Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).
Like Linux Journal but are too cheap to buy your own subscription? Or just like freebies? Then now’s your chance to get a free subscription. Linux Journal is holding a contest this week. You simply have to watch their Tech Tip Videos, collect the secret letters. You can find full details on their site. I’ve embedded the first video below or you can head over to Linux Journal to watch it there.
[blip.tv ?posts_id=1867602&dest=-1]
Additional videos to watch for the secret letters include:
It’s been a few days since I wrote anything and I’ve been trying to keep this site updated, so what’s new?
Well our plumbing nightmare is finally over. Wolverine Brass sent us the replacement parts and the Master Plumbing got them installed. We still had to pay for the wrong parts Benjamin Franklin Plumbing told us we needed1 since we ordered them through the good plumbers, but at least the bleeping tub if finally fixed. BFP‘s foreman didn’t call me back when he said he would. Instead he left a message on our answering machine asking me to call him back, but I wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t get to it right away. When I did call, I got his v-mail and he never called me back. A few days later he stopped by and after talking to my wife; he agreed to refund everything we’d paid except for ~$60 (price of a standard service call). All in all it was an expensive repair but at least it’s fixed. Granted if I’d known they’d told her they regularly keep those stupid parts we needed in stock; I wouldn’t have been so willing to pay even that service fee. Ah well, can’t win ’em all.
I enjoy the convenience of using a wireless network around my house, but I don’t want it too open. When I first set it up, better security protocols (e.g. WPA) were not well supported by the Linux distro I was using (particularly not with the wireless card I use). Recently I decided to revisit that issue was was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to implement. So rather than relying on the depreciated and easily cracked WEP, I now get use better encryption around the house making me very happy. And as a side bonus to this, since I’m now connecting to my wireless network via the default method rather than through clever manipulation of the configuration files, my smb shares are getting mounted automatically on boot!
This success lead me to trying to connect my old 3G iPod to my PC via firewire, but that’s where the success ends. Ubuntu recognizes that I’ve connected it but is unable to mount the iPod automatically and when I try manually it throws a lot of errors. Thing is I’m not sure if that’s all Ubuntu’s fault as the last time I try connecting this iPod to a Windows box; it had all kinds of problems too. I’d try a USB connection but even if that works it doesn’t do me much good given this iPod cannot be charged over USB. I’ve gone a bit of googling on this but it’s not a common problem (most people have newer iPods these days) and the few examples of the problem I found out there are all stuck at the same point I am.
Lastly, we finally have cube walls at work. We moved into this office space back in December and have been waiting on the walls to come in. Personally I got to liking the openness of the office without the walls. Especially since these walls do not appear to have any sound deadening properties. Mostly these walls block much of the light from around the room, particularly for supervisors in our room as they’ve got 6 foot tall walls (the rest of us have 3-4 foot walls). *shrug* Oh well, it’s not likemanagement cares about my opinion on the office decor and I do still have a job. Which in this economy is a very good thing.
And that’s all I’ve got for now. So good night and good luck.
1 See I Hate Plumbing for details.
Hulu has caved into pressure from their content providers and changed their service so it will no longer work with Boxee. Unfortunately this also broke the XBMC-Hulu plugin.
Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes.
From the Doing hard things post on the Hulu Blog.
Damn. Just damn.
I really liked watching The Daily Show & The Colbert Report on my TV. While those two shows are good, they are the only shows on Comedy Central which interest me. Then you factor in that cable companies do not allow subscribers to pick channels à la carte, so I’d have to double my cable bill just for those shows and maybe 2 other channels (each having no more than 3 shows of interest), I guess I’m done watching this stuff on TV1.
Plus I only had a single episode left to watch in Journeyman, which it turns out was really good. Though I stick by my initial assesstment of the first episode being a bit slow. Now I wish I’d given that a second chance before I rewatched all of John Doe, which had an interesting premise but really sucked.
1 At least for now. There is some talk on the XBMC Forums about continuing to work on the XBMC-Hulu plugin to get around Hulu’s changes
Been a bit distracted, so I haven’t written up my thoughts on this year’s Valentine’s Day. So here goes.
My wife and I got dressed up all fancy. Me in my kilt and my wife in a fancy, new dress. She looked stunning. I was her barely tolerable dining companion. We ate for our first time at a restaurant called Daniel Arthur’s. Where exactly we heard about it, I’m not sure. Maybe it was just from driving by it, maybe it was mentioned by a neighbor or a friend, I can’t be sure.
I can say for certain that I have never paid so much for a single meal before. And yet as much as I dislike spending money like that, it was a wonderful evening. We arrived just before the dinner rush started. It was a cold evening out — particularly when wearing a kilt — but the restaurant was toasty warm. We were seated immediately and given complementary champagne. Soon thereafter our waitress brought out an amuse-bouche consisting of a salmon mousse spread on a slice of cucumber with a fresh dill spread topped with tobacco onion. I’ve never had anything quite like it and would have been pleased to have a tray of them to munch on.
