Teleidoscope

Sat, Jun 30, 2007

Dinah Kitty

Posted at 9:44 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

John Scalzi says cat pictures are mandatory in blogs,so I'm putting a picture of Dinah after the cut.

Last week, when I was out of town, my cat sitter came to refill the feeder Wednesday eveing instead of Wednesday morning, and Dinah met her in the kitchen and gave her a severe talking to. Dinah has a voice that is very penetrating because she has a lot of Siamese in her ancestry, but she usually hides when people come into the house.

Last night she caught two mice (or one mouse twice) and brought them to show me with her special 'I am a mighty hunter' meow.

See more ...

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Summer Clothes (written 6/14/2007 and misposted)

Posted at 9:43 pm MDT to Travel

I'm traveling to Silicon Valley next week, and I may need to visit the mall on Saturday and invest in some more seasonal Left Coast office clothes. Weather.com is predicting highs in the 80s Fahrenheit all week.

I've gotten spoiled, working at home where I don't need to dress up. The clothes I wore in Boston were all right in California during the cooler weather (maybe a touch more formal than they needed to be)

My usual office wear is dress slacks and a colored Oxford cloth shirt with open collar over a t-shirt in a coordinating color. I don't usually wear short sleeves in office buildings because I freeze if I do. But I should probably look for some summer weight T-shirts in my current size. And weather in the 80s calls for khakis, not wool blend slacks.

I hate buying clothes. I have a petite body with tall arms and legs, so nothing ever fits. The weight I've put on since 2001 (when I was reasonably fit and regularly walking, lifting weights and doing yoga) doesn't help. Nor does the fact that my extra weight seems to be organized in ways the clothing designers and manufacturers don't expect or cater for. It would be nice to find some clothes that are made for adults, not adolescents.

At least, since I got the doctor to raise my thyroid medicine dosage last summer, I've stopped gaining weight. But I'm well over the weight range at which I exercise. (I've never heard of people having exercise setpoint weights, but I seem to: below a certain weight I feel like exercising, above it, I don't.) I think part of me doesn't believe that exercise will do any good: I kept exercising every weekday through the first 20 or 25 pounds of the weight gain, and it never seemed to make a difference and the exercising just got more and more awkward and uncomfortable until it sort of gradually faded out of my routine.

When I was young, I was always underweight, so being overweight seems weird to me, even though I've probably been overweight more than half my life at this point, and I tend not to see myself as fat. I suppose it is the same kind of body-image delusion that anorexics get caught in, but in the opposite direction.

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Fri, Jun 29, 2007

White Sourdough Bread, and Toasting

Posted at 10:10 pm MDT to Technology

I made a loaf of white bread today that came out really well. It helps if I don't forget it during the rises and let it over-do things. The acid in sourdough damages the proteins needed for the rise if you let it go too long.

White bread also rises better than whole wheat because the wholeness of the wheat doesn't weigh down the springiness.

1 cup moderately frisky sourdough starter (bubbly and liquid, but not showing hooch on the surface)
1 cup water 
1.5 tsp pickling salt (very pure, fine-grained, and not iodized)
a tablespoon or two of light olive oil (I kind of eyeball the oil)
about 2 cups King Arthur All Purpose Flour

about another 1/4 or 1/3 cup of water
about another cup of flour

Put the first five ingredients in the bowl and
Give the Kitchenaid doughhook a workout until the doughball pulls away from the bowl.

Decide the loaf is coming out too small. Add the rest of the water and swoosh it around a little with the doughball. Add flour until the bowl cleans again.

Hand knead thouroughly on a board to make sure the outer layer of mostly flour and water is well mixed into the ball. (I have a special large board that is used only for baking, NEVER as a cutting board. It has a lip in the front so it won't slide back from the edge of the counter, and its own backsplash so the dough can't run away.)

Let the dough rise until doubled, and the dent doesn't disappear immediately when you tap it with a finger.

Return to the board and punch down, briefly knead and shape the bread, squishing or popping any large bubbles just under the surface.

