Saturday, September 08, 2012

Back to the mainland

At around noon, we checked out of the hotel and headed to Poros to board the 2:30pm ferry.  We had coffee while waiting.

After arriving in Kyllini, we headed to Corinth for dinner at a pizza place.  I had a peinirli with kaseri, soutzouki, camel meat, and butter.

We had to stop multiple times on the way back to Athens since Dimitri wouldn't stop screaming. It got so bad that George's mother decided to drive so that George could sit in the back seat.  Dimitri was crying so hard that he vomited.

Friday, September 07, 2012

Drive to northern Kefallonia

We first drove up to Assos.  George's mother went for a quick swim.  Everyone had coffee or drinks.

From Assos we drove up to Fiskardo. There we had dinner. I had calamari stuffed with haloumi cheese and ouzo sauce.

We headed back to the hotel and had to stop twice since Dimitri was screaming.  George wanted to go for a quick swim at the beach, but it was dark and the beach bar was closed.  So instead we just had drinks from the hotel bar.

Thursday, September 06, 2012

St. Andrew's foot

At around noon George, Leonidas, their mother, and I headed to Moni Agiou Andreu. There we saw their museum of icons and other items from other churches in Kefallonia. The church had a relic of St. Andrew's foot.

After that we visited the Castle of St. George before heading back to the hotel.

For dinner I had cod with garlic potatoes and then lemon ice cream at an ice cream place. Dimitri chipped one of his front teeth at dinner.  Kristen and George bought some Robola wine.

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

The caves of Kefallonia

After breakfast we headed toward Sami to see the Drogarati cave and then Melissani Lake. After that we went to the white pebbled and blue watered Myrtos Beach.

For dinner I had rooster and pasta at a restaurant in a hill above the beach.

We were going to have dessert sometime after arriving back at the hotel, but I fell asleep while waiting.

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Lost with sheep in Kefallonia

At around noon we stopped by Argostoli and walked around a bit. Then we went to Costa Costa beach.

In the evening we headed to Poros to pick up Leonidas. We had dinner there as well.

On our way back to the hotel the caravan got lost and we ended up taking a dirt road. We unexpectedly encountered a huge flock of sheep which caused everyone to laugh uncontrollably except for Dimitri who woke up and started crying since he had no idea what was going on. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture since the chaos all happened too rapidly.



Monday, September 03, 2012

Ferry to Kefallonia

We checked out of the hotel at around noon and then headed to Ancient Olympia. Afterwards, we headed to the port of Kyllini to get on a ferry to Kefallonia.

We arrived at the port of Poros at around 8pm.  We got somewhat lost driving to the Avithos Resort, but eventually found it and had a late dinner.

Sunday, September 02, 2012

Greek wedding


After having breakfast at the free breakfast buffet, we drove to the Temple of Epicurean Apollo at Vasses.  The road was quite windy.

In the afternoon we sat by the pool and Dimitrios and George went swimming.

In the evening we headed to Sotirios's wedding and then the reception.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Driving to Kyparissia

We waited a little bit for Antonis and Alexandra before heading out.

On the way to the hotel in Kalo Nero, we first stopped at Ancient Mycenae to see the Citadel of Mycenae with its Lion Gate. At the site was also the Tomb of Aegisthus. Nearby we visited the Treasury of Atreus.

We then went to Nafplio for lunch. I had moussaka. After lunch we headed to a seaside cafe for Greek frappes.

We arrived at Kalo Nero sometime after 8pm and checked in. My room had two stories.  In the lower level was a sofa bed, bathroom, kitchen sink, stove, refrigerator, and small oven. Upstairs had a combined pair of twin beds and another bathroom.

Kristen didn't want to do anything, so I headed back to my room. I went to a nearby store to get a chocolate filled croissant and some cans of soda.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Dimitri's baptism

Today we went to a couple of pharmacies and a grocery store looking for Gerbers baby food.  None of them had any.

For lunch we had kefetedes and French fries.

Dimitrios's baptism was at 7pm followed by dinner.  A lot of George's relatives and friends attended. Dimitri was exorcised at the beginning of the 30 minute ceremony. His clothes was removed before he was thrown up and down in the holy water and anointed with olive oil. In the beginning Dimitri was sleeping, but he was screaming and crying when he was dunked in the water.  Supposedly Kristen had a shocked expression on her face.

Amongst the dishes at dinner was kokoresti, pork, and lamb.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Trip to the center of Athens

We went to a Carrefour grocery store in the afternoon. They didn't have any Gerber's baby food for Dimitri but at least I was able to get some Euros from the ATM.

After dropping off Kristen and Dimitri, George and I heading to the metro station and traveled into Athens to go to the New Acropolis Museum. Afterwards, we walked through Plaka and Monastiraki. There was an icon vendor who said they could make a Ladder of Divine Ascent icon in about a week for 250 euros. I declined.

When we arrived back at George's mother's house, George's cousin Maria and his aunt were visiting. George and I snacked on some moussaka, phyllo cheese triangles, and little Greek meatballs.

Later we went to a cafe next to the church where Dimitri will be baptized. I had a Greek frappe with Baileys. Almost everyone else had beers.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Arrived in Greece

Today I arrived in Athens, Greece, via Atlanta and JFK.  On my flight from JFK to Athens, I sat in the row behind Kristen, George, and Dimitri.  Everyone on the plane thought that he was a very good baby.  And then he chocked will drinking from his sippy cup and vomited on George.

George's mother picked us up at the airport.  Everyone was tired and took naps.  George's mother made moussaka.  Leonidas, Antonis, and their girlfriends stopped by later in the evening to see Dimitri.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Resuminator

It looks like something changed as far as how application resume works with either Safari 6 or Mountain Lion.  Before, applications like TextEdit and Preview would resume their previous application state when launching but Safari would start fresh.  Now, Safari re-opens the windows that were opened when it was closed when launched.

To fix this (i.e. have Safari no reopen windows that were opened when it was last closed), either run this in a Terminal window:

defaults write com.apple.Safari NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

Or, download Resuminator from here.  Another option is TinkerTool.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Strange iCloud issues with Mountain Lion on my laptop

A couple of strange things occured when I installed Mountain Lion on my work laptop.  For some reason, there seemed to be a phantom iCloud account which I couldn't initially get rid of.  In Notes, I could see the second account which caused all notes to duplicate, but I couldn't remove it.  When I removed the account from the "Mail, Contacts, and Calendar" preference pane, it would reappear.  Eventually I was able to get things working by some combination of removing the iCloud related keychain entries using Keychain Access, and manually deleting the data files which Notes uses (which I found via the lsof command).

I also had some problems sending iCloud email.  Removing the old Mobile Me smtp setup and removing and re-adding iCloud email seemed to fix it.

I didn't encounter any of these problems in my Mac Pro.  One thing that was different during the install was I didn't get prompted to login into iCloud on the MacBook Pro while I did on the Mac Pro.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Intitial OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Notes


The installation was uneventful.  One nice touch during the installation is that you setup different accounts for iCloud and the iTunes store.

A couple of things that I have noticed so far:
The location of the Notifications menu bar icon annoys me.  I would prefer that the Spotlight icon be in the top right corner of the screen.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Terminal bell in Ubuntu 12.04

I got a new HP PC at work to replace my approximately 5 year old Dell that is running Red Hat Enterprise 5.x.  Since I no longer support any servers running Red Hat and the stuff I work on is deployed on Solaris boxes, I decided to switch to Ubuntu.

One of the problems I discovered is that the terminal bell doesn't work.  It appears that when they decided to disable the PC speaker beep (which I actually sort of prefer in some cases), they also disabled the terminal bell without providing an easy way to re-enable it.  I was able to get it to work again by running the following:

pactl upload-sample /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/bell.ogg bell.ogg
pactl load-module module-x11-bell display=:0.0 sample=bell.ogg
xset b 100 

After doing this, I could hear the bell when doing "echo -e '\a'", when doing tab completion, or hitting Control-g in a non-windowed Emacs session.  Unfortunately, there is no bell sound in windowed Emacs sessions, though.


