Loar's Lair - Personal

Still Alive

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:41:05 GMT

I'm making a post here - HUGE SUCCESS.

Wow, it has been four months since my last post. Let's see what I have to report.

Work has been fairly slow, though it's starting to pick up now. There's a big reorg to prepare for the next release going on at the moment. Luckily I get to stay with my current manager and work on more-or-less the same feature team. However that feature team is moving to a different department, so our priorities going forward will likely be quite different. Right now I'm knee-deep in trying to port all of the clients of a clunky old API to the shiny new API so that we can kill the clunky old API which we currently share responsiblity for with another feature team which is going to a different department. Fun stuff.

In July I took a vacation to San Francisco. Mostly I explored the public transit system. I rode BART from SFO to my hotel just off Market Street. While I was there I rode the Muni Metro out to the zoo and saw their interesting mixed-traffic LRV operation. I also took Muni to AT&T park to catch a Giants afternoon game for which I got box seats. On Saturday I met a bunch of ACM people for lunch at a little French bistro, and then that evening I took BART over to Berkeley to see a Death Cab for Cutie concert (oh, the irony!). All-in-all it was a fun trip.

I did finally call an interior decorator to pick colors for me, and I'm glad I did. I really like the two colors she selected for my living room (Benjamin Moore colors "Atmospheric" and "Glacial Till"). She also selected colors for the rest of my place, but so far I have only painted the living room. I also bought a desk for my living room, and I bought some posters at a place in San Francisco and had them mounted on foam and shipped home.

In July the new light rail opened. I actually was at Westlake Center at 0945 to get on one of the first trains, which gives you some idea of how excited I was about this. It's really nice, and it will be even better once it reaches the airport in December. I can't wait for the future expansions.

I'm thinking about getting a new computer. The keyboard on the Thinkpad is starting to give me trouble, and it spends its life on my desk anyway, so I think I should get a desktop. Preferably one with a good graphics card so I can play my Steam games at home instead of on my ridiculously-good-for-gaming work machine. I've played through the entire Half-Life 2 series. I've been trying to work my way through Half-Life: Source mostly to learn the backstory for HL2, but I got stuck at one point and haven't been at it for a while. Speaking of which, if you like Half-Life, you should check out Freeman's Mind. It's really funny.

Well, I think that's enough for now. Hopefully I'll post more frequently in the future.

May Flowers

Tue, 12 May 2009 10:10:41 GMT

It has been a while since I made a personal post. I'm fully moved out of my apartment and mostly settled into my new condo. I'm slowly getting everything put away. I have numbers for a couple of interior decorators, and I intend to consult one on what colors would work well for my living room. But before I do that, I want to really get my place squared away. I'm very glad that I asked the seller to leave behind the pantry-type thing in the kitchen - there is very little cabinet space and it is very useful. The thing in the bedroom I asked him to leave is a lot less useful, however. It looked very wrong where it wasplace, so I pulled it out of the bedroom and it is currently out in the living room on its side supporting my server machine. I think that it would probably be best for me to get a real desk for my server and to put my laptop out there as well. But I am slowly making this place my own, and once I get the walls painted a consistent color, I plan to have a housewarming party.

Otherwise I have been enjoying my new place. I have set a goal for myself to sit at every bar in Belltown (a goal which is very difficult to achieve, but that is kind of the point). Belltown is a great neighborhood, and it doesn't hurt that a lot of my friends live around here too.

The Joy of Homeownership

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:03:02 GMT

Sigh.

So I picked up the keys to my new condo a week ago Friday, and due to various issues I decided it was best to hold off moving in until later today. In the meantime I decided to paint the living room. The room is quite large and two of the walls were a very dark green color. This color is also used in the kitchen and bathroom, but it just seemed wrong for the living room. The living room has a window which faces west, so I figured a brighter color was in order. I figured that since I wasn't moving in right away, this was the perfect time to do it. And I guess I had this need to assert my ownership of my new home.

So I went to the hardware store. For whatever reason I decided that the right color for my wall was a Benjamin Moore hue called "Mellow Yellow." Well, let me tell you, it wasn't so mellow once I got it on the wall. It is very overpowering, and I'm not sure if it really works with the pale green on the adjoining wall. My sister was undecided, her boyfriend thought it clashed. So today I went back to the store and looked at some more color cards, and brought home a sample of a much paler yellow to try on the wall. I think this one might work, but I was dumb and bought two gallons of the "Mellow Yellow" color before I had so much as brought a color card home to compare it with. Well, live and learn, I guess.

Speaking of tomorrow, I have to go pick up a truck at 8 AM, and here I am typing this at after 1 AM. And I still need to walk back to my old place, where my bed remains until tomorrow. I still don't have everything packed up.

Plus just to spite me, my cell phone decided to stop working today. I can hear people, but they can't hear me. It's funny, just last week the PM was saying his phone had broken in exactly the same way. This is ridiculous - I already had to replace the Blackjack once. I don't think it's in warranty any more, so I won't even have that option this time. Argh.