Place in pan. Let rise in a warm moist place (I use my oven with the light on and a baking pan of hot water on the other rack) until not quite double and the dent is not quite staying when you poke it.

Preheat oven to about 350 (maybe a little higher: I set it at the 3 in the 350 on the dial). Bake for 35 minutes, then check it. Let cool on a rack until only slightly warm, then get it out of the pan to finish cooling on the rack.

Today's result was a tall loaf with a nice crust and a mild crumb with a nice body. It would make a good non-disintegrating sandwich bread.

I may need to toast it twice to make toast. I have found that toasters don't handle my homemade bread well. I think the adjustments I've made (like the olive oil) so that the loaf will stay edible until I finish it may increase the moisture content enough that toasting is delayed. I use a toaster-oven at home, which is helpful in dealing with non-industrial loaf sizes, but the regular toaster in Boston also lightly toasted homemade bread on settings that charcoaled store bread.

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Bozos 2: the Saga Continues

Posted at 7:36 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I got everything I was working on wrapped up, cleaned up, and ready to hand over. I found out where they wanted their laptop shipped to, and how they wanted it shipped (which I planned to do on Monday).

Then around lunchtime today I got a call. The client decided they can afford two more weeks of my time. So I have next week off while their plant is shut down, then two more weeks on contract.

I'm not sure what I'm going to work on on the morning of Monday the 9th, since the features I was working on have been assigned to other people.

And I'm not sure management bothered to mention the contract change to the people actually running the project. They didn't inform people that my contract had been canceled: I had to take care of that. I could have just let the clock run out and vanished, instead of organizing the handoff of the stuff I was working on.

I won't be shipping out the laptop until Monday the 23rd...

Unless they change their minds again. I'm not holding my breath.

It is really too bad. I generally trusted the manager and technical manager I've been dealing with for the past couple of years, before this recent re-organization. But I'm not at all sure that the new manager is dealing in good faith. I just 'met' the new technical manager for the first time today in a morning conference call before I knew I was not leaving immediately, so he's still a mystery.

---

On a totally unrelated note, except that it involves my schedule...

I have bought memberships in MileHiCon 39 (October 26-28,2007) and Denvention 3, the 2008 World Science Fiction Convention (August 4-10 2008.

Note to anyone interested in attending: the rates for SF conventions increase over time. I paid $34 for MileHiCon, which increases to $36 July 1, $38 September 1, and $40 at the door. Denvention is currently $175 for the 5 days. I don't know when the next break point for Denvention memberships is.

I have also reserved my hotel room for MileHiCon. I haven't been to any SF Cons since 2001, but for many years SF Cons were my regular vacation. I know from experience that they are 24 hour multitrack events, and an available hotel is a necessity.

It will be strange, but nice, not to be stuck in the Dealer's Room during MileHiCon and WorldCon.

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Thu, Jun 28, 2007

Bozos

Posted at 8:32 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

A few weeks ago an extension was negotiated for my current contract that moved my end date from the end of June to the end of September. We were assured that everything was agreeable, and the paperwork had been signed.

Last Thursday, the new senior manager who is taking over the project told me to my face that my extension to September was firm but they were hoping to renegotiate the rate beyond that. The offer that was made to the company did not match what I was told.

We declined the offer of the new rate, which was half the rate I've been getting for the past few years.

Yesterday, mid to late afternoon, we got a call and were informed that they had decided to cancel the extension. So my end date is suddenly tomorrow.

The project manager (whom I've worked with on and off for a couple of years now) had refused to talk to our business side and referred us to the senior manager. He may not have wanted to be the one who broke the news that they were repudiating the deal.

I'm trying to think of a word that adequately expresses my opinion of this double-dealing manager. I'm tempted to tell the sales people to add a 10% bozo fee to our bid the next time this customer comes asking us for help.

I'm just glad that I've been working from home, not from corporate housing.

And I think there is an untrustworthy negotiator who's due to show up in TechLands who may end up with a different name.

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Wed, Jun 27, 2007

Truck is Home

Posted at 10:38 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Lots of progress in various directions.

It is very nice to have my own truck back. Shawn's van is very tall, so it is hard to get in and out, and it felt tippy to me, even though it is a much heavier vehicle than my truck and there was probably no danger.