Saturday, February 18, 2012

Open Blu-ray discs with VLC 2.0

The Open BDMV folder doesn't work for me.  The only way I could get a Blu-ray to open is via Open Network and using an MRL like "bluray:///Volumes/Greece 2008".  The Open BDMV folder UI adds the BDMV subdirectory to the MRL which seems to cause the playback failure.

Thursday, February 09, 2012

innerHTML and IE

I needed to insert a large chunk of html returned from an Ajax call to a pre-existing CGI script.  Everything seemed to work fine under Chrome, but under IE I was getting an Unknown Runtime Error.  I was able to get things to work by using a regex to grab only the table element that I was interested in and inserting that to my document via my div's innerHTML.  This seemed somewhat fragile.  I found a better solution in the comments to this blog post.

This is what I ended up doing (where data contains the html returned by the Ajax call and flowDiv is the id of the div I am inserting into):
  
var oldDiv = doc.getElementById('flowDiv'); 
var newDiv = doc.createElement(oldDiv.tagName); 
newDiv.id = oldDiv.id; 
newDiv.className = oldDiv.className; 
newDiv.innerHTML = data; 
oldDiv.parentNode.replaceChild(newDiv,oldDiv);



Saturday, October 22, 2011

Arch Linux on a Pogoplug

The hard drive that I was using for Time Machine died (I/O errors), so I went to Best Buy to get a new one.  While I was there, I noticed that they had a Pogoplug which I also purchased. 

Although the box said the model number was a POGO-P21 (which is the model number for the Pogoplug v3), the sticker on the Pogoplug itself said that it was a POGO-E02 (Pogoplug v2). While the v3 has a faster processor, the v2 has more memory (256 MB vs 128 MB).  I didn't notice until just now that I could have installed Optware on it and kept access to my.pogoplug.com.  Instead, I installed Arch Linux ARM on it (on a 2 GB flash drive).  In retrospect, I probably could have done what I wanted with Optware, but since I already have Arch Linux working, I'll probably leave it as is.

I used pacman to install ffmpeg on the Pogoplug and configured my netcams to upload to it instead of my Western Digital MyBook Live since the ffmpeg binary on Arch Linux includes the mpeg4 and H.264 codecs where as the MyBook does not.  Encoding to H.264 is too slow, so I'm encoding to mpeg4 (I was encoding to motion jpeg on the MyBook).  Although I am storing the images and videos on a 16 GB flash drive (formatted ext2 to reduce flash wear), I'm uploading the compressed files once a night to the MyBook for easier remote access and more permanent storage.

Friday, October 21, 2011

More efficient NAS backups using Carbon Copy Cloner

By default, when backing up to a sparse bundle disk image, Carbon Copy Cloner uses a band size of 8MB. This might be already for use on a local disk, but seems to cause a slow down when reading from a mounted drive on a NAS such as the Western Digital MyBook Live.  This is probably due to have so many files in the band directory of the bundle.  To rectify this, one can create the sparse bundle ahead of time by doing something like this:

hdiutil create -verbose -type SPARSEBUNDLE -size 1T -imagekey sparse-band-size=262144 -fs HFS+J -volname myVolume myVolume
 This will increase the band size to 128 MB which should improve performance.

Point Carbon Copy Cloner to this pre-created disk image when doing the backup.

Friday, September 23, 2011

DD-WRT VPN client with MacOS X and iOS

With build build 14896, the VPN client doesn't seem to work by default with MacOX X 10.7 or iOS 4.3.  To get it working, go to Administrations->Commands, and add the following to what runs on Startup (Save Startup) and then restart the router:

echo 'noaccomp' >> /tmp/pptpd/options.pptpd

Note:  if you make any changes in DD-WRT's web interface that may a cause the options.pptpd file to be rewritten, you might have to restart the router.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Blocking WD MyBook Live incoming connections


The MyBook Live allows remote access the the hard drive via the WD 2go iOS app.  One thing I don't like about it is that it pokes a whole via UPnP on my firewall for ports 80 and 443.  And unfortunately on dd-wrt, UPnP port forwarding takes precedence over any other rules on the FORWARD chain.

So, I manually added a rule via Administration->Commands (Save Firewall) in dd-wrt:

iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp -i `get_wanface` -m multiport --dport 80,443 -j DROP

"iptables -L" doesn't show prerouting rules.  Instead, do: "iptables -L -t nat".

Since the MyBook Live runs Linux internally, there might be a way to change the ports through some manual unsupported mechanism, but haven't had a chance to check.  Hopefully Western Digital creates a firmware update that allows the port to be changed via a supported mechanism in the web UI.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Dripping shower

My upstairs shower was occasionally dripping a little.  A while back, I had fixed a similar problem with my downstairs shower by replacing the Price Pfister valve assembly and cartridge/pressure balance with a combo unit (part number 974-042).  This was evidently the wrong part.  Although it worked alright, it caused the handle and wall flange to stick out a bit.  I think this was due to the fact that the shower is a pre-1997 unit (either model 08, 808, 0X8 or R89).  According to this FAQ, the correct part numbers are actually 971-250 for the valve assembly and 974-291 for the cartridge/pressure balance.

So, I ordered the parts and replaced them.  The shower appears to be working ok.

Monday, September 05, 2011

Compressing network camera images on a WD My Book Live

I have two Panasonic Network Cameras that are setup to ftp images via timed and motion sensor triggers to a Western Digital My Book Live NAS.  This device runs Linux. Information to gain ssh access can be found here.  The device has perl and a stripped down version of ffmpeg pre-installed.

Below is a quick and dirty perl script that will take the images uploaded from the network cameras and generate QuickTime files from them.  Unfortunately the ffmpeg binary that is pre-installed has limited codec support, so the QuickTime file is just using the mjpeg codec.

UPDATE (9/5/2011 1:00pm): Modified framerate of QuickTime file and changed the threshold for including motion image files.


#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Time::Local;
use POSIX;
use File::Copy;

# crontab:
# 5 0 * * * cd /DataVolume/shares/Netcam; perl -w compress_to_mp4.pl >>compress_to_mp4.log 2>&1

my $root = '/DataVolume/shares/Netcam';
my @dirs = ("$root/pancam1/motion",
            "$root/pancam1/timer",
            "$root/pancam2/motion",
            "$root/pancam2/timer");

foreach my $dir (@dirs) {
  my $stoptime;
  $stoptime = time();
  $stoptime = timelocal(0, 0, 0, (localtime($stoptime))[3], (localtime($stoptime))[4], (localtime($stoptime))[5]);
  my $threshold = 60*60*24;
  my ($type) = ($dir =~ m!/([^/]+)$!o);
  if ($type eq 'motion') {
    $threshold = 60*10;
    $stoptime = 0;
  }
  if (opendir (DIR, $dir)) {
    my @filenames;
    while (my $filename = readdir(DIR)) {
      push @filenames, $filename if $filename =~ /\.jpg$/o;
    }
    closedir (DIR);
    @filenames = sort @filenames;
    my %batches;
    my $laststart = 0;
    my $lastts = 0;
    foreach my $filename (@filenames) {
      my ($year,$mon,$mday,$hour,$min,$sec,$msec) = ($filename =~ /(\d{4})(\d{2})(\d{2})s(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d+)\.jpg/o);
      my $ts = timelocal($sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon-1, $year);
      next if $stoptime && $ts>$stoptime;
      if ($ts - $lastts > $threshold) {
        $laststart = $ts;
      }
      $lastts = $ts;
      push @{$batches{$laststart}}, $filename;
    }
    foreach my $ts (sort keys %batches) {
      if (! -d "$dir/tmp") {
        mkdir("$dir/tmp");
      }
      my $count = 1;
      my @tmpfiles;
      foreach my $filename (@{$batches{$ts}}) {
        my $tfilename = sprintf("tmp%08d.jpg", $count);
        my $tpath = "$dir/tmp/$tfilename";
        push @tmpfiles, $tpath;
        copy("$dir/$filename",$tpath) or die "copy failed $!";
        $count++;
      }
      next unless scalar(@tmpfiles) > 1;
      my $outdir = "$dir/../$type" . "_video";
      if (! -d $outdir) {
        mkdir($outdir);
      }
      $outdir .= strftime("/%Y%m%d", localtime($ts));
      if (! -d $outdir) {
        mkdir($outdir);
      }
      my $ofilename = strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S.mov", localtime($ts));
      my $out = `ffmpeg -y -r 3 -vcodec copy -i $dir/tmp/tmp%08d.jpg $outdir/$ofilename 2>&1`;
      if ($out =~ /error/om) {
        print "$out\n";
        die;
      }
      foreach my $filename (@tmpfiles) {
        unlink($filename);
      }
      foreach my $filename (@{$batches{$ts}}) {
        unlink("$dir/$filename");
      }
    }
  }
}

