Date posted: September 28, 2009 | Filed under finn | 1 Comment »

whoa, look at my hat

I’ve been writing and rewriting a post to Finn about her birthday, but I’m not a good enough writer to say what I mean. Meanwhile, the last two weeks (well, the last month) have been ridiculously busy, to the point where I’m not getting a lot of spare time to organize my thoughts. I’ll keep trying.

Date posted: September 28, 2009 | Filed under life | Comments Off on Whoa, It’s Been Awhile

power salute

…for a much longer post I haven’t finished yet, celebrating the birthday of my beautiful baby daughter. Mama said it a lot better than me over here.

Date posted: September 22, 2009 | Filed under finn | Comments Off on This Is a Placeholder

out for a walk

Date posted: September 15, 2009 | Filed under finn | Comments Off on Out for a Walk

pretty smile

Mama will write about the weekend better than I will, so I’ll just post a picture here.

Date posted: September 14, 2009 | Filed under finn | Comments Off on On the Lawn

Core7- Hack2Work. Brilliant.

Date posted: September 11, 2009 | Filed under design, shortlinks | Comments Off on Hack2Work

My trusty MacBook Pro, after several years of faithful service, has started exhibiting signs of flaky behavior over the last couple of months. If I put it to sleep for my ride home, there’s a 50% chance it will have woken up and be cooking itself inside my computer bag. This happened when I was running 10.4 and has only gotten worse when I upgraded to 10.5, so I know it’s not software-related. I’ve reset the power management unit several times, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Running Photoshop, Windows XP under Parallels, Mail, FTP, and three or four other essential applications concurrently makes the processor get hot to the point where I have the cooling fans on maximum. I’d guess several years of this have begun to fry some of the innards, making things flakier over time. Plus, I’m continually bashing my head against the 2GB RAM ceiling in this model.

Now I’m getting a single horizontal line across the screen about 1/3 of the way from the top, which is small enough to almost be invisible but large enough to be really annoying. When this line appeared in the past (always after the sleep-waking incidents) it would go away on its own after several minutes, but I’ve had a permanent line for 24 hours, which has me worried.

This is actually the second display for this particular laptop; I had the first one replaced under warranty only months after I got the unit. It’s well outside the warranty and Applecare coverage at this point, so I’m on my own. Some initial research prices a replacement at around $800, which is about $200 less than a new MacBook. I’m not afraid of doing the surgery myself, but for that kind of cash, I’d rather just buy something new.

Sick Macbook

I get the feeling this is a symptom of greater problems down the line.
So, new MacBook Pros (I don’t think I could trade down to a consumer-level MacBook) start at $1700 for a 15″ and go all the way up to $2400 for a 17″, which is considerably less than what they were 3 years ago. Refurbs are $200-400 less than list, and I have no hesitation buying last years’ model to save some cash, but right now is not a good time, considering we’re saving up for a baby-hauling vehicle. I can make do with what I’ve got by running an external monitor and just living with the problem, but I’m depressed that I can’t stretch the lifespan of this machine out another year or two.

Update: It seems to come and go. I though it might be because I was jamming the laptop in a bag with a bunch of other items, but carrying it separately had no effect. After several hours of sleep, the line goes away sometimes, and sometimes not.

Date posted: September 10, 2009 | Filed under geek | Comments Off on Just When I Need It Least Dept.

File this under “future projects”. Make a Kegerator – Wired How-To Wiki

Date posted: September 9, 2009 | Filed under projects, shortlinks | Comments Off on Make a Kegerator

Is anyone else alarmed by how batshit crazy Michael Steele is sounding these days?
“…I just don’t understand this idea that somehow people think that the federal government can enter into a marketplace and compete with private industry.”

Right. Because private industry is doing it so fucking well. Pre-existing conditions? Canadian pharmacies? Medical holidays? Rising healthcare costs versus stagnant income? is anybody paying attention here?

Date posted: September 9, 2009 | Filed under politics, shortlinks | Comments Off on Steele: Public Option is Socialist

I live in a field down by the river

Courtesy of Mr. Scout and his lovely wife, we took a trip to West Virginia and did a little swimming on Sunday afternoon. Finn found a big lawn to boopty around in, too.

Date posted: September 8, 2009 | Filed under finn | 1 Comment »