Now I just need to keep an eye on it for a while to see if it needs a new head gasket..

The new septic system has passed at least one inspection and I have received the paperwork.

My client company is closed next week, so I have the week off. I may try to do a little billable work, and there is a coding project I've been asked to do for the ReleaseTEAM, but my time will be very flexible.

My brother and sister-in-law will be in Colorado for a conference and we will get together at some point.

And Monday is my birthday. I was thinking about going down to the Denver Art Museum, which I haven't visited since before they built the new wing, but they are closed on Mondays. Maybe I'll go to a movie on Monday and do the Museum trip on Tuesday.

They've been advertising the Zoo on the radio a lot, and it has been a while since I visited the zoo, but I made the mistake of going to the Zoo on my birthday once several years ago. All of the animals were very sensibly hiding from the heat. and I should have done the same. I think I'll go to the zoo sometime in the fall when the weather is nicer.

I'm a member of the Zoo and the Art Museum. Also the "Museum of Nature and Science" which used to be the Museum of Natural History. I haven't been to the science museum in years either, but their current big exhibition is about the Titanic which doens't particulaarly interest me.

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Tue, Jun 26, 2007

Alternator

Posted at 10:21 pm MDT to Technology

Apparently, my truck died because the alternator died, which killed the fanbelt, which flailed around and destroyed the fan and some other things (shrapnel from the fan didn't help the situation). The truck overheated because the fan died, and stalled at the stoplight because the alternator was dead.

I'm not surprised by the fanbelt: I heard a funny thwack-thwack sound just before things went south that I didn't think came from the radio.

I'm told that I should watch for signs of leaking from the head gasket (the mechanic can't tell if it was damaged by the overheating). But other than that, the radiator and most of the engine survived.

The mechanic is going to change the oil (it was due anyway, and I'd rather not have the engine full of cooked oil). Then, sometime tomorrow, I'll have my truck back.

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Mon, Jun 25, 2007

Plan of Battle

Posted at 10:11 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

They say no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Looked at in daylight, my new septic system isn't laid out quite the way the engineer designed it. The contractor says the original design wouldn't quite work in the actual space (they may have been sloppy about measuring). He says that he cleared the actual layout with the engineer and the county, and the city of Louisville whose water main crosses my lot and makes things complicated.

They delivered at least three more huge truckloads of dirt today. There were already some big piles in the yard.

The installation is supposed to be inspected tomorrow, and if it passes they would be able to start pushing the dirt over the top of the holes and gravel bed. Except that the contractor had an accident in his workshop and ended up with a piece of metal in his eye and can't drive yet.

So things are going to be delayed a bit. At least the system is usable even while it is uncovered.

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Sun, Jun 24, 2007

Van

Posted at 9:00 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

My business partner Shawn has very kindly loaned me his van to use until I have my truck back. This gave me the chance to stop at Safeway and stock up on fresh fruit and veggies and dairy and a few other odds and ends. I haven't shopped for perishables for a while because I knew I was going to be out of town.

I somewhat regret that the combination of work and lack of a vehicle meant that I couldn't make a quick run to the Farmers' Market yesterday. They have a Wednesday market, which I never visit, but I may go down in to town this week. I need to stop at McGuckins Hardware at some point and get a new battery for one on my kitchen scales, too.

It's nice to have the option of leaving the house...

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Sat, Jun 23, 2007

Working Saturday

Posted at 10:32 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

We had the code release today. I spent all day checking email and a little time sanity checking the stuff that wound up in production. One piece never quite made it as far as I can tell, but it may have just been put somewhere weird by the guy who propagated it.

I'm exhausted after yesterday, and haven't really had time to do much about the house and car. Shawn's offered me the use of his van again. I may take him up on it tomorrow. I need to buy groceries and run some other errands.

The new septic system, which is still open for inspection, is very impressive. I'll take some pictures tomorrow, before it gets inspected and covered up with dirt.

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Fri, Jun 22, 2007

Dead Truck

Posted at 11:58 pm MDT to Travel

Well, I arrived home,about an hour and half later than I should have.

