Older blog entries for rjp (starting at number 50)

Palladium: sheeyit, what nonsense.

2 Jul 2002 (updated 2 Jul 2002 at 06:25 UTC) »

Long time no entries. I think I'll set up a log/diary on my own server, I might have more motivation to keep things up to date there . . . or not. Whatever.

So we've been in Santa Barbara since early April. It feels good to be here - things are just generally nice. The beach is great ;) and the water's getting warmer.

TOOLS conference here this month. Bummer, it's all about .NET and Eiffel - two worthless (in my opinion) technologies. Worthless because . . . well, Eiffel's a polished turd, and .NET's just evil. Miguel de Icaza evidently will be giving one of the keynotes. His inexplicable fixation on .NET is just sad. So, here's a conference in my own backyard on a topic I'd ordinarily like (the object orientation and all that), and the focus of the conference sucks.

I just started using my new Kinesis ergo keyboard . . . my typing speed has returned to the realm of mere mortals . . . it will be days before I am used to this well enough to code acceptably. but it does feel nice . . . good thing I got one for work *and* one for home. I already remapped alt and ctrl - the good folks at kinesis, I think, are not X Windows users, or vi users ;) But geez, having enter and space right next to each other, both using my big fat right thumb - that's really getting me. Numbers are going to be a problem.

code.

soon i'll be getting an ergo keyboard, probably a kinesis "concave" thing. actually 2, one for home and one for work - and if i'm lucky they'll spring for it at work. i typically find myself in ergonomically evil situations - feet up on the desk, keyboard in lap, hands crunched in together and wrists at an awkward angle . . . i'm starting to feel some pain in my left wrist after typing for 3+ hours. this is a bad thing.

finally, i've got my car back. dad and i drove up to monterey friday, spent the night there, drove over to soquel saturday morning to serious auto to pick up my car - they put a hard dog rollbar and 15" rota subzero wheels on it. we chatted with them about car geek and technology geek stuff until about noon, and then drove down hwy 1 back to santa barbara.

anyone that lives in or visits california should drive hwy 1 between monterey and san luis obispo. depending on the number of stops you make and the traffic, it'll take 4 or 5 hours. it's the most breathtakingly beautiful part of coastal california, period. plus there's some ass-kicking fun curves.

back at work, zooming along, less time for diaries and other web diversions . . . ;) it's good to be back at it.

wow. we did it. we arrived in santa barbara last tuesday, and the movers brought our stuff last saturday. this is my 3rd day at the new job, and things are good ;) if only my dsl provider could get their shit together.

the three most stressful things that can happen in someone's life: moving, new job, death. we've weathered all three, and it's my hope that now we're coming out on the other side of a hellish year, and things will be looking up.

woo hoo! linux at work. they don't care - they brought me another machine to do windows on for ms word and outlook calendaring. the only thing i could ask beyond that is that they simply drop exchange, and windows on the desktops . . . yeah right!

one and 1/2 days of packing left - we're in decent shape, but it's been sheer hell. common advice is to start packing up your house at least 1 month before a move - we have been doing this for just three days. the movers come early monday morning. then it's clean a bit, deal with some last-minute logistical peculiarities, and then tuesday it's off to santa barbara! then, we'll have 3 days or so with just the suitcases we bring with us, and then it'll be unpacking hell!

cox cable in sb doesn't give out static ip addresses, and while the cable modems tend to get the same ips over long periods of time, cox just started blocking http/ftp/etc ports - so, no point in it. verizon wants $70/month for a basic acct w/static ip - just too much. but, 101freeway.com resells verizon's dsl cheaper - i get a static ip and decent downstream speeds for $55/month. still, that means more than $100/month for cable and net access (combined cost) - bugger.

packing hell. movers come in a few days - it will be close. i am getting necessities together - i'll be living out of a few suitcases for the next 7 - 10 days.

i've got 2 months of uptime - and i need to bring down my workstation, but that means some sites and services will be down for the duration - it may be more than 2 weeks before they're up again . . . i'll delay it as long as possible.

saw harry connick tonight - i'm not a major big band fan, but significant other likes connick. actually, it was a really fun show, and there was some decent bluesy stuff.

packing the house. ugh. discovered today that moving expenses are tax deductible! sheeyit! we're definitely hiring movers, forget driving a truck myself! first order of business tomorrow morning is getting quotes and timelines for moving. we'd like to use the same guy/group that moved us up here in the first place. [big company] paid for that move, and even though we'll deduct the cost, it's still going to hurt a bit to pay out of pocket. still, it's much preferable to loading/driving/unloading ourselves.

*so* much to do.

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