My new office mate just turned me on to Pandora. It's a music service (free online) that mixes a form of affinity logic with music selection. You start my choosing a song or artist whom you like. That defines a "station". Then Pandora picks music that it thinks you will like that is similar. You vote "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" and refine your choices over time.
She tells me that it can take weeks to train it to provide a consistently good stream of music. And that one should define separate stations for different genres (so far I have "Dido" and "Reggae" started). But it is possible to mix the music of several of your stations.
Rocking good idea. Looks to be Web browser-enabled so it should work on both Mac and PC (I've only tried it on my work PCs).
Tuesday was my first day of the new routine. I'm doing two-a-day workouts to jump start a return to some fitness and weight control. So I get up at 6am and get a 35-minute cardio workout at the local gym and then do the same thing at 5:30 before heading home. Burning about 750 calories a day according to the machines.
I figure that, plus limiting caloric intake, will have a pretty good effect.
First month will be straight cardio and then I'll get back on the weights after that and probably just go to cardio in the morning and weight-lifting at the end of the day.
It gets harder every year. I think the lesson I take from this is not to back-slide. It's one thing to indulge now and then but I'll have to give even that up if I don't work out daily.
Took Eva to the local detail shop recommended by the Porsche dealer and they were able to clean up her fender, buff, and wax it all for no charge. Left a healthy tip and a promise to come back for a full exterior wash/buff/wax.
It's nice to encounter good customer service and competence in the same place. I'm also breathing easier. It was hard thinking that my choices had led to the paint damage in the first place.
Nerve-wracking having a very nice car. Lot easier being Zen driving a less expensive auto.
Ok, now I'm really hacked off. Came out yesterday morning to find that the crappy garage ceiling had sh*t on my right rear fender. It dumped an alkaline (alkali leached from the concrete the water had passed through) stream onto the unprotected fender during the night.
I had taken advice from a lot of listers on Porsche Pete's Boxster Board (www.ppbb.com) to not put the car cover my landlord had provided on the entire car as it would likely scratch the paint - said car not being freshly washed every day. So the convertible roof was covered where the crap had come down on the weekend but not the fenders.
So today I'm off to the detail shop to have them looking at cleaning it up. I tried neutralizing the alkaline compound with lemon juice last night but it had little or no effect. I can kind of get it off suing my fingernail (don't dare use anything harder) but it likely has concrete dust mixed in 'cause I now see a lot of fine scratches from my microfibre towel and Speedshine attempt to remove it.
I reassured my landlord I wasn't pissed at him, but I very certainly am at the property company for not fixing this problem expeditiously and the homeowner's association with not providing me with an alternate spot right away (there are free spaces in the garage).
I'm hoping it doesn't come to small claims court but I will share the pain if the paint is damaged.
Found myself singing in the car this morning on the way to work from the gym. It was 60F and sunny and the roof was down.
I've promised myself that I'll leave the roof down as much as possible - if it's not raining that is. I've got heated seats and a good car coat (and gloves soon) so why not?
My office mate just chided me for being concerned with my car's rag top.
I came out this morning to find that the roof over my parking space had spewed some sort of water-based crap on my new car's convertible top. At first I thought it was just water but when I got out in the sunlight (extremely rare for Seattle, I know) I could see that it was a whitish deposit.
I quickly stopped at an Albertson's and picked up a gallon of spring water and brushed the top down with a microfibre cloth (thank goodness for having treated it last week). Seems to have taken the crud off.
As I was relating this to my office mate this morning she started to chuckle and then guffaw (she's talented). I was then chastised to the effect "you're obviously not going to find happiness, the woman of your dreams, nor advance your career" because of this incident. Very Zen of her. Yes, it puts things in perspective but I like having at least one thing in my life that is "very nice" and I definitely want to keep it that way.
It's a conflict. But resolving that in some graceful way will definitely advance me on the path, no?
Besides, it's a Porsche for God's sake.
Gotta have some perspective.
Just read the report of the indictment of Atlanta QB, Michael Vick.
If true (and I believe it will likely come out that it is since there is a lot of ugly detail) it's probably the end of his professional career and quite possibly some jail time.
One can only hope. If the indictment's charges are correct he is a sadistic SOB and will deserve anything they throw at him.
Why would someone torture animals like this? How could it go on for years without someone standing up and talking about it?
I recently saw a couple of pitts coming out of the dog groomers in my parent's home town. Quite obviously, they were fighting dogs (scars and attitude). How is it that such a thing can be so obvious and yet not probable cause for an investigation. The SPCA in this country needs to be stronger and have powers of investigation and arrest. As they do in the UK.
I want to read nothing more about this whole story. Other than a verdict.
Discovered last night that one shouldn't block the side vent in a Toshiba Portege.
I was catching up on missed episodes of Traveler on my laptop. The laptop was sitting on top of a down comforter (of which I thought nothing). About the middle of the third episode - BOOM - the laptop goes dark, fan off, instantly.
I suspect that the comforter billowed up and blocked the heat vent (it puts out a lot) and this came close to fricasseeing the laptop. I turned it upside down (to allow the lower plate to cool) and gave it about 10 minutes.