Dynamic widths for blog template

Add the following CSS to the template for dynamic widths:


html body .content-outer {
max-width: 90%;
}

Thursday, August 11, 2011

MailRaider

I needed to read an Outlook .msg file that was attached to a Help Desk ticket.  Using MailRaider, I was able to see the message and retreive the attachments inside.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Initial MacOS X 10.7 Lion Notes

In System Preferences:
  • To change the mouse scrolling behavior to how it use to behave in prior versions, uncheck "Move content in the direction of finger movement..." in the Mouse panel.  It might be worth leaving it checked if using a track pad or Magic Mouse.
  • To always show scroll bars, change the "Show scroll bars" options in the General panel.  Unfortunately, there isn't a way to add scroll arrows.
In order to show harddrive/directory information (number of items and free disk space) in the Finder, toggle on "Show Status Bar" under the View menu.

The default location which Finder windows opens is now "All My Files".  To change it, look under the Finder preferences, and change the location listed under "New Finder windows show" in the General tab.  I have mine set to Applications, although I used to have it set to my home directory.

To install Java, launch any Java application from the Finder.  For example, Java Preferences under Applications/Utilities.

There are a bunch of new high quality voices in multiple languages when customizing the System Voice in the Speech System Preference panel.  They will auto download if selected and are quite large.  The foreign languages seem to be all high quality.  For U.S. English, Jill and Tom are the high quality ones.

After installing, it takes a long time (and lots of churning of the hard drive) to rebuild the Spotlight database.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Strange audio problem with Denon AVR-790 Receiver

I was watching a Blu-ray on my PS3 when my Denon AVR-790 receiver started making clicking noises and the audio stopped.  I tried switching to different input sources on the receiver (including the radio tuner) and still no audio output.  I went into the menu, and the option to generate test tones was missing.

After doing some research, I tried blowing into the headphone jack and audio started outputting from the speakers.  Evidently the receiver must have a very sensitive headphone jack and some dust must have caused it to think that headphones were plugged in.  Seems ok now.

Monday, May 09, 2011

The Invasion Begins

Today, the cicadas of Brood XIX started re-emerging in Nashville.  This is the brood that last emerged in 1998.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Extracting video with subtitles from an MKV file

Although Handbrake can convert MKV files and burn the subtitles into the video stream, it does not handle fancy SSA subtitles very well.  The only program that I've found that seems to render SSA subtitles very well is mplayer.  I used mplayer and x264 to convert by running the following:

mplayer -ass -nosound inputmovie.mkv -vo yuv4mpeg:file=>(x264 --demuxer y4m --qp 15 --bitrate 2500 --profile main --level 5.1 --preset slow  -o outputmovie.mp4 -)
 This also works:

mplayer -ass -nosound inputmovie.mkv -vo yuv4mpeg:file=>(x264 --demuxer y4m --crf 15 --profile main --level 5.1 --preset slow  -o outputmovie.mp4 -)

I used the Main H.264 profile with a high level instead of using the High H.264 profile since the High profile resulted in the video starting with a gray screen and other artifacts when viewing via Quicktime.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Firefox 4: Restoring Previous Session

Firefox 4 will automatically reload the tabs and windows from when you last quit if the "When Firefox starts" option is set to "Show my windows and tabs from last time".  Unfortunately, this means that it will always show your last session instead of a blank browser window.

In prior versions, it would only show the windows and tabs from last time if you quit and told it to save.  With Firefox 4, the previous session's state can be restored via History->Restore Previous Session.  Alternatively, the browser.showQuitWarning setting can be set to true in about:config to restore the Firefox 3.x behavior.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Open Frame Chrome Extension

With Google Chrome 10, the context menu to open a frame in a new tab was removed.  Luckily, there is an extension called "Open Frame" that adds it back.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

The Great Nashville Flood of 2010

Luckily, my house didn't really take much damage during last weekend's big storm and flood.

I did discover a leak in my first floor bedroom, though.  There was some dampness on the ceiling and a little bubbling/blistering of paint along the top of one of the interior walls.  I poked a hole with a needle to let it drain.. It is kind of strange since I didn't see any leaks in the room upstairs.  Right now, I'm trying to find a roofer.  I think I'm going to replace the roof since it is a bit old (installed in 1996).

After hearing that one of my neighbor's crawl space had flooded, I decided to check mine out Tuesday morning.  At first I thought everything was fine since I only saw a few puddles on the vapor barrier (i.e. plastic sheets over the dirt).  But when I tried to crawl in so I could look further inside, I discovered about 2 inches of water beneath the vapor barrier.  Luckily, by Wednesday afternoon, all the water had been reabsorbed into the ground.

Here is a link to some pictures of the flooding:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/flooding_in_tennessee.html

And here is a video:

Sunday, May 02, 2010

New Job

After almost 14 years, Friday was my last day on the Wizorder (aka Horizon Clinicals) team.

Tomorrow, I officially join the StarPanel team.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Strange DD-WRT problem

While I was trying to see why the time in my router running DD-WRT was out of sync (a couple of minutes ahead), the WAN connection lost its DHCP lease.  The cable modem appeared to be alright from the status LEDs, but the router would not get an ip address even after releasing or renewing the lease.  I tried powering on and off both the router and cable modem and was able to briefly get a private ip to at least see the cable modem, but then even that lease was somehow lost.

Next, I tried restoring the router's configuration to "factory" defaults.  It still wasn't able to get a lease.  Finally, I tried reloading from a backup of the firmware settings, and then the router was finally able to get a DHCP lease.

I'm not sure, but it is quite possible that the problem was actually on the Comcast side and not with the router.  Until this incident, the router's uptime was over 30 days.

Also, I discovered a workaround for fixing the time drift.  On the Administration->Management page, I added this to cron:

0 1 0 0 0 /usr/sbin/ntpclient -c 1 -s -h 0.us.pool.ntp.org 
 
 

Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Ballad of G.I. Joe

What do the members of G.I. Joe and Cobra do for fun?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkPEHM38_DA

From Funny or Die.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

New cable modem and router

For a really long time, I was renting a Scientific-Atlanta Webstar DPX-100 cable modem from Comcast. The last couple of weeks, my cable connection has been flakey As it turns out, this cable modem was EOLed on 10/29/2008.  So, I decided to purchase a Motorola SURFboard eXtreme SB6120. 

I also decided to get a new router (Linksys 320N) since I was pretty sure that the new cable modem might saturate my old D-Link 704.  Since I read that the Linksys firmware was buggy, I carefully flashed it with DD-WRT, a 3rd party Linux based alternative firmware

Here are some speed tests:

Webstar DPX-100 with D-Link 704:
5 Mbps down/0.99 Mbps up/48 ms ping

Motorola 6120 with D-Link 704:
5 Mbps down/4 Mbps up/51 ms ping

Motorola 6120 with Linksys 320N with DD-WRT
19 Mbps down/4 Mbps up/52 ms ping

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Moving to an off-campus building at work

On Friday, my entire group at work, with one exception, will be moving to a building off-campus.


Friday, April 03, 2009

Caught

I wasn't careful on my walk.
I was seen and had to talk.
Sunglasses, a hat, and a trench coat, I did not wear
Because I thought very little risk was there.
Unfortunately, that was not the case.
And now possibly discovered is my base.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Birthday

I actually had an enjoyable birthday this year. I thought I was going to Best Buy and found myself at Margot Cafe in East Nashville. Sneaky!

