Category: Life. Don’t talk to me about life.

Lo I am converted

This weekend I’m down in DC doing registration services for an event – more detail on this later, but I have to gush a moment.
The hotel room here is your fairly standard ‘big chain’ accomodation, except for one minor touch.
The king-sized bed has a Tempurpedic mattress on it.
I’m so hooked. It’s the only mattress I’ve ever slept on where I could lie on my side comfortably, from head to toe. It gave enough in the hips to let me settle in, but supported everything else nicely. That, coupled with absolutely no motion from other occupants – I’m completely hooked.
If they weren’t so fripping expensive, I’d be, er, on top of one in an instant. As it is, I need to get into a place where dropping $800 on a king sized tempur-pedic mattress is a comfortable expenditure. Not to mention we just got up a new futon, so buying another mattress now really doesn’t make a ton of sense. Ah well.

A quickie XM comment

In all my driving around I have a lot of time to listen to XM Radio in the techno-van. Much of the time I spend listening to the various comedy channels – sort of non stop standup. It’s pretty interesting, but one unexpected delight keeps coming up.
Apparently XM Channel 151 has picked up the entire “Chicken Man” radio series. I used to hear this regularly on WMMR in Philadelphia, but hadn’t heard it since. It was a delight to hear that unmistakable introduction…

And now, it’s time for another exciting episode in the life of the most fantastic crimefighter the world has ever known… BRA BRAAA BRAH BRAAAAHHHHH CHICKEN… MAAAAAAAAN… (He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!)

For those that know this series, you can’t help but smile and hear the intro clearly when reading those words. Even after almost 40 years, it’s still a hoot to listen to, and I have to thank the anonymous genius at XM Radio who managed to get this show back on the air.
Some further details about the show are here. Thanks XM!

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!

Details about where CCP is going with Eve Online are being announced by the CEO at their 2006 Fanfest.

Some choice tidbits:

  • A Linux client is being ‘actively developed’, as well as a Mac client
  • Avatars are coming, so characters can walk around the stations. The avatars are fully dynamic, with eyes tracking other characters motions, etc.
  • A revamped graphical system supporting ultra-high end cards, while still supporting older platforms.
  • “Eve Mobile” – a client that can run on handheld computers allowing skill updates, trading, and EveMail.
  • Embedded Vivox client for voice chat

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

I for one welcome our new silicon overlords.

I feel like I’ve taken the bluepill. All I see around me is a sham, the wool that has been pulled over my eyes.
But, ya know? It’s going okay.
A grandiose change has happened to my work environment at Chez Geek. Due to the long-running contract with ${customer}, we worked out a deal where due to the instability and possible imminent death of hunter, I was issued a new laptop. The laptop, however, runs Windows, and it was made abundantly clear by said ${customer} that they’d prefer I worked in the same environment as they do, that being, of course, Windows.
So here I am, with a spanking new laptop named ‘clipper’, and running it as my full time primary machine. After my initial revulsion at the concept, I have to concede – it’s going quite well.
I shan’t go into the details of what is different between WindowsXP and Linux. That subject has been debated, chewed on, spat up, kicked about, and shot out of a cannon plenty over the last few years. But what I’m using this machine for is exactly what Microsoft has been working on for 15+ years. A stable, high powered desktop environment that can interract with a multitide of peripherals, platforms, and hardware without very little fiddling or complaints.
Over the next few weeks I’ll talk more about some of the applications and challenges I’ve been hitting with this migration, but for now, I seem to have reached a happy detante. My view for the moment is “This is stable, it works, it does things I could not do under Linux, but I still have all the power of my Linux machines handy just a few network segments away. I can deal.”
I’m sure this will be the case until I get my first virus or malware installation, but for now, I’m a happy bluepill.

Idiot AP Reporters

What is it with supposedly ‘technical’ reporters? They apparently haven’t clue ONE about the material they’re writing about.

Take for example an article appearing in the Herald Tribune – Europe. The subject is a good one, Tim Berners-Lee discussing research into the future of the ‘net. A worthy topic, but the short article contains this little gem:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who is credited with creating the Internet, said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. that the way the Web is used should be examined by a broad spectrum of experts.

