The Occasional Blog

I’m sitting on the couch at the moment wearing my sunglasses in a room with the blinds closed and writing this blog post while I normally would be wrapping up at work to head home. Why? Is it because I am just too cool for the room and couldn’t be bothered with work or the many paparazzi that often linger by my house? Not a chance. No, no. The simple truth is that I am recovering from one of those many unexpected events that occur in life. Let me explain.

One of (many) projects I’m dealing with at work is racking up some PS3 development systems (one pictured at right) and while they are often used in our offices, these are the first that my group have ever had to set up in our datacenters. Unfortunately, the rails for the units were unlike any that I had seen before and came with zero instructions. When examining how I was going to get them to work last Friday, I concluded that the slots in the provided rail brackets were too thin for the M5 cage nuts and screws provided. I figured that since there are several ways for server racks to work, the hardware included presumed one type and we used a different one. "No problem," I thought. My manager suggested using a drill or dremel to compensate. I was frustrated that I would have to do such a thing, but fortunately I had the necessary equipment at home so I took the brackets home with me.

On Sunday between church and our last home fellowship meeting for the season, I pulled out my dremel (knock-off, actually) and started working through the bits to find what would work. I discovered that the grinding wheel worked pretty well and so I took care of the lot of them (there were eight).

The next morning when I went to use my modified hardware, I figured out that it wasn’t actually necessary. Eh, oh well. It did take an hour for the two servers (by comparison, I can rack one of our Dells in about 5 minutes) but I finally got them working. Satisfied, I went on with my day which by my luck was filled with vendor meetings.

Around lunchtime, my eyes started bothering me. Not burning, just like there was sand or similar irritation and I couldn’t stop blinking. I was able to get through the day and during the somewhat uncomfortable drive home (blinking, tearing, and aching) I discussed the situation and possibilities with B. She pulled out her trusty nursing books and we went over the options. Pink eye? Ugh, I shook hands with a lot of people (including my manager as a joke). I felt horrible with the possibility of starting a mini outbreak of conjunctivitis. I remembered the metalwork I was doing just a day before, but wasn’t sure as I had no complaints for almost 24 hours. She scheduled a examination by an ophthalmologist to determine what was going on.

That was this morning at 8:30. I had taken my lunch, this laptop, and my other work items with the presumption I was going to be heading in afterwards. The nice gentleman checked my eyesight (still good), and examined my eyes. He discovered two metal fragments (one in each eye). He got the one in my left and half of the one in my right which was more deeply embedded. He called a nearby vision center and was able to get an immediate examination with a corneal surgeon to get the remaining piece and to excise the tissue around the injury as rust was already present. About an hour later of significant examination and (ironically, a smaller dremel like device), he had removed the remaining fragment and the surrounding tissue. He gave me some anti-bacterial drops to use for the next few days and sent me home. As it was already about 11:15 and work is an hour away, there was no chance I could head in. The drive home was a treat with the nice, bright sunshine.

I worked briefly via VPN but was quickly sanctioned by both my wives (my real one and my office-mate) so went low(er) tech and listened to podcasts with my eyes closed. As the afternoon wore on, my eyes got more sore to the point now (at 7:30) I’m thankful the sun as set and am trying to avoid anything bright which would cause my iris to constrict which is still quite unpleasant. The picture at left is the best that could be taken with little ambient light. It’s enough to get an idea how much I discourage the experience for others. I’m hopeful a full night sleep will help considerably and I can get back to work tomorrow which is K‘s birthday.

Now, my lovely wife(wives) criticize me for not using proper eye protection, and while that is true, I have realized, or at least justified, that it could have been from my hair or clothes which would have happened either way. If I really want to point fingers, I should have spent more time examining the rail system to determine that modification wouldn’t be necessary. As anyone who knows me well knows, I tend to take things as they come. I don’t blame anyone (certainly not my employer as I wasn’t doing this under their direction) and the Lord was kind enough to (so far) get me through this. I’m pretty sure it will just improve as the days/weeks go on.

 I’ve heard about GrandCentral a few times, but never had the chance to take a look. I’m impressed. The service which was acquired last summer by Google, has a very interesting concept of a single phone number for life.