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Day 3 Post-op

Vision from my left eye (which has a subconjunctival hemorrhage) seems sharper than my right eye. My eye lashes have a lot of crud from the Pred Forte.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

The Pharaoh

I had my first encounter with the Pharaoh. He asked whether I had heard the good news. I said no. He said that the White House was plagiarizing his articles. And that he was running for president and that his running mate is going to be Jerry Rice.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Leaving Greece

Today I left Greece. George and Kristen took me to the airport in the morning. Unfortunately the flight was delayed about 1.5 hours. While I was waiting in the airport, I bought a Greek Easter bread to bring back.

Since I was going to have a 5 hour layover at JFK, I was originally planning on going into NYC. But, because of the delay, I didn't have time. I arrived in Nashville at around 9:30pm, where Osman picked me up and gave me a ride home.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Second to last day in Greece

I didn't do too much today. In the morning, we went to a grocery store to buy some food to bring back. I bought some halva, kinder eggs, and Nescafe (to make frappe).


At the Costco-like place we went to, some guy tried to get George to buy some stolen watches. He ended up giving him some loose change to get him to go away.

For lunch, we had octopus, octopus pasta, feta cheese, and salad.

Dinner was at a restaurant whose owner was a friend of George's father. We had salad, greens, calamari, lobster pasta, fruit, and some other desserts.


Afterwards, we went to a bar in town with some of George's friends.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Mykonos

Leonidas drove us to Rafina where we got on a Flying Cat at 7:15am to take us to Mykonos, a popular island in the Cyclades. We had to run to the boat because we were afraid that we were going to miss it.

We arrived at Mykonos at 10am, and called a taxi to take us into Hora, the main town on Mykonos. After walking around town a bit, we decided to rent a car so that we could visit some of the beaches.

Since it was the offseason, all the beaches (including the well known Super Paradise Beach) were pretty much empty.


After driving around the island to a bunch of empty beaches, we returned to Hora at around 3pm. There were had a lunch that consisted of Mykonian sausages and a seafood platter which had small fish, bigger fish chunks, fried calamari, grilled octopus, and shelled shrimp and crawfish.

We left Mykonos at 6:30 and arrived back in Rafina at around 9pm, were George's father was waiting to take us back home for dinner.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Second day on Hydra

For breakfast, I snacked on some chocolate-hazelnut filled croissants. After checking out of the hotel, we went to a cafe next to the hotel where I had a frappe and Kristen went to get a gyro.

While we were relaxing, I went to buy some revolutionary flags of Hydra that were used as a war flag during the Greek War of Independence. On it is the quote "I tan i epi tas" which means "with it or on it". This is an ancient Spartan motto which means that you should either come back with your shield victorious, or dead on it.

Since we had some free time to kill after buying tickets to a Flying Dolphin back to Athens, we visited the Historical Archives Museum of Hydra and then took a water taxi to a different part of the island for lunch. Lunch consisted of Greek salad, cold octopus, grilled calamari, zucchini balls, and fish.

At 3:25pm, we left Hydra to go back to Athens. For dinner at George's parent's house, we had goat with potatoes, Greek salad, feta cheese and some other type of cheese, and vegetables, plus dessert.


Monday, April 21, 2008

Hydra

I checked out of my hotel at 8:30am and took my luggage with me on the metro. Leonidas picked me up at the station and took me to his parent's house.

After dropping off my luggage, George, Kristen, Leonidas, and I took the metro to Piraeus where we met Leonidas's girlfriend, Chrysoula, and took a Flying Dolphin hydrofoil to the Saronic Gulf Island of Hydra.


After checking in to the Hotel Argo, everyone but me go into bathing suits and headed to a cement "beach". The water was cold, but George and Leonidas went swimming. We also went to a cafe where I had a frappe, and Kristen and George had hamburgers since she was hungry. After relaxing for a while, we wandered around Hydra town.

Dinner was at around 9pm. I had pork with manouri cheese, grilled tomato, and french fries. After dinner, we went to a bar that was initially playing reggae music.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Walking around Athens

In the morning, I walked to the New Acropolis Museum near my hotel to see the opening. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see. The first floor was open, but there were no visible exhibits outside of the excavations that were visible beneath the glass floor.

Afterwards, I walked around Plaka and Monastiraki to do a little shopping.

At 1:30pm, I took to Metro to go to George's parent's house for lunch. We had soup and 2 large fish. I also tried some ouzo. It was quite tasty and had a licorice flavor.

Later, we left for Syntagma Square. There, I went to see the changing of the guard outside of Parliament while Kristen and George went shopping.


After meeting in Plaka, we went to Lykavittos Hill to see the excellent nighttime view of the city from there.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Day trip to Delphi

In the morning, I took the Metro to the station nearest George's parent's house. He picked me up, and then we went home to pickup Kristen.

At around 10am, we left for Delphi and arrived at around 12:30.


We left Delphi at around 2:30pm and drove to Moni Osios Loukas (Monastery of Holy Luke). We had a really difficult time trying to find it. The church contained a body inside of a glass coffin. It's fingers were visible beneath its robes.

We left the monastery at around 4:30pm, and arrived in Chalkida at around 5:50pm. Between the mainland and the island of Evia, the tidal current is very noticeable. After walking along the waterfront, we had some ice cream and tiramisu at a cafe.

Dinner was at George's parent's house. It consisted of salad, cheese, feta cheese pastry, and orzo with leftover lamb.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Day 3 in Greece

I met Kristen and George outside of the Akropoli Metro station. From there, we walked to the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arch.

Then, we walked to the Panathenaic Stadium and on to the National Art Gallery. After we left the gallery, we took the metro to Omonia station and walked to the National Archaeological Museum.

At around 3pm, we took the metro to Doukissis Plakentias station and walked to George's car. George then drove us to the Cape of Sounion where we visited the Temple of Poseidon.



For dinner, we ate at a restaurant with an excellent view of the temple. We had about 1kg of fish, a Greek salad, some cold little fish appetizer, fried cheese, french fries, and a grilled octopus tentacle.


Thursday, April 17, 2008

Ancient Athens

Sometime after 10am, I headed out from the hotel and walked to Filopappou Hill. I climbed the hill to the Monument of Filoppapos where there is an excellent view of the Acropolis.


At around 1pm, I entered the Acropolis. Kristen and George were late due a Metro strike, so they had to take a bus into the city. Eventually, I met them at the front of the Parthenon at around 3pm.

Together, we went to the Ancient Agora and made a quick stop at Keramikos Cemetary.

Then, we met up with George's brother, Leonidas, and Leonidas's girlfriend, Chrysoula, and went to see Hadrian's Library, the Roman Agora, and the Tower of the Winds.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant that served souvlaki on pitas (aka gyros).

After dinner, I headed back to the hotel. Since the internet wasn't working in the hotel, I left around 10pm and took the Metro to Syntagma Square since the square has free wifi. I left to go back to the hotel at around 11:20pm.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Arrived in Athens, Greece

Yesterday, I got a ride to the airport from Ioana, and then flew to Athens, Greece, via JFK.

My plane arrived in Athens today 1 hour early. After getting my luggage and exchanging some money, I bought a Cosmote SIM card for 5 Euros with an additional 10 Euros of airtime.

George and Kristen picked me up at the airport, and we went to George's parent's house for some teas, sweet bread, and cookies. Since it was still to early for me to check in at my hotel, we went to the grocery store to do some shopping.

A little after noon, we left for the center of the city so that I could check into the Airotel Parthenon. After I checked in, we headed back to the house.

George's father, Dimitrios, and brother, Leonidas, had already started roasting a full lamb on a spit. We took turns turning the lamb.















Since it would take many hours for it to be done, we had lunch which consisted of stuffed vegetables (tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini) with rice and feta cheese. We also had some snails.

About 20 of George's friends showed up for dinner after 8pm. Besides the roast lamb, we also had pork, sausages, and spinach in phyllo. George also had a birthday cake.

