The iTunes problem I talked about yesterday, which has been giving me fits, is still a problem. The script I ran to fix the problem only works on about 30% of the missing tracks, so it’s back to manually updating each file, which is a load of fun.
Song Of The Day: Manic Depression, Stevie Ray Vaughn. A fellow coworker hooked me up with a pile of good live SRV, which is sort of like trying a little crystal meth: you’re immediately hooked. Absolutely good stuff.
Last night Jen and I walked down the street to Matthew’s 1600, the recently refurbished restaurant within spitting distance from the house, for a drink and some dinner. While the work they did on the place is high-quality, the atmosphere is distinctly Airport Hotel. There’s a lack of any sort of personality to the place, and the way the layout of the bar side is arranged, it’s too wide-open for any kind of cozy gathering. We had a drink at the bar (Bass on tap, thank God) and then settled into a booth for some dinner. The menu is pretty uninspired, and while I was in the mood for comfort food, I’d expect a plate of meatloaf to have some more spice to it, or at least some kind of zing in the mashed potatoes. Jen’s steak and crabcake was much better—the beef was tender and flavorful, and the crab was real. Overall it wasn’t too bad- the service was first-class and very attentive, but the food needs more help. (The proximity of the bar to our front door is going to be very dangerous, however.)
It’s Worse Than That. He’s Dead, Jim.I brought our Airport Base Station in to work this morning to test it out in a different environment. Yesterday it began to drop out on us, and this morning it was giving us intermittent connectivity. Hopefully I won’t have to replace it, but I’m not confident that it can be revived. (Sound of more money flying out the window) Helpful links: Reset a Graphite Base Station | Graphite LED Behavior | General troubleshooting. (Update: Looks like it’s D.O.A. I reset the Base Station, uploaded the new software, and restarted it. It lights, but it doesn’t send any signal. *sigh*)
Jen got back from the hospital late last night, after spending most of the day with her mother. Mrs. Lockard is in a holding pattern right now, alternately being fed intravenously and pumped full of antibiotics to stave off the infection in her intestines. She’s horribly photosensitive right now, which means all the lights in her room are off and visitors sit in the dark, and she’s in and out of lucidity from the pain medication—which means she’s often hallucinating or talking nonsense. I fixed my wife a big tall drink and she decompressed over a bowl of fresh guacamole, which seemed to make her belly happy and put her mind at ease. We both hit the rack at midnight and slept through the first two hours of the alarm clock this morning.
Review, Part Deux. I’m into chapter two of the CSS book, and I’m finding it slower going. My previous comment on having a strong CSS background holds twice as firm now—there’s a lot of good information here, but you’d better know your stuff before you sit down. There’s a lot of stuff I was aware of but had not used yet, such as descendant selectors, which is going to take time to learn. I’m thinking that a companion book is in order for more of the basic-level stuff.
By now you may know that Jen’s Mom, who has been battling various forms of cancer for the better part of a decade, is in pretty rough shape in the ICU. She went in for another round of chemo a few days ago and what was supposed to be a slow decent into side-effect hell turned out to be an express train. Throw some love down L-P City way, and hope for the best.
Wow. My cube neighbor Tim picked up a copy of Doom3 last night, and a whole group of people crowded around his machine to look at it before we left work. The game is absolutely beautiful. It’s terrifying fun—think of the movie Aliens, and you’re inside that environment. The setting is perfectly realized, the lighting is absolutely intense, and then attention to detail is stunning. If I had a good PC, I’d consider buying a copy, but I don’t have anything near the system requirements.
How to be creative. Yeah, I know, some of it is common sense, but some of it is good reality-check content. Keep the dream alive, my friends.
Well, this entire week, we’ve been getting the Big Giant Finger from the sky pilot upstairs, which means the house is still two different colors. I had good intentions of finishing the back corner and moving to the west side, but stayed inside because of 70% humidity and a “chance of thunderstorms”, which never did arrive. Instead, Jen and I took a trip to Frederick and wandered around the antique malls on Saturday afternoon. She found a quartet of excellent fruit labels, and I ventured into dangerous territory by purchasing two seafoam-colored Russel Wright bowls.