How it works is this, you pick a phone number in any area code you wish (not necessarily where you live or work), and then register your other phones (e.g., home, mobile, and work). When somebody calls your new number, all of your registered numbers ring simultaneously. You can limit which phones ring based on the designation of the caller (family, friend, work or unknown). You can even register a SIP phone like Gizmo Project or an Asterix service. Now, you can hand out a single number for all folks and not worry about giving a more private number and they can still get a hold of you. If you don’t answer, GrandCentral will take a voicemail and can email and/or SMS you with the notification and link to get the message. You can also customize the greeting for each caller which certainly make it more personable.

A cool feature is you can switch between any of your registered phones by pressing ‘*’ just like if you switched extensions in your home.

Lastly, and perhaps the geekiest feature, is the WebCall button you’ll find on the home page of my blog. You click the "Call Me" graphic, enter your name, and the number you can be reached at and click "Call Me." What happens next, is your call-back number will ring and when you answer, my extensions will ring and connect us when I pick up.

I hope I’ve given a reasonable description of the service. For me, I plan on using it specifically for work for a single contact number when our network operations center needs to get a hold of me and for those occasions I need to give a number to somebody but don’t want to worry about staying at a number or leaving the line open.

If you’re game, give me a call at 760-444-0399. I’m planning on using it from now on.

My work traditionally gives us the week between Christmas and New Years off and this year is no different. Not only do I get 11 days off (12/22-1/1) but the real advantage is the fact the entire office (with the exception of one of the game studios who is behind on their schedule of a springtime game) is also off which means I don’t have to worry about work piling up.

Aside from getting together with friends and family for Christmas, one thing that we are all planning is a Harry Potter marathon on Thursday as we just got the Harry Potter 1-5 box set for Blu-Ray. That should be fun.

A good friend at work shared a very funny joke with me this morning:

It was autumn, and the Indians on the reservation asked their new chief if it was going to be a cold winter. Raised in the ways of the modern world, the chief had never been taught the old secrets and had no way of knowing whether the winter would be cold or mild. To be on the safe side, he advised the tribe to collect wood and be prepared for a cold winter. A few days later, as a practical afterthought, he called the National Weather Service and asked whether they were forecasting a cold winter. The meteorologist replied that, indeed, he thought the winter would be quite cold. The chief advised the tribe to stock even more wood.
A coupe of weeks later, the chief checked in again with the Weather Service. “Does it still look like a cold winter? asked the chief.
“It sure does,” replied the meteorologist. “It looks like a very cold winter.” The chief advised the tribe to gather up every scrap of wood they could find.
A couple of weeks later, the chief called the Weather Service again and asked how the winter was looking at that point. The meteorologist said, “We’re now forecasting that it will be the one of the coldest winters on record!”
“Really?” said the chief. “How can you be so sure?”
The meteorologist replied, “The Indians are collecting wood like crazy!”

Through the generous donation of time from my dear friend, Kristin, I was able to purchase an iPhone this past Saturday morning. I have to say that I’m quite pleased. Sure, I could have stuck with my current phone, but the fact is that the commercials are accurate. The device works as they say it does. I truly have a full web browser, functional email, impressive iPod, and a functional PIM all about the size of a deck of cards. I am still getting accustomed to how everything works and there are some minor nitpicks, but I think I will be quite pleased for the foreseable future.

Confused about Kristin’s involvement? Well, since the iPhone was released just over a week ago, supplies have been somewhat limited. Apple was kind enough to identify every night which of their retail stores will have some in the morning. Since the only reasonably close Apple stores are in San Diego (UTC and Fashion Valley), Kristin offered to get there early in case supplies are limited as she lives much closer. I argued with her that such an offer was unnecessary but since she insisted that she would enjoy the time away from the house to read, it would have been rude of me to decline.

All-in-all, I have a cool gadget and an even cooler friend.

Since I’ve been essentially “off-net” for the last 10 days, I haven’t been following all of the iPhone hype leading up to it’s launch two days ago. I’ve been trying to get caught-up on feeds and, so far, I haven’t seen anything that I would classify as a “fatal flaw” with it which was my main reason for not buying one from the start. Well, that and the fact I was going to be in Canada at the time.

The one thing that I think is unfortunate, is that it doesn’t support video out from the headphone jack like the current generation of iPod with Video. My biggest concern now, which I haven’t yet determined, is whether it works with my iPod integration in my car. I wouldn’t have thought it would be a problem as they kept saying “it’s an iPod”, but it’s being reported that not all iPod accessories work properly with the iPhone.

