We moved recently and I had to subscribe to various new services in my new community, like water, power, internet and garbage service. The trash pickup (”waste hauling”) turned out to be far too difficult to arrange.
The city I’m moving to has a web page which lists all the waste haulers in town. The one I use at my old house (more…)
I’ve been “reading” (books-on-tape from simplyaudiobooks.com) the trilogy of books titled “His Dark Materials”: Golden Compass / Subtle Knife / Amber Spyglass. My son read the first one year or two ago, but didn’t get into it much. He’s not much for fantasy, and this book is a bit mystical. But it relies on science and theories of the multiverse as its basis. There’s lots of “unknown” things in it, but that’s ok with me.
But the interesting part is that the books’ climax in a war on religion. (more…)
Last year I travelled to India for two weeks on a business trip. We barely made our connection onto India Air in Europe. Our luggage was not so lucky.
We waited for our bags to arrive on the carousel. They never came. Someone announced something in Hindi or Tamil, and the throng of waiting travellers mobbed the toll booth cum information desk. Apparently we all had to fill out forms describing our lost bags. I was in the middle of the crowd, but I was out of my element. Eventually I was one of the last people to see the clerk.
His English was weak, but he pointed at various forms, asked for ID, verified my address and so on. And then he disappeared — with my passport. (more…)
A man showed up at my doorstep last weekend. He had a framed photo of my house taken from a helicopter in the fall. It seems they have a company that does this. He had a map of about 100 other houses he had yet to visit.
The photo was a bit expensive, but it was so cool. So I bought it. Framed. And the CD scan of the negative. (The CD had to be ordered and scanned. It arrived about 4 days later. Nice!)
Interestingly, the photo was taken about a month before I ever saw this house. It was shot in September and we first saw the house ourselves in October. I didn’t buy it until February, so it was just lucky (for him) that this guy showed up a few weeks later.
Pete Miser is a hip hop (”rap”) artist from New York (via Portland, OR) whom I’ve never heard of before. Probably you’ve never heard of him either. But his style is very clean and polished, and his music is so full of life and character that it sounds effortless in spite of its complexity. (more…)
I received my upgraded and hacked Tivo via Fedex yesterday. It’s not “illegally” hacked, as far as I can tell. Everything seems on the up and up. It has a bigger hard disk, the 4.x software, some extra third-party stuff installed, and the USB/WiFi enabled. I bought it on eBay. I probably overpaid for it, but I (more…)
I have had DirecTV service for about 9 years, Tivo for 6 years and Vonage for 2. I love them all dearly, but they don’t all work well together.
Well, DirecTV doesn’t like Vonage. It won’t complete its calls to the mother ship. Apparently this isn’t required for long-term service, though, as I haven’t completed a call in years, to my knowledge.
Tivo’s modem works just fine on Vonage. I really need Tivo to make its daily call, so I’m glad I don’t have any hoop-jumping to worry with there.
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We’ve moved. We had the house at 1463 Janice Court spruced up and prepped for sale. I really enjoyed the house and the neighborhood, but it’s time to move on. Now, though, with the house all cleaned up, a new roof, new carpet, new gutters, fresh paint… it looks so adorable! It’s even nicer than when we lived in it. 
I made a flyer highlighting the nearby nature trail. If you’re in the area, stop by to visit it even if you don’t need a house. It’s a nice trail. It was built by a neighbor for his wife who died recently (I think) of cancer. It’s truly a labor of love, and it shows.
Maybe I should put a geocache there.