn’ key where ‘ctrl’ should be so I keep NOT cut-n-pasting :(. 

I wonder how much is due to patents and licensing they would have to do and how much is just trying to differentiate the product? 

My love for the snow diminishes...

For those of you not in the Seattle area and who don't watch the news may not have heard that we’ve gotten a decent amount of snow (loads for by our standard).  For those of you in the Seattle area, I apologize for one more thing that you’re seeing about the snow….

My alternate title for this post was “how I spent Saturday morning” -  we spent the morning shoveling the driveway while some of the neighbor kids spent it snowboarding and sledding down the street.  Let’s just say that one of these two activities seems a lot more fun than the other, and I’ll give you the hint that it’s not the one that involves manual labor… 

It hit me a while after experiencing the juxtaposition of these snow-related activities that enjoyment of snow is directly related to how much it inconveniences you.   Have somewhere to go and trouble getting there?  Snow’s not so fun.  Tired of walks in the snow, sledding, watching movies, and you’ve reached the end of the internet?  Snow’s not so fun.  Have things that can be delayed and an ample supply of hot chocolate?  Bring on more of the white stuff :)

The fruits of our labor:

The most depressing part of the whole thing is that it start snowing again a few hours after we finished and then it was glazed with a  thin layer of ice…  Where’s our mild Seattle weather when you need it?  At least I got some great photos of Shay leaping out of the snow from Thursday :)…

Christmas is... here?

Over the last few years it seems like holiday decorations have gone up earlier and earlier.  And it's seemed a bit ridiculous.  At least most people have waited until just after Thanksgiving though.  What do you do if you're in a country that doesn't have Thanksgiving as a milestone?  Apparently your lights, signs, and other decorations go up really really early!   We just got back from a trip to Ireland and I was a bit dismayed to see that more than a week before December the high streets all had the Christmas banners and decorations up - good lord people, it's not December yet...

Well, lo and behold, we're back in the US and a ton of houses in our neighborhood now have lights and decorations up.  And it seems like half that do have decorations have DECORATIONS.  You know, where the whole house is lit like a circus.  And there are plastic animals, snowmen, Santas, etc.  Somehow I don't think putting up the few strands of lights we had for our balcony in the condo would cut it if this were a competition :)

what was YOUR favorite election coverage?

I was feeling a bit off earlier today because of the cold medicine I was taking (stupid cold ), and so was home early when the election coverage started...  Bouncing around the networks I stumbled across Current TV (wikipedia).  They were hosting the "election party" - a mix of election results data + club music + twitter messages & youtube clips floating across with commentary and thoughts on the election.  Even though I was surfing looking for holograms and use of Surface and other uses of technology in the coverage, but this wasn't exactly the election coverage I expected.  Somehow watching it was strangely addicting .  I'll admit it was a bit funny to see the messages from non-US folks come across thanking the US for "not screwing it up again" ...

unexpected result of living closer to work

Now that we live in the single digits of minutes away from work, I've discovered an unexpected change in my work habits.  No, not that I'm running into the office at random times just because its easy to do and I have work to do (why do that when you can access your work machine through VPN?).  Instead it's that I get in later in the morning.  Before I knew that if I hadn't left by a certain time in the morning, I wouldn't have enough time to catch up on things before my first meeting.  Now I know that I have a lot more flexibility and my arrival time has slipped later and later...

News and notes in catch-up

A few random items strung together for my convenience's sake...

• The site is still acting strange.  At times perf is snappy and no complaints, other times it's dog slow.  Unfortunately it seems to be mostly in the latter category and seldom in the the former.  Apparently the db compaction from a few weeks ago didn't actually do the trick :(.  I know (part) of what I'm going to be doing this weekend :(.
• Went to the San Juan Islands for the weekend - specifically Lopez Island.  I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a quiet get-away.  There's a nice ferry ride out to the island and a few small shops and restuarants.  And other than that and some beaches, not a lot else for a visitor to do.  Got some reading done and some walks on the beach - exactly what the doctor ordered :)
• Things at work have been busier than usual which is one of the reasons there hasn't been a lot of posts here.  The most time-critical portion of it will be finishing up this week as I have the last of the review conversations and I'll start working through the backlog of things that I've been ignoring while working on reviews :(.
• The gardening series I planned to do as I learned about taking care of a yard dried up because I haven't been doing a lot of lawn care while there was no rain and I had no time.  It can start back up soon, because I need to figure out how to get rid of the moss in the grass :(
• Lots of photos from the summer (and the recent Lopez trip) to post-process and then post some online.  Hoping to get through a few this weekend and then stretch it out through the rainy season :)

Administrivia: known problems with the site

Just a heads up that the photos link is broken, though if you go directly to a given gallery/album/photo via tags on the main home page or some other mechanism then that works fine.  I'm looking into how to fix it (it's seems to be a site/SQL problem) but no luck yet.  Related to that, things in general seem a bit slower and I'm trying to figure out if something has changed or a possible source of this...  I'll post when these have been addressed but it'll probably be a bit :(

[edit 8/19 9:45am]
Hmmm, maybe the DB clean-ups that I did last night just took a while to work through the system.  Things seem fairly responsive and the photos main page are working now.

they clean things up for the radio (and other random comments)

Random updates for a Sunday night...