Sunday, we attacked the doctor’s office, cleaning out a pile of stuff for donation (we now have a pile of hefty bags approaching critical mass in the hallway) and clearing out the room. We also cleaned up the atrium for the first time in ten months, so that one may actually walk into the room instead of tripping over paint cans. I also scrubbed the remaining wallpaper paste off the inside of the linen closet in preparation for taping and mudding. If the weather’s gonna be crappy this week, I’m going to get something done inside, darnit.
Sunday evening, we decided to drop by Nate and Kristen’s with some ice cream and check out the house (they live mere minutes away, and this is the first time we’ve made it over there). The sound of a very pregnant Kristen settling in behind a bowl of Godiva Belgian Dark Chocolate was worth the trip.
File Under Future. Given that Jen’s going to be freelancing for the forseeable future, we’re going to need some upgrades to the office. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is a large-format printer for running proofs. Last night we saw some prints from an Epson Stylus Photo 1280 at Nate’s house, which were very pretty. Doing some research this morning, I found some info on it, which was less than good. Instead, I found the Canon i9900 which is at a comparable price and which prints at a max size of 13×23 from USB and FireWire. Given my experience with Epson printers and Canon cameras, I’m sold on the Canon. Of course, it’s going to have to wait for a while.
Check these three articles out sometime—good on-the-ground reporting from the opening days of the War in Iraq. Also, this hilarious dictionary of drinking slang. Favorites: Agent 21, Chimp In Space, Go-tard. Cheers! (via metafilter)
Colossal Waste Of Time. Cyrkam Airtos. (It’ll take a while to load, but it’s worth it.)
Last night I got Retrospect to back up the user directories on the tower at home, which means that roughly 1/10 of our personal data is archived. This successful test is a Good Thing, as I haven’t been very good lately at making sure things are stored in case of catastrophe. The next step is to copy the entire set of data folders, which will (gulp) include our combined music, pictures, and other portly media files. Time to go find a stack of DVD-R’s…
Subject: RE: the Catonsville 4th of July Parade
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 16:18:27 -0400
From: “Mayor Martin O’Malley”
To: “Bill Dugan”
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Jul 2004 20:18:27.0996 (UTC)Well, I have broad shoulders, but I always
feel bad for Katie and the kids.
Thanks for your kind words, and for your
support.
Last night I drew some more nekkid pictures at MICA. It was a pretty good evening, although I ignored my own lecture from last week and sketched a bit more than usual. By the end of the evening my mojo was fading, so I packed up a little early and went home.
Meanwhile, Jen had been busy rearranging furniture, and she came up with a fantastic floorplan for the living room which adds the oak library table we were given last year and balances out the whole space. (The living room is a long rectangle, split in the middle by the fireplace and entry arch, which makes it hard to unify both sides.) What a huge difference.
iPod update. I found this repair kit for the 1st gen iPod, so I may be able to fix Jen’s unit, but that won’t solve the busted Firewire connection. More research to follow.
Jen’s iPod was having problems holding a charge, so I plugged it in to the tower last night to troubleshoot. It looks like the FireWire port has gotten loose enough that unless you hold the connector just right it loses connection with the Mac, and sometimes doesn’t charge. We’re going to have to spend some money to have it fixed, I fear.
More Shout-Outs. I can’t go into a list of everything we got for our wedding here (because my little hamster brain can’t remember it all), but I’m going to give thanks for some of the things that have touched our lives recently:
- The food processor Rob and Karean gave us, with which Jen made coleslaw and we’ve made our first attempt at hummus. This involved two trips to the store in search of tahini, a bucket of garlic, and lots of taste-testing, but was successful. And I could spend all day shoving stuff into that thing just to watch it get chopped up.
- The lovely candle Todd and Heather sent us to Rome with, which made the hotel room smell light and airy (and not like cigarettes or scooter exhaust.) Plus, their wedding help, the headpiece, the party…
- The compound miter saw from Renie, while not technically a wedding gift, still made cutting and installing the shelving a two-day project instead of a three-week ordeal like my bathroom in the old house. Also, the amplifier, which we used to bypass the live disco-DJ nightmare at the wedding.
- A wonderful galvanized tin from my boss and his wife, filled with wine (score!) which we used during the fourth party two weeks ago.
- A beautiful handmade comforter from the Matejowskys, which we need to find a good home. Currently it’s too hot to put anything on the beds besides bags of ice.
- The Pier One card from Sara, which bought us a wicker laundry hamper to replace the one that got jammed under the sink.