NO. WRONG. TBL had nothing to do with the ‘Invention of the Internet’. TBL is credited with first linking hypertext documents with a mechanism for linking these documents to remote servers. He wrote the first webserver, and the first web browser, and coined the term ‘World Wide Web’. This is an application that runs OVER the internet.

Travels

What is it about New Jersey? Here I am, back again, this time for more than just visiting a client. It’s been almost a week since I’ve been home, and it begins to wear. But enough of the that, let’s see what’s been going on.

Ubercon

First of all, there was Ubercon. This is the 8th event I’ve done for them, starting with our snowbound adventures in the beginning of 2003. Many of the original folks who were at that event still come to the con, both as staff and as attendees. It’s settled into a close community of gamers, focusing on what they love most – Gaming. Sure there’s the smattering of costuming, artists, and movies, but the vast majority of the people there are there to play games. Board games, card games, miniatures, LAN games… 24 hrs a day for 3 days, gaming gaming gaming. Ubercon was the first place I ever played Settlers of Catan and Icehouse, was my first exposure to Unreal Tournament, and was the place I first saw Guitar Hero.

All in all the event went fine. With help from blk, we worked all the hours necessary, got at least one nice dinner out, and generally had an enjoyable time. Once again the Myth box was on prominent display, and many games of DigDug, Contra and SmashTV were played. I think there’s a future in making the machine easier to work with – console buttons for coin drops, player starts, and an easier selection mechanism. I would have liked to have left the machine alone and had people come up to play it more often, but alas, it was too prone to twitchy behavior and random joystick resets.

More work

Of course, Ubercon came to an end, and I had to go on to the next reason I’m here. My work for this client is coming along fine, with development proceeding apace. Nothing really riveting to tell here, but when away from the convention and spending a lot of time on my own, I get a chance to think about being here, and to write down some of the things I see…

I present to you my NJ ponderings…

Pizza

What’s that you say? Pizza? Boston has plenty of pizza! What’s your problem? Hah, I say. Boston has a mere shadow of proper cheesey goodness. NJ is home to the thin-crust style pizza. None of the heavy crust, grease laden horrors that populate the Beantown. Here, any pizzaria has decent thincrust pizza. I frequent my favorite spot every day for lunch, trying to get my fill. In my youth, when I lived in Trenton, a certain pizzaria saw me every day or every other day for dinner. I was quite the regular, and gained a reputation for ‘4 slices!’ – after which I’d happily park myself in a booth and read half a book in the space of 2 hours. Such was my social life.

Oddly, when I brought up my pizza fascination with one of the fellows at my clients’ office, he pointed out that Boston does indeed have a source of thincrust pizza. Papa Gino’s. In the interest of full disclosure, I do in fact eat there on occasion, but sadly, it can’t compete with small-shop pizza in the garden state.

Fuddruckers

Only recently did I find out this chain is more widespread than I had realized. Around 1993 I found a Fuddruckers near Edison when I was working for Unipress Software as a sysadmin. We’d make regular forays out for half pound ground beef burgers. Not sure exactly what made them so tasty, but they were sure good eatins. This trip I scheduled my drive from Ubercon down to Princeton to give me time to stop by that particularly restaurant on Route 1, and it was as tasty as I remember it. Delish.

Dunkin Donuts or lack thereof

The great DunkinDonuts epidemic hasn’t quite reached New Jersey yet. This has thrown off much of my morning routine, as given any opportunity, I’ll happily get a DD coffee and a bagel for breakfast (or lunch, or dinner, or a snack or…). In Boston, DDs are like mileposts. You can actually navigate by them (“Yeah, go down 3 DD’s, turn right, up 4 DD’s, and we’re on the left.”) Here? Not so much. I’ve found only one within a 10 mile radius of my hotel, and alas, it’s on the opposite side of the office. Sad.