Afterwards, one of George's friends took me back to the hotel.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Airport Extreme and Wireless Security Problems

I had some issues setting up the Airport Extreme 802.11n Base Station I recently bought. Even though I don't have any 802.11n devices, I wanted it to run in that mode in case I get anything in the future. Since I have some wireless devices that only support WEP, I'm using WEP (Transitional Security Network) for wireless security. I'm not sure if this is due to something odd in Apple's implementation, but my Powerbook G4 is only able to connect to this when using WPA even though one of my wireless devices can connect to it just fine using 128bit WEP.

One of my other devices can't connect to it using either WEP or WPA, so I'm still using my old Graphite Airport Base Station to support that.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Enabling PHP on Leopard

I don't really like editing the main httpd.conf file if I don't have to. So the cleanest way to enable php is to create something like /etc/apache2/other/enable_php.conf with the following content:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
Then, restart the web server.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

VectorMagic

This is an online tool to convert bitmaps to vector images. It is kind of slow, but the results are fantastic. I wish there was a standalone version of the program.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Random Leopard Notes and Observations

  • I did an upgrade install.
  • When the machine boots up after the install is finished, there is a delay before going to the login screen.
  • After the install, go to the the Installer DVD, and then Optional Installs->Xcode Tools->XcodeTools.mpkg to install the Developer tools.
  • I had to delete some Help Viewer cache and preference files, otherwise it would crash when doing a two word search. This only happened with my primary user account on Hyperion (my MacPro).
  • Spotlight has to re-index the harddrive. This takes a while (you'll notice the high disk I/O). On my laptop it took a couple of hours.
  • The stuff in my KeyChain was missing. Fix is to just double click on Library/Keychains/login.keychain. Apple may a fixed this with an update.
  • Sherlock is gone. No big deal since most of the functionality is in the Dashboard.
  • I don't like the Grid setting for Stacks. Fan seems better (although it shows less). I have it set to sort by Date Added so I can quickly go to my last downloaded item.
  • The indicators in the dock for running applications seems to be less noticeable due to the reflections. It's probably not a problem if the dock is running on the left or right since it doesn't have reflections in those places.
  • iCal now shows the current date in the dock even when it's not running.
  • CoverFlow view in finder is neat in certain situations (like browsing images or documents).
  • Screen Sharing is nice (vnc://hostname). It's a little flakey via iChat (seems to spontaneously disconnect). I'd recommend only allowing certain users to have access to Screen Sharing (via the Sharing systems preference).
  • Spaces seems to work pretty well. Can't set different backgrounds for each virtual desktop, though.
  • Macs on the network have icons that represent their actual machine assuming they're running 10.5 (i.e. a MacPro looks like a MacPro, G4 looks like a G4, and a PowerBook looks like a PowerBook). Windows machines are represented with a computer monitor that has a blue screen.
  • You can no longer scrub audio/video files directly in the finder (although you can still play them). But, you can hit the space bar or Command-Y (Apple-Y) to see the file in QuickLook. Quick Look is a floating window panel, so if you select something else, it'll replace whatever is currently in the window.
  • Dictionary can now search Wikipedia (in multiple languages). There is also a Japanese<->English Dictionary.
  • Drive icons on the desktop stay put between reboots.
  • Going to the printer options in the Epson drivers for my ancient Epson Stylus Photo 780 printer causes the application to crash. These are really old drivers from Epson that only work on PPC Macs. The ink status utility works fine, though. There are GimpPrint and Gutenprint drivers that come with the OS, though. I'm not sure how well they work.
  • Repairing disk permissions takes a really long time (compared to 10.4).
  • Time Machine is actually a pretty nice way to do incremental backups. It takes a long time to do the initial backup. You can tell it what drives/folders to ignore. It uses hardlinks to preserve space (unchanged files are hardlinked instead of copied).
  • Firefox and Camino need new themes to fit the new window colors (a darker shade of gray).
  • Applications which use the OS's built in spell checker can also take advantage of the built in grammar checker.
  • I haven't really looked at the Developer tools, but it appears that there is a lot of sample code for writing Cocoa apps in Python and Ruby. Interface Builder is different, so older tutorials may not be very helpful.
  • The Mosaic screen saver is really neat. Only thing I don't like is that it creates the mosaic with photos from your entire iPhoto library (instead of just a selection).
  • There is a new voice called Alex which sounds more realistic.
  • In Safari, you can make a Web clip and use it as a widget in the Dashboard. This only really works if the thing you are clipping has a fixed size.
  • There are different themes for terminal windows.
  • Some software updates install after you click the restart button (during machine shutdown phase). Also, some system caches are rebuilt during shutdown (which sometimes causes the shutdown to take awhile). I think in prior versions, these caches were built at startup.
  • There is now an optional Guest user account. It gets wiped when the guest user logs out.
  • There is a silly iTunes Visualizer in Developer/Examples/Quartz\ Composer/Compositions/Music\ Visualizers. Copy "Club Lisa.gtz" to your $HOME/Library/Compositions directory (you'll probably have to create the directory). You can actually edit the visualizer in Quartz Composer and make the Allessandro and Peter dance around by tying the Audio Peak Output to their X and Y translations.
  • Sandbox rules (in /usr/share/sandbox) are written in Scheme.

At Ars Technica, there is a really good article about what is new:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/1

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Giving people something better

Here is an interesting article in the New York Times about Apple gaining PC market share and future OS upgrades.

One of the more interesting parts of this article is the bit about how the Apple development team was worried that the multitouch user interface on the iPhone wouldn't work out. If they would have just listened to users, Apple probably would have developed some fairly ordinary smart phone using a stylus as an the input method. Instead they took a risk and tried to do something different.

I think this is a good quote that describes their development philosophy:
"Giving people what they want is fundamentally and disastrously wrong. The people don't know what they want...[Give] them something better." - Samuel Rothapfel

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Russian Pirozhki


Russian Pirozhki
Originally uploaded by jgrande
Here are some Russian Pirozhkis that I made using a recipe that was given to us on the cruise. They are stuffed with apricots and raisins.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Leaving Russia

This morning, we had to wake up at around 2am. The buses departed to the airport at about 3am to catch the 5:50am flight to Munich.

At around 3pm, I arrived in Nashville, via Munich and Chicago. Unfortunately, my suitcase did not make it out of Chicago. So, I stayed at the airport until about 5:30pm when the next United flight was going to arrive. Luckily, my suitcase was on this flight.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Catherine's Palace at Pushkin

Today was our last full day in Russia, and we went to Catherine's Palace at Pushkin. It was built for Tsarina Elizabeth and she named it in honor of her mother, Catherine I.

The palace was badly damaged during World War II, but about 20 of the state rooms are now opened. For a fee, pictures are allowed inside in all the rooms except for the Amber Room. This room is completely covered in amber. The Nazis looted the original amber panels but they were either lost or destroyed while in transit. The panels in the current Amber Room are reproductions.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Peterhof

We traveled a little outside of St. Petersburg to Peter the Great's Summer Palace, Peterhof. It is also known as Petrodvorets. It is considered the Russian Versailles.

The main highlight of the palace is the Grand Cascade. This is a collection of fountains that was partially designed by Peter the Great, himself. Also on the grounds of the palace are trick fountains that will surprise those who get too close. We didn't actually go into the main palace building. Instead we went into the Catherine Wing of the Palace. We had to wear booties over our shoes since it was wet outside and they didn't want the floors to get dirty.

In the afternoon, we took a courtesy bus into the city. The traffic was really bad. We walked along some of the canals and crossed the Bankovsky Most which is one of St. Petersburg's most photographed bridges.

Dinner had a Georgian theme. It included "Harcho", which is a medium spicy Georgian soup and Lula-kebab, which is a kebab made from minced lamb meat.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

The Hermitage

On the way to the Hermitage Museum, we stopped by the Russian cruiser Aurora. A shot from it's gun signaled the Bolsheviks to storm the Winter Palace at 9:40pm on October 25, 1917.

