• November comes in with a splash. Gray and drippy. It's been raining since midnight. California's Wet season has begun. 10:18 AM Nov 1st

• Bought a cat flap today to install in the sliding door between bedroom and screenporch. It's too chilly at night now to leave the door open. 1:31 PM Nov 1st

• @RhodesTer - But of course, cats are telepathic. No need to type to tweet! Just beam your thoughts at the nearest hooman, and back to sleep. 3:50 PM Nov 1st

• Just commented on MacWorld's article "8 Ways to Use Twitter". Confused readers repeating "I just don't get it". http://tinyurl.com/6amnq6 7:56 PM Nov 1st

These are my Treasures for November.

• Rain

• Yes We Can. Yes We Could. Yes We Did.

• Pennsylvania went Blue.

We have had Rain. Otherwise, it's been cool.

We installed a new cat flap in the door from the bedroom to screen porch. Once again, the cats' reaction is "why should I push that with my head?"

Election Day finally came and went (I voted by mail, in October). I ignored the whole thing, checking results on Wednesday morning.

We won. No, we can't relax. ]]>

Two days in the Company cafeteria:

• Tuesday Spaghetti Squash and Parsnip Lasagna with Garlic-Cinnamon Scented Marinara
• Wednesday: Corn Dogs and Tatter Tots

"Lavender has a calming effect". Rich brought me some lavender sachets from a lavender farm near Santa Barbara. Nice!

We had dinner one night with a friend who lives in SF, then met her new kitten. Small kitten. FAST kitten. Very cute kitten.

My group from Work had an offsite at the CA Academy of Sciences. I liked the Aquarium best. The group activity is best forgotten.

Rich worked on the stove. We've installed a more noticeable "signal" lamp.

Jury Duty Win - my presence was NOT Required! Safe for another 12 months, at least.

We have discovered PopTech.org. PopTech is an "ideas" conference, sort of like Ted. Amazing speakers. Video on line. Watched 4.

I enjoyed my five-day Thanksgiving Holiday weekend (I took an extra day off). A delightful way to end the month.

We watched WALL-E. It's fun and sweet.

This month I read The Excalibur Murders, by J.M.C.Blair; Tanner on Ice, by Lawrence Block; and The Marx Sisters, by Barry Maitland; I also read half (each) of Duplicity Dogged the Dauchshund, by Blaize Clement and The Chalon Heads, by Barry Maitland. I just wasn't liking either one.

In between and around the rest, I've had nearly enough naps and oodles of snuggles with the cats. There have been good meals and interesting conversations with Spouse and friends. I've chatted with my sister and found topics to twitter.

Onward and Upward.]]> http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001647.html http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001647.html Gemisch/Gallimaufry Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:07:14 -0800 I've been using ecto, a Mac OS X desktop blog-posting application, for several years. I like it a lot. At least, I like ecto version 2.

Recently, the original author sold ecto to a new company that has rewritten it from scratch. I do not like the new ecto 3. ]]> There are nitpicky annoyances — I prefer to have the list of categories on the right side of the screen. Why is the Excerpt section so small (and not resizable)? And where did the "Preview" toolbar item go?!

There are technical annoyances — none of the ecto 2 settings can be seen by or imported into ecto 3. For all intents and purposes, this is a completely new app. (Um, I'm a programmer. I know you can write an importer!) If I'm going to use a new app, maybe there's something I'd like better than ecto.

There are usage annoyances — ecto 2 has a powerful yet easy to use image uploader. I always considered this one of the most impressive features. ecto 3... doesn't have this. Not powerful. Not easy to use. Pretty lame, actually, imho.

There are aesthetic annoyances — the new "Adjust Time" dialog is a transparent black overlay on top of the text entry window. Ugh. (I hate white text on black and I don't like transparent overlays in any color scheme.) The new "About box" is just Too Over the Top ™.

In short, I'm still using ecto 2. When and if it stops working on a future version of Mac OS X, I'll investigate alternatives. Who knows... By that time, ecto may have changed hands again, or, at least grown up a little.]]> http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001646.html http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001646.html Computerware Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:19:32 -0800 My group at Work had an outing at the CA Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park yesterday. Our official meet-up time was 11:30 for lunch, followed by a "team activity".

Since Rich and I had thought it might be nice to see the new Academy exhibits, preferably together, Rich came along with me and we drove in early, arriving at the Park at 9:00. We found the parking lot (with some minor confusion and one U-turn and loop back). Once we were in the garage, parking was easy and there were plenty of signs pointing to where we needed to go.