Why Banks Suck

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:23:51 GMT

Methods of transferring funds between banks:
ACH: Takes two to three bank business days.
Wire transfer: Possibly same-day. Both the sending and receiving bank are likely to charge you an obscene fee.
SneakerWire: Withdraw cash from ATM, walk to teller window. Instantaneous and free if you do it right.

Methods of fraud prevention:
Rational: When suspicious transactions occur, call the customer and ask if they are authorized.
Reality: Just start declining transactions at random. Wait for customer to call from their home phone and deal with your automated phone system.

In theory, credit unions are supposed to be less obnoxious, as all the depositors have an ownership interest. In reality, the only credit union I've ever been a member of will charge you a dollar "Foreign ATM Fee" if you withdraw cash at any ATM outside their extensive network covering both Champaign and Urbana.

Considering what interest rates are like these days, I just wish my mattress was FDIC-insured.

Another Year

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:32:50 GMT

Yay 23.

Interestingly enough after my ramblings on PGP and authentication yesterday, the House decided that my birthday should coincide with National Data Privacy Day.

As seen on IRC:

14:50 <@mloar> apparently my birthday will coincide with "National Data Privacy Day" this year
14:50 <@benley> you should have a gpg keysigning party.
14:50 <@mloar> haha
14:50 <@benley> with gin.
14:50 <@mloar> even better

World's Shortest Film Review: Once Upon a Time in America

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:55:43 GMT

And you thought The Fourth Protocol was long and boring.

Perrier Mystère

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:28:44 GMT

I heard a strange noise a little while ago, and it took me a while to figure out what it was:

How in the world did it freeze in the refrigerator? I can only guess that it is because it was sitting under the vent, as the bottle next to it is still liquid. The sad thing is I don't even like Perrier. I only have it because Safeway.com was giving it away as a promotion. It has been in there for like a year.

Anyway, I'm finally back to a sane sleep schedule and I'm not going to ruin it for this. Those green glass shards can wait for morning.

Well, It's a White Christmas All Right

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:26:35 GMT

Followup to yesterday: Sand on roads worse than salt, scientists say - look for the quote from the guy in Mchenry County, IL. Ironically, that's where my parents live and where I might have gone for the holidays.

It has finally gotten above freezing here, and so we're getting some rain. But it's supposed to drop below freezing tonight, and the NWS is predicting snow for tomorrow. But they also have a statement that Friday and Saturday will see a return to normal temperatures and rain, which will likely result in flooding. What fun!

Oh well. Merry Christmas!

Spectacular

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:05:32 GMT

As I stay home from work for the fourth straight day, the Seattle Times publishes this: Seattle refuses to use salt; roads "snow packed" by design.

So apparently the huge spike in emergency calls, pulling what few buses are running out of snow-filled intersections, and the huge loss of tax revenue from having stores closed or deserted on what are supposed to be the busiest shopping days of the year are preferable to using a little salt.

Good job!

Seattle Snow Day Deux

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 09:41:02 GMT

Stayed home from work again today. It didn't snow any more, but this being Seattle, that didn't mean that most of the roads weren't still covered in ice. At work they had emailed everybody Thursday night to say that there wouldn't be a receptionist in our building, our cafeteria would be closed, the shuttles wouldn't be operating, and the sidewalks would likely be covered in ice. So I stayed home even though SoundTransit did manage to restore the 545 to normal operation.

So I grabbed lunch at Blue Moon Burgers, and then I checked out a new bookstore that opened a little bit ago called Inner Chapters. They sell (and buy) used books as well as coffee and sandwiches, and it's a cozy, locally-owned establishment. I had a postcard good for 25% off my book purchases, and so I picked up a few books:

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I've been meaning to pick this up for a while.
A Time for Peace by Mikhail S. Gorbachev. It's a collection of letters and public statements with an introduction by the same. The interesting thing is that this book was published in 1985, while Gorbachev was still General Secretary and before the fall of Communism and the USSR. It should be interesting to read knowing what ultimately happened.
You Can Trust the Communists (to do exactly as they say) by Dr. Fred Schwarz. This tome from 1961 is exactly the sort of fearmongering propaganda that the title suggests. Should be an entertaining read.
Monarch's Dictionary of Legal Terms. Not exactly a page-turner, but since I'm planning to purchase a residence soon, a reference of those pesky Latin phrases could prove useful.
The Perfect Drink for Every Occasion. A book of familiar and exotic cocktails spiced with tongue-in-cheek humor.

So now I should have plenty to read when I'm stuck at home, which is good, because the National Weather Service just put this out:

..A MAJOR DISRUPTIVE WINTER STORM WILL AFFECT MOST OF WESTERN
WASHINGTON LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH SUNDAY..

ALONG THE I-5 CORRIDOR NORTH OF TACOMA...INCLUDING SEATTLE AND
EVERETT...STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL OF 4 TO 8 INCHES IS EXPECTED.

Oh, joy.