As I was driving along the tollway home from the airport (speed limit 70, minimum speed 50) I may have lost a fanbelt or something. I heard a brief thwap and the engine started overheating, and when I got to the stoplight at the end of the toll way it just died. A lot of smoke or fumes came out of the engine compartment.

I put on the flashers and called AAA and 911 and Nanette (Cell phones are a wonderful invention) and spent about an hour directing traffic so people would go around the truck. I didn't want to stay in the truck in case it got rear-ended by some idiot, and breathing those fumes didn't seem likely to be very healthy. Waving cars into the other lane gave me something to do while I stood there next to the walk/don't-walk light.

Ater it got dark, I remembered that I now have a crank flashlight in the truck (I actually have a regular flashlight and a package of batteries in there too, but the new, cranked model was easily accessible. So I had that to wave at the cars.

There were a lot of very nice people who stopped to ask if I needed help.

There were a lot of very stupid people who came right up to the tailgate of the truck even with the flashers going and me waving them around. One car came so close it had to back up when the driver finally woke up and realized that my truck was not going anywhere soon.

Eventually a very nice young police officer arrived and pushed the truck out of the intersection. Another can stopped and the driver helped with the pushing.

And about the time the officer was walking back to his car, the tow truck finally arrived. It wasn't technically a tow truck: my truck has four-wheel-drive so it can't be towed with two wheels on the ground, it has to ride on a flatbed.

The driver took me to a mechanic that Nanette recommended, and she met us there and brought me home. Tomorrow I'll have to see about getting a rental car, and Monday I'll talk to the mechanic and find out how bad things are.

This trip to the airport and back is the longest and highest speed trip I've made since I had the truck worked on in April... I'm kind of wondering if they put everything back together properly in the front end.

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Thu, Jun 21, 2007

Diffuser

Posted at 10:37 pm MDT to Travel

This morning a large plastic diffuser the usually covers a couple of fluorescent tubes fell off the wall in the bathroom and landed on the floor. I had just walked out of the bathroom into the main hotel room -- if it had been two minutes earlier, it would have hit me.

I'm trying to decide whether the room likes me, and held off on dropping it until I was safe, or is out to get me and is just a terrible shot.

In either case I'm glad to be going home tomorrow, even though that won't really be the end of my work week. We still have the release to do on Saturday, but my part of that can be done remotely.

I wonder what my yard looks like now, and whether the new septic system has reached a stage where I can use it. I'll call tomorrow from the San Jose airport to see what the status is. I may end up crashing at Nanette's for a day or two.

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Wed, Jun 20, 2007

Directions

Posted at 10:02 pm MDT to Code

I'm putting in a lot of hours this week. This is the second day in a row that urgent stuff has come up in the late afternoon and I wound up working late. We're trying to get a release out on Saturday, so taking our time isn't really an option.

On the other hand, a couple of things have happened that are good for my morale --

First,someone at google.com saw my resume on-line and asked if I would be interested in discussing a job with them. I'm probably not interested, but ... Google! And it's always flattering to have someone come to you instead of you going out looking for them. (I wrote back asking if they had a Colorado office... I've never heard of one, but it seemed worth asking. Google!)

Also, I learned from LWN (Linux Weekly news) that the Linux kernel developers are discussing a need for someone to periodically scan the kernel source code and identify error messages and such for reformatting, to support documentation and translation. It's been about 15 years since I was primarily a C programmer (Wow. Time flies) but I've got the skills (and the obsessive-compulsiveness) to handle a task like this. So I wrote to ask how to volunteer for the project, if and when it gets off the ground. It would be neat to be a Linux kernel hacker, even in a very peripheral capacity.

I'm re-joining the kernel mailing list tonight, just in case. I followed it for a while a few years ago, but the volume and level of technicality were more than I had time to deal with.

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Tue, Jun 19, 2007

Hardiness Zones on the Move

Posted at 8:49 pm MDT to Weather

This site illustrates the movement of plant hardiness zones from 1990to 2006. This amount of change in 16 years is impressive. I wonder how many people realize their gardening books are obsolete.

