Starry Wisdom

Au Revoir Simone is a band named after a throw-away line in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. They make catchy, poppy music. Knight of Wands is my cell phone’s default ringtone, and they made a fun coloring book video for it:

You’d think that someone who works in the computer networking industry would have an easier time with their home network. And maybe I would if it weren’t for pesky game consoles. Just a note, this is rambly and a bit technical, so be warned. Also note that so far I am completely failing at writing about the cool topics I mentioned at the end of January – but I am also still soliciting more topics to write about…

Ok, to be honest, I started typing this out because there was a problem getting Mackenzie’s Wii connected to my wireless network, but then I recalled that you can actually mess with the network settings by non-intuitively clicking around – and of course that the Wii only supports AES for WPA2, which is OK, i guess. Anyway, I got it worked out but that’s the least of my worries.

Because my more modern Xbox360 also has problems with the wireless – in that it often refuses to believe the network exists, even though other devices have no problems. I can watch Netflix perfectly on my laptop, 10 feet further away from the WAP than the Xbox is. And the Xbox, when it can watch Netflix often scales the movies down to the lowest quality. If I plug it in via a long ethernet cable, HD all the way.

So, I have a tentative plan to buy another WRT54GL, put dd-wrt on it (which is what I am running on the current router), and set it up as a wireless bridge/repeater to get more coverage in the flat – which isn’t all that big. I’m hoping that maybe it can keep a more solid connection to the main router than the silly Xbox. Plus the wireless signal in the bedroom (which is the farthest room from the office) is pretty weak anyway – so maybe having another signal on this side of the flat will help? Or at least I can run a shorter cable to the Xbox maybe. I don’t know, but a router is only $50, and if it’s useless, I can ebay it with the bonus of the aftermarket OS already installed!

Stick with it, I guarantee a payoff!

Ok, so we all know that the weather out there is pretty crazy in Chicago (where I am from) right now. A blizzard the like of which hasn’t been seen for decades – my brother was a bit confused and wasn’t sure if it was the third biggest snowfall after ’67 and ’79 or if ’99 (which I was present for) also beat it. Either way, they got a lot of snow:

My family’s cars were trapped for the day for various reasons, which I guess was OK because most work and school was cancelled. My brother told me that he took Milo, my nephew out on the shoveled path to the garage and the snow was completely over his head. There is video of this which I hope to see in the near future, but now we’ll all have to just live with the cute mental picture of an 18th month old kid, bundled in a snowsuit, and surrounded by walls of white powder.

Yes, I sure am glad I live in California and don’t have to put up with this sort of weather.

However, I am sort of sad that I didn’t get to experience Thundersnow. My friend Katie tells me it is common in Kansas City, but it seems to be a novel occurrence elsewhere in the nation.

Meanwhile, I got to contend with what was an outrageously sunny day for San Bruno, where I work. Rats!

Ok, now as a reward for those that made it this far, I know present what very well could be the greatest commercial of the decade (which is only about a month old…):

P.S. The amount of wrangling I had to do to get videos that didn’t bleed like crazy over the right column makes me believe it’s about time for a new blog layout.

I’ll ease in to this blog-a-day with a quit bit of kvetching.

On my drive in to work today, my midback decided to spasm on me. This did not, and does not feel good! I helped Mackenzie move into my flat on Saturday, and maybe this is some 3 day delayed outcome from that? Or maybe it’s related to spending a total of 2 hours on airplanes yesterday flying back and forth from Burnbank – that dirty air is no good for you. Shrug.

Either way, I want a new back ASAP.

Ok, I’ve been pretty lax at posting lately – one post or so a month? So I’ve decided to pick it up in February! In the spirit of Thing-a-day, I am going to try to do a post-a-day in February. Now, I am certain that some, or most of them, will be as lame as this post, but still, I will write something every day (or at least back date posts for each day :p).

Right now, all I have to say is that I woke up at 4:45 AM to fly down to Burbank for the day. I got to leave early at least.