Yesterday Tim and Sue sent me home with an antique basket filled with housewarming gifts—clearly Sue has too much time on her hands, and must be returned to work before she gifts again—it was filled with a glass railroad insulator, a perfect addition to the collection; an iron doorstop (sure, them heavy old wood doors are nice to look at, but when the wind blows, they slam shut, trapping unwitting cats in rooms for the whole day); a unique Ball canning jar (which screams “fill me with coffee beans”), and an absolutely stunning cross-stitched tablecloth from her aunt that I almost feel bad accepting. Until we put it on the table, where it looked immediately at home. Thanks, everybody. (and that means everybody, from those I’ve mentioned to those I haven’t.)
That MGB I mentioned yesterday is listed at $2300 OBO. Right. With as much rust as the Scout, a questionable English engine, and a soft top in its twilight years, I think I’ll pass.
Tonight: the first MICA drawing studio in a year or so. I still have to buy a new sketchpad and dig out the 6B’s, but I’m looking forward to it.
‘Birfday to you,
‘Birfday to you,
‘Birfday dear Renie,
‘Birfday to you.
(actually, it’s tomorrow, but she won’t read this on Saturday.)
Yet Another Geek Update. It turns out that error correction is only available in the DVD-R format (that little minus sign is the important part) and I was using DVD+R. So today I picked up a couple of DVD-R discs today to rip the iDVD movie I’ve got prepared for the slide show tomorrow night. I also re-encoded a bunch of movies I shot with the camera and included them on the disc; I’m excited to see how the whole thing turns out.
It’s looking like another intensive painting weekend is in the cards for me. The weather is supposed to be upper 80’s, and hopefully the humidity will stay down below 40%. I’m going to try to get the back side of the house done, which includes the funky area by the atrium, and a bit of ladderwork around the power/telephone cabling. If it goes as smoothly as the side did, I should be able to punch most of it out by Saturday evening (primer and paint.) Wish me luck.
1956 Oldsmobile Holiday, Oella, 6.27.04
Jen mentioned something to me the other day that got me excited—she asked if we could go to Assateague this year now that we have the Jeep. Friends, I had completely put aside the idea of camping on the beach again with the Scout off the road; somehow it had never occurred to me that we have 4-wheel-drive again, and the possibility of camping was back in our reach. This week I’m going to blow the dust off the camping gear and set up an expedition for sometime in September.
Huh. Today at work they asked me if I wanted to go to Siggraph in August, which is a surprise; not being the #1 3-D guru here, I figured I was low on the list of priority conference attendees, but somebody above me thinks it’s important to have me there. Of course this means I need to rethink some of my plan for Jen’s birthday, but the thing I had in mind was going to have to wait for the weekend either way. There are some very interesting and possibly interesting exhibits to see.
Recap. Saturday: Had the Jeep inspected—it passed. Bought a ladder, tested ladder, returned ladder and bought a taller one. Cleaned the sprayer, primed and painted the east side of the house. Cleaned out the Taurus. Got some soft serve ice cream with the Wards. Sunday: Finished painting the house, had a tasty breakfast, bought a steel motel table, two camera filters and an Emerson 550 for $21. Drove to Dave’s house and enjoyed some good conversation, Indian beer, and new music (Thanks Dave!) Returned home to a delicious meal from Jen, and planned out a budget. This Morning: Registered and titled the Jeep.
Monday Learning Links. How to Pick a Lock. | MIT open courseware. | Bootable OSX DVD how-to. | Photoshop weathering primer.
I loaded iDVD last night and played around with it last night for a few hours—I’m going to burn a DVD and send it up to my folks. It takes some time to get used to the UI, but once I began to grasp the concept behind the layout, it made sense. One nifty feature is the drag-and-drop flexibility between iTunes, iPhoto and iDVD. I created an iPhoto album of all the honeymoon shots, a song playlist in iTunes, and dragged them both into iDVD: Bam. Instant slideshow on DVD, with all the image source files included so that my parents can pull them off the disc and print them if they like. I also re-encoded a Quicktime movie and included that on the disc, but I haven’t tried re-encoding the video clips from my camera yet. Another good resource to look at (if you have four zillion photos, like me) is this article on O’Reilly, which covers backing up your iPhoto library with optical media.