The dichotomy of the state

New Jersey is a study in contrasts in many ways. Noting that I did in fact grow up here, my view of the state has always been somewhat bucolic. I grew up on a horse farm in a very rural area. Cows, horses, etc were the normal views, and getting around on trailbikes and snowmobiles was the norm. We could wander for miles in streams and woods exploring in any direction, just avoiding houses every once in a while. The first leg of this trip was spent in Secaucus, near Giants Stadium. There are fewer places displaying a harsher contrast against the locale of my youth than Secaucus. Perhaps Elizabeth (those who are familiar with the area will know Elizabeth by it’s high refinery – to – human ratio). After 4 days there, coming down to the Princeton area was a rather dramatic change. Here in Princeton, fall is in full swing. It is cool, breezy, the leaves are bright yellows and oranges, and there’s just a hint of winter coming. Such a contrast to the industrial squalor of Secaucus.

ETS

My arrangements in the Princeton area are usually set up for the Chauncey Conference Center, part of the Educational Testing Service, or ETS. I’m sure not a few readers frowned at the mention of ETS, as this company is the originator of the SATs, the bane of many a high school college-student-hopeful. At the moment, I’m sitting in the Chauncey Conference Center lounge, in front of a lovely fire in a natural stone fireplace, in a large comfortable leather chair. Over the fireplace is a portrait of man in his early 60s, holding a pipe, with a loose, comfortable smile. This man is Henry Chauncey, the founder of ETS way back in the day.

Why is this of note? When my family moved from Long Island to New Jersey when I was about 6, we rented a house in Ringoes, NJ, about 8 miles from here, for a little over a year. During that time, I got to be friends with our neighbor and his family. He had a daughter named Sarah who was just my age, and another daughter. His wife I remember only fleetingly – I know she died around that time from cancer, but I don’t know if it was during the time I was around. The fathers picture now is in front of me above the fireplace.

I spent a lot of time in the Chauncey household – Sarah and I had a lot of fun playing and just enjoying having a friend right next door. Mr. Chauncey (as I knew him) was always kind and had a lovely rolling voice. My memories of him were of a quiet, gentle man with a strong voice and the omnipresent smell of pipesmoke. His office was the epitomal intellectual / businessman’s home office. Heavy panelling, books books books in floor to ceiling shelves, a huge desk with a fantastic leather chair behind it, and of course, his pipes.

One particular memory I have of being at his house was spending time in the fields around the house, riding on this wonderful machine he had. A late 1940’s Ford 8N tractor. My first experience with these wonderful machines was sitting in his lap as he taught me to drive, and told me that keeping my foot on the clutch pedal was a bad idea “Nope, don’t do that, that’s called riding the clutch.”

It’s odd now sitting in front of his painting, enjoying some of what he helped build. I kept in touch with his daughter Sarah off and on over the years, and as I understand it, Mr. Chauncey lived late into his 90s, still active and travelling around the world with his daughter. I understand he finally passed away sometime around 1995.

Computer ads through the ages.

This has been linked to from everywhere, everywhen, but here it is incase you’ve been under a tech-media rock for the last couple days.
PCWorld has put together a great Youtube collection of television computer ads. Some are hysterical, some are pitiful, some are sad. I’m particularly mournful of the loss of the Apple Newton, one of the finest pieces of technology ever designed, IMNSHO.
See the collection…

Katrina a Year Later, from someone who was there.

My friend Michael was down in St Bernard Parish in the weeks and months after Katrina came through, using his skill and knowledge as an architect to help evaluate the condition of the schools in the area. He toured virtually every one of them, taking pictures and working with the local, state, and federal agencies ‘up close and personal’.
He’s just posted fantastic photoessay about some of his time there, interspersed with words from the Powers on High. I found it incredibly moving.

Moonlight Sonata goes Jazz!

At one point this weekend I wandered through the lobby and past a room that just had a single baby grand piano in it. I had an urge to just go in and -play-. Just to work some rhythms out, quiet music for myself and if someone wanted to listen, that would be okay. I don’t have that skill on a piano, but I sure had a longing for it…
This morning I found on a video on YouTube of a Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata done in Jazz form. It ends abruptly at about 2 minutes, but talk about a fascinating arrangement of what is (in my opinion) one of the finest pieces of music ever written.
Of course it’s making me think about the lovely Roland electric piano sitting not 15′ away from me, and not on the work I need to do. Ah distraction.

I Am Returned!