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Mon, Jun 18, 2007

Hotel

Posted at 10:00 pm MDT to Travel

The hotel we use in San Jose changed ownership at the beginning of the month. They have fewer cars in the parking lot than I have ever seen, and I can't say I'm really surprised. I think they are doing a good job of not giving people a reason to come back.

They had no record of my confirmed reservation, and hit me with a higher charge than I am used to paying as a walk-in.

Their new keycards are printed upside-down.

My keycard didn't work when I came in after work. The man at the desk said it had expired after one night, which was wrong since I was scheduled for a two-night stay. I am actually scheduled for a 5 night stay. Just as well I found out about that problem now, so we could fix it.

The room (on the other side of the building from ones I've used in the past) has no visible, usable electric outlets. I finally found a place to plug in my laptop buried behind some furniture, but the only socket in the room that doesn't have something plugged into it is not properly seated in the wall. And one nearby that is fully occupied does not have a faceplate: just an outlet sitting in a hole in the wall.

I have my cellphone charger plugged-in in the bathroom: the only other available socket. The closet is stocked with an iron and ironing-board, but I think I can state with confidence that no one has ever used them in this room.

The broadband is working and the breakfast is still OK, and the TV and clockradio are both functioning without problems (for a change).

But I think I may try another hotel the next time I come to Silicon Valley.

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Sun, Jun 17, 2007

Packing

Posted at 12:43 pm MDT to Travel

A final load of laundry is running, and I've started pulling together the things I need to pack. Since Frontier moved the outbound schedule so the evening flight is an hour earlier, things aren't quite so tight on the San Jose end. The old flight usually got in after 11pm, and the rental car complex shuts down at midnight.

Traveling with two laptops makes it hard to fit everything in carry-on. So maybe I'll plan to check my suitcase and bring two laptop cases. I'll see how it goes when I load the suitcase: the warmer weather means the clothes I need to pack are less bulky, so I may decide to keep everything with me so it can't get lost.

This laptop is going to be packed in a few minutes.

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Fri, Jun 15, 2007

Old Whale

Posted at 5:44 pm MDT to Current Events

from Slashdot --

It is reported that whale hunters have caught (i.e. killed) a whale with a piece of a harpoon manufactured in the 1890s embedded in its neck. Researchers estimate that the whale was 115 to 130 years old.

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Wed, Jun 13, 2007

Family Plants

Posted at 8:25 pm MDT to Technology

Found through Slashdot

Some researchers have found that when unrelated plants (I assume of the same species) are placed in the same pot, they grow extra roots to try to hog all the water and nutrients. When they are planted in pots with their own siblings, they don't grow extra roots.

I'm not sure what if anything gareners and farmers could do to take advantage of this. Aside from anything else, figuring out whether plants grown from seed are siblings would be tricky.

I assume plants grown from cuttings of the same plant count as self. Since apples are clones, I suppose you should plant single rootstock varieties if you want them to play nicely together, and mix varieties to encourage root growth?

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Tue, Jun 12, 2007

Rainy Day

Posted at 8:16 pm MDT to Weather

We had a cool rainy day today. In the middle of June. In Colorado.

Right after a day that was hot (highs in the 90s Fahrenheit).

And less than a week after a dry hurricane that was followed by a killiing frost that did nasty things to the crops at Nanette's farm that had survuved the hurricane.

The science sites say that global warming doesn't necessarily mean higher temperatures. What it means is that there is more energy in the system, so weather that usually just sits there can get bouncy.

I think the super-ball people need to enforce their patent.

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Mon, Jun 11, 2007

Sansa e280

Posted at 9:46 pm MDT to Technology

I have a new Sansa MP3 player. It has decent sound, FM radio, video and picture capability, 8 gigs of storage, and was available cheap at Costco, so it is probably obsolete. It doesn't really support anything but Windows, but Google is our friend, and Linux people are creative and determined.

I've already determined that the radio works and I can transfer mp3s from Linux to the Sansa (Girl Genius Radio Theater Podcasts. Yay.) with excellent audio results.