After leaving the Aurora, we headed to the Hermitage Museum and stood in line. The Hermitage consists of a couple of buildings including the Winter Palace, the Large Hermitage, and the Little Hermitage. Building began in 1754 on the Winter Palace for Tsarina Elizabeth. Much of the interiors were remodeled by Catherine the Great and her successors.

The Hermitage has a collection of over 3 million items. Amongst the many artists who have works contained within the museum are Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, and Rembrandt.

After the tour of the Hermitage, we had a little time to do some shopping in the museum store. There was also an internet cafe on the premises. It cost 20 rubles (80 cents) for 20 minutes of time.

After dinner, we went to the Menshikoff Concert Hall to see a folk show performance called the "Soul of Russia". Champagne and red caviar was served for free during the intermission.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Arrived in St. Petersburg

Today we arrived in St. Petersburg.

The SIM card I bought in Moscow wasn't working since the ship left the Moscow area to go to Uglich. I was hoping that maybe it was a coverage problem out of the big cities, but it was not working in St. Petersburg as well. So, I think the plan the SIM card is on must be set up to only work in the Moscow area. At least I was able to make a few calls and send some text messages so it wasn't a total waste.

Our first stop in the city tour was a quick stop at the Smolnyy Convent. Next, we stopped by the Rostral Columns to take in the view of the SS Peter and Paul Fortress and the Winter Palace. On the way to the fortress to see the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, we did a little souvenir shopping at a store next to the Cabin of Peter the Great.

After leaving SS Peter and Paul, we made another quick stop at St. Isaac's Cathedral. This is the 4th largest cathedral in the world behind St. Peter's in Rome, St. Paul's in London, and the cathedral in Florence.

Our last stop on the city tour was the Church on Spilled Blood. It is also known as the Resurrection Church of Our Saviour. It was built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated on March 1, 1881. It bears a strong resemblance to St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.

In the afternoon, we took a courtesy bus back into the city from the ship to the Square of Arts. From there, we took a short walk to Nevskiy Prospekt, St. Petersburg's main shopping street. Here we saw the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan which as inspired by St. Peter's in Rome. We also visited Gostiny Dvor which is a very large shopping area.

Somewhere along Nevskiy Prospekt, my father got his small camera stolen by a pickpocket. He's not sure when it happened.

After dinner on board the ship, we headed back into the city center again to see a ballet performance at the Hermitage Theater. The ballet we saw was "Giselle".

Friday, August 31, 2007

Mandrogi and last day cruising

We arrived at Mandrogi in the morning. This is a popular local winter vacation spot with quite a few resident artists crafting various souvenirs. For lunch we had a traditional Shashlik picnic. Shashlik is a Russian form of shish kebab.

Before dinner, we had the Captain's Farewell Reception since this was our last day of cruising. For dessert at the Captain's Farewell Dinner, we had "Baked Alaska" cake.

In the evening, there was a talent show put on by the passengers as well as some of the crew. It included singing, Russian music, a hilarious "ballet" performance, and some funny skits.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Kizhi

Today was a very relaxing day.

In the morning, we exited the final ship lock in the Volga-Baltic Canal and entered Lake Onega. While cruising the lake, we were given a tour of the ship's bridge. In the afternoon, we had a Russian Tea Party.

At about 5pm, we arrived at Kizhi Island. Here, we had a walking tour and saw the Church of the Transfiguration, the Bell Tower, and the Church of the Intercession. The Church of the Transfiguration was build without using a single nail in 1714. We also saw the small Church of Lazar of Murom (also known as the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus). It was actually constructed elsewhere in the 14th century and moved here and may be one of the oldest wooden buildings in Russia.

At around 7pm we departed Kizhi. Quite a few passengers were late re-boarding.

We had a Russian themed dinner which included Pelmeni, which is a Russian dumpling soup, and Russian ragout.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Goritsy

In the morning, there was a talk on Russian Vodka by one of the ship's bartendars, Eugene.

After lunch, we arrived in Goritsy and took a bus to Kirillov to visit the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. This monastery is currently a museum and has a nice collection of Orthodox icons.

After getting back on the ship, we had a blini cooking lesson by Chef Pavel. Blinis are Russian pancakes. Following the demonstration, there was a blini and vodka tasting. The blinis were served with red caviar. We were also able to sample 3 types of vodka: clear, pepper, and cranberry. The clear and pepper vodka has 40% alchohol, while the cranberry is has only 20%. I had 4 shots.

Following a, um, short nap, there was a special dinner. The dinning staff had transformed into pirates.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Yaroslavl

Today we visited the city of Yaroslavl. Our first stop was a Puppet Theater. After that, we visited the Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Saviour. After a short stop at an outdoor market, we walked over to the Church of Elijah the Prophet.

We left Yaroslavl shortly before lunch.

In the afternoon, we painted Matryoshka dolls.

Before dinner, we exited the Volga River through a ship lock and entered the Rybinsk Reservoir.

We had a Ukrainian themed dinner that included Ukrainian borscht for soup and Vareniki which are Ukrainian dumplings. After dinner, the was a Russian Dance class and a performance of "Russian Soul" by Igor, the Neva bar musician.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Uglich

We didn't arrive in Uglich until the afternoon. So in the morning, we had a short Russian Language Lesson by Lidia, and a presentation on Russian Handicrafts by Anna, the Arts and Craft Consultant who ran the ship's gift shop.

After lunch, we arrived in Uglich where we visited the Church of St. Dmitry on the Blood and the Transfiguration Cathedral. We also had some time to do some shopping at the stalls near the pier.

For dinner, we divided up into smaller groups since we were going to have home-hosted dinners. The group that I was in went with a lady to her apartment. Her niece helped out serving the meal, but her husband was hiding at their dacha (country cottage). We were served Uglich "moonshine" made from sugar and yeast. It had a nice caramel-like flavor with a very strong kick.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Last day in Moscow

Today was our last day in Moscow. In the morning, we visited the Tretyakov Art Gallery to see their collection of Russian paintings and icons.

After lunch the ship set sail to Uglich along the Moscow Canal on the way to the Volga River.

In the evening, there was the Captain's Welcome Reception and the Captain's Welcome Dinner, and after that a short folk concert by the on board musicians.

The musicians were also photographers/videographers, and were selling photos and a video of the trip.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Moscow Metro and Arbat Street

Today, we took a tour of the Moscow Metro. The subway stations in Moscow are very decorative and ornate. We got on the subway at Ploshchad Revolyutsii and headed 3 stops to the Kievskaya Subway Station. From there, we went back one stop to Smolenskaya.

Smolenskaya is near Arbat Street which is where we did a little shopping. Amongst other things, here I was able to purchase a SIM card for 500 rubles so that I could send SMS messages back to the U.S.

On the way back to the ship, we stopped by a grocery store where we bought soda and chocolate. There was black caviar behind a locked refrigerated case.

After lunch, we took a courtesy bus back into the city center to look around some more.

Friday, August 24, 2007

The Kremlin and a Ballet Performance

In the morning we went to the Kremlin. The first thing we visited at the Kremlin was the State Armory to see it's collection of armor, clothes, carriages, icons, silverware, and Faberge eggs. Also on the grounds of the Kremlin, is the Cathedral of the Archangel, the Cathedral of the Assumption, the Cathedral of the Annunciation, and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. We also saw the Tsar Bell and Tsar Cannon.

After a late lunch on the ship, we headed back into the city to see a ballet performance by the Imperial Russian Ballet at the New Opera Theater at the Moscow Hermitage Gardens. We saw exceprts of Shaharazade, Walpurgis Night, and Bolero.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

First day in Moscow

My suitcase arrived in the morning.

After breakfast, we got on the Blue Group bus (the people on the ship were divided into one of 6 color coded groups), where we met our Program Manager for the group, Lidia Usikova. We then departed for a city tour of Moscow.

Our first stop was the Red Square. Here we saw (but did not enter) St. Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum, the State History Museum, and Resurrection Gate. We also saw and went inside the Kazan Cathedral and GUM. GUM was once a government department store, but now it's a shopping mall.

