Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Via the power of cell phones, my brother and I discovered that our parents are apparently without power and phone up in Maine. Ice storms are messy, messy things.

My cold is drifting away. Slowly. Somewhat painfully. The coughing is going to kill me.

I shopped for holiday goody baking. I’m behind schedule compared to last year since I’ve been sick all week but I won’t have that pesky work stuff in the way this week. (My gift shopping, on the other hand, is a lost cause. I’m going to have to go to… the Mall.)

Venice, Italy is a peculiar place unlike anywhere else on the planet. One of the things that makes it particularly peculiar is “acqua alta” – high water – when astronomically high tides flood the city. This month’s acqua alta is the deepest the floods have been in 22 years. Boston.com’s “The Big Picture” features some incredible photos. One of the lowest areas of the city is St. Mark’s Square. Coincidentally, this is also one of the most popular tourist zones and a bustling retail area. Lisaf and I were in Venice for acqua alta in 2003 and it was indeed really peculiar. You can get some really interesting photos of St. Mark’s and the various architecture of the square reflected in the pools of water. Venice is not warm this time of year – being on the water gives the air a damp, brutal chill to begin with. Having the water this high, well that must make that chill even worse.

In other news, we have Teddy Bears in Space. How cool is it that students made space suits for their little bears and then sent them almost 20 miles up into the atmosphere? The photos at the link above are really remarkable. Beyond that, how cool is it that middle school aged students are launching things nearly into space? They are currently “designing a system to launch a rocket from a balloon platform to out space for under £1,000 a go.” Incredible! Don’t you wish you’d thought of that?

Photos: 1. St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice as reflected in a puddle from the acqua alta in November 2003. 2. A lion overlooks the canal in Venice.

acqua alta, baking, cooking, health, holidays, ice storm, maine, miscellany, random, space flight, teddy bears, venice, weather, weekend

Happy First Day of AUTUMN! Welcome Fall! YAY! (I got 6 million mosquito bites while taking that photo.)

Endangered Words ALERT! Dictionary compilers are discriminating against obscure words! The TimesOnline has a list of words due to be culled from the next edition of the Collins dictionary and I’m sure there are other dictionary editors feeling the crunch. What I find counterintuitive is that editors are inclined to remove the most obscure words – these are the very words for which we find ourselves going to the dictionary!

Apple has recalled the iPhone 3G UltraCompact adapter. According to the recall notice, the prongs may break off in an outlet.

According to the Consumerist, there are 10 critical skills to have now that the economy has tanked. #10 is Food Preservation, which was on my list next anyway. I like #8 as well (Learn a Second Language). #4 is Cooperation, another key skill we all should have learned in kindergarten but seem to have forgotten sometime during the dot-com boom. It’s a very practical list – check it out.

dPS has an awesome tutorial up explaining how to make digital photos look like Lomo photography. I need to find time to follow the instructions.

My congestion is finally starting to let go. My voice is still a bit off. I feel like I have most of my brain cells back. After a week of congestion, sniffles, sneezing and general unhappiness with my head and sinuses, I’m rather happy to be feeling so well.

apple, economy, english, iphone, language, photography, random, recall, technology, writing

We visited the Apple store last night. I bought the latest Apple Keyboard. It’s going to take some getting used to. The keys are smaller but spaced the same as a standard keyboard. This gives the keyboard a sleek look as each key is framed with shiny aluminum – the frame is not quite flush with the top of the key but it’s close enough that typing is definitely a different experience. It also means there’s less room for sloppy typing, in my case at least. I’m also noticing that my fingernails are a little long as they glance off keys. I like the action of the keys and it’s a quiet keyboard as well so I’ll definitely adjust. It’s nice to have my volume and iTunes commands back on my keyboard. As an added bonus the “help” key has been replaced with a “function” key so I can accidentally hit it all I want without invoking the stupid little “helpful” creatures.

I got an iPhone earlier this month too. It’s fun though rather anticlimactic since they’ve been around over a year now. I did not wait in line for it, which was of course a requirement. I didn’t wait in a line last year to buy Will’s, I wasn’t interested in queuing up for my own. I like the little apps. I particularly like that it serves as both cell phone and iPod on short trips at least. We’ll see if the battery can manage longer trips. The screen is lovely, the headset that came standard in the box is good enough for me, and it’s a pretty cool toy. 3G was definitely worth waiting for. Edge is doable, but 3G is tangibly faster and very usable. I am a patch behind because the next update requires iTunes 8.0 and I’m not quite willing to do that yet. I need to rearrange some files first. My primary hard drive is nearly out of space. Again. Big video files are not helping my cause apparently.

apple, iPhone, keyboards, technology, toys

That’s right… my video card died. Annoying and money I didn’t really want to spend, but it could have been so much worse. This is actually the first real maintenance I’ve had to do to my desktop Mac in 3.5 years. (Okay, I did upgrade to Tiger last year sometime and I repaired a problem with the hard drive on Thursday night, but the latter was an attempt to fix what turned out to be the video card. I haven’t actually pulled over my iPhoto library from my backup drive yet since the versions don’t match. I’m hoping to get through the next bunch of episodes with what I can shoot in the next few days. Of course, I’m going away the end of this week and will need to line up some extra episodes in advance… Good thing I enjoy a challenge.