At the moment, I'm trying to rip some of my Filk CDs to MP3 so I can load them up and have them to listen to on my trip this coming week. I've ripped a few tracks in the past, but I think that was before I switched from SuSE to Kubuntu. I'm having a little trouble getting the tools to do what I think they are supposed to (which probably means I am misunderstanding the mechanism involved). Back to Google.

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Sun, Jun 10, 2007

Cooking History

Posted at 6:06 pm MDT to Technology

I own a number of books and pamphlets about the history of cooking. Some go back to my days in the SCA.

At least one goes back to Easter vacation when I was in eighth grade. Some of the teachers took our American History class on a camping trip touring Revolutionary War and Civil War sites, and Jamestown and Williamsburg. One of the souvenirs I brought back was a booklet on cooking in the Colonial period.

I've found a website with a lot of useful information and links related to Medieval Cooking. I especially like the dictionary of medieval English cooking terms.

And I'm reminded that I need to actually read my copy of the second edition of McGee's On Food and Cooking. Also another book on my to-be-read stack: Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. I really liked Pollan's first book The Botany of Desire and I'm looking forward to the newer one, but I keep getting distracted.

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Sat, Jun 09, 2007

Fruit and Recipes

Posted at 7:58 pm MDT to Technology

I love fruit. Today at the Farmers' Market the cherries were just coming into season.

And Nanette had plenty of strawberries. She grows an heirloom variety that produces small flavorful berries, so much better than the big bland plastic ones in most supermarkets.

The cherries are in the refrigerator, for tomorrow. The strawberries have been eaten already: they were too good, and too fragile, to save.

I also got some of the last rhubarb for the season from Nanette's farm. I tried adding some to my Mom's apple cake recipe a few weeks ago and it turned out quite well. I want to do that again before the rhubarb is all gone. Rhubarb is very juicy so I will try a trick Nanette's daughter Rowan suggested: adding a little tapioca to the rhubarb to stabilize some of the juice.

Other things I brought home from market were sugar snap peas (which should have been for supper, but I filled up on the strawberries) mushrooms and onions (which will go into a risotto with some organic chicken I got at the Market previously) and onion greens (which Dinah Kitty loves to chew on, for some reason).

I may put some of the peas in the risotto, if there are any left by the time I make it.

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Thu, Jun 07, 2007

Dry Hurricane

Posted at 6:03 pm MDT to Weather

According to the news reports, the winds yesterday were the equivalent of a Cat 2 or 3 hurricane. My power went out for a while during the night, and the tree by the deck outside my bedroom is broken. I need to find a tree surgeon (they are all going to be very busy for a while: there was a lot of damage from the storm). And I should probably have my roofer take a look at the part of the deck roof that the broken tree is leaning aga.inst.

As if the house and yard didn't need enough stuff done to them this summer. I think this storm may have eaten my out-of-state vacation: besides the tree and the roof, I think I really need to do the outdoor electrical work and replace the electric service before the next bad storm. And all of that on top of the new septic system with stretch thing pretty tight for a while.

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Wed, Jun 06, 2007

Summer Winds

Posted at 8:47 pm MDT to Weather

When my neighbor was putting up his flagpole, he contacted NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) to find out if they could recommend a model of wind speed gauge for him to install on top of it. Today has been an example of why they told him to forget it. Commercial anemometers top out at only 125 mph or sometimes 135 mph for the really expensive ones. We get gusts in that range often enough that the life expectancy of the equipment is pitiful.

The wind is not being wishy-washy about things today. My whole house is shaking and occasionally sort of bouncing on the foundation. I keep having to turn the TV up louder so I can hear it, and the satellite signal has started putting bursts of pixelation on the screen because the dish is vibrating too much. (I may switch to watching DVDs if it gets any worse.)

Lacking rain and storm surge, and with the winds blowing straight instead of curly, this isn't a hurricane. The gusts today might not even be quite enough to strip the gears in the wind speed gauge at NCAR.

And I'm always careful to keep loose objects on the upwind side close to the house. That way, if the wind picks up enough to toss them, they don't have time to build up much momentum -- or height -- and my windows stay unbroken. I just heard something thud on the front porch. I wonder what it was.