Next up was the appetizer. A tempura, lobster tail on a bed of cabbage lightly coated in a slightly, spicy sauce. The surprising thing of the sauce was after the initial burst of heat, the spiciness did not continue to build. It merely lingered on the tongue. Fortunately the chef foresaw this and followed up the appetizer with an apricot sorbet, which did a wonderful job of cleansing the pallet. Then it was time for the main course, for which both my wife and I had selected the Angus beef ribeye with brandied, caramel onions, grilled portabello mushrooms and smoke gouda and roasted garlic potatoes.
The ribeye was good — not my normal cut of beef and a touch too fatty for my taste — still it was tasty and my word those potatoes were heavenly. The portabello mushrooms were small, barely noticeable bits whose flavor was completely hidden by the onions. Mind you, those were tasty onions but I would have preferred more/bigger mushrooms and less onions. The pièce de résistance was the desert of which there were two small portions. One was some sort of bread pudding thing. I’m not particularly a fan of bread puddings though this seemed nice; however the other desert utterly blew it away. The other desert was an espresso crème brûlée and it was heavenly. I do not make a habit of passing along my compliments on a meal (or any portion of one), beyond the simplest of courtesies to the wait staff. That night I broke my habit due to that desert. My wife is an excellent cook with a better than fair hand at making deserts but even still that espresso crème brûléewas truly one of the best things I have ever eaten.
I should also note that one of Daniel Arthur’s features is they have live music every evening. On Valentine’s Day, in pleasant surprise they had Kevien “B.F.”Burt playing. We had heard Kevin playing previously at a neighborhood party and greatly enjoyed his performance. If we’d realized he was the music for the night, we might have sprung the extra cash for the package where he would come to our table and play a song for us. Since we didn’t know and it was a bit late to change our plans1; we didn’t get a song directly but did enjoy hearing him perform for several other tables near by.
End conclusion, it was a beautiful (and tasty) meal with a beautiful (and tasty) woman who I happen to be lucky enough to be married to.
1 Getting the song at your table was part of the most expensive package which included other options, such as a full bouquet of flowers at your table.
With apologies to Cole Porter…
I hate plumbing in the spring time,
I hate plumbing in the fall,
I hate plumbing in the winter, when it drizzles,
I hate pluming in the summer, when it sizzles.
I hate plumbing every moment,
Every moment of the year,
I hate plumbing,
Why, oh why, do I hate plumbing,
Because my leaky, f’ing faucet is near.
That bit of drivel is meant to prepare you for some whining and ranting on my part regarding the latest installment in our plumbing adventures. This afternoon I worked from home as I received a phone call that the plumber had the replacement part he needed and would be coming by. The plumber showed up slightly later than I was expecting, but once he arrived I showed him the tub and the shutoff valve in the basement1. I left him to his work and got back to mine.
The handle on the shutoff valve was old/rusted and back when the first plumber came out for the broken faucet; he broke the handle (but not the valve thank god). Today’s plumber went back to his truck to get some channel locks to turn it with and also found a new handle sitting loose in the truck which he said he’d try putting on2. Then he went back to the bathroom and got to work. A few minutes later I heard him exclaim “SHIT!” I asked if everything was ok, but got no reply. I could still hear him moving about, so I figured he’d just bonked his hand and went back to work.
Shortly there after, he came out and asked if I was sure the faucet was a Price Pfister? I said no, that’s just what the other plumber had told us. He said in any case the part the first plumber told us to order was the wrong part and in fact it’s not even a part for the same brand of faucet as we have. He left then to see if he could track down the part we actually needed somewhere around town.
When he got back, he had the bad news that nobody has the part we need locally and we’ll need to order it.
[INSERT EXPLETIVE]
He also asks a few more questions about the other plumber who’d been out and recommends calling them back to try getting our money refunded. Apparently he used to work for that company and still knows a few things about their procedures. Seeing how it’s been almost a month, our faucet is still broken, the plumber who originally came out to look at it never wants to discuss it with us; my wife thought that was a good idea.
Then he turns our water back on and goes back to his shop. Not more than 30 minutes later, he calls back3 and gives me the details for calling the manufacturer of our faucet as the part which is broken has a 100 year warranty on it. My wife gives them a call. She immediately gets through to an actual human being, who takes our address and say it’ll be sent out via UPS and should be in our hands by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Time taken to complete the call was less than 10 minutes.
Yes, I said less than 10 minutes. I know, we were both stunned at that too and they did not have us pay anything for the parts! Now that’s some seriously good customer service. She then called back the plumbing company of the first guy who came out and complained at them for 20 minutes straight. Unfortunately it turns out she was talking to a receptionist and the shop foreman will be calling back tomorrow when she’s at work. I’m going to have to field that call and it’s scheduled for approximately the time I’m walking in the door after driving home.
*sigh*
I really hate plumbing.
1 As a reminder, the tub with the broken faucet has no local shutoff valve. To stop the water flowing, we have to shut off the water to the entire house.
2 I don’t believe it fit, but it was nice of him to try.
3 Unlike the original plumber who appeared hating calling us back and didn’t like us to call him either.