We went to see the live version of A Prarie Home Companion on Friday at Marymoor...  I must say I was a bit suprised at how many of the jokes were sex related.  Apparently once they're not on radio you don't have to clean the act up as much...  That said, very good times all around - what a great way to spend a nice summer evening.

Holy crap am I not able for heat anymore.  10 years ago 90 degrees was nothing.  Well, it was warm, but you had AC.  These days it's killing me - maybe I need to rethink the move to Hawaii :)

Gardening and lawn care.  Apparently once the grass goes dormant you don't really have to cut it anymore.  Great news for us :).  But the plants that can pull through without water?  Those are better known as "weeds"...  We finally got around to pulling and cutting a bunch of weeds in the backyard and now I'm just timing how long it will take for them to re-grow.  I say give it two weeks and we'll be back out there :(.

Football season is back (kind of) and I'm splitting tickets again - hadn't bothered in the last year (two?).   I went to the game on Saturday and it turns out it's a lot more hassle to get to the game when you can't just hop a 20 minute bus from Eastlake...  In other news, I'm pretty sure there were almost no starters playing, but our back-ups are looking pretty ready. 

I'll fully admit that at times I'm a weather geek (I think I got it from my Mom who loves knowing about the weather).  I like to know what the temp is inside, outside, other side of the yard, etc. etc...  So, of course, the other day I bought one of those thermometers with wireless nodes that you can sprinkle around.  Somehow I lost one of them.  It's in a box.  Or outside (where it's supposed to be).  Or in a drawer.  It's SOMEWHERE.  Wherever it is, that place is ~15 degrees cooler than where the reciever is located.  Not only do I want the reciever back, I also want to know where this cool location is :)

I think I've angered the bbq gods...

Small things have gone inexplicably wrong over the last few days and the only thing I can think of causing it is that I must have angered the bbq gods by ruining a perfectly good brisket.  I know, I know, you're sitting there thinking "Greg, how do you ruin a brisket?  Don't you just smoke it low and slow and then voila - meaty goodness?"  And yes, you'd think it would be that easy.  Unfortunately, if you accidentally read the wrong 'cooking times' table and take it off the smoker waaaaay too early, it ends up tough and essentially inedible.  A makeshift attempt at finishing it up in the slow cooker the next day was to no avail.

So how have the BBQ gods taken their revenge?  First was me sleepily sliding down the stairs on my butt as I was on my way to make coffee - I have the carpet burns and bruises on my arms to prove it happened.  Seriously.  Then on Saturday we tried mounting the LCD to the wall and one of the sets of screws hit something and would go no further.  Not wanting to give up, I tried to turn harder until I got blisters on my hands.  Unfortunately I didn't realize that until I ripped one of them open trying to turn it just a litte bit more :(.

So, like the tourists sending the lava rocks back to Hawaii to appease Pele, I prepare to smoke another brisket.  This one I'm marinating over night instead of just for an hour or two beforehand.  Since I have to be home to recieve a delivery anyway, I'm just going to smoke it from lunch time onwards to ensure that it actually has the right length of time and ends up falling-apart-tender. 

Mmmmmm.  Brisket.

no more condo :)

Yep, the sale of the condo has gone through and everything is closed - we're now down to being proud to only own one property instead of two...  I'll have to admit that as things were coming down to the wire and I kept reading the steady stream of articles about the real estate market and the tightening credit situation I had a bad feeling that this was going to fall through and we'd be screwed.  Needless to say it's a bit of a sigh of relief over here in quietville.  Er.  I mean, Redmond.

the last hurrah

Well, not quite the last hurrah, but Friday was the last Fourth of July fireworks that we'll be able to watch from our condo on Eastlake.  There's a lot about living in town, and Eastlake specifically, that we'll miss over the coming months and the ability to watch the fireworks from our own place is definitely one of them...  I'll admit that past years the experience may have been a bit nicer due to having actual furniture and our normal BBQ and whatnot there :)  While we may have been down furnishings and trappings, the view (the important bit for a fireworks display) was same as usual  - now if only we'd managed to convince the neighors to trim that damn tree :)

Gardening Lessons by Greg - part 1 (of a neverending series)

I meant to post this last week, but ended up being a bit out of it this last week and weekend both because work continues to be crazy, and because I got some sort of a bug bite while weeding over the long weekend.  And then that bite got infected :(.  Suffice it to say that I'm starting to think it's the yard's way of fighting back :)

Anyway, I'm back and if full force, so here it is.  Gardening lessons by Greg.  Lesson 1 - Gardening is like the stages of grief.