We bought Rich a ticket, (at $24.95 for adult admission, we were happy that the Company was paying for my ticket), then waited for the doors to open at 9:30. There were about 20 people in the general admission line at 9:15, as many as two to three times that number when the doors opened. Add that to the number of people waiting at the group/members door and this was a very popular place on a foggy Thursday mornig.

The man ahead of us in line said he had tried to come the day before and gone away again; the line then had stretched down to the street and around the corner. (Third Wednesday is free.) He decided to come today instead.

The building is very handsome with lots of glass and guy wires and stuff. My Dad (an architect) would think it was interesting. A man in line said he'd heard it cost half a billion (with a b) dollars.

At 9:30, the doors opened and Rich went in. Unfortunately, I couldn't go in yet, because I needed my "group" ticket. My co-worker was supposed to be waiting at the group entrance with the tickets at 9:30. However, she was late and when she arrived there was some additional confusion with the tickets and the lunch coupons and the Academy liaison for groups.

I finally got inside at 9:55 and caught up with Rich. It turned out the rainforest doesn't open until 10 so we got in line for that.]]> The Rain Forest The Rain Forest exhibit was pretty good. There were sweet little black birds. There were a zillion butterflies, many of which like to land on people. A large blue and brown butterfly (blue on the inside of the wings, brown with spots on the outside) landed on Rich's back.

There were many toads and snakes and lizards and chameleons and things in habitat cases that you could walk around on all four sides of. The Basilisk was regal. The blue poison arrow frogs were handsome. There were some enchanting little frogs with fluorescent green and yellow stripes.

Two large chameleons (one red and green and blue, the other green and blue and yellow) had screening on their cases so they could climb it with their nifty feet.

I did wish the rain forest area wasn't quite so humid (I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt) and that it was better designed for traffic flow - many of the cases were in little cul de sacs that got very crowded with people moving in and out. Another problem is the only real way to go "out" is to go all the way through, up to the top level, and then ride the elevator down. Although the elevator can stop in all levels, it's blocked off because you're not meant to do that.

The Aquarium

At the bottom, you crossing from the elevator lobby into the Aquarium, Ah. There was forced air blowing down on the other side of a plastic curtain. I stopped in the doorway and stood under the cool air for but 5 minutes.

The rainforest critters were nice, but I think I liked the aquarium best. There were fish (of course) as well as anemones, star fish, sea horses, alligator pipefish, and gar (a large prehistoric fish that resembles an alligator with fins.)

The absolute best were the leafy and weedy seadragons. I took off my glasses and put my face right next to the glass. The leafy sea dragons have the most glorious eyes. The weedies have tiny ripply fins and almost-fur around their heads, almost like cilia, constantly moving.

The Group Thing

Many of the lunch choices looked promising, however mine, at least, did not live up to the promise. I'm just happy it didn't cost me anything (the Company paid). Let's just say the best part was the two glasses of ice water.

I'll spare you the details of the Group Teambuilding Activity that followed lunch. Feel free to imagine a "scavenger hunt" through the Academy...

My Take

The evolution section seemed interesting, with lots of hands on stuff and videos. I would have liked to spend a bit more time actually looking at it.

The global warming exhibit is simply depressing.

The Africa exhibit was not popular. I think that's because it's all dioramas — large stuffed (dead? fake?) animals behind glass.. With a real aquarium and a rainforest exhibit full of toads and butterflies, a bunch of "dead" animals behind glass are booooring. Very '70s museum style. It needed things to touch, snakes to watch, that sort of thing.

There were real, live penguins at the far end of the Africa room. I didn't get down to that end. There were maybe 30 people down there. You could have used the rest of the room for a roller rink. (By contrast, there were zillions of people in the building and, in many places, it was over-crowded.)

I never did get up on the "living roof".

In Summary:

• Building: pretty
• Admission: pricey
• Exhibits: an odd mix from great to dull, lively to dead.
• Rain Forest: a bit over-constrained but overall worth the effort.
• Aquarium: awesome. I've always liked the Steinhart and it's even better in its new home.
• Lunch: thoroughly mediocre (the best part was the glass of ice water)

Go, on a third Wednesday, after the buzz dies down. Do the rain forest first, then the aquarium. Don't buy lunch in the Cafe.]]> http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001643.html http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001643.html Trivial Pursuits Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:28:12 -0800 I didn't follow the election results on Tuesday. I don't like suspense. (I'm a person who reads the ends of books first.) Also, I knew nothing was sure until it happened. And I remembered November 2000 all too clearly.