And don’t think Monster Cat won’t mock *YOU* if you don’t do your back-ups regularly and get bitten in the but for it.

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

cats, comics, monster cat, silly, tennyson

Happy Summer! This brings us one step closer to Winter again!

The plan for today was to draft a pattern on junk fabric for the viking apron dress I want to make for Pennsic.

Unfortunately, the video card in my desktop went kaput sometime over night. For the record, a Mac desktop tower is very heavy. Carrying it through the Mall was rather foolish and I have the bruises on my forearms to prove it. It turns out the Apple Store has a loading dock – I’ll use that next time, really. Anyway, so the Mac Genius confirmed my suspicions about the video card. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of cards still available for my Mac since it’s 3.5 years old. They’ve ordered one for me and expect to have my Mac all happy and fixed within the week, but probably later rather than earlier. *sigh* Luckily my laptop is almost as cool and I have back ups of most of my data so I can do almost everything on the laptop until I get the desktop back.

I admit, I almost didn’t repair it. I’m saving for a new desktop but, as with every major purchase in my life, I’d been having 2nd thoughts because my desktop really is chugging along nicely for what I do on it. I just can no longer do as much at once. I think if I slap another 2 gb of RAM in it though… and maybe another external hard drive… Much cheaper than any new Mac.

To console myself for the loss of my Mac and most of my afternoon, I came home and made a plate tomatoes and mozzarella with basil.

Alas, I do NOT have a backup of my photos for the past month. I need to take a lot of photos of Mr. Paw this weekend to ensure I have enough material for the next 5 or 6 episodes of Monster Cat. Luckily, I didn’t have any plans for adorable kitten flashbacks again until late summer.

I did plant a rosemary plant I’d picked up earlier this week. I also got to play with the hose and water the raised beds. And I cleaned my desk a bit and vacuumed my office. These things were technically in my plans for the weekend, so I guess the day isn’t a total loss.

powermac g5, repair, saturday derailed, video card, computers, apple, weekend, monster cat

So, the day before we left on vacation I dumped about a half cup of water into my Kensington Trackball. After drying it out a bit, it still pointed but wouldn’t click. I unplugged it (which I really should have done immediately, but didn’t… yes, I know…), inverted it and left it that way for a week. Yesterday I was too tired to deal with the prospect of buying a new trackball so I didn’t check it to see if it worked. This morning, my annoyance with my mouse reached the point where it was time to determine if I needed to go shopping for a new one. I plugged it in and HURRAY! It’s working!!! Sometimes it’s the little things that make me happiest on gray Sundays.

Yes, isn’t it amazing when I take my own advice about fixing tech problems and it actually works? Of course, my keyboard is still sticking, but that’s from the coffee I spilled in it not the water.

And then there’s my cat. The mountain of gray cat has been in and out of my lap all morning, purring up a storm. I am wearing a gray shirt today specifically because I might as well embrace the fact that I’m going to be shed on. A lot. Don’t tell him I’m only home for a week because I’m traveling the first week of May for work. There are some things that are best left to the Monster Cat to discover for himself. Less guilt that way…

cats, technology, tennyson, trackballs, travel, water

This weekend was good for my brain. I don’t feel fried at the moment, just drowsy… and the coffee is starting to kick in. I am no longer NOT getting sick, which means I win!

Connectivity issues Saturday morning resulted in some organizing and cleaning of my desk. My desk has always been a challenge to keep neat and organized. I am perhaps as neat as I have ever been these days with a mere 4 piles of organization going on. I am often tempted to give into the entropy, but I like to put my work computer “away” for the weekends and have some hope of finding a clear spot for it on Monday morning without requiring a bulldozer. The internet eventually came back and I decided I needed retail therapy.

The Mall is always an entertaining place. Yesterday was no exception. People really do wear the most remarkable things. Of course, some of those remarks must be made well out of earshot of the subject else feelings might be offended. Retail therapy yielded some new clothes and a cute, little USB hub. Now I can connect everything at once! I’m currently using my tablet as my primary pointing device (variety is the spice of life which staves off RSI!) though I keep misplacing the pen in plain sight. I may have to attach a ribbon to it.

I am finding myself completely uninspired for anything creative though. This is irksome since I need to pre-load Monster Cat this week as I’m going out of town Wednesday through Saturday. I did get Wednesday’s episode started last night. Of course, now I want to go back and tweak it. I guess that’s a good sign. I have a lot of creative projects on my perpetual to-do list that I’d like to start crossing off!