Fortunately, my friend was going to purchase one at launch and if he has (I haven’t talked to him yet), it will take only 30 seconds to find out. Perhaps, the next you hear from me, it’ll be about my new toy.

I’ve been a long time listener to the Geek News Central podcast and to celebrate his recent 250th episode, he asked 10 listeners to call in for a very special gift box. Due to my ever-so-early 5:00 AM drive in to work, it wasn’t hard for me to leave him a quick voicemail. I don’t know if I was the first, but I was one of the ten as he announced my name the following episode.

Fast forward today and I was the happy recipient of quite a nice hand-crafted box of very thoughtful and Hawaii-oriented items:

From left to right. Back row: Lion Coffee catalog and 7 oz of Fancy Roasted Coffee, Hawaiian Host Chocolate Covered Macadamia Nuts, a Tiki Candle (“Ku” the god of war), a good luck cat (inscription “Ten Million” for much wealth). Front row: Aloha Bottle Jacket, blubrry sticker and stress ball, a PodcastConnect.com pen, and a note card. Not pictured: A teak napkin holder.

The card reads:

Geek News Central Ohana

Congratulations on winning a gift box on my 250th show. I apologize for this taking so long but we have been crazy busy. I appreciate your support of the show, and hope that you enjoy the selection of goodies that my lovely wife picked out. Each box was a little different as we picked stuff up piece meal.

Thanks again for being such a great supporter of the show.

–Todd

It was a very generous gift and I really appreaciate the effort and expense. Give his show a listen, it really is a fun podcast.

I got bit by the RSS bug about two years ago as I used to frequent the same 15-20 websites daily and being able to subscribe to them made keeping up much easier and reduced the chance of me missing something because I didn’t check often enough.

For the unfamiliar, RSS is a way to publish the essential information about a blog post, news article or similar data and make that available to anything that can parse and display that information (e.g., a browser, application, or web service). Podcasts are distributed in this fashion with your “podcatcher” occasionally checking the feed and downloaded a new episode for you.

I used to use Bloglines but am currently enjoying Google’s Reader and am subscribed to 67 different feeds. With a good portion producing new information daily and a few several times an hour, the amount of content is considerable.

A good friend of mine was lamenting to me how his “TiVo chores.” TiVo has an option to automatically record shows it thinks you will like in addition to the shows you tell it to record. For him, he has to make a point to sit down and filter through and/or watch all the shows before he gets too behind. Similarly, for me, I check Google Reader multiple times a day to ensure that I don’t get too far behind.

So having said all of that, the question I have to ask is are we being served ball all this information or are we instead allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by things that don’t really matter? I could probably read only a fraction of the items that I wade through and not be the worse for it, but my compulsive side would make me obsess about the things I didn’t read.

The second complaint another friend of mine made was the fact that by digesting website information via RSS you can often miss out on the other things you see if you visit the website directly. Things like comments, related links, and even in some cases, ads. “Browsing” in the general sense is lost. In the context of a printed newspaper, if you read only the front page, you miss all sorts of content on page 3 or in the Lifestyles section (not to mention the classifieds).

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I can’t help but think there is a considerable amount of growing up and learning we will all have to do to find a balance between the information serving us and us serving the information.

I’ve been using MythTV which is the open source DVR and home theater system for Linux for years. I originally set it up because I wanted a TiVo but disliked the concept of a monthly fee to use something that I paid for. Of course, I’m a geek, so it’s reasonable for me to put together a new box, install Linux, and install and configure a fairly complex product that was, at the time, early in development.
Read more…

Our two dogs have done a number on our back yard. I’ve fought off-and-on for years trying to keep the lawn in reasonable shape, but just couldn’t make it work. Combine that with the fact Becky has always wanted a waterfall we decided that it was worth investigating.

We decided to dive in, so-to-speak, and last week replaced a significant portion of our small yard with a waterfall and pond. It was installed/built by Exotic Aquatics who did a wonderful job (thanks, Brian). It turned out to be both larger and more impressive than I, at least, had imagined.

You can see a few pictures of the progress and the result on the gallery album. We’ll be going fish shopping this weekend as fish represent an important component of the whole ecosystem. Of course, my friend at work thinks I should just liberate a few from the gigantic koi pond at the Karl Strauss Brewery next to work but we’ll go the more honest route.

I’m sure there will be additional stories and pictures as this whole thing develops. I’ll keep you posted.