Stage 1: Denial.  "I don't have to pull those weeds today.  They aren't that big and no one will notice them.  Maybe they're really plants that were meant to be there.  They blend in quite well."

Stage 2: Anger.  "What idiot decided that the lawn needed any planters instead of being all grass?  Why are these bugs attacking me?  Why are these roots so damn deep?  Argh!"

Stage 3: Bargaining. "If I just do this one more planter box, then can't I walk around the corner to find that the rest don't need to be done?  Can't they just last a little longer before the weeds come back?"

Stage 4: Depression. "It doesn't matter what I do - surely the weeds will just keep coming back.  Day after day, year after year.  Soon the whole house will be covered.  It'll be like a house that belongs in the hobbit village or something :|"

Stage 5: Acceptance.  This one could go either way...  Either it really is "OK, I give up.  It's time to call in reinforcements (a yard service)" or it could be "OK, I can use some time for this.  It's probably good for me and I may not ever have the best looking yard in the neighborhood but at least it will be presentable."

The reality of house ownership sinks in...

I wasn't sure how long it would take, but I think the reality of house ownership has hit me.  Not home ownership - that hit me that first full summer of the condo when multiple large kitchen appliances had to be replaced within the span of a month.  No, this is the reality of house ownership.  You know, with all of the extra work associated with a house.  Why do I say this?  One word: yardwork.

Last time I cut the lawn it was a quick affair since I had the mower at the tallest setting and left it in 'recycle' mode (tangent - was I was younger, I'm pretty sure we called these 'mulching mowers'.  How did this all of a sudden become a 'recycling mower'?  What kind of jumping on the watchword of the day is that?).  This time the grass was so long I thought that leaving it there would suffocate the rest of the grass and encourage more fungus.  So, brilliant me decides that I'll just bag the clippings and no worries.  That was great until ten minutes in when the mower had died three times because the grass was so tall and still a bit damp and kept filling the chute quickly.  Some people would be discouraged by this - they may have done yardwork more recently and aren't too naive to recognize the way the next several hours of their life is about to be spent :(.  Or would have thought about how they were going to get rid of the clippings - rather than relying on the smallest "yard waste" container our garbage folks provide.

Let's hope the optimism doesn't dim before we get rid of the woodchip pile (this will make more sense when photos are online).  I have a bad feeling it's going to be a lot more work turning it into a herb & vegetable garden than originally anticipated.  At least I'm planning in advance for trying to keep the rabbits out of the garden rather than realizing it after the fact...

Moving on over... to the eastside...

Yep, after years of derision directed at east side dwellers, Clodagh and I have packed our bags and headed to Redmond where we're now the proud owners of a house with yard and all.  And now a lawn mower.  And, I suspect, soon to be other yard-related tools too.  And many a Saturday and Sunday spent trying to get and keep it presentable.  Have I mentioned neither of us really know anything about a lot of house-related maintenance and/or yard care and gardening?  We seemed to do quite well with small pots off of the balcony though :)  Can you tell what's likely to be the source of a lot of blog posts over the coming summer? :)

How's the unpacking going?  Well, after a week or so here there's not a single room in it's "final" disposition, but at least the set of full boxes is getting smaller and smaller.  And we're now sleeping on a proper bed instead of an aerobed that deflates three times a night.

In the meanwhile, if you happen to be looking for a condo in Eastlake, I might happen to know someone who could hook you up.  Trust me, it'll be "friend" prices and all :)

Conclusions in news stories are right, right?

You can always trust the news right?  They'll give you the straight dope and you don't need to apply a critical filter questioning the source.  No?

Funny thing happened today.  I was on my way home this morning (ironically from the doctor) when I hear a story on the radio about how people concerned about the quality of medicine should be worried about living in Washington because in a new study just released Washington ranked 44th in terms of number of doctors disciplined.  This apparenlty is largely because of some quirks in the laws here that required a higher burden of proof, etc. etc.  You can feel good about going to Alaska where malpractice is taken seriously and they're at the top of the list of this survey.

Fast forward an hour or two and I had the news on while I was doing some work.  Lo and behold I was quite surprised to learn that we should all be feeling pretty good because a new study was out and it turns out that Washington ranked 44th in the nation in terms of doctors disciplined for malpractice - a list where you obviously want to be near the bottom.

Huh.