may 2006
may 29 2006 22:20 pdt i just did this to my tivo. now i have to plug it in to see if it worked :-!
may 25 2006 23:04 pdt anticipating the move, i've started selling books on half.com. if you see something you like, you should buy it now.
may 23 2006 22:58 pdt i have spent the last hour wildy listing books on half.com. i'm finally giving up on ever needing/using those physics textbooks ever again, and i'm hoping that someone, somewhere, will still want to spend money to buy a copy of david goodstein's (shoot the monkey!) mechanical universe. i guess only time will tell the value of a 6-year-old book.
in other news, there was a huge power outage in the east bay tonight, and lots of folks came home to find that they had no juice at their house. we had power at our house when i came home, but there had clearly been an outage, as all the clocks were blinking on our clock-enabled appliances and my linux peecee was down. sigh- only 90 days of uptime... i'm going to need to buy a ups if i ever want to put up a number more impressive than consumer utility reliability will allow.
may 21 2006 13:44 pdt yesterday we woke up at 4:30 in the morning, drove to lodi, and rode our bikes 100 miles. we were pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a total wasteland- the ride around the camanche reservoir in particular was scenic and enjoyable. i wish now that we'd stopped to take some pictures of the (man-made) waterfalls in the spillways below the pardee reservoir, because that was probably the neatest part of the ride to me. everything that grows in that area depends on extensive irrigation systems, from grapes to pecans to the groves of cherry trees to the landscaping around people's houses. it was instructive to see the reservoirs that sit upstream from all of those terraced fields, and it was also interesting to see some low-lying vinyards that are flooded by the high streams this week. record rain/snowfall in march and april, combined with a very warm may and this weekend's unusual rainstorms are leading to flood watches across the central valley.
my body stopped cooperating at about mile 85, and the last 5 or 6 miles weren't very fun, but then we were done! we stayed with john and koranna in merced, had a chicken dinner that couldn't be beat, a slice of koranna's infamous chocolate cake, and went soundly to sleep. this morning we woke up bright and early and drove back here as fast as conditions would allow. we saw lots and lots of chp cars on the 99, and the v1 saved me twice.
i just swapped out the hard disk in peggy's ipod for a new one, following the directions here. they were going to charge her something like $200 at the apple store to do the repair- the scam is, after the warranty runs out, they'll charge $200 to fix it, or you can trade your broken one in for 10% off another ipod. the new disk cost about $90 from a site called ewiz.com, and the repair itself took me less than 15 minutes, including the time i spent shooing the cat out of my workspace and pauses to take pictures along the way. not bad for a sunday afternoon- i think i'm going to celebrate by taking a nap.
may 16 2006 22:57 pdt tonight i think i got the layout right. i may be a willing convert to this new theory of page design where tables are frowned upon- everything suddenly became much easier when i started taking out those superfluous tr tags. oh, and tonight we broke felice's nose, and everyone gave up on practice and went home early. before we went to the pool, we ran four miles- but i sure would have been happy to play another 30 minutes of polo before deciding we were all done for the night.
may 15 2006 21:17 pdt photos from flickr posted on the right. should update when i upload new photos- which might be a while, becuase they say that i've already hit the cap for the free account this month, and i've only uploaded 15 or so new pictures. i guess i'll have to see if there is any savings to be had from scaling new pics down before i try to upload them...
may 15 2006 19:03 pdt the watermelons all came up overnight. if the snails don't eat them tonight, i'm sure they'll be lovely in july.
may 13 2006 19:14 pdt to answer a question from dear old dad: lhasa karnak is apparently a fixture in the berkeley landscape, and yes they will ship anything you want. shipping rates are by the pound.
may 13 2006 12:25 pdt it's one of those lazy gorgeous bay-area summer days. i want to drive to stintson beach just for the heck of it- the journy would surely be just as much fun as actually being there. maybe tomorrow morning before everyone else wakes up so i don't have to worry about dealing with the traffic.
one of these days, i'm going to have to get around to installing the new air intake. i'm afraid it's going to be one of these things where it should take an hour but instead it's going to take me 3 or 4 to get it right. feelings of longer-term anxiety are starting to build, becuase i know there is a long to-do list in the near future that i haven't started writing down yet. not much time to worry about gardening this spring.
may 12 2006 01:13 pdt this is getting to be a habit again. not a good thing. however the updates to the water polo site are all published now, and at least i can stop feeling guilty about not doing that part of my job, even as i've volunteered to take on other duties to get ready for the tourney this summer.
may 10 2006 00:25 pdt another day, another late night. so much to do, so little time- i'm blaming this one on mike dove. but i still woke up before the alarm at 6:45 am today, and i have high hopes that i can keep it up for the rest of the week.
may 9 2006 00:17 pdt i have been trying to go to bed before 11:00 pm for the last week or so. i guess that's out the window. today i woke up at 6:30 before the alarm went off. wonder when i'll wake tomorrow...
may 8 2006 23:12 pdt we had half of the conversation at work today. the other half will need to wait 6 weeks or so. the only other meaningful conversation i have recently been involved with is basically over- one letter left, but even if they say yes the decision has already been made.
as it turns out, lots of people know real estate agents. i have a tendency to look at professional services people with a jaundiced eye, and that goes double for personal services providers like realtors. perhaps i'm wrong to do so, but my natural instinct is to put realtors in the same category as hair stylists and used car salesman. sure, they perform a useful service to help busy people get on with their lives, but if it was up to me they would be on ark b with the phone sanitizers and marketing executives. i have a deeply ingrained reluctance to trust people who earn their living by selling things to me- i can't look past the fact that at heart, they don't have my best interests in mind. thus tivo, adblock, and no answering machine. this should make for some entertaining personal interactions as summer warms up.
it finally stopped raining here. i dug up the flower bed in the front where all my green beans had died and planted squash and watermelons. with any luck, it will all be a godawful unholy mess of vegetation by the time august rolls around. i for one am looking forward to it.
on a totally unrelated note, i spent an hour visiting various grocery stores around the bay area tonight, looking for fenugreek seed to use as a spice for ethiopian cooking. i'm craving yebeg tibs with berbere sauce, and i can't find anyone selling one of the essential ingredients. if any ethiopians or eritreans out there have tips for me where to go, please don't be shy about sending emails.