Back from phase 2 of my whirlwind tour of east coast points of interest. Zach and I just got in from attending the National Cohousing Conference in Chapel Hill, NC. Cat is staying an additional day to attend the board meeting on Monday, then returns tomorrow night.
We had a great time, flying down Thursday morning into SUMMER IN NORTH CAROLINA. Man we thought Boston knew how to whip up humidity. This stuff was like walking through tapioca. Fortunately, all the areas were air conditioned, so we only needed to get drenched when walking to or from the dorms. Or out for a meal. So, a mere 4-5 times a day.
Zach thoroughly enjoyed the plane and bus rides, and met up with some great kids at the conference, so for the most part we just saw him as an occasionaly blur zipping by while we were doing sessions or socializing. I of course helped run registration using CONGO, which would have gone better if, er, I had not left the server in Logan Airport while boarding the plane on Thursday. The Logan police have recovered it and it’s enjoying a vacation in their offices, but it sure did result in a scramble at the event on Thursday afternoon. Much of the hardware I brought with me wasn’t used (like the printers), but all in all we got most of the system running on my laptop.
Unfortunately, all of the UNC Chapel Hill campus (where the event was held) was without wireless access, so we were unable to get any laptops online. They did have ‘public access’ terminals in the student union we could do webmail on, but it was hardly convenient for blogging and socializing online. Guess that was sort of the point, huh?
I have many pictures and other bits to share, and in 5 days we all leave again for a reunion at Simons Rock in Great Barrington, MA. Should be a nice weekend of music and socializing. Then I get a break for 2 weeks, and head down to Tampa for another convention. Summer 2006 is turning into quite the busy schedule.

Pittsburgh Road Trip, days 4 and 5.

Saturday finally saw us have a break in the heat, and we had a very comfortable, sunny day. The temperatures were down around normal, and the humidity had slacked off a fair amount. I took my shift checking folks in down at the front gate, which was a good opportunity to get some quiet time. Barb came down to keep me company, but mostly we just sat and read or took it easy.
A revelation did come to me on Saturday though. I hadnt’ been drinking soda for the whole trip. I’m an admitted soda junkie – love the stuff, but sheesh, it’s calorie-riffic. I don’t particularly like the diet arrangements, but somewhere on this trip I made the conscious switch to water or flavored water of some sort. One of the factors in this was Barb had brought one of those little polycarbonate bottles that are becoming so common, primarily in the form of Nalgene products. I had sort of dismissed these, saying “They’re just plastic bottles, just like the ones I keep in my cabinet.” But what I hadn’t realized is that these things ARE in fact great for long term holding of drinks. They don’t stain, they don’t smell, they’re trivial to clean, and they’re very hard to break. Over the weekend, the small 500ml bottle was kept topped off with cold water and a dash of lemonade mix, and kept me quite happy. I also was comfortable with “cold water with just a touch of lemon” – we kept diluting the bottle with more cold water, and it was still fine. Compare that with the heavy-syrupy tast of a ‘normal’ mix of lemonade or iced tea mix – I didn’t feel ill or over-sugared after downing an entire bottle. (Did use the woods a lot though 🙂
P7170080.JPGOne other incident of note. I had made a chainmail necklace for Barb out of small black anodized rings – and folks seemed to like it a lot. So on Saturday afternoon I pulled out my tools and rings and sat down to socialize and work on some other patterns. Eventually others came over and were chatting with us, and looked at my work. “Hey, can you make one of those for me?” “Uhh, sure. How long, what pattern?” An hour later I had 6 commissions for chainmail jewelry, of which about half could be completed that evening. I finished off the work, collected fees for pieces, and went “Well, huh. That just paid for the event fee and part of the cost of gas.” Much thought has gone into this through the rest of the event and during the drive home. I don’t think I want to open up a little chainmail shop (I certainly don’t have the time for it), but as a side hobby, something that doesn’t involve computers, it seems profitable and pleasant. I’ll be taking my tools with me this coming weekend down to North Carolina to work on some of the commission pieces during quiet times at the cohousing conference.
Sunday it was time to come home. This was going to be a longer trip than going out – I’d be driving from the campsite in Waynesburg all the way back to Natick (note – that’s not the route I took, because I had to go through Pittsburgh, but you get the idea). The day was much hotter than Saturday, and I wasn’t looking forward to the 11+ hour drive.
P7170095.JPGAll in all, it went okay, if slower than I’d like. We left the campsite around 11am, but I didn’t actually get into Natick until 1am Monday morning. Factors included construction slowdowns on Rt 80, and a desperately needed rest break somewhere in eastern PA where I took a nap in a rest stop for about 1/2 an hour. The views and scenery for the drive were, as always, wonderful. I took a stop near the border of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, and took some pictures across the valleys west and north. This is south of Binghamton.
I think if I’m going to do these long trips regularly, I have to make sure I have enough sleep and food for the drive, and no time pressure. A second driver would have helped a lot as well, just to be able to take a nap, but then I’d miss the grand opportunity of being alone to my thoughts, music, and XM stations for hours on end, something I truly value.