While at GUM, I tried looking for a store that would sell a SIM card. The one cell phone store that I found would only sell a SIM card if you could show your passport. Unfortunately, the ship was holding on to mine.

From the Red Square, we headed to Novodevichiy Convent. A ticket to take still photos cost 80 rubles ($1 equals about 25 rubles).

We had lunch on pleasure boats on the Moskva River. The cruise along the river provided excellent views of the Kremlin, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and Gorky Park.

After lunch, we headed to Sparrow Hill (formerly Lenin Hills) which had a good view of the city. Then, we headed back to the ship.

Dinner was on the ship. The presentation of the food was excellent.

After dinner, we went to see a performance at the Nikulin Circus (Old Moscow Circus).

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Arrived in Moscow

This afternoon, I arrived in Moscow via Chicago and Frankfurt. Unfortunately, my suitcase did not make it.

At Sheremetyevo 2 Airport, we met some program managers from Vantage who escorted us to the bus that would take us to the M/S Nikolay Chernyshevsky which was docked at the Northern River Terminal.

Monday, March 26, 2007

One Click Away

Here is a blog posting refuting the hypothesis that minimizing the number of clicks is necessary for good GUI design. I agree. If an application has a lot of functions, and everything is a click away, users may have information overload. It may take them longer to figure out where or what to click to accomplish an action. A menu tree is not necessarily always a bad idea.

MySQL Proxy

I need to investigate MySQL Proxy. It might be useful for some future projects at work.

Only Design What You Can Implement

There is an interesting posting on the MySQL Performance Blog about only implementing features that will meat performance goals.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Feed sort order

I saw a post that explained how get Blogger's feed sorted by publish date. In summary, look at the blog's page source to find the content generated by this tag in the template:

<b:data='blog' name='all-head-content'>

The block of content should look something like this:


<meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/>
<meta content='true' name='MSSmartTagsPreventParsing'/>
<meta content='blogger' name='generator'/>
.
.
.
<link href='http://www2.blogger.com/rsd.g?blogID=xxxxx' rel='EditURI' title='RSD' type='application/rsd+xml'/>



Comment out the all-head-content tag and replace it with the block of content from the HTML source. Then, add ?orderby=published to the href of the Atom feed, and &orderby=published to the href of the rss feed.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

New Blogger

Switched to the new Blogger. The feed appears to be ordered in update order instead of original posting order. I suppose this make sense, but it'd be nice to be able to reorder the posts so that it stays chronological.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Suitcase arrived

This morning, a courier that works for American Airlines finally delivered my suitcase.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Leaving China

Today, we flew out on Dragon Air from Chengdu to Hong Kong and then got on a half empty Cathay Pacific flight to Los Angeles. There, I said bye to my parents who were flying back down to San Diego. I flew on to Dallas and then to Nashville. Since I still wasn't felling very good, I didn't eat much on the flights.

Unfortunately, my suitcase didn't make it to Nashville. According to American Airlines, it was still in Dallas.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

A day in a Chinese hospital

On September 21st, we were supposed to fly back to the U.S. Unfortunately, at around 3am, I felt sick and was in the bathroom until around 5:30am when I called my parents room telling them I felt really sick. We decided I probably needed to see a doctor, so the night manager at the hotel took us to a nearby Chinese hospital. After seeing the doctor and getting a blood test and stool test done, the doctor recommended some medicine and that I put on an IV drip to get rehydrated. I didn't leave the hospital until after 8pm.

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to squat in a squat toilet on this trip, but unfortunately, that's all this hospital had and in my condition, I had no alternative but to use them.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Last official day of the tour

In the morning, we visited the Giant Panda Breeding Research Center. Our timing was good because the pandas were quite active and eating. We also go to see baby pandas and lesser pandas (aka red pandas, aka firefoxes).

Afterwards, we stopped by a silk brocade factory and then had lunch. At this point, we went with Al and Terri to the airport to drop them off for their flight to Thailand (which just had a coup). My parents and I then headed back to the hotel and then walked around to find mooncakes to buy.

For dinner, our guide took us to another xiao chi (little eats) restaurant. We got there via pedicab.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Chengdu

In the morning, we drove about hour to Gongkar Airport to fly to Chengdu.

At Chengdu, we met our guide, Ray, checked into our hotel, the Yinhe Dynasty Hotel, and then went to the Sanxingdui Museum. This museum has many exhibits about the archaeological discoveries that were made in the area.

At 7pm, we went to see a Sichuan Opera performance. This performance included traditional opera, rod puppets, hand shadows, fire spitting, and face changing.

Afterwards, Terri and Al went shopping, while the guide, my parents, and I went to eat at a xiao chi (little eats) restaurant.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Last full day in Lhasa

Today, we were supposed to visit the Ganden Monastery, but some reconstruction was going on so our guide moved some things around and in the morning, we visited a tradition Tibetan hospital where a doctor told us a bit about Tibetan medicine.

For lunch, we ate at the Tibetan Lhasa Kitchen where I had steamed yak momo.

In the afternoon, we headed to the Sera Monastery. One of the main interesting things about this monastery is that the monks debate in a courtyard that can be seen by the public every day at 3pm (except for Sundays).

Sunday, September 17, 2006

More of Lhasa

Our first stop in the morning was Drepung Monastery. It was once one of the largest monasteries in the world.

Next we visited Norbilingka, which was the Dalai Lamas summer palaces.

For lunch, we again went to the Naga Restaurant where I had a Yak and potatoes fricassee.

Afterwards, we walked around Barkhor Street to do some shopping.

For dinner, we yet again went to the Naga Restaurant. I had Yak bourguignon.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Lhasa

Our first stop in the morning was Barkhor Square in order to visit the Jokhang Temple. This temple is the spiritual heart of Tibet and contains many small subchapels.

Next we visited the Potala Palace. Everyone but my father made it up to the main buildings. Pictures are not permitted inside. Afterwards we visited a carpet factory where my parents bought a large wall carpet of the Potala Palace.

For lunch, we ate at the Tibetan Lhasa Kitchen where I had fried flat dumplings with yak meat. The rest of the day was spent resting.

For dinner, we ate at the Naga Restaurant where I had a yak burger and apple crepe. This restaurant is actually known for it's French food.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Samye Monastery

After an awful breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and took a very bumpy road to Samye Monastery, which was Tibet's very first Buddhist monastery. To take pictures inside, you had to pay 150 yuan (about $18) for stills or 1500 yuan (about $180) for video. Needless to say, I did neither.

We ate lunch at the monastery. I had yak and potatoes with rice and Tibetan black tea with salt.

We took the same bumpy road to leave the Samye Monastery in order to get on the main highway. At around 5:45, we arrived in Lhasa and checked into the Lhasa Hotel (formerly the Holiday Inn).

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Tibet: Tsetang

We left our hotel in Zhongdian at around 7:30am and flew to Lhasa. Here, we met our Tibetan guide, Yarphel.

On the way to Tsetang, we encountered a speed trap and our driver got a ticket. A little after noon, we arrived a Tsetang and checked into the Snow Pigeon Hotel. It definitely wasn't as nice as some of previous hotels (water smelled funny, closet doors where broken, etc). For lunch, we could order our own dishes. Some of our dishes included fried yak momos and fried apple momos. Momos are Tibetan dumplings similar to potstickers.

After lunch, we visited Yumbulagang Palace, one of the first buildings in Tibet. Everyone in the tour group payed to ride guided horses up the steep path up to the building except for the guide and I. The main problem with the walk up for me was dodging horse droppings.

Our final stop for the day was Trandruk Monastery which is supposed to be one of Tibet's oldest Buddhist monasteries.

For dinner, one of the dishes we had was steam yak momos.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Zhongdian (aka Shangri-La)

In the morning, we left our hotel, the Paradise Hotel, in order to visit Bita Lake. A lot of wild animals used to be visible near the lake, but due to too many loud Chinese tourists, they aren't really seen much any more.