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Tue, Jun 05, 2007

A Cyclone in the Gulf of Oman

Posted at 7:52 pm MDT to Weather

There is a hurricane force cyclone named Gonu heading up the Gulf of Oman (where the US currently has ships) expected to make landfall on the coast of Iran in the next day or so.

This kind of strom track hasn't happened in recorded (since the 1940s) meteorological history. This means that the areas that will be hit have no traditions or infrastructure for dealing with hurricanes. The people are used to dry, not wet. Lots of cities and settlements are built right along the waterline. This could be bad.

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Mon, Jun 04, 2007

Stamps

Posted at 10:45 pm MDT to Current Events

For years I have bought stamps in 100-stamp rolls. But I think I'm going to have to change that policy now that I pay most of my bills on-line. They are changing postage prices much faster than I use up the stamps these days.

The policy change is academic at the moment. I bought a roll of stamps last fall in Boston, and at the rate I'm not using it (and at the rate they keep raising the postage rates) I'll need 5-cent stamps (or larger) to accompany the last stamps on the roll, not just the 2-cent stamps I bought today.

The previous roll of stamps needed help at the end too. In fact, I should have a few of those 2-cent stamps around somewhere, though I can't find them at the moment.

I suppose it is no wonder the Post Office is going broke: a few years ago I used 8 to 12 stamps each month, just paying bills and such. Now it is more like two or three. Everything else in on-line, where I don't need to use stamps and payments get made on the day I specify.

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Sun, Jun 03, 2007

Super Volcano

Posted at 5:27 pm MDT to Media

The Discovery channel went through a phase I call "all disasters, all the time" where they produced dramatizations of possible enormous future disasters: a worldwide flu epidemic worse than 1918, a killer blizzard hitting Toronto, tsunamis, earthquakes... I don't remember if they did one about a hurricane.

Today their HD channel re-ran "SuperVolcano", (originally from spring 2005, before Katrina) which is about the super-caldera in Yellowstone blowing up.

They admitted that they showed a worst case scenario as far as the eruption went. I think the movie's creators might have been surprised to find that what made it most unbelievable was protraying the heads of FEMA and Homeland Security as at least moderately competent and concerned. Since Katrina, it's hard to imagine the federal government handling any kind of emergency without making matters worse.

This is a sad and dangerous thing for our country.

Over on Making Light they have a thread on preparedness for hurricanes and other disasters. They mention a crank-operated radio available at Costco that also has a USB jack for charging cell phones. I may look into getting one of those, just in case of power outages. Otherwise, aside from probably being doomed if Yellowstone really blows, I'm in pretty good shape here for riding out disasters (as the past winter demonstrates)

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Sat, Jun 02, 2007

Two Lumps

Posted at 9:44 pm MDT to Media

I'm not sure where I came across the link, but I have been working my way through the archives of a great webcomic about cats. Two Lumps The Adventures of Ebenezer and Snooch. It's not often I giggle out loud while reading stuff, but some of the strips from 2006, especially, got to me

I imagine it is funnier if you are part of a feline household.

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Fri, Jun 01, 2007

Street Addresses and the Post Office

Posted at 10:31 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I bought my house in 1985. In 1999 the County decide to chnage my address. This wasn't just a minor house number adjustment. The street name part of my address changed, and the house number changed by more than 5000.

It's only been 8 years, so I'm not sure the phone and electric companies have all their records straight yet. The billing departments seem not to tell the maintenance departments about these kinds of changes (they record changes of billing address promtly, though), and the maintenance departments seem to have no way to record the fact that a physical location's address has changed.

The Post Office may have gotten new staff recently who don't know about the old addresses. I've had a few things not show up that turned out to be using the old address. But it isn't consistent: I still get some junk mail with the old address on it.

The company I work for has moved twice in the past couple of years. Once to a new building and then to a new suite inside the same building. We were a little careless about that second move, not sending out proper change of address notices since we were in the same building, and now we are having to bring things up to date. Bureaucrats and banks can be fussy.

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