Some of my seeds are starting to sprout too. Little tiny basil leaves and strands of chives are the first to put in appearances. One of the pots of oat grass (the one on the heater) is showing growth a couple inches high already while the other two pots are just under an inch of green. Coincidence? I think not. I really do adore my sun porch. The plants do too – especially the ones that get to sit on the heaters.

creativity, indoor gardening, organization, retail therapy, shopping

Thinking things through is always important in business. Thinking through your acronyms is VERY important! I am often amused and amazed by some of the acronyms we end up with at work. “Acronym rich” and “alphabet soup” do not suffice to describe the nightmare sea of letters we navigate. You can see the lost acronyms float across the eyes of new team members as the gloss over after trying to decipher a sentence comprised entirely of shot-gunned letters. What’s worse is that sometimes it’s very hard to undo the acronyms when asked. Conceptually, I can explain to you what an “IPT” is, but I always forget what each letter actually stands for. To add insult to injury, in many places I’ve worked, the acronyms shift from functional area to functional area, some of them overlap. At a previous job, what I thought of as “QM” (quiz module) was not what our development team thought of as “QM” (quiz management) and was certainly not what corporate thought of as “QM” (quality management).

And then there are the people so desperate to shorten everything that we end up with acronyms that spell hilarious or inappropriate words. “F/u” is a favorite I see flying by quite a bit. My job title is abbreviated to PMM but could have easily been PMS. BM is not the best acronym for an online test system, WTPS echoes “TPS reports” of Office Space fame, and the list goes on… The worst I saw was a Customer Notification Tracker…

I think every company should have a Keeper of the Acronyms. Perhaps with a crown and scepter just for effect. This person would maintain the Acronym Translation System, a wiki-based rosetta stone for the secret lingo of the company, as well as settle any problems with disputed territory. Wouldn’t that solve so many problems?

Okay, perhaps some overlapping acronyms are necessary – but the Keeper of the Acronyms could raise awareness for these overlaps and enable better communication. Ideally when one team talks about SOWs to another team, everyone’s on the same page (SOW = statement of work, a fairly standard one for us) and no one’s thinking about bacon.

user friendly, comics, acronyms, silly

UserFriendly provides today’s comic-to-share of the day. So very true. There’s such an addictive quality to Blackberries that sometimes it’s hard to let go.

Which is why I don’t have a Blackberry.

I did get a new phone last week though! I have a new Samsung a737 with orange racing stripes! (The racing stripes make it faster! Okay, the 3G network support makes it faster, not that I use it.) I blew through the last of my roll-over minutes in January and February making a new plan with more minutes necessary. Since this landed me with a new 2 year contract anyway, I took advantage of the opportunity to get a new, mostly-free phone. My old phone was starting to behave badly after almost 2 years of vaguely faithful service, so it was probably time anyway.

I like my new phone. It’s orange. It’s also a slider phone and locks itself (well its keys) appropriately. I think it’s slightly bigger than my old LG flip phone, but not so much that I’ll actually notice. It still fits in my little cell case so I’m happy.

Yes, my criteria for cell phones are very basic. I don’t care if it does six million cool things. I want it to work as a phone and fit in my pocket. The orange racing stripes are a great bonus though.

Eventually, I will get an iPhone. Probably when it has 3G support. (Because I don’t need my phone to surf the web but when I do surf the web from my overpowered phone, I’ll want it to be fast!) There’s no discount on the iPhone when you renew a contract, so I can keep waiting.

In other news, it was almost 70 degrees out today. With the sun hitting my windows and the door closed, it hit 78 degrees in my office this afternoon. Fun stuff for early March. I’m not going to get winter this winter, am I?

smartphones, iphone, user friendly, weather, heat, cell phones

For those of you hiding under a rock, tomorrow Apple releases the much-touted, marketed, anticipated, drooled over and discussed iPhone. The rate plans, from AT&T/Cingular, aren’t too bad, especially if you already are with that carrier (which I am). I’ll end up paying $17 more than I am now. This will get me twice the text messages I have now as well as the unlimited data access. If all goes well and there are no hidden catches, I’ll end up paying about $15 less a month than the new plan price for the same features. I can deal with that, I think.

The raves and rants about the iPhone are already flowing – AAPL has been bouncing around in about a $6 range for the the past couple weeks. The iPhone has been so hyped that apparently there’s some nervousness that it might not live up to Apple’s promises. I expect it will be the new status symbol of the summer.

I don’t actually have plans to go stand on line or get an iPhone tomorrow. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I’m not actually planning to do it. If we happen to end up at the Apple Store and I happen to touch one and want it really badly, I might end up with one if there are any left. It would be really handy to have at Pennsic, for one. While I’m not currently expecting to have to keep track of work stuff at War this year, nor to do conference calls from my yurt, it would nice to have compact computer capability. Of course, the last thing I want to worry about is losing or damaging it. So… yeah. I’m being a bit zen about it and leaving my iPhone purchase up to fate. And by “zen” I mean “indecisive”. I still want one but I’m already hearing about improvements to network performance for the second generation (but no prediction on when we’ll see G2).

It’s a cell phone but it’s also an Apple product so I expect it to be a solid piece of hardware that I’ll be happy with for about twice as long as the average comparable hardware by another manufacturer. (I’m still quite happy with my 3rd generation iPod too… and the batter still works!)

I honestly won’t be stunned if I want an iPhone as soon as I play with one… but I think I’ll need to touch it first to be completely convinced. Really, I’m resisting… can you tell? ;) Will I be successful? Oh, probably not.

, apple, at&t, cingular, iphone, technology