Pittsburgh Road Trip, Day 2

(Written saturday on the Treo – typos may abound…)
All set up! If I had my druthers I think i’d have preferred something less than 85+ degrees and 90% humidity with occasional rain squalls for setup day, but ya takes what yas can git.
Parking last night in town was tricky. Where do you park 30′ of vehicle+trailer in a small city? We managed to find a sidestreet and with a silent hope the house we parked in front of didn’t contain the type of family that lay claim to the strip of concrete that happens to be in front of their house, we trooped back to blk’s place. I remembered to bring the battery pack in for the night and, making sure all my gadgets were plugged in and recharging, we turned in for the night.
Thurs morning found the van and trailer untouched and we hauled it around to the house to load up. The event site wasn’t open for setup until noon, so we lounged about until it was time to go. Driving time was about an hour and a half, so, after picking up lunch, we hit the road.
P7170070.JPGThe site is sort of rolling hills. Going by what blk has said I was expecting to be the only non-tent but we ended up flanked by a pair of land zeppelins to one side (one of which ran a generator all night) and another popup on the other. Several small tent pavilions were set up as well.
We got the trailer situated back in the trees and unhitched just in time for the next rainshower. There are few greater joys than setting up a camper trailer during rain (note sarcasm). It actually went fine… The trick was not dumping water on the beds as the ‘wings’ were opened. Success on that front. After the trailer was set up I installed the battery into the trailer power system and lo! We had lights! Our domicile was complete.
A lot of my fears about noise and heat and neighbors et al remained mercifully unfulfilled. A couple key points do come up though…
Camping with 100 folks mostly falling into the 40-60 yr old crew is vastly different than camping with the 20-40 crew. The most noticeable metric is come 1am? Everyone is in bed asleep. Compared with my other group camping experience, this is unheard of. Far be it for me to complain.
P7170067.JPGWe’re almost in West Virginia, which means the area is very urban and doesn’t suffer from the ‘there are pockets of wilderness’ problem common to New England. Here you can drive for hours and see only hills and forests and valleys with occasional farms.
The drawback with being in the ‘country’, or at least this crew here, is the food tends to the basics of ‘hearty, heavy, and plentiful’. On the one hand, its food I like so I’m certainly not starving. On the other, I feel like I should go jogging for an hour after each meal. Maybe I’m just not made out to be a glutton.
The privately owned campsite has been built up through several years of events and now sports several fixed buildings and a very well designed shower / water system – a large shower area with several garden hose type hand sprays, hooked up to 2000 gallons of trucked in water and a gas on demand water heater, all on a poured concrete floor. For camping showers, it doesn’t get much better 🙂
All in all things have been good, modulo the normal bits regarding camping in July. Thursday was quite humid, but got down to tolerable at night, thankfully. No wet clothes, no searing heat, insects at tolerable levels (apparently due to a fairly aggressive spraydown the site gets a week before the event).
More posts as time permits 🙂

Say it ain’t so! U-Bet not in glass anymore?

From Foxs Syrups Website (Granted, the website is 4 years out of date, but still!) :

U-bet Plastic Bottle at November 01, 2002
We are pleased to announce that we are changing our packaging to a NEW plastic squeeze bottle.
After 75+ years in glass, we have decided that in order to better serve you, our customers, we must change our packaging. Be assured that our product has not nor will ever change at all. We are committed to the same standards of excellence that we have always strove to achieve.

A certain someone once got me an entire case of u-bet chocolate syrup in the 32oz glass jars. They lasted almost a year. I’d be mighty sad if the wonderful glass jars are no more!