But I looked after I woke up and I relaxed for the first time in months. We did it. We won. ]]> We're not finished yet. We have so much ahead. But Tuesday was a day to be proud, a day to let out the breath I'd been holding for so long.

I'm proud of my country this week. I'm proud of Pennsylvania, the state where I was born and where I lived for 21 years.

Unfortunately, pride is tempered with disappointment and shame. On Tuesday, we came so far as a country. Yet California took a huge step backward. By a small margin, California voters said Yes to Proposition 8, voting to put discrimination into the State Constitution.

We've come so far. But we're not "there" yet. We still have such a long way to go.

The difference is that after Nov. 4, 2008, I have more belief that we will succeed. ]]> http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001642.html http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001642.html Retrospectoscope Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:50:04 -0800

These are my Treasures since my last posting.

• A bed full of cats on a Sunday afternoon.

• The whistle of a train in the distance

• freshly grated nutmeg

• movies: The Librarian: Quest for the Spear

• "Cock and Bull" Ginger Beer

• cats on my lap, snuggling

It's been a month! What have I been doing?!

The weather has gone from hot to warm to cool mornings with pleasant afternoons. It's officially Fall. I need my "sunrise" alarm clock in the mornings now, otherwise I wake up in the dark. I hate waking up in the dark (unless I can go back to sleep :-).

Rich took a leaf off the "Martian Bush" in our front yard and we stopped in at the Sloat Garden Center one Saturday morning to see if they knew what it is. The "Martian Bush" is a fatsia japonica or japanese aralia]]>

We had a very small earthquake. I thought I felt something but wasn't sure. I found out for sure from Twitter. It was fun following the reports as they came in.

I've been doing a lot of TWiki. First, test cases for the plugins installed at The Company. Then, a set of three training presentations: Essentials, Intermediate, and Advanced. I've given the first two a few times each. I'm still writing the third one.

We had dinner with some of my co-workers at an Ethiopian restaurant on Haight St. in San Francisco. The meat sambusa (spiced ground beef in crusty dough) was good. The veg. sambusa was edible. The rest was as expected. I really do not like Ethiopian food. But I enjoyed the company and conversation.

I had a "Cock and Bull" Ginger Beer. Quite good -- the "color" of original Fresca and VERY gingery! (We checked later and BevMo carries it! Yeay.)

We got there half an hour early, found a perfect parking space 20 yards off Haight, then walked up the street and back. Haight St is... trying very hard to be a hippie mecca. All tie-dye, bongs, vintage clothing, and tattoo parlors. Kinda weird. We don't go into that neighborhood often.

As we walked back to the car after dinner, we passed two men who were having a physical/verbal altercation. That's not something we see in other parts of The City. The Haight is so not my favorite neighborhood. :-(

I ordered a HP 2133 Mini-Note PC. It comes pre-loaded with Suse Linux. It's not a Mac but it's not Windows either and it's a real computer. It has a high-resolution screen, a nice UI, enough RAM (upgradable), plenty of disk, and weighs less than 3 pounds.

I've been installing missing pieces (gcc, Apache) and then I will load in TWiki. It should be a nice (and much lighter!) machine to take with me on the train.

We got our flu shots. Given that I take the train three days a week, packed in with so many people, I want all the protection I can get.

We had another dinner at the new Halal restaurant. They were doing fixed price dinners during Ramadan (opening after 7pm).

Dinner was yummy: lamb & rice soup with tomato in it (even Rich liked it); red cabbage with oil & vinegar and mint; little meat pastries; boneless chicken breast stuffed with sausage(?) served with saffron rice; baklava; tea w/cardamom.

This month I read Demons are a Ghoul's Best Friend, by Victoria Laurie (I like this series a lot); Agnes and the Hitman, by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (delightful!); The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, by Donna Andrews (also hyenas, wolves, alpaca,... and murder) ; Her Royal Spyness, by Rhys Bowan (set in 1930s London); Murder With Reservations, by Elaine Viets (this series just keeps improving); The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett (hooray for the classics).

We watched The Librarian: Quest for the Spear and the sequel, Return to King Soloman's Mines, both great fun.

In between and around the rest, I've had nearly enough naps and oodles of snuggles with the cats. There have been good meals and interesting conversations with Spouse and friends. I've chatted with my sister and found topics to twitter.

Onward and Upward.]]> http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001625.html http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/weblog/archives/001625.html Gemisch/Gallimaufry Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:06:19 -0800