Pre CES

Heading to Las Vegas for the consumer electronics show. There are 15 of us from overclockersclub attending this year. I have the usual pre-mission jitters but expect to have a great time Regardless,. The gogo inflight wifi is nice (30 minutes free) but &10 for a 2.5 hour flight is too expansive for my taste. Things get rolling tomorrow.

Getting around slow internet

As I sit in front of the fire waiting for the fog to lift l clouds to go away I am of course browsing facebook and twitter. There is only one problem: we do not have broadband at this location. So the means if internet access is wireless phone tethering. My carrier, T-mobile, only has 2G data coverage in this area. In today's day and age this is a joke in my opinion. Wikipedia says I should get between 56 kbit/s and 115 kbit/s. Speedtest.net gives the following:



Yes it blows and sucks at the same time.

The thing about that is it takes the normal, in my opinion bloated, versions of facebook and twitter take something like five minutes or more to load. With the latency being what it is the connection is likely to time out as well.

An obvious solution is to use the mobile versions (m.facebook.com & mobile.twitter.com) from my laptop. Its not pretty but death by boardum is less likely to happen.



I know of google mobile formatting service. My experience with it is it simply removes all the images on the normal webpage. I found that to be unappealing.

Update: After giving some thought to the matter I installed user agent switcher for firefox. Then I accessed the test page on the creators webpage from my Android phone and got the following

Which is then saved as an XML file and imported into user agent switcher.

COMPUTERS! #@!%%!!

OK, so I've been AFK for a while. Here is why. About 2 weeks ago the screen back light on this laptop went out. It had been flickering for some time so I assumed it had finally given up. I ordered this as a replacement on the 22ed. Because of both the laptop issue & the fact that I would need to wipe the harddrive on my desktop to get it working again thanks to the fact that a "clean install" of an upgrade version of windows vista can not be activated. The last time I did a reinstall on my desktop the process took almost an entire day because I got so many BSOD during reinstall and had to start over. I am not eager to go through that again. :( Therefor that computer is decommissioned until I decide what to do with it. Now for the supreme irony: The screen back light seems to be working again. It still flickers occasionally. I think there may be a loose connection somewhere. The thing is I suspected that when this whole situation started and managed to break the plastic keyboard cover while trying to get a look at the wiring. #youcantwin The fact that I can use the unit is something of a kick in the teeth, in a dammit I jumped the gun / buyers remorse sort of way.

Ok, the BRIGHT side. I don't have to squint @ my phones browser, facebook, twitter. Furthermore I can order some special holiday postcards :) :) Happy Holidays!

Edit: So a few minutes ago I came back to the laptop. It had recently gone to sleep. When I taped a key the screen lit up for a second and then went blank. Rebooting the unit seems to temporally solve the problem.

Grr is this thing dying or what?

First ski day of 2011

I met Chris & Mike @ summit west for my first day of this session. The other two went yesterday,  opening day. The coverage could have been better however the overall snow conditions where good considering the time of year. I am feeling out of shape and practice. Just like last year and the year before that. My own fault. I took one spill. A routine double summer sault. Thankfuly my skis did not come off.
Pictures as usual on picasa.

Medical Money

As I sit waiting at the wallgreens pharmacy I find myself pondering what life would be like without diabetes. Still water run deep, we Scorpios think about things like that. I would not have to be on a "diet" for life for one thing. Meaning, Carbohydrate counting, basically if the food item goes in my mouth it needs to be accounted for properly.

Expenses would be less as well. Humalog insulin costs $130 per bottle, each of witch lasts about 14 days. I feel cheated because insulin is a maintenance drug. The one touch strips are $120.00 for two 50 test strip boxs, which lasts about a month. That is $1.20 per blood glucose reading. The supplies for my minimed paradigm 712 are on a 3 month auto ship program. That bill is $207. I am reminded of the mastercard priceless commercials from a few years ago. The difference is that, for me, is the punch line is "The privilege of breathing? Priceless!".

That is my dry sense of humor, which most people don't understand, talking. I also have to wonder about sports and other activities. When I was diagnosed I believe it scared the hell out of my parents & a few relatives. I recall my second grade teacher having a royal fit because I ate a handful of popcorn. I had to fight tooth and nail to get to join the boyscouts, as I once told April, aka little Ms swim team. Yes that nickname is unkind. However, considering the fact that I am prone to the classic Scorpio male envy. Witch has manifested itself in many forms over the years. So be it. Read More.

I am unable come up with a humorous 20/20 hindsight quotation or song lyric at this time so I will use a very generic. "what might have been." I need to remember that "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" -APWBD

Parking ticket dispute aventure.

I was wrongly issued a parking ticket on 08/17 in Seattle's university district while there for a wells fargo site survey. The receipt parking sticker was displayed on the curb side window in compliance with the instructions for parallel parking.

I disputed the charge and the pre hearing consultation was Monday 10/10. The conversation with the magistrate took approximately fifteen minutes. The result was the case was dismissed.

The irony is the ordeal of getting to the hearing was far worse than the consultation itself. Driving and parking in downtown Seattle have always been a pain and most likely always will be. Such is life. Overall getting to the Seattle municipal court building took an hour and I spent $8 on parking (I payed for 2 hours). I did overpay for parking. However, I did not know how long the process would take and thus chose to error on the side of caution.

The cost of paying the "violation" would have been ~$37.50. Overall I feel that I came out ahead (this time) by disputing the charge. The overall cost to making the trip was ~%50 less than the the fine and furthermore I got more experience points.

Cabin Trip

I came up to the pass to attend the Webb's Summer Kick-Off Celebration! It was a good party overall. I met a few of Chris's friends and hung out. The Beer and food where good. I defiantly recommend Webbs Below is a picture my aunt took of the Pop Can Pipers band.

In other news the weather is stuck in October/November mode. Several flavors of rain and sleet made appearances with emphasis on western Washington's nationally famous gray drizzle. I suppose this is great if you are a member on an aquatic species, of which I am decidedly not. We still have pretty good snow coverage @ summit west. :(

I am ready for summer to make its appearance. Bring on the hiking and biking already!!

This puddle in the conifer estates development shall now be know as lake conifer.

The lower parking spot is also a lake :( Dad & I installed it for the times of year when the upper next to the house parking area is not accessible, like today, lol But needing rubber boots to get out of the car is a bit of a deal breaker. Drainage re engineering time!