Started right up again. I think Vista must have much improved disk management software embedded (journalling?) because I didn't get a BSOD or other error during the restart. None of that "Windows must check your hard disk" crud that so annoyed with previous instantiations.
But it's obvious that Toshiba still has a long way to go in laptop design. Enough said.
Just changed the oil on my newly-acquired Boxster. What a lovely piece of work.
I had discovered that the idiot mechanics who had worked on it last had pumped the tires up to 50 psi (should be 29F/36R) and that's why it rode like a board when I first test drove it. It was likely a factor in the previous owner selling it to me (from his comments). Also, she (EVA) needs knew shoes. The Pirelli PZeros on her right now are very tired and in need of replacement (end of the month).
In any event, I didn't trust that the bright bulbs who pumped up the tires also changed the oil properly. How could you screw that up? Well, you could, perhaps, overtorque the oil filter to something like 50ft-lbs.
I tried four different oil filter wrenches before giving up. Porsche says that one should change the filter at 30k, and the oil once at 15k. She has 19k on her now. But I tend to be somewhat obsessive (I call it diligent) in my auto maintenance and Eva will get changes of new synthetic every 2500 miles. After all, oil is cheap and it gives me a chance to check out her undercarriage frequently.
So, next change, she goes to this eccentric Hungarian mechanic I know who is first-rate. I figure that he can get that damn filter housing off - I had to give up for fear of damaging it - when she is on the lift.
I did what I could and just changed the oil. 9 quarts of the best. Mobi1 0-40w. Pretty damn thin, but that's the Porsche spec these days for these motors. I can tell its thin because the built-in electronic oil level says "full" at cold startup and then is two notches down when the oil is warm. Last oil didn't do that. God knows what the corner monkeys put in.
Come to think of it - these same monkeys changed out a wheel bearing. I had better have the dealership look at their work and make sure it was properly done. They probably torqued the bloody wheel bolts to 150ft-lbs.
Why would anyone take a fine precision machine to the corner garage?
So on my first day, I grabbed a Tablet PC from the storeroom.
Of course, it was used and I had to figure out how to configure it (it had Vista Enterprise on it). Unable to login, I had to go into the boot menu and tell it to boot from the LAN. That took a few minutes to suss out.
Then I had to wipe down the disk and install Vista Enterprise and Office 2007 (comes as a boot image off the LAN) and then I had to get "credentials" on the network. Basically, getting MS Security to sign off on your alias and make sure that you're in the GAL (general address list). This done (took two days!) I was able to get the machine attached to the corp net and finally download more software and get my Outlook configured (very easy, auto configuration).
Of course, I have discovered a couple of small problems. One, old laptop - only 1Gb of RAM, which is typically about 80% used by Vista - in a resting state. Secondly, 20 minute battery life. Old laptop, arrgh.
But at least I don't have to carry the damn thing around half open (PC laptops don't do sleep/hibernate quickly). I can whip the screen around into tablet mode and carry it that way. That rocks.
Still have to learn to use the pen interface but this thing could grow on me.
My office mate called me a "hyper-competent slacker" yesterday.
I'm not sure whether to be offended or impressed at her perspicacity.
Slightly worrying.
Just caught today's finish to the Tour de France in the cafeteria.
Amazing finish, well worth watching. Fabian Cancellara's finish was worthy of Lance Armstrong I thought.
Though I fail to understand why the TV analysts don't predict the point at which the peloton will catch the breakaway groups. Given their relative paces and distances to the finish line it's a known solution - obviously changing on a second by second basis.
Perhaps it would remove the tension if they did it..
A very cool idea. Totally illegal at points I'm sure but think about it.. a sponsored (ponied?) drive through the countryside around speedtraps and speed cameras over the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man.
Just lovely.
Seems to be quite a bit worse off than it was in Sadaam's time. I wonder if the US Army has really learned anything about fighting an insurgency when I see these figures. One might surmise that there are simply different rules to fighting an insurgency in a tribal culture with access to modern weaponry (as opposed to a jungle insurgency).
But we seemed to have learned little or nothing from the British experience in Northern Ireland. Or maybe it was just that services were degraded so much by the initial thrust of the war that they've never recovered.
High time to leave.
So, I'm back at Microsoft, for a third time (one FTE, two contracts). I'm now working for the MSIT division within CSS (customer support) helping them rationalize their world-wide technical support offerings. Looks like a huge job with having to coordinate the work of over a dozen teams and fifty stakeholders.
I guess as we get older, we just need bigger challenges.
So, today, I've gotten my credentials on the network (without which one can do nothing at Microsoft), gotten my new Tablet PC installed with Vista and Office 2007 and Communicator (great app), and am attending my first meetings.
As always, it's Greek to me these first few days. I find it takes some months to come up to speed completely when one takes a new gig but it's definitely interesting moving around within MS and meeting new people and new groups.
This contract is in Issaquah (south end of Lake Sammamish). It's a secondary campus for MS (probably no more than 5k people) but the great thing is that my new apartment is only 10 minutes from the office. No more horror commutes. Life could be a lot worse.