After lunch, we headed to the Ganden Songzanlin Monastery, which is the largest Tibetan monastery in southwest China. On the way back into the city, we stopped by a Tibetan household and then visited a market.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Tiger Leaping Gorge

From Lijiang, we drove about an hour to visit Shi Gu, or Stone Drum, which stands at the first bend of the Yangtze River. Here, the river is actually known as Jinsha.

On our way to Tiger Leaping Gorge, we got a flat tire. Since the lug nuts were stuck, our driver had to run to a nearby village to get some help to change it.

At about 1:45pm, we arrived at Tiger Leaping Gorge and met our new guide, Pasang, and then had lunch. Afterwards, we headed to a part of the gorge to see Tiger Leaping Stone. Because everyone else on the tour either didn't want to walk up and down the 300 steps or pay to have someone with a sedan chair take them up and down, Pasang and I were the only ones to make the trip down to see the Stone up close. According to legend, this is where a tiger crossed the gorge to escape from hunters.

We next drove about 2 hours to Zhongdian, which is now officially known in China as Shangri-La. The largest minority in the area is Tibetan. For dinner, we got to try some yak meat, barley wine, and some yak butter tea.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and Lijiang

We drove about an hour from Lijiang to a chair lift station at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain that would take us up to Yak Meadow at an elevation of 3700 feet. The station sold oxygen canisters for those who might need it. Unfortunately, the weather was very misty, so we couldn't see much.

On our drive town from Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, we stopped by a glacier river to see some yaks, and then continued on to Yuhu village to see the residence of Joseph Rock, an Austrian botanist who did a lot to protect Naxi culture. The streets on this town was covered with horse patties, so you had to be very careful about where you stepped!

Next, we stopped by Yufeng Monastery to see it's Camellia Tree of 10000 Blossoms and then to Baisha village to see it's frescoes and do a little shopping.

Before it got dark, we walked around Lijiang's Old Town and then had dinner.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Dali and Lijiang

In the morning, we visited Dali's most famous landmarks, the Three Pagodas, or San Ta. After that, we headed the Old Town area.

At around 11am, we drove about 3 hours to Lijiang. There we met our new guide, Jackie, and had lunch.

In the pouring rain, we visited Black Dragon Pool. If the weather is good, the area provides excellent views of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Unfortunately, it wasn't. We also went to the nearby Dongba Cultural Museum to learn a little about the religious culture of the Naxi minority people.

After dinner at the Naxi Family Cafe, we headed to Lijiang's Old Town in order to see an excellent Naxi Ancient Dance and Music Performance at the Dongba Palace.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Dali

Today we flew to Dali. At the airport we met our guide while in Dali, Zhao, and our driver that would be with us from Dali to Zhongdian, Mr. Su.

It took about 40 minutes to drive from the airport to our hotel, the Regent Hotel. After we checked in, we headed to the Dali Old Town in order to go to a bank since some of need to exchange some traveler's checks.

From Dali, we drove to the Bai minority villages of Xizhou and Zhoucheng.

At Xizhou, we went to see a Bai dance show. At the show, we we served tea. The first cup was bitter, representing life's hardships. The second cup was sweet, representing life's joy. The third cup was pungent with an aftertaste. The Bai word for "pungent" sounds similar to their word for "affectionate", and this last cup of tea represents friendship.

At Zhoucheng, we had lunch and visited a tie-die shop. From there, we drove back to Dali and got on a boat to cruise Erhai Lake and visit Jinsuo Island.

Friday, September 08, 2006

The Stone Forest

Today, we drove about 2 hours (not including stops) to the Stone Forest.

On the way, we nearly had a head on collision with a truck which had spun out of control on the slippery road. Luckily, our driver saw the truck coming and went in reverse. As as a result, we only got slightly clipped in the corner.

Shortly after our accident, we stopped by the small Sani minority village of Qixing, which means Seven Star village. From there, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant near the Stone Forest and then visited the Stone Forest afterwards and then headed back to Kunming.

While in Kunming, I bought some Pu Ehr tea cakes. This time of tea is tightly compressed into bricks or cakes and get better with age. They make interesting decorations.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Arrived in Kunming

We met our guide, Liu, at the airport and immediately went to our hotel, the Kai Wah Plaza International Hotel, to check in. After resting for a little bit, we met the other two people on our tour, Al and Terri, and then went to lunch.

After lunch, we headed to the Western Hills. There, we took a chair lift up to Dragon Gate Grotto. After walking down through the grotto, we drove to Hauting Temple nearby. From there, we heading back into the city and stopped by a flower market before returning to the hotel.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Leaving for China and Tibet

Today, I flew to Los Angeles, waited for about 4 hours, and then joined my parents aboard a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. From Hong Kong, we took a Dragon Air flight to Kunming in the Yunnan province of southwestern China.

The food aboard the Cathay Pacific flight was fairly normal. Braised beef and vegetables was the main part of the dinner, and an omelet for breakfast. The Dragon Air flight had dim sum for breakfast (har gow, siu mai, and turnip cake).

Thursday, June 29, 2006

TRAMP

I just discovered TRAMP ("Transparent Remote (file) Access, Multiple Protocol"), an extension for GNU Emacs which allows you to open and save remote files very easily. For example, to open a remote file, you'd do your normal C-x C-f and then prefix the remote filename with "/hostname:" or "/userid@hostname:". It will then prompt you for your password and retrieve the file behind the scenes via ssh. Saving is handled in a similar transparent fashion (your password is cached temporarily).

TRAMP comes installed with Aquamacs, a pretty nice version of Emacs for MacOS X (except for the fact that you have to uncheck "Display Buffers in Separate Frames" once in order to get it to act more like normal Emacs). GNU Emacs on Redhat 9 comes with ange-ftp, which is similar to TRAMP, but only supports transfers via ftp.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Quality DVD Burning

Since the original DVD burner on my PowerMac G4 MDD is pretty old, it can't burn any of the new DVD-R media at anything except 1x speed. So, I've been using an external Sony USB2 DVD burner to burn my videos.

Unfortunately, with the external burner, I would often get verification errors when burning at 4x or above, so I usually kept the burn speed at 2x. Lately, though, I've found that even if the DVD verifies alright and plays alright on my computers, they occasionally glitch on standalone players (the symptom is usually a couple frames of choppy video).

Since I had a feeling that part of my problem was using an external DVD burner, I bought an internal Pioneer DVR-111D drive to replace the older Pioneer in my G4. I was too paranoid to try burning at about 4x, but the 4x burn that I did do worked great.

I also recently found a good tool called Nero CD-DVD Speed to check the quality of DVDs. Unfortunately, this is a Windows program and only works on some drives. The program's Disc Quality check will check for PI (Parity Inner) and PO (Parity Outer) errors and generate a Quality Score. Getting any PO errors is a really bad sign. What I would consider being a really good burn would have a PI error Max (per 8 blocks) of less than 50 and a PI error average of less than 10. For a possibly slightly below average disc that should be playable on most reasonably good players the PI Max should be less than 180 and the average less than 80. These scores are dependent on the burner (as well as how it's connected to the computer) and the quality of the media.

After scanning some of my older burns, it appears that my Maxell discs give the best results which mirrors the information contained in the DVD Media Quality guide contained here.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Kintaro Walks Japan

"Kintaro Walks Japan" is probably one of the best travel videos I've ever seen (the music video is also excellent and highly amusing). It certainly gives me something to strive for when it comes to making my own videos, although I know that I'll probably never come close to creating something this good. Although the film and music video can be seen on Google Video, I highly recommend purchasing the DVD to get your very own personalized and autographed "Kintaro Kard".

The author of this documentary also has some more amusing movies on his website. He can currently be seen on the Amazing Race 9.

Cho-tanoshii!!

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Smart Car Crash

I saw a lot of Smart cars in Italy. This is a video of one in a test crash. They're so small that you can practically park normally on the street instead of having to parallel park. Unfortunately, they are not available in the United States right now.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Pixar and Disney

Once the deal gets finalized and my Pixar stock becomes Disney stock, I'll probably sell.

Pixar's stock price has almost doubled since I bought it about 2 years ago so it's probably time to cash out since I don't see much growth potential with Disney even with Pixar people being in power.