Topics to discuss this month may include:

1) Cooking
2) Coffee (in particular Chemex)
3) Windows (not Microsoft Windows)
4) TBD – what else should I talk about here?

Well, 2010 was another crappy year in reading for me. I finished a mere 20 books, a full 3 fewer than 2009. It was such a sad year that I have resolved to read more in 2011. Anyway, as per normal, here is a discussion of the books read in 2010. I am not going to bother putting in the list of books, unless it is demanded.

The best Ursula K LeGuin books I read in 2010 was A Wizard of Earthsea narrowly edging out City of Illusions. Yes the fantasy beat out the SF.

The overall best novel I read in 2010 was probably The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. This is a must read for fans of time travel stories!

The most nonsensical book I read in 2010 was The Silmarillion “by” J.R.R. Tolkein. It’s really a collection of notes edited posthumously by his son Christopher, and is a difficult read. Interesting for people who enjoy LOTR, but a big undertaking.

The best collection of essays was David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster. In fact I should read more of his essays post haste. Honorable mention goes to Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain, however.

Looking back at the books I read in 2010, Consider the Lobster was probably my favorite overall, although I enjoyed most of them quite a bit.

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but alas, I didn’t, so here goes.

What’s wrong with little kids that they don’t like showers but like baths? Baths are a terrible way to get clean . Oh wait, maybe that’s it, little kids don’t particularly like being clean. Unlike adults.

I mention this because for the about a month after my ankle surgery, they only way I could get clean was to take a bath with a leg hanging out of the tub. This was very suboptimal for a lot of reasons. There’s a reason that in ‘bathing cultures’, they get clean first, then get in the bath. Otherwise, you are just sitting in filth.

Well, now I can take showers, but sub-optimally, in that I can’t stand on both feet, and I have to change my bandage after, so it takes a long time. In short, I need to shower at night. I like to shower in the morning. I can’t wait until I do that again!

It turns out that I really like to put pants on ‘right leg first’. This poses a problem right now because to get pants over my crazy exoskeleton boot

I have to do left leg first.

I CAN take the boot off and do things the other way around, but it’s a pain to unstrap it and get back in, so I tend not to.

Next dr’s appointment is on the 20th, and as I am starting to be able to put weight on it now, I expect to not need the boot all of the time then. Maybe I can go back to my old ASO brace, which is far less obtrusive.

I’ve alluded to my messed up ankle in previous posts, such as Athletic Socks and Sneakers. Well, I had surgery to unmess it up yesterday.

Surgery seems to have gone well, and I’ve not really had much pain – credit to that goes to the DonJoy Iceman which the surgeon prescribed. Now, my insurance company wouldn’t pay for it, deeming it not medically necessary, but I think the rental fee for it will be worthwhile (and probably come out of the remains of my FSA account). The amount of pain I’ve had has been quite minimal, and I’ve not had to use much of the pain medicine prescribed.

Oh yeah, the dressing is freaking huge so I can’t wear regular pants:

Soon after I moved in to my flat I arranged to have a particular window replaced. The one that was there went down too far to be useful, and was fairly broken. Within two weeks of moving in I had the job scheduled, but there are delays before these things can actually happen, so it took until two weeks ago for the window to be finally replaced.

While I was waiting for the window to be replaced I had the fridge in front of the window, since it’s original position, near the doorway into the kitchen, made opening the fridge while someone was at the stove a problem. And in a lot of ways, having the fridge in front of the window was optimal, due to the french door design. However, it did block the window.

Well, Mackenzie did a bunch of possible layouts of the kitchen, and due to door clearance issues (particularly if one wants to be able to take the drawers out for cleaning) the ‘in front of the window’ layout was the best. But it wasn’t satisfying at all, especially since I just paid $X for the new fancy window. So she decided I should try putting the fridge in the corner, even with some clearance issues. Earlier this week we arranged it in this layout, and it turns out that it’s pretty good, and I’ll be keeping it like this until I someday remodel the kitchen.

By the way, the title of this post came from a comment when I posted these photos on facebook earlier today.