this and that

[da]

Commuter happiness: they finally street-cleaned the bike lanes on part of my daily ride. It's only a few hundred meters each way, but it's been filled with crud and it's made me grumpy every time I have to swerve around the glass. I've apparently gone 80 miles / 128km in the first three weeks of bike-commuting season, including a few trips downtown. I should get my bike tuned, but I'm riding it too much to spare for a few days. My legs are starting to feel better about the extra exercise, though I still feel quite out of shape.

Office happiness is also mine. My office feels like home. I really did miss working for CS, in ways I keep rediscovering. I'm digging into maintaining some php code- and it's well written. Wonders never cease. I'll probably have more techie notes next week. All I'm really missing is a window (I wonder what it would take to bribe one of the local readers of this blog to plug my spare webcam into their computer, point it out the window, and save a still image to the web once a minute or so... I have a few candidates; once I make sure the webcam works.)

I got two emails which amuse me today. One was from me, eleven months ago. I said, "Subject: Renew (domain name) now, nitwit. Thanks, D."

The other was spam with the subject, "Listing of general practice physicians and 34 more specialties." My assumption was that they were trying to sell me the very valuable list of which Canadian doctors might be accepting patients. But no; it's a list of US doctors which they will spam on my behalf. Ick.

melted_snowball and I went to the new Marble Slab Creamery ice cream shop last night. Aside from the horrible work-flow the (brand new!) store demonstrated, it also showed off how to still make a profit even if they don't churn through many customers: quite tasty product, and amazingly high prices. Like, $6 a waffle-cone prices. With a half-off coupon, our cones were each $3.50 with tax. But: I will say they were tasty. And giant (too big). They mixed in the mixins of your choice while you wait. So I had chocolate/cherry ice cream with fresh strawberries and oreo bits. And it was yummy, but I had a hard time getting to sleep from stuffedness. Serves me right.

The life? It is good.

Comments

[tbiedl.livejournal.com]

My office is highly underused, so you're more than welcome to put a webcam there. If you can find a spare computer to sit around there (my laptop is home, and the XO that's in the office isn't connected to the internet normally.)

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

The marble slab creamery experience sound exactly like my usual USAian marble slab creamery experience. It's cool to know that they're up here, though. :)

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

Why watch a local webcam when you can watch Kruger National Park (http://www.krugerpark-direct.com/webcamlist.html)? That plus a weather applet which tells you if it's raining outside your building should do.

[catbear.livejournal.com]

Our mailbox occasionally gets 2-for-1 wafflecone offers from Baskin Robbins. An exceptional deal for a just-right amount of ice cream, if you ask me.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

There are millions of web cams already out there, watching everything from traffic to weather to the non-migratory patterns of pigeons. Why not hack together some PHP to search the net for active web cams, and randomly select one for you every hour? It would be like a roving window...

[kraig.livejournal.com]

Because we want one from OUR windows.

It would have helped when I left the office at 9:30pm yesterday and almost went outside before I realized there was water falling from the sky in very large volumes, and me without a raincoat. (So I called my wife to come pick me up, since I don't pay for a car so I can get soaked anyway when it's raining.)

Anyway, yeah. I've tried those other webcams and they're just not the same.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

That makes perfect sense. It is always irritating to watch the morning weather, hear the person say "overcast all day", glance outside, and see the baleful ball of flaming death clearly in the sky (or vice versa). I had incorrectly assumed the request was for something window-like, not necessarily local.

[kraig.livejournal.com]

I guess I may have been a bit presumptuous when I said "we", but I have to imagine D has similar feelings as I do. :)

I tend to check the weather when I go out and not at all otherwise, so I don't even know what the forecast tends to be.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

Presumption seems fine by me: we know what D wants, right? A webcam here, a webcam there.. pretty soon he'll need four extra monitors and will be sorely confused. ;-)

For whatever reason, watching and correlating weather forecasts is as ingrained into me as watching stock market numbers: even if I'm not interacting, seeing the patterns behind the patterns and guessing how people interpret them is simply fun. That probably puts me way out on a limb, but it's a genetic/environmental thing.

[kraig.livejournal.com]

Hm, good point.

D wants to trade me his iMac for my Powermac G5. I'll even throw in BOTH my monitors for it.

*waves hands mystically*

I used to be interested in forecasts, and when I *was* walking every day (due to carlack) I took great interest in how nasty cold it was going to be so I knew how many sweaters to layer, but lately, not so much.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hm. Thanks for the offer, but I'd prefer it be a computer that's not idle, like a mac or linux desktop (I think preferably linux, though I need to test the camera first). I don't think I'll borrow your office as an extension to CSCF's server-room. :)

See you some time soon I hope! (J. mentioned you were by; I was out for lunch then I think).

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hee hee. Elephants!

I've got the weather applet. What I feel I need is some indication that the day outside is passing. It's disorienting seeing the day go by in widely discontinuous chunks.

Maybe I just need to take more bathroom breaks...

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

D wants to trade me his iMac for my Powermac G5. I'll even throw in BOTH my monitors for it.

We are not amused. OK, maybe we are.

You could put a few more G5s under your desk in the space opened up by removing the cabinet. And probably there's an open-source CPU-sharing program out there to "add" extra processor power to your main mac. You could have a 12-cpu G5 just like *that*. Or a facsimile thereto.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Nope, kraig had it right, I did want something local. He's in the same rabbit-warren as me. At least he could get by with a mirror angled in his doorway.

I could take out part of the wall, which does look out over the expanse of a hallway with lots of natural light. But then I'd be a local exhibit to the hallway. No- maybe I should just drill a hole and mount the webcam in the same hallway. Hm.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

...and if we lived in an eco-chic loft recently discussed, it would be within short walking distance also.

Somehow Baskin Robbins never comes to mind when I'm in the mood for an ice cream cone. But I think perhaps next time it will be in the cards.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

One-way mirrors are also fun, although by the time the third student has primped up at the mirror you'll be tired of it.

Now if you had a remote controlled car with a wifi webcam mounted on it.. that would be fun.

[sulle-stelle.livejournal.com]

I don't think the weather down here would be helpful to you. But there is more sun, particularly in the winter, so I would consider helping out in the darker months, if you'd like......

[catbear.livejournal.com]

There's also a BR on Highland in the plaza west of Belmont with Basics and the